Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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EU aid and the PA’s political dependence
For each concession the Palestinian Authority gains, the Palestinians suffer additional repercussions. The EU’s decision to resume financial aid for the PA after the EU voted in favour, with the exception of Hungary, was juxtaposed against EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s assertions of deepening ties with Israel. “Very happy to be...
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UN commissions and Israeli impunity
The UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry recently released report on the violations in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has infuriated Israel and sparked another statement from the US State Department on the so-called “one-sided biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace. The report...
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Double standards over Palestinian fragmentation and displacement
On the 55th anniversary of the 1967 war and the commencement of Israel’s military occupation over Palestinian territory, the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, feebly called out the international community on its acquiescence to Israel and its international law transgressions. “This occupation would not have continued if it...
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Spacing Debt. Obligations, Violence, and Endurance in Ramallah, Palestine
“Debt is about borrowing in the present and repaying in the future. In both cases it is the future that is at stake when debt is thought about as a political problem.” Christopher Harker’s ethnographic study “Spacing Debt: Obligations, Violence, and Endurance in Ramallah, Palestine” takes an in-depth look...
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The memory of Kafr Qasem has been sealed by Israel for far too long
Israel’s Military Court of Appeals has ruled that documents pertaining to the Kafr Qasem massacre, which happened in 1956, may now be declassified. In February 2017, Israeli historian, Adam Raz from the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research filed an application with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) Archive, as...
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Israel’s targeted assassinations should become part of mainstream exposure of its violence
Israel’s public relations and diplomacy may be running into a few pitfalls, as US mainstream media outlet CNN explicitly called out Israel’s responsibility in the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. During a recent phone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid raised objections to the...
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Israel exploits the Palestinian trauma of the Nakba
When Palestinians speak of their ongoing Nakba (Catastrophe), they are imparting a political consciousness which the international community refuses to recognise. For world leaders, diplomats and international organisations, Palestine is just fragments of a land and people without a narrative, as evidenced by the mainstream references to Sheikh Jarrah,...
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New Australian PM will probably retain support for Israeli colonialism
Concern about the election of Australia’s new left-wing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his political stance on Israel is already making news in local and Israeli media. Outgoing Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected Amnesty International’s report on Israeli apartheid by merely stating, “No country is perfect.” In October 2021,...
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Jinwar and Other Stories
Alex Poppe’s collection of short stories is a turbulent itinerary of the marginalised. At face value, the observations laid out in Jinwar and Other Stories tend to border on humour at times. Yet, a cautious approach spells out layers of pain and oblivion as the protagonists in her literature...
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Zionist settlement expansion extends the violence started during the Nakba
“In the face of enemy violence, the Zionist answer has always been settlement, security and immigration,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared during a visit to the illegal Elkana settlement in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. Days earlier, the Israeli rights organisation Peace Now announced that Israel had...
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International silence over Israel’s media repression is also an attack on Palestinian narratives
While there is still much focus on the extrajudicial killing of Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, calls for justice will remain resonant, at least presently. However, Israel has perfected its tactics of denial and impunity. The international community has not gone beyond its usual statements and Israel has already...
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Israel’s impunity and security narrative take priority over extrajudicial killings
The extrajudicial killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by an Israeli sniper last week has led to Israel’s media clamouring for the occupation state’s impunity to be upheld. Abu Akleh was covering an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday this week, when she was shot...
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World Bank observations on Palestine’s economy gloss over Israel’s colonialism and apartheid
Humanitarian aid, which has played a major role in stagnating Palestine and Palestinians, is one of the factors mentioned in the latest World Bank analysis of the dire economic situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, as reported by the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa. The report notes that, despite...
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The EU response to Israel’s latest forced displacement of Palestinians is — again — really weak
The European Union is, as usual, taking the wrong approach when it comes to dealing with Israel’s violations of international law. With over 1,200 Palestinians facing forced eviction from Masafer Yatta, also known as “Firing Zone 918”, after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favour of demolishing eight villages,...
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The international community works against anti-colonial resistance in Palestine
Around 600 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel under administrative detention orders, according to the Israeli human rights group HaMoked. The number is the highest since 2016 when Palestinians resorted to acts of armed resistance in protest against Israel’s ongoing colonial expansion. In March this year, Israel issued...
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The international community must adopt the Palestinian narrative
Since 2021, criticism of Israel has focused heavily on its apartheid system and practices. The gradual awareness within the international community, since B’Tselem’s declaration, which was followed by that of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as other institutions, validated the Palestinian people’s earlier assertions of apartheid....
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The PA’s compromised calls for international protection
Earlier this month, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called for “international support for returning calm to Jerusalem” when tweeting about updating US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the occupied city. Of course, Israel was portrayed as exerting “responsible and measured efforts” in order to maintain the colonial security...
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Time to confront Israel’s aggression with Palestinian narratives of the ongoing Nakba
The international community’s non-committal attitude towards Israeli colonial violence in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa is not new. It does, however, build upon the established narrative in 2019, when the former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, blamed the Israeli bombing of Gaza on the Palestinians....
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The UN keeps contradicting its human rights agenda
At an international level, Israel continues to be rewarded for its human rights violations. As momentum gains over Israel’s apartheid practices, even by the UN’s own Special Rapporteurs, the Institution is following its own trajectory when it comes to normalising Israel and its violations. Last week, Wafa News Agency reported...
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Palestinian refugees are being marginalised by the focus on UNRWA
Can we speak of the sustainability of humanitarian aid in the face of ongoing colonial expansion and perpetual dispossession? Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini who heads the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) met recently with PLO executive committee member Ahmad Majdalani to discuss the financial crisis facing...
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US approach confirms the two-state demise
In March 2021, a leaked memo from the US addressed to Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, indicated that the Biden administration might take a different approach from that of former US President, Donald Trump. Falling back within the parameters of international consensus, the memo detailed the US plan “to...
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The UN offers no protection to Palestinians per se, let alone journalists
When the UN does nothing but perfunctory duties, human rights and civil society organisations are brought to full stop; a dead end. Earlier this week, the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) called upon the international community to adopt the UN Security Council Resolution 2222, agreed in...
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The international community invalidates its purported support for Palestine
A recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) places Israel in 10th place when it comes to the share of global arms exports from 2017 to 2021, with its primary recipients being India, Azerbaijan and Vietnam. Israel placed 14th in arms imports, its main suppliers being...
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The latest UN report highlights international leniency towards Israeli apartheid
UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk has issued one of his strongest condemnations yet of Israeli apartheid in a report to the 49th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council for Agenda Item 7; the session which, claims Israel, singles it out unfairly. Referring to various statements, including those...