- December 23, 2024
Palestine/Israel
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 […]
Articulating a Just Peace: Whose Responsibility?
By RAMZY BAROUD [From a speech for Stockholm Conference 16-19 March 2007] In my speech today, I will refrain from stating the obvious: those who are yet to recognize the injustices committed daily against the Palestinian people, have either succumbed completely to Israel’s propaganda or are simply uninterested in the whole matter. Although confronting both […]
Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle
By RAMZY BAROUD It’s never easy to admit that the Palestinian front, both at home and abroad, remains as fragmented and self-consumed, thus ineffective, as ever before, and got worse during the disastrous post-Oslo period. Such realisation wouldn’t mean much if the inference concerned any other polity; but when it’s made in regards to a […]
The Makkah Agreement: What Should We Expect?
By RAMZY BAROUD The Makkah agreement, signed between rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah on February 8, under the auspices of the Saudi leadership, was welcomed by thousands of cheering Palestinians throughout the occupied territories, and seen as the closing of a chapter of a bloody and tumultuous period of their history. Officially, although more […]
Shameless in Gaza: Inching Toward a Palestinian Civil War
By RAMZY BAROUD The most recent fighting in the Gaza Strip, which has left many people dead, confirms that the internal strife plaguing the Occupied Territories since the advent of Hamas to power in January 2006 was not entirely the outcome of outside meddling in Palestinian affairs. It is, in most part a violent expression […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
