Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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If You Cannot Say Genocide: Essays on Conscience and Witness
“What task is left to art when words are turned into weapons?” Yahia Lababidi’s If you Cannot Say Genocide: Essays of Conscience and Witness explores the depth of this question impressed upon the reader in the preface. For the author, who is a Muslim of Palestinian descent, the question is…
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One year since the ceasefire, the UN commemorates its failures
Nothing spells hypocrisy more accurately than the UN commemorating its failures. In a press release titled One year after ceasefire announcement, killings continue across Gaza, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator, Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office expresses its purported concern “about continued crimes under international law, including war crimes.” That…
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The Board of Peace’s commitment is tied to Israeli colonialism
Three years since Israel commenced its genocide in Gaza, the Board of Peace issued a statement in which one sentence particularly stands out. “The President fulfilled his commitment to the people of Israel.” The sentence refers to Hamas releasing Israeli hostages, but the entire statement carries further weight that displaces…
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When diplomacy aligns with the defunct
In August this year, the EU’s High Representative Office issued a statement noting that the E1 settlement project which envisages 1,200 housing units, “harms the prospect of the two-State solution.” Yesterday, 500 former politicians and diplomats wrote to the EU to state the same rhetoric. The only difference is that…
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Wired to Steal: Zionism and the Shaping of the Western Mind
Wired to Steal: Zionism and the Shaping of the Western Mind (Olive Branch Press, 2026) addresses a gap in analysing settler colonialism and colonial violence. The disruption of humanity through dehumanisation, which can lead to genocide as it did in Gaza, is analysed through a neurobehavioural framework. Using this framework,…
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Trivialising memory with gratuitous gratitude
From scant details reported on the Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People’s meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, it would seem as if the representatives arranged a meeting to thank and praise each other. The Palestinian people were just an…
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Abbas’s UNGA speech omits important historical realities
When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned of a greater danger than threats to the two-state politics during his UNGA prerecorded speech, he rendered the warning invalid by making the threats sound recent and new. Not only was Abbas warning the wrong audience, he also used the same audience’s language…
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What is the extent of the UN’s impunity when it comes to the two-state politics?
Once again, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stressed that there is no other option to the two-state paradigm. Speaking at a meeting hosted by France, Canada, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Guterres noted that there was a contradiction between diplomatic support…
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How silencing dynamics work in the international arena
For the second consecutive year Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was denied a visa to travel to the US to attend the UN General Assembly. According to the US State Department, sanctions were extended due to “their failure to reform, contrary to their commitments to the United States, and their…
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There is no real aversion to ethnic cleansing from the international community
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz reiterated the plan to forcibly transfer Palestinians out of Gaza. Noting that 70 per cent of Gaza has been emptied of Palestinians, Katz said that Israel was merely waiting for US approval. “The IDF is prepared, once given the directive to eliminate Hamas, to finish…
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‘In accordance with international law’ guarantees Israel’s impunity
Praising the bare minimum in terms of statements in support of Palestine has long been treated like a diplomatic breakthrough. BRICS’s New Delhi Declaration was no exception. Following the 18th summit held in Delhi, BRICS referenced Palestine in its statement among many other political concerns and reiterated all the rhetoric…
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Rendering the two-state paradigm obsolete required international complicity with colonialism
The two-state paradigm is already obsolete. Therefore, when the Board of Peace’s High Representative Nickolay Mladenov gives yet another reason why the two-state will become obsolete, the warning does nothing but repeat the absurdity of the international community’s futile attempts to promote solutions without addressing colonialism, colonial violence and, since…
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All of Israel’s plans and actions amount to Palestinian erasure
During Israel’s genocide in Gaza, people around the world understood that diplomacy was not truly averse to the erasure of Palestinians. When Israel spoke openly of its plan to empty Gaza of Palestinians, it was granted weapons and diplomatic support. When forced transfer was revealed to be part of the…
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Israel’s plan for forced transfer with international complicity remains on the table
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that the military would not withdraw from the territory it occupied in Gaza, Defence Minister Israel Katz asserted that the plan for forced displacement was merely frozen. Speaking at a conference hosted by Ynet and Yedioth Ahronot themed “Decision Time: Democracy and Society”,…
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The EU’s complicity with Israel renders support for UNRWA negligible
The EU, as well as individual European countries, have criticised Israel’s forced entry at the Qalandia Vocational Training Centre and the seizure of UNRWA’s installations in East Jerusalem. In a statement that reads as futile as any other, Israel was urged to “honour its obligations and to halt all disruptions…
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International condemnation of settlements does not target Israel’s colonial plan
The discrepancy between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements and those of the EU shows where the political deficiency lies. Predictably, the EU’s failure to address settler-colonialism and Israel’s existence as a colonial enterprise is failing to curb expansion. Words without action fulfil nothing except the publication of futile statements.…
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Genocide continues, on the pretext of kites
Acting forcefully against kites is one of Israel’s latest purported security concerns. “My directive to the defence establishment and the IDF is to do everything against this lethal weapon – to strike it, to strike those operating it, to strike the place from which it was launched, to do everything…
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The Foundations of Zionism
A witness to the 1948 Nakba in the village of Fassouta in the Galilee at the age of 10, and one of 160,000 Palestinians who remained, Palestinian author and researcher Sabri Jiryis later became involved al-Ard which sought the return of Palestinians and their land. Expelled to Safad after attempting…
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Hind Rajab, Israeli impunity and the international community
Over two years of denial will likely now translate into a new form of impunity. Israel has announced it will be investigating the killing of five year old Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car among her dead relatives as the Israeli military opened fire on the vehicle on…
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The impunity granted to Israel is as shocking as its violence
More incitement to violence from Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir exposes how colonial violence is aimed at the entire colonised population. Speaking on a podcast with former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski, Ben Gvir said that Israeli forced should kill 30-40 Palestinians each night in Gaza. Braslavski requested to act…
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Israel’s imaginings of forced displacement, and UN culpability
The forced displacement of Palestinians is taking up much of the Israeli imagination. From the Yellow Line, to pilot projects instead of reconstruction, the bottom line is that, according to Israel, Palestinians should remained forcibly displaced. The latest perception added to these narratives comes from former Israeli General Giora Eiland,…
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No respite from the fear of forced displacement
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted upon his rejection of US President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, which would see Hamas disarming and Israel withdrawing from Gaza. During a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu stated that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he is prime minister,…
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Gaza is exploited either way, through silence or stale statements
While Gaza mourns, the international community continues to turn a blind eye. On Tuesday this week, 112 members from the Abu Sharia and al-Hasayna families were put to rest in a mass funeral in the Sabra neighbourhood. The remains were recently recovered from the rubble of homes destroyed in 2023…
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Whose interests is the Board of Peace serving?
The Board of Peace High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov once again altered his rhetoric after Hamas announced its agreement to disarm, which raised the ire of Israeli officials. US President Donald Trump announced a deal had been reached in which Hamas would disarm while Israel would gradually withdraw its…