- November 24, 2024
Articles
Rohingya Population Control: The Onslaught in Burma Continues
By Ramzy Baroud On April 21, the BBC obtained disturbing video footage shot in Burma. It confirmed extreme reports of what has been taking place in that country, even as it is being touted by the US and European governments as a success story pertaining to political reforms and democracy. The BBC footage was difficult […]
No More Tunnels Please: Gaza Held Hostage to Egypt’s Turmoil
By Ramzy Baroud Air of uncertainty is engulfing most matters related to Egypt. Since the Egyptian revolt started over two years ago, the country remains hostage to a barefaced power struggle with many destructive implications that have polarized society in unprecedented ways, perhaps in all of Egypt’s modern history. And while in Egypt itself nothing […]
Syria as a Game-Changer: US Political Impotence in the Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud In an article published May 15, 2013, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, “Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States in particular and western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria.” […]
Church of Scotland and Hawking: Challenging Israel
By Ramzy Baroud The global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has scored two major victories in May starting with a groundbreaking report issued by the Church of Scotland. It was followed by an equally courageous decision by internationally renowned cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking to boycott an Israeli conference. These two important developments have […]
Israel, Hawking and the Pressing Question of Boycott
By Ramzy Baroud It is an event “of cosmic proportions”, said one Palestinian academic, a befitting description regarding Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference slated for next June. It was also a decisive moral call which was communicated on May 8 by Cambridge University, where Hawking is a professor. Hawking is a […]
Of Boston Bombings and Twisted Logic
By Ramzy Baroud We still do not know much about the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, apart from information passed on by the media — citing mostly official sources. If the past was of value then it is fair to conclude that the official narrative could be misleading, dotted with inconsistencies and as was […]
The Pain of Bangladesh: T-shirts Made with Blood and Tears
By Ramzy Baroud As they spoke to a BBC correspondent in their run-down room which they call home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a man sobbed as his 12-year-old daughter sat close to him. His face, wrinkled before its time, was a picture of utter anguish. It could only be understood by a parent whose child was […]
Boston, Brazil and Islam: Irrational Rhetoric, Illegal Wars
By Ramzy Baroud During his talk sponsored by the New American Foundation in March 2008, author Parag Khanna addressed the rising challenges facing the US’s global hegemony. According to Khanna, China and the European Union are the new contenders with the battlefield being a global ‘geopolitical marketplace.’ Aside from Khanna’s insight, one statement particularly puzzled […]
Time for a Credible Narration of History
By Ramzy Baroud Nearly two weeks ago, Palestinians around the world commemorated the Deir Yassin Massacre which took place on April 9, 1948. In Palestinian consciousness, the massacre which claimed the lives of more than 100 innocent people, epitomised the ugly face of Zionism — the ideological foundation upon which the state of Israel was […]
Hungering for Freedom at Guantanamo: Obama’s Legacy of Broken Promises
By Ramzy Baroud The Guantanamo Bay prison is a glaring attestation to the state of political indecision which the United States has experienced since President Barack Obama’s first day in office. While his second term is unlikely to deliver much of the ‘change’ he had so industriously promised, skeletal men continue to sink into utter […]
A Hundred Deir Yassin and Counting: Beit Daras and the Buried History of Massacres
By Ramzy Baroud Few with any sense of intellectual or historical integrity would still question the bloody massacre that took place in the village of Deir Yassin 65 years ago, claiming the lives of over 100 innocent Palestinians. Attempts at covering up the massacre have been dwarfed by grim details by well-respected historians, including some […]
Gaza’s Siege Intensifies: The Plan to ‘Moderate’ Hamas, Control Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud On September 17, 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, made another appeal to his Egyptian counterpart Hisham Kandil to consider setting up a free trade area between Gaza and Egypt. The reasonable idea would allow Egypt to support Gaza’s ragged economy while sparing Cairo the political fallout […]
Turkey’s Unsustainable Politics in the Middle East: Israel vs. The Rest
By Ramzy Baroud ‘Confused’ may be an appropriate term to describe Turkey’s current foreign policy in the Middle East and Israel in particular. The source of that confusion – aside from the appalling violence in Syria and earlier in Libya – is Turkey’s own mistakes. The Turkish government’s inconsistency regarding Israel highlights earlier discrepancy in […]
After Obama’s Israel Visit: What’s Left for Palestinians?
By Ramzy Baroud ‘Obama didn’t accomplish much of substance,’ is how Dana Milbank characterized US President Barack Obama’s 3-day visit to Israel and the Middle East. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on March 22, Milbank outlined ‘substance’ as “obvious progress toward talks with the Palestinians (..) new ground in deterring Iran’s nuclear […]
Obama’s Peace Antics in Israel – Four More Years of This?
By Ramzy Baroud At the precise moment US President Barack Obama’s Air Force One touched down at Ben Gurion Airport on March 20, persisting illusions quickly began to shatter. And as he walked on the red carpet, showered with accolades and warm embraces of top Israeli government and military officials, a new/old reality began to […]
Of Hope and Pain: Rachel Corrie’s Rafah Legacy
By Ramzy Baroud ‘Hi Papa .. Don’t worry about me too much, right now I am most concerned that we are not being effective. I still don’t feel particularly at risk. Rafah has seemed calmer lately,’ Rachel Corrie wrote to her father, Craig, from Rafah, a town located at the southern end of the Gaza […]
Funding and Denouncing Israeli Occupation: Hypocritical EU Must Make a Stand
By Ramzy Baroud More bad news emerged from Israel in recent weeks. Indeed, good news is seldom associated with Israel and its military occupation and institutionalized discrimination and mistreatment of Palestinians. But now even those international organizations that are often supportive of Israel’s militancy seem to be joining the consensus that Tel Aviv is on […]
Ignoring Genocide: Rohingya People Deserve to Live
By Ramzy Baroud One fails to understand the unperturbed attitude with which regional and international leaders and organizations are treating the unrelenting onslaught against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, formally known as Burma. Numbers speak of atrocities where every violent act is prelude to greater violence and ethnic cleansing. Yet, western governments’ normalization with the Myanmar […]
Changing Nature of Palestine’s Struggle Caught on Five Cameras
By Ramzy Baroud – The National Those who watched Emad Burnat’s 5 Broken Cameras were perhaps reminded of Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali’s iconic character, Handala – a barefooted boy whose role in Al Ali’s drawings is to stand and bear witness to the tragedy that transpires before him. His hands are folded behind him, […]
Turkey Cornered into Israeli Embrace
By Ramzy Baroud An Israeli-Turkish rapprochement is unmistakably underway, but unlike the heyday of their political alignment in the 1990s, the revamped relationship is likely to be more guarded and pose a greater challenge to Turkey rather than Israel. Israeli media last week referenced a report by Turkish newspaper Radikal regarding secret talks between Turkey […]
Photographing Tragedy: What the Victims Actually Want
By Ramzy Baroud When one looks at scenes of feeling refugees from Syria, browse through images of their squalid refugee camps, hears their plea for solidarity, for mercy, for God’s help to end their suffering, one finds eerie similarities between their experiences and those of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis. The worse part of the tragedy, however, […]
Iraq at the Brink: A Decade after the Invasion
By Ramzy Baroud Soon after the joint US-British bombing campaign ‘Operation Desert Fox’ devastated parts of Iraq in Dec 1998, I was complaining to a friend in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. I was disappointed with the fact that our busy schedule in Iraq – mostly visiting hospitals packed with injured or Depleted Uranium […]
What Palestinians Can Expect from Obama
By Ramzy Baroud – Special to Gulf News Judging by the final statement of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Summit held in Cairo on February 6-7, Arab and Muslim countries have little to offer Palestinians — or anyone else for that matter — apart from the ever-predictable rhetoric and promises of financial assistance. Fiery speeches […]
New Actors in Palestinian Peace Charade
By Ramzy Baroud Despite much saber-rattling by Israel and the US administration and hyped-up expectations by the Palestinian leadership, the recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state last November is fast becoming yet another footnote in the protracted conflict. Only hours after the announcement of Palestinian’s "state" status, Israel had its own to make: […]
No Security Firms for African Refugees: Opportunities and War in Mali
By Ramzy Baroud The British security firm G4S is set to rake in massive profits thanks to crises in Mali, Libya and Algeria. Recognized as the world’s biggest security firm, the group’s brand plummeted during the London Olympics last year due to its failure to satisfy conditions of a government contract. But with growing unrest […]
Arab Springboard for Intervention? Two Years of Revolution and War
By Ramzy Baroud Reform movements in the Arab world are indicative of the rise of new players in a political game historically reserved for the locals and their western benefactors. On January 25, Egyptians commemorated the second anniversary of their revolution. Some spoke of historic achievements, others bemoaned lost opportunities and many more were just […]
Exploited and Misused: The Impossible Discourse of the ‘Arab Spring’
By Ramzy Baroud A reductionist discourse is one that selectively tailors its reading of subject matters in such a way as to only yield desired outcomes, leaving little or no room for other inquiries, no matter how appropriate or relevant. The so-called Arab Spring, although now far removed from its initial meanings and aspirations, has […]
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Intifada
By Ramzy Baroud If Palestinian leaders only knew how extraneous their endless rounds of “unity” talks have become, they might cease their enthusiastic declarations to world media about yet another scheduled meeting or another. At this point, few Palestinians have hope that their “leadership” has their best interests in mind. Factional interests reign supreme and […]
The Forgotten Palestinians: Factionalism and Its Discontents
By Ramzy Baroud In and around the southern mountains of Hebron (Al Khalil) there are thousands of people who dwell in tents, huts and caves. Before Israel came to existence in 1948, they moved about unhindered in the vast area, tending to their crops, sheep and traditional way of life as they had done for […]
History of the People: Articulating ‘Palestine’ Despite Israeli Hasbara
By Ramzy Baroud What does a Palestinian farmer who is living in a village tucked in between the secluded West Bank hills, a prisoner on hunger strike in an Israeli jail and a Palestinian refugee roaming the Middle East for shelter all have in common? They are all characters in one single, authentic, solid and […]
