Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Israel’s colonial violence gives Palestinians the right to defend themselves
The Biden administration has been presented with an opportunity to sound its rocket rhetoric after Hamas retaliated against the Israeli colonial violence unleashed upon Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. As Israel bombed the Gaza Strip, creating yet another wave of internally displaced Palestinians, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken…
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Rhetoric about international intervention is an excuse for risking nothing, while Palestinians risk their lives
The international community is quite happy to keep up the narrative of the “barren land” until Israel’s colonial violence escalates to attract global attraction and condemnation. When this happens, the UN rediscovers the existence of the colonised Palestinian population, albeit while feigning ignorance about its own role in maintaining the…
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The ‘strategic importance’ of the Abraham Accords is to protect Israeli colonialism
US President Joe Biden has given yet another shard of proof that his policies will follow the legacy of his predecessor Donald Trump. In his first call with the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Biden stressed the importance of normalising relations with Israel within the context of “deflecting…
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What has the PA done to halt Israeli apartheid?
The Palestinian Authority couldn’t have hoped for better timing for the release of the Human Rights Watch report detailing Israel’s apartheid system and violations. It’s just a pity for the PA that Palestinians are not fooled by a leadership that calls for the international community to act upon the report,…
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My First and Only Love
“Occupation is akin to an earthquake, and so are immigration and desolation and everything people leave behind.” This rumination by Nidal, the protagonist in Sahar Khalifeh’s literary novel, My First and Only Love (Hoopoe Fiction, 2021), is a tempestuous introduction to a love story that spans decades, in much the…
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The US is shielding Israel from apartheid claims and itself from complicity charges
The Palestinians mentioned apartheid in connection with Israel long before B’Tselem used the description. Now it is the turn of Human Rights Watch (HRW) to — rightfully, if belatedly — accuse Israel of apartheid in its latest report titled A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and…
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There’s a new twist in Israeli state-settler complicity against the indigenous Palestinians
In another example of collaboration between the government of Israel and its illegal settlers, the Israeli Settlements’ Council has started to issue eviction orders to Palestinians setting up vegetable stalls in the occupied Jordan Valley, an action that was previously only associated with the Israeli occupation security forces. Seven Palestinians…
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US funding for UNRWA buys silence while Palestinians are deprived of their rights
A brief but revealing press statement marked the meeting of US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield with the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini. Neutrality, a politicised status that underscores the agency’s approach to political events, is one of the principles…
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Abbas statements are complicit with Israeli settler-colonialism
Known for belatedly spouting known truths, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas was true to form in his address to the J Street conference recently, which revealed the extent of his collaboration with the international community over Palestine’s loss, and his complicity with Israeli settler-colonialism. Mentioning “apartheid” as he did cannot…
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Israel’s impunity is endorsed by the international community
Unsurprisingly, attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians have increased during the first three months of 2021. UN human rights experts and rapporteurs have documented more than 210 settler attacks in the first three months of this year, indicating a possible increase when compared with the 771 instances of settler…
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Israel’s rejection of the ICC war crimes investigation is about politics, not justice
Israel has opted to reject, rather than defer, the International Criminal Court’s investigation into war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. The decision comes after months of the settler-colonial state lobbying world leaders to oppose the ICC decision, even as the Israeli government took its own measures and precautions to…
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UNRWA is supposed to be ‘neutral’ even as humanitarian aid is politicised
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has issued yet another warning about the perilous living conditions of Palestinians in Lebanon’s refugee camps. Covid-19 is seen to have exacerbated the refugees’ plight, but having this immediate and more pressing concern is, for diplomatic reasons, a premise to…
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US calls for ‘equal treatment’ for Palestinians and Israelis, within the unequal two-state compromise
US President Joe Biden may be returning the country to the two-state paradigm, but the inequalities between Israelis and Palestinians are becoming more prominent with each statement uttered by officials. When the US speaks of the two-state compromise, it is doing so with complete recognition of the fact that it…
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The US’ designation is glossing over colonialism in Palestine
In another move that shows US President Joe Biden is navigating between the Trump administration’s era and the return to the two-state politics, the US State Department’s 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights presented two facets of the current administration’s policy. The title reads, as it did during former US President Donald Trump’s tenure,…
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US aid is tied to Palestinian acquiescence to the two-state illusion
The US has reversed one aspect of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in Palestine; humanitarian aid will be resumed with a $15 million grant for vulnerable Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “Our engagements all have the same aim: to build support for a peaceful solution to…
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Quartet rhetoric normalises Israel’s unilateral decisions
The Trump era is over, or so the Middle East Quartet would have us believe. Now that the Zionist colonisation project is back to contending diplomatically with the two-state compromise, the main international actors are keen to publicise Washington’s return to decades of negotiations which have actually led to Israel’s…
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Israel’s childish intimidation of the PA
The impending war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court has prompted Israel to act diplomatically and otherwise to try and stop it. The Israeli government has ramped up its lobbying in an attempt to influence European politicians to oppose the ICC’s investigation. During a visit to Germany, Israeli President…
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Decolonising Israel, Liberating Palestine
“The two-state solution has always been merely a cynical tool of conflict management never intended to actually resolve the conflict.” Jeff Halper’s succinct statement regarding international diplomacy over the loss of Palestine and Israel’s colonial expansion provides the premise of Decolonising Israel, Liberating Palestine. International diplomacy has failed because it…
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Courting Israel with silence and impunity
Last year, the Palestinian Authority attempted, in the wrong way as usual, to get the international community to act upon Israel’s colonial expansion by stating that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was availing himself of the last months of the Trump administration. The illusion of a restricted timeframe in which…
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The political implications of the Israel-Pfizer vaccine deal
Israel’s successful vaccination campaign and its subsequent positive spell in the international spotlight is a result of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politicisation of medical matters in the run-up to this month’s General Election. The January deal between Israel and Pfizer allowed the stockpiling of vaccines and a swift inoculation of…
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Biden’s brand of democracy isolates the Palestinians
Israel is reportedly concerned that US President Joe Biden will prioritise human rights over traditional allegiances in the Middle East. With a policy shift that departs from the Trump administration’s belligerence, Biden is attempting to bring Washington in line with the human rights rhetoric favoured within the international arena, albeit…
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Israel seeks diplomatic allies against the ICC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is counting upon the diplomatic route against the International Criminal Court’s decision to investigate war crimes alleged to have been committed by his country. Israel will not be short of supporters. Predictably, the US has already clarified its “complete opposition to the decision of the…
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Short-term financial measures for Palestinians will not address decades of deprivation
Short-term funding initiatives for Palestinians provided without addressing Israel’s colonialism and military occupation have been proven to be a recipe for long-term failure. They simply do not address the decades of deprivation imposed upon the people of Palestine. With Trump at America’s helm, the failing Palestinian economy was partly blamed…
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The EU seeks collaboration with Biden, without political space for the Palestinians
European politicians are finally waking up to the issue of Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, acknowledging that the suspension brought about by the US-brokered Abraham Accords are not an impediment to the annexation actually happening in what remains of Palestinian territory. A letter addressed to the EU’s High Representative Josep…