- December 23, 2024
Articles
The Arabs’ Feelings of Love and Hate for Saddam Hussein
By RAMZY BAROUD Amid the anticipation and strange secrecy regarding the day of Sadaam Hussein’s execution, images of his lifeless body after his hanging flooded internet, the world media seemingly and conveniently forgot the tenants of international law regarding such images. Even such photos plagued my screen on Al-Jazeera that morning. Later, scenes of Iraqi […]
One Last Chance for Sanity in Iraq
By RAMZY BAROUD US President George W Bush’s new war strategy due to be officially announced on Wednesday, which will likely meet an uphill battle at the now Democrat-controlled Congress, is a slap in the face of the majority of American voters, and indeed the democratic process. The majority of American voters made their voices […]
New Year Reflections
By RAMZY BAROUD 2006 was yet another year of tribulations in the ever tumultuous Middle East. It defied all early expectations that 2005 would be the worst for many years to follow. It ended on a sad note in Palestine, and left wide open the chance for many appalling possibilities that stretch from Baghdad, to […]
Middle East Peace Process: Stagnation by Design
By RAMZY BAROUD I began the preface of my latest book, “The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle,” by making the following claim: “The second Palestinian uprising will be etched in history as an era where a major shift in the rules of the game has occurred.” But have they? If they […]
Al Jazeera English: The Plot Thickens
By RAMZY BAROUD The launch of Al Jazeera English on Nov. 15 was hardly an ordinary event. It was another notable addition to the growing global efforts aimed at counterbalancing American-European domination over world media: Deciding on what story is to be told and how, thus shaping public opinion, reinforcing Westerns policies, disseminating its own […]
Hudna or Not: Palestinian Rights Must Be Preserved
By RAMZY BAROUD Palestinian groups have recently suggested a ceasefire, in exchange for a cessation of Israeli violence. Ehud Olmert responded with a conciliatory speech, cleverly timed with President Bush’s arrival to Jordan on November 29 for a two-day conference with top Iraqi officials. Israel, then, accused Palestinians of firing five rockets into Israel in […]
Conference on People’s Foreign Policy: A Case for the Palestinians
By RAMZY BAROUD Prepared for the Conference on People’s Foreign Policy, Mumbai, India: December 7-8 2006. I am honored and delighted to have the opportunity to address you today. But it is unfortunate and tragic that I address you in a time where circumstances on the ground have deteriorated so much that the desperation which […]
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel’s Racist Discourse
By RAMZY BAROUD “The term ethnic cleansing refers to various policies of forcibly removing people of another ethnic group. At one end of the spectrum, it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population transfer, while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide.” According to this definition, and others including those emerging in […]
Democrats Must Truly Change Course
By RAMZY BAROUD The astounding results of the US Congressional elections of November 7 were undoubtedly a welcomed sign of change, not in the American political apparatus per se, but in the unmistakable public reclamation of their role as the driving force behind the nation’s political posture. That said, one must not confuse the redefining […]
Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun
By RAMZY BAROUD God is greater than Israel and America, was the echoing cry of tens of thousands of Palestinians, who descended onto the graveyard in grief-stricken Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip. They congregated in yet another familiar scene, to bury their loved ones, killed by Israel’s brutal war against the Palestinians. This time, […]
Treacherous Road to Oslo
By RAMZY BAROUD Attempts to coerce Palestinians into submission have not always manifested themselves in the crude form of a tank, a bullet, the withholding of aid, or the denial of freedom of movement. These efforts were at times more imaginative and shrewd, through the sponsoring and espousing of factionalism, the purchasing of the integrity […]
Some Other Palestine
By RAMZY BAROUD Thousands of people recently marched in London to commemorate Quds Day, an annual day of solidarity with the Palestinian people that emanated from Tehran some 26 years ago. I neither wish to contend nor corroborate the sincerity of the call, made by Ayatollah Khomeini, in a time when the Palestinian people endure, […]
US Voters Must Not Reward Failure
By RAMZY BAROUD How critical is the situation in Iraq? It depends on who you ask and when. Common sense tells us that the situation there has always been critical. In fact, one could dare claim that the country has been stricken with political and social upheaval since the early 1990s, when the US led […]
Nuclear Dual Standards
By RAMZY BAROUD The US administration’s double standards in dealing with the intensifying nuclear crisis in North Korea further strengthens the argument that President George W Bush’s colonial designs are either exasperated by the vulnerability of his foes or deterred by their lethal preparedness. Considering the US-North Korea protracted standoff, one can only imagine how […]
Defeat from Within
By RAMZY BAROUD It is no secret that the Palestinian people have always struggled with the problem of impotent, self-seeking leaderships, who have historically invested far greater time fending for their own status and position at the helm – however worthless – than representing the legitimate rights and aspirations of an occupied nation. Alas, the […]
The Next Palestinian Struggle
By RAMZY BAROUD An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The content of his message was […]
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
By RAMZY BAROUD US President George W. Bush once again blamed Arab media for his country’s image problem. "I recognise we’ve got an image issue, particularly when you have television stations, Arabic television stations that are constantly just pounding America — saying America is fighting Islam, Americans can’t stand Muslims, this is a war against […]
Risk of Misreading US-Iran Dispute
By RAMZY BAROUD The ongoing war of words between US President George W. Bush and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, coupled with deluded western media misconceptions or intentional misrepresentations of the true nature of the escalating conflict, can be utterly misleading, and must promptly be brought back to their sensible parameters of analysis. Following President Ahmadinejad’s fiery […]
Murdoch Almighty; When Public Loses Opinion
By RAMZY BAROUD People imagine that their opinions are their own, not those of corporate moguls who compete to colonise the public sphere. We are not as free in thought as we think. German philosopher and political scientist Jèrgen Habermas is often credited for his immense contribution to sociology and critical theory among other areas […]
