Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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What remains missing from the rhetoric of “Israel’s obligations”
Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave its advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations towards the presence of UN agencies operating in the occupied Palestinian Territories. The opinion was requested by the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are non-binding to the point of not escalating beyond futile recommendations. Despite…
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The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders
Living between identities, or half identities, what does one embrace? Sarah Aziza’s memoir, The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders (Catapult Books, 2025) takes the reader through a journey of ramifications associated with identity. The book opens with a snippet of loss that is slowly recovered in memory…
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Ceasefires and normalising genocide
The international community tirelessly worked to preserve its image within the context of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza. One must note – a ceasefire is not the same as stopping a genocide. It implies a fragile truce, and one which Israel has repeatedly violated. In its latest aggression against…
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The Palestinian Authority: Existence and erasure for Israel’s benefit
The Palestinian Authority seems set on maintaining its illegitimate rule. As PA leader Mahmoud Abbas makes plans for a future in which his post is vacated, he named vice-president Hussein al-Sheikh to assume the presidency for an interim period of 90 days, after which elections should be held. Elections have…
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The maximalist politics of compromise
Even in the context of Israel’s genocide in Palestine, calls for compromise have not abated. One recent call for compromise comes from Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. In an interview at the Reuters NEXT Gulf Summit, Gargash reiterated the UAE’s…
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Complicity with colonialism and genocide
All world leaders who quickly endorsed US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza found common ground with the perpetuated lie that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner denied Israel committing genocide in Gaza. “No, no, there was…
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The dangers of political ambiguity
Israel has already violated the terms of the ceasefire, including imposing restrictions on the entrance of humanitarian aid into Gaza and thus splintering the diplomatic focus of the ceasefire. Starvation as the means to commit genocide hit directly into the humanitarian paradigm; something the international community couldn’t allow. And while…
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The EU and Israel’s common ground
The European Commission did not take long to capitulate to comments by Israel’s ambassador to the EU Avi Nir-Feldklein, who said that if the bloc wants to participate in the US plan for Gaza, it must lift the proposed penalties against Israel which EC President Ursula von der Leyen announced…
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In Paris, a meeting that will protect Israel’s colonial violence
Today, diplomats from Europe and the Middle East will meet in France to discuss the transition in Gaza. While the meeting endorses the US plan for Gaza, or perhaps one should say Israel because there is no security for Palestinians in ongoing colonialism and genocide, Israeli officials are maintaining that…
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The EU’s political relevance enables Israel’s genocide in Gaza
The EU has rendered itself irrelevant, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an interview with Euronews, basking in US President Donald Trump’s support for Israel’s genocide under the guise of a peace deal, Netanyahu took issue with some European countries’ recent symbolic recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state.…
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One Day, Everyone Will Have Been Against This
Omar El Akkad’s book forces us to look at the savagery of Western imperialism through Israel’s genocide in Gaza. One Day, Everyone Will Have Been Against This (Canongate books, 2025) spells a moment of reckoning for the entire world, of the magnitude of atrocities worldwide culminating in a genocide on…
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Demilitarisation, genocide and the two-state paradigm
The call to demilitarise Gaza is not new. The absurdity of demilitarising an anti-colonial resistance struggle in the face of hi-tech, imperialist supported Israeli genocide “under the supervision of independent monitors”, as the US plan states, only proves who defines the narratives and who controls the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians…
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Extending colonialism and imperialism in Gaza
On Sunday, Haaretz revealed the entirety of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s plan for Gaza. Titled Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA) Institutional Structure, it is immediately clear that there is no Palestinian input and none is invited. As US President Donald Trump announced Blair’s participation in the “Board of…
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The path to genocide is protected by the international community
As Israel continues with its genocide to empty Gaza of Palestinians, the Gaza Media Office stated this month that more than one million Palestinians are refusing to leave Gaza city. “We must affirm that more than one million Palestinians, including over 350,000 children, remain in the north, steadfast in their…
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Recognising Palestine for the two-state politics, not for Palestinians
The UK’s symbolic recognition of Palestine, like that of other countries who made this gesture without supporting decolonisation, is tied solely to the two-state politics. Symbolic recognition of the State of Palestine gives weight to the politics that left Palestinians without a state, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer illustrated…
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Will Eurovision uphold Israel’s colonial genocide?
Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland have declared their intention to not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest if Israel is allowed to take part. In response, Eurovision’s director Martin Green issued a weak statement that can only be classified as impunity for Israel. “We understand the concerns and…
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Genocide admissions and international silence
Israel has killed more than 10 per cent of Gaza’s population since the start of the genocide in October 2023. The statistics, now reported by mainstream media as they come directly from an Israeli source – none other than former army commander Herzi Halevi who was chief of staff for…
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After almost two years of committing genocide, Israel’s security remains paramount for the EU
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has just woken up to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, thanks to the necessity of giving the State of the Union speech. Only she does not call it a genocide – the EC’s term is “what is happening in Gaza”. And the list of…
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More inaccuracies from the EU to serve Israel’s narrative
Less than a day after the EU warned against the humanitarian aid flotillas to Gaza, the Global Sumud Flotilla was hit by a drone in Tunisian waters. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned that if the attack is confirmed, “there has been an attack on Tunisia.” “We don’t encourage flotillas…
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No conflict over shared values
EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas has partly blamed the US for the bloc’s losing political leverage in Gaza. “If America is supporting everything that the Israeli government is doing, then the leverage they have is there; the leverage we have is in another place,” Kallas said at the annual…
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The futility of resolutions without action
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is the latest to speak up about the genocide in Gaza, almost two years since it started. In a resolution that made headline news with major news outlets, the IAGS declared that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of…
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A dangerous stalemate
Germany will not support recognition of a Palestinian state, while other Western governments are portraying themselves as having reached a state of enlightenment for planning to recognise a Palestinian state. “We do not currently consider the conditions for state recognition to be met in any way, and as such, we…
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Colonial complicity is a bigger problem than Israeli-sponsored influencers
“I’m here in Gaza and all I see is food, water and opportunity.” Sponsored by Israel’s Diaspora Ministry, a group of US and Israeli influencers were given access to the distribution sites, or kill zones, managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, ostensibly to make people believe that during genocide, Palestinians…
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Israel’s need for genocide
Before Israel’s genocide in Gaza, human rights still bore a superficial semblance to what rights were supposed to entail. There was never any balance, of course. Colonialism had already set its precedents on what rights are and who should grant them. Including the word “universal” in the declaration of human…