Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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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…
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Palestinian Resistance Literature Under Occupation: 1948 – 1968
Assassinated in Lebanon by Israel in 1972, Palestinian intellectual Ghassan Kanafani is mostly renowned for his anti-colonial resistance, political writings and works of literary fiction. Palestinian Resistance Literature Under Occupation: 1948 – 1968 (Verso Books, 2026) brings another aspect of Kanafani’s work to an English-speaking public; a deep historical critique…
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Disarming settlers barely scratches the surface of Israel’s colonial violence
At the UN Security Council on Tuesday this week, Palestinian Permanent Observer Riyad Mansour called for “a strong international response before it is too late” with regard to settler violence in the occupied West Bank. However, it is already too late. It has been too late for decades now, and…
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The colonial context matters in Gaza’s food insecurity
A joint press release by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) gave an overview of the current food insecurity in Gaza, exacerbated in recent years by Israel’s genocide. “There is progress on food security in Gaza, but it is fragile and can easily…
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Israel shows there is no limit to the imagination of colonial violence
Forget the importance of preserving and protecting wildlife. For Israel, certain wildlife also serves a purpose in colonial violence. In December last year, Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir proposed building moats for crocodiles around prisons holding Palestinian prisoners. This month, Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman created a loophole…
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The road to normalising colonial expansion in Gaza
Normalising genocide was a way to normalise colonial expansion in Gaza. Only three weeks after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed plans for three Israeli settlements, the Nachala settler group organised a march last Sunday, in which settlers and ministers, including Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Economy Minister…
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When does observation become a humiliating spectacle?
Last week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA) led a virtual visit to Al Mawasi, Khan Younis, in Gaza for diplomats from twelve countries. Israel’s restrictions on entering Gaza has made it difficult for in person visits; hence the virtual tour…
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What context is left out of humanitarian aid announcements?
Humanitarian aid, wherever it comes from is, is becoming murkier. The only clear aspect about humanitarian aid is that each scheme announced signifies a bid for political influence at the expense of the forcibly displaced population of Gaza. US Ambassador to the UN Jeff Bartos recently urged UNRWA donors to…
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Funding failed paradigms for Palestinians in Gaza
Humanitarian aid is a failed paradigm, be it the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees or the Board of Peace’s scheming. UNRWA has always faced funding problems and it was never structured to deal with ongoing colonial expansion. The Board of Peace, on the other hand, has failed…
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Like Israel’s colonial expansion, the UN’s narratives also place Palestinians at risk
Little exposure has been given to the Yellow Line and the Orange Line in Gaza. Given the genocide, Israel’s military occupation in Gaza should have generated equal scrutiny at the very least. However, Israel’s current presence in Gaza has followed the same pattern of oblivion as in the occupied West…
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Colonial expansion is always accompanied by the international community’s unspoken consent
It takes little to ascertain that the reason for Israel’s genocide in Gaza was colonial expansion. Israel made no secret of it from the start, with talks about forced transfer and attempts to involve the international community in its war crimes. Settlement leaders were also very vocal about resettling in…
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The international community is not opposing Netanyahu’s threat
“Another principle of the government, of the broad national government that I intend to lead, is that there is no room for two states. Between the sea and the Jordan River there is no room for two states,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asserted. Inverting the Palestinian slogan to…
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The Keys to my House: A Gaza Diary
Sami al-Ajrami’s account of the first six months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza starts with a tenacious link to home and homeland. A week after Hamas infiltrated Israel, al-Ajrami decides to leave his home in Gaza, taking his two nineteen-year-old daughters with him. “This isn’t a rented apartment in some…
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The EU does not need to clarify its support for Israeli colonialism
Israeli colonialism entrenched an apartheid system. The reality has been documented multiple times and acknowledged even within Israel, most prominently by the non-governmental organisation B’Tselem in 2021. Recently, the EU High Representative Kaja Kallas was reported to have used the term apartheid during a visit to Mexico. Kallas has made…
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Symbolism for Palestinians is impunity for Israeli colonialism
There is no disputing that human rights discourse safeguard the interests of former and current colonial powers. When the ceasefire was announced, it carried strong symbolism for the international community, as it provided the veneer of having acted in cohesion to halt a genocide that it willingly allowed in the…