Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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The first signs of Jewish colonial resettlement in Gaza
Israel has demolished over 600 buildings to create a so-called buffer zone in what the Israeli military refers to as the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts Gaza in half and has been occupied militarily since November last year. The lack of clarification by the Israeli government over its plans for...
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An Old Carriage with Curtains
Ghassan Zaqtan’s impeccable weaving of Palestinian memory serves as a reminder of how far such memory can extend in a confined, ever-shrinking geopolitical space constantly eroded by Israeli colonialism and the ensuing military Occupation. The last book in a trilogy, An Old Carriage with Curtains (Seagull Books, 2023) does...
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Israel was born and depends on ethnic cleansing
His admission about Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza was a shard of truth from former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon, albeit dissociated from what created Israel in the first place. In an interview with Israel’s Democrat TV, Ya’alon told the interviewer: “There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Bein Hanoun....
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France sets a precedent in non-compliance with the ICC Netanyahu arrest warrant
France has given an example of how non-committal diplomacy works to create impunity for genocide. After describing the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as “legally complex”, the French government has now confirmed that it will not...
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Canada helps Israel in broadening its definition of ‘anti-Semitism’
Once again, anti-Semitism was the catchphrase for political rhetoric denouncing the protest in Montreal against NATO’s complicity with Israel’s genocide. NATO delegates met in Canada for the 70th annual session of its Parliamentary Assembly, and protesters called for Canada’s withdrawal from the organisation, even as Canadian Prime Minister Justin...
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Israel’s criminal responsibility is shielded by political complicity
It remains to be seen how world leaders of the 124 states that are party to the Rome Statute will comply with the international arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The ICC’s press release...
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USAID’s guise is dismantled by Israel’s genocide in Gaza
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it will be adding $230 million to its “economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza”. According to USAID’s West Bank and Gaza Mission Director, Amy Tohill-Stull, “This funding demonstrates our resolve to support sustainable development and provide...
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Borrell’s symbolic parting gesture is mired in hypocrisy
Diplomats and parting gestures are nothing new. As the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell comes close to ending his tenure, he has called for EU member states to stop political dialogue with Israel. “After a year of unheeded pleas, we cannot continue with business as usual,”...
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Time frames are not threats and neither are they ‘time frames’ when it comes to US support for Israel
In yet another exercise of US hypocrisy, Israel will still qualify for weapons funding despite failing to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days, as outlined in a letter stipulating several conditions, which included allowing the entry of 350 trucks per day through all of Gaza’s border...
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Visualising Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation
Khaled Adnan’s hunger strike in 2012 was the impetus for Visualising Palestine’s enduring project which depicts Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian experience of living under colonial rule. Unlike the statistics we are used to associating with Palestine, which render Palestinians faceless numbers with no identity, Visualising Palestine: A Chronicle...
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Sa’ar’s twisted narrative on the two-state paradigm and Israel’s colonial expansion
Newly appointed Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, gave a perfect example of how colonialism twists narratives for political gain. “I don’t think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic,” Sa’ar stated, with regard to the possibility of establishing a Palestinian State within the context of normalisation...
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Netanyahu promotes genocide and annexation with his choice of Leiter as Israeli ambassador to the US
Promoting genocide and colonial expansion remain high on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda, and Donald Trump’s forthcoming return to the White House is a reminder of all Israel gained under his first presidency. Netanyahu’s choice for ambassador to the US – Israeli-American Yechiel Leiter – encapsulates both genocide...
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The PA’s misplaced optimism
The return of Donald Trump as US president will undoubtedly evoke the memory of a string of unilateral concessions to Israel, ending with the Abraham Accords, that undoubtedly contributed to the current premeditated sense of oblivion towards the genocide in Gaza. We can also remember how the Palestinian Authority...
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The UN and Israel share direct responsibility for starvation in Gaza
After the Israeli Knesset passed a bill designating the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as a terror organisation and banning the agency from operating in colonised Palestine, the occupation state’s foreign ministry formally notified the UN of its decision in tones that not only exhibited...
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Genocide is embedded in US diplomacy
Israel is only conducting occasional atrocities that do not align with US interests, if we are to believe US rhetoric. The Israeli air strike that killed at least 20 children in Beit Lahiya was “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result,” according to US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller. “We...
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Borrell’s ‘five-dimension plan’ aligns Israeli and EU interests
After the Israeli military killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell outlined the reasons why peace should be given a chance. Not only was genocide completely missing from his narrative, it was also said that Sinwar’s killing “should mark a turning point...
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CNN has just tried to garner even more impunity for Israel and its genocide
When Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza in which it has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians, and displaced the entire population, CNN’s way of showing some humanity in the face of such violence was to focus on the trauma of those responsible for the killing and maiming. The...
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Gender and Political Support: Women and Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Minna Cowper-Coles’s quantitative and qualitative research on the gender gap in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) shows that women are more likely to support Hamas. Gender and Political Support: Women and Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Routledge, 2023) gives a detailed analysis of the findings of the research,...
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The US approves of all of Israel’s genocidal methods
In April this year, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is known to have been involved in covert operations for regime change, delivered its report on Gaza to Congress. It concluded that Israel is deliberately blocking aid from reaching Palestinians in the enclave. So did the State...
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Australia relies on Israeli weapons, which means it now relies on genocide
A month after the UK suspended 30 arms licences out of 350 on account of the weapons being used in violation of international law in Gaza, Australia has announced its own review of its arms sales to Israel. Australia says that it has not supplied weapons to Israel since...
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The West’s hypocrisy is a bottomless pit for Palestinians
At the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted a war against Hamas. After killing 42,500 civilians, displacing the entirety of Gaza’s population and killing prominent Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar, Netanyahu took to his colonial podium again to remind...
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The psychological manipulation behind the Generals’ Plan
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contemplated implementing the Generals’ Plan in Gaza, backed by former Israeli Defence Forces planning and operations chief General Giora Eiland who has described the siege as “compliant with international law”. The plan, Eiland explained, would give Palestinians a week to evacuate and...
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Desensitised politics is a gift for Israel’s genocide in Gaza
The US government’s hypocrisy is a bottomless pit that matches Israel’s penchant for the cruel and macabre. “The images and video of what appear to be displaced civilians burning alive following an Israeli air strike are deeply disturbing, and we have made our concerns clear to the Israeli government,”...
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Netanyahu preaches to the world as if it is a basic human right to commit genocide
On the first anniversary of the cross-border incursion on 7 October 2023 and the start of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, all that the UN can boast of can be summed up in one word: complicity. Western countries have either provided Israel with weapons or endorsed the...