- October 26, 2026
AUTHOR DETAILS
The US Palestine-Israel Fairytale
By RAMZY BAROUD A memorable quote in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) still carries a wealth of relevance. He writes, "They own the [holy] land, just the mere land, and that’s all they do own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven’t any business […]
Basra Battles: Barely Half the Story
By RAMZY BAROUD When it comes to Iraq, reporters appear intent on omitting or fabricating news. The latest battles in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city and a vital oil seaport, furnished ample instances of misleading and manipulative practice in corporate journalism today. One commonly used tactic is to describe events using self-styled or "official" terminology, […]
No Checkpoints in Heaven
By Ramzy Baroud I still vividly remember my father’s face – wrinkled, apprehensive, warm – as he last wished me farewell fourteen years ago. He stood outside the rusty door of my family’s home in a Gaza refugee camp wearing old yellow pyjamas and a seemingly ancient robe. As I hauled my one small suitcase […]
Where Are the Iraqis in the Iraq War?
By RAMZY BAROUD Five years after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception — the cost to the Iraqi people themselves. Through all the […]
The Coming Uncertain War against Iran
By RAMZY BAROUD When Admiral William J "Fox" Fallon was chosen to replace General John Abizaid as chief of US Central Command (CENTCOM) in March 2007, many analysts didn’t shy from reaching a seemingly clear-cut conclusion: the Bush administration was preparing for war with Iran and had selected the most suitable man for this job. […]
Big Bang or Chaos: What’s Israel Up To?
By RAMZY BAROUD Why did Israel attack Gaza with such brutality? Did Israeli officials think, even for a fleeting moment, that their army’s attacks could halt, as opposed to intensify, Palestinian rockets or retaliatory violence? Indeed, was Palestinian violence at all relevant to the Israeli action? Was the Israeli bloodletting in Gaza solely relevant to […]
‘Unwavering Commitment’ to Inequality
By RAMZY BAROUD Death hovered over Gaza long before locally-made Palestinian rockets struck near the Israeli southern town of Sderot on February 27, killing Roni Yechiah and sparking an Israeli ‘retaliation’ that has already claimed over 120 Palestinian lives. Yechiah’s death was actually the first of its kind in nine months, and understandably so. The […]
Mahmoud Abbas Needs a Miracle
By RAMZY BAROUD Time is running out for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Although both men are still committed to their risky venture of marginalising Hamas at any cost, the latter’s obduracy and recent events in Gaza point to the inescapable conclusion — the undertaking was doomed from the […]
The ‘Known Unknowns’ of the Mugniyah Killing
By RAMZY BAROUD We know well who killed top Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyah on February 12 in Damascus. Although in the US media only journalists like Seymour Hersh have the nerve to point out the obvious, the Israeli media has not shied away from evidence of Israeli intelligence’s involvement in this well-calculated assassination. The major […]
Will Iraq War Define US Elections?
By RAMZY BAROUD As the race for the presidential nominations progresses, the stances of and attitudes towards both Republican and Democratic candidates continue to bring up causes for concern, in terms of their past behaviour, current appeal and general trustworthiness. Republican Mitt Romney’s exit has practically assured Sen John McCain’s victory in his party. While […]
Media Language and War: Manufacturing Convenient Realities
By RAMZY BAROUD In the competitive world of media today, swift and conveniently selective reporting is of prime importance. GoogleNews, for example, claims to scan 4,500 news sources, of which only a few are highlighted as main stories. There are thousands of similar services, all competing to produce a story in the fastest time. Thorough […]
People’s Power in Gaza
By RAMZY BAROUD In a radio interview prior to the US invasion of Iraq, David Barsamian asked Noam Chomsky what ordinary Americans could do to stop the war. Chomsky answered, “In some parts of the world people never ask, ‘what can we do?’ They simply do it.” For someone who was born and raised in […]
The True Miracle of Israel
By RAMZY BAROUD Israelis and their supporters tend to depict Israel as a country of miracles. What else could explain the country’s astonishing "birth" and subsequent survival against all sorts of "existential threats"? How else would Israel develop at such a phenomenal pace, making the "desert bloom" and continually scoring a high ranking amongst developed […]
Guantanamo as a Symbol
By RAMZY BAROUD 11 January marked the sixth year anniversary of the establishment of the Guantanamo detention camp. Mere months after the start of the 2001 United States invasion of Afghanistan, a large cargo plane landed in a US military base in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, bringing in a group of hunchbacked, orange-clad, blindfolded, "terrorist" suspects, […]
US Elections: Just Like the Movies
By RAMZY BAROUD The United States political process bears an uncanny resemblance to mainstream filmmaking. Elections and speeches are scripted to the letter, politicians put on a tirelessly rehearsed act, catering endlessly to the whims of the target audience. A successful Hollywood filmmaker can’t afford to risk raising issues in a way that don’t immediately […]
Despite ‘Good News’, Iraq is not Okay
By RAMZY BAROUD In recent months, we have been inundated by media reports bringing good news from Iraq, with countless testimonials to the great improvement in security enjoyed by the country in general and the Baghdad area in particular. This progress is attributed solely to the judicious ‘surge’ of US military presence, and the astute […]
Machiavellian Musharraf
By RAMZY BAROUD The 42-day drama in Pakistan is far from over; the declaration of emergency and the lifting of emergency are part of a charade, behind which exists a complex power play between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, various camps within the military elite, and the US government. The Pakistani people are the least relevant […]
Politicising Gaza’s Misery
By RAMZY BAROUD Intense debate over Gaza is subsiding as the status quo is delineated — predictably — by those with the bigger guns. But to what extent can human suffering be politicised, turned into an intellectual polemic that fails to affect the simplest change in people’s lives? Hamas’s political advent in January 2006 as […]
On Romney, Mormonism and Islam
By RAMZY BAROUD Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on December 6th – in which he tried to ‘explain’ his Mormon faith – was met with a mostly sympathetic reception at George Bush Library in Texas. The speech has been long anticipated, not so much for its relevance to the pressing debate on the defining […]
The True Aim of Annapolis, and Why It Failed
By RAMZY BAROUD The US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland was neither a success nor failure, if one accepts that its so-called objective was indeed ‘peacemaking’. From a US perspective, the meeting was, at best, a diplomatic manoeuvre on the part of the Bush administration, a last chance for becoming relevant to a region that […]
