- April 29, 2024
Palestine/Israel
Breaking Gaza’s Will: Israel’s Enduring Fantasy
By RAMZY BAROUD My three-year-old son Sammy walked into my room uninvited as I sorted through another batch of fresh photos from Gaza. I was looking for a specific image, one that would humanise Palestinians as living, breathing human beings, neither masked nor mutilated. But to no avail. All the photos I received spoke of […]
Is Israel Winning the ‘Media War’ over Gaza?
By RAMZY BAROUD "We are all Hamas," screamed a scrawny Mauritanian, repeatedly, as he determinedly drew his face closer to a TV camera. Behind him, thousands more tunefully chanted similar words, chants that were heard in different Arabic dialects, in fact in many different languages all across the globe. Yet, Israel, somehow is claiming victory […]
Gaza and the World: Will Things Ever Change?
By RAMZY BAROUD In times of crisis, most Arabs tune in to Aljazeera television. Sometimes it’s comforting for the truth to be stated the way it is, with all of its gory and unsettling details, without blemishes and without censorship. When Israel carried out massive air strikes against Gaza on Saturday, December 27, terrorizing an […]
Gaza: The Untold Story
By RAMZY BAROUD It’s incomprehensible that a region such as the Gaza Strip, so rich with history, so saturated with defiance, can be reduced to a few blurbs, sound bites and reductionist assumptions, convenient but deceptive, vacant of any relevant meaning, or even true analytical value. The fact is that there is more to the […]
Gaza: Salvation in a News Broadcast
By RAMZY BAROUD When Gaza’s electricity is in working order, most Palestinians in the impoverished and overcrowded Strip huddle around their television screens. It’s neither "American Idol" nor "Dancing with the Stars" that brings them together. It’s the news. Gazans’ relationship to news media is both complex and unique. Like most Palestinians everywhere, they intently […]
A Third Palestinian Intifada in the Making
By RAMZY BAROUD At a recent conference I was repeatedly asked about the prospects for a third Palestinian uprising, or Intifada. The question, although seemingly uncomplicated, is both loaded and important, and cannot be answered in a mere two minutes or less. A ‘third Intifada’ would imply that the second has already ended. But has […]
Europe and the Middle East: Will EU Be a More Just Mediator?
By RAMZY BAROUD Europe has showed greater willingness in recent months to play a larger part in the Middle East’s most protracted conflict, that of Israel and Palestine. But willingness doesn’t necessarily indicate readiness. For the European Union (EU) to be truly ready to take on a conflict of such magnitude, it must fully and […]
Marathon for Children: Running for the Right to Play
By RAMZY BAROUD I was ecstatic as I read an email sent by a manager at a Canadian toy company. The company donates a large number of toys each year to inner city kids throughout North America, using various NGOs. A few years ago, they decided to ship several thousand toys to Palestinian children. They […]
Palestinian Economy: From Bad to Wretched
By RAMZY BAROUD The numbers are grim, whether in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian economy is in one of its most wretched states, and the disaster is mostly, if not entirely manmade, thus reversible. The World Bank made no secret of the fact that Israeli restrictions are largely to blame, as […]
Palestinian Unity: Goal or Mantra?
By RAMZY BAROUD Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa used exceptionally tough language during a Cairo news conference 9 September, when he lashed out at Palestinian factionalism, saying that the League is going as far as studying the possibility of imposing sanctions on quarrelling Palestinians. "I am extremely angry with the Palestinian organisations… We are studying […]
United by Misery: Two Boys from Gaza and Nilin
By RAMZY BAROUD Ahmed Moussa was a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bank village of Nilin, near Ramallah. Mohamed Bahloul is a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from Gaza City. The former was shot and killed 29 July by Israeli forces following a peaceful protest against the Israeli apartheid wall. The latter is awaiting death in […]
How a Tiny Village Took on the Zionist Militants
By RAMZY BAROUD For some folks interested in genealogy, tracing one’s roots is a stimulating activity. It’s immensely interesting and meaningful to learn where one’s life started. DNA testing has made it possible to trace one’s roots back many generations and there are even free web sites that can help users trace their family history […]
On Humiliation, and Gaza’s Dying Children
By RAMZY BAROUD A six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza was killed by Israeli fire on 12 June. "Medics say the girl was decapitated by a [tank] shell," Associated Press (AP) reported the next day. The Israeli military said the soldiers opened fire in retaliation against "militants launching rockets into Israel". AP dispassionately elaborated that, "Gaza […]
One State: Coexistence, Not Apartheid
By RAMZY BAROUD For the last 60 years, all those who have sought a genuinely peaceful and fair solution for Israel and Palestine have faced the same obstacle — Israel’s sense of invincibility and military arrogance, abetted by the US and other Western governments’ unwavering support. Despite recent setbacks on the military front, the Israeli […]
An Irreducible Fact: 60 Years of Denial
By RAMZY BAROUD Don’t ask for what you never had,’ is the underlying message made by supporters of Israel when they claim Palestine was never a state to begin with. The contention is, of course, easily refutable. Following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, colonial powers plotted to divide the […]
Mixed Priorities: Why Palestinian Unity is Not an Option
By RAMZY BAROUD Just days after the Hamas-Fatah clash last June in Gaza, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looked firm and composed as he shook hands with members of his new emergency government. He made sure his move appeared as legitimate as possible, issuing decrees that outlawed the armed militias of Hamas, and also suspended […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Palestine: Demoralisation and Absence
By RAMZY BAROUD A once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians are killing each other". Feeling his words have ceased to carry weight he simply decided not "to take sides". What should be made of such a reaction? Granted, what has transpired in Palestine […]
Haider Abdul-Shafi: Passing Undefeated
By RAMZY BAROUD The recent death of Haider Abdul-Shafi could not have come at a worse time. Bearing in mind the grim shortcomings of the Palestinian leadership and the lack of any serious attempt to rectify the situation, the loss of this unique and iconic leader feels all the more acute. Here was someone who […]
Opportunism Trumps in Palestine
By RAMZY BAROUD The rash and self-defeatist behaviour emanating from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his close circle in the West Bank cannot possibly be intended for the benefit of the Palestinian people or for their internationally sanctioned struggle for human rights, freedom and equality. Abbas, and his self-serving Palestinian elites seem hell-bent on […]
A Palestinian Miracle at the UN?
By RAMZY BAROUD For 62 years since the foundation of the United Nations’ Security Council, the Palestinians did not manage to have any kind of sway that would allow them to block or amend a proposed resolution in any meaningful way. But miracles do indeed happen, as, for the first time, and after days of […]
The Palestinian Left: A Lost Opportunity
By RAMZY BAROUD When Hamas members were elected as the majority bloc of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and as it became apparent that a US-led international embargo would be an adjoining price to that victory, I contacted many intellectuals and writers in Palestine, mostly those who often positioned themselves as part of the Palestinian Left. […]
Finding Lessons in Gaza’s Bloodshed
By RAMZY BAROUD The Hamas-Fatah clash that has culminated into a mini-civil war in recent weeks is both old and new, and while some of its elements are uniquely Palestinian, much of it was manufactured at the behest of US-Israeli intelligence and governments. The tensions between Fatah and Hamas are decades old. Fatah has – […]
Democracy Defeated
By RAMZY BAROUD All my forewarnings have suddenly been actualised, all at once: Gaza has descended into total and utter chaos; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred of reservation; and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to […]
For Boycott to Be Effective, an International Coalition Is Indispensable
By RAMZY BAROUD South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils whispered to me as I sat down following a most enthusiastic speech I gave at a recent conference in Cape Town: "if you want the world to heed to your call for boycotting Israel, the call has to originate from the Palestinian leadership itself." Kasrils […]
Not an Intellectual Squabble
By RAMZY BAROUD In a spacious yet fortified United Nations compound in Rome, members of a Palestine committee at the General Assembly repeated old mantras: vowed support for Palestinians, issued a Press release and went for lunch. The committee consisted of several UN ambassadors; all well-intended, sympathetic and concerned; nonetheless, they also knew too well […]
