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…

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…

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,…

Book Review: My Name is Adam

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…

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…

The UN persists with obsolete frameworks for Israel’s political benefit

Years after the two-state paradigm was declared obsolete, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process has informed the Security Council that, “The possibility of establishing a viable, contiguous Palestinian state has been systematically eroded by facts on the ground.” The statement is an attempt to transform what has been patently obvious for years into…