Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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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…
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Exposing the UN’s hypocrisy of humanitarian aid and ceasefires
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council this week that, “As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened. Gaza is a killing field – and civilians are in an endless death loop.” With not a single mention of the word genocide in his entire speech,…
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The two-state paradigm is killing Palestinians in conjunction with genocide
Two announcements within the span of a few days about a Palestinian state, or the absence of it, should be enough evidence to prove that the international community is playing diplomatic games for its own benefit, nobody else’s. “A Palestinian state will not be established,” said Israeli Economy and Industry…
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The humanitarian paradigm is as deadly as genocide
As Israel omits Palestinians from Gaza in its depraved genocide, let the international community omit all its hypocritical rhetoric of “concern”, “deeply disturbed”, “deplores” and “catastrophic”. The international community is comfortably ensconced in its complicity and the humanitarian paradigm is its veneer. Meanwhile, the world was regaled with more horrific…
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The Lives of Rain
The many facets of exile are immediately apparent in Nathalie Handal’s collection of poetry, The Lives of Rain. Voices in the diaspora are made of memory and new experiences, in places that feel as fleeting as the place of origin. Yet the realities, whether derived from memory, inherited from the…
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The road to colonial land grab ties into humanitarian deprivation
Within Israel, a big reckoning with the entire Zionist colonial enterprise should be taking place. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a further land grab in Gaza, ostensibly to force Hamas to surrender and bring the hostages back, relatives were reportedly shocked. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a…
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Wasting time has never been deadlier for Palestinians
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has found it pertinent to reiterate that, “We are negotiating under fire.” The brief statement was how he framed the decision to continue the genocide in Gaza, only this time there was a full admission that the genocide is the way towards implementing the Trump…
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Palestine in the Air: A History of Palestinian Aviation
Israel’s elimination of Palestinians’ freedom of movement contrasts sharply with the freedom that aviation offers elsewhere in the world. “The greatest irony of flight is that it conferred progress and prosperity upon many, but also catalysed colonial expansion, economic exploitation, and brutal aerial warfare,” writes Chin-Chin Yap in the introduction…
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What EU-enforced oblivion looks like
If there has ever been a blatant form of oblivion in the EU’s political communications, the European Council’s conclusions on 20 March exceed all previous examples. “The European Council is deeply alarmed by the dramatic military escalation in the Middle East and the risk this represents for the entire region,”…
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Fake compassion will not protect Palestinians in Gaza
In a message to AFP, Fatah spokesman Monther Al-Hayek said that Hamas must show compassion for Gaza’s population and called upon the resistance movement to “step aside from governing and fully recognise that the battle ahead will lead to the end of Palestinians’ existence.” If Palestinians are annihilated, though, it…
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What normalising genocide looks like in terms of rhetoric
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday that, “From now on, negotiations will be conducted under fire.” His words were total nonsense, of course, because the previous negotiations for the ceasefire agreement were definitely conducted under fire. Netanyahu’s statement condemns to oblivion the previous long months of Israel’s genocide of…
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Unenforced ICC arrest warrants are just part of the wider Zionist impunity framework
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be following up on his Hungarian counterpart Victor Orban’s invitation to visit his country, Israeli media have reported. This, despite the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, which signatories to the Rome Statute are obliged to enforce. As is usually the case when…