Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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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.…
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Does ‘by force and fraud’ signal the end of the US democracy doctrine?
In an interview with British newspaper The Times in 2015, former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld vehemently denied that exporting democracy was the main motive for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic,” he claimed. However, the senior…
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Palestinians need a centralised strategy to counter Israel in Africa, not slogans
Arab normalisation with Israel is expected to have serious consequences that go well beyond the limited and self-serving agendas of a few regional countries. Thanks to the Arab normalisers, the doors are now flung wide open for new political actors to extend or cement ties with Israel at the expense…
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Covid-19 under Apartheid: How Israel manipulates suffering of Palestinians
Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous. Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned the Israeli government’s decision to bar Palestinians from receiving the vaccine. The rights group described…
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2021 provides Palestine with a chance to fight back
The last twelve months will go down in history as the year that terminated the American-sponsored Palestine-Israel “peace process”. While 2021 will not reverse the monumental change in the US attitude and objectives in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East, it presents Palestinians with the opportunity to think outside the…
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Refugee camps contain the hidden victims of Covid-19
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019, interest in the plight of the world’s most vulnerable populations, refugees, began to wane. A year later, and it is as if the refugee crisis has disappeared completely. It hasn’t, though. In fact, the world’s erstwhile leading humanitarian crisis has…
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The US money tree: The untold story of American aid to Israel
On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel. While unemployment, thus poverty, in the US…
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Netanyahu is a symptom, not the cause of Israel’s political crisis
It is convenient to surmise that Israel’s current political crisis is consistent with the country’s unfailing trajectory of short-lived governments and fractious ruling coalitions. While this view is somewhat defensible, it is also hasty. Israel is currently on the cusp of a fourth general election in less than two years.…