Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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Our mutual fight: The case against Pakistani normalisation with Israel
The Pakistani government should never, under any circumstances and no matter the pressure, normalize with Israel. Doing so is not only dangerous – as it will embolden an already vile, racist, violent apartheid Israel – but it would also be considered a betrayal of a historic legacy of mutual...
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The Palestinian boycott of Israel is not racist, it is anti-racist
The claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang in a recent op-ed in the Jewish weekly The Forward, point to the prevailing ignorance that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel. Yang is a former Democratic Presidential candidate and is vying for...
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B’Tselem’s historic declaration: Israel’s open war on its own civil society
“A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid,” was the title of a January 12 report by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. No matter how one is to interpret B’Tselem’s findings, the report is earth-shattering. The official Israeli response merely confirmed...
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Why has Israel banned Jenin, Jenin? It fears the Palestinian narrative
On 11 January, Israel’s Lod District Court ruled against Palestinian film-maker Mahmoud Bakri, and ordered him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who was accused, along with the Israeli military, of carrying out war crimes in April 2002 in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West...
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Does ‘by force and fraud’ signal the end of the US democracy doctrine?
In an interview with British newspaper The Times in 2015, former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld vehemently denied that exporting democracy was the main motive for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic,” he claimed. However, the senior...
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Palestinians need a centralised strategy to counter Israel in Africa, not slogans
Arab normalisation with Israel is expected to have serious consequences that go well beyond the limited and self-serving agendas of a few regional countries. Thanks to the Arab normalisers, the doors are now flung wide open for new political actors to extend or cement ties with Israel at the...
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Covid-19 under Apartheid: How Israel manipulates suffering of Palestinians
Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous. Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned the Israeli government’s decision to bar Palestinians from receiving the vaccine. The rights group described...
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‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe and Awad Abdelfattah on the one democratic state campaign
As the US ruling elites have fully succumbed to Israel’s political discourse on Palestine, the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may feel that it, alone, is capable of determining the future of the Palestinian people. This conclusion is, perhaps, gleaned from Israel’s behavior in recent years and...
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2021 provides Palestine with a chance to fight back
The last twelve months will go down in history as the year that terminated the American-sponsored Palestine-Israel “peace process”. While 2021 will not reverse the monumental change in the US attitude and objectives in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East, it presents Palestinians with the opportunity to think outside...
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Refugee camps contain the hidden victims of Covid-19
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019, interest in the plight of the world’s most vulnerable populations, refugees, began to wane. A year later, and it is as if the refugee crisis has disappeared completely. It hasn’t, though. In fact, the world’s erstwhile leading humanitarian crisis has...
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The US money tree: The untold story of American aid to Israel
On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel. While unemployment, thus poverty, in the US...
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Netanyahu is a symptom, not the cause of Israel’s political crisis
It is convenient to surmise that Israel’s current political crisis is consistent with the country’s unfailing trajectory of short-lived governments and fractious ruling coalitions. While this view is somewhat defensible, it is also hasty. Israel is currently on the cusp of a fourth general election in less than two years....
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The Great Divider: Covid-19 reflects global racism, not equality
The notion that the Covid-19 pandemic is “the great equaliser” should be dead and buried by now. If anything, the lethal disease is another terrible reminder of the deep divisions and inequalities in our societies. That said, the treatment available should not repeat the same shameful scenario. For almost a...
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When the people rose up: how the Intifada changed the political discourse on Palestine
For most people 8 December came and went like any other ordinary day. For Palestinian political groups, though, it was another anniversary to be commemorated, for it was on that day, thirty-three years ago, that the First Palestinian Intifada (uprising) broke out, and there was nothing ordinary about this...
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‘Long live the (dead) peace process’: Abbas prioritises US ties over Palestinian national unity
No one seemed as excited about the election of Joe Biden being the next President of the United States as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. When all hope seemed lost, where Abbas found himself desperate for political validation and funds, Biden arrived like a conquering knight on a white...
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Debunking the ‘opium of the people’ maxim: Football is about politics and class struggle
Noam Chomsky is right when he says that, in the US, sports creates the necessary “fantasy world” required to shield people from understanding, organizing, and attempting to “influence the real world”. Referring to sports commentary and phone-in shows, Chomsky, in an interview with AlterNet, marveled at the intellectual and analytical...
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The king’s man: Blinken’s appointment reassures Israel that little will change under Biden
Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has nothing to worry about as the man who will directly handle America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a loyal friend of Israel. Crisis averted. President-elect, Joe Biden’s appointment of Antony J. Blinken as his Secretary of State was a master stroke,...
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Moving past apartheid: one-state is not ideal justice, but it is just and possible
Once again, Europe’s top diplomats expressed their ‘deep concern’ regarding Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement expansion, again evoking the maxim that Israeli actions “threaten the viability of the two-state solution”. This position was communicated by EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Josep Borrell, on November 19, during a video-conference with Palestinian Authority Foreign...
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Expansion and mass eviction: Israel 'takes advantage' of Trump's remaining days in office
In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel. “These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President...
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‘Total reset’ is wishful thinking: The daunting task of reordering US foreign policy
A new term has imposed itself on the conversation regarding the impending presidency of US President-elect, Joe Biden: “The Total Reset”. Many headlines have already promised that the Biden Presidency is ready to ‘reset’ US foreign policy across the globe, as if the matter is dependent solely on an...
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As Israel destroys EU projects in Palestine, European foreign policy remains impotent
Belgium is furious. On November 6, the Belgian government condemned Israel’s destruction of Belgian-funded homes in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Understandably, Brussels wants the Israeli government to pay compensation for the unwarranted destruction. The Israeli response was swift: a resounding ‘no’. The diplomatic row is likely to fizzle out...
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The future of American democracy: Inequality, polarisation and violence
In January 2017, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index downgraded the state of democracy in the United States from “full” to “flawed”. The demotion of a country that has constantly prided itself not only on being democratic, but also on championing democracy around the world, took many by surprise....
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‘Playing for time’: The non-strategy of Mahmoud Abbas
“If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world.” These were the words of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, during a virtual meeting with European legislators on November 3. While some may agree with...
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Escalating the demographic war: The strategic goal of Israeli racism in Palestine
The discussion on institutional Israeli racism against its own Palestinian Arab population has all but ceased following the final approval of the discriminatory Nation-State Law in July 2018. Indeed, the latest addition to Israel’s Basic Law is a mere start of a new government-espoused agenda that is designed to...
