BRITISH INTELLIGENCE PLAN FOR INVASION OF UKRAINE

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Fascism, History, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

Kit Klarenberg

(Transcribed in entirety but reformatted for Rebel Breeze by permission of the author from his 16 August 2025 article in Al Mayadeen titled Declassified: CIA’s covert Ukraine invasion plan.)

Introduction

We tend to see US Imperialism as the hidden hand behind the Zelensky regime and understandably so, as the US is the leader of NATO. But British Intelligence has played a major role there from many decades in the past right up to the present.

Kit Klarenberg’s article discussing plans of the CIA in earlier times to invade Ukraine also deals with the much-less understood role of the British secret services in similar objectives. British spy planes are supporting the genocide in Gaza and their spooks are active in Ukraine.

Many of the invasion assessments of these agencies in times past had to dispense with propaganda in the interests of accuracy and in fact bear out what many opponents of the NATO-proxy war and Ukrainian regime have been saying about the various sympathies of the people in Ukraine.

Expressing these realities had us, despite the track record of many, being labelled ‘Putinistas’ by elements of the electoral Left as well as by liberals. Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

Diarmuid Breatnach

Kit Klareberg writes:

On August 7, US polling giant Gallup published the remarkable results of a survey of Ukrainians. Public support for Kiev “fighting until victory” has plummeted to a record low “across all segments” of the population, “regardless of region or demographic group.”

In a “nearly complete reversal from public opinion in 2022,” 69% of citizens “favour a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible.” Just 24% wish to keep fighting. However, vanishingly few believe the proxy war will end anytime soon.

The reasons for Ukrainian pessimism on this point are unstated, but an obvious explanation is the intransigence of President Volodymyr Zelensky, encouraged by his overseas backers – Britain in particular.

London’s reverie of breaking up Russia into readily exploitable chunks dates back centuries, and became turbocharged in the wake of the February 2014 Maidan coup.1

In July that year, a precise blueprint for the current proxy conflict was published by the Institute for Statecraft, a NATO/MI6 cut-out founded by veteran British military intelligence apparatchik Chris Donnelly.

In response to the Donbass “civil war“, Statecraft advocated targeting Moscow with a variety of “anti-subversive measures”. This included “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations,” as well as “propaganda and counter-propaganda, pressure on neutrals.”

The objective was to produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Russia, which “Britain and the West could win.”

While we are now witnessing in real-time the brutal unravelling of Donnelly’s monstrous plot, Anglo-American designs of using Ukraine as a beachhead for all-out war with Moscow date back far further.

In August 1957, the CIA secretly drew up elaborate plans for an invasion of Ukraine by US special forces. It was hoped that neighbourhood anti-Communist agitators would be mobilized as foot soldiers to assist in the effort.

A detailed 200-page report, Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas, set out demographic, economic, geographical, historical, and political factors throughout the then-Soviet Socialist Republic that could facilitate or impede Washington’s quest to ignite local insurrection, and in turn the USSR’s ultimate collapse.

The mission was forecast to be a delicate and difficult balancing act, as much of Ukraine’s population held “few grievances” against Russians or Communist rule, which could be exploited to foment an armed uprising.

Just as problematically, “the long history of union between Russia and Ukraine, which stretches in an almost unbroken line from 1654 to the present day,” resulted in “many Ukrainians” having “adopted the Russian way of life”. 2

Problematically, there was thus a pronounced lack of “resistance to Soviet rule” among the population.

The “great influence” of Russian culture over Ukrainians, “many influential positions” in local government being held “by Russians or Ukrainians sympathetic to [Communist] rule, and “relative similarity” of their “languages, customs, and backgrounds,” meant there were “fewer points of conflict between the Ukrainians and Russians” than in Warsaw Pact nations.

Throughout those satellite states, the CIA had to varying success already recruited clandestine networks of “freedom fighters” as anti-Communist Fifth Columnists. Yet, the Agency remained keen to identify potential “resistance” actors in Ukraine:

“Some Ukrainians are apparently only slightly aware of the differences which set them apart from Russians and feel little national antagonism. Nevertheless, important grievances exist, and among other Ukrainians there is opposition to Soviet authority which often has assumed a nationalist form.

Under favorable conditions, these people might be expected to assist American Special Forces in fighting against the regime.”

‘Nationalist Activity’

A CIA map split Ukraine into 12 separate zones, ranked on “resistance” potential, and how “favorable population attitudes [are] toward the Soviet regime.” South and eastern regions, particularly Crimea and Donbass, rated poorly.

Their populations were judged “strongly loyal” to Moscow, having never “displayed nationalist feelings or indicated any hostility to the regime,” while viewing themselves as “a Russian island in the Ukrainian sea.”

In fact, as the study recorded, during and after World War I, when Germany created a fascist puppet state in Ukraine:

“Inhabitants of Donbass strongly resisted Ukrainian nationalists and at one point created a separate republic, independent of the rest of Ukraine. 3

In the following years, they defended Soviet rule and Russian interests, often attacking the Ukrainian nationalists with more zeal than the Russian leaders themselves.

During the German occupation in the Second World War, there was not a single recorded case of support for the Ukrainian nationalists or Germans.”

Still, invading and occupying Crimea was considered of paramount importance. On top of its strategic significance, the peninsula’s landscape was forecast as ideal for guerrilla warfare. The terrain offered “excellent opportunities for concealment and evasion,” the CIA report noted.

While “troops operating in these sectors must be specially trained and equipped,” it was forecast that the local Tatar population, “which fought so fiercely” against the Soviets in World War II, “would probably be willing to help” invading US forces.

Areas of western Ukraine, including former regions of Poland such as Lviv, Rivne, Transcarpathia, and Volyn, which were heavily under control of “Ukrainian insurgents” – adherents of Stepan Bandera4 – during World War II, were judged most fruitful “resistance” launchpads.

There, “nationalist activity was extensive” during World War II, with armed militias opposing “pro-Soviet partisans with some success.”

Conveniently, too, the mass extermination of Jews, Poles, and Russians by Banderites in these regions meant there was virtually no non-ethnic Ukrainian population left.

Furthermore, in the post-war period, “resistance to Soviet rule” had been “expressed on a great scale” in western Ukraine. Despite “extensive deportations”, “many nationalists” remained in Lviv et al, and “nationalist cells” created by Bandera’s “task forces” remained dotted around the country.

For example, anti-Communist “partisan bands” had taken up residence in the Carpathian Mountains.

The review concluded, “It is in this region [US] Special Forces could expect considerable support from the local Ukrainian population, including active participation in measures directed against the Soviet regime.”

It was also determined that “Ukrainian nationalist, anti-Soviet sentiment” in Kiev was “apparently moderately strong,” and elements of the population “might be expected to provide active assistance to Special Forces.”

The capital’s “large Ukrainian population” was reportedly “little affected by Russian influence,” and during the Russian Revolution, “provided greater support than any other region for Ukrainian, nationalist, anti-Soviet forces.”

Resultantly, “uncertainty about the attitudes of the local population” prompted Moscow to designate the Ukrainian SSR’s capital, which it remained until 1934.

The CIA document further offered highly detailed assessments of Ukrainian territory, related to their utility for warfare.

For example, “generally forbidding” Polesia – near Belarus – was noted to be “almost impossible” to traverse during spring. Conversely, winter provided “most favorable to movement, depending on the depth to which the ground freezes.”

Overall, the area had “proved its worth as an excellent refuge and evasion area by supporting large-scale guerrilla activities in the past.” Meanwhile, “swampy valleys of the Dnieper and Desna rivers” were of particular interest:

“The area is densely forested in its north-western part, where there are excellent opportunities for concealment and maneuver…There are extensive swamps, interspersed with patches of forest, which also provide good hiding places for the Special Forces.

Conditions in the Volyno-Podolskaya Highlands are less suitable, although small groups may find temporary shelter in the sparse forests.”

‘Strongly Anti-Nationalist’

The CIA’s invasion plan never formally came to pass. Yet, areas of Ukraine forecast by the Agency to be most welcoming of US special forces were precisely where support for the Maidan coup was the highest.

Moreover, in a largely unknown chapter of the Maidan saga, fascist Right Sector militants were bused en masse to Crimea prior to Moscow’s seizure of the peninsula. Had they succeeded in overrunning the territory, Right Sector would’ve fulfilled the CIA’s objective, as outlined in Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas.

Given what transpired elsewhere in Ukraine following February 2014, other sections of the CIA report took on a distinctly eerie character. For instance, despite its strategic position facing the Black Sea, the Agency warned against attempting to foment anti-Soviet rebellion in Odessa.

The agency noted the city is “the most cosmopolitan area in Ukraine, with a heterogeneous population including significant numbers of Greeks, Moldovans and Bulgarians, as well as Russians and Jews.”

As such: “Odessa…has developed a less nationalistic character. Historically, it has been considered more Russian than Ukrainian territory.5

There was little evidence of nationalist or anti-Russian sentiment here during the Second World War, and the city…was in fact controlled by a strongly anti-nationalist local administration [during the conflict].”

Odessa became a key battleground between pro- and anti-Maidan elements from the moment the Maidan protests erupted in November 2013.

By March the next year, Russophone Ukrainians had occupied the city’s historic Kulykove Pole Square, and were calling for a referendum on the establishment of an “Odessa Autonomous Republic”.

Tensions came to a head on May 2, when fascist football ultras – who subsequently formed the Azov Battalion – flooded Odessa and forced dozens of anti-Maidan activists into the Trade Unions House, before setting it ablaze.

In all, 42 people were killed and hundreds were injured, while Odessa’s anti-Maidan movement was comprehensively neutralized. In March this year, the European Court of Human Rights issued a damning ruling against Kiev over the massacre.

It concluded local police and fire services “deliberately” failed to respond appropriately to the inferno, and authorities insulated culpable officials and perpetrators from prosecution despite possessing incontrovertible evidence.

Lethal “negligence” by officials on the day, and ever after, was found to go far “beyond an error of judgment or carelessness.”

The ECHR was apparently unwilling to consider that the lethal incineration of anti-Maidan activists was an intentional and premeditated act of mass murder, conceived and directed by Kiev’s US-installed fascist government.

However, the findings of a Ukrainian parliamentary commission point ineluctably towards this conclusion.

Whether, in turn, the Odessa massacre was intended to trigger Russian intervention in Ukraine, thus precipitating “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Moscow that “Britain and the West could win” is a matter of speculation.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCE

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/declassified–cia-s-covert-ukraine-invasion-plan

1The US-sponsored coup that removed pro-Russian President Yanukovych and installed pro-Western powers Poroshenko (Zelensky’s forerunner).

2Highlighting is mine (DB).

3Highlighting is mine (DB).

4A fascist and Nazi occupation collaborator which President Yuschenko (Yanukovych’s forerunner) tried to recognise a Ukrainian national hero in 2010 (while criticising ‘national heroes’ was also declared a crime), which only failed due the requirement for candidates to have been a Ukrainian citizen, which Bandera had never been. His birthday is nevertheless celebrated annually by the State and features a torchlit parade of far-Rightists and fascists.

5 Highlighting is mine (DB).

RESIST IMPERIALISM BUT NOT COLONIALISM?

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialismo, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

There is an unfortunate trend in the socialist movement in Ireland to underplay or even to completely ignore the continuing colonial occupation of Ireland, while at the same time raising the other evils of imperialism and capitalism.

This harmful trend is epitomised by an article from Paul Murphy in the current issue of the ecosocialist Rupture magazine1 (of RISE, a network of the People Before Profit political party) – without conscious irony entitled THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOME – TODAY.

In the piece under discussion, Murphy discusses the blocs forming up in contention and for world war, with the US leading the western bloc and China-Russia the Eastern,2 with the ruling classes of the EU and Ireland lined up with the USA, though the Irish State is not yet a part of NATO.

Rupture Magazine generic image

This is a correct analysis by Murphy and he is right to call for defence of the Triple Lock3 as far as we can in order to prevent or at least impede the Irish ruling class from dragging the population of the Irish state into imperialist war.

Invoking the threat of NATO as a war-making alliance and danger to the limited neutrality of the Irish state is of course absolutely correct. But how can the actual NATO membership of the Occupied Six Counties be ignored in that analysis? Yet Murphy does so, completely.

Murphy is neither blind nor stupid and one must suspect that he does not mention Britain’s Irish colony because his former and current parties both fear to mix their ‘class politics’ with any kind of Irish nationalism – even anti-colonialism – or to find common cause with Irish Republicans.

Those parties took a sudden interest in the potential politics of a united Ireland only when discussion of that possibility was being thrown around in the media and by some political actors.4 But before and afterwards, they ignored them (except on occasion to castigate Irish Republicans).

The ‘enemy at home’ is indeed, as Murphy states, Irish capitalism – however not also British colonialism? But it cannot be ignored that Irish capitalism is subservient to British colonialism, US and EU imperialism. Well, can’t be ignored by revolutionaries that is, whether Marxist or not.

Ireland as treated in the Rupture analysis – but something’s missing! (Image sourced: Internet)

It was through analysis of the subservience of the Irish capitalist class that Connolly wrote that “Only the Irish working class remains as the only incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland”5 – and that was even before the bourgeois counter-revolution/ Civil War of 1922-’23.

Murphy, PBP and the Socialist Party are all fond of quoting James Connolly but only selectively and never on the question of overthrowing British rule in Ireland.6

A TIMELY WARNING

Before ending let us note that Paul Murphy’s words are not those of some green novitiate; aside from being a TD,7 he is a long-standing member of the Irish Trotskyist movement, formerly a leading member of the Irish Socialist Party before he left it to join PBP-Solidarity.8

Furthermore he has been active at times in street events and was one of the Jobstown Five who were arrested in early-morning raids by the Gardaí and tried but found ‘not guilty’ on charges of ‘kidnapping’ Joan Burton, Tánaiste9 of the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition government.10

We are entitled to assume, given his prominence and the article’s publication, that Murphy’s political position outlined here is one with which PBP-Solidarity and Rise find no serious disagreement, to the disgrace of any party claiming to be Marxist and revolutionary in Ireland.

Furthermore, their position gives activists timely warning once again that although we may well join with PBP on certain issues, including opposition to US imperialism, they will not be found to the serious side against British colonialism in Ireland or in any fully-committed struggle against NATO.

While upholding principles of a broad front, in any struggle we need to be fairly sure of which forces will stand with us to the end and which may drop us, perhaps even at the worst and most dangerous moment.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1p.5, Issue 17, Winter 2025-2026

2In the course of which Murphy states that Russia is an imperialist country but neglects to show any evidence of that. Capitalist and undemocratic does not equal imperialist, which Marxists today understand as the export of finance capital to extract super-profits from under-developed lands through exploitation of the labour there and plunder of their natural resources.

3Ireland’s “Triple Lock” is a policy requiring UN mandate, Government approval, and Parliamentary approval before more than 12 Irish troops may be deployed in overseas support operations.

4Though never taken seriously by some, including myself. I commented that British colonialism/imperialism had many opportunities to end their colonial rule in Ireland and on each occasion had dug their heels in harder, most recently by fighting a vicious war of three decades. In addition, if it were ever even half-considered, it is the British who would decide what the proper majority percentage would be, after which it would need to be agreed in Westminster and then approved by the British Monarch.

5Connolly’s foreword to his Labour in Irish History (1910), last line of the final full paragraph. https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/foreword.htm

6Sadly it is also true that many Irish Republicans quote Connolly only in the reverse, i.e. only about Ireland’s national liberation struggle.

7Teachta Dála, elected member of the lower house of the parliament of the Irish State.

8People Before Profit is now what used to be called the Socialist Workers’ Party, an iteration of a British-based Trotskyist party, as is the Irish Socialist Party similarly of the British-based Socialist Party.

9The Tánaiste is equivalent to Deputy Prime Minister in the UK and many other parliamentary systems.

10(2011-2014)

AGENDA ITEM: BOMBING HOSPITALS

On By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Health Service, Human Rights, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Sovereignty, Political Analysis, Public Health, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Written some time ago but never posted: Now, while the IOF once again threatens to bomb a hospital seems like an appropriate time for publication.

(Come for a quick peek into an ‘Israeli’ intelligence agents’ meeting as they get to the agenda item “Bombing Hospitals”. Names have been eliminated for the protection of the guilty)

Chairman: We all agree, whatever international law on conflicts says, that destroying the healthcare system of the enemy is important. However, X has requested a discussion on the current bombing of hospitals in Lebanon. X, over to you.

X: Thank you, Chairman. That was not clever, in my opinion, claiming the Lebanese hospitals have Hezbollah bunkers containing gold and weapons. Now the hospital administrators have brought the media on a tour around them so they can see for themselves that what we said was a lie.

Y: But your people agreed to bombing them – we had to have some reason for that. And anyway, that’s what we did in Gaza – bombed, sniped, invaded every one.

Hospital Bombsight (Cartoon by D.Breatnach)

X: Yes, but in Gaza WE controlled press foreign media access. And WE could make OUR videos, plant weapons etc.

Y: Wait a minute! Your videos showed maintenance shafts that didn’t look anything like Hamas tunnels. And planting weapons for media video? AFTER some media had ALREADY photographed the area WITHOUT weapons?

X: Did it matter? Did any international agency step in to stop what we were doing? Do you see the UN Security Council even bringing us to court in Brussels?

Y: Well then, why are you getting all steamed up about it?

X: Are you really that thick? Don’t put out lies that can and will be checked immediately! Either get some of our agents in Lebanon to plant stuff or … or just bomb the hospitals anyway. Nobody who matters will do anything. But don’t have us caught out lying, again and again!

Y: You’re not making sense. One minute it doesn’t matter what we do, then the next it matters what we say.

X: (Clap, clap). Congratulations. You finally get it!

Y: Don’t you patronise me! Your agency fucked up big time over October 7. Don’t think we’ve forgotten!

Chairman: Gentlemen! Decorum, please! We are all colleagues here …

(We leave the discussion at this point, the sound of raised voices fading behind us …)

end.

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SOME REFERENCES

BBC team debunks Israeli claim: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c9818n8v7d8o

Amnesty calls for war crimes investigation on Israeli attacks on health facilities: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/03/lebanon-israeli-attacks-on-health-facilities-ambulances-and-paramedics-must-be-investigated-as-war-crimes/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/17/mapping-israeli-attacks-on-lebanons-healthcare-system

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1598748161065029

MYSTERY CONSTRUCTION AT THE LOTTS

On By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, SatireLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

(From Rebel Breeze August 2023, after a similar period of days of practically incessant rain)

I slowed the car as we went to pass the Lotts but kept the engine running – the water was a foot high in the street and I didn’t want to have trouble starting it again.

What the jayzus are they building? asked Noah Parker (you can guess his nickname, though to be fair, his nose was hardly noticeable).

He was only voicing what was a general question in the neighbourhood. The Lotts, and I say the Lotts, because this was the acknowledged main branch of the clan here in Dublin, the other two being known respectively as the South Lotts and the North Lotts, were always a bit strange and secretive. And it’s not easy to combine those two qualities.

Strange but hard workers, all of them in one of the trades: carpenters, welders, electricians … Mrs. Lotts being the exception, into animal management. She had a nickname in the area from an idiosyncrasy of hers, of regularly glancing over her shoulder. ‘Backlook’ it was, though never mentioned in front of any of her brood, for self-preservation reasons.

Around their yard and their house there were cages, pens and runs for rabbits, chickens, geese and ducks but there was also an owl box on a tree, a pair of gaudy parrots flew around the house when it wasn’t raining, two llamas stared disconsolately from their pen at the rain and from somewhere a donkey brayed.

Holy Mother of God said, said Parker, will ya look at that giant rat?

It’s a coypu, replied Mary, who never took exception to the invocation of her namesake. They’re from South America.

Another one appeared and they began to run around one another playfully in the rain. Until one caught the other, climbed on top of it and began to … I blushed and looked in the rearview mirror, caught Mary’s stony glance and looked away hurriedly.

As well as all the animals, the yard was full of materials, sheets of metal and wood, planks, plastic sheeting and tarpaulin covering whatever the Lotts were building. I thought the shape was familiar in some way but couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

Stop the car a minute, will ya? said Parker, bringing down the window on his side. I tapped the brakes but kept the engine running.

You’re letting the rain in, complained Mary. He was too, but then he leaned the top half of his body out the window and, heedless of the rain on his head and shoulders, hailed the Lotts – or at least one of them.

Hey, Job, a fine soft day, wha’? called Parker.

Job Lott, trudging across their yard with some kind of machinery or tool clutched to his chest, his broad shoulder hunched, turned.

Ah, Noahsey, how’s it goin’? Then, peering into the car and nodding: Mary, Racker.

We nodded back.

What’re ya buildin’? Looks like a bloody big boat, Parker again, with a laugh and … something fell into place in my brain.

Job stopped dead, as if he’d been struck or walked into an invisible wall.

A moment stretched. The rain fell, a donkey brayed, parrots squawked.

Mister Lott – nobody called him anything but ‘Mister’ since he’d been a magistrate – hurried out with his wife from underneath a huge tarpaulin, put his big hand on his son’s shoulders and pushed him forward.

Sorry lads, we’re really busy right now, he called back over his shoulder. Job was glancing back at us as the three of them disappeared under the tarpaulin.

Parker pulled his wet torso back into the car and sent the window closed. We were silent in the car for a moment, the rain drumming on the roof and running down the windows, the engine idling.

Weird, commented Parker, unusually at a loss for words.

Did you notice, I began, Mrs. Lott …?

Mary nodded. She didn’t look back, not once.

End.

NEW YEAR’S WISHES 2026 … AND REALITY

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Journalism, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

As the northern hemisphere turned eastwards and the majority western calendar turned to a new year, it has been customary for people to wish one another a ‘Happy New Year’, not just for the first day of January but for the twelve months to come.

Although the Celtic New Year will not begin until the first of February, and the new year begins with “teacht an Earraigh … tar éis na Féile Brighde”, I have done likewise but with deep feelings of ambivalence.

Because facing us as 2026 progresses is genocide in some parts of the world, growing fascism in some other parts, tighter squeezes on working people, smaller proxy wars and, almost certainly, a larger war, with desperate migrations of people, if surviving death to find racism and exploitation.

Faced with armed occupation and genocide, armed resistance is justified and arguably necessary, even were it not established as a right within the Geneva Convention. But even unarmed and peaceful resistance is being penalised and repressed, including in the ‘Western democracies.’

Support and solidarity organisations are being outlawed, people expressing legitimate opinions against genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing and armed occupation supported by those ‘democracies’ are being hounded in their jobs and private lives, beaten and arrested by police and even shot dead.

But where there is oppression there is also resistance. The struggles against the racist and genocidal entity, though supported in arms, finance and politically by the Western ‘democracies’ have awoken people in those countries to solidarity action in the face of their governments’ opposition.

(Cartoon by D.Breatnach)

Hugely important lessons have been learned: about the nature of the Zionist state, about the collusion of the ‘democracies’ in colonial occupation and genocide, about ‘the independence of the judiciary’ and the ‘free press’, along with the partiality and ineffectiveness of ‘international law’.

And also about the ineffectiveness of liberal opinion and organisations, even in their heartlands of the ‘democracies’, to achieve meaningful change or even stop the repression. And about how the State knows this and reacts most violently against direct solidarity action.

Organic links have become clear between war in Yemen and Somalia, the spread of Islamist jihadism and imperialism, between prison struggles in Palestine, Britain and Ireland, between the troubles of the world and much of their origins among the colonial and imperial powers.

Yes, where there is repression, there is also resistance and our duty lies in feeding that resistance in all the ways that we can, including being visible in protests at their trials and supporting them in jail. And impeding our ruling class’ attempts to tie us to NATO or other military alliance.

So what I wish for is an increase in the militant resistance of the masses and greater unity in struggle, simultaneously with greater disunity among the imperialist states and ruling classes, bringing us closer to the kind of world we need.

I wish that for us all throughout 2026.

End.

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THOUSANDS OF ISIS FIGHTERS FREED IN SYRIAN FORCES ASSAULT ON AL-SHADADDI PRISON

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Kurdistan, NATO, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Religious Sectarianism, Syria, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

Thousands of ex-ISIL (ISIS) fighters and their families have been freed during the Syrian government forces assault on the SDF-guarded Al-Shaddadi jail. Both sides blame the other for the release although the Government forces admit their assault.

The SDF, mainly Kurdish forces supported by the US/ NATO coalition to oust the former Assad regime, have been guarding an estimated 10,000 prisoners in the jail since the collapse of the ISIS offensive in the region.1

Observers have feared the release of the ISIS fighters and their ‘radicalised’ families since the December 2024 collapse of the Assad regime in a Turkey-supported offensive.

That attack was led by Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, former Al Qaeda fighter and second-in-command of the ISIS-supported al-Nusra forces in Syria, a coalition of fundamental Islamist jihadists fighting under ISIS leadership though their leader claims to have fundamentally changed.

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa changed his name to al-Jolani and claims to have renounced ISIS, proclaimed himself President of Syria and filled his cabinet with ‘former’ ISIS commanders, since which Western imperialist leaders have accepted him and Trump praised him greatly.

Cartoon by Carlos Latuf depicting the Western imperialist makeover of the ISIS Ahmed al-Sharaa to al-Jolani, self-appointed President of Syria (Sourced: Internet)

The western powers cancelled his designation of ‘terrorist’, presented their compliments at his throne, some, including French and German envoys, travelling to meet him2 (even before the $10m bounty on his head3 had been removed). Or invited him to call, as Macron did for France.4

Al-Jolani offered friendship to ‘Israel’ even as the IOF occupied additional parts of Syria and bombed any remaining military installations of the Assad regime.5

THE KURDISH-LED SDF, TURKEY AND AL-JOLANI

The objective of the SDF had been to overthrow Assad so as to form a Kurdish state within Syria in order to link up with other Kurdish regions to create a federal Kurdish state. Turkey feared this project, having fought decades of bloody war against the PKK in its own Kurdish region.

Apologies for use of CIA map but difficult to get publishable image showing Kurdish-controlled areas within Syria. (Image sourced: Internet)

Consequently Turkey was at odds with US/NATO forces and the participation of the SDF within it, although Trump, as his previous Presidency drew to an end, publicly withdrew support for the Kurdish coalition. Turkey has welcomed the Damascus forces defeat of the SDF.

Since al-Jolani and his own coalition came to power, he attempted to integrate the SDF fighters within his own forces. The Kurds reluctantly agreed but insisted they be incorporated as a unit and not dispersed among al-Jolani’s forces, a proposal declined by the new President.

Since then there have been numerous clashes between the different forces, with the SDF holding their own, until the recent few days when they lost a number of strongholds, including that guarding the Al-Shaddadi prison, leading to thousands of former ISIS fighters being freed.

This prison breach, welcomed by Turkey,6 must be viewed with horror by many Syrians, in particular by the Yazidi, Alawite, Druze and Christian communities who have been subjected to home invasions, humiliation and massacres, along with rape and kidnapping of women.7

Neighbouring Iraq, Lebanon and even Jordan have cause to worry too.

Again, difficulty in getting publishable map showing Syria with its neighbours but also Iran. (Image sourced: Internet)

In sifting through the disputing claims, it is worth noting that the SDF claimed that the International Coalition base, only two kilometres away from the jail in Syria’s Hasakah province, did not respond to calls for assistance8 and the SDF denounced the failure of the USA’s forces to support them.9

It is relevant too that the SDF are not Islamist Jihadists and fought them many times in Syria, although it is true that the Western powers, while supporting the SDF, also supported and instigated ISIS to overthrow Assad, although bombing them too in periodic control operations.10

Events from the coming to power of Al-Jolani to the freeing of the Al-Shaddadi Prison may hold lessons of importance too for some strains of the Western Left and Liberals who supported the insurgent opposition to Assad in favour of ‘democracy’ while parroting mass media propaganda.11

It may also add a cautionary example to the dictum that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, often quoted by otherwise anti-imperialists who supported the IDF’s alliance with the US/NATO to overthrow the Assad regime.12

CUI BONO? WHO GAINS?

What now? (Cartoon by D.Breatnach)

One might think that the Western Powers, who have been in coalitions fighting ISIS and have suffered some attacks on themselves, including the Al Qaeda attack on New York’s Twin Towers, would be strongly opposed to this liberation of thousands of experienced Islamist jihadist fighters.

But if so, how are we to understand the refusal of the Coalition forces to intervene during the attack on the SDF forces guarding the jail? Or the Western Powers legitimising of the Al-Jolani regime running Syria, despite the al-Nusra background and religious sectarian massacres since?

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the imperialist powers wish to see those Islamic fundamentalist ex-fighters freed — but what could be their purpose? To instigate an internal conflict in Lebanon, perhaps, occupying Hezbollah away from ‘Israel’ and excusing foreign intervention?

Or keeping the Iraqi Government busy and deepening its reliance on US forces just as it seems to be asserting some independence. Or to sent north-eastwards against Iran. One thing is clear, the Western Powers allowed it and the reason nothing to do with concern about jail conditions.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1At the end of 2020, the U.S.-backed militia in northeast Syria held at least 10,000 ISIS prisoners, one of the largest populations of detained Islamists in the Middle East. Thousands of ISIS fighters were captured as the Islamic State collapsed in early 2019. The fighters were held in approximately 14 detention centers operated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-trained Kurdish and Arab militia that fought ISIS in Syria. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/islamists-imprisoned-across-middle-east

2https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/03/middleeast/eu-ministers-syria-visit-intl

3US scraps $10m bounty for arrest of Syria’s new leader Sharaa: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07gv3j818ko

4https://thecradle.co/articles/julani-in-a-suit-how-france-turned-a-pariah-into-a-partner

5https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250416-syria-leader-jolani-privately-promised-to-normalise-ties-with-israel-by-2026-ex-uk-diplomat-says/

6From The Cradle, on Telegram: Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, said that recent gains by Syrian government forces had “thwarted” attempts by Kurdish groups to obstruct Turkiye’s peace process. Feti Yildiz, deputy leader of the government-aligned Turkish nationalist MHP party, described Sunday’s agreement in Syria as having “a favorable impact.” “Things will become easier,” Yildiz told reporters in the Turkish parliament when asked how the Syrian deal affects the PKK process. “It had been standing like an obstacle, and for now it looks as though that obstacle has been removed.” Turkish security sources, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, called the deal a historic turning point.

7https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacred-1500-alawites-chain-command-led-damascus-2025-06-30/ and https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/21/the-situation-in-syria-is-worse-now-than-under-isis/

8Quoted in https://shafaq.com/en/Middle-East/Syria-s-SDF-loses-control-of-Al-Shaddadi-prison-holding-ISIS-detainees and many other sources.

9https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-forces-overrun-isis-prison-as-sdf-condemns-us-inaction

10The SDF contains female Kurdish and Yazidi fighters too which would be anathema to Islamist fundamentalists.

11It should not be understood from this that I was a supporter of the Assad regime; I attended demonstrations against imperialist invasion and regime change while also refusing to support the regime itself. I had arranged with Eva Bartlett, a much-publicised critic of the regime-change operations of the US/NATO forces, to organise a Dublin public meeting for her to address and had her stay at my home. After learning that I was also going to criticise the regime position against the Kurds she left without explanation and I had to cancel the meeting venue booking.

12In discussions with Anarchists of the WSM (organisation no longer in existence) and Irish Republicans of (Éirigí organisation much diminished since and now in coalition with another group) I refuted the correctness of application of this principle to the major imperialist power in the world, the USA. At a conference of the Éirigí group I spoke from the floor in criticism of that and some other aspects of the SDF and was heavily criticised from the floor also while the Chairperson reiterated support for the SDF. Though no-one spoke in my support, at least three Irish Republican activists approached me afterwards to express their support for my statements.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-forces-overrun-isis-prison-as-sdf-condemns-us-inaction

Battle over the jail with different outcome in 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Hasakah_(2022)

See Syria section in https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/islamists-imprisoned-across-middle-east

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/21/the-situation-in-syria-is-worse-now-than-under-isis/

Syria leader Jolani privately promised to normalise ties with Israel by 2026, ex-UK diplomat says

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_al-Sharaa

“THE MOST VIOLENT EVICTION I’VE EVER SEEN”

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Ireland, Police Violence, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3mins.)

Five people sitting down to a meal were surprised by a knock on the door of their residence. What followed amounted to an hours-long Garda siege ending in arrests and the residents and supporters gathering outside being pepper-sprayed and beaten.

A housing activist who has witnessed many evictions said it was the most violent eviction they had ever seen.

A house empty for many years in the Phibsboro area had been occupied by around four people who invited a fifth to share a meal on Monday 15 December. As they were about to sit down to eat the Gardaí arrived and told the occupants that they were criminally trespassing.

The occupants explained that they had been living in the building for some time and had keys, so any accusation of trespass would be of a civil kind requiring court orders and not at all a criminal one on which Gardaí are empowered to act. The Gardaí however remained and more arrived.

Local people responding to a call for support against an illegal eviction began to arrive as did more Gardaí until there were around 13 Garda vehicles present, including the Public Order Unit; a number of attempts to batter the door down were made which were however unsuccessful.

People protesting what appeared to be an illegal eviction were pushed and shoved by Gardaí and after a while also pepper-sprayed and batoned. After some hours had elapsed the police succeeded in smashing a back window and battering down an internal door, gaining access to the building.

The people inside raised their hands to indicate no resistance being offered (some were reportedly even sitting down) but allege that they were nevertheless pepper sprayed and beaten. Four were dragged out to Garda vehicles and the remaining person was violently assaulted again.

The road outside had by this time been cleared by the Gardaí. The five arrested were taken to a police station where at least some, male and female, allege they were stripped and cavity searched, measures totally inappropriate in this kind of arrest or similar.

It will be recalled that a number of Mothers Against Genocide group protesting outside Leinster House complained of the same during their detentions in Dublin in June although the Government’s spokesperson denied to some TDs that this had occurred.

That same week anti-NATO peaceful protesters had also been pepper-sprayed and the ankle of one broken by Gardaí while a Palestine solidarity activist at DCU was dragged to the ground, with allegations of strip-searching among those too.

Video by Anti-Imperialist Action outlining the source of Dublin’s housing crisis.

All five residents of the house were charged with offences including causing fear (!) and criminal damage, kept in custody overnight and brought to court, where they were released on bail to return to court at a date in the New Year.

GARDAÍ HELPING MAINTAIN HOMELESSNESS

This Garda operation and abuse of legal powers took place in the context of the highest recorded number of homeless to that date, with 16,600 people in emergency accommodation, including morethan 5,200 children and over 4,600 women,1not counting those sleeping on the street.

And with well over a hundred thousand buildings lying empty,2 a situation constituting a paradise for property speculators, vulture funds, banks and big landlords – but misery for thousands renting, struggling with a mortgage, in unsuitable accommodation, sofa-surfing or on the street.

Indeed, the property at which the Garda violent eviction took place was reportedly empty for many years before its occupation.

A couple of years ago a group called the Revolutionary Housing League occupied empty Dublin buildings and called for people across Ireland to do the same. Sadly, their call was not followed and Gardaí mobilised huge operations including helicopters to evict a handful of occupants.

Three chief Irish Government Ministers some years past (one still in place) and Gardaí photoshopped on to 18th Century eviction scene in Ireland (original photoshopping of Gardaí by Spice Bag). (Image sourced: Internet)

HUMILIATION AND VIOLENCE

Strip and cavity-searching are demeaning psychological and physical invasions and should have no place in most policing actions. Even in jail, an x-ray chair is available. However strip-searching has been a constant over the years in use against political prisoners.

As violent and degrading actions become normalised in political repression they will be extended further, spreading to all kinds of policing operations.

Cartoon by D.Breatnach

Gardaí normalising the use of pepper-spraying against Palestine solidarity and anti-NATO direct action activities are now extending this to other types of activities of which they disapprove, even those in the sphere of civil law and outside criminal law.

As the State increases its repression, the democratic and revolutionary movements will need to increase their resistance, calling also for the active solidarity of wider society with the victims and in condemnation of the State and its police force.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/1031/1541519-homeless-figures/

2https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2024/05/21/number-of-vacant-and-derelict-homes-brought-back-into-use-for-social-housing-fell-last-year/ and https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41728497.html

LEBANON PRESIDENT CITES IRA AS EXAMPLE FOR DISARMING HEZBOLLAH

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Republicanism, National Sovereignty, peace processes, Political Analysis, Uncategorized, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In an 11th January interview with state public television channel Télé Liban, Joseph Aoun, President of Lebanon, cited the disarming of the Provisional IRA with regard to the disarming of Hezbollah, which is being demanded by the USA and ‘Israel.’

Significant points from the interview were translated in summary and posted on The Cradle news updates channel on Telegram on the anniversary of Aoun’s election to the Presidency, for which he was constitutionally obliged to resign from his previous position of head of the armed forces.

In a post-colonial polity balanced between sovereignist and anti-imperialist forces on the one hand and pro-Western imperialist elements on the other, Aoun is widely regarded as the West’s man, a verdict justified by a constant thread in his Presidential statements and replies in this interview.

The whole issue of Hezbollah disarming arises mainly from the Zionist state and its main backer, US imperialism and has been much in the news for months.

Samir Geaga, Lebanese politician of the Christian far-Right, back in his Christian Front days during the Lebanon Civil War. (Photo sourced: Internet)

In addition there is an internal Lebanese element with a background of right-wing Christian fascist militias,1 pro-Western imperialism and recruited as proxies by the ‘Israeli’ armed forces when they occupied Lebanon (1982-2000), before the rise of Hezbollah which led the liberation of the country.

Hezbollah’s last armed action was towards end of October 2025 after bombarding the Israeli occupation of northern Palestine in order to divert the Zionist armed forces from the accelerated genocide of Gaza, then in a defence of the IOF’s attack on Southern Lebanon.

Cartoon comment on the constant defeat of Israeli invading forces by Hezbollah in 2024 and 2025. (Cartoon: D.Breatnach)

This was so effective that the Zionist state sued for a truce.

Meanwhile Hezbollah had been weakened by Israeli-programmed exploding pagers and mobile phone devices, along with the assassination of its widely-respected and charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah and agreed to the truce which it has scrupulously observed to the time of writing,

However, the same truce has at the time of writing been violated over 10,000 times by the Zionist armed forces2 in daily drone strike assassinations, bombings of homes and construction sites, troop invasions and checkpoints on Lebanese soil and even kidnappings of citizens.3

All without a word of condemnation from the truce’s guarantors, the USA and France, the former loud in its demands for Hezbollah disarmament along with threats by Trump and Netanyahu.

Joseph Aoun (centre, in civilian suit) upon his inauguration as President of Lebanon, reviewing troops of which had only recently been Commander in Chief. (Photo sourced: Internet)

SUMMARY AOUN’S STATEMENTS WITH COMMENTS

• The Lebanese army has many missions and cannot focus solely on one task. Israeli occupation persists, and attacks continue. Halting attacks and Israeli withdrawal would greatly help accelerate progress.

Yes indeed and people may wonder why a) the Lebanese state forces are not in action repelling that very ‘Israeli’ occupation and attacks and b) why the disarmament of the Resistance is even being contemplated in the current circumstances.

  • Any assistance to the army facilitates operations. The decision has been made, and implementation speed depends on army leadership and available capabilities.”

It is not clear to which assistance Aoun is referring but otherwise he is admitting that the Lebanese Army is unable to disarm Hezbollah, a Resistance better-armed and more widely supported than the State Army and that serious attempts to do so would result in civil war.

• “The [resistance] weapons were initially deployed for a specific purpose when the army was absent. Now the army exists, and Lebanon’s armed forces are responsible for national security.

Clearly Lebanon’s armed forces are either unwilling or incapable of defending national security, since Aoun admits to the occupation and attacks by a foreign entity, which have been ongoing since the October 2025 ‘truce’.

  • The weapons no longer serve their role; their continued presence is a burden on their environment and Lebanon. This is not about Resolution 1701—the weapons’ mission is over.

To whom is the continued presence of weapons a burden? Are Lebanese people being attacked by those weapons? No, they are a burden only to the Zionist entity and its imperialist backers who wish to dominate West Asia – and of course to the domestic collaborators.

• “I want to tell others: it is time to be reasonable. Either you are truly part of the state or you are not. The state must take responsibility for protecting its citizens and land. The entire country bears this burden. Logic must prevail over force.”

This is clearly directed at Hezbollah and Amal, political forces represented in the Lebanese Parliament. If the state must take responsibility for protecting its citizens and land, then why not actually do so and demonstrate the alleged lack of necessity for the weapons of the Resistance?

What Aoun really means is that while there is an effective armed resistance, he will not be left in peace by the Zionist State or by US imperialism. And why not? Because they seek to dominate West Asia, which in itself proves the need for an effective armed Resistance.

• “Official positions are taken by official institutions. Lebanon will not be a platform threatening other states’ stability. During summer rocket attacks, the intelligence directorate apprehended the perpetrators quickly and warned Hamas officials they would be expelled if repeated. We will not allow Lebanon to be used for unwanted actions.”

The ‘Summer rocket attacks’ were not from Hezbollah but, if not from provocateurs, were an independent and unprofessional unit – this is well-known.

• “The appointment of Ambassador Simon Karam was made internally in Lebanon, not at the request of the US or any foreign party.”

Hmmm. Even if that were true, it cannot be denied that he is the choice of the USA.

• “Lebanon’s interest requires that decisions be made within the country. No one will fight or stand for us; all parties must cooperate with the state for Lebanon’s benefit.”

If the state wants cooperation for Lebanon’s benefit, surely it should first show itself deserving of that cooperation by standing up for its sovereignty against Zionist invasion, bombings and assassinations, along with Western imperialist threats and bullying?

• “Lebanon has three tools: diplomacy, economy, and military. We have tried war—it ended. Diplomatic paths offer a 50% chance of progress. Political negotiation, not war, resolves conflicts globally—Vietnam, Irish Republican Army, Gaza. Lebanon must pursue diplomatic solutions.”

The war cannot be counted as ‘ended’ with over 10,000 Zionist violations of the ‘truce’, nor did the State ‘try war’, it was entirely Hezbollah resisting the attempted Zionist invasion although as is its wont, the Zionists did bomb civilian homes and infrastructure in Lebanon.

Political negotiation works when the state with which being negotiating either a) would rather not have war or b) is afraid to attack. The first case clearly does not apply to the Zionist State, nor will the second if the resistance is unarmed and all they have to worry about is Lebanon’s Army.

The examples Aoun quotes actually work against his theoretical trajectory: one proves the exact opposite and another two are not at all functioning in the interests of the people nor of secure peace.

The US was forced to negotiate with the Vietnamese liberation forces because of the strength of the latter’s resistance, after nearly 20 years of war.4 Even so, the US dragged out the negotiations until the liberation forces entered Saigon and US helicopters left in a hurry.

The Zionists continue to attack Gaza daily although they have levelled most of it. The Provisional IRA has not won Irish independence or territorial unity, the aims for which it declared it had been fighting and its political arm5 is now serving the administration of the colonial Occupation.

As has been pointed out many times in Rebel Breeze, the imperialists and their stooges learn from and copy one another’s tactics which was demonstrated very clearly in the trajectory of the imperialist pacification processes and how they contaminated a number of resistance movements.

There is never any reason for a national Resistance movement to surrender any of its weapons before the establishment of a strong independent state, well-armed and led by determined and uncorrupted people.

People very different from Youssef Rajj, Foreign Affairs Minister of Lebanon, who in interview with Sky News Arabia stated that as long as Hezbollah holds on to weapons, ‘Israel’ is entitled to attack Lebanon. Apart from its traitorous nature, the statement is not even formally correct.

Youssef Rajji, Foreign Affairs Minister of Lebanon (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)

Officially a state of war still exists between the Lebanese state and ‘Israel’ so of course the Resistance is entitled to hold weapons. More fundamentally, no Government Minister should justify another state attacking their country (as for example Machado does in relation to Venezuela).

National servility, collusion and treason are seen around the world but fortunately so too is resistance.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1Most of these were present in the ‘Lebanese Forces’ who carried out the massacres of the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian camps of 1,300 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—in the city of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990).

2https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/1/7/israels-continued-attacks-on-lebanon-could-derail-hezbollah-disarmament

3By October 2025 UN experts had recorded “At least 19 abductions of civilians from Lebanon by Israeli soldiers, which may amount to cases of enforced disappearances …” https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/un-experts-warn-against-continued-violations-ceasefire-lebanon-and-urge

4That was with the USA (also Australia). Before that the Vietnamese Resistance fought and defeated the French and Japanese.

5The Sinn Féin party, which is also the party with the second highest representation in the parliament of the Irish State and seeks to form a governing coalition with one of the established neo-colonial parties.

SAVE MOORE STREET OUTREACH TO LIBERTINE MARKET

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish RepublicanismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Save Moore Street from Demolition campaign group gratefully accepted an invitation to participate in the Comrade Corner on Sunday 3rd January in order to spread the word about the campaign and to make further contacts.

The Comrade Corner is part of the Libertine Market Crawl that takes place on the first Sunday of each month 12-5pm and is spread through a number of pubs, mostly in the Liberties area of north Dublin city: The 4th Corner, Dudley’s, Lucky’s, Molly’s Barand Peadar Brown’s.

Front of the Peadar Brown’s pub building, Clanbrassil Street. (Photo: R. Breeze)

The Comrade Corner’s section of the monthly market take place upstairs in the Peadar Brown’s pub, open to campaigning and community groups to book a table to promote their campaign or group on which they had campaign leaflets, a QR to sign on line and campaign badges.

The latter represented a grotesque on the roof of No.55 Moore Street, missing wingtips shot off by a British bullet during the battle there in 1916.

Two of a number of visitors to the Comrade Corner engaging with the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign stall at which campaign activist Orla Dunne is seated. (Photo: R. Breeze)

“Over the 12 years of our group’s existence campaigning on the street we have engaged in outreach work often enough,” said one of the two staffing their table in Peadar Brown’s, “including taking our banner to protest marches, giving talks, interviews and conducting history tours.”

The group has been campaigning with a weekly Saturday table for conservation and against demolition in Moore Street since September 2014. “We want to see a busy street market with small independent shops, not chain stores,” said Orla Dunne, also staffing their table in Peadar Brown’s.”

One of the team staffing the Darragh Ó Faoláin stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)

“And the history of the 1916 Battleground properly commemorated,” she went on to say, alluding to the fact that of the Seven Signatories of the Proclamation, no less than five spent their last hours of freedom in the Moore Street houses before taking the painful decision to surrender.

Those were Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada and Joseph Plunkett, all shot by firing squad, along with Willie Pearse, also late of Moore Street as were another ten prominent figures, including Roger Casement, though hanged in Pentonville Jail somewhat later.

The team staffing the Statue of Pearse by the GPO campaign stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)

The GPO Garrison had left the burning building on the Friday of Easter Week and, heading to relocate at the Williams and Woods factory, got only as far as Moore Street before they came under intense machine-gun and rifle fire from the encircling British forces in Parnell Street.

Pausing to take a breath and plan their next moves, around 300 men and women occupied the whole central terrace (Nos.12-25), tunnelling through the walls, along with some other buildings. The leader of a failed charge on the British barricade died in a lane now named O’Rahilly Parade.

As he lay dying he wrote a farewell letter to his wife and children, the magnified script reproduced on an impressive monument in the lane-way.

The current Hammerson plan includes at least seven years of construction on the site (with no food stalls possible meanwhile), a new street cut through the 1916 Terrace to O’Connell Street, a hotel in Moore Lane and a Metro entrance in O’Rahilly Parade additional to the O’Connell Street one.

INSIDE PEADAR BROWN’S

The Peadar Brown’s stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)

People drifted into the upstairs room in twos and threes, stopping at some or all of the stalls to examine the literature or merchandise on display and to chat to some of the groups. In addition to SMSFD’s, Peadar Brown’s had their own merchandise of badges and T-shirts.

Also selling merchandise within that range was a revolutionary anti-fascist stall, while another table was held by a group campaigning for the erection of a monument to Patrick Pearse in O’Connell Street, near to the GPO where he was located in 1916 before evacuation to Moore Street.

T-shirts merchandise near the Darragh Ó Faoláin Stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)

It was notable that the latter group also directed people to the SMSFD group’s table. Many of the visitors had origins outside Ireland, a sector for which perhaps this kind of event would be more usual. How did the SMSFD team feel their table had done for their hours there?

“We did alright,” said Dunne, “though it wasn’t very busy today.” “If we had boosted our online petition signatures alone, which we did, it would have been worth it,” said Breatnach. “Besides, I always wanted to see the famous Pub,” added Dunne, smiling.

Mural on the side of the Peadar Brown’s building. (Photo: R. Breeze)

Much artwork of an Irish Republican nature decorates the inside of the pub downstairs, including a mural along the wall behind the small stage area. The Irish Tricolour, Starry Plough and ‘Irish Republic’ flags hang from the exterior along with anti-racist posters in the outside drinking area.

Last year officials in Dublin City Council sought unsuccessfully to have Peadar Dunne’s remove the large Palestine flag painted on the side of their building. It has a reputation not only as an Irish Republican pub but also of decidedly internationalist solidarity and antifascist character.

Also last year, some fascist and far-Right elements threatened the pub with a demonstration which failed to materialise, to counter which antifascists had packed the pub to overflowing. The far-Right’s anger was aroused by the banning of a musician for allegedly uttering racist comments.

The Peadar Brown’s T-Shirt rack by their stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)

End.

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USEFUL LINKS

Peadar Brown’s pub: https://peadarbrowns.com/

Save Moore Street From Demolition
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/save.moore.st.from.demolition; Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moore.street_sos; Petition: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/save-moore-street

Libertine Market: https://www.instagram.com/p/DS8p3ZtCLQP/?igsh=MWc0eWZnbDF2eDNpeQ==

JUST BECAUSE SHE’S PALESTINIAN DOESN’T MEAN SHE’S RIGHT

On By rebelbreezeIn Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Personal Blog, Political Analysis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

A lesson today: an important truth was demonstrated to a number of us protesting by visible presence and song outside the US Embassy (at the weekly Wednesday afternoon Palestine solidarity event there organised by Jimi Cullen).

We were accosted by a woman who said she was Palestinian, didn’t agree that we were supporting Palestine and insisted we should be pushing for peace.

‘Peace with Zionism?’ someone asked.

‘What is Zionism – do you know?’ she responded.

‘Yes, it’s a belief that Jewish religion gives them the right to occupy someone else’s land and kick the indigenous out.’

‘No, that’s not what it is!’ (but failed to elucidate for us what she claims it is).

Then: ‘That flag is not for freedom for Palestine! Do you know when it was created?’

We were saying ‘Yes’ when she started running down Hamas (which didn’t even exist when the flag was designed and popularised).

She kept saying: ‘I’m a Palestinian!’ (as though that meant she must be right and also that we had no right to contradict her).

Just in case we were confused about her wider ideology, she began to attack Venezuela under ‘communist rule’ (sic).

Most of those attending on 7th January, some time after our encounter with the person under discussion. (Photo source: J.Cullen)

THE LESSON

Her intervention and her manner were annoying but she underlined an important point in political discourse: Nobody’s nationality, ethnicity or residency status gives them guaranteed possession of the truth, nor the right to assert that other opinions must for that reason be wrong.

In every country there is a variety of people, including social classes and a range of opinions on important political and social questions. It is likely that some will have very progressive ideological positions, some less so but still progressive, some conservative and some others, reactionary.

It is more complicated even that that, for some might be progressive on some issues but conservative or reactionary on others – and vice versa.

Of course we fight for the right of Palestinian voices to be seen in print and heard on mass media, as a question of justice and also as the voices of witnesses, those who have experienced the genocide at first hand, or at close second hand through family and community.

We disagreed with silencing Palestinian voices objecting to the Palestinian Ambassador (she was a Palestinian too!) addressing a Belfast meeting organised by Sinn Féin in February ‘24 not because they had to be correct as Palestinians but because their objection was an important one to be heard.

The Ambassador does not represent Palestine but rather the Palestine Authority, which in turn cannot claim to represent the Palestinian people, if for no other reason than that it has not held elections for its Presidency in twenty years.

In fact there are many other reasons including financial corruption, nepotism, repression of any kind of criticism, collusion with the Zionist Occupation, jailing Resistance fighters and actually killing some. Those critics – even had they not been Palestinian – should have been heard instead of being ejected.

It would have been instructive, educational even, to listen to the condemnation by Palestinians of an official who claimed to represent them. But of course, the Sinn Féin party, like nearly all states and all western political parties of any size, supports the Palestinian Authority and its Embassy.1

In this case, it appears from what they were saying and what we can verify, that the Palestinian critics were correct and we know too that the Ambassador is wrong and in fact illegitimate, both in representation status and also in terms of national sovereignty.

But when people claim possession of the truth and immunity from criticism solely on the basis of where they are from or to what ethnic or other group they belong, we need to oppose that undemocratic cloak very resolutely as they use it to close down debate and education.

It’s not only the person claiming a kind of ethnic certainty we must beware of but often also the one who claims to speak for them, who takes a position as their defender and therefore their spokesperson for the truth. Apart from being patronising, such a position is wrong in principle.

And usually opportunist in essence.

This general principle holds true with regard to individuals or groups from any social or ethnic group or community, whether Palestinian, West Asian, Muslim, Six-County, 32-County, homeless, Traveller, working class, disabled, migrant, Irish speaker … etc.

end.

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SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Palestine

https://www.omsac.org/post/mahmoud-abbas-and-corruption-in-palestine-the-real-obstacles-to-democracy-and-good-governance

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/5/palestinian-authority-suppresses-criticism-of-jenin-operation-in-west-bank

1https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/why-sinn-fein-love-palestinian-authority

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/palestinian-protesters-criticise-sinn-fein-after-being-ejected-from-belfast-rally-ANEZSGBQZFHQZHARJVRANEX5IU/