By Ramzy Baroud

In Trafalgar Square in London, dozens of journalists representing every major news organization descended on a designated corner in the tourist infested area in support of Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent kidnapped in Gaza on March 12, 2006, one month after his ordeal began.

By Ramzy Baroud

In a spacious yet fortified UN compound in Rome members of the Palestine committee at the General Assembly repeated old mantras; they vowed support for the Palestinians, issued a press release and then went to lunch.

The committee consisted of several UN ambassadors, all well-intended, sympathetic and concerned; they also knew well that their efforts were more or less futile. One of the ambassadors, of a country not so friendly by American standards, exclaimed: "No matter how hard we try, America blocks our efforts."

By Ramzy Baroud

Growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, it was a very
familiar encounter: Israeli soldiers storming our house accompanied by
shouts of terror and a barrage of insults. Such recollections make me
shudder to this day.

Just the mere summoning of those memories of my childhood in the Nuseirat
refugee camp haunting me not only in childhood but in my adulthood as well,
shall most likely accompany me for the rest of my life - almost
instantaneously forcing me to relive my mother’s agonizing cries, my