Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Activism for Palestine must create spaces for Palestinian narratives
When, in December 2017, US President Donald Trump unilaterally recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the protests in Palestine swiftly ignited a ripple of international solidarity. Activists in many countries protested against the decision, while world leaders repeated their carefully-crafted statements and considered their duty done. UN resolutions on Jerusalem,...
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Recognition of a Palestinian state without liberation is an illusion
During the Berlin European Council summit in 1999, the European Union declared “its readiness to consider the recognition of a Palestinian state in due course” and conditionally dependent upon the Oslo framework, as well as “Israel’s security and Israel’s acceptance as an equal partner in the region.” Two decades...
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Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race
Normalising Israel as a Jewish state absents “Palestinian experience, history and identity claims”. Yasmeen Abu Laban and Abigail Bakan, Palestinian and Jewish authors of “Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race” have constructed a detailed analysis of race and power relations which has been sustained and adopted by the...
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Global condemnation of US decision on settlements is void of action
In an unsurprising move which exposes the ongoing US commitment to establish new paradigms for Israel in which Palestine is completely eliminated, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Israeli settlements as “not necessarily illegal”. At first glance, this declaration isolates the US and Israel from the rest of the...
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Having renewed UNRWA’s mandate, will the international community end its own complacency?
Renewing the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) halted the aggressive campaign by Israel and the US to close the agency and alter the established definition of who is a Palestinian refugee. Since US President Donald Trump withheld funding from UNRWA, Israel and...
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Normalising Israel’s outrageous aggression makes the murder of civilians acceptable
The resumption of Israel’s targeted assassination of resistance leaders in Gaza has been met with widespread acceptance and tacit agreement, especially by the international community. During both of this year’s Israeli General Election campaigns, former IDF Chief and leader of the Blue and White party Benny Gantz advocated strongly...
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The PA’s revolutionary rhetoric is contradicted by its actions against the Palestinian people
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s silence would be preferable to the ceremonial appropriation of the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle. On the 15th anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death, or possible murder, Abbas opted for additional erosion of such struggle, issuing a string of statements amounting to nothing more than outright lies...
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Velvet
“The rain was not in a docile mood.” Huzama Habayeb’s opening sentence of her novel Velvet (Hoopoe Fiction, 2019), beckons the reader to delve into intertwining worlds: the extravagance of language, love and an impending tragedy. Hawwa, the protagonist, is a beautiful, talented and resilient woman living in Al-Baqaa refugee camp...
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The Palestinian olive harvest and Israeli propaganda
The olive harvest in Palestine is an annual reminder of Israeli settler vandalism and violence. In 2018, the Israeli NGO B’Tselem reported on the extensive damage inflicted upon the olive groves, with one Palestinian farmer explaining that, “It looked like the trees had been slaughtered.” Meanwhile, the discrepancies regarding...
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There is only one legitimate alternative to UNRWA; the Palestinian right of return
Since allegations about the misconduct and corruption of some staff members at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) came to light, both defences and criticism of the agency have shielded the UN from its role in enabling the mandate’s renewal. By allowing Israel to perpetuate...
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Palestinians are exploited to preserve the two-state compromise
It would be good if the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, defined his statement to the UN Security Council regarding Gaza, and which can be applied to all Palestinians. The top priority is the humanitarian crisis, he declared, but “the core of the...
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The PA’s disengagement rhetoric is farcical
The Palestinian Authority’s promotion of its disengagement from Israel’s military occupation is mostly diplomatic jargon tied yet again to the two-state compromise. Whatever inference to resistance Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh may impart, the underlying reality is that the PA remains beholden to the powers-that-be in order to secure its...
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The EU, UN and PA masquerade as activists while highlighting their colonial complicity
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. True to form, UN, EU and Palestinian Authority representatives abandoned their political roles to pose as pseudo-activists for a month, embarking upon the Masar Ibrahim Al Khalil trail walk in...
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The UN exploits Palestinian children to further the two-state propaganda
There is one thing the UN and its personnel would do well to keep in mind when pontificating about the purported peace process and to promote Israel’s security narrative: Palestinian children are not props for exploitation. At a time when the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine...
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Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine
For decades, Palestine has been framed by international law. This convenient perspective, rendered mainstream by the international community and the Palestinian Authority, has made international law a weapon to turn against the colonised. Noura Erakat’s latest book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press,...
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Far from being ‘inhumane’, as the US ambassador claims, evicting settlers is one form of justice
The Zionist erasure of Palestinians from their landscape is no longer contested in the international arena. The dispossession of Palestinians is treated as a historical fact removed from their legitimate right of return and ongoing human rights violations. Flawed as only the UN could conspire to be, the preservation...
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The PA is tainting Palestinian resistance
It was only a matter of time before the Palestinian Authority would renege on its word and accept the deducted tax revenues from the Israeli government. After all, the PA is primarily concerned with prolonging its existence, even as it keeps losing any semblance of political influence. Financial constraints...
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The EU’s conditional aid and suppression of Palestinian rights
The European Union’s incoming Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has already signalled a continuation of the bloc’s prevailing politics when it comes to Palestine – preserve the two-state compromise by ensuring funding to the Palestinian Authority. “If anyone helps the Palestinians today and their right to have their own state,...
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Greenblatt’s ‘conflict’ discourse erases Palestinian narratives
US conspiracies against Palestine and the Palestinian people are allegedly for their benefit. In the words of outgoing US Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt though, with reference to all the unilateral decisions announced and acted upon by US President Donald Trump, “We made those decisions because they are the...
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The political isolation of Palestinian prisoners
Before the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle became fragmented by concessions to Israel and the international community, Palestinian prisoners were considered an integral component of the struggle for liberation. After the Oslo Accords, Israel retained the upper hand in detaining and imprisoning Palestinians, aided by the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with...
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Legacy of Empire. Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel
Gardner Thompson’s book, Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel (Saqi Books, 2019) opens with a brief observation that contradicts all mainstream propaganda which spouts the pro-Israel Zionist narrative. “This is not a story of the inevitable,” he writes. The book presents a meticulous account of the...
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The international community is complicit in Israel’s torture of Palestinians
The torture suffered by Palestinian prisoner Samer Arabeed at the hands of Israel’s Shin Bet interrogators has proved, once again, that the prohibition of such treatment as enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute and the UN Convention Against Torture is little more than a series of...
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The PA imitates mainstream politics and violates Palestinian rights
The media has profited from pointing out the blunders of US President Donald Trump, yet it has failed persistently to draw attention to the connections between them which have led to the latest calls at the UN General Assembly for Arab states to normalise ties with Israel. Arab leaders,...
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The Joint List MKs have endorsed one form of colonisation over another
The Joint List members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, have endorsed Benny Gantz to lead the next Israeli government following last week’s General Election. This is another betrayal of the Palestinian cause. Out of the four factions in the bloc, Balad was the only party to repudiate the...