Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide
As Israel seeks to squirm its way out of accusations of genocide by enforcing its fabricated security narrative at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), harrowing accounts of life in Gaza under Israel’s genocidal bombardment are accessible for everyone to see and digest. Don’t Look Left: A Diary of...
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Killing and banning journalists reveals what Israel wants to conceal
On Monday, Israel’s High Court declared that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) can continue barring foreign journalists from entering Gaza, on the pretext of security concerns. According to the court decision, foreign journalists can place “an undue onus on IDF resources in wartime,” reported the Times of Israel. As Israel...
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US diplomacy has exhausted much of its hypocrisy
Over 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered by Israel over the past three months with the aid of US arms and ammunition, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is putting pressure on Arab leaders to halt the violence. Arab leaders should have never abandoned Palestine, and the...
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The IDF’s propaganda no longer holds any weight
As footage of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza emerged, the hyperbole about the military being the most moral army in the world increased. Yet nothing will erase the images of Palestinian civilians kidnapped, tortured, some summarily executed. Nor will the testimonies of survivors be forgotten. Over 20,000...
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Singling out Smotrich and Ben-Gvir adds to Israel’s impunity
Earlier this week, the US State Department released a statement rejecting the forced transfer and resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza, attributing the rhetoric from the Israeli side to Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. “We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the Government of Israel, including by...
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What the international community’s silence over Israel’s colonial violence has reaped in Gaza
“We cannot let the idea take root that an efficient fight against terrorism implies to flatten Gaza or attack civilian populations indiscriminately,” French President Emmanuel Macron stated a week ago. Israel, he said, should: “Stop this response because it is not appropriate because all lives are worth the same...
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Forced transfer, 'moral imperative' and colonial contempt
Two op-eds published on Christmas Day, one by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Wall Street Journal, and the other in the Jerusalem Post by Joel Roskin, geologist and geographer at Bar-Ilan University, both point towards the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. Only Netanyahu’s rhetoric, not his...
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The UN gains from Israel’s genocide
At the UN Security Council, the US has made it a point to make itself the centre of attention, rather than allow the slightest semblance of protecting human rights and lives to take precedence. Yesterday, a vote was postponed in the hope of avoiding a US veto on a...
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The US encourages targeted assassinations to bolster Israel’s impunity
Israel has long made it a mission to use targeted assassinations to kill Hamas leaders in Gaza and abroad. In context of the latest Israeli bombing of the enclave, which Israel allegedly initiated to wipe out Hamas despite proof to the contrary, the US is now encouraging Israel to...
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The treachery of Biden’s words
Yesterday, the UN General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution calling for a ceasefire, to which 153 countries voted in favour, 10 voted against and 23 countries abstained. The US, of course, was among the countries that voted against, in line with prioritising Israel’s security narrative. A day earlier, US President...
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Netanyahu hints at expanding colonial violence to the Occupied West Bank
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made an erroneous but revealing statement during Monday’s Knesset meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. “The difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is only that Hamas wants to destroy us here and now and the PA wants to do it in...
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The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel expands the technology of occupation around the world
Antony Loewenstein’s book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world (Verso Books, 2023), is a timely read at any given moment, but the unfolding ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the complicit response of the international community make this book a necessity, particularly as...
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‘Post-war Gaza’ will not see the end of Palestinian anti-colonial struggle
A recent report by Axios revealed that Israel is open to discussing “post-war Gaza” with US officials, noting that US Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security adviser Phil Gordon and Middle East Adviser Ilan Goldenberg met with Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials this week. The question of whether the...
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Macron’s rhetorical questions are as deadly as Israel’s bombing of Gaza
Decisions made by political leaders are clear for all to see except by the politicians themselves, French President Emanuel Macron would have us believe. At the beginning of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza in October, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany issued a statement expressing...
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The will of the international community has always matched the will of Israel
Yesterday, the UN marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, as has been its hypocritical tradition since 1978. What the UN should do instead is dissect its own culpability for the General Assembly adopting the Palestine Partition Plan on 29 November 1947, and declare explicitly that...
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There is no sharing in settler-colonialism, Josep Borrell, only land theft
When the so-called humanitarian pause is over, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “We are returning full power to carry out our aims: destroy Hamas, ensure that Gaza won’t return to what it was, and of course to free all of our hostages.” No one ever doubted that, but...
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A humanitarian pause and the surge in human rights violations
After much useless public debate over Israel’s alleged right to defend itself, the international community regained its footing as the humanitarian paradigm, once more, comes within reach. A four day pause after an agreement reached by Israel and Hamas which would also see the release of 50 Israeli female...
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International diplomacy facilitates Israel’s colonial expansion
The death toll in Gaza as a result of Israel’s latest bombardment now tallies over 13,300, out of which 5,600 are children. Israel cannot even construct a hypothesis that its aggression is the elimination of Hamas and, yet, the fabricated security narrative is all the international community is clinging...
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The humanitarian paradigm and the normalisation of forced transfer
The despicable diplomacy which is allowing Israel to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Gaza is spoken of mainly in terms of the humanitarian pause, the new catchphrase that allows the international community to pretend it is invested in Palestinians’ humanitarian well-being. The US keeps voting against resolutions of temporary...
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Nothing about Israel’s existence and actions point towards legitimacy
Israel’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is advising ministers to pay heed to the terminology they use when commenting on the colonial massacre in Gaza, to protect Israel’s so-called international legitimacy. “Every word has meaning when it comes to diplomacy. If you don’t know, don’t speak,” Netanyahu...
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The G7 give Israel the green light for genocide
Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza and the international response to the unfolding colonial violence demonstrates clearly how Palestinians have always been regarded simply as collateral damage, both in humanitarian and political terms. The UN is calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, while consensus for a humanitarian pause was reached at...
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Bernie Sanders and the Zionist narrative
Whenever politicians appear to distance themselves temporarily from the mainstream narrative on Israel, one would do well to be prudent before deciding where their loyalties truly lie, and let the alignment with Zionism reveal itself in due course. “I don’t know how you can have a permanent ceasefire with an...
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Humanitarian relief for Palestinians is a diplomatic game at the UN
While Israel has certainly damaged its security narrative with its grotesque display of colonial violence in Gaza, the international community prefers to walk its own duplicitous road. Recently, 120 countries voted in favour of a UN General Assembly Resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, the US...
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What lies behind Israel’s latest advocacy for targeted assassinations?
Three days after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israel announced the targeted assassination of two senior Hamas officials, Jawad Abu Shmala and Zakaria Abu Muammar, who were responsible for finance and internal relations respectively. Yesterday, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid announced his support for eliminating the Hamas leadership through targeted assassinations,...
