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…
Tag: EU
Book Review: Palestine and Rule of Power. Local Dissent vs International Governance
This collection of well-researched essays provides an insight into the dynamics of how neoliberalism is woven within the Zionist colonial process and how it has created two opposing camps, succinctly described in the foreword by Richard Falk as the failure of UN diplomacy and the existing possibilities of Palestinian anti-colonial struggle. The neoliberal framework depoliticises…
EU’s dirty dealings with Libya over refugees
In 2018, an estimated 23,000 refugee children arrived in Europe through Mediterranean trajectories, landing in Italy, Spain and Greece. During the first two weeks of January 2019, 400 refugee children arrived in Europe. The United Nations International Children’s emergency Fund (UNICEF) is asking the EU to adopt ‘a region-wide approach’ to prevent further suffering for minors, at…
Collusion in the name of democracy: The EU and Palestine
Last December, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian Legislative Council and indicated that elections would be held within six months. The decision was rejected by Palestinian factions, notably Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Hamas deemed the decision “an invalid political decision because it is issued by an illegal body”….
Joint endeavours to exploit Palestinians in Gaza
Human rights are universal. Or so we were taught. But the simplistic notion has been overturned, mutilated and manipulated to the point that the only universal aspect about human rights is the bureaucratic process that dictates the trajectories of the oppressed. Gaza and human rights are such an example. As Israel once again denied a…
The EU favours a two-state ‘solution’, in Israel’s interests
There is increasing evidence that international overtures, ostensibly to safeguard Palestinian rights, are nothing but pretence. Following Israel’s High Court ruling in favour of the destruction of Khan Al-Ahmar, which will displace the entire community, the EU has subjected Palestinian rights to the dictates of Israeli interests. In a letter to the EU High Representative for Foreign…
The debate on UNRWA takes focus away from the realities of Palestinian refugees
In the aftermath of the US decision to end its funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the EU has pledged to continue its financial support. In terms of the agency being able to continue providing services to Palestinian refugees, the news is undoubtedly welcome. However, the EU is still failing Palestinian…
Italy’s Salvini said what the international community knows it can’t say: ‘Support Israel’
It is no secret that the right wing has appropriated and manipulated the definition of “peace” in today’s poisonous political climate. Peace is now synonymous with power, and little is being done to challenge this notion on a political level, to the point that one can speak of collusion between the right wing and the…
The EU’s refugee double standard
The scaremongering tactics perpetuated by the right-wing in the EU regarding migrants and refugees boil down to two observations dissociated from the historical and political ramifications: that migrants will keep coming, and that Europe has no space to accommodate them. However, who and what created refugees is a question that EU leaders prefer to ignore….
Israel couldn’t destroy their will so they went for their schools
The commencement of the scholastic year in Palestine is once again marked by Israeli tactics to disrupt not only a smooth transition for students and teachers, but also the foundations of a society that can, in due course, construct a political reality that challenges the colonial repression. Last Tuesday, Israeli forces removed mobile classes from…
RAMONA WADI 