Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Limited opportunities and flawed choices
The US decision to abstain, rather than use its veto, at the UN Security Council last Friday has generated a limited spectrum of possibilities and definitely raised Israel’s ire, given its retaliatory antics against countries supporting the resolution in question. Israel’s façade, particularly the democratic fantasy which it has...
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Israeli tantrums and diplomatic gamesmanship shift attention from Palestine
Last week’s UN Security Council Resolution 2334 can be summarised as a collective international effort to provoke the type of drama in which opportunism and retaliation consolidate their dominion over oblivion. Outgoing US President Barack Obama departed conveniently from the usual veto over resolutions deemed hostile by Israel due...
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Jerusalem highlights the extent of Palestine's fragmentation
As Israel’s colonial ambitions prevail largely unhindered, Jerusalem has been bequeathed with further unwarranted contention. Speaking during a reception at the Israeli embassy in Washington, Ambassador Ron Dermer declared that moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would constitute “a great step forward” for Israel’s peace; the...
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Addressing humanitarian concerns in a political vacuum
In launching the Humanitarian Response Plan for Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities made an appeal for $547 million. Robert Piper stressed the implosion faced by Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank due to the illegal...
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The consequences of a corrupt Palestinian leadership
The latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) has depicted clearly what the Palestinian Authority and the international community are intent on ignoring. The divide between the internationally-recognised Palestinian representation and the Palestinian people it is supposed to represent has become more prominent,...
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Israel’s fictitious apprehension
In Israeli rhetoric, there seems to be two main trends of its self-proclaimed apprehension. One, which is hardly ever commented upon publicly, is related to the issue of colonialism and dependency. In the absence of such dependency as exhibited by the international community, there is a possibility of Israel’s...
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Israel’s promotion of colonial plunder
Israel continues to exploit regional problems in order to maintain its foreign policy that allows it to divert attention away from the colonisation of Palestine. Western countries are perpetually enticed by military and surveillance technology. Food security – a basic necessity which Palestinians are deprived of – has been...
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The PA’s complicity betrays Fidel’s legacy of anti-colonial struggle
It has been reported in Haaretz that the Palestinian Authority will be dedicating a street in Ramallah to the late Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro “as a gesture of gratitude”. Elsewhere, the PA continues with a strategy of colonial complicity that should render the organisation unworthy of even mentioning...
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Purported international solidarity is devaluating Palestine
Another symbolic international day for Palestinian rights has degenerated into the usual stale observations and recommendations that do little other than try to impart a semblance of balance between the coloniser and the colonised. Perhaps the UN has preferred to remain loyal to the monstrous history it spawned by...
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The international diplomacy of Israel’s founders: deception at the United Nations in the quest for Palestine
In this fast-paced narrative of diplomatic events, John Quigley illustrates the extension of Zionist colonial violence and manipulation at an international level. The International Diplomacy of Israel’s Founders: deception at the United Nations in the quest for Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2016) opens with the concept of hasbara, which...
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Palestinian hunger strikers in the face of oblivion
Convenience and contempt continue to serve Israel well. As news resurfaces regarding the probability of force-feeding two prisoners who are on hunger strike in protest at their administrative detention with neither charge nor trial, it is clear that a degree of sensationalism and the cultivation of a public persona...
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Facilitating torture and impunity
A new Israeli bill exempts interrogators from recording interrogations of “suspected terrorists”...
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The dangers of dissociation
The latest Israeli legislation seeking to ban the Muslim call to prayer in Jerusalem has united Palestinians — Muslims and Christians alike — in overtly collective resistance. Over the past few days, there has been gradual defiance in protest against the discriminatory bill; this has included churches reciting the...
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Neither Israel nor the PA want education to succeed in Gaza
For Palestinians whose concept of education remains an integral part of both intellectual development and anti-colonial struggle, the news that 15 new schools are set to open in Gaza next year is most welcome. According to Ma’an news agency, Gaza’s deputy education minister Ziab Thabet has announced that the...
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Comments by the PA ambassador to the UN flaunt the authority’s ulterior motives
It is a pity that the Palestinian Authority’s international antics do not harvest the ensuing humiliation selectively for the leadership and its representatives. An automatic disclaimer clarifying misrepresentation ought by now to become an imperative, in order to assert Palestinian independence away from the rhetorical farce which has impacted...
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Knowledge, memory and the imposed deterioration of Palestine
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas clearly has no qualms about adding speculation to the narratives surrounding the probable murder of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat. On the 12th anniversary of Arafat’s death, Abbas gave a provocative speech similar to those allegedly revelatory discourses reserved for UN meetings whenever it...
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EU and Israeli reciprocity works to a formula
Within the space of a couple of weeks, two contrasting news items have yet again portrayed how Israel and the EU have not veered away from the convenience of impositions and subjugation respectively. Construction of illegal settlements and demolitions of Palestinian homes have long provided a source of quiet...
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Colonialism as a concoction of France, Israel and the PA
There has been a misplaced media emphasis upon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated refusal to participate in the international peace conference proposed by France. Three distinct but interlinked narratives are being isolated for one purpose; to portray the international community as a benevolent entity attempting to appease a...
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Misplacing priorities and freedom of expression
It would be slightly premature to consider the statement by the EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, regarding the right of EU citizens to boycott Israel as some sort of victory. At first glance, it might look as if activism has overcome a significant hurdle,...
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Spelling out ambiguities to a complicit international community
The address given by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee provided a more comprehensive approach than the usual repetitious rhetoric associated with the international institution. While the few blatant truths uttered by...
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Palestinian liberation is being thwarted by dependency and deprivation
Last Sunday, The Arab Weekly published an interview with Fatah’s International Relations Commissioner Nabil Shaath, in which a stereotyped expression of freedom was announced, along with calls for a consumer boycott against Israel and unity among Palestinian factions. It is not that the ideas put forth are unimportant, but...
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The Arab World and Latin America: economic and political relations in the 21st century
Complexity and contrasts form the premise of “The Arab World and Latin America: economic and political relations in the 21st century” (I B Tauris, 2016). Both regions have been subjected to forms of colonial domination, yet different trajectories have been pursued, outlining discrepancies particularly in relation to economics as...
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EU studying platitudes on human rights
It is inconceivable that EU diplomats necessitate any more awareness regarding the immense restrictions and human rights violations inflicted upon Palestinians by Israel. Yet, the Palestine News Network has reported that EU diplomats based in Ramallah and Jerusalem visited Palestinian communities living in Abu Nuwar and Khan Al-Ahmar. Both...
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Israeli torture
Recent reports continue to confirm Israel’s rampant use of torture when dealing with Palestinians, including minors. While not particularly revealing – after all, a lot of footage and photography depicting the Israeli military’s violence against Palestinian children has been widely shared on social media – it is even more...