One cannot speak of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 without touching upon identity and its ramifications. Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury’s novel, My Name is Adam is replete with questions and answers regarding identity, juxtaposed against inscribed recollections of the ethnic cleansing of Lydda. No matter the veneer one strives to don as part of the journey moving…
Tag: Narratives
BOOK REVIEW:White City Black City. Architecture and War in Tel Aviv and Jaffa
The interlinked histories of Jaffa and Tel Aviv are dissected and analysed diligently in Sharon Rotbard’s White City Black City: Architecture and War in Tel Aviv and Jaffa (Pluto Press 2015). Colonial narratives have stipulated the supremacy of Tel Aviv’s recent history, demonstrating how geography can be altered by history, namely through both conservation and…
How the MLI is normalising Israel through selective narratives
The Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI) barely manages to conceal its agenda. Launched in 2013, it has strived to marginalise Palestinians through its programme that emphasises fabrications of “conflict” to justify the prevailing Zionist colonial narrative. The institute’s choice of manipulation tactics lies in how to apply selectivity and disseminate the results to…
Reject UN ‘solidarity’ and stand with the Palestinians
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s statement marking International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People could not debase itself much further. Guterres calls for “all actors… to take bold steps and restore faith in the promise of UN General Assembly Resolution 181,” also known as the UN Partition Plan for Palestine. In other words, he…
How Israel dehumanises Palestinian resistance
There is a standard method by which the international community reacts to Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights, depending on the visibility of the oppressive measures and whether they fit the pattern of previous condemnations. The result is a process of selective awareness, whereby the imprisonment of Palestinian children, home demolitions, settlement expansion and forced displacement…
Combating the Misrepresentation of Fidel Castro in Imperialist Narratives of the Cuban Revolution
“The resentment of imperialism is so profound, its hatred of our revolution so great, that the imperialists refuse to resign themselves.” Uttered by Fidel Castro during a speech in 1961, the statement generates a particular relevance in relation to the dissemination of contrasting narratives regarding Fidel and the Cuban Revolution. In the years following the…
BOOK REVIEW: Rhetorics of Belonging
Moving away from the emphasis placed by the mainstream upon narrative when discussing Palestinian and Israeli literature, Anna Bernard’s academic treatise, “Rhetorics of belonging: nation, narration and Israel/Palestine” (Liverpool University Press, 2013) provides rigorous insights into often overlooked experiences of nation and narration. Identity construction of Palestinians and Israelis has been shaped externally by hegemonic…
RAMONA WADI 