Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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The politics of postponing Palestine
As attention shifts towards Israel’s attacks on Iran, where does Palestine stand? Just a few weeks ago, anticipation for the joint France-Saudi Arabia conference on the two-state paradigm was gradually building, albeit with no particular expectations other than statements of promise to symbolically recognise a Palestinian state. If symbolic recognition…
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The implications of supporting Israel’s ambiguity policy on its nuclear weapons
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had the audacity to accuse Iran of genocide in his statement outlining the reasons for Operation Rising Lion, while openly committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza with the international community’s complicity. “For decades, the tyrants of Tehran brazenly, openly called for Israel’s destruction. They backed…
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Resisting Erasure: Capitalism, Imperialism and Race in Palestine
One statement the authors make in the introduction to Resisting Erasure: Capitalism, Imperialism and Race in Palestine (Verso Books, 2025) encapsulates book’s essence: “We hope to de-exceptionalise the question of Palestine.” The prevailing concepts of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine do not consider the wider imperialist context. Religious conflict, the…
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Protecting Israel’s narrative also protects genocide
According to US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, there is a ‘complication’ when Palestinians want their own state on their own land. Speaking during an interview with Bloomberg, Huckabee undoubtedly awarded Israel with further impunity for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, when severing the link between Palestinians and…
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Israel’s PR stunt backfires, guides focus to humanitarian deprivation in Gaza
“All the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X. The images of Israeli commandos handing out packets of sandwiches and bottles of water to the 12 activists on board the Madleen…
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How world leaders stand with genocide
Do world leaders really want the genocide in Gaza to end? Israel’s arms sales record for 2024 paints a clearer picture of where the international communities’ loyalties lie. For the fourth consecutive year Israel broke its arms sales record, totalling $14.8 billion in 2024. Israeli media reports note that European…
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The diplomatic gamble on Palestinian statehood gives Palestinians no security
After France announced its intention to recognise a Palestinian state, Israel and the US have been lobbying against the possibility. France and Saudi Arabia are due to host a summit on Palestinian statehood at the UN in June. The summit is based on UN General Assembly Resolution 79/81, and it…
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Starvation, surveillance and elimination in genocide
Images from Gaza do not paint a picture of humanitarian aid, as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) commenced its operations. The long lines of Palestinians waiting for food evoked recollections of people in concentration camps, and the grouping of Palestinians was more an exercise in surveillance. Of course, chaos ensued.…
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Humanitarian aid serves violent interests
Humanitarian aid has become one of the most prominent and shameful means through which international institutions attempt to mitigate the consequences of military aggression. Israel’s purported concept of aid has obviously fared no better. It must be said again that Israel’s designation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) can be…
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Will the international community rethink its support for Israel’s security narrative?
Earlier this week, Israel fired warning shots at an international diplomatic delegation in the occupied West Bank. According to the Israeli military, the delegation “deviated from the approved route and entered an area where they were not authorised to be”. The delegation was visiting the Jenin refugee camp, which both…
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Bureaucracy is saving both Israel and the EU
Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement has long been touted as one avenue for the EU to rethink its allegiances with Israel. The article states, “Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic…
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International rhetoric aids Israel’s impunity
Israel allowed nine trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza on a completely flawed premise in which the international community is completely complicit. Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the international community has selected which actions to condemn, and the starvation policy took precedence even over the so-called…
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On the Pleasures of Living in Gaza
In the epilogue to On the Pleasures of Living in Gaza (OR Books, 2025), Mohammed Omer Almoghayer writes, “We have our sorrow, which cannot be soothed by the analysis of a world that hasn’t experienced it. We have our loss, which others can only ponder in the realms of fiction…
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Humanitarian aid in return for forced displacement
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embarked upon his campaign to destroy the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), one of the aims was to alter the definition of who qualifies for refugee status. The bans on UNRWA have made it near to impossible for the agency…
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A veneer for genocide
As Israel continues with its genocide in Gaza, criticism is piling up. From within Israel itself, former senior Mossad official Anon Sofrin recently pointed out that “full military takeover of Gaza would likely come at a steep price”. And during a visit to Israel, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stated,…
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The EU’s discrepancies in humanitarian aid rhetoric
Reading through comments regarding the latest purported disagreements over the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, one fact stands out above all others – humanitarian aid is being politicised, and it always has been. It is easy for the European Union to state that aid “must bever be politicised or…
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Colonialism, dissociation and genocide
The international community’s lenience towards Israel’s genocide in Gaza mirrors the complacency and complicity in the early years of Zionism. What we have seen through decades of Zionist colonisation in Palestine is the international community moving away from the stipulated human rights and international law violations to chart a new…
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The PA’s efforts to keep Palestinians colonised
The Palestinian Authority’s dependence on Israel and the US makes it traitorous to Palestinians. This week, Israeli media reported that the PA’s Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj will be meeting with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials in Washington. Faraj has been part of the PA’s security establishment since 1994…
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Advisory opinions will not stop genocide
Legal recourse becomes absurd when the need is to stop genocide as a matter of great urgency. In December 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice about Israel’s obligations in Gaza to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid “essential…
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Palestinian voices are throttled by the promotion of foreign agendas
Almost all political rhetoric about Israel’s genocide in Gaza completely misses the point. That includes the Palestinian Authority’s purported concern about Palestinians in Gaza, which does not extend to any concern about Israel’s ultimate colonial vision of creating “Greater Israel”. As the PA’s official news agency Wafa reported, the Fatah…
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Breaking down Netanyahu’s ‘no choice’ narrative
According to Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has no choice but to keep fighting in Gaza. There’s another definition of genocide coming from the settler-colonial enterprise in Palestine – genocide as a last resort. Because, according to Israel, which the US finances to the tune of $3.2 billion a year,…
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Israel is controlling the humanitarian paradigm
Since the early days of the latest and ongoing phase of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, humanitarian aid has become a major weapon. It was on 9 October 2023 that the then Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a complete siege to be imposed on Gaza. “There will be no electricity,…
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To Stand With Palestine: Transnational Resistance and Political Evolution in the US
“At the very centre of it, settler-colonialism is a zero-sum game. It’s either the coloniser’s account or that of the indigenous inhabitants.” The preface to Karam Dana’s recent publication, To Stand with Palestine: Translational Resistance and Political Evolution in the US (Columbia University Press, 2025) is bleak in terms of…
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Funding the PA is for the benefit of Israel and the EU, not the Palestinians
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas met with the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, in March. The meeting was replete with the usual hyperbole that still clings to the defunct two-state paradigm, the PA’s reform and funding for this purpose. Yesterday, Reuters reported that the…