Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
-
Palestinian narratives have been exploited to validate international designs on Palestine
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is reeking of fake accomplishments. The “conflict”, he has claimed, will be over with the normalisation agreements which Arab countries are seeking with Israel. Israel Hayom’s report is quite telling in several respects, notably the irrelevance of Palestinians as constructed by US-Israeli scheming, and…
-
The PA’s legacy will be the thwarting of anti-colonial resistance
In the aftermath of the Arab League’s failure to condemn normalisation of relations with Israel, Palestinian unity is once again on the agenda. Whether this is a reaction to the realisation that Palestinians have been abandoned, or a sincere effort to bring politics to the people remains to be seen.…
-
In the interim before annexation, the international community is just not concerned
Reports in the Times of Israel indicate that the annexation of land from the occupied West Bank will be suspended until 2024, confirming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that annexation is still on the agenda. With a somewhat clearer picture of how Israel utilises delays for colonial gain, the international…
-
UAE-Israeli normalisation, ‘peace’ and the Nobel Peace Prize
Should we take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously? This year’s nominations include two polar opposites: Cuba’s Henry Reeves Brigade, whose medical interventions in the coronavirus context have placed the country’s internationalism on the world stage; and US President Donald Trump, nominated by a far-right Norwegian politician for his role in…
-
Rhetoric will eventually normalise Israel’s annexation plans
Prior to the UAE-Israeli normalisation agreement, when speculation over annexation of the occupied West Bank was rife, Israel’s Agriculture Minister Alon Schuster spoke in favour of “cultivating settlements”; his enthusiasm for breaking international law was shared by Defence Minister Benny Gantz. Such a move, according to Schuster and Gantz, would…
-
Palestinians need to discard and disregard US and international misrepresentations
Predictably, Donald Trump’s Senior Adviser Jared Kushner exhibited no historical discernment when justifying the normalisation of relations between Israel and the UAE, and how this will affect the Palestinian people’s political rights. Palestinians, he declared, should not be “stuck in the past.” This was a sweeping statement typical not only…
-
The EU is rewarding Israel for merely postponing violations of international law
It was not a half-hearted scramble by the EU to get Israel to abide by international law, but rather another manoeuvre biding time to rekindle suspended diplomatic meetings. Following a meeting of Israel’s Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi with his EU counterparts in Berlin, the bloc is seeking to reinstate the…
-
Sorry Abbas, but ‘bypassing the Palestinians’ is a tactic promoted by your PA
Following a brief interval in which all attention was focused on whether Israel would follow through with its annexation plans, world leaders are now back with their usual rhetoric about peace negotiations and “saving” the defunct two-state paradigm. The UN, of course, is at the helm of this narrative, hailing…
-
I Found Myself in Palestine
It is rare that we come across writings of how people identify with Palestine. Zionist colonisation has created both a displaced population and a contradiction in terms of affinity and belonging. I Found Myself in Palestine (Olive Branch Press, 2020) is a collection of narratives that explores the concept of…
-
Palestinians have human rights all the time, not just during this pandemic
Contrary to what the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Secretary-General Saeb Erekat stated confidently a few months ago, Israel has not stopped demolishing the homes of Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, an agreement riddled with loopholes was reached in which Israel agreed…
-
Selling out Palestinians: From the UN to the PA
While Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) normalised relations, based upon a US-brokered deal, the United Nations (UN) in turn normalised this latest diplomatic aggression against Palestine, hoping it will: “Create an opportunity for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to re-engage in meaningful negotiations that will realise a two-state solution…
-
The PA rises up to fail the Palestinians at every occasion
It is a pity that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wasted so much time in declaring that no one has the right “to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people.” The statement was made within the context of the US-brokered deal normalising relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, which has allegedly stalled annexation of…
-
Palestinians are deprived of a political voice, and their leaders do nothing about it
Palestinian refugees are at the core of Palestinian narratives. The international community has, however, classified Palestinian refugees as a humanitarian issue. In between these diverging depictions, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) seeks to grapple with both strands to push for “international protection” within the context of the coronavirus pandemic. With…
-
Israel pushes to remove ‘occupation’ from the discourse, and Biden duly obliges
In perfect synchronisation with Israeli lobbying at an international level, pro-Israel organisations in the US have influenced Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden to remove references to the “occupation” from the party’s political platform. Biden’s intervention to ensure this change was interpreted as influencing party policy; any reference to the…
-
From the UN to Australia, Israel is making diplomatic inroads for colonial expansion
After five years as Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon has been appointed as the Zionist state’s Ambassador to Australia, although he still awaits official approval. Do the Australians know, I wonder, that back in 2011 Danon expressed anti-migrant sentiment and suggested to an Australian MP visiting Israel that…
-
The Palestinians are caught between ‘waiting’ and ‘the possibility’ of annexation
While the Palestine Liberation Organisation has been calling upon the EU to step up from rhetoric to action regarding Israel’s forthcoming annexation of occupied West Bank territory, Europe’s Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell invited Israeli Defence Minister Gabi Ashkenazi to Brussels to meet with the bloc’s foreign ministers. “While the…
-
Palestinian Citizens in Israel: A history through fiction, 1948-2010
In the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba, Palestinians have had to contend with different forms of erasure and fragmentation of Palestinian identity, while acquainting themselves, without choice, with a colonial reality which thrived upon exclusion. Manar Makhoul’s study regarding the evolution of Palestinian identity explored in Palestinian literature brings a…
-
Australia and Israel are two sides of the colonial legacy which undermines Palestinian rights
Like other countries prioritising international consensus and diplomatic relations with Israel simultaneously, Australia is trying to square a colonial circle. Whilst not averse to promoting the two-state paradigm and expressing “concern” at the forthcoming annexation, Australia also supports Israel against the International Criminal Court’s possible investigation into war crimes committed…
-
Funding the PA strengthens Israel’s colonial framework
Unsurprisingly, Israel’s decision to halt its annexation plans temporarily has been met with a resounding silence from the international community, rather than utilising the interlude to come up with a unified approach that holds Israel accountable for its open colonisation of Palestine. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority persists with its absurd…
-
When it comes to Covid-19 and colonisation, the UN surpasses its usual duplicity
The UN is changing its narrative about the coronavirus cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. A few months ago, this cooperation was politicised by the UN within the context of diplomatic negotiations. Rather than focus on the pandemic and the additional hardships it places upon Palestinians due to yet…
-
Israel’s list of compromised officials suggests their guilt of war crimes
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has adjourned without issuing its ruling on whether Israeli officials will be tried for war crimes against the Palestinian people since 2014, when Gaza was destroyed during “Operation Protective Edge”. With an extended timeframe until the ruling is due, Israel now has additional time to…
-
Inconclusive investigations and psychological trauma cultivate Israel’s impunity
In May, Israeli security forces killed Eyad Al-Hallaq, a 32-year-old Palestinian man with special needs, on suspicion that he had a weapon. He was on his way to the special school in Jerusalem which he attended, when he was chased by Israeli security forces, cornered and shot, despite being accompanied…
-
Biden will seek to extend the narrative that Israel is being ‘singled out’
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden may try to sustain the fable that he is an alternative to current US President Donald Trump, but for the Palestinians a Biden presidency will most probably normalise the human rights violations that have attracted wider endorsement as a result of US support for Israel.…
-
Danon has exposed the fact that the UN has abandoned Palestine and the Palestinians
Israel’s outgoing Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, is not leaving the arena without his usual, unfounded claim that the international community is subservient to the Palestinian narrative. In a recent item in the Jerusalem Post, Danon cautioned against calling Israel’s plan to formalise its land theft “annexation”. To substantiate…