Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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The PA is still conspiring to undermine Palestinian resistance
Despite the increasing and systematic brutality of Jewish settlers and the Israeli military, the Palestinian Authority is still seeking ways to indulge in its own version of premeditated annihilation of Palestinian land and memory. After a brief outburst of outrage when PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat countered Israeli Prime...
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Settlement expansion and the disappearance of Palestinian memory
Israeli pressure group Peace Now, which defends Israel’s right to exist “within secure borders” and advocates for the two-state paradigm, has revealed that the Israeli housing ministry is planning the construction of 55,548 settlement units in the occupied West Bank. The contracts had been signed between March 2013 and...
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Endless resolutions and dispossession
Palestine can add yet another approved draft resolution to the list of UN General Assembly attempts to distort Israeli colonial appropriation into a manageable conflict with repercussions. Last Tuesday, the UNGA adopted a draft resolution that emphasises “Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including...
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With a former ICC chief prosecutor advising Israel about evading international law, justice will remain elusive
The Palestinian Authority has been celebrating its diplomatic efforts as a step towards achieving at least partial justice, particularly in seeking to hold Israel to account for war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Israelis themselves, meanwhile, have been receiving advice from former ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis...
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Israel and UN incitement against Palestinian resistance
While Israel continues with its premeditated and systematic oppressive policies, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement which, as is typical of the organisation, is devoid of both coherence and context. Despite the cited difference in statistics of Israelis and Palestinians killed since the beginning of...
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Palestinians have challenged the dynamics of resistance
As Hamas celebrated the 28th anniversary since its inception, the resistance movement has reiterated its aims departing from the context of the current uprising in the West Bank, the fact that the masses have, this time, eclipsed all Palestinian resistance factions and carved their own niche in resisting Israeli...
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Rivlin seeks to eliminate geopolitical reality
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin’s op-ed in the Washington Post has clarified another issue that was always implied within the diplomatic negotiations that have deprived Palestinians of their territory. Discussing the current absence of negotiations, Rivlin stated: “Israel must take steps to improve the situation independent of the geopolitical territorial...
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UN contracts with G4S extend the oppression of the Palestinians
UN hypocrisy not only dictates the invalidation of Palestinian history and memory through futile resolutions and recommendations; more significantly, it also undermines Palestinian rights by contracting the G4S Company to provide the international organisation with security services. Palestinian NGO Addameer has recently launched a campaign urging UN Secretary General...
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Netanyahu seeks alternative diplomatic and economic gains
Exporting the Zionist colonisation project in terms of diplomatic and economic gains has been imperative for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – strategies dictated by circumstances. At a time when Venezuela was intensely engaged in establishing agreements with Palestine, Netanyahu diverted his attention towards South American countries that have,...
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Israel generates the illusion that violence is routine
A recent joint press release by Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) and Palestinian prisoners’ NGO Addameer has laid bare the facts regarding Israel’s prosecution of children within the context of the current uprising. Around 350 Palestinian children have been arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West...
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Kerry’s obsolete rhetoric
Every time US Secretary of State John Kerry visits Jerusalem and Ramallah, initial encouraging signs rapidly dissolve into a perpetual descent towards “a pivotal point”. Besides the constant alienation from the ramifications of colonisation, decades of diplomatic jargon have also rendered the significance of many of America’s words obsolete...
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More symbolic solidarity at the UN General Assembly
The annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”, as articulated by the UN, was held yesterday, resulting in several condemnations of Israeli policy including settlement expansion. Described by the Times of Israel as “an annual event sponsored by the Palestinians” the UN General Assembly has once again...
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Solitary confinement and the incarceration of Palestinian narratives
According to reports in the Palestinian media, Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has ordered the extension of solitary confinement for three Palestinian prisoners in Megiddo Prison, citing stale “security concerns” as a pretext. In a statement by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society paraphrased by Ma’an news agency and the Palestinian...
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UNRWA’s institutional presence and neutrality
In his address to the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee on Decolonisation, UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl gave a detailed overview of the restrictions faced by the organisation which, in turn, affect the lives of Palestinian refugees. From a recapitulation of the repercussions of Operation Protective Edge, which formed...
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The international undermining of Palestinian resilience
The current Palestinian uprising has provided an opportunity to analyse, and reject, the dissociation imposed upon Palestine by the international community. Social media has been replete with graphic images of Israeli settler and state violence against Palestinians, which is normally referred to as “escalating tensions” by international organisations and...
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The shared ambitions of Abbas, Al-Sisi and the international community
While Egypt proceeds with facilitating Israel’s colonial oppression of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Abbas met President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in Cairo on Saturday, ostensibly to discuss the recent violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. More rhetoric about “ending these practices” – a reference to Israel’s illegal...
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Palestinian uprising has eclipsed resistance movements’ rhetoric
In further proof that the current Palestinian uprising has overshadowed Palestinian resistance factions, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have recently reasserted their rhetorical hypothesis that the movements would join the current resistance “if the occupation continues to execute Palestinians”. According to reports by Ma’an news agency, the declarations by both factions...
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Balfour Declaration anniversary exposes complicity and complacency
The 98th anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration has elicited some repetitive commentary from PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat. In a brief statement published on the organisation’s “Negotiations’ Affairs Department” website, he declared: “Ninety-eight years ago, the destiny of our nation changed due to the action of a foreign...
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The intentional abandonment of Palestinians
Addameer has published the text of an open letter by the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC) to foreign ministers on the “Need for International Intervention in Palestine”. The letter, dated 20 October 2015, requests action from the international community in restraining Israel and its unsustainable “occupation and colonialist...
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The Palestinian uprising should provoke a rethinking of resistance factions
Palestinian collective resistance in the occupied West Bank has been characterised by various levels of defiance. Apart from taking a stance against settler-colonial terror, Israeli state brutality and the Palestinian Authority’s cherished security-coordination with the occupier, the current uprising is also shaping Palestinian unity, away from the impositions dictated...
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UN anxious to safeguard Israel’s colonial brutality
Prior to visiting Jerusalem and Ramallah, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recorded a speech in which the current Palestinian resistance in the West Bank was again mangled beyond recognition. In his introduction, Ban stated: “Let me be clear. Violence will only undermine the legitimate Palestinian aspirations for statehood and the...
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Despite professed support for Palestinians, Russian rhetoric falls within set parameters
The “Jerusalem Intifada”, as Hamas calls it, has elicited predictable statements by the international community urging caution and calm; most are based upon an unfounded premise that makes no distinction between the coloniser and the colonised. In recent days, Hamas has been escalating its rhetoric, stating that the resistance...
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Resistance movements should incorporate historical Palestinian memory
After much speculation and debate about whether Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank constitutes a third intifada, Palestinian leaders have incorporated the term into their discourse. However, labelling the current surge in Palestinian resistance as an “uprising” is irrelevant. It is far more important to delve into the...
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EU concordance with Israeli state terror
The latest upsurge in Israeli state and settler terrorism is not without recent precedent and precautions which are easily overlooked as the world resumes its spectator stance while Palestinians fall as its victims. Since the terrorist arson attack by Jewish settlers in Duma in July, Netanyahu’s government has incited...