Palestinian journalist: Making one state will solve Middle East crisis

Ramzy Baroud never contemplated throwing a stone at anyone before that day in 1987. He was 14 years old, an age when most American kids are worried about acne and pop quizzes. But Baroud was worried about the safety of young girls in the dusty Gaza Strip refugee camp where he grew up.

• Photos

That day, he and his classmates heard screams from the girls' school down the road. Israeli soldiers, young and inexperienced, intimidating with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, had entered the school and were harassing the students.

Many Palestinian boys are raised to regard their sisters with honor and protect them at all costs. So Baroud and his classmates began running in the direction of the girls' school.

"I couldn't comprehend (going in) the other direction," said Baroud. "I was the only one running without a rock in my hand. My friends said, 'Ramzy, grab a rock!'"

Ramzy grabbed one, threw it at a soldier, then turned and ran. His friend, 14-year-old Ala, did the same. Baroud made it back to school unhurt, but Ala was not as lucky. He was shot in the head. Sixteen years later, he remains in Gaza, his body alive, but his brain severely damaged.

When he was 20, Baroud left Gaza to attend Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. He came to the United States in 1994. Today, he lives in Seattle, where he is editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com, an Internet magazine about the Arab-Israeli conflict that sympathizes with the Palestinians.

Baroud will be in Juneau this week to talk to the Juneau People for Peace and Justice, the Juneau World Affairs Council and University of Alaska-Southeast students.

As a journalist and a Palestinian, Baroud feels the American media show an overwhelming bias toward the Israeli government in their reporting of the conflict, which has resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides. He said that when a 23-year-old Washington peace activist was killed in Gaza by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home, the few news outlets that printed the story vilified the victim.

"When Rachel Corrie was run over by bulldozers, not only did the U.S. media fail to mention much of the story, but they also blamed her for her own death," Baroud said.

Baroud earned a master's degree in communication from the University of Washington. He edited the book, "Searching Jenin, Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion," and his columns were published, translated or reviewed by newspapers that included the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds, the Guardian and the Jerusalem Post. He now plans to move to Qatar to take a job with Al Jazeera, the Arab news outlets that has broadcast tapes of Osama bin Laden.

Baroud says the only real chance for peace may lie in a one-state solution.

"Many of my colleagues, Palestinians and otherwise, do not endorse that idea. They think it's far-fetched," Baroud said.

But he argues that the most contentious issues in the conflict - the status of Jerusalem, the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, the boundaries of a potential Palestinian state and the Israeli settlements - have at their core the same cause. Baroud believes the problem is religious and cultural bias.

"The issues are so mixed ... that I feel there's no way out of this but a democratic one-state government for all people that adheres to the principles of democracy, without having anyone being superior over the other, and without having religion become the frame of reference," Baroud said.

"Many people would describe it as a radical revolutionary idea. But sometimes being radical is the only way we could make things work."

• Masha Herbst can be reached at masha.herbst@juneauempire.com.