By Ramzy Baroud 15 years after the passing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian people continue to reflect on his legacy. Thousands of images of “Abu Ammar” have been shared across numerous social media platforms remembering a man whose nom de guerre has been affiliated with the Palestinian struggle for decades. Arafat’s legacy, however, […]
By Ramzy Baroud An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent, and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when”. The answer came on November 12, when […]
By Ramzy Baroud Palestine’s Christian population is dwindling at an alarming rate. The world’s most ancient Christian community is moving elsewhere. And the reason for this is Israel. Christian leaders from Palestine and South Africa sounded the alarm at a conference in Johannesburg on October 15. Their gathering was titled: “The Holy Land: A Palestinian Christian Perspective”. […]
By Ramzy Baroud The call by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for elections in the Occupied Territories is a political ploy. There will be no true, democratic elections under Abbas’ leadership. The real question is: why did he make the call in the first place? On September 26, Abbas took on the world’s most important […]
By Ramzy Baroud The Israeli Apartheid Wall, which is being built largely on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, once more underscores the ugliness of military occupation. As such, it truly epitomizes the nature of Israeli apartheid and also delineates the siege-driven, isolationist mentality that dominates the ruling-class thinking in Israel. Even years before the establishment […]
By Ramzy Baroud On September 16, I visited South Africa, a country where many Palestinians have always felt welcomed, if not overwhelmed by the degree of genuine and meaningful solidarity. While having the honor to address many audiences in six, major cities, I have also learned a great deal. An important and sobering lesson is that while […]
By Ramzy Baroud Experience has taught Palestinians not to pay heed to Israeli elections. But to every rule, there is an exception. Although it is still true that no Israeli Zionist leader has ever been kind to the Palestinian people, the dynamics of the latest Israeli elections on September 17 are likely to affect the […]
By Ramzy Baroud On May 4, Israel launched a series of deadly airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, prompting a response from various resistance groups. At least 25 Palestinians were killed and nearly 200 people wounded in the Israeli attacks. Four Israelis were also killed by Palestinian rockets. The clashes were instigated by Israel, when the Israeli military […]
By Ramzy Baroud As the 300-foot spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris tragically came tumbling down on live television, my thoughts ventured to Nuseirat Refugee Camp, my childhood home in the Gaza Strip. Then, also on television, I watched as a small bulldozer hopelessly clawed through the rubble of my neighborhood mosque. I grew […]
By Ramzy Baroud The aims of the Great March of Return protests, which began in Gaza on March 30 last year, are to put an end to the suffocating Israeli siege and implement the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes and towns in historic Palestine 70 years ago. But […]
By Ramzy Baroud Five years after spearheading what is inaptly referred to as a ‘government of national reconciliation’, Palestinian Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah, has finally resigned. “We put our government at the disposal of President Mahmoud Abbas, and we welcome the recommendations of the Fatah Central Committee to form a new government,” Hamdallah tweeted, shortly […]
By Ramzy Baroud When Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered his army to carry out a limited operation in the besieged Gaza Strip on November 12, he certainly did not anticipate that his military adventure would destabilize his government and threaten the very survival of his right-wing coalition. But it did, far more than the […]
By Ramzy Baroud As the frail body of 12-year-old Nassir Al-Mosabeh fell to the ground on Friday, September 28, history was repeating itself most tragically. Little Nassir was not just another number, a ‘martyr’ to be exalted by equally poor refugees in Gaza, or vilified by Israel and its tireless hasbara machine. He was much […]
By Ramzy Baroud Israel wants to change the rules of the game entirely. With unconditional support from the Trump Administration, Tel Aviv sees a golden opportunity to redefine what has, for decades, constituted the legal and political foundation for the so-called ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict.’ While US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has, thus far, been erratic […]
By Ramzy Baroud Hanan al-Khoudari resorted to Facebook in a cry for help when Israeli authorities rejected her request to accompany her three-year-old son, Louay, to his chemotherapy treatment in East Jerusalem. The boy is suffering from an ‘aggressive soft tissue sarcoma’. Israeli authorities then justified their decision based on a vague claim that one […]
By Ramzy Baroud On Sunday, August 12, news from Gaza was distressing: The Ministry of Health announced that it would no longer be able to treat cancer patients in the Israel-besieged Strip. “Colon and lung cancer, as well as lymphoma patients, cannot be provided with the necessary therapy now,” said Dr. Mohammed Abu Silmiya, director […]
By Ramzy Baroud When Mike Treen, the national director of the Unite Union in New Zealand, arrived at the airport in the capital, Auckland, on 1 August, a group of people was anxiously waiting for him at the terminal with Palestinian flags and flowers. They hugged him, chanted for Palestinian freedom and performed the customary native […]
By Ramzy Baroud The father of 11-year-old, Abdul Rahman Nofal contacted me, asking for help. His son was shot in the leg during Gaza’s ‘Great March of Return’ protests. The Strip’s dilapidated health care system could not save the little boy’s leg, as it was later amputated. His father, Yamen, himself a young man from the Buraij […]
By Ramzy Baroud This past May, the United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced the government’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy at US border crossings. It was a matter of weeks before the new policy began yielding tragic outcomes. Those attempting to unlawfully cross into the US were subject to federal criminal prosecution, while their children were […]
By Ramzy Baroud June 5, 2018, marks the 51st anniversary of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. But, unlike the massive popular mobilization that preceded the anniversary of the Nakba – the catastrophic destruction of Palestine in 1948 – on 15 May the anniversary of the occupation is hardly generating equal mobilization. The unsurprising death of the ‘peace […]