Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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Despite ambiguity in international law, Palestinians are winning the ‘legitimacy war’
‘International law’ remains one of the most discussed terms in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is almost always present, whether the discussion pertains to the Israeli wars and siege on Gaza, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank or the encroaching apartheid throughout…
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Black lives should always matter: Delinking social justice from seasonal US politics
After viewing the first US Presidential debate on September 29, one is left with no doubt about the degenerating political discourse among America’s ruling elites. Following the debate between US President, Donald Trump, and Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Biden, most analyses focused mainly on the personal insults and name-calling, which,…
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In lieu of a liberation strategy: Palestinian elections are designed to buy time
It is abundantly clear that Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, has underestimated the seriousness of the challenges facing Palestine and the Palestinians. The rushed agreement between his party, Fatah and Hamas in Istanbul on September 24, and the Palestinian leader’s speech at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly…
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Fight over the Mediterranean: France’s Proxy War and the Budding Turkish-Russian Alliance
Overwhelmed by uncontrollable circumstances, the Greek government is bracing for another financial crisis that promises to be as terrible as the last one in 2015. Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced, on September 12, that Athens has made a “robust” arms deal that will “reinforce the armed forces” and create a…
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Palestinians are not numbers: On the future of the Palestinian discourse
Palestine can never be truly understood through numbers, because numbers are dehumanising, impersonal, and, when necessary, can also be contrived to mean something else entirely. Numbers are not meant to tell the story of the human condition, nor should they ever serve as a substitute for emotions. Indeed, the stories…
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How do Democrats and Republicans Differ on Palestine and Israel?
The polarized nature of American politics often makes it difficult to address fundamental differences between the country’s two main political rivals, Republicans and Democrats. As each side is intent on discrediting the other at every opportunity, unbiased information regarding the two parties’ actual stances on internal and external issues can…
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The ‘Desaparecidos’ of Palestine: Gantz Escalates Israel’s War on the Dead
On September 2, the Israeli government approved a proposal that allows the military to indefinitely withhold the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army. The proposal was made by the country’s Defense Minister, Benny Gantz. Gantz is the main political rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.…
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As Washington retreats, Eastern Mediterranean conflict further marginalises NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance in name alone. Recent events notwithstanding, the brewing conflict over territorial waters in the Eastern Mediterranean indicates that the military union between mostly Western countries is faltering. The current Turkish-Greek tension is only one facet of a much larger conflict involving,…
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Israel’s friends at the RNC: ‘Christian Zionists’ dictate the agenda of the Republican Party
It is difficult – and futile – to argue which American president has historically been more pro-Israel. While former President Barack Obama, for example, has pledged more money to Israel than any other US administration in history, Donald Trump has provided Israel with a blank check of seemingly endless political…
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‘Dying to fish’: How Israeli piracy destroyed Gaza’s once thriving fishing industry
On August 16, the Israeli navy declared the Gaza sea a closed military zone. A few days later, a group of Gaza fishermen decided to take their chances by fishing within a mere two or three nautical miles off the Gaza shore. No sooner had they cast their nets, Israeli…
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Netanyahu vs Gantz: Gaza Escalation as Reflection of Israel’s Political Rivalry
Only recently, the Palestinian group, Hamas, and Israel seemed close to reaching a prisoner exchange agreement, where Hamas would release several Israeli soldiers held in Gaza while Israel would set free an unspecified number of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons. Instead of the much-anticipated announcement of some kind of…
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‘People of the Cave’: Palestinians take their fight for justice to the mountains
Palestinians are not going anywhere. This is the gist of seven decades of Palestinian struggle against Zionist colonialism. The proof? The story of Ahmed Amarneh. Amarneh, a 30-year-old civil engineer from the northern West Bank village of Farasin, lives with his family in a cave. For many years, the Amarneh…
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Hands off Lebanon: Macron’s self-serving ‘New Pact’ must be shunned
French President, Emmanuel Macron, is in no position to pontificate to Lebanon about the need for political and economic reforms. Just as thousands of Lebanese took to the streets of Beirut demanding “revenge” against the ruling classes, the French people have relentlessly been doing the same; both peoples have been…
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The Politics of War: What is Israel’s Endgame in Lebanon and Syria?
On August 4, hours before a massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued an ominous warning to Lebanon. “We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers. I suggest to all of them, including Hezbollah, to consider this,” Netanyahu said during an official…
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Apartheid or one state: Has Jordan broken a political taboo?
What will it take for the idea of a two-state solution, which was hardly practical to begin with, to be completely abandoned? Every realistic assessment of the situation on the ground indicates, with palpable clarity, that there can never be a viable Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank…
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The Likud Conspiracy: Israel in the throes of a major political crisis
Protests against Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have raged on for weeks, turning violent sometimes. Israelis are furious at their government’s mediocre response to the coronavirus pandemic, especially as COVID-19 disease is experiencing a massive surge throughout the country. Netanyahu warned protesters, thousands of whom have been rallying outside his…
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List of Israeli targets leaked: Tel Aviv fears the worst in ICC investigation of war crimes
When International Court of Justice (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, confirmed last December that the Court has ample evidence to pursue a war crimes investigation in occupied Palestine, the Israeli government responded with the usual rhetoric, accusing the international community of bias and insisting on Israel’s ‘right to defend itself.’ Beneath…
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Eyewitness testimony of Abdul Fattah Al-Sharif’s execution by Israel soldier
As illegal settlers increase their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied city of Al-Khalil (Hebron), the people of the Palestinian city continue to mount a campaign of popular resistance. One of the channels of resistance is Human Rights Defenders (HRD), “a grassroots, non-partisan Palestinian organisation, working to support nonviolent…
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Why Palestinian-Israeli prisoners exchange deal could happen soon?
For the first time since the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling its willingness to engage in negotiations regarding the release of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by resistance groups in Gaza. But will another…
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‘Feeding a Bedouin’: Roy Oz and Israel’s outrageous racism
On July 11, a video footage which showed a popular Israeli TV celebrity demeaning Palestinian children from the Bedouin community in the Naqab area went viral on social media. “Let’s feed a Bedouin. Don’t you want to feed a Bedouin?” Israeli Children TV host, Roy Oz, repeatedly asks his children,…
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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 and…