Author's Posts
Without Palestine, there is no Arab unity: Why normalization with Israel will fail
August 14th, 20220 It seemed all but a done deal: Israel is finally managing to bend the Arabs to its will, and Palestine is becoming a marginal issue that no longer defines Israel’s relations with Arab countries. Indeed, normalization with Israel is afoot, and the Arabs, so it seems, have been finally tamed. Not so fast. Many events continue to...
Why resistance matters: Palestinians are challenging Israel’s unilateralism, dominance
August 5th, 20220 Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides. Now that Israelis are embarking on...
Washington is the problem, not the solution: Why Mahmoud Abbas is seeking new “powerful” sponsors
July 28th, 20220 To judge U.S. President Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a “failure” in terms of activating the dormant “peace process” is simply a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian...
The shameful U.N. “List of Shame”: Equating between the Israeli perpetrator and the Palestinian victim
July 23rd, 20220 By Ramzy Baroud “We regret we failed to protect you.” This was part of a statement issued by U.N. human rights experts on July 14, urging the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra. Only 14-years-old at the time of his arrest and torture by Israeli forces, Manasra is now 20-years-old. His case is a...
Palestinians “are bound to win”: Why Israelis are prophesying the end of their state
June 19th, 20220 While it is true that Zionism is a modern political ideology that has exploited religion to achieve specific colonial objectives in Palestine, prophecies continue to be a critical component of Israel’s perception of itself, and of the state’s relationship to other groups, especially Christian messianic groups in the United States and...
The ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta: Israel’s new annexation strategy in Palestine
June 6th, 20220 The Israeli Supreme Court has decided that the Palestinian region of Masafer Yatta, located in the southern hills of Hebron, is to be entirely appropriated by the Israeli military and that a population of over 1,000 Palestinians is to be expelled. The Israeli Court decision, on May 4, was hardly shocking. Israel’s military...
Long marginalized, the “Right of Return” is once more a Palestinian priority
May 30th, 20220 The Nakba is back on the Palestinian agenda. For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told that the Nakba — or Catastrophe — is a thing of the past. That real peace requires compromises and sacrifices, therefore, the original sin that has led to the destruction of their historic homeland should be entirely removed from any...
By redefining UNRWA, Washington destroys the foundation for a just peace in Palestine
May 7th, 20220 Palestinians are justifiably worried that the mandate granted to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, might be coming to an end. UNRWA’s mission, which has been in effect since 1949, has done more than provide urgent aid and support to millions of refugees. It was also a political platform that protected and...
Bennett must tread carefully: The “Sword of Jerusalem” could be unleashed again
May 1st, 20220 Starting on April 15, the Israeli occupation army and police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem on a daily basis. Under the pretense of providing protection to provocative “visits” by thousands of illegal Israeli Jewish settlers and right-wing fanatics, the Israeli army has wounded hundreds of Palestinians,...
Palestine’s widening geography of resistance: Why Israel cannot defeat the Palestinians
April 17th, 20221 There is a reason why Israel is insistent on linking the series of attacks carried out by Palestinians recently to a specific location, namely the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. By doing so, the embattled Naftali Bennett’s government can simply order another deadly military operation in Jenin to reassure its citizens...
The billion dollar deal that made Google and Amazon partners in the Israeli occupation of Palestine
March 26th, 20220 “We are anonymous because we fear retaliation.” This sentence was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military. In their letter, the signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...
Weathering the global storm: Why neutrality is not an option for Palestinians
March 21st, 20220 By Ramzy Baroud A new global geopolitical game is in formation and the Middle East, as is often the case, will be directly impacted by it in terms of possible new alliances and resulting power paradigms. While it is too early to fully appreciate the impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war on the region, it is obvious that some...
Africa must not abandon Palestine by granting Israel observer status
February 20th, 20220 The current split in the African Union (AU) over Israel’s Observer membership status is emblematic of a larger conflict that could potentially split the African continent’s largest political institutions. Africa is currently facing one of its most crucial decisions regarding Palestine and Israel. The repercussions of this decision...
The Russians are coming: Are Beijing and Moscow at the cusp of a formal alliance?
February 6th, 20220 By Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo It should matter little to the Chinese that American diplomats and a handful of their Western allies will not be attending the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. What truly matters is that the Russians are coming. The above is not an arbitrary statement. It is supported with facts. According to a...
U.S. doesn’t care for China’s Muslims: Boycotting the Olympics is about global competition
January 28th, 20220 The diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games may go down in history as the official start of the cold war between the U.S., a handful of its allies and China. The American strategy, however, of using boycotts to pressure Beijing in the name of “human rights”, may prove costly in the future. On December......
Coming this 2022: Refugees, democracy and human rights
January 12th, 20220 Although 2021 is now behind us, there are many issues that will linger for a while, or much longer, and will certainly dominate much of the news in 2022 as well. These are but a few of the issues. NATO-Russian brinkmanship Exasperated with NATO expansion and growing ambitions in the Black Sea region, Moscow has decided to challenge...
“Previously unknown massacres”: Why is Israel allowed to own Palestinian history?
December 26th, 20210 Haaretz’s investigative report – "Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in ’48 – and What Israeli Leaders Knew" – is a must-read. It should be particularly read by any person who considers himself a "Zionist" and also by people who, for whatever reason, support Israel, anywhere in the world. “In the village of......
Belgium is on the right track, but Europe has failed Palestine
The Belgian government’s decision on Nov. 25 to label products made in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements is welcome, although it will ultimately prove ineffectual. Belgium has historically shown solidarity with Palestine if compared to other European countries, for example, Britain, Germany and France. From the cancellation of...
We do exist: Why the Palestinian voice should take center stage
November 24th, 20210 At a recent New York event, the president of the Foreign Press Association, Ian Williams, declared, before an approving audience, that it is time “to reclaim the narrative on Palestine.” This phrase — “reclaiming the narrative” — is relatively new to the Palestinian discourse. Years ago, the concept, let alone its...
Bill Gates should know better: How the Israeli occupation ravages the environment in Palestine
November 15th, 20210 Those who are not familiar with how Israel, particularly the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, is actively and irreversibly damaging the environment might reach the erroneous conclusion that Tel Aviv is at the forefront of the global fight against climate change. The reality is the exact opposite. In his speech at the U.N....
Just how does Biden differ from Trump on Palestine?
October 31st, 20210 When Joe Biden was declared the winner in the U.S. elections last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden administration, compared to the brazenly pro-Israel Trump administration, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians, was the conventional wisdom at the time. Hence, unsurprisingly, Palestinian Authority President......
The cultural genocide in Palestine: On Sally Rooney’s decision to Boycott Israel
October 20th, 20210 The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on award-winning Irish novelist Sally Rooney as soon as she declared that she had “chosen not to sell… translation rights of her best-selling novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You to an Israeli-based publishing house.” Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard...
Racial justice vs. the Israel lobby: When being pro-Palestine becomes the new normal
October 7th, 20210 There is an unmistakable shift in American politics regarding Palestine and Israel, a change that is inspired by the way in which many Americans, especially the youth, view the Palestinian struggle and the Israeli occupation. While this shift is yet to translate into tangibly diminishing Israel’s stronghold over the U.S. Congress, it......
The untold story of why Palestinians are divided
October 3rd, 20210 The political division in Palestinian society is deep-rooted and must not be reduced to convenient claims about the “Hamas-Fatah split”, elections, the Oslo accords and subsequent disagreements. The division is linked to events that preceded all of these, and not even the death or incapacitation of the octogenarian Mahmoud Abbas will...
From the “iron wall” to the “villa in the jungle”: Palestinians demolish Israel’s security myths
September 19th, 20210 Twenty-five years before Israel was established on the ruins of historic Palestine, a Russian Jewish Zionist leader, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, argued that a Jewish state in Palestine could only survive if it exists “behind an iron wall” of defense. Jabotinsky was speaking figuratively. However, future Zionist leaders, who embraced......
