Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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‘Agenda Item 7’ highlights UN inaction over Israeli colonisation
The US has asked to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council in another move that, superficially at least, spells a departure from the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the institution. However, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, the reasons for the earlier departure from the Council still stand: alleged…
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‘Guarded optimism’ does not hide the deprivation forced upon Palestinians
The latest report by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process painted a bleak picture for Palestine. Gone are the days when UN representatives attempted to conflate diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinian Authority’s cooperation over the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, the Palestinian economy contracted by 10 to…
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The Colonising Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine
A look at Israeli colonisation from the inside requires a thorough reckoning. In Hagar Kotef’s recent study, The Colonising Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine, settlement narratives are juxtaposed with accountability. Running parallel to Palestinian memory, Kotef immediately embarks upon the concept of settlement and settler narratives, and examines…
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Biden has reassured Netanyahu that the status quo is safe
With US President Joe Biden’s first call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now out of the way, the first inklings of the new administration’s diplomacy regarding Palestine and Israel have been made public. Biden, it seems, will incorporate elements of the Trump administration’s policies while promoting the two-state paradigm,…
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The US is duplicitous over Jerusalem, but the PA stays silent
The Biden administration is adopting a confusing position regarding Jerusalem, signalling a possible effort to square the circle of taking the US back to the fold of international consensus on Palestine and Israel, while maintaining the gifts which former US President Donald Trump handed on a plate to Israel. As…
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Insufficient responses are called out, but the PA remains complacent
The Palestinian Authority’s recent, and unusual, response to the EU’s statement condemning Israel’s latest settlement expansion would have been welcomed if it came from a consistent political position. In the wake of Israel’s impending annexation, it seems that the PA has caught up with the ramifications of territorial loss. Then…
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The PA and UN are wilfully complicit in Israel’s settler-colonialism
At the rate that it is failing the people of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority will only stop jeopardising their cause when it is declared to be completely obsolete, more so than the two-state compromise. At this year’s first meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of…
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International initiatives exclude any voice for the Palestinian people
With each diplomatic attempt by the international community to save the two-state compromise, Palestinians are guaranteed further loss of territory with every compromise that they are forced to make. What, therefore, is the Palestinian Authority hoping to gain from its obstinate refusal to come up with a distinctly Palestinian initiative…
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Israel puts diplomatic spin on the normalisation agreements
When news of the “Abraham Accords” broke last year, Israel’s impending annexation of the occupied West Bank was sidelined. The new diplomatic opportunities in line with what the international community itself pursues with Israel, and which also validated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that the Palestinian cause was no…
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A return to the two-state politics without a historical reckoning spells loss for Palestinians
US President Joe Biden announced the restoring of diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority and the resumption of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people, in a bid to bring the country back to international consensus after the Trump administration pursued a different form of diplomatic relations which culminated in the Abraham Accords. According…
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The US and Israel are changing the narrative on Palestine through Trump’s legacy
“An unprecedented place,” is how Israel Hayom described the Trump administration’s scheming with Israel against the Palestinian people, during an interview with outgoing US Ambassador David Friedman. Unprecedented, that is if we isolate the Trump era from decades of US and international foreign policy. This distinction was reinforced by Friedman…
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The decree for Palestinian elections symbolises the democratic farce in Palestine
The Palestinian legislative and presidential elections are set to be held in May and July respectively, and the Palestinian Authority is following US President Joe Biden’s diplomatic path meticulously. A democratic veneer which seeks to reinstall current PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is in the offing, and Fatah is obliging. Biden’s…
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The PA’s ‘hope’ masks the reality of the two-state compromise
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” about Israel’s ongoing settlement expansion, the Palestinian Authority’s official media, Wafa news agency, has reported. Another 800 settlement units will endanger two-state politics, but will do nothing to endanger the UN’s stranglehold over Palestine. If settlements endanger the two-state framework, there is…
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Mladenov’s parting message endorses Trump’s poisonous normalisation legacy
The UN has mastered the art of dissociating itself from colonisation, especially that which it has supported through international consensus. Former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, who in 2019 blamed Palestinians for Israel’s aggression against Gaza, has left his post with a parting message…
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Israel applies double standards in determining if violence is acceptable or not
“Shocking scenes of violence” was how the Jewish Insider described last week’s storming of the Capitol Building in Washington DC by supporters of outgoing US President Donald Trump. It is a dissociative statement, one that does not equate the US with violence, apart from glossing over the fact that Trump…
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Humanitarian aid and the two-state compromise spell another round of Palestinian subjugation
In what reads like a tentative attempt to bring the US back on track when it comes to international diplomacy, the US Foreign Affairs Committee representative, Gregory Meeks, has said that humanitarian aid for the Palestinians may be resumed in order to prioritise two-state politics. Clearly advocating for the two-state…
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Abbas is exploiting Palestinian reconciliation and unity efforts
After returning to security coordination with Israel just days after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the US presidential election, the Palestinian Authority wasted no time in reassuring the international community that it was ready to resume negotiations with Israel. No criticism was publicly voiced by PA leader Mahmoud…
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UNRWA and Palestinian refugees are the next targets of normalisation deals with Israel
When US President Donald Trump leaves office in three weeks’ time, he will have laid the foundations for a further downgrading of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. It is, perhaps, little wonder that the Palestinian Authority was so eager to resume the illusion of “normal” in preparation for improved relations…
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PA praise for the UN’s pro-colonial stance betrays its own collaboration
In yet another scripted audience, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh met the outgoing UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, and made an inaccurate statement about the UN and international law with regard to Palestine. “The United Nations is a guarantor of international law…
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UNRWA, the EU and humanitarian aid all have a political agenda
The EU’s recent financial donation to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) leaves no doubt about the motive. As the agency continues to face an unprecedented year-on-year financial crisis due to the US cancelling its regular and very large donations and insufficient support from the international…
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The international narrative about Gaza, the illegal blockade and Covid-19
Politicians are portraying Palestine in terms of a state of emergency, while avoiding any public recognition of the fact that colonialism has created permanent instability there that is exacerbated whenever humanitarian needs are amplified. Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza is once again the subject of a petition, signed by 24…
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The 2021 Humanitarian Response Plan is mired in a web of deceit
The 2021 Humanitarian Response Plan designed for Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) is expected to reach 1.8 million out of 2.45 million people who have been identified as vulnerable and in need of humanitarian aid, with 70 per cent of the allocated funds going to Gaza. A…
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Israeli infrastructure projects aid the de facto annexation of Palestinian land
If we were to listen only to the international community’s rhetoric about the impending Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory, the impression would be that the plans are more obsolete than the two-state compromise. It is impossible to forget how, at the first inkling of Arab leaders’ capitulation to Israel in…
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The American Granddaughter
Identity and war are themes explored in Inaam Kachaci’s novel, The American Granddaughter (Interlink Books, 2020). The main character is Zeina, an Iraqi-born US citizen, who is thoroughly immersed in US culture while retaining links to her roots. She applies for a position as a translator with the US Army…