By Ramzy Baroud There is a possibility that you have heard of the famed British author, J.K. Rowling, writer of the popular fantasy series ‘Harry Potter’. While I knew of her books – through my teenage kids – I knew little about the author herself, until recently. Using generalised, ambiguous terminology that offered little by way of compelling Israel to …
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“ART4LIVES” workshops to help refugee children to cope with war in Syria
In Lebanon ,The Phd candidate and psychologist Lara Kalaf, launched a crowd funding campaign on indiegogo to finance a new psychosocial support program for refugee children called “ART4LIVES”. These artistic workshops will teach participant refugee children a realistic ways to cope with the negative consequences of the war in Syria . what called the psychological resilience is the best way …
Read More »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 in addressing the root causes …
Read More »Yemen Alert: Seize the Chance to End the Conflict
Crisis Group International : The military tide has turned against Huthi fighters in Yemen. Emboldened by recent gains, the Saudi-led coalition has started to push into the centre of the country from Aden, the southern port city taken in mid-July, and may even attempt to capture the capital, Sanaa, further north. To avoid a new and potentially more deadly phase …
Read More »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 course, violence meted out …
Read More »Why Palestinians Fight Back: The Logic of Life and Death in Gaza
By: Ramzy Baroud Another row is brewing between Israel and the Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas, over the release of Avraham Mengitsu, an Israeli citizen who, according to Israeli military sources, ‘slipped into Gaza’ on September 7, 2014. The circumstances of Mengitsu’s entry into Gaza remain unclear, especially since Hamas’ political leader,Khaled Mashaal, denied that the military wing of Hamas is …
Read More »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 himself. He read the translated …
Read More »‘I Can’t Believe I’ve Lost My Family’
Human Rights Watch By: Belkis Wille Walid al-Ibbi, 35, a barber from Saada city in northwest Yemen, is one of only four members of his family left alive. A few days ago, he sat with me in a garden in Sanaa, the capital, sharing pictures of his late wife and daughters. Over and over he repeated the words, “I can’t believe …
Read More »The Collapse of the Obama Doctrine: Yemen War as an Opportunity?
By Ramzy Baroud To suggest that the United States policies in Yemen was 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 terrorist. But now that a civil …
Read More »‘Islamic State’ as a Western Phenomenon? Reimagining the IS Debate
By Ramzy Baroud No matter how one attempts to wrangle with the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) rise in Iraq and Syria, desperately seeking any political or other context that would validate the movement as an explainable historical circumstance, things refuse to add up. Not only is IS to a degree an alien movement in the larger body politic of the …
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