Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
-
History of Gaza: On conquerors, resurgence and rebirth
Those unfamiliar with Gaza and its history are likely to always associate Gaza with destruction, rubble and Israeli genocide. And they can hardly be blamed. On 3 November, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) announced that 45 per cent of Gaza’s…
-
United for Gaza: Time now for Palestinians to protect their collective sumud
Shortly after the start of a four-day ceasefire in the war on Gaza, the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium, Pedro Sanchez and Alexander De Croo, appeared in a joint press conference at the Rafah Crossing. While Sanchez described “what is happening (as) a disaster,” De Croo called for a…
-
One small, red triangle: Palestine, we are finally looking
Did you know that there was an international conference held in France on 9 November under the title ‘International Humanitarian Conference for Gaza’s Civilian Population’? According to the French Foreign Ministry website, the conference “involved states, main donors, international organisations and NGOs active in Gaza” with the declared objective of…
-
In both the old and new Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians must be rejected
It is simply inaccurate to claim that the ongoing Israeli attempt to displace all, or as many as possible, Palestinian refugees from Gaza to Sinai is a new idea, compelled solely by recent events. Displacing Palestinians — or their “transfer”, as it is known in Israeli political circles — is…
-
The Strip is already occupied: The two Gazas that Israel cannot break
The ongoing discussions about Israel’s military objectives in Gaza are largely focused on whether the settler-colonial state is planning a long or a short-term military reoccupation of the Strip. Israelis themselves are fuelling this conversation, with 41 per cent of them wanting to leave Gaza following the war, and 44…
-
There will be repercussions: The West is collectively responsible for Israel’s genocide in Gaza
On 20 October, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, stood on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, between Egypt and besieged Gaza. Guterres was not the only international figure to travel to the Gaza border, hoping to mobilise the international community in the face of an ongoing genocide, in…
-
‘Turning Gaza into ashes’: Israel propaganda vs the world
Gaza has changed the political equation in Palestine. Moreover, the repercussions of the ongoing devastating war are likely to alter the political equation in the entire Middle East and to re-centre Palestine as the world’s most urgent political crisis for years to come. Since the establishment of Israel in 1948,…
-
The Gaza manifesto: Why America’s old Middle East is crumbling
History will not forgive those who have remained silent, exhibited or expressed ‘balanced’ positions – or worse, defended Israel’s ongoing genocide in an already besieged, impoverished and overcrowded Gaza. This is not a cliché declaration, a desperate attempt aimed at jolting the world, especially the Western world, to show a…
-
‘Human Animals’: The sordid language behind Israel’s genocide in Gaza
“(Tutsis) are cockroaches. We will kill you.” Arabs are like “drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” The first quote was a line repeated frequently by the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, a Rwandan radio station, which is largely blamed for inciting hatred towards the Tutsi people. The second is by…
-
No peace without justice: Gaza has just vanquished a 20-year-old Israeli plan
Israel had the perfect plan for Gaza – in fact, for all Palestinians, when it decided to redeploy its forces around the Occupied Gaza Strip in 2005. Despite statements made, back then, by Israeli officials that the ‘disengagement’ plan aimed at severing Israel’s legal and other responsibilities from its role…
-
Not Hamas-Israeli conflict: The Palestinian cause belongs to the world
At one time, the ‘Arab-Israeli Conflict’ was Arab and Israeli. Over the course of many years, however, it was rebranded. The media is now telling us it is a ‘Hamas-Israeli conflict’. But what went wrong? Israel simply became too powerful. The supposedly astounding Israeli victories over the years against Arab…
-
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has altered the relationship between Palestine and Israel
Regardless of the precise strategy of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, or any other Palestinian faction for that matter, the daring military campaign deep inside Israel on Saturday, 7 October was only possible because Palestinians are simply fed up. Israel, remember, has imposed a hermetic siege on the Gaza…
-
The Gaza war is lost: But will Netanyahu concede?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had often boasted about the readiness of his army to deal with and to eliminate all threats to Israel’s ‘security’. The Israeli military, too, has contributed to the Israeli hasbara that Tel Aviv would be able to face several threats on all fronts, from Gaza,…
-
Glorifying hate, the Golda movie shows that Zionism remains unrepentant
A new movie glorifying the legacy of Zionist leader and Israel’s fourth Prime Minister, Golda Meir, has been released in selected cinemas in the US and Europe. Golda is typical Israeli propaganda. The Israeli director, Guy Nattiv, has tried to whitewash Meir’s legacy of violence and open anti-Arab racism through…
-
Churchill’s ‘barbaric nations’: War on China designed to marginalise Global South
Ten years ago, I visited China as a member of a group representing leading Asian newspapers. After the guided tour, I spent many hours walking alone around the streets of Beijing. This left no doubt in my mind that this was a country experiencing incredible growth in every field. Neither…
-
Ambassador of Israeli crimes: This is how Gilad Erdan became a defender of women’s rights in Iran
A new trend is emerging in the Israeli hasbara discourse targeting Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims: women’s rights. The word ‘new’ is not exactly accurate. The misuse of the genuine struggle for women’s rights in the Arab and Muslim world is only new insofar as the increasing reliance on the tactic…
-
Ghosts of the past: For Israel, war on UNESCO is an existential battle
Jericho does not belong to the Palestinians alone. It belongs to the whole of humanity. For Israel, however, the recognition by UNESCO of Jericho as a “World Heritage Site in Palestine” complicates its mission of erasing Palestine, physically and figuratively, from existence. The decision was described by Israel’s Foreign Ministry…
-
Hussein Munther has died, but the ‘Voice of the Palestinian Revolution’ lives on
Whenever Israeli soldiers stormed our neighbourhood in a Gaza refugee camp, we would rush to hide the few VHS tapes of the band Al-Asheqeen that we had. Being caught in possession of such revolutionary material would be enough to earn us a severe beating, arrest and a heavy fine. This…
-
Tel Aviv’s losing brands: Israeli ‘coup’ and the death of false democracy
From its very onset, Israel has constructed a brand for itself, a powerful gimmick that was predicated on two main pillars: democracy and stability. The main target audience for this brand has been powerful Western states that wielded disproportionate political, economic and military powers. These Western governments, along with their…
-
Humiliation vs. self-respect: the untold story of the abuse of Palestinian women in Hebron
The humiliation of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers in the occupied city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on 10 July was not the first such episode. Sadly, it will not be the last. Indeed, the stripping of five women in front of their children, parading them naked around their family home and…
-
Israel’s twisted logic makes the murder of Palestinian children a matter of state policy
Israel murders Palestinian children as a matter of state policy. This claim can be demonstrated easily and is supported by the latest findings of a Human Rights Watch report. The question is: why? When the police or army shoot a child anywhere in the world, it can usually be argued,…
-
‘Bread and circuses’: Musk, Zuckerberg and the art of distraction
“Panem et circenses”, said the Romans – Bread and circuses. This maxim served the Romans well. In times of crisis and whenever they needed a distraction from military defeats or political infighting at the highest levels, they simply entertained the masses. Caroline Wazir wrote an article for The Atlantic in…
-
A ‘terrorist onslaught’? This is why Netanyahu, Gallant blame Iran for West Bank violence
Despite their complicated and often uneasy relationship, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, agree on one thing: Iran is behind Israel’s security problem. The socio-economic polarization in Israel, the country’s political and judicial crises, the ongoing settlers’ pogroms in the West Bank, the repeated calls…
-
Friend or foe? Russia’s West Jerusalem Consulate is very worrying
Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, a global cold war has also kicked in. As a strong ally of Washington and the home of a massive constituency of Russian, Ukrainian and East European Jews, it was only natural that Tel Aviv would be at the heart of the global…