Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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The real ‘Doomsday Scenario’: How Palestinian hunger striker, Abu Hawash, forced Israeli concession
As soon as media reports emerged regarding a deal between Palestinian prisoner, Hisham Abu Hawash and the Israeli prison authorities, Israeli extremists, led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir, angrily raided the Assaf Harofeh Hospital where Abu Hawash was being held. A Palestinian political activist, Abu Hawash, 41, is a father…
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Coming this 2022: Refugees, democracy and human rights
Although 2021 is now behind us, there are many issues that will linger for a while, or much longer, and will certainly dominate much of the news in 2022, as well. These are but a few of the issues. NATO-Russian brinkmanship Exasperated with NATO expansion and growing ambitions in the…
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As Israel plots an endgame in occupied Golan, Naftali Bennett should learn from the past
With Syria still embroiled in its own war, Israel has been actively rewriting the rule book regarding its conduct in the neighbouring Arab country. Gone are the days of the potential for the return of the illegally occupied Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty in exchange for peace, as per the…
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2021 in Palestine: A new generation has finally risen
At the onset, 2021 appeared to be another ordinary year, one of unrelenting Israeli occupation and continued Palestinian misery. While much of that remained true, the dynamics of the Israeli occupation of Palestine were challenged by an unprecedented sense of popular unity among Palestinians, not only in the occupied East…
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Why is Israel Amending Its Open-Fire Policy: Three Possible Answers
At the outset, the Israeli military decision to revise its open-fire policies in the occupied West Bank seems puzzling. What would be the logic of giving Israeli soldiers the space to shoot more Palestinians when existing army manuals had already granted them near-total immunity and little legal accountability? The military’s…
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The US ‘Combating Islamophobia Act’ may signal a change towards hate crime
The result of a vote in the US House of Representatives on 14 December may signal a change in Washington’s approach to the social-political evil that is Islamophobia. However, we should not jump to hasty conclusions. Amazingly, Congress was nearly split on the vote. While 219 representatives voted in favour…
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Why is Israel allowed to own Palestinian history?
An investigative report in Haaretz — “Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in ’48 – and What Israeli Leaders Knew” — is a must-read. It should be read in particular by all who consider themselves to be “Zionists” as well as those who, for whatever reason, support Israel, anywhere in…
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The Omicron shame: Why is the world punishing instead of helping Africa?
The decision by several governments across the globe to institute travel bans on seven African countries, starting on 27 November, due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was perceived to be hasty in the eyes of some and fully justifiable on medical grounds, in the view of…
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On ‘Gassing the Arabs’ and other diseases: Is Israel a ‘Sick Society’?
For whatever reason, some mistakenly perceive the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, as liberal, progressive, and even ‘pro-Palestinian’. Of course, none of this is true. This misconstrued depiction of an essentially Zionist and anti-Palestinian newspaper tells of a much bigger story of how confusing Israeli politics is, and how equally confused many…
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Belgium is on the right track, but Europe has failed Palestine
The Belgian government’s decision on 25 November to label products made in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements is welcome, although it will ultimately prove ineffectual. Belgium has historically shown solidarity with Palestine if compared to other European countries, for example, Britain, Germany and France. From the cancellation of trade missions to…
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Elitism is not the answer to populism: On ‘anti-vaxxers’ and mistrust in government
While “anti-vaxxers” continue to clash with police in various European cities, a whole media discourse has been formulated around the political leanings of these angry crowds, describing them in matter-of-fact terms as conspiracy theorists, populists and right-wing fanatics. While it is true that populist, right-wing movements throughout Europe and elsewhere…
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We do exist: Why the Palestinian voice should take centre stage
At a recent New York event, the President of the Foreign Press Association Ian Williams declared, before an approving audience, that it is time “to reclaim the narrative on Palestine”. This phrase – ‘reclaiming the narrative’ – is relatively new to the Palestinian discourse. Years ago, the concept, let alone…
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From Pegasus to Blue Wolf: how Israel’s ‘security’ experiment in Palestine went global
The revelation a few years ago that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been conducting mass surveillance on millions of Americans reignited the conversation on governments’ misconduct and their violation of human rights and privacy laws. Until recently, however, Israel has been spared due criticism, not only for its…
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The People vs. COP26: Our Fate is in Our Hands
Of all the speeches and political grandstanding at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), the words of Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, were the most profound and least hypocritical. Lopez Obrador raged against the “technocrats and neoliberals”—world leaders who hold the future of humanity in…
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Bill Gates should know better: Israel ravages the environment in Palestine
Those who are not familiar with how Israel, particularly with its military occupation of Palestine, is actively and irreversibly damaging the environment might conclude erroneously that Tel Aviv is at the forefront of the global fight against climate change. The reality is the exact opposite. In his speech at the…
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Words without action expose the West’s role in Israel’s illegal settlement expansion
The international uproar in response to Israel’s approval of a massive expansion of its illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian West Bank may give the impression that such a reaction could, in theory, force Israel to abandon its plans. It won’t because the “concerns”, “regrets” and “disappointment” — and…
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The West’s China Complex: Beijing as the enemy and the saviour
“Could China’s economy collapse?” was the title of a 15 October article published by QUARTZ magazine. The article makes an ominous case of a Chinese economic crash and its impact on China’s and global economies. This is one of numerous reports appearing in recent weeks in Western mainstream media, all…
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Is Biden any different from Trump on Palestine?
When Joe Biden was declared the winner in the US presidential election last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden administration, compared with the brazenly pro-Israel Donald Trump administration, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians. That was the conventional wisdom at the time. Unsurprisingly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud…
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Political Islam and Democracy Crisis in North Africa
When the news circulated that Morocco’s leading political group, the Development and Justice Party (PJD), had been trounced in the latest elections held in September, official media mouthpieces in Egypt celebrated the news as if the PJD’s defeat was, in itself, a blow to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement. Regionally,…
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The cultural genocide in Palestine: On Sally Rooney’s decision to boycott Israel
The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on award-winning Irish novelist, Sally Rooney, as soon as she declared that she had “chosen not to sell … translation rights of her best-selling novel, ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ to an Israeli-based publishing house”. Expectedly, the accusations centered on…
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Empty gestures or substantive change? On the Nobel Prize in Literature and its discontents
The fact that Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature is welcome news, especially as the Swedish Academy is historically known for lacking in diversity, as if intellectual creativity is largely confined to Western intellectual circles. It is premature to suggest that the Academy has finally decided to…
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Heroes or parasites: Europe’s self-serving politics on refugees
Language is politics and politics is power. This is why the misuse of language is particularly disturbing, especially when the innocent and vulnerable pay the price. The wars in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries in recent years have resulted in one of the greatest…
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Racial justice vs. the Israel Lobby: when being pro-Palestine becomes the new normal
There is an unmistakable shift in American politics regarding Palestine and Israel, one that is inspired by the way in which many Americans, especially young people, view the Palestinian struggle and the Israeli occupation. While this shift is yet to translate into reducing Israel’s stranglehold over the US Congress tangibly,…
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Trudeau’s parliamentary ‘victory’ may cost him the next elections
Canada’s unpopular general election of 20 September is increasingly recognised as a mistake by the country’s leading political analysts. However, this mistake could potentially prove to be the very undoing of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in future elections. Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians did not think that holding an election…