Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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The myth of conquest: Why Gaza will never be subdued by Israel
To conquer a place is to fundamentally subdue its population. This must be clearly differentiated from ‘occupation’, a specific legal term that governs the relationship between a foreign “occupying power” and the occupied nation under international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention. When Israeli forces were ultimately compelled to redeploy...
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French contradictions: Macron's Palestine play - too little, too late?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vehement opposition to a Palestinian state aligns perfectly with a long-standing Zionist ideology that has consistently viewed the establishment of a Palestinian state as a direct threat to Israel’s very foundation as a settler colonial project. Thus, the mere existence of a Palestinian state with...
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Below the radar: Is the Trump-Netanyahu 'unthinkable' about to happen?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest trip to Washington was no ordinary visit. The consensus among Israeli analysts, barring a few remaining loyalists, is that Netanyahu was not invited; he was summoned by US President Donald Trump. All of the evidence supports this assertion. Netanyahu rarely travels to the US...
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Netanyahu’s Shin Bet scandal: Who holds the power?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Eli Sharvit as the new chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, only to quickly retract the nomination, all within just 24 hours. This episode highlights the lack of coherence in Netanyahu’s leadership, reinforcing the perception that decisions at the highest levels...
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Breaking the silence on Palestinian armed struggle: A call for legal clarity
On 22 February, 2024, China’s Ambassador to The Hague, Zhang Jun, uttered the unexpected. His testimony, like that of a number of others, was meant to help the International Court of Justice (ICJ) formulate a critical and long-overdue legal opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Zhang...
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Is civil war on the horizon? The Ashkenazi-Sephardic conflict and Israel’s future
The phrase “civil war” is one of the most dominant terms used by Israeli politicians today. What began as simply a warning from Israeli President Isaac Herzog is now an accepted possibility for much of Israel’s mainstream political society. “ Netanyahu is ready to sacrifice everything...
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War, doublethink and the struggle for survival: the geopolitics of the Gaza Genocide
In a genocidal war that has spiralled into a struggle for political survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and the global powers supporting him continue to sacrifice Palestinian lives for political gain. The sordid career of Israel’s extreme far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, epitomises this tragic reality. Ben-Gvir...
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The hidden hand: Arab governments and the perpetuation of Israeli brutality
Explaining Arab political failure to challenge Israel through traditional analysis — such as disunity, general weakness and a failure to prioritise Palestine — does not capture the full picture. The idea that Israel is brutalising Palestinians simply because the Arabs are too weak to challenge the Benjamin Netanyahu government...
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Shifting allegiances: The role of Palestine in US domestic and foreign policy
It is crucial for any US administration to recognise that, regardless of political agendas, the views of the American public regarding the situation in Palestine and Israel are undergoing a significant shift. A critical mass of opinion is forming rapidly, and this change is becoming undeniable. Paradoxically, while Islamophobia continues...
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Authentic people’s history and the Palestinian experience: Beyond colonial narratives
My journey into the realm of people’s history began during my teenage years when I first read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. This initial exposure sparked my curiosity about how history is constructed, and it led me to delve deeper into historiography, in particular the...
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Beyond Western hegemony: A call for Middle Eastern media autonomy
The website of a certain pan-Arab media organisation seems to be fixated on translating, commenting or briefing its audience on everything that US and Israeli officials say about the Middle East. Every threat made by US President Donald Trump, every tweet by an American official, however insignificant or inconsequential,...
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The Monkey’s Tail: How Netanyahu’s ambitions expose Israel’s vulnerabilities
There’s a timeless Chinese proverb which warns: “The higher the monkey climbs, the more he shows his tail.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, seems to heed neither the lessons of history nor the wisdom of such folk sayings. By leading a vilification campaign against Egypt, the Israeli leader is...
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From Gaza to Syria: The unyielding reality of Israeli settler-colonialism
The conversation on settler-colonialism must not be limited to academic discussion. It is a political reality, demonstrated clearly in the everyday behaviour of Israel. The occupation state is not merely an expansionist regime historically; it remains actively so today. Moreover, the core of Israeli political discourse, both past and...
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International law is at a crossroads: Can Gaza spark a global reckoning?
International law is fighting for relevance. The outcome of this fight is likely to change the entire world’s political dynamics, which were shaped by World War II and sustained through the selective interpretation of the law by dominant countries. In principle, international law should always have been relevant, if not...
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The lost 'Arab': Gaza and the evolving language of the Palestinian struggle
Language matters. Aside from its immediate impact on our perception of great political events, including war, language also defines our understanding of these events throughout history, thereby shaping our relationship with the past, the present and the future. As Arab leaders are mobilising to prevent any attempt to displace the...
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Restoring Palestine to its rightful owners by decolonising solidarity
I have long argued that the Israeli war and genocide in Gaza must be a catalyst for change in the overall political discourse on Israel and Palestine, particularly regarding the need to free Palestine from the confines of victimhood. This shift is necessary to create space where the Palestinian...
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History unearthed: What if Trump succeeded in ethnically cleansing Gaza?
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner said in a 2020 interview that he had read 25 books on the Middle East. Such intellectual bravado wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for the fact that Kushner served as the President’s Middle East advisor, and was essentially the main architect of...
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Trump’s Gaza plan: A green light for ethnic cleansing?
Let’s be clear: the forced displacement of Palestinians is not a new idea. US President Donald Trump’s latest proposal to take “long-term ownership” of Gaza, to “clean out” the “mess”, and to turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is just the latest iteration of efforts aimed...
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Gaza has changed the discourse on popular resistance, but are we listening?
Palestinians and Israelis agree that the Gaza resistance was the main reason behind Israel’s forced decision to accept a ceasefire and begin its gradual withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The oddity is that Palestinians – dying, resisting, but remaining steadfast in Gaza – usually stand at the polar opposite of...
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From Gaza to the West Bank: Israel's unyielding war machine
“A year of combat”—this is how Israel’s new Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, described 2025 at a conference organised by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. The exact sentence, translated from Hebrew, was: “The year 2025 will continue to be a year of combat.” The word ‘continue’ is crucial, suggesting that...
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The great march of hope: Gaza’s defiance against erasure
The return of one million Palestinians from southern Gaza to the north on 27 January felt as if history was choreographing one of its most earth-shattering events in recent memory. Hundreds of thousands of people marched along a single street, the coastal Rashid Street, at the furthest western stretch of...
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Politics or empty rhetoric? Trump’s call for ethnic cleansing in Gaza
Just as nearly a million Palestinians began returning to their destroyed region in the northern Gaza Strip on 27 January, US President Donald Trump began speaking of something else entirely: the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians out of Gaza. His statements, which he repeated on multiple occasions, were typical of...
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Dear world: This is what Palestinian unity looks like
Even those of us who have long emphasised the importance of the Palestinian people’s voice, experience and collective action in Palestinian history must have been shocked by the cultural revolution resulting from the Israeli war against the people in Gaza. By cultural revolution, I mean the defiant and rebellious...
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Gaza's unbreakable resistance: A historical perspective on the war and its aftermath
The problem with political analysis is that it often lacks historical perspective and is mostly limited to recent events. The current analysis of the Israeli war on Gaza falls victim to this narrow thinking. The ceasefire agreement, signed between Palestinian groups and Israel under Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation in...
