Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Lieberman’s divisionary tactics in the occupied West Bank
Punishing “Palestinians who support terrorism” is high on Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s agenda. A new proposal, scant details of which were reported in the Times of Israel, seeks to target Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank which have a record of support for Palestinian resistance while seeking...
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Israel’s war on Palestinian education and memory
Eliminating Palestine from Palestinian consciousness is a preoccupation of Israel, particularly prior to the start of each academic year, with additional efforts at intermittent intervals. The depletion of Palestinian territory was aided by the international community in accordance with the colonial ambition behind the creation of Israel. The erasure...
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The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to the present
Bashir Abu-Manneh’s detailed study “The Palestinian novel: From 1948 to the present” (Cambridge University Press, 2016) combines the historical processes of Palestinian memory and postcolonial and literary theory in a manner which brings the various narratives and experiences of Palestinians to the fore. There is a unifying factor identified by...
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Selective criticism and ulterior motives
Israel’s recent demolition of five Palestinian dwellings near South Hebron, three of which were funded by the European Union, seems to have attracted a sliver of international attention, particularly in Washington. Given the increase in retaliatory practices against the people of Palestine, it is highly likely that the prominence...
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Israel is redefining its own impunity
Israel’s preoccupation with its image within the international community has resurfaced once again, this time articulated by the Director General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Sima Vaknin. Reinventing narratives has sustained Israel’s settler-colonialism in Palestine and the same tactics are set to be applied to the imposition of...
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Collective hunger strike surpasses Israeli manifestations of violence
Palestinian hunger strikers have achieved a milestone in their resistance efforts against Israeli colonial violence. As happened with other past hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners such as Samer Issawi, Mohammed Allan and Muhammad Al-Qeeq, the current publicity was initiated by a selective focus upon the case of Bilal Kayed,...
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Rupture and resistance
Memory as permanence is particularly evident in Palestinian history, hence the Zionist narrative attempts to distort and reinvent facts. When distortion fails, oblivion becomes an imperative. However, Israel has also created the conditions whereby its efforts to rupture Palestinian memory are countered by a tenacious resistance. Operation Protective Edge in...
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The diminution of Palestine
A recent interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on CNN has elicited a barrage of criticism against current incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Barak, his successor has a “hidden agenda” which does not incorporate the two-state paradigm. In turn, Barak’s comments were countered by Netanyahu’s spokesman David...
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‘Mahmoud Darwish: Literature and the politics of Palestinian identity’
Far from accentuating the glorification that is synonymous with Mahmoud Darwish and his beautiful poetry, the new biography “Mahmoud Darwish: literature and the politics of Palestinian identity” by Muna Abu Eid (I.B. Tauris, 2016) is a competent exercise in revealing the intricacies of Palestinian collective memory combined with the...
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Normalising Israel despite blatant human rights violations
As with other UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk’s first experience in attempting to reach the region was characterised by Israeli refusal to comply with the official request, leading to meetings in Jordan with Palestinian officials and...
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Leaked EU report reveals indirect approval of colonial Israel
Once again, Israel is exerting a great deal of effort in order to prevent discussion of an EU paper among European institutions. The internal report, which was drafted in December 2015 and then endorsed by all EU member states, attributes the development of the Jerusalem Intifada (Uprising) to “Israel’s...
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Neutrality marring B’Tselem’s statistical analysis
Marking the two year commemoration since Operation Protective Edge, Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem issued a press release discussing the high percentage of civilian fatalities, which included 526 children. The statistical element in the press release is depicted efficiently, yet the press release is marred by neutral rhetoric reminiscent...
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Promoting the French initiative at the expense of Palestinians
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has remained undeterred in his ambitions to venture from failure into catastrophe. Following the Middle East Quartet Report, which was another exercise in colonial bias, Abbas has once again resorted to promoting the French initiative – this time to African Union member states during the...
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The international choice of divisive narratives
Robert Piper’s article cites rifts between Fatah and Hamas as exacerbating the humanitarian situation in Gaza...
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International rhetoric implies Israel is not an aggressor
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA) has published a brief but detailed document by the World Health Organisation regarding the bleak situation in Gaza, two years after Israel embarked upon a murderous rampage during “Operation Protective Edge”. Already operating under severe...
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International exploitation of convenient timeframes
The Middle East Quartet report released recently once again takes issue with settlements as an obstacle to peace, a reiteration that has become as obsolete as the two-state compromise. Its lack of impact has nothing to do with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s denial, however, but a reflection of...
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Israeli business promotes colonialism as ‘coexistence’
Palestinian resistance is, at times, diluted by a certain resignation wrought by fear of excessive Israeli retaliation. This hindrance, which speaks volumes about the psychological trauma endured by Palestinians as a result of Israeli colonisation, has been acknowledged by Palestinians who, despite their best efforts at maintaining an organised...
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The paradigms of Palestinian survival
Deterring Palestinians from resistance has proven to be futile. However, it has not prevented Israel from attempting to control every expression of defiance, even if it means suffocating the space for legitimate demands to be voiced. In the early days of the Jerusalem Intifada, the return of the bodies...
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Spoken truths endorse colonial complicity
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is determined to surpass his previous endeavours in protecting Israel’s colonial presence in Palestine. Speaking during a visit to Israel and Ramallah, during which meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and PA President Mahmoud Abbas were scheduled, Ban managed to impart a precise...
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NATO endorses Israel’s security narrative
Israel’s permanent representation at NATO has not only delighted the colonial entity, which continues to garner prominence at an international level due to the corruption of international organisations. NATO has also deemed cooperation with Israel as essential, revealing the extent to which Israel’s security narrative has been endorsed. Last month,...
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The French farce reveals the lack of genuinely neutral interlocutors for the Palestinians
The fact that the same entities and people continue to support interminable compromised “negotiations” should be enough proof — if ever proof was needed — that the French initiative is a prescription for the further deterioration of the Palestinian cause. According to Ma’an news agency, the EU Foreign Affairs...
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Chile’s memories and Palestinian narratives can challenge UN complicity
It seems that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set upon a course that will even challenge the brutality of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. The infamous impunity constructed by Pinochet which he summarised explicitly when he said, “Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood” – a reference to...
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Israel’s false narratives allow it to perpetuate water theft, and the EU plays along
Israel’s theft of water from Palestinians has been the subject of much ire with regards to humanitarian concerns and collective punishment. It was reported recently that Israel deprived Palestinians in the occupied West Bank of water. As the reporting coincided with the start of the fasting month of Ramadan,...
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The UN’s new report is fragmenting and distorting narratives
Following last week’s announcement that WEOG had nominated Israel to chair the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) has released a report titled “Fragmented Lives” which discusses the main causes of vulnerability for Palestinians in...