Palestinians ‘are not animals in a zoo’

A Palestinian refugee stands next to graffiti depicting Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani with Arabic that reads his name and “I will not renounce before planting my paradise on earth,” while marking “Nakba” or Catastrophe day in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, May 15, 2016. Nasser Nasser / AP.

By Ramzy Baroud

Redefining the role of the ‘victim intellectual’

Years before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, U.S. media introduced many new characters, promoting them as “experts” who helped ratchet up propaganda, ultimately allowing the U.S. government to secure enough popular support for the war.

This Day. When the people rose: how the Intifada changed the political discourse around Palestine

The true accomplishment of the Intifada is the fact that it almost entirely changed the nature of the political equation pertaining to Palestine, imposing the ‘Palestinian people’, not as a cliche used by the Palestinian leadership and Arab governments to secure for themselves a degree of political legitimacy, but as an actual political actor | RAMZY BAROUD

Hossam el-Hamalawy – CC BY 2.0

December 8 came and went as if it was an ordinary day. For Palestinian political groups, it was another anniversary to be commemorated, however hastily. It was on this day, thirty-three years ago, that the First Palestinian Intifada (uprising) broke out, and there was nothing ordinary about this historic event.

Ecalating the demographic war: The strategic goal of Israeli racism in Palestine

By Ramzy Baroud

Surviving a quarantine: On faith, humour and ‘Dutch candy’

Seven lessons from Palestine on surviving lockdown | Ramzy Baroud

Empty streets and closed shops are seen after a curfew was announced by authorities as a measure against coronavirus (COVID-19), in Ramallah, West Bank on March 23, 2020 | Issam Rimawi / Anadolu Agency.

(April 5) – Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Breaking with Washington: Arabs and Muslims must take a stance for Palestine

By RAMZY BAROUD

(February 12) – A negotiated solution to the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’, at least the way envisaged by successive US administrations, has failed. Now, Palestinians and their allies would have to explore a whole new path of liberation that does not go through Washington.

It is easy to place all the blame on the current US administration, setting apart dodgy characters such as the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as the man who has single-handedly diminished any real chances for a just peace in Palestine and Israel.

Embracing Palestine: How to combat Israel’s misuse of ‘antisemitism’

Palestinians head towards eastern border of Gaza strip to participate in weekly Great Return March protests under the slogan “Normalization with Israel is a crime and betrayal.”

By RAMZY BAROUD

I find it puzzling, indeed disturbing, that Israel, directly or otherwise, is able to determine the nature of any discussion on Palestine in the West, not only within typical mainstream platforms but within pro-Palestinian circles as well. 

At a talk I delivered in Northern England in March 2018, I proposed that the best response to falsified accusations of antisemitism, which are often lobbed against pro-Palestinian communities and intellectuals everywhere, is to draw even closer to the Palestinian narrative.

The war on innocence: Palestinian children in Israeli military court

By RAMZY BAROUD*

The process in which Palestinian children are callously arrested –
infographic prepared by the moqawama website to visualize the scene | Click to enlarge

On July 29, 4-year-old Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan was reportedly summoned for interrogation by the Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem.

Kushner as a colonial administrator: Let’s talk about the “Israeli model”

Endless futile attempts to negate Palestinians’ right to be | RAMZY BAROUD

In a TV interview on June 2, on the news docu-series Axios on the HBO channel, Jared Kushner opened up regarding many issues, in which his “Deal of the Century” was a prime focus.

The major revelation made by Kushner, President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, was least surprising. Kushner believes that Palestinians are not capable of governing themselves.

Trump’s Deal of the Century: Resurrecting the PLO Is Palestine’s best response

Protest in Gaza City, March 6, 2019, against Trump’s “Deal of the Century.”

By RAMZY BAROUD

Palestinian groups, Fatah, Hamas and others should not confine themselves to merely rejecting the Trump Administration’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century.’ Instead, they should use their resistance to the new American-Israeli plot as an opportunity to unify their ranks.

Deal of the century? Which century?

Why Palestinians will see through the latest U.S. illusion of a Middle East “peace process.” | As’ad AbuKhalil.

There is great speculation about the “Deal of the Century” for the Middle East, about which very little is known. What is known is that the Trump administration formulated the plan basically through bilateral talks with the Israeli government, as the Palestinian Authority has refused to talk to the Trump administration since the relocation of the U.S. embassy from occupied Jaffa (Tel Aviv) to occupied Jerusalem.

The moral travesty of Israel seeking Arab, Iranian money for its alleged Nakba

The Great March of Return of the Palestine people, Land Day, March 30, 2018.

by RAMZY BAROUD* 

The game is afoot. Israel, believe it or not, is demanding that seven Arab countries and Iran pay $250 billion as compensation for what it claims was the forceful exodus of Jews from Arab countries during the late 1940s.

The real face of Justin Trudeau: Are Palestinians Canada’s new Jews?

The Canadian government’s cause is not defence of the Jewish people but defence of the Zionist project. Its aim is not the political and social equality of Jews in all countries but to take over all of Palestine and promote the emigration of Jews from their countries to take up residence in the settlements in Palestine.

 

By RAMZY BAROUD*

Trudeau and his government will certainly be judged by future generations, as his predecessors were judged for their past sins, for choosing, despite the passage of time, to stand on the wrong side of history.

How does one explain Canada’s contradictory foreign policy regarding Palestine and Israel?

‘Deal of the century’ is not new and Palestinian Authority leadership is not a victim

Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” will fail. Palestinians will not exchange their 70-year long struggle for freedom for Jared Kushner’s cash; nor will Israel accept it even if there is a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank | RAMZY BAROUD

Protest in Ramallah, July 2, 2018, against U.S. “peace plan”

How Britain destroyed the Palestinian homeland

The Road to Nowhere by Ismail Shammout 1930-2006. He was expelled from Lydda in 1948. The plight of the refugees is depicted in many of his most famous paintings. (Displaced Palestinians)

By RAMZY BAROUD*

When I was a child growing up in a Gaza refugee camp, I looked forward to November 2. On that day, every year, thousands of students and camp residents would descend upon the main square of the camp, carrying Palestinian flags and placards, to denounce the Balfour Declaration.

Truthfully, my giddiness then was motivated largely by the fact that schools would inevitably shut down and, following a brief but bloody confrontation with the Israeli army, I would go home early to the loving embrace of my mother, where I would eat a snack and watch cartoons.

At the time, I had no idea who Balfour actually was, and how his “declaration” all those years ago had altered the destiny of my family and, by extension, my life and the lives of my children as well.

How impunity defines Israel and victimizes Palestinians

Israeli security forces confront Land Day protest near Nablus, March 30, 2016. (Click to enlarge)

by RAMZY BAROD*

Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif was killed. In the style typical of Israeli aggression against unarmed Palestinians, he was first wounded after allegedly attempting to stab an Israel occupation soldier in the occupied city of Hebron.

What this world needs is some really honest journalists

By RAMZY BAROUD*

(June 10) – Writing about and reporting the Middle East is not an easy task, especially during these years of turmoil and upheaval. But I cannot remember another time in recent history we needed journalists to shine, to challenge conventional wisdom, to think in terms of contexts, motives, alliances, not ideological, political or financial interests.

Why 2014 was a game changer in Palestine

RAMZY BAROUD*, Palestine Chronicle

In terms of losses in human lives, 2014 has been a horrific year for Palestinians, surpassing the horrors of both 2008 and 2009, when an Israeli war against the Gaza Strip killed and wounded thousands.

While some aspects of the conflict are stagnating between a corrupt, ineffectual Palestinian Authority (PA), and the criminality of Israeli wars and occupation, it would also be fair to argue that 2014 was a game changer to some degree — and it is not all bad news.

Case of missing youth used to undermine Palestinian unity government

Left to right: Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaer, Naftali Frankel

We are posting below excerpts from a June 16 item by Ramzy Baroud published in the Palestine Chronicle. Although written before the Zionists’ disinformation about the three missing Israeli youth came to light, the item outlines attempts of the Netanyahu government’s to manipulate the situation for self-serving reasons to undermine the unity of the Palestinian people, specifically the newly formed unity government between Hamas and Fatah.

Iraq at the brink: A decade after the invasion

By RAMZY BAROUD

SOON AFTER the joint US-British bombing campaign “Operation Desert Fox” devastated parts of Iraq in December 1998, I was complaining to a friend in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

I was disappointed with the fact that our busy schedule in Iraq – mostly visiting hospitals packed with injured or Depleted Uranium Victims – left me no time to purchase a few Arabic books for my little daughter back in the states. As I got ready to embark on the long bus journey back to Jordan, an Iraqi man with a thick moustache and a carefully designed beard approached me. “This is for your daughter,” he said with a smile as he handed me a plastic bag. The bag included over a dozen books with colourful images of traditional Iraqi children stories. I had never met that man before, nor did we ever meet again. He was a guest at the hotel and somehow he learned of my dilemma. As I profusely, but hurriedly thanked him before taking my seat on the bus, he insisted that no such words were needed. “We are brothers and your daughter is like my own,” he said.