Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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The dangerous decision to ‘postpone’ the election is Palestine’s moment of reckoning
The decision on 30 April by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “postpone” this month’s legislative election, which would have been the first in 15 years, will deepen the political division in occupied Palestine and could, potentially, signal the collapse of the Fatah Movement, at least in its current form.…
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Bottom-up politics sees grassroots activism behind a pro-Palestine shift in the US
At a recent J Street Conference online, US Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren broke yet another political taboo when they expressed willingness to leverage US military aid as a way of putting pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian human rights. Sanders believes that the US “must be willing to…
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Ramadan represents a wake-up call for the aching body of the Muslim world
Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan should be a time of spiritual reflection and a reordering of the Ummah’s collective priorities. Unfortunately, in the age of globalisation, unmitigated consumption and a self-centred, individualistic approach to life, our relationship with Ramadan is veering away from its intended goal towards something else…
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A Palestinian prayer for Ramadan: May the voices of the oppressed be heard
Covid-19 cases in occupied Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant which was first identified in Britain. Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli-led blockade since 2006, the densely populated…
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Recognition of Palestine may be ‘symbolic’, but it is also critical
The recognition of Palestine as a State by the Australian Labor Party on 30 March is a welcome move, although it comes with many caveats. Pro-Palestine activists are justified in questioning the sincerity of the ALP’s stance and whether it is genuinely prepared to adopt this position fully should the…
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France’s clandestine war in Mali
In a recent report, the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), concluded that French warplanes had struck a crowd attending a wedding on 3 January in the remote village of Bounti, killing 22 of the guests. According to the findings based on a thorough investigation and interviews with hundreds of eyewitnesses,…
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From his solitary confinement, Marwan Barghouti holds the key to Fatah’s future
If imprisoned Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouti, becomes the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the status quo will change substantially. For Israel, as well as for the current PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, such a scenario is more dangerous than another strong Hamas showing in the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections. The…
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Kafkaesque politics: The missing lessons from Israel’s latest election
A “major setback” was the recurring theme in many news headlines reporting on the outcome of Israel’s General Election last week. While this referred specifically to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to secure a decisive victory in the country’s fourth election in two years, it is only part of the…
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Nuclear weapons blazing: Britain enters the US-China fray
Boris Johnson’s 16 March speech before the British Parliament was reminiscent, at least in tone, of that of Chinese President Xi Jinping in October 2019, on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. The comparison is quite apt if we remember the long-anticipated shift in Britain’s…
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The Nakba of Sheikh Jarrah: How Israel uses ‘the law’ to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem
A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on 19 March during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, this news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where the shooting and…
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Biden’s China policy is doomed from the start
A much anticipated US foreign policy move under the Biden administration on how to counter China’s unhindered economic growth and political ambitions came in the form of a virtual summit on 12 March linking the United States with India, Australia and Japan. Although the so-called Quad — Quadrilateral Security Dialogue…
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The US must end its collective punishment of the people of Venezuela
Recent statements by US officials suggest that Washington will continue to pursue a hard-line policy on Venezuela. The Biden administration, however, needs to rethink its approach urgently. US State Department spokesperson Ned Price remarked on 3 February that he “certainly” does not “expect this administration to be engaging directly with…
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Elections under fire are Palestine’s impossible democracy dilemma
Many Palestinian intellectuals and political analysts find themselves in the unenviable position of having to declare whether they support or reject the upcoming Palestinian elections which are scheduled for May 22 and July 30. There are no easy answers. The long-awaited decree in January by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas…
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Guantanamo Bay is America’s enduring shame
On 12 February, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked by a reporter whether the new Joe Biden administration intends to shut down the notorious Guantanamo Bay Prison by the end of the US president’s first term in office. Her non-committal answer was, “That’s certainly our goal and our…
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Ready to work with Netanyahu: Mansour Abbas splinters Arab vote in Israel
At a glance, it may appear that the split of Arab political parties in Israel is consistent with a typical pattern of political and ideological divisions which have afflicted the Arab body politic for many years. This time, however, the reasons behind the split are quite different. As Israel readies…
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The coup leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi have betrayed democracy in Myanmar
What is taking place in Myanmar right now is a military coup. There can be no other description for such an unwarranted action as the dismissal of the government by military decree and the imposition of Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as an unelected ruler. However, despite…
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Imagining Palestine: Barghouti, Darwish, Kanafani and the language of exile
For Palestinians, exile is not simply the physical act of being removed from their homeland and their inability to return. It is not a casual topic pertaining to politics and international law, either. Nor is it an ethereal notion, a sentiment, a poetic verse. It is all of this combined.…
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Democrats are as big a threat to a just peace in Palestine as Republicans
Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have painted, rather rashly I believe, a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which…
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Europe will redefine itself despite the political shift in the US
Despite the long-awaited political change in Washington, with Democratic President Joe Biden now safely in the White House, Europe is unlikely to resume its previously unhindered reliance on its transatlantic partner. The four years of Donald Trump’s term in office were full of tension and difficulties between the US and…
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Moscow is capitalising on the US retreat in Palestine-Israel
Israeli anxiety was palpable when it was reported that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was not contacted by new US President Joe Biden for days after the latter’s inauguration. While much is being read into Biden’s decision, including Washington’s lack of enthusiasm to return to the “peace process”, Moscow is…
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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 solidarity,…
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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 the…
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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 what…
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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 Bank.…