Recent content by ibaghdadi

I voted "yes" but here are my thoughts. The US aid of Israel gives the US some sort of leverage when it comes to the actions and excesses of the Israeli government. An argument can be made that the US needs it, for fear that Israel would otherwise do something major & rash that would drag the...

This is something I've always wanted to speak to someone about. Morally, would abruptly ending intervention make up for decades of destroying a region through intervention? So if the US screws up a country for four or five decades through intervention (overtly, by direct action, or covertly, by...

It's probably true that they create wars, but it's incorrect to lay the full blame on the United States. Speaking as an Arab (and someone whose life has been directly affected), let me say that many of the post-2011 problems we faced were Arab-made and not US-made. The main dynamic is the...

I think I'll quote a reply I sent an Israeli FB friend. He had reached out to me shortly after the Arab Spring, three years ago. Note that this isn't empty rhetoric, it's a Palestinian refugee talking to an Israeli of his age & generation. Note that an increasing number of people on both sides...

If we really want to stand for justice and liberty then we can't pick and choose whose rights we defend and whose rights we ignore. I'm tired of this attitude that needs to ask which religion or nationality someone belongs to before deciding whether to sympathize with them or whether to find...

Exactly. Especially the most recent tragedy that has befallen Iraqi Christians. The city of Mosul has just been emptied of Christians for the first time in 1700 years (the work of the ultra-extreme "Islamic State"). And how much international coverage does this get? (I'm actually asking, how...

Allow me to answer your post starting from the last question (which you said wasn't rhetorical.) I've lived all my life in the Middle East and have never stepped foot in a non-Muslim country. My father was born in Jaffa (which is now a suburb of Tel Aviv) but we can't go back there because we're...

Wow. Seems my grandparents were swamp dwellers. That would be a nice conversation opener the next time I speak to my grandmom.

Let a Palestinian whose family have lived in Jaffa to (at least) the seventh generation answer this. Two words: BULL. SHIT. Before the "nationalism" era, Palestinians considered themselves to belong to their respective cities. When asked, they'd say "I'm Yafawi" (from Jaffa), "We're Maqdisis"...

Wow, not sure where to start. First of all, not everyone in Gaza supports Hamas. In fact, right until the recent flare up, 70% of the population of Gaza wanted Hamas to maintain the ceasefire and nearly 60% wanted the unified Palestinian government to renounce all violence (source). However...

As a Palestinian (and a libertarian) whose life has been (and is being) directly affected by this conflict, I felt I'm obliged to comment. Ah, this can get very complex. To start, it puts the cart before the horse. Many Arabs are hostile towards the United States precisely because of its...

My current position in brief: Yes, I believe earth temperatures are getting warmer. Yes, I believe human activity contributed to this, although I'm not sure by how much. No, I do not believe we can do anything about it now. Yes, I believe that it will cause different weather changes in...

I don't see how it belongs here either. I'm here to talk about liberty, not religion. However the fact is that (being an Arab Muslim) I would tend to use different references and talk from a different context (although I'd generally be talking about the same thing as everyone else), and that...

Latest: Israel has confirmed that the soldier is missing, but claim that he's dead and that Hamas has his dead body. This seems to contradict what Hamas said earlier. Hamas hasn't commented yet.

Hi, Amy. The teen who was burned to death wasn't from Gaza, he was from Jerusalem. His cousin (the one beaten unconscious by Israeli police) is from Tampa, FL. Another one of the Israeli soldiers killed is a French national. Also, among the civilians killed in Gaza is a family of seven...