Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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Good news from Washington: AIPAC, Israel losing to progressive Democrats
While the US administration of President Donald Trump remains adamant in its support for Israel, the traditional democratic leadership continues to employ underhanded language, the kind of ‘strategic ambiguity’ that offers full support to Israel and nothing but lip service to Palestine and peace. Trump’s policies on Israel and Palestine...
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‘Optimism of the Will’: Palestinian Freedom is Possible Now
In a recent TV discussion, a respected pro-Palestine journalist declared that if any positive change or transformation ever occurs in the tragic Palestinian saga, it would not happen now, but that it would take a whole new generation to bring about such a paradigm shift. As innocuous as the declaration...
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On Israel’s bizarre definitions: The West Bank is already annexed
Wednesday, July 1, was meant to be the day on which the Israeli government officially annexed 30% of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and the Jordan Valley. This date, however, came and went and annexation was never actualized. “I don’t know if there will be a declaration of sovereignty today,”...
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Tearing down the idols of colonialism: Why Tunisia, Africa must demand French apology
The visit by newly-elected Tunisian President Kais Saied to France on June 22 was intended to discuss bilateral relations, trade, etc. But it was also a missed opportunity, where Tunisia could have formally demanded an apology from France for the decades of French colonialism, which has shattered the social...
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Will the ICC Investigation Bring Justice for Palestine?
In the past, there have been many attempts at holding accused Israeli war criminals accountable. Particularly memorable is the case of the late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, (known, among other nicknames, as the ‘Butcher of Sabra and Shatila’) whose victims attempted to try him in a Belgian Court...
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PA political circus: Why Abbas must hand the keys over to the PLO
The painful truth is that the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has already ceased to exist as a political body that holds much sway or relevance, either to the Palestinian people or to Abbas’ former benefactors, namely the Israeli and the American governments. So, when the Palestinian Authority Prime...
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The ‘Palestinian Chair’: Exposing Israel’s direct role in US violence
The banning of deadly police practices by many American states and cities following the murder of an African American man, George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers is, once more, shedding light on US-Israeli collaboration in the fields of security and crowd-control. From California to New York, and...
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The New Political Order: How Will Palestinians Respond to Netanyahu’s Annexation?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving forward with his annexation plans, which would allow Israel to claim nearly a third of the overall size of the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Although the illegal annexation of Palestinian land is supposed to represent only one provision of the Donald Trump administration’s...
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Palestine Bleeds: Execution of autistic man is not an exception but the norm
A 32-year-old man with the mental age of an 8-year-old child was executed by Israeli soldiers on May 30, while crouching behind his teacher near his special needs school in the Old City of Jerusalem. The cold-blooded murder of Eyad Hallaq might not have received much attention if it were...
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‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’: Israel’s China Strategy in Peril
Israel’s balancing act that allowed it to reap America’s unconditional and, often, blind support, while slowly benefiting from China’s growing economic influence and political prestige, is already floundering. Thanks to the heated cold war between the US and Chinese economic superpowers, the Israeli strategy of playing both sides is unlikely...
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What is Next for Palestinian Popular Resistance in Gaza? Speaking to Journalist Wafaa Aludaini
Wafaa Aludaini is a witness to many of Gaza’s recent tragedies and also never-ending resistance. She experienced the violent Israeli occupation, the subsequent blockade on the impoverished Strip, and several wars that resulted in the death and wounding of tens of thousands of Palestinians. But none of Israel’s wars impacted...
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Political ambiguity or a doomsday weapon: Why Abbas abandoned Oslo
This time, we are told, it is different and that President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is absolutely serious about his decision to absolve his leadership from all previous agreements signed with Israel and the United States. But this time is not different, and Abbas is not serious. “The Palestine...
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Why does Israel celebrate its terrorists: Ben Uliel and the murder of the Dawabsheh Family
Israeli media and Zionist apologists everywhere are busy whitewashing Israel’s globally-tattered image using the rare indictment of an Israeli terrorist, Amiram Ben Uliel, who was recently convicted for murdering the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old toddler in the town of Duma, south of Nablus. The conviction of Ben Uliel...
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Why Israel Fears the Nakba: How memory became Palestine’s greatest weapon
On May 15, thousands of Palestinians in Occupied Palestine and throughout the ‘shatat’, or diaspora, participated in the commemoration of Nakba Day, the one event that unites all Palestinians, regardless of their political differences or backgrounds. For years, social media has added a whole new stratum to this process of...
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How We Became Refugees: The Day My Grandfather Lost His Village in Palestine
Starting on March 27, 1948, a beautiful, small Palestinian village called Beit Daras, came under Zionist militias attacks. With little means – a few old rifles and kitchen knives – the Badrasawis fought back, repelling the first raid and the second. The final attack on the peaceful village followed...
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Arabs, UN must move to swiftly protect the status of Palestinian refugees
‘Heinous racism,’ is how the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor described a recent decision by Lebanese authorities to bar Palestinian refugee expats from returning to Lebanon. Lebanon’s restrictions on its ever-diminishing population of Palestinian refugees is nothing new. However, this event is particularly alarming as it may be linked to...
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What you need to know about the ICC Investigation of war crimes in occupied Palestine
Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has, once and for all, settled the doubts on the Court’s jurisdiction to investigate war crimes committed in occupied Palestine. On April 30, Bensouda released a 60-page document diligently laying down the legal bases for that decision, concluding that “the...
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‘Apartheid is a Crime’: Former Swedish Diplomat Speaks about His Experiences in Occupied Palestine
Mats Svensson is a former Swedish diplomat, author, and photographer. His books include “Crimes, Victims, and Witnesses – Apartheid in Palestine.” His latest volume, “Apartheid is a Crime – Portraits of Israeli Occupation,” was just released by Cunepress in Seattle. Svensson joined me and my co-host Romana Rubeo on “Palestine...
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100 years of shame: Annexation of Palestine began in San Remo
One hundred years ago, representatives from a few powerful countries convened at San Remo, a sleepy town on the Italian Riviera. Together, they sealed the fate of the massive territories confiscated from the Ottoman Empire following its defeat in World War I. It was on April 25, 1920, that the...
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Placing Palestine back at the centre of Muslim discourse in the West
Almost twenty years ago at a Muslim conference in Washington DC, I heard the distressing argument that Palestine should not be a central topic on the American Muslim political agenda. That point, which took many by surprise, was enunciated by a young American Pakistani Muslim academic, whose name is...
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Hating Arabs as a Common Ground: Why Israel's Coalition Government is Likely to Survive
Shortly after an agreement to form a “national emergency government” in Israel, leader of the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) party, Benny Gantz, tweeted triumphantly that ‘democracy’ in Israel has been ‘safeguarded’. But how is a deal that would grant Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a veto power over...
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Portugal leads the way: How European countries fared in their treatment of refugees
As soon as the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading its tentacles throughout China and eventually to the rest of the world, the World Health Organization (WHO), along with other international groups, sounded the alarm that refugees and migrants are particularly vulnerable to the deadly disease. “We strongly emphasize the need for...
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Will the Coronavirus Change the World? On Gramsci’s ‘Interregnum’ and Zizek’s Ethnocentric Philosophy
The prophecies are here and it is a foregone conclusion: the post-coronavirus world will look fundamentally different from anything that we have seen or experienced, at least since the end of World War II. Even before the ‘curve flattened’ in many countries that have experienced high death tolls – let...
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A Machiavellian Fiasco: How ‘Centrist’ Gantz Resurrected Netanyahu, Israel’s Right
It was intended to be a Machiavellian move, but the decision by Benny Gantz, leader of Israel’s Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) coalition, to join a Benjamin Netanyahu-led government is likely to destabilize the political fabric of Israeli society for years to come. In a surprising move, Gantz has entered...
