Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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The PA wants the EU to help, not the resistance
The EU must clearly and unequivocally state that it has abandoned the Palestinian people to complete political isolation. The recent Israeli air strikes on Gaza have not only revealed the UN’s scheming in terms of protecting Zionist colonisation of Palestine, but also the EU’s interests when it comes to...
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The Woman From Tantoura
An unfulfilled desire has no sanctuary other than remembrance. Radwa Ashour’s novel, The Woman from Tantoura (Hoopoe Fiction, 2019), explores the ramifications of memory and how its story is told. Chronology, while important, plays a lesser role than emotions, while memory takes on its own trajectory. “The story moves...
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As far as the UN is concerned, blaming Palestinians is the only available strategy
Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip has become a normalised regular occurrence. Since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the Israeli government has warned continuously of another large-scale assault to be waged against the enclave, while carrying out regular military incursions which inflict permanent damage upon Gaza and its civilian...
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What defines the EU’s relations with Israel and the Palestinians?
As the Palestinian Authority’s financial deficit continues to get worse, the European Union has announced that it will be assisting humanitarian endeavours for Palestinians with an additional $24.7 million of aid. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, declared that the EU will retain its role as “the most...
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The UN is complicit in the fragmentation of Palestine
The UN must surely, once and for all, hold itself accountable for its role in facilitating Israel’s colonisation and the resulting swift deterioration of Palestinian rights. Speaking about how the Palestinian Authority’s financial crisis has triggered unprecedented challenges is the excuse for another diversion to justify the UN’s involvement,...
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The PA is taking sides in a diplomatic game that spells disaster for Palestinians
The excessive focus on US President Donald Trump’s forthcoming “deal of the century” is already marginalising the Palestinians. Pitting the US plan against the two-state compromise has created another diplomatic battlefield in which the only losers continue to be the people of Palestine. Yet this has not deterred the new...
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Arab aid for the PA continues to marginalise the Palestinian people and their rights
The Arab League has pledged $100 million per month as aid to the Palestinian Authority in its ongoing financial crisis, as long as there is no departure from the status quo of normalising Israel’s colonial presence in Palestine and the international impositions which have contributed to the prevailing dispossession...
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The new PA government fits the UN agenda for reconciliation and suppression of political
The new Palestinian Authority government has been welcomed by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, who reiterated the rhetoric reserved for occasions on which the international organisation pledges to work closely with governments in line with their agenda. “At a time of significant...
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Apartheid is a Crime: Portraits of the Israeli Occupation
Mats Svensson, a former Swedish diplomat whose personal experience of Palestine opened up the possibility of rethinking through Palestinian narratives, clarifies the role of diplomacy in the preface to his book, “Apartheid is a Crime. Portraits of the Israeli Occupation” (Cune Press, 2019). Diplomats, he declares, “could not call...
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Europe holds no moral high ground in protecting Israeli colonialism
Discussions which frame Palestine’s precarious future within the context of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” versus the two-state compromise continue. Apparently with just these two dangerous options on the table, Palestine is being pushed into oblivion. In anticipation of Trump’s deal, a group of former officials...
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Erekat’s response to the Israeli election result ignores reality
Israel’s colonial-settler population has elected Benjamin Netanyahu yet again as Prime Minister and the initial reactions to the result have been summed up in simple slogans that fail to reflect upon the contenders and their politics. Almost all of the contesting political parties based their campaigns on measures to...
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The UN’s Guterres continues to exploit Palestinian refugee narratives
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s favourite catchphrase — “There is no Plan B” — must be remembered every time he utters anything claiming to support Palestinian refugees. The two-state compromise contradicts the already flawed Palestinian right of return as enshrined in UN Resolution 194; even in 1948, the UN had...
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Gantz, Zionism and the two-state compromise
In his latest interview with the Times of Israel, former Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz makes a point which the international community and the Palestinian Authority persist in ignoring. He has been reticent about stating what outcome he envisages for Palestinian statehood, or prospects for statehood....
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Abbas’ commitment to the status quo and international legitimacy has failed Palestinians
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the Arab League Summit in Tunisia last month only accentuated the usual grovelling to external actors, while speaking of “decisive steps and decisions.” Yet, instead of specifying a way forward, Abbas embarked upon a recapitulation of Israel’s violations and repercussions, while insisting...
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Israel is targeting the Great March of Return anniversary with vile propaganda
At first, it was a rocket, Israel claimed, which prompted another round of bombing of the civilians in the Gaza Strip. After damaging 500 Palestinian homes, and with talk of the Zionist state increasing its military presence on the nominal Gaza borders, the first anniversary commemorating the Great March...
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Palestine and Rule of Power. Local Dissent vs International Governance
This collection of well-researched essays provides an insight into the dynamics of how neoliberalism is woven within the Zionist colonial process and how it has created two opposing camps, succinctly described in the foreword by Richard Falk as the failure of UN diplomacy and the existing possibilities of Palestinian...
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UN and EU statements reveal their overt support for Israel
Predictably, the UN’s first remarks about Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip focused more on a single rocket reaching north of Tel Aviv than the Zionist state’s ongoing colonial violence against Palestinian civilians and its destruction of what remains of the enclave. Likewise, the Palestinian people themselves will be...
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The EU fortifies its track record of aligning itself with Israel
A business seminar in Tel Aviv themed “Doing business with the European Union” leaves no doubts as to where the institution’s loyalties lie. Organised by the Delegation of the European Union to Israel, the Foreign Trade Administration, the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, the Israel-Europe Directorate for Research...
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The UN and Israel are manufacturing humanitarian narratives
Despite the dissonance between Israel and humanitarian aid, there is no lack of propaganda seeking to portray the settler-colonial state as a shining beacon for others to emulate. A forthcoming photo exhibition is now set to be hosted at the UN to showcase, in the words of Israel’s Ambassador...
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In Israel normalising violence takes precedence over targeted assassinations
One outcome is certain when it comes to the forthcoming Israeli elections – Gaza will remain a top target for the new government. Amid the sparring between contenders for the elections, former IDF chief Benny Gantz declared he would implement Israel’s policy of targeted assassinations against Hamas leaders if...
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Palestinian welfare must not be argued by the likes of Greenblatt and Erekat
At the UN Security Council last Friday, US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt failed to garner support for Israel’s decision to deduct $11 million from the tax revenues to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. The PA has repeatedly asserted it will not accept any deductions and...
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Delaying publication of the settlement blacklist exposes the UN’s false narratives on human rights
The UN is openly flaunting its priorities and, sadly, human rights are far from a major concern for the international organisation. Since its creation post-World War Two, and having established itself as the platform which determines what constitutes a human rights violation and which countries can be considered as...
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Israel exports violence and human rights rhetoric to Africa
As part of Tel Aviv’s diplomatic strategy in Africa, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are providing military training to local troops in several countries. The Times of Israel has described this venture as “a dramatic upsurge of military cooperation.” Israel’s military attaché to Africa, Colonel Aviezer Segal, has said that...
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Humanitarian aid and the loss of Palestinian rights
After the US withdrew financial support from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), it is the EU which became the largest donor to the organisation. Yesterday, EU representative Ralph Tarraf and UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl signed a contribution agreement of $93 million for...