Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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The Genocide of the Rohingya: Big Oil, Failed Democracy and False Prophets
To a certain extent, Aung San Suu Kyi is a false prophet. Glorified by the west for many years, she was made a ‘democracy icon’ because she opposed the same forces in her country, Burma, at the time that the US-led western coalition isolated Rangoon for its alliance with...
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Three years after the war: Gaza youth speak out
“At bedtime, I am afraid to turn the lights off. I am not a coward, it is just that I worry that this bulb hanging from the ceiling is the last light that remains (shining) in my life.” Soon after he penned these words, Moath Alhaj, a young artist from...
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Terror next time: Daesh's story is not over yet
Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, has been reduced to rubble. It has been finally conquered, snatched back from the notorious group, Daesh, after months of merciless bombardment by the US-led war coalition, and a massive ground war. But ‘victory’ can hardly be the term assigned to this moment. Mosul, once...
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Nuclear apocalypse: Trump and Kim should not hold the world hostage
Not too far away from Seattle, Washington there are eight ballistic-missile submarines carrying the world’s large shipments of nuclear weapons. The 560-foot-long black submarines are docked at the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, hauling what is described by Rick Anderson in a recent Los Angeles Times article as “the largest concentration of...
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Al-Araqeeb village: Palestinian Bedouins refuse to surrender 116 times
On August, the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb was destroyed for the 116th time. As soon as Israeli bulldozers finished their ugly deed and soldiers began evacuating the premises, the village resident immediately began rebuilding their homes. Twenty-two families, or about 101 residents, are estimated to live here. By now,...
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‘The Palestine Exception’: War on BDS is now a war on American democracy
There is something immoral in Washington D.C., and its consequences can be dire for many people, particularly for the health of US democracy. The US government is declaring war on the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The fight to defeat BDS has been ongoing for several years, but...
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Power to the People: Why Palestinian Victory in Jerusalem is a Pivotal Moment
Neither Fatah nor Hamas have been of much relevance to the mass protests staged around Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Neither have American pressure, half-hearted European ‘concern about the situation’ or cliché Arab declarations made one iota of difference. United Nations officials warned of the grim scenarios of escalation, but their...
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Fear and Trepidation in Tel Aviv: Is Israel Losing the Syria War?
Israel, which has played a precarious role in the Syrian war since 2011, is furious to learn that the future of the conflict is not to its liking. The six-year-old Syria war is moving to a new stage, perhaps its final. The Syrian regime is consolidating its control over most...
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The story behind the Jerusalem attack: How Trump and Netanyahu pushed the Palestinians into a corner
Early October 2016, Misbah Abu Sbeih left his wife and five children at home and then drove to an Israeli police station in Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. The 39-year-old Jerusalemite was scheduled to hand himself over to serve a term of 4 months in jail for, allegedly, trumped up...
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Fighting the Wrong Enemy: Why Americans Hate Muslims
Two officers sought me from within a crowd at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. They seemed to know who I was. They asked me to follow them, and I obliged. Being of Arab background, often renders one’s citizenship almost irrelevant. In a back room, where other foreigners, mainly Muslims, were holed...
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‘The world is (not) flat’: ‘Trumpism’ is a symptom of decades-long imperial arrogance
No matter how hard White House officials try, they cannot construct a coherent ‘Trump doctrine’ that would make sense amid the chaos that has afflicted US foreign policy in recent months. However, this chaos is not entirely the making of President Donald Trump alone. Since 1945, the United States has vied...
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Pushing Gaza to suicide: The politics of humiliation
Mohammed Abed is a 28-year-old taxi driver from the village of Qarara, near the town of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. He has no teeth. Lack of medical care and proper dentistry work cost him all of his teeth, which rotted and decayed at a very young age. Yet,...
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Israel vs. the United Nations: the Nikki Haley doctrine
The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, seems to be championing a single cause: Israel. When Haley speaks about Israel, her language is not merely emotive nor tailored to fit the need of a specific occasion. Rather, her words are resolute, consistent and are matched by a...
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Journalism, history and war: Sit, type and bleed
The typical newsroom set-up, where journalists chase headlines dictated by some centralized news gathering agency – often based in some western capital – does not suffice any more. In the case of the Middle East, the news narrative has been defined by others and dictated on Arab journalists and audiences...
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The Unwanted 'Bride': Can the 1967 war offer opportunity for peace?
There is a saying that goes: “Be careful what you wish for, for you may get it.” This has been Israel’s dilemma from the very beginning. The Zionist movement, which held its first conference in Basel, Switzerland 120 years ago, wanted Palestine but not the Palestinians. They achieved this objective...
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Trump’s visit to Israel: How Palestine disappeared from US media coverage
As if he has, overnight, been transformed into a master politician, Donald Trump’s 27-hour trip to Israel has left many analysts mystified. Quoting former Israeli political adviser, Mitchell Barack, the New York Times referred to Trump as the “Liberace of world leaders”, in reference to flamboyant, piano player, Wladziu Valantino Liberace. The...
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Fear as an obstacle to peace: Why are Israelis afraid?
Bat-Hen Epstein Elias’ long article on Iranian Jews is interesting. Parts of it, in fact, are heartwarming. Yet, despite the lack of any serious evidence, the story is entirely framed in the language of fear. Entitled, “All the Jews there live in fear that their telephones are tapped”, the story...
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Jewish Nation-State Bill: Israel's precarious identity is Palestine's nightmare
The Israeli Knesset (parliament) has hurriedly passed a new bill that defines Israel as the “national home of the Jewish people.” Although the association between Jewishness and Israel goes back to the foundation of the state, the new law also carries clear discriminatory elements that target the country’s Arab...
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Recasting the Nakba: Palestinian struggle between victimhood and resistance
In mainstream Israeli politics, history books, literature and collective imagination, the Palestinian Nakba never happened. If the pain and suffering of a nation is acknowledged, then the people themselves would, naturally, have to be acknowledged as well. This, Israel could not do. In fact, the infamous declaration made by former...
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New Charter: Should Hamas rewrite the past?
Now that the Palestinian Islamic Movement, Hamas, has officially changed its Charter, one should not immediately assume that the decision is, in itself, an act of political maturity. Undoubtedly, Hamas’ first Charter, which was released to the public in August 1988, reflected a degree of great intellectual dearth and political...
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The Prisoners’ Revolt: The real reasons behind the Palestinian hunger strike
Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison. The West Bank is a prison, too, segmented into various wards, known as areas A, B and C. In fact, all Palestinians are subjected to varied degrees of military restrictions. At some level, they are all prisoners. East Jerusalem is cut off from the West Bank,...
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Palestinian and Jewish voices must challenge Israel’s past together
Israel has resorted to three main strategies to suppress Palestinian calls for justice and human rights, including the Right of Return for refugees. One is dedicated to rewriting history; another attempts to distract from present realities altogether; and a third aims to reclaim the Palestinian narrative as essentially an...
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When Daesh is defeated: Who will fill the intellectual vacuum in the Arab World?
Back in the Middle East for a few months, I find myself astounded by the absence of the strong voices of Arab intellectuals. The region that has given rise to the likes of Michel Aflaq, George Habash, Rached Al-Ghannouchi, Edward Said and numerous others has marginalised its intellectuals. Arab visionaries have either...
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Palestine retold: Palestine’s tragic anniversaries are not only about remembrance
For Palestinians, 2017 is a year of significant anniversaries. While historians mark May 15th as the anniversary of the date on which Palestinians were expelled from their historic homeland in 1948, the fact is the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians began in earnest in 1947. In strict historical terms 1947 and...
