Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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The PA’s fear of Palestinian journalists
The Palestinian Authority’s abhorrence for journalists was, once again, highlighted with the security services’ arrest of Akil Awawdeh last week. Awawdeh had spoken out against the PA’s security services’ spokesman’s claim that no political arrests are made in the Occupied West Bank. “You should respect our minds more than...
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Jenin’s marginalisation in international rhetoric
Reiterating the obvious is one prerequisite for being a diplomat. With the Jenin refugee camp becoming the latest attraction for the international community’s humanitarian agenda, the grotesque statements are paying more attention to Israel’s security narrative than the ongoing Nakba (Catastrophe) of the Palestinian people. An international delegation led by...
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Privilege and power for the PA, to the detriment of Palestinians
More proof of the Palestinian Authority’s precarious position was made public earlier this week, when it was announced that Israeli ministers, with the exception of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, voted in favour of measures that would bolster the PA. “In the absence of...
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Israel’s Jenin incursion may further unite Palestinian resistance
The Israeli military incursion in Jenin is by no means over, marking both a victory for Palestinian resistance as well as the further promise of colonial violence from Israel’s occupation forces against Palestinians. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed victory, yet his words indicate otherwise, including an assertion that...
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Israel’s security narrative reigns supreme as it acts with impunity
“We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups,” said the White House National Security Council as it weighed in on the occupation state’s attacks on Jenin’s refugee camp. The densely-populated camp has been hit with drone strikes in...
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Israel officials promote impunity for all forms of settler-colonial violence
If Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, can find excuses for the hilltop youth’s colonial violence, how much more is the concept of settler-colonial presence as a form of violence normalised? During a meeting called by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir described the hilltop youth as “sweet boys” forced...
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The Palestinian resistance is making inroads
Israel needs the Palestinian Authority. That much has been established clearly by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a private meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. At a time when the PA is clearly losing its control over Palestinians, Netanyahu is speaking truths which Ramallah, in its...
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While pointing out international responsibility, the Fatah-dominated PA conceals its own
As if further proof was necessary that the Palestinians have been abandoned by Ramallah, Fatah called upon the people yesterday “to stay alert and confront the systematic settler attacks that are carried out with the connivance of the occupation army.” No security coordination to protect Palestinians from Israeli state...
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Twisted narratives promote the targeted assassinations of Palestinians
A recent poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research detailed how Palestinians are largely in favour of armed resistance against Israel’s settler-colonialism. More importantly, Palestinians have again asserted that they no longer need to take their cues from the main Palestinian political factions, indicating a sharp...
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Protecting an obsolete framework is not a legitimate political option
The lauding of diplomatic meetings between Palestinian Authority officials and other political entities needs to cease, especially when the item under discussion is the obsolete two-state compromise. “There is an urgent need to move immediately to protect the two-state solution at a time the Israeli government is pushing the Palestinian...
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The PA foreign minister promotes Israeli impunity
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki keeps generating contradictions in his diplomatic endeavours. The concept of “waiting” is one of Al-Maliki’s favourite terms to resort to, reminding diplomats of how Palestinians have been forced to wait by the international community but failing to address how the PA endorses waiting...
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The PA has abandoned Palestine in order to stick to the international narrative
If the UN excels at anything besides creating the conditions for human rights abuses, it is keeping track of human rights violations and disseminating the statistical data. There can thus be no doubt that diplomats have access to the details of what is happening in Palestine; spreading awareness without...
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Humanitarian aid for Palestinians favours the Israeli colonial enterprise
The Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine at the UN, Riyad Mansour, pointed out the unsustainability of donor funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) at the Pledging Conference in New York last Saturday. Nevertheless, the silence on the politicisation of humanitarian aid...
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The IDF’s legacy, 75 years on
While Israel prefers to obliterate the 1948 Nakba from its historical memory despite being the perpetrator of Palestine’s ethnic cleansing and colonisation, the same cannot be said for the origins of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Last month, Israel celebrated the 75th anniversary since the military’s establishment. The order...
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Meaningless rhetoric from the PA and the international community over Ein Samiyah
As Israeli colonial violence resulted in the forced displacement of the 200 residents of Ein Samiyah in Area C of the Occupied West Bank, the range of reactions, from silence to pathetic commentary, only increased impunity for the settler-colonial enterprise. A day after Al Jazeera reported on the recent...
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Sumud: Birth, Oral History and Persistence in Palestine
“Oral histories always beg the question of what lives and cultural forms are isolated, erased and made insignificant by bringing this narrative to the fore,” Livia Wick writes in the introduction to her book, Sumud: Birth, Oral History and Persistence in Palestine (Syracuse University Press, 2023). Wick’s research unfolds...
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The humanitarian paradigm is an act of political violence against Palestinians
The Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, recently made another appeal for funding, this time to the Arab League. “Support to Palestine refugees is a collective obligation, including from Arab countries,” said Lazzarini, while warning that a decline in funding...
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Beneath the rhetorical veneer of Abu Dis
In 2019, when the Trump administration revealed the so-called “Deal of the Century”, a hypothetical capital of Palestine in the town of Abu Dis was revealed as the alternative to the Palestinian people’s claim on Jerusalem. Israel had laid the groundwork for the announcement with its earlier unilateral declaration...
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The PA’s glorification of Israel’s colonial accomplices
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas never fails to blunder in his speeches. Speaking at the UN in New York on the 75th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, Abbas requested that the US and the UK address their historic responsibilities. One would think this means taking a political stance in...
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The symbolic Nakba commemoration at the UN exposed Israel’s hatred of the truth
“The thought that an international organisation could mark the establishment of one of its member states as a catastrophe or disaster is both appalling and repulsive,” wrote Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan when asking UN diplomats to refrain from attending the unprecedented UN General Assembly’s commemoration of the 1948...
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The EU really values Israel’s colonial enterprise
The EU Delegation in Israel only has a problem with Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security, and not with the existence and continuation of Israel as a colonial enterprise. The far-right minister was to represent the Israeli government during a diplomatic reception on 9 May marking Europe Day,...
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Behind the façade of humanitarian aid and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
The humanitarian paradigm for Palestinians is not working, the UN should be informed. On the assumption that the Institution holds a shard of respect towards human rights. For several years, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has been warning of a funding deficit that...
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The PA protects Israel colonial expansion by promoting the two-state compromise
The Palestinian Authority is decades behind in its political approach. Israel is not “continuing” to destroy the two-state paradigm – it has already destroyed it. Ramallah has learnt its lines so well, however, that the international community can depend upon it to ensure nothing poses a threat to Israel’s...
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Khader Adnan’s legacy will alter Palestinian politics among the people
Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails have suffered unprecedented levels of exploitation. At best, a hunger strike ends when Israel decides it can make a few concessions, and a victory is then celebrated. There is no real “win”, however, other than temporary respite for the individual hunger striker. Administrative...