Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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Trump’s rhetoric exposes the planned fragmentation of Palestine
In between the bouts of ridiculing Donald Trump’s communication skills, whether in the spoken word or Twitter outbursts, it would perhaps be better to contemplate the decline in the prospects for Palestine and Palestinians for what it really is. We are witnessing the culmination of decades of international efforts...
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There are dangerous contradictions in Erekat’s rhetoric
In reading and understanding Saeb Erekat’s rhetoric, it is imperative to include the context of what is left unsaid. From demanding a complete ban on settlement products to insisting on the EU pursuing the implementation of UN resolutions, Erekat exhibits, once again, his penchant for sounding assertive while obliterating...
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Abbas was liberal with the misconceptions in his speech to the French senate
While Israel has blatantly violated international law by legalising settlements on privately-owned Palestinian territory, President Mahmoud Abbas is hindering, rather than facilitating, any reversal of such action. The simple fact is that the Palestinian Authority leader is continuing to speak from a compromised position which places Palestinians on the...
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Time to prioritise Latin America’s solidarity with Palestine
Last Saturday, Nicaragua hosted a conference themed “Building Bridges with the Palestinian Diaspora in Central America”; it was organised by the United Nations and the Committee on the Exercise of Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The 50th year of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza...
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Abbas’ wasted opportunity at the AU Summit
Two contradictory approaches characterised PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the 27th annual summit of the African Union in Rwanda. Prior to the summit, Wafa reported that Abbas intended to mobilise support for Palestine and also seek talks with the aim of boosting mutual relations. The intent became an...
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The latest PA foreign ministry statement is tethered to obsolete paradigms
Recognising belligerent intent somewhat belatedly will remain a characteristic of the Palestinian Authority. Despite evidence that Israel was never seeking to implement the two-state “solution”, it was only recently that the PA expressed such awareness and only then within the context of the new US presidency, which is acting...
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EU resolution follows a conveniently altered narrative
Earlier this week, the EU Parliamentary Assembly voted on a report titled “The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza” and adopted Resolution 2142, which consisted of a rehashing of various recommendations seeking to condemn Israel while throwing in a measure of normalisation by propagating the two-state paradigm and the discourse of...
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Extending the displacement of Palestinian civilians
Within the space of two days, Israel has exposed its hypocritical scheming when it comes to Palestinians. Two and a half years after its devastating aggression on Gaza, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the reconstruction of 1,500 homes destroyed during the relentless bombing in Summer...
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Cuban support for Palestine should mirror Castro’s anti-colonial legacy
Palestine continues to face an increasing contradiction which is becoming normalised in diplomatic arenas. During this year’s first UN Security Council session debating the Middle East and the Palestinian Question, Cuban representative Humberto Rivero Rosario made an observation that has been lacking in official rhetoric, but one that was...
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Israel able to detain former hunger-strikers due to international silence
Israel’s tactic of repeatedly detaining former Palestinian prisoners who went on hunger strikes has this time targeted Muhammad Al-Qeeq, following his participation in a protest organised by national organisations in Bethlehem demanding the return of the bodies of Palestinians murdered by Israel since October 2015. According to Ma’an news...
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Israeli sophistry flies in the face of international laws and conventions
In a recent interview published in the Times of Israel, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett affirmed clearly that the international community would, with time, accept the entire colonial structure which has wreaked so much destruction upon Palestinians. Seemingly emboldened by Trump’s insistence on moving the US Embassy from Tel...
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Israeli retaliation exposes international complicity
Promoting its settler-colonialism as a response to UN Security Council Resolution 2334 has been acknowledged and articulated clearly by the Israeli government. On Monday, Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel signed grant agreements totalling $625,000 with the Israeli mayors of Beit El, Kiryat Arba and Har Hevron Regional Council; the...
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Israel is using prison as collective punishment of the Palestinians
A report compiled by Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights has explained the statistics of the arrest and imprisonment of Palestinians by Israel in 2016. The figures are staggering. A total of 6,400 Palestinians were arrested, including 1332 children, of whom 300 are still...
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Diplomacy and disappearing Palestine
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has added to the tirade against UN Security Council Resolution 2334. Despite the absence of rhetorical aggression in comparison to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s postulations, Rivlin has outlined the Israeli ambition to see Palestine disappear in a manner that can be disguised within the diplomatic...
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Limited opportunities and flawed choices
The US decision to abstain, rather than use its veto, at the UN Security Council last Friday has generated a limited spectrum of possibilities and definitely raised Israel’s ire, given its retaliatory antics against countries supporting the resolution in question. Israel’s façade, particularly the democratic fantasy which it has...
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Israeli tantrums and diplomatic gamesmanship shift attention from Palestine
Last week’s UN Security Council Resolution 2334 can be summarised as a collective international effort to provoke the type of drama in which opportunism and retaliation consolidate their dominion over oblivion. Outgoing US President Barack Obama departed conveniently from the usual veto over resolutions deemed hostile by Israel due...
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Jerusalem highlights the extent of Palestine's fragmentation
As Israel’s colonial ambitions prevail largely unhindered, Jerusalem has been bequeathed with further unwarranted contention. Speaking during a reception at the Israeli embassy in Washington, Ambassador Ron Dermer declared that moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would constitute “a great step forward” for Israel’s peace; the...
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Addressing humanitarian concerns in a political vacuum
In launching the Humanitarian Response Plan for Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities made an appeal for $547 million. Robert Piper stressed the implosion faced by Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank due to the illegal...
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The consequences of a corrupt Palestinian leadership
The latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) has depicted clearly what the Palestinian Authority and the international community are intent on ignoring. The divide between the internationally-recognised Palestinian representation and the Palestinian people it is supposed to represent has become more prominent,...
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Israel’s fictitious apprehension
In Israeli rhetoric, there seems to be two main trends of its self-proclaimed apprehension. One, which is hardly ever commented upon publicly, is related to the issue of colonialism and dependency. In the absence of such dependency as exhibited by the international community, there is a possibility of Israel’s...
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Israel’s promotion of colonial plunder
Israel continues to exploit regional problems in order to maintain its foreign policy that allows it to divert attention away from the colonisation of Palestine. Western countries are perpetually enticed by military and surveillance technology. Food security – a basic necessity which Palestinians are deprived of – has been...
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The PA’s complicity betrays Fidel’s legacy of anti-colonial struggle
It has been reported in Haaretz that the Palestinian Authority will be dedicating a street in Ramallah to the late Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro “as a gesture of gratitude”. Elsewhere, the PA continues with a strategy of colonial complicity that should render the organisation unworthy of even mentioning...
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Purported international solidarity is devaluating Palestine
Another symbolic international day for Palestinian rights has degenerated into the usual stale observations and recommendations that do little other than try to impart a semblance of balance between the coloniser and the colonised. Perhaps the UN has preferred to remain loyal to the monstrous history it spawned by...
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The international diplomacy of Israel’s founders: deception at the United Nations in the quest for Palestine
In this fast-paced narrative of diplomatic events, John Quigley illustrates the extension of Zionist colonial violence and manipulation at an international level. The International Diplomacy of Israel’s Founders: deception at the United Nations in the quest for Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2016) opens with the concept of hasbara, which...