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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- March 3, 2014 Ramona Wadi
UN appointment endorses fabricated Israeli human rights advances
Only a few months after rejoining the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and a few days after being allowed to participate in JUSCANZ, an advisory group affiliated with the UN providing consultation on human rights to UN bodies including the HRC, Israel has been awarded for its constant contempt...
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- March 3, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Palestinian refugees rendered spectators with regard to the right of return
The right of return for Palestinian refugees remains conditioned by symbolism, external dictates and signs of agreement from the Palestinian Authority. As Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently declared an alleged flexibility in order to aid Israel maintain its settler-colonial structure, Israel Radio reported that the US allegedly offered its...
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- March 3, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Gaza stands between acknowledgement and oblivion
Once again, “concern” has graced the rhetoric of official United Nations statements about Palestinians. Following a visit to Gaza, the UN Special Coordinator, Robert Serry, elaborated upon the ramifications of the Israeli-enforced blockade, expressing “concern” about hardships and lifestyle deterioration. However, the rhetoric conformed to the incessant inconsistencies, attempting,...
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- March 1, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Sustaining dependence through democracy
A recent op-ed published in the Israel National News claims that the foundations for a democratic Palestinian state can be traced back to the 2003 Bush “Roadmap for Peace”. Apart from misrepresenting colonisation as a “Jewish-Arab conflict”, the article provides a simplistic hypothesis regarding a possible omission of “democracy”...
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- March 1, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Recognition requests and changing narratives
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps undermining Israel’s self-imposed legitimacy by requesting recognition of the Jewish state from the Palestinian leadership, narratives remain involved in dominating and compromising discourse. While Netanyahu reiterated the importance of the international community’s assistance in persuading Palestinians to grant the acknowledgement, the Palestinian...
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- March 1, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Abbas seeks further imperialist collaboration
Only a few days after Tawfik Tirawi ambiguously called upon Palestinians, including the Palestinian leadership, to embrace resistance, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has once again revealed his allegiance to Israel and imperialism by compromising upon border security, should the hypothetical Palestinian state become a reality. In a televised interview...
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- March 1, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Palestinians urged to embrace resistance
The illusions of establishing a Palestinian state based upon the US-brokered negotiations have shifted discourse partly to incorporate the necessity of resistance. Tawfik Tirawi, a senior Fatah official, has admitted the futility of the negotiations publicly and called upon his movement to embrace resistance. In a televised message on...
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- March 1, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Discussing Israel's colonial expansion at the UN Security Council
Recurring trends regarding the peace negotiations have emerged from the latest United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting. Language shifted from heroic to compromising, within a veneer of fabricated equality which rarely challenged Israel’s imperialist-supported policies. Despite the alleged concern to implement a just solution enabling Palestinians to achieve self-determination,...
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- March 1, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Canada's Prime Minister Harper passes Israel's loyalty test
The Canadian Prime Minister’s visit to Israel affirmed his political and diplomatic support for the Zionist state. In an atmosphere of mutual adulation, Stephen Harper and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasised the imperialist concept of democracy, ignoring the subjugation of the Palestinians which Israel and its allies persist...
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- January 25, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Israel's policy of targeted assassinations and shifting the focus of blame
Israel’s practice of targeted assassinations against Palestinians, an evolution of ‘focused foiling’ or ‘liquidations policy’ by Israel, remains a contentious issue in the discourse on human rights and international human rights law. Perceived in a wider context, it is possible to discern a trend in the global media which fails...
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- January 25, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Financing humanitarian and human rights abuses
The popular dissemination that UNRWA provides ‘assistance and protection’ to Palestinian refugees helping them ‘to achieve their full potential in human development, pending a just solution to their plight’ cannot be isolated from three important factors: Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, UN responses to Israeli atrocities and the mechanisms...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Dismantling the myth of peace in Obama's discourse
Obama’s speech at the Jerusalem Convention Centre was the culmination of an attempt to further humiliate Palestinians. The affirmation of US support to Israel was imparted in selective rhetoric focusing on the necessity of Jews to struggle for the right to a national homeland. Israel is portrayed as an...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Israel's impunity and its culture of torture
The recognition of torture in Israeli prisons is subject to a host of narratives, entrenching it within a distinct, yet hidden realm. Since the start of Israel’s illegal occupation, thousands of Palestinians have been tortured in a manner reminiscent of the macabre extravagance now associated with Guantanamo and Abu...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
A critical look at Zionist education and racism
Zionist narrative expects Israeli children to be imbued with a false sense of nationalism which is instrumental to the preservation of its illegally-acquired land. This abstract narrative, incorporating the unification of Jewish identity contrasted with the orientalist image of Palestinians, forms the basis of a culture based upon indoctrination...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
UNICEF's translation of torture to 'ill-treatment'
UNICEF’s report, Children in Israeli Military Detention, Observations and Recommendations, detailing the condition of Palestinian children detained in Israel’s military jails fails to address torture as a modus operandi, relying instead on euphemisms such as “ill treatment” or “duress” to describe solitary confinement, beatings and threats of sexual violence....
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Criticism of Israel's human rights record branded "anti-Semitism"
For two days at the end of May, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted the “Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism” to discuss the “global challenge” of such racism. In his opening speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed “vilifications” against the state of Israel, essentially branding as an “anti-Semite” anyone...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Reclaiming Palestinian collective memory of the Nakba
The treachery and massacres committed by the Zionists against Palestinians in 1948 marked an enforced physical disappearance of indigenous Palestinians, strengthening the myth of the barren land and the fictitious patriotism allegedly enshrined in religious texts. Last month’s discovery of the mass graves in Jaffa revisited the intentional exclusion...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
The Gates Foundation and its unethical investments in G4S
While three Dutch charities have announced that they will no longer accept donations by G4S due to the company’s support for the Israeli occupation, the Gates Foundation has deemed it ethical to invest in G4S, effectively exposing the often ignored link between philanthropy and human rights violations. The Gates Foundation,...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Manipulating historical legitimacy in 'Facing Tomorrow'
Speeches by Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of the fifth presidential conference consisted of an exercise in manipulating historical legitimacy. Relegating Palestinians to a role even more meagre than that of spectators, the Israeli president and prime minister attempted to assert further dominance by citing delegitimization...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
The politics of selective compromise
“They already have a certain amount of self-determination – something that’s less than a state but covers almost all of the Palestinian population.” Elkin’s statement refers to the alleged lack of control over 60 per cent of the West Bank, dismissing Mahmoud Abbas’ constantly criticised economic dependency and security...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Abbas forfeits Palestinian right to land and memory
Diplomacy and submission have been propelled to prominence with Mahmoud Abbas’s recent concession to Israel. Allegedly speaking on behalf of Palestinians, Abbas declared that the Palestinian Authority would agree to an epilogue to the “conflict” if a just agreement was offered. In return, he added, the Palestinian Authority would...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Making the preservation of Palestinian memory a priority
Yasser Arafat’s assassination, confirmed by the Swiss report detailing the discovery of polonium in Arafat’s exhumed remains, has been mired within a political debate in danger of ensuring further depletion of Palestinian right to memory. Proof of assassination after years of hypothesis regarding the subject should have led to...
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
Reinforcing compromising discourse regarding Palestinian refugees
An overview of the Fourth Committee’s meeting during the 68th UN General Assembly regarding the humanitarian work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was mired within discrepancies and allegations, creating the detachment of Palestinians from their own historical narrative....
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- January 24, 2014 Ramona Wadi
In defiance of internationalism - Israel's manipulation of humanitarian aid
As Israel’s heavily publicised humanitarian mission in the Philippines commenced, the IDF has been constantly updating its achievements in the ravaged land through a twitter account which briefly utilised the hashtag #IDFWithoutBorders, until activists exploited the irony implied within the chosen vocabulary, relating the implied lack of confines to...