Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ramona Wadi
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The US departure from UNHRC is reflection of widespread impunity
There is a major flaw which is overlooked when discussing the US withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). On one hand it shows the collaborative efforts of Israel and the US to marginalise their human rights violations away from scrutiny. However, analysing the departure within the limited...
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Palestinians are united for Gaza and against Abbas
The Great March of Return protests have catapulted the legitimacy of the Palestinian right of return to their land back into public prominence. They have also been instrumental in harnessing international scrutiny as Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe is exposed, alongside the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s premeditated actions to inflict as much...
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Purported protection for Palestine does not cover the elimination of colonialism
The latest Human Rights Watch (HRW) report titled “Israel: Apparent War Crimes in Gaza” commences with a sentence that mars the rest of its investigation and analysis. “Israeli forces’ repeated use of lethal force in the Gaza Strip since March 30 2018, against Palestinian demonstrators who posed no imminent...
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There is no humanity in giving humanitarian aid to the oppressors
The entire international community and institutions are treating Gaza as an experimentation ground. To compensate for the concordance in human rights violations against Palestinians in the enclave, there is no shortage of meagre donations, ostensibly to provide humanitarian assistance, even as Israel profits from lucrative ventures with the same...
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BRICS contributes to Palestine’s oppression through the two-state compromise
Israel’s colonisation of Palestine has altered the dynamics of politics and expectation to one of permanent exploitation and compromise. The two-state compromise, in particular, has ensnared governments, as well as many prominent institutions and groups to the point that opportunities for Palestinians to define their aims from within their...
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In the absence of favourable media coverage, US and Israel seek distortion of facts
While Israel’s snipers continue to extract Palestinian lives from the Great Return March protests, it has also failed to sell its usual narrative to media outlets, causing US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to lash out at journalists, accusing them of bias against the settler-colonial state: “Just keep your...
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PLO references to Latin America highlight what the Palestinian leadership can’t emulate
Yet more Palestinians have been killed in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of his “deal of the century”. Gaza has again been bombed by Israel over the past couple of days, and now suffers further incarceration with the construction of more land and sea barriers. To...
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Exposing the dynamics of UNSC draft resolutions on Palestine
Last week, the UN Security Council discussed a draft resolution on providing international protection for Palestinians, upon request by Kuwait’s permanent representative to the UN, Mansour Al-Otaibi. By the end of this week, the UNSC will be voting on the resolution, with Wafa news agency reporting that if the...
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The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the media
“The stories told about Palestine-Israel are as notable for what they exclude as they are for what they include.” This is an apt introduction to the three main narratives discussed in Greg Shupak’s book, “The Wrong Story. Palestine, Israel and the Media” (OR Books, 2018). It is imbued with...
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US considers further financial cuts to international bodies to silence Palestinians
Under US President Donald Trump, international organisations have become targets for repression and vehicles by which Israeli oppression is maintained. Following the financial restrictions it imposed upon the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) last year, Washington has now set its sights on cuts in funding to another...
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PA overtures to the ICC divest diplomacy of accountability
Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda employed rhetoric that questioned, rather than affirmed, Israel’s violence against Palestinians participating in the Great Return March as constituting a war crime. True to form, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister, Riad Al-Maliki, is approaching the ICC with a...
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Bullets first and aid later is a perverse Israeli tactic
Predictably, Israel has attempted to play the humanitarian card after inflicting severe injuries upon thousands of Palestinians, many of whom will remain scarred for life; at least 111 men, women and children have also been killed by Israeli troops over the past few weeks. On Wednesday, during a lull...
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B’Tselem report highlights Israel’s plan for forced displacement
Settler violence in the occupied West Bank is an ongoing violation that has been normalised by the Israeli colonial state. A culture of impunity pervades the dynamics of collaboration between settlers and soldiers, which has resulted in a situation whereby law enforcement is an ineffective charade which provides no...
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The Other Side of the Wall. An Eyewitness Account of the Occupation in Palestine
What we are accustomed to reading as structured news items or analysis about Palestine quickly dissipate in Richard Hardigan’s book “The Other Side of the Wall: an eyewitness account of the occupation in Palestine” (Cune Press, 2018). Volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in 2014, Hardigan imparts his...
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A responsibility to refuse promoting the conventional approach to Jerusalem
Speaking during a tour in Jerusalem organised by the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) Negotiation Affairs Department, advisor to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas called on governments and international organisations to boycott the opening ceremonies pertaining to the US embassy relocation to Jerusalem. Wafa news agency reported Nabil Shaath denouncing...
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Addameer report points to bleak future for Palestinian children in Jerusalem
Palestinian NGO Addameer has published a detailed factsheet about the repercussions faced by Palestinian children detained and prosecuted by Israel. While many reports are available on the subject, Addameer has narrowed its focus to the targeting of Palestinian children in Jerusalem, analysing the escalation of Israel’s aggressive policies in...
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Israel and the international community have isolated the Palestinians
Last week Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations filed two petitions seeking to stop Israel snipers shooting at Palestinian civilians participating in the Great March of Return Protests at the Gaza border. In petitions filed by Adalah, Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel...
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As the US eliminates references to Israel’s occupation, violence against Palestinians becomes the norm
The latest US annual report on human rights violations, released last Friday, carried an intentional omission. There is no longer any mention of the occupied Palestinian territories. In a move which normalises Israel’s colonial project and military occupation yet further, the relevant entry reads: “Israel, Golan Heights, West Bank...
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Abbas continues to appease Israel, the US and the international community over Jerusalem
Last Saturday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas made the distinction between political corruption and the Palestinian people, albeit unwittingly. What remains to be done is articulate the dissociation between the PA and the Palestinians it claims to represent, to ensure that there is no opportunistic appropriation of the struggle...
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Determining humanitarian relief at the expense of Palestinian political rights
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is facing a $300 million financial deficit which, according to the organisaiton’s spokesman in Gaza, Adnan Abu Hasna, may jeopardise services to Palestinian refugees after August this year. Israel and the US have lobbied...
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Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Power, Resistance and the Struggle for Space
Israel’s colonial violence against Palestinians has produced several trajectories encroaching upon the indigenous population and their geophysical space. As a result, Palestinian resilience and resistance has been diverse, a uniting factor operating against what Sharri Plonski describes as “Zionist erasures” in her book “Palestinian Citizens of Israel: power, resistance...
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PA hypocrisy is exposed on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day
Last year, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day was marked by the initiation of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, led by Marwan Barghouti. Today, the occasion is marked by reminders and statistics of the violations incurred by Palestinians as a result of Israel’s colonial violence. According...
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More punitive measures by Abbas’s PA expose his contempt for Palestinian resilience
While Palestinians are investing their time and, in some cases, life and limb to assert their right of return to historic Palestine, the head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, remains committed to colonial collaboration and vestiges of power. Unsurprisingly, the PA has barely recognised the legitimacy of...
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We need to challenge the ICC statement which gives Israel the benefit of the doubt
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is back on the scene, with more evidence that it gives Israel the benefit of the doubt. ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s statement last Sunday indicated that her office has monitored the demonstrations in Gaza which have resulted in Israel killing 29 Palestinians and...