- February 23, 2025
Palestine/Israel
Hashtag Genocide: Why Gaza Fought Back
By Ramzy Baroud My old family house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza was recently rebuilt by its new owner, into a beautiful three-story building with large windows adorned by red frames. In Israel’s most recent and deadliest war on Gaza, the house sustained significant damage. A large hole caused by Israeli missiles can […]
On Heroes and Preachers: Gaza’s New Resistance Paradigm
By Ramzy Baroud “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? In Israeli prison, of course!,” was the title of an article by Jo Ehrlich published in Modoweiss.net on Dec 21, 2009. That was almost exactly one year after Israel’s concluded a major war against Gaza. The so-called Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009) […]
Gaza’s Resistance Will Not be Crushed
By Ramzy Baroud On the 13th day of Israel’s so-called Operation Protective Edge, stories of entire families collectively pulverized, women and children keenly targeted by Israeli soldiers saturate the media. Until now, 430 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 18 Israel soldiers been killed at the hands of the Resistance. In Shejaiya, […]
Israel Awakens the Palestine It Tried to Crush
By Ramzy Baroud When the bodies of three Israeli settlers – two teenagers, Aftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19 – were found on 30 June near Hebron in the southern West Bank, Israel went into a state of mourning and a wave of sympathy flowed from around the world. The […]
Ramadan, Socialism and the Neighbour’s Beat-up Car
By Ramzy Baroud For those who spent childhoods in Gaza, the spiritual month of abstinence provokes reflection on how it enabled Palestinians to uncover the collective strength of their beleaguered community When I was a child, I obsessed with socialism. It was not only because my father was a self-proclaimed socialist who read every book […]
Missing Settlers Become Weapons in a War on Unity
By Ramzy Baroud When three teenage Israeli settlers from the illegal Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion went missing on 12 June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw an opportunity to discredit the fledgling Palestinian unity government. His statements and the actions of the Israeli army since have centered on indicting the Palestinian movement Hamas, while […]
Why True Palestinian Unity Rremains Elusive
By Ramzy Baroud Palestinians are yet to achieve national unity despite the elation over the ‘national unity government’ now in operation in Ramallah. One has to be clear in the distinction between a Hamas-Fatah political arrangement necessitated by regional and international circumstances, and Palestinian unity. What has been agreed upon in the Shati’ (Beach) refugee […]
66 Year Nakba: I Saw Yafa, Land of Oranges
By Ramzy Baroud In ‘Jaffa: Land of Oranges’, Ghassan Kanafani described his exile from the Palestinian coastal city of Yafa. As a 12-year-old boy, he struggled to understand, but “on that night, though, certain threads of that story became clearer .. a big truck was standing in front of our door. Light things, mainly sleeping […]
Palestinian Unity: Hope and Gloom in the Beach Refugee Camp
By Ramzy Baroud For years, Palestinian factions have strived for unity, and for years unity has evaded them. But is it possible that following several failed attempts, Fatah and Hamas have finally found that elusive middle ground? And if they have done so, why, to what end, and at what cost? On April 23, top […]
Why Israeli Officials are Chuckling: The ‘Stable’ West Bank Dilemma
By Ramzy Baroud Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Ze’ev Elkin, is a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and his predominantly rightwing cabinet. In a recent interview with The Economist, Elkin used the familiar tone of being conceited and oblivious to such notions as international or human rights, and reaffirmed his rejection of a Palestinian state. […]
What Middle East Crisis? Peace Process as a Successful US Investment
By Ramzy Baroud Crisis seemed to loom large as Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed applications to join 15 international treaties on April 1. The decision prompted irate reactions from Israel, and sent US Secretary of State John Kerry into panic mode, unsuccessfully attempting to salvage the peace process. Yet something is strangely familiar […]
Mahmoud Abbas vs Mohammed Dahlan: The Showdown Begins
By Ramzy Baroud When late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was confined by Israeli soldiers to his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mohammed Dahlan reigned supreme. As perhaps the most powerful and effective member of the ‘Gang of Five’, he managed the affairs of the ruling Fatah movement, coordinated with Israel regarding matters […]
A Kuffiya for Tony Benn – The British Warrior Who ‘Matured with Age’
By Ramzy Baroud Long before the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign inched slowly from the fringes of global solidarity with Palestinians to take center stage, Tony Benn had been advocating a boycott of Israel with unrestricted conviction, for years. “Britain should offer its support for this strategy by stopping all arms sales to Israel, introducing […]
Al-Aqsa vs. Israel: The Lurking Danger Beneath
By Ramzy Baroud Something sinister is brewing around and below al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, and it has the hallmark of a familiar Israeli campaign to strip the Mosque of its Muslim Arab identity. This time around, however, the stakes are much higher. The status of al-Aqsa mosque is unparalleled within the context of […]
Omar and the Checkpoint: Everyday a Nightmare
By Ramzy Baroud Omar is a 7-year-old boy from Gaza. His family managed to obtain the necessary permits that allowed him to cross the Erez checkpoint to Jerusalem, through the West Bank, in order to undergo surgery. He was accompanied by his father. On the way back, the boy and his father were stopped at […]
The Strange but ‘Stable’ Alliance: US Senate Await Israeli Instructions
By Ramzy Baroud Israel is often viewed by Washington politicians as the most ‘stable’ ally in the Middle East. But stability from the American perspective can mean many things. Lead amongst them is that the ‘ally’ must be unconditionally loyal to the diktats of the US administration. This rule has proven to be true since […]
The Whitewashing of Ariel Sharon
By Ramzy Baroud The death of former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon enlivened US media’s interest in the legacy of a man considered by many a war criminal, and by some a hero. In fact, the supposed heroism of Sharon was at the heart of CNN coverage of his death on January 11. Sharon spent his […]
2014: Failure of Palestinian Authority, BDS Success to Continue
By Ramzy Baroud 2013 was a year in which the so-called peace process charade was allowed to continue, leading Palestinians on yet another futile journey of broken promises. Meanwhile, the Israeli colonial project in the West Bank and East Jerusalem carried on unabated. But it was not entirely a year of doom and gloom either, […]
BDS: Permanent Address for Palestinian Solidarity
By Ramzy Baroud The intellectual dishonesty of Israel’s supporters is appalling. But in some odd way, it is also understandable. How else could they respond to the massively growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign? When a non-violent campaign – empowered by thousands of committed civil society activists from South Africa to Sweden and most […]
With Leaders Like These: Yet a New Threshold for Gaza’s Misery
By Ramzy Baroud It is impossible to predict the future. But one can state with a degree of certainty that little good can possibly be awaiting Palestinians when their political leadership seems to value their ties with Israel more than the fate of Gaza and all of its inhabitants. An exaggeration? Hardly. In an interview […]
Underneath the Washed White Wall of Cynicism and Hope
By Ramzy Baroud – Outpost Magazine (Lebanon) The houses in my old refugee camp felt enormous. My neighbors’ homes had grown into strange dimensions because they had to make use of every inch of available space out of desperation. My old house stood still and unbending, vacant of glory and burdened with memories. It was […]
The Plot Thickens: Gaza is Flooded with Sewage and Conspiracies
By Ramzy Baroud The latest punishment of Gaza may seem like another familiar plot to humiliate the strip to the satisfaction of Israel, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, and the military-controlled Egyptian government. But something far more sinister is brewing. This time, the collective punishment of Gaza arrives in the form of raw sewage that is […]
As Gaza Dies Slowly, Waiting Game is on
By Ramzy Baroud Since the Hamas election victory in January 2006 — and particularly after the Hamas-Fatah clashes and split between Gaza and the West Bank in the summer of 2007 — Gaza has undergone a disturbing human experiment, whose toll is unprecedented in the history of the impoverished Strip. The plotters involve the usual […]
People’s History of Gaza and Egypt: The Bond Cannot Be Broken
By Ramzy Baroud Egypt’s new ruler, General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, may not realize that the bond between Egypt, Palestine and especially Gaza is beyond historic, and simply cannot be severed with border restrictions, albeit they have caused immense suffering for many Palestinians. Gaza is being ‘collectively punished’, and is now facing economic hardship and a […]
Oslo Dead but Still Matters: Abbas’s Village Leagues and Palestinian Silence
By Ramzy Baroud Suppose several armored vehicles belonging to a branch of the Palestinian Authority raided an Israeli border village at the eve of a new round of peace negotiations. One can picture PA President Mahmoud Abbas defending the killings, stating that the attack was made in the cause of protecting the security of the […]
Back to Square None: Netanyahu, Abbas to Resume ‘Peace Process’ that Never Was
By Ramzy Baroud The political peddlers, think-tank experts and media professionals are all back in full force. They want us to believe that US Secretary of State John Kerry has done what others have failed to do. On his sixth trip to the Middle East during his post, and following intense shuttle diplomacy likened to […]
On Hamas, Fatah and the Squandered Years: When ‘Unity’ Loses Its Meaning
By Ramzy Baroud When Hamas and Fatah representatives met in Gaza on June 04, there was little media fanfare. In fact, neither party expected much attention to their ‘unity talks’ aside from the occasional references to ‘national reconciliation’, ‘building bridges’ and the ‘obstacles’ along the way. And since then, there was yet more proof that […]
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 […]
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 […]
