La Cour pénale internationale (CPI) s’est mise en congé sans se prononcer sur la question de savoir si les responsables israéliens seront jugés pour crimes de guerre contre le peuple palestinien depuis 2014, date à laquelle Gaza a été ravagée lors de l’Opération Protective Edge. Israël dispose maintenant d’un délai supplémentaire jusqu’à la date prévue…
The Cuban Five’s René González on International Solidarity with Palestine
Cuba’s anti-terror efforts to protect its nation are best known through the story of the Cuban Five, who infiltrated terror organisations sponsored by the US government in Miami. The repetitive cycles of foreign interference and intervention in Latin America and elsewhere testify to the importance of a consistent anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle that has the…
Preserving the memory of the Nakba in Palestinian literature
In recent years, there has been an increased effort to bring Palestinian narratives of the 1948 Nakba to the forefront. The ethnic cleansing displaced 750,000 Palestinians from their land between 1947 and 1949. In the decades that followed, Palestinian narratives were muted to accommodate the political diplomacy promoted by the international community. This included a…
Mapuche genocide needs international attention … and ICC action
In the early 1860s, French lawyer Orelie de Tounens travelled to Araucania and established himself as King with the consent of the indigenous population. Contrary to the colonial agenda which would later massacre 90 percent of the Mapuche population in an invasion known as the “Pacification of Araucania”, de Tounens established a system based upon…
Book Review: The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The Theatrics of Woeful Statecraft
The international community, through the Oslo Accords, has created an intricate web of terminology that points towards a permanently stalled state-building process. In their book, The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank: The Theatrics of Woeful Statecraft (Routledge, 2019), Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen expose what lies beneath the façade coined as the “State of Palestine”, a…
The UN is failing Palestine’s school children
The targeting of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including school premises, is a violation of international law in which Israel indulges routinely. Only this time, the international community is not even attempting to feign the usual concern. What happens to upholding education as a basic human right, when Israel’s bombing of Gaza becomes a normalised routine, you…
Book Review: The Woman From Tantoura
An unfulfilled desire has no sanctuary other than remembrance. Radwa Ashour’s novel, The Woman from Tantoura (Hoopoe Fiction, 2019), explores the ramifications of memory and how its story is told. Chronology, while important, plays a lesser role than emotions, while memory takes on its own trajectory. “The story moves on, but sometimes not completely, because as…
Spirit of Return featured in online Palestine art expo
My watercolour painting, “Spirit of Return”, was chosen by rights group Staat Van Beleg for inclusion in an online art expo about the Palestinian Nakba. More about the art feature in this link.
No compromise in Israel Eurovision Boycott
Celebrities arguing against a cultural boycott of Israel in the lead-up to this year’s Eurovision song contest are missing the point. A joint letter from figures including Stephen Fry, Sharon Osbourne and Marina Abramovic states, ‘We believe the cultural boycott movement is an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis who are working to advance peace through compromise,…
What happened after Chile withdrew from the Escazú Agreement?
In 2018, 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries signed the legally-binding Escazú Agreement, which sought to counter government and multinational corruption, exploitation of resources and violence against environmental activists in the region. Costa Rica and Chile had pioneered the agreement, the latter under former President Michelle Bachelet, even as, on home terrain, Mapuche activists seeking…
RAMONA WADI 