Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Increasing efforts in support of Israeli impunity
News that Israel has approved the construction of over 900 new housing units in the occupied West Bank has elicited comments from PLO Executive Committee Chairman Saeb Erekat, who embarked upon the usual selective criteria utilised for criticism of Israel’s settlement expansion. The new dwellings are expected to accommodate...
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Israel sets limits to negotiations with Palestinians
Not content with permanently extending and rupturing negotiations over the two-state compromise, Israel has announced a new twist to the internationally accepted framework. According to Haaretz, a senior Israeli official declared that it would only engage in talks with the EU as long as settlement construction would remain off...
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UNRWA's oversimplification of Israel's colonial massacre
Using the hashtag #Gaza1YearOn, Palestinians in Gaza have once again been subjected to exploitative oversimplification. In keeping with its neutral agenda, UNRWA has embarked upon another propaganda spectacle under the heading, “Fifty voices for fifty days of conflict: Gaza in its own words”. In its introduction, UNRWA summarises colonial...
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Renewed threats against Gaza under the guise of Israeli patriotism
European mediators have attempted to convince Hamas to release the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during Operation Protective Edge last summer. Netanyahu’s government is utilising the circumstances to further the settler-colonial state’s patriotic drivel. Within Israel, demands for the release of the soldiers will continue the distortion of...
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Israel's patronising manipulation of Gaza's narrative
Not content with inscribing the renewed attempts at colonising Gaza through Operation Protective Edge last summer, the Israeli media has since filled up column space by churning out its deceitful narrative on the beleaguered territory. The result is a series of patronising articles that depart from a sliver of...
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Erekat's unabashed subjugation
The distortion of “logic and law” forms the premise of Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat’s recent article which was published in the Guardian. The article entitled “What Palestine needs is for Europe to honour its own agreements,” is another exhibition of subjugation to higher authorities, achieved through the usual...
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The complementary tactics of Israel and the UNHRC
It seems as if Israel is about to regurgitate the script which reads that it is debating whether or not to retain its membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Following the publication of the council’s inquiry report on last year’s Operation Protective Edge, which deemed that...
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In rejecting PA overtures, Hamas defines its commitment to the anti-colonial struggle
Just as Hamas outlined its conditions for participating in the forthcoming Palestinian unity government, France is escalating its interference by seeking assurances from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the preconditions outlined by the international community and, notably, the Middle East Quartet, will remain in place. Thus, once again,...
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UNHRC report restricts Palestinian anti-colonial struggle
Following its insensitive and macabre efforts to downplay the repercussions and atrocities of Operation Protective Edge, Israel has now attempted to ridicule the UN Human Rights Council report on last summer’s aggression. The report, which Israel pronounced as “morally flawed”, has accused both Israel and Palestinian resistance groups of...
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Israel's pre-emptive vengeance against its UN collaborator
Following yet another round of accusations, condemnations and reproach authored by Israel and the UN over Operation Protective Edge, the international body’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Makarim Wibisono, was refused entry to the Occupied Palestinian Territories last week. This move by Israel was in retaliation for the alleged...
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Security narratives and the force-feeding of Palestinian prisoners
Last year, as details of Palestinian prisoners embarking on hunger strikes in protest against human rights violations hit the news and social media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to pass a bill that would authorise the force-feeding of such prisoners deemed to be at risk of dying. The...
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Beware the Egyptian reconciliation overtures
The renewal of reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas are set to become synonymous with Egypt, highlighting a trend that has characterised the two-state negotiations. The Times of Israel has reported that as part of the country’s alleged commitment to that compromise, Egypt will be working to renew the...
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Netanyahu's sophistry continues to distort reality
With the recent BDS gains weighing heavily on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind, the rhetoric is once again emphasising a return to “peace talks” without preconditions. The latter premise, as usual, applies solely to the Palestinians. In a meeting with Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek, Netanyahu has availed himself...
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UNRWA anniversary prompts Israeli hostility and divergent narratives
In a recent gathering on the 65th anniversary of the founding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon continued to call for a resumption of the compromised negotiations between Israel and Palestine; the UN chief utilised the prolonged existence of the agency...
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Obama ensures perpetual compensation for any criticism of Israel
In a recent interview with Israel’s Channel 2 television, US President Barack Obama said that he envisages difficulties in providing the usual support for Israel in the international arena in future. Referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements prior to the elections about his opposition to the two-state...
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Hamdallah evokes innovation, compromise and misguided calls for equality
The Palestinian Authority’s penchant for hypocrisy disguised as creativity appears to be limitless. In a recent interview published in the Washington Post, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah gives an overview of all the concessions which the PA is ready to present to Israel in order to achieve a semblance...
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Amnesty’s flawed report denies the reality of Israel’s colonial violence
Israeli and mainstream media have once again united in a chorus of righteous indignation following the release of Amnesty International’s report “Strangling Necks – Abductions, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict.” That title –which makes a big mistake by describing Israel’s...
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Venezuela strengthens diplomatic ties with Palestine
Anadolu Agency has reported that Venezuela’s diplomatic representation in Palestine will be elevated to full embassy status. The news was revealed in the wake of a visit to Venezuela by PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki, which resulted in the signing of 18 cooperation agreements related to trade, energy, agriculture,...
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US, Israel duplicity over the Iran nuclear deal
As the US intensifies its efforts to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran, it is also seeking to appease Israel by promising further military assistance to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in return for a retreat from the vociferous opposition to the framework. According to the Times of Israel,...
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Increasing pressure on Palestine to adhere to the two-state compromise
The Vatican has added its voice to the symbolic diplomatic gestures recognising Palestine as a state. A process that was reignited last October by Sweden and encouraged by the Palestinian Authority as a means of detracting from the colonising process accelerated by Israel, the latest move has once again...
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The Nakba, the ICC and international complicity
As Palestinians commemorate the 67th anniversary of the Nakba and the atrocities upon which Israel’s settler-colonial state was established, the International Criminal Court is urging Israel to “cooperate” in preliminary investigations regarding war crimes committed against Palestinians last summer. Palestine’s belated accession to the ICC was met with intense displeasure...
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Does solidarity activism prioritise symbolism over resistance?
The military court at Israel’s Ofer Prison in Betunia has reinstated the prison sentences of five political detainees released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011. The five detainees are Mahdi Assi from Nablus, Khaled Makhamreh and Nayef Shawamreh from Hebron, Wa’el Abu Jalboush from Jenin,...
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New Israeli government entrenches colonial violence and exploitation
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, announced close to the deadline on Wednesday night, has resulted in Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked being entrusted with the ministerial posts crucial to expanding Israel’s colonial framework. Intense discussions between Likud and the Jewish Home Party have resulted in Bennett serving as...
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'Human shields' rhetoric still not exhausted by Israeli officials
Departing from an allegation presented as fact, Israeli General Benny Gantz reverted to accusations of Hamas using civilians as human shields. The context for this perpetual narrative this time was Gantz’s visit to Nahal Oz, where a four-year-old settler child was killed allegedly by a mortar shell fired from...
