• March 29, 2024
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Middle East

Articles Middle East

Federalism is a Pandora’s Box; if Syria Succumbs to It, Others Will Follow

By Ramzy Baroud  The apparently sudden Russian military withdrawal from Syria, starting on 15 March, left political commentators puzzled, but few of the analyses offered should be taken seriously. There is little solid information about why the Russian leader decided to end his country’s military push in Syria. The intervention, which began last September, was […]

Articles Middle East

‘Plan B’ – Not an Enigma: Why the West is Keen on Dividing the Arabs

By Ramzy Baroud When Arab streets exploded with fury, from Tunis to Sanaa, pan-Arabism seemed, then, like a nominal notion. Neither did the so-called ‘Jasmine Revolution’ use slogans that affirmed its Arab identity, nor did angry Egyptian youth raise the banner proclaiming Arab unity atop the high buildings adjacent to Tahrir Square. Oddly, the Arabism […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

Why We Must Transcend the Clinton-Sanders Debate: The Middle East in US Foreign Policy

By Ramzy Baroud  As US liberals and some leftists are pulling up their sleeves in anticipation of a prolonged battle for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, the tussle becomes particularly ugly whenever the candidates’ foreign policy agendas are evoked. Of the two main contenders, Hilary Clinton is the obvious target. She is an interventionist, uncompromisingly, […]

Articles Media Middle East Palestine/Israel

Journalism in Times of Conflict, Occupation and Political Strife – FOA Interview with Ramzy Baroud

FOA speaks to media consultant, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle, Ramzy Baroud about his tips and tricks of the trade and the importance of journalism and media in times of conflict, occupation and political strife. Social media and digital media has become a driving force for the future and the rise of citizen journalism […]

Articles Middle East Palestine/Israel

Why is Trauma Missing from Syria Refugee Debate?

By Ramzy Baroud  The 12 million Syrian refugees may differ regarding the reasons why they had to flee their homes and country in the last five years. Yet, they are united in their plight and in the collective trauma of the violent dislocation they have all experienced. Half of those refugees are estimated to be […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

An Open Letter to Young Muslims Everywhere: The Seed of Triumph in Every Adversity

By Ramzy Baroud  When I was a little boy, I used to dream of being reborn outside the hardship of the Refugee Camp in Gaza, in some other time and place where there were no soldiers, no military occupation, no concentration camps and no daily grind – where my father fought for our very survival, […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

Beware ‘Sunni-Stan’: Neocons are Back and Their ‘Vision’ is Darker than Ever

By Ramzy Baroud  John Bolton is a tarnished character. The once United States Ambassador to the United Nations is now promoted as a ‘scholar’ in the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Bolton is not a peacemaker, nor, in his defense, did he ever try to appear as if one. When he was […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

Forget Daesh: Humanity is at Stake

By Ramzy Baroud I still remember that smug look on his face, followed by the matter-of-fact remarks that had western journalists laugh out loud. “I’m now going to show you a picture of the luckiest man in Iraq,” General Norman Schwarzkopf, known as ‘Stormin’ Norman, said at a press conference sometime in 1991, as he […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

Remaking the Middle East: How the US Grew Tired and Less Relevant

By Ramzy Baroud  US Secretary of State John Kerry is often perceived as one of the “good guys”, the less hawkish of top American officials, who does not simply promote and defend his country’s military adventurism but reaches out to others, beyond polarizing rhetoric. His unremitting efforts culminated partly in the Iran nuclear framework agreement […]

Articles Middle East Palestine/Israel

Ramzy Baroud: Palestine Remains the Core Struggle in the Middle East

Interviewed by Info-Palestine (This interview was originally published in French.) Info-Palestine: Our interview with Ramzy Baroud is concerned with the situation in Palestine, the raging conflicts in the Middle East and the role of the International Solidarity Movement. — Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is […]

Articles Media Middle East

Listen to Syrians: The Media Jackals and the People’s Narrative

By Ramzy Baroud Imagine the Syrian war from the point of view of ordinary Syrians from a variety of backgrounds. They are most likely to offer a different perspective and to hold entirely different expectations than most other parties involved. A resident of Idlib, a villager from Deraa, a housewife, a teacher, a nurse or […]

Articles Media Middle East

Seven Points Not on the Arab Media Agenda – What is There to Celebrate?

By Ramzy Baroud It has been recently announced that Arab ‘media experts’ plan to ‘celebrate’ Arab Media Day on April 21, 2016. The theme for the first day, of what is meant to be an annual tradition, is: “The Role of the (Arab) Media in Combatting Terrorism”. The mockery is surely multi-faceted. One is the […]

Articles Middle East Palestine/Israel

How Yarmouk Came About: Israel’s Unabashed Role in the Syrian Refugee Crisis

By Ramzy Baroud When Zionist Haganah militias carried out Operation Yiftach on 19 May, 1948, the aim was to drive Palestinians in the northern Safad District outside the border of Israel, which had declared its independence a mere five days earlier. The ethnic cleansing of Safad and its many villages was not unique to that […]

Articles Media Middle East

Huffington Post Arabic and the Absurdity of ‘Liberal’ Expectations

By Ramzy Baroud What does it mean to be a ‘liberal Arab’? Even in the West, definitions of the ‘liberal’ vary. In the American context, the demarcation of the ‘liberal’ overlaps cultural and political lines. Republicans use the term in a derogatory way to describe their opponents. Watch ‘Fox News’ to understand. (On second thought, […]

Articles Middle East

‘Islamic State’ Pretence and the Upcoming Wars in Libya

By Ramzy Baroud Another war is in the making in Libya: the questions are ‘how’ and ‘when’? While the prospect of another military showdown is unlikely to deliver Libya from its current security upheaval and political conflict, it is likely to change the very nature of conflict in that rich, but divided, Arab country. An […]

Articles Global Affairs Media Middle East

Misreading the Refugee Crisis

By Ramzy Baroud So far this year, “nearly one quarter of a million migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe”, reported Al Jazeera’s Inside Story, citing the International Organisation for Migration. The situation is indeed bleak, not only because the number of refugees is constantly on the rise, but also because Europe appears rather disinterested […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

War Begets War Refugees: The Moral Bankruptcy of Italy and NATO

By Ramzy Baroud On April 26, 2011, a meeting that can only be described as sinister took place between the then Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The most pressing issue discussed at the meeting in Rome was how to deal with African immigrants. Sarkozy, who was under pressure from his […]

Articles Media Middle East

Shifting Priorities: The Rise and Fall of Arab Revolutionary Discourse

By Ramzy Baroud Strange how intellectual discussion concerning the so-called “Arab Spring” has almost entirely shifted in recent years – from one concerning freedom, justice, democracy and rights in general, into a political wrangle between various antagonist camps. The people, who revolted across various Arab countries are now marginalized in this discussion, and are only […]

Articles Middle East

Darker Horizons Ahead: Rethinking the War on ‘IS’

By Ramzy Baroud As much of the Middle East sinks deeper into division between competing political camps, the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (‘IS’) continues its unhindered march towards a twisted version of a Muslim caliphate. Many thousands have lost their lives, some in the most torturous ways, so that ‘IS’ may realize its nightmarish dream. Of […]

Articles Middle East

A Chance for Arab-Iranian Reconciliation: An Opportunity in the Iran Nuclear Deal

By Ramzy Baroud “The Americans have taken the Shia Muslim side in the Middle East’s sectarian war,” declared Robert Fisk in the “Independent” newspaper on July 15, a day after the US and five major world powers reached a landmark agreement with Iran about its nuclear programs. Fisk’s proclamation is quite cursory. Aside from the […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

The B Vocabulary: The Western Left and Its Sterile ‘Field of Ideas’

By Ramzy Baroud Over the year, I realized that the term ‘left’ is not exclusive to a political ideology, but a mode of thinking championed mostly by self-tailored ‘leftist’ western intellectuals. I grew to dislike it with intensity. But that has not always been the case. My father was a communist, or so he called […]

Articles Middle East

Just Politics: Iran, Like the Rest, Is Not Blameless

By Ramzy Baroud When the United States government declared its war on Afghanistan in October 2001, thus taking the first step in its so-called ‘war on terror’, following the devastating attacks of September 11 earlier that year, Iran jumped on board. Then Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, dubbed a reformist, provided substantial assistance in the US […]

Articles Middle East Palestine/Israel

The Arab Boat: It’s an Arab-Palestinian Nakba, and We Are All Refugees

By Ramzy Baroud In a western capital far away from Gaza and Cairo, I recently shared a pot of tea with an “Egyptian refugee”. The term is familiar to me, but never have I encountered an Egyptian who refers to himself as such. He stated it as a matter of fact by saying: “As an […]

Articles Middle East

No Arab Bolivars: As Region Implodes, Arab Socialism Fizzles out

By Ramzy Baroud A student group recently asked me to address socialism in the Arab world. This with the assumption that there is indeed such a movement capable of overhauling inherently incompetent and utterly corrupt regimes across the region. But today such a group, or configuration of socialist groups, exists only in name. I recall […]

Articles Middle East Palestine/Israel

Stuck in Area A: How We Were Duped into Disowning the Palestinians

By Ramzy Baroud Are you surprised that there has been little mobilisation to help Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, which is overrun by militants, and besieged by the Syrian army? Palestinians – and Syrians – there are killed in a myriad of ways, including starvation. As we stand and watch […]

Articles Middle East Palestine/Israel

My Missing Family in Syria: Naming and Shaming in Yarmouk

By Ramzy Baroud Members of my family in Syria’s Yarmouk went missing many months ago. We have no idea who is dead and who is alive. Unlike my other uncle and his children in Libya, who fled the NATO war and turned up alive but hiding in some desert a few months later, my uncle’s […]

Articles Middle East

¿La guerra del Yemen como oportunidad?

Ramzy Baroud Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Sinfo Fernández. Sugerir que las políticas de EEUU en Yemen han sido un “fracaso” sería un eufemismo. Implicaría que EEUU habría tratado al menos de conseguir el éxito. Pero “éxito”, ¿en qué? La guerra estadounidense con aviones no tripulados no tenía otro objetivo más que celebrar la […]

Articles Global Affairs Middle East

The Collapse of the Obama Doctrine: Yemen War as an Opportunity?

By Ramzy Baroud To suggest that the United States policies in Yemen were a “failure” is an understatement. It implies that the US had at least attempted to succeed. But “succeed” at what? The US drone war had no other objective aside from celebrating the elimination of whomever the US hit list designates as a terrorist. But […]

Articles Middle East

El Estado Islámico, ¿un fenómeno de Occidente?

Ramzy Baroud – Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Sinfo Fernández. Parece como si los dirigentes del denominado “Estado Islámico” (EI) estuvieran recibiendo consejos de los principales islamófobos del mundo a fin de demonizar a los musulmanes y estuvieran tratando de vivir cumpliendo las expectativas de organizaciones dedicadas a propagar el odio como la American […]

Articles Middle East

‘Islamic State’ as a Western Phenomenon: Reimagining the IS Debate

By Ramzy Baroud It is as if leaders of the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) are getting tips on demonising Muslims from world leading Islamophobes and as if they are trying to live up to the expectations of hate-mongering organisations like that of Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, whose latest ads all over San Francisco […]