Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Israel’s childish intimidation of the PA
The impending war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court has prompted Israel to act diplomatically and otherwise to try and stop it. The Israeli government has ramped up its lobbying in an attempt to influence European politicians to oppose the ICC’s investigation. During a visit to Germany, Israeli...
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Decolonising Israel, Liberating Palestine
“The two-state solution has always been merely a cynical tool of conflict management never intended to actually resolve the conflict.” Jeff Halper’s succinct statement regarding international diplomacy over the loss of Palestine and Israel’s colonial expansion provides the premise of Decolonising Israel, Liberating Palestine. International diplomacy has failed because...
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Courting Israel with silence and impunity
Last year, the Palestinian Authority attempted, in the wrong way as usual, to get the international community to act upon Israel’s colonial expansion by stating that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was availing himself of the last months of the Trump administration. The illusion of a restricted timeframe in...
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The political implications of the Israel-Pfizer vaccine deal
Israel’s successful vaccination campaign and its subsequent positive spell in the international spotlight is a result of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politicisation of medical matters in the run-up to this month’s General Election. The January deal between Israel and Pfizer allowed the stockpiling of vaccines and a swift inoculation...
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Biden’s brand of democracy isolates the Palestinians
Israel is reportedly concerned that US President Joe Biden will prioritise human rights over traditional allegiances in the Middle East. With a policy shift that departs from the Trump administration’s belligerence, Biden is attempting to bring Washington in line with the human rights rhetoric favoured within the international arena,...
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Israel seeks diplomatic allies against the ICC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is counting upon the diplomatic route against the International Criminal Court’s decision to investigate war crimes alleged to have been committed by his country. Israel will not be short of supporters. Predictably, the US has already clarified its “complete opposition to the decision of...
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Short-term financial measures for Palestinians will not address decades of deprivation
Short-term funding initiatives for Palestinians provided without addressing Israel’s colonialism and military occupation have been proven to be a recipe for long-term failure. They simply do not address the decades of deprivation imposed upon the people of Palestine. With Trump at America’s helm, the failing Palestinian economy was partly...
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The EU seeks collaboration with Biden, without political space for the Palestinians
European politicians are finally waking up to the issue of Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, acknowledging that the suspension brought about by the US-brokered Abraham Accords are not an impediment to the annexation actually happening in what remains of Palestinian territory. A letter addressed to the EU’s High Representative...
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‘Agenda Item 7’ highlights UN inaction over Israeli colonisation
The US has asked to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council in another move that, superficially at least, spells a departure from the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the institution. However, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, the reasons for the earlier departure from the Council still stand:...
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‘Guarded optimism’ does not hide the deprivation forced upon Palestinians
The latest report by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process painted a bleak picture for Palestine. Gone are the days when UN representatives attempted to conflate diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinian Authority’s cooperation over the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, the Palestinian economy contracted by 10...
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The Colonising Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine
A look at Israeli colonisation from the inside requires a thorough reckoning. In Hagar Kotef’s recent study, The Colonising Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine, settlement narratives are juxtaposed with accountability. Running parallel to Palestinian memory, Kotef immediately embarks upon the concept of settlement and settler narratives, and...
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Biden has reassured Netanyahu that the status quo is safe
With US President Joe Biden’s first call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now out of the way, the first inklings of the new administration’s diplomacy regarding Palestine and Israel have been made public. Biden, it seems, will incorporate elements of the Trump administration’s policies while promoting the two-state...
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The US is duplicitous over Jerusalem, but the PA stays silent
The Biden administration is adopting a confusing position regarding Jerusalem, signalling a possible effort to square the circle of taking the US back to the fold of international consensus on Palestine and Israel, while maintaining the gifts which former US President Donald Trump handed on a plate to Israel....
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Insufficient responses are called out, but the PA remains complacent
The Palestinian Authority’s recent, and unusual, response to the EU’s statement condemning Israel’s latest settlement expansion would have been welcomed if it came from a consistent political position. In the wake of Israel’s impending annexation, it seems that the PA has caught up with the ramifications of territorial loss....
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The PA and UN are wilfully complicit in Israel’s settler-colonialism
At the rate that it is failing the people of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority will only stop jeopardising their cause when it is declared to be completely obsolete, more so than the two-state compromise. At this year’s first meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights...
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International initiatives exclude any voice for the Palestinian people
With each diplomatic attempt by the international community to save the two-state compromise, Palestinians are guaranteed further loss of territory with every compromise that they are forced to make. What, therefore, is the Palestinian Authority hoping to gain from its obstinate refusal to come up with a distinctly Palestinian...
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Israel puts diplomatic spin on the normalisation agreements
When news of the “Abraham Accords” broke last year, Israel’s impending annexation of the occupied West Bank was sidelined. The new diplomatic opportunities in line with what the international community itself pursues with Israel, and which also validated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that the Palestinian cause was...
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A return to the two-state politics without a historical reckoning spells loss for Palestinians
US President Joe Biden announced the restoring of diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority and the resumption of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people, in a bid to bring the country back to international consensus after the Trump administration pursued a different form of diplomatic relations which culminated in the Abraham Accords. According...
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The US and Israel are changing the narrative on Palestine through Trump’s legacy
“An unprecedented place,” is how Israel Hayom described the Trump administration’s scheming with Israel against the Palestinian people, during an interview with outgoing US Ambassador David Friedman. Unprecedented, that is if we isolate the Trump era from decades of US and international foreign policy. This distinction was reinforced by Friedman...
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The decree for Palestinian elections symbolises the democratic farce in Palestine
The Palestinian legislative and presidential elections are set to be held in May and July respectively, and the Palestinian Authority is following US President Joe Biden’s diplomatic path meticulously. A democratic veneer which seeks to reinstall current PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is in the offing, and Fatah is obliging. Biden’s...
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The PA's 'hope' masks the reality of the two-state compromise
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” about Israel’s ongoing settlement expansion, the Palestinian Authority’s official media, Wafa news agency, has reported. Another 800 settlement units will endanger two-state politics, but will do nothing to endanger the UN’s stranglehold over Palestine. If settlements endanger the two-state framework, there...
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Mladenov’s parting message endorses Trump’s poisonous normalisation legacy
The UN has mastered the art of dissociating itself from colonisation, especially that which it has supported through international consensus. Former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, who in 2019 blamed Palestinians for Israel’s aggression against Gaza, has left his post with a parting...
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Israel applies double standards in determining if violence is acceptable or not
“Shocking scenes of violence” was how the Jewish Insider described last week’s storming of the Capitol Building in Washington DC by supporters of outgoing US President Donald Trump. It is a dissociative statement, one that does not equate the US with violence, apart from glossing over the fact that...
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Humanitarian aid and the two-state compromise spell another round of Palestinian subjugation
In what reads like a tentative attempt to bring the US back on track when it comes to international diplomacy, the US Foreign Affairs Committee representative, Gregory Meeks, has said that humanitarian aid for the Palestinians may be resumed in order to prioritise two-state politics. Clearly advocating for the...