Ramona Wadi
Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America.
Items by Ramona Wadi
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- September 23, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Obama’s contradictions at the UN General Assembly
As the end of Obama’s presidency draws near, there is no doubt that his legacy of furthering Israeli colonisation is, unfortunately, substantial...
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- September 20, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Humanitarian pleas occupy an immense political vacuum
Palestinian prisoner Malik Al-Qadi, who has been on hunger strike for 66 days......
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- September 15, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Hamas and the Media – politics and strategy
Wael Abdelal’s informative treatise, “Hamas and the Media: politics and strategy” draws upon the issue of counter-hegemony to portray the relevance and importance of resistance media, in this case, the role which the media has played to further the politics of Hamas. The counter-hegemonic narrative is paramount in this study....
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- September 15, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Securing Israeli colonial violence and expansion
Rewarding human rights violations is a speciality of the US. History has recorded many precedents of aid flowing to countries in which dictatorships bludgeoned and disappeared their opposition. Israel, however, remains an exception precisely due to the fact that, unlike other scenarios, international law is not a detriment to...
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- September 13, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Ruling normalises Israeli violence against hunger striking prisoners
In another example of how Israel remains in contempt of human rights, morality and international law, the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that force-feeding hunger striking Palestinian prisoners is “constitutional”. Since the initial massacres committed by Zionist paramilitary groups, the colonial entity in Palestine has refined its methods and normalised...
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- September 9, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Palestinian demands should triumph over Israeli and international scheming
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s state visit to the Netherlands was an exercise in complete psychological and political manipulation. Not only did Netanyahu fail to distinguish between the aims of the Palestinian people and those of the Palestinian Authority; Israeli hegemony was also discussed in relation to Europe and...
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- September 6, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Abbas’s oscillations glorify the betrayal of Palestinian collective memory
Following news of renewed attempts at diplomatic negotiations with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sought to impart a purportedly different stance that is laden with evident contradictions. According to the Times of Israel, Abbas aired his views on Palestine TV, invoking the right to autonomous decision-making as “Palestinians”. Both...
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- September 1, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Israel’s distortion of history and international law
In Israel’s narrative, every entity and individual who doesn’t toe the colonial line is considered to be contributing towards “pushing peace further away”. This claim has now been made against the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, after he criticised Israel’s ongoing expansion of...
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- August 30, 2016 Ramona Wadi
Erekat’s contribution to Israeli and international impunity
Two years have passed since Israel’s brutal military offensive – “Operation Protective Edge” – and justice for Palestinians remains elusive. This is due in large part to the fact that Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the international community have synchronised their efforts to ensure that Palestinian narratives remain smothered...
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- August 25, 2016 Ramona Wadi
The PA’s extension of Israeli colonial violence
The echelons of the power structure derived from the coloniser manifested itself in the brutal extrajudicial killing of Ahmed Halawa, who was beaten to death by PA security forces. A photo which circulating on social media showing Halawa’s bruised and swollen body has ignited much furore, however it was...
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- August 23, 2016 Ramona Wadi
UN rhetoric, international law and alienation
In the wake of Israel’s acceleration of home demolitions and forced displacement, segments of the international community issued their repetitive rhetoric of condemnation and appeasement. However, the issue of Israel destroying EU-funded structures gained more attention than the violation of maintaining Palestinians as perpetual refugees. An additional statement on forced...
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- August 18, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 16, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 13, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 12, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 9, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 8, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 4, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 2, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- August 1, 2016 Ramona Wadi
‘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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- July 28, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- July 27, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- July 21, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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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- July 19, 2016 Ramona Wadi
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...