Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Ramzy Baroud
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Subjects of empire: Breaking the cycle of Arab dependency on US elections
Much of the current discourse on the Middle East remains fixated on the US midterm congressional elections this coming November. This vote, in particular, is being framed as a pivotal turning point for everything from the survival of Gaza and Lebanon to the future of Iran and beyond. To a…
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The pendulum swings: The slow death of Europe’s pro-Israel consensus
The European Union is the “chief of all cowards,” Amnesty International declared in a searing statement issued on April 21. The condemnation was a direct response to the European bloc’s systemic failure to sever ties with Israel during the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg. Despite months of legal warnings,…
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Israel’s war obsession and the urgency of Palestinian leverage
It is tempting to argue that Israel’s new military doctrine is predicated on perpetual war—but the reality is more complex. Not that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would object to such an arrangement. On the contrary, his relentless drive for military escalation suggests precisely that. After all, his openly declared…
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The collapse is real – Lebanon ceasefire marks a historic strategic defeat
A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the product of American diplomacy, nor Israeli strategic calculation. It was imposed—largely as a result of sustained Iranian pressure. Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies—including…
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Hope in the data: Can Palestine explain America’s moral shift?
In the Middle East, the perception of ordinary Americans has long followed a familiar script: detached, uninformed, inward-looking, and politically shallow— a society of ‘gas guzzlers’, with little grasp of global realities beyond their immediate geography. This perception did not emerge from thin air. It was cultivated—reinforced, even—by American political…
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The gallows law: Israel moves toward executing Palestinian children
According to Israel’s new death penalty law, Palestinian children, like adults, could, in practice, find themselves facing the gallows. This might take some by surprise, or even be dismissed as an exaggeration. Sadly, it is neither. The death penalty law, passed by Israel’s Knesset on March 30, mandates capital punishment…
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‘Torture and degrading treatment’ — The case of Dr Abu Safiya and Gaza’s broken medical system
“Israel must immediately release Gazan doctor Dr Hussam Abu Safiya,” UN experts said in a recent statement, in unequivocal terms. Dr Abu Safiya was “subjected to torture and other cruel and degrading treatment,” they said. His health condition is “dire.” Many are already familiar with the iconic Palestinian doctor from…
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Trapped by his own image: Trump’s Iran war and the politics of ego
The judgment on the Trump administration’s war on Iran is already largely settled across mainstream media, public opinion, and much of the analytical sphere. What remains supportive of the war is limited to two predictable camps: official government discourse and the president’s most loyal supporters, along with entrenched pro-Israel constituencies.…
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Will the US-Israeli war on Iran open the road to Palestinian freedom?
Some are expressing frustration that Iran’s conditions to end the war have not explicitly and unequivocally included a demand to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and dismantle the apartheid regime. Among the conditions circulated in Iranian and sympathetic media—though not formally confirmed by Tehran—is the proposition that any resolution…
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From Palestine to Iran: What Arab and Muslim silence really reveals
I have always found it interesting, and at times revealing, when seasoned activists and intellectuals in the West, including those who see themselves as deeply committed to Palestine, raise the same familiar point: Arab governments must stand up to Israel and the United States in solidarity with their brethren in…
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Talks, then bombs: Is Washington rehearsing the same trap on Iran?
US President Donald Trump did not invent the phrase “fake news,” but he undoubtedly transformed it into a political weapon, relentlessly accusing critical media of fabricating unfavorable narratives. The deeper irony, however, is harder to dismiss. Trump himself has exhibited a persistent disregard for factual consistency. Whether he believes his…
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The Tolstoy guide to history that Trump and Netanyahu didn’t read
How do you bomb a country “without mercy”—and end up strengthening it? When US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that Washington would show “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” the message was unmistakable: this was not a limited war, but an overwhelming campaign meant to break Iran—militarily, politically, and…
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Trump and Hegseth cannot define the truth of the US-Israeli War on Iran
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to have little patience for questions that do not conform to his preferred style of declaring unsubstantiated victories, whether against South Americans or in the Middle East. In a charged press conference on March 13, Hegseth did more than attack journalists for questioning his…
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The explosion inside Trump’s war machine: Joe Kent resigns
Joe Kent’s resignation is not an anomaly but an alarm: elite dissent is surfacing early because this war is built on deception. Joe Kent’s resignation is shocking, but not for the obvious reason. It is not shocking simply because it comes from within the Trump administration. Any administration of that…
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No time for losers: Why the war meant to save Israel may destroy it
When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched their military aggression against Iran on 28th February, they appeared convinced that the war would be swift. Netanyahu reportedly assured Washington that the campaign would deliver a decisive strategic victory—one capable of reordering the Middle East and restoring Israel’s battered deterrence. Whether Netanyahu…
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The geography of hope: Why Palestine is the Middle East’s only way out
Let us imagine a liberated Palestine. Let us consider how justice for the Palestinian people would reshape not only the region but, indeed, the entire globe. This is not a conversation about a “political solution” in the narrow, bureaucratic sense. Such solutions require no particular genius: true justice can only…
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The war Iran prepared for: How Tehran is raising the cost of war
Iran is pursuing a multi-layered strategy—military, economic, political, and diplomatic—to raise the cost of war and prevent regime change. Iran’s strategy in the current war As the war on Iran continues to expand across multiple fronts, Tehran appears to be pursuing a complex strategy that combines military escalation, economic leverage,…
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Instead of defeating China, Trump is accelerating its rise on the global stage
If you are not paying attention to the dramatic developments between China and the United States, you must understand that something consequential has just taken place. The US government is backtracking—if not altogether retreating—from the trade war and broader escalation it launched against China. Unlike the hyped language and repeated…
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The other ‘lizard people’: Why the Epstein Files are shattering global theory
When British author David Icke wrote his seminal work, The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World, published in 1999, he was not speaking metaphorically. When he detailed the “reptilian genetic streams” of “elite” families—human-reptile hybrids allegedly engineering global events—he meant it literally. To Icke, the world is…
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‘Regime cleavage’: How the ‘language of humiliation’ is engineering a second American civil war
A January 2026 Gallup poll showed that 89 percent of all Americans expect high levels of political conflict this year, as the country heads toward one of its most decisive midterm elections ever. Gallup, however, was stating the obvious. It is a surprise that not all Americans feel this way,…
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First Gaza, then the world: The global danger of Israeli exceptionalism
While many nations occasionally resort to a “state of exception” to deal with temporary crises, Israel exists in a permanent state of exception. This Israeli exceptionalism is the very essence of the instability that plagues the Middle East. The concept of the state of exception dates back to the Roman…
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On the menu: How the middle powers sacrificed Gaza to save themselves
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sounded more like a populist leader than a former central banker during his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January. Bemoaning the “fading” of the rules-based order, Carney delivered a surprisingly blunt speech. “The old order is not coming back,” he…
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Not a Trump anomaly: The Board of Peace and America’s crisis-driven power plays
The history of American power is, in many ways, the history of reinventing rules—or designing new ones—to fit US strategic interests. This may sound harsh, but it is a necessary realization, particularly in light of US President Donald Trump’s latest political invention: the so-called Board of Peace. Some have hastily…
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After the headlines fade: Gaza, abandoned while the genocide persists
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news. He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of…