Revolutionary socialist & anti-imperialist; Rebel Breeze publishes material within this spectrum and may or may not agree with all or part of any particular contribution. Writing English, Irish and Spanish, about politics, culture, nature.
(The following text is taken with minor organisational editing from Resistance News Network as are also the images)
(Reading time: 3 mins.)
On April 8th, we commemorate the anniversary of the martyrdom of one of Palestine’s foundational resistance leaders in 1948, the eternal Martyr Abdulqader Al-Husseini, who gave his life in the noble pursuit of our people’s liberation.
(Image sourced: Resistance News Network)
From childhood, Al-Husseini witnessed the beginnings of the colonial zionist project in Palestine and its implementation at the hands of the British. As he grew older, he became actively involved in organizing protests and demonstrations against the British occupiers.
After completing his secondary studies in Egypt, he returned to Al-Quds in 1933, and received a job in the land department. This job meant he was able to not only learn about the plans of land theft by the zionists, but also get close to the people of the villages.
That same year, Abdelqader and other Palestinian leaders began laying the foundations of a new type of struggle: revolutionary armed struggle and founded the Organization for Holy Jihad (Munathamat al-Jihad al-Muqadas).
In May, they announced the beginning of the Great Palestinian Revolt.
Al-Husseini, as one of the commanders of the Army of the Holy Jihad, led his troops in acts of resistance against both British and zionist occupiers during the Great Revolt between 1933-1936.
(Photo sourced: Resistance News Network)
In October 1936, he was arrested after he was wounded during the Battle of Al-Khader but managed to flee from the hospital to Damascus.
His leadership extended beyond military operations in Palestine, as he also worked tirelessly to mobilize support for the Palestinian cause abroad and participated in the Iraqi struggle for liberation against the British, where he was arrested until 1943.
He remained in exile, passing through Germany where he learned to make explosives and mines and Cairo, setting up training camps and importing weapons, and finally returning to his homeland in 1947 when the partition plan was announced.
(Photo sourced: Resistance News Network)
Upon his return he instantly began orchestrating and taking part in armed actions against zionist expansion.
In April 1948, Al-Husseini left for Damascus to meet with the Military Committee of the League of Arab States in order to ask for arms to repel the zionist incursion into Al-Quds, but the League failed him and the people of Palestine.
(Photo sourced: Resistance News Network)
It was at that time he received news of the occupation of Al-Qastal, a strategically located village west of Al-Quds. Before he left, Al-Husseini wrote a letter to the League in which he says, “I hold you accountable after you left my soldiers at the heights of the victories without aid or weapons”.
He returned one last time to fight, waging a fierce battle against the incursion into Al-Quds and proclaimed, “I am going to al-Qastal, and I will storm it and occupy it, even if that leads to my death.”
(Photo sourced: Resistance News Network)
“By God, I am tired of life and death has become dearer to me than this treatment that the League has dealt us. I am now wishing for death before I see the Jews occupying Palestine. The men of the league and the leadership are betraying Palestine.”
When the news spread that he planned to liberate Al-Qastal, fighters across Palestine came to his aid, liberating the village and raising the Palestinian flag later that afternoon on April 8, 1948. Fighters would later find out he was martyred during its liberation.
(Photo sourced: Resistance News Network)
His legacy was carried forward by his wife Wajeeha Al-Husseini who was his partner in struggle, a daughter and three sons, who fought in the ranks of the Palestinian revolution after the Nakba of 1948.
Al-Husseini’s unwavering bravery and tireless efforts to defend our homeland and resist occupation continue to inspire us in our struggle for liberation. His courage and sacrifice remain a guiding light as we persevere steadfastly in the face of the cowardly zionist enemy.
We honor Al-Husseini’s legacy by renewing our commitment to our struggle. We draw strength from his sacrifice and all those who followed in his footsteps. Together, we will continue the struggle until martyrdom or victory.
(Photo sourced: Resistance News Network)
Glory to the eternal Martyr Abdelqader Al-Husseini.
Like that similar-sounding ailment affecting some males, most of us are not rising, at least not to the expectations of the electoral commission. Furthermore the problem appears to be no respecter of gender.
The issue, according to the Independent Electoral Commission, is that not enough of us are voting in elections. Only 49% turned out to vote in the Irish local (municipal) and European Parliament elections which means that more than half of registered voting age didn’t bother.
Well, so what? Why is that is troubling the IEC? It seems that generally, the authorities like to see a good turnout because it appears to signify that people believe that they really have a democratic choice through the electoral system and are actually exercising it.
If they don’t believe that they have a choice – or if the appearance of choice is not matched by the reality they perceive, the people might turn to other methods of deciding how the country should be run. And that might result in an outcome unwelcome to the ruling elite.
THE TWEEDLES
The Tweedledum and Tweedledee parties appear to give the electorate alternatives and though whichever party wins the capitalist system remains, it appears to give a choice – but a bet choosing between two horses of the same owner in a two-horse race.
Like both Tweedles in the folk nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass (1871), Tweedledum and Tweedledee are brothers and though they appear to be preparing for war with one another, they don’t actually fight, not in Western ‘democracies’.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee (or is it the other way around?). (Image sourced: Internet)
There are, after all, plenty of spoils to share between their masters. The creators of that wealth need to be controlled, fooled and, if necessary from time to time, repressed. “Red” social democrats and “Blue” conservatives have alternated to share power in the Western world for over a century.
In Ireland, the only European state which is a neo-colony and part of its land a direct colony, its national liberation unfinished, the Tweedles have been blue or green.
But for decades now the illusion of choice has been crumbling. There has not been a majority party government in Ireland since 1981, when Irish Republicans were elected during the hunger-strike campaign. All Irish governments since have been a coalition of one kind or another.
The Irish Labour Party, founded by Connolly and Larkin and far from their thinking for many a long year, has been in government a number of times but always in coalition – usually with the conservative Fine Gael, itself the product of a coalition that included the fascist Blueshirts.
Those years of government participation for Labour have thoroughly rubbed off the red paint of socialist opposition from the party. The Green Party, mixing a brand of concerns for the environment with those for society, has met a similar fate in coalitions.
Since 2020 the Irish state has had what is essentially a ‘national government’, a coalition of opposing parties normally only seen in times of war or under a fascist regime. The alleged political poles have joined in order to run the system for the Gombeen ruling class.
Though this gives stability for the Gombeen’s system their problem is that it has removed the illusion of choice. They might restore that illusion through the promotion of a third major party in opposition and the formerly revolutionary Sinn Féin has worked hard to fill that space.
In the 2019 General Election SF got the most representatives elected but insufficient to form a majority government, after which the Tweedles united, along with the Greens to make up the numbers to manage the State. But the Gombeens will hold SF in reserve, I’m thinking.
Harris of Fine Gael and Taoiseach (equivalent of Prime Minister) of the Coalition Government, commented on the closeness of his party and former Opposition party Fianna Fáil in votes, predicting “a Government of equals”1– but it’s not just in votes that they resemble one another.
Yes, I know I misspelled Government but I want to get this article out of the way. I’ll redo the cartoon sometime later and replace it.
RESULTS
I don’t think there is a great deal to be said about the actual results of the recent local and EU Parliamentary elections in Ireland but no doubt some commentators will be saying it anyway.
Of unwelcome interest is that five fascists of different groups got elected, three of them to Dublin City Council. The electoral Left lost some and gained some without big changes.
Independent socialists (and couple) Clare Daly and Mick Wallace both lost their EU seats but perhaps they and in particular Daly in Ireland would be more of an asset to the Left. Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan in Midlands North West, another left Independent, kept his EU seat comparatively easily.
Sinn Féin had what was for them a disappointing run but had some new people elected to local councils and two seats in the EU Parliament, losing an existing one. Many of their enemies in the Republican ambit, often former comrades, rejoiced in their misfortunes.
Understandable though that may be one wonders how those who have some faith in the party at the moment are to be disabused of their illusions without having seen them in government. On the other hand their twists and turns on the road there may have disenchanted many already.
IT’S NOT A CHANGE OF PARTIES IN GOVERNMENT WE NEED
For most of my life I have been aware that it is not a change between political parties but between socio-political systems that is the issue. But I do vote sometimes in order to help keep a useful and decent voice in a parliament or a local authority.
An Irish community activist pensioner years ago in London, Co. Galway Teresa Burke, was a member of the British Labour Party. After a General Election, she asked me had I voted. I replied that I hadn’t; I’d not seen a candidate that stood anywhere close to that in which I believed.
“Well then, you must take responsibility for everything the Tories do if they get in!” Teresa remarked angrily.
“I’ll do that, Teresa,” I replied, “if you’ll take responsibility for everything Labour does in Ireland if they get in!”
Teresa’s lips twitched slightly. She knew as well as did I that the British Labour Party had sent the troops into the Irish colony to quell the struggle for civil rights in 1969 and supported the Tories in introducing internment in 1971 and massacres that year and in 1972.
In 1974 police under a Labour Government had killed the first anti-fascist on a demonstration,2 framed a score of Irish people in four separate cases for heavy jail sentences3 and had passed the fascist Prevention of Terrorism (sic) Act.
Whichever party is in government, the social-political-economic system is run by the capitalist class which it benefits and they will fight tooth and nail to maintain that system.
The alternative-party-within-the-system idea, so dear to social democrats, has failed time and time again. It betrayed its supporters by becoming like what it opposed, or consistently failed to get elected or was undermined, betrayed and destroyed, like Syriza in Greece, for example.
But in the unlikely event that route should ever show signs of being successful, for the ruling class there remains the military coup.4
2Kevin Gately, son of Irish immigrants, a student at Leeds University, died from injuries received from a mounted police baton during an antifascist demonstration in Red Lion Square, London on 15th June 1974.
4The serialised for TV A Very British Coup (1988) with Irish actor Ray McAnally from the Chris Mullins novel (1982) is well worth watching for this scenario.
It was an open secret that the US multinational, Chiquita, financed the paramilitaries. But the company always denied it, until one fine day, due to the insistence of the victims the company had to acknowledge its guilt and pay a fine of $25 million US.
On June 10th, this year, a tribunal in Florida ordered the company to pay $38 million to the families of 8 people who were murdered by the groups Chiquita financed.1
However, the victims in the same period for which Chiquita accepts it financed the paramilitaries and to have allowed them import weapons through their free zone port number more than eight victims, there are thousands.
But it is not just a matter of the number of victims but rather the number of victimisers. The judgement lays bare the discourse of the transitional justice system and that of all the governments, including the current one, about the nature of the conflict.
The peace agreement signed with the FARC, described the problem as one of some criminal guerrillas (and among their ranks there were) and some “rotten apples” in the armed forces (there weren’t any but rather it was a problem with the military institution itself).
The business people were designated as third parties and are not obliged to testify before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). But the judgement in the US against Chiquita clearly shows that they are not “third parties” in the conflict but “first parties”.
Once upon a time the role of the multinationals in the conflict was the starting point for all of the left and the human rights groups too, but not anymore.
Before we look at the matter, we should bear in mind that among many of those who are now part of the government, those that signed or promoted the agreement with the FARC are various spokespersons that previously denounced many companies.
I had the honour of investigating the role of the British oil company BP and other companies in the case of Casanare, where the role of the company could be proven.
The company itself, partially acknowledged its bloody role in financing the 16th Brigade alleging that it was legal at that time.
Many organisations have denounced BP, and the voices raised against the company increase in number.2 But legally BP is as innocent as Chiquita once was. In Southern Bolívar we saw how mining companies fomented the war against communities.3
Carlos Castano, right, the leader of the right-wing paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. (Photo cred: New York Post/ AP)
It wasn’t just in that region, but rather in the whole country and included national companies as well.4 The palm companies did their part and the cattle ranchers publicly accepted their role in fomenting paramilitaries,5 to name just a few sectors.
Other reports, as yet not proven to the same degree as the ones against Chiquita, cameout, but few doubt the reports against Coca Cola and Nestlé. Perhaps in a few years we can state it with the same legal certainty as we do now in relation to Chiquita.
And if we get there, it will be exclusively due to the struggle of the victims.
For the current government, the truth commission and many sectors of the Historic Pact (PH) the conflict is to be explained in terms of drug trafficking, minor disputes (never major ones) for land, corruption and the “culture of death in Colombia”.
But none of that is true. It is true that drug trafficking has, up to a point, played a role, and sometimes there are land disputes between neighbours that end badly and violence as a method of resolving problems is socially acceptable amongst many sectors of the country.
But none of this explains the conflict.
The Colombian conflict can be explained in terms of one between national capital, but above all international capital and the Colombian people and can be seen in the fight for land, the economic model, the war on unions, grassroots organisations etc.
Once upon a time it was not controversial on the left to say so, not even among the NGOs and even some politicians did so. Now, however, whoever states as much, dies politically.
Petro has given the excuse that he holds office but not power as a justification to explain the lack of operational capacity of his government and the lukewarm nature of his proposals. But we knew that, we always knew that, even when Petro on the campaign trail said he would “take power”.
People used to accept the idea that Colombian policies are not decided in the Nariño Palace (presidential palace) but rather in the White House and the cafés of Wall Street. The owners of the “cafés” decide more than do the Colombian people.
Those that serve the coffee are companies like Chiquita and it is the Colombians who wash the dishes.
President, are you the owner of one of these cafés, a waiter or a dishwasher? Tell us in detail. We would like to know who took the decision to allow Chiquita and the rest of the companies to kill left, right and centre.
We would like you to name those companies that kill peasants. Or, do you not as President have access to the military and police archives etc.?
On the election campaign, Petro said he was the Biden of Colombia.
But Biden and the Democrats have always received funds from multinationals, particularly from the agribusiness sector. So Petro should tell us whether he is still the Biden of Colombia and what he intends to do with Chiquita and other companies behind the Colombian conflict.
The peace process with the FARC and the rise of the PH as a party of government has left us a pernicious legacy, where we talk about the conflict in psychological terms, of evil, or individual responsibility (except when dealing with the insurgency).
And from the onset deny the role of the US in the conflict and the role of companies, particularly the multinationals. The business people are not on trial in the JEP, except those who voluntarily place themselves before the tribunal.
And that is only done by those who face a sure sentence in the ordinary justice system and see in the JEP the possibility of avoiding jail time. The Truth Commission excluded the business people.
In 2015, in the middle of his speech to the Colombian Oil Association, the then President Santos tried to reassure them and promised that he was not going to pursue them.
He gave them some advice, suggesting that if there was ever report made against them they could allege they were coerced.
Furthermore he stated, “Which businessman is guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity? If there is even one, he might be put on trial, but I don’t see how, or where…”6
Well, for the moment we could reply that perhaps in Florida, but not in Bogotá and not due to the NGOs, state bodies and other personalities who sell us that image of the conflict in which companies are not the driving force behind the conflict.
End.
Comment by Rebel Breeze: Chiquita is the current manifestation of the infamous United Fruit Company which organised a massacre against striking fruit workers in December 1928:
Leaders of the 1928 strike including two martyrs. (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)
6 Cited in Sinaltrainal et al (2016) Ambiguo y decepcionante acuerdo: itinerario para la impunidad de crímenes de Estado. P.24 https://rebelion.org/docs/208980.pdf
In an anti-imperialist struggle, if we don’t support the Resistance, what are we doing?
Among the Left – and even among many liberals — the importance of internationalist solidarity is generally accepted as taken for granted. However, as with many principles, it is in its application that we find substantial disparity.
After the October 7th breakout from the Zionist siege of Gaza the leading elements of the western world rushed to condemn the Palestinian resistance led by the Hamas group. Atrocity propaganda created by the Zionists abounded.1
Hamas2 and Islamic Jihad3 had planned and carried out the breakout operation in which they knocked out the Zionist surveillance and automatic firing defences, damaged communications, went through and over the apartheid wall and overran the Golani Brigade4 forces.5
The Resistance killed many of the IOF6 and captured others. In addition, the Resistance captured a number of civilians in order to exchange them for the huge number of Palestinian political prisoners held by the Zionist authorities.
Some Left groups joined the anti-Resistance chorus immediately while others took a little longer but then did so too. In Ireland, for example, leading figures in People Before Profit and the Socialist Party condemned Hamas, seen as the leading Palestinian element in the operation.
So too did the leadership of the formerly revolutionary Irish Republican political party Sinn Féin.7
Of the Left Zionists in ‘Israel’ (in so far as they can be called ‘Left’), they too joined the chorus. The Israeli state’s presidency has had representation from the Labour Party without interruption from 1948 to 1977 and most of the settlement expansions took place under a Labour government.8
Saoirse Don Phalaistín solidarity group banner (bearing logo of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine on right of photo) after Palestine solidarity march in Dublin 27 January 2024. Also visible in addition to the Palestinian national flag perhaps are two versions of the Starry Plough flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the Republican Congress version at extreme left and the original version above the banner. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
CIVILIANS
Some of the western ‘Left’ organisations stated that it was not the armed breakout of the Palestinians to which they objected but instead the killing of civilians. The liberals and media also made much of the issue of ‘civilians’ – to an extent never accorded to Palestinian civilians.
It is important to note that the adult civilians in the ‘Israeli’ state are, apart from tourists, settlers. They are colonising land from which the indigenous Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed. In addition military service is required of all ‘citizens’9 and a great many are armed anyway.
This is similar to what the Indigenous people of the Americas and Antipodes faced from European settlers from the 18th to the 20th Centuries or the Irish during the various plantations from the 17th Century onwards and the Land War during the 19th.
One baby was killed on October 7th quite likely by excessive heat in a burning building and another 13 children were killed, according to ‘Israeli’ social services. But by whom? By Palestinians or by indiscriminate Hellfire missiles from IOF helicopters and at least one tank firing into a building?10
Civilians may have been deliberately killed knowing they were civilians or by crossfire or by Israeli counterattack. Certainly there was at least one teenager taken captive, the daughter of the Irishman settler who infamously said he would rather his daughter were dead than captured by Hamas.
We’d like to know, of course, which case and how many. But in terms of solidarity principle, it’s beside the point: While we are not required by internationalist solidarity basic principles to approve of every one of its actions, we ARE required to be in solidarity with the Resistance.
A number of Palestinian armed resistance groups displaying unity in the struggle (Photo sourced: Iran News)
BUT, ISLAMIST…!
Many in western society are secular in their politics, many of agnostic or atheist position. So, that is our choice. Others belong quite strongly to one religious belief or another. What is different about Islamists (or fundamentalist Christians) is that they aspire to a society run in accordance with their religious beliefs.
We may not agree with that objective. We should not agree with the subordinate social and political status accorded to women in some religious cultures nor to the outlawing of LGBT sexuality. But even so, we should support the Resistance, Islamist or otherwise, in resisting repression.
Basque society was largely conservative Catholic while resisting Spanish State fascism up to the 1970s; Welsh mining society was often conservative Methodist in the struggles of the miners in the 1930s. The Irish Republican movement was permeated by Catholic symbolism and ideology.
We could have been, should have been capable of supporting the resistance in each of those cases while not supporting the religious conservative, reactionary or fundamentalist beliefs or conduct of participants or leaders in those struggles.
For revolutionaries, the general principles or internationalist solidarity are not of the kind from which one can pick and choose, while rejecting others. We are however entitled to accord ‘favoured status’ to an organisation the ideology and practice of which we most approve.
We may for example prefer a secular or even socialist resistance organisation (e.g the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine). We may carry its flags, promote its statements, share its social media postings. But we do so while also expressing solidarity with the Resistance as a whole.
That is reasonable and honourable. It is neither to participate in attempts to break up whatever unity exists among the organisations of the resistance.
During the 30 Years War in Ireland, there were those in Britain who participated in those activities – people who colluded for example with SF refusing to share a platform with the IRSP11 on Hunger Strike commemorations, threatening refusal to attend if their wishes were not acceded to.
No doubt that seemed justified to the Provisionals in their promotion of their organisation above any other choice but that activity split commemoration committees, disheartened activists and killed some solidarity events on the annual calendar.12
HOW BEST TO DO IT … AND IN PUBLIC
We often hear people ask a speaker from the resistance movement what we should do in solidarity. This is in general incorrect behaviour because we have our own revolutionary program and we best know our own circumstances and capabilities.
It is a different thing to ask what are the things that the resistance movement needs: medicines, weapons, representation, contacts, publicity etc. But we still have to decide how well to fit the effort of obtaining those within our capabilities or even whether the objective is worth the energy expanded.13
The Resistance can tell us what they need but the decision on which solidarity actions to take is ours. However whether to express solidarity is not a choice for revolutionaries – it is an obligation.
As revolutionaries we have a public position and part of that should be public solidarity with the Resistance. It is not unknown for some to claim to support a resistance organisation but to decline to do so publicly.
An African National Congress speaker in London years ago told me privately that they supported the Palestinian and Irish resistance but would not do so publicly as it might undermine support they were receiving from UK and other western bourgeois organisations.
I argued with him against this.14 Relating the discussion to a senior SF activist later I was astounded at the response that they would do the same if required.
Solidarity with the Resistance means also solidarity with those incarcerated during the struggle, the resistance in the jails. Again, though an organisation may think differently, we are not required to support the specific organisation to which the prisoners owe allegiance.
Nor does any Resistance organisation have the right to dictate to us whether we may or may not express solidarity with political prisoners who are aligned with that organisation. Over the years, the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign has faced down attempted coercion along those lines.
So also did the Irish Political Status Committee in London. And both groups remained independent. Unfortunately the Troops Out Movement of the day was unable to do so and after a brief period of asserting independence, eventually succumbed to domination by Provisional Sinn Féin.15
Supporting political prisoners is an act of necessary solidarity with the resistance and also one of self-defence in the longer term but it does not necessarily mean expressing support with the actions or organisation of the prisoners before or indeed after they were jailed.
Banners and flags presumably at Celtic FC home stadium during the current episode of the Zionist genocidal war. (Photo sourced: Internet).
SUMMARY
We are entitled if we wish to prioritise support for a specific organisation or its program but not obliged to do so, nor to accept their advice on how to conduct our solidarity work. Nor is it required of us to condone every action of the Resistance in general.
But we are required to publicly support the Resistance in general and not to join in public condemnations. And that’s the minimum to do if we are going to claim being in solidarity with a struggle.
For any revolutionary struggle, internationalist solidarity is an important factor, in encouragement to the Resistance, in de-legitimising the repression and in practical terms of supplies to the resistance, also in hampering the repression through blockades, boycotts or industrial action.
If we don’t support the Resistance, how can we claim to be in solidarity with Palestinians? Charity is not the same as solidarity. Pity is not the same as support. Outrage at the crimes of the oppressor is not the same as solidarity with the Resistance.
Furthermore, why should we expect solidarity with our struggles, now and in the future, if we cannot express that solidarity with the struggles of others?
End.
POSTCRIPT
Some will have searched in vain for a reference from Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, Luxemburg – or Connolly or even a famous Irish Republican leader – to justify the principles I have discussed here. At the end of the day, people should stand by principles because they have been tried and tested and are aligned with revolutionary experience but should also test them on their own experience in struggle.
In presenting some credentials towards giving these principles some consideration I can only say that I have thought about them and sought to practise them over decades of activism in Britain and Ireland.
Among the areas of Resistance and of political prisoners which have claimed my activity have been Ireland, Palestine, S. and SW Africa, Vietnam, Housing struggle, US Indigenous and African American people, organised Workers, Anti-Fascism & Anti-Racism, Kurdistan, the Basque Country, Syria, Haiti, Western Sahara, Catalunya, the Donbas …
FOOTNOTES
1All since thoroughly debunked though still repeated on occasion: “‘Israeli’ babies beheaded, torn from a womb and stabbed, women raped, people and houses burned.” These fake atrocity stories were repeated in the western media and by some politicians, including Biden and helped create an atmosphere assisting genocide by the ‘Israeli’state.
2Hamas began as an Islamist community organisation which then became a political party and developed an armed wing (like most Palestinian political groups, in response to the armed Zionist State and its settlers). In 2006 the party won the Palestinian legislative elections but the defeated Fatah (widely acknowledged as corrupt) administration in Gaza refused to give way and, in a short conflict, the Fatah armed group was defeated by that of Hamas. They chose not to do the same in the West Bank, presumably to avoid civil war from which the ‘Israeli’ state would benefit but from that moment onwards the Zionist State blockaded Gaza and the organisation was labelled a “terrorist” group in the west and financial support went instead to the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in the West Bank (which has refused to run new elections in two decades).
3Palestinian Islamic Jihad was formed in 1981. The armed wing of PIJ is Al-Quds Brigades (also known as “Saraya”), also formed in 1981, which is active in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with its main strongholds in the West Bank being the cities of Hebron and Jenin. In addition to this organisation and Hamas there exist a number of other resistance factions, some of which are secular, all working together as a broad armed resistance front with organisational autonomy but ofen in joint operations also.
4The Golani Brigade of the Gaza Division is the most highly decorated IOF Brigade, having taken part in all of the state’s major ethnic cleansing and genocidal operations. On October 7th hey were overrun in minutes and 72 killed with an unknown number captured (‘unknown’ because many, along with their Palestinian fighter captors were burned to death in their cars by ‘Israeli’ Apache helicopter Hellfire missiles).
5 The Palestinian operation went deep, passing Golani’s 3rd defensive line.
6‘Israeli’ Occupation Forces, aka the official but misnomer IDF (“Israeli Defence Forces”).
7The current iteration of Sinn Féin abandoned its revolutionary anti-colonial and anti-imperialist path in embracing the pacification process in1999. It stood down its armed wing, the IRA and largely dissolved it, also having their weapons decommissioned, since when it has participated in the administration of the colony and in recruitment of the colonial police force.
8Yet for years the Socialist Party have opposed boycotting the Zionist State, calling instead for unity with the “Israeli Left”.
10Documented by military and survivor sources on ‘Israeli’ media.
11The Irish Republican Socialist Party with an armed wing up to the 1990s, the Irish National Liberation Army, which contributed three Volunteers to the 10 martyrs who died on hunger strike in 1981.
12And what, in the end, did the Provisionals achieve with the supremacy gained?
13The Resistance organisation may ask us to arrange meeting for them to address our state’s parliament, or for interviews with the media … Or even to restrict our propaganda from solidarity to self-interest for people, as Sinn Féin did in England in the 1980s when they were promoting Time To Go: “Push the issue of the expenditure on troops, better spent on the health and social services.@
14If to do so incurred a legal penalty would have been a different situation, of course.
15And from that moment onwards became a less broad and less effective, eventually ceasing to exist as a solidarity organisation.
Gustavo Petro and Truth Commission President Francisco de Roux.
I recently read an article written by the former Colombian truth commissioner and academic at the Los Andes University, Alejandro Castillejo titled Teaching After Gaza?: Indifference Perpetuates Barbarism.(1)
As its title indicates, it deals with Gaza, but also covers other conflicts, such as Ukraine and also the Colombian conflict itself.
In the text he puts forward a question “When we say ‘Never Again’, exactly what should never happen again?”
It is a good question and one that is not often asked; he talks of the continuities, as Gaza is ongoing and will continue after the genocide, it won’t end in some precise reference point.
I would like to deal with another aspect of that question.
Once upon a time the social organisations in Colombia, the NGOs, the left groups, both legal and illegal ones, reformists (some illegal) and revolutionaries (some of which are legal), were very clear about what they meant when they gave voice to the slogan Never Again.
It is a common phrase. There are some reports from Colombian organisations that include it in their names. I had the honour of contributing, through my field work to the first two reports on the 14th Zone.(2)
Outside of Colombia, there is more than one truth commission report that has that as its name, such as the REMHI Report of Guatemala,(3) or the report on the disappeared in Argentina.(4) We were all clear, we did not want a repetition of the terrible night.
We spoke of the bloodbath and many were equally clear that they did not want a repeat of the circumstances that made it all possible, necessary and justifiable in the eyes of the state and bourgeoisie (a term disgracefully fallen into disuse in current times.)
Nowadays, it would seem that nobody is clear about it. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) understands Never Again to be never again the FARC and some “rotten apple” in the state’s military forces.
The Truth Commission hadn’t a clue as to what it understood Never Again to be, other than some generic, non-specific abhorrence of violence in and of itself, but not of the system and circumstances that gave rise to the bloodbath.
Less still to the rivers of blood that flow through the fields and furrows of the country. The Commission absolved the state for the so-called False Positives for which the state acknowledges and accepts the figure of 6,402 victims.
It was a state crime, acts of state terrorism, crimes as appalling as they were evident.
As far as the Commission was concerned it was not a state policy to take youths to the countryside, dress them up as guerrillas and murder them to present them in dispatches as part of a media campaign that sought to show the state was winning the war.
So, if it was not a state policy, when we say Never Again, are we saying that the state shouldnot commit such a crime in the future?
Or are we asking thousands of crazy soldiers not to think of putting boots on the wrong way round on the feet of young civilians that they just murdered and dressed up as a guerrillas?
In the first case, it would be something we could demand of the state, in the second case if they were really the demented actions of the soldiers, well even the state would be a victim in that case.
Even the paramilitaries sometimes say No More, rather than Never Again. In zones where they displaced the entire population, they don’t have to continue killing anyone. They can say No More.
With groups such as the Unión Patriótica that they decimated, or groups such as A Luchar that they finished off, they can say No More.
There is no need to continue murdering as the dirty work has been done, or at least it got to a point in which it had achieved its aim. If there is a need to repeat it, they will, which is why they say No More rather than Never Again.
This juxtaposition of No More and Never Again shows the banality of the slogan now. Is it really Never Again or do they speak of “until the next time there is a need to”?
We can see just how empty the refrain of Never Again is by looking at some examples of violence in Colombia.
In the 90s, the levels of violence in the port of Buenaventura began, for various reasons, to dramatically rise. The violence cannot be explained by reference to one single fact or motive.
However, there are contributing factors and whilst I don’t wish to reduce the explanation to something simple, we can point to the privatization of the port as a key factor in the rise in violence.
In 1991, following recommendations from the World Bank, Colombia — in the context of the growing forward march of neoliberalism — privatized the ports of the country.
In the case of Buenaventura this resulted in the loss of jobs in the port area, a reduction in salaries, both of which impacted the economies of the neighbourhoods where the workers spent their wages, generally increasing poverty in the city.
The port workers used to be able to apply for grants for their children to study, but with the privatisation that was gone, thus reducing not only the labour market but also the possibility of escaping poverty through studying.
Then came the plans to expand the port and the massacres such as Punta del Este, amongst others, to clear out those who lived where they were going to construct the new port zones.(5)
So when we say Never Again, it is clear that they don’t want the youths of the city to be killed, if they see another alternative, but does Never Again include the plans to privatise and expand the port?
Or we could look at the violence in the mining areas of the country, such as Southern Bolívar (gold) or Cesar and La Guajira (coal).
Once again, we see the hand of the grey men, the banal ones from the World Bank, the IMF or state bodies who like Eichmann never directly killed anyone but rather moved pieces of paper around knowing what the consequences were of those bureaucratic procedures in which they took part and knowing that the new realities they sought to impose required a high dosage of violence.
In the 1980s, the WB had been promoting the expansion of mining in Latin America, the abolition of restrictions on foreign investment, the exporting of capital etc.
In the case of Colombia, it didn’t need to do that much, the national bourgeoisie did the dirty work, without even a nod and a wink from the grey men at the WB. A key figure in all of this was Ernesto Samper, the head honcho in the country between 1994 and 1998.
It is worth bearing in mind that this satrap likes to present himself as a human rights defender, when it was his government that legalised the paramilitaries and is now one of the fiercest defenders of the current government of Gustavo Petro.
Not only was he the president of the country from 1994 to 1998, he was the owner of various mining companies.
He tried to introduce a new mining code but it was overturned by the Constitutional Court. In 1998, another satrap and mining businessman, Andrés Pastrana, took over as president and implemented a new mining code, which is currently in force.(6)
During this whole process, the massacres in Southern Bolivar and other mining regions of the country intensified, whilst the paramilitaries tried to take these zones for the multinationals. In the case of Southern Bolivar they were very explicit about it.
After the murder of the leader Juan Camacho Herrera they played football with this head, placing it on a stake facing the mines, declaring that they had come to hand over the mineral resources to other people, who would, according to them, make a more rational use of them.
So, when we say Never Again, does it mean Never Again to the national and international plans to take control of mineral resources? Or do they just mean that they are not going to play football with the heads of those who oppose these plans?
Nowadays the discussion in Colombia centres round the question of violence as something alien to the economic projects and they talk about the individuals.
The slogan is to stop the war, but only a few say stop the plans of the WB, the IMF, the imperialist powers such as the USA and Europe. When the president of the Truth Commission spoke to the UN he stated:
We have come to understand that the solution to the armed conflict is through respecting each person as an equal and we should respect each indigenous and afrocolombian child with the same commitment that we show to presidents, the wealthy, the powerful, and personalities, military generals.
That all personality cults end and we love and respect each other as people entitled to the same dignity. And that in Colombia and the world over all of us contribute to promoting a new sense of ethics based on human dignity and that all the spiritual traditions lend their support to this.(7)
Pass the joint round, take out the guitar, sing Kumbaya and kiss each other. In his speeches and the Commission’s report, the economic model is not questioned, in fact through the terms of reference they restricted the researchers and even banned them from dealing with certain issues.
Issues such as the role of the banks, the institutions and even the role of the USA in the conflict, which was reduced to isolated comments lacking in depth. So Never Again means never again showing disrespect to someone and that we not seek recourse in violence to solve differences.
But that violence is not fortuitous and the bullets, the machetes, the chainsaws [common weapons in massacres] are used when the first victim of the economic plans refuses to submit. So, Never Again has become: accept the established order and its plans!
A Never Again to violence that says little about structural violence is an exhortation to surrender and is a Never Again until such time as it is necessary to resort to violence to impose the will the of the capitalist class. Never Again for the moment, just like in Gaza.
(2) Although the Never Again project changed since its foundation in 1995 in terms of participants and leadership, some of the reports are available on the site https://nuncamas.movimientodevictimas.org
Around 30 people demonstrated outside Dublin’s Criminal Court on Thursday, many of them displaying Irish flags (Tricolour and Starry Plough) along with those of Palestine in solidarity with three activists before the court.
The activists were charged under Public Order legislation arising out of protesting a British war ship at Dublin docks in November last year, in solidarity with Palestine and against NATO’s support for the Israeli state’s slaughter in Gaza.
It was alleged that the activists (variously from Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Anti-Imperialist Action organisations) had entered a restricted part of the Dublin Docks and, holding a Palestine flag, had approached a British warship docked there and then occupied the gangway.
British military displaying firearms on Irish state soilin November last year. (Photo: Anti-Imperialist Action)
Gardaí had been called and the activists had refused their instruction to leave under the Public Order legislation and they had then been arrested. No act of violence, physical or verbal, took place on either side other than the refusal to leave and the arrests.
The activists appeared in the Parkgate Street building before Justice John Hughes and all three were defended by Damien Coffey of Sheehan Partners, a law firm which often handles political and human rights cases. Three Gardaí from Store Street acted in the role of the Prosecution.
The Garda in charge of the prosecution and his two colleagues gave evidence as to the arrests. Questioned by Coffey for the Defence, all confirmed that although the protesters had refused to leave, there had been no violence offered by them during their arrests.
Strangely, as shall become evident and relevant, one did not recall the British military presence on the gangway to be armed, whereas another did and confirmed that a photo of the armed men was of those who had been present.
One of the Garda offered his opinion that whereas the vessel was regarded in law as “British soil”, the gangplank was legally “Irish soil” and, if the protesters had actually set foot on the ship, they might have been charged with piracy. This piece of evidence also had unintended consequences.
One of the placards displayed by supporters outside the courthouse (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
According to this evidence, the British in a foreign military uniform had been present on Irish state soil and all replied to the defence lawyer that they were unaware of any Ministerial permission to do so — or that this could have constituted an offence under Section 317 of the Defence Act 1954.1
Furthermore, none were aware of any special permission granted to them to carry firearms on Irish state ground. The British military personnel themselves were not present as witnesses as their superiors had not replied to the Garda request to discuss giving evidence in the case.
Port security camera footage was shown as evidence by which protesters could be seen at the gates of a fenced-off section of the docks and some time later proceeding through a gate. A port security employee had been summoned by the Gardaí as a witness.
After he had been taken through his evidence (and failed to respond to what seemed an attempted prompt) by the Garda in charge the only relevance of his evidence was that a) the area was restricted and b) that he was worried for the safety of the protesters.
This (and the reason for the possible attempted prompt) was of importance when Coffey developed his defence summary on the legal grounds that Section 14 (1) of the Public Order Act required there to be an element of fear arising from the actions of those to be charged under the Act.
None of the evidence for the Prosecution had shown the presence of fear of anyone from the defendants and, furthermore, he submitted, any element of fear was much more likely to arise from the presence of two men holding firearms, to whit, the British military personnel.
The second part of the Defence summary dealt with right to protest, Coffey quoting a number of legal sources, also referencing the Irish Government’s recognition of a Palestinian state and statistics of people killed by the Israeli state against which the activists had been protesting.
Judge Hughes announced that a recess was due for lunch and that he wished to consult legal authority (case law etc) so they would recess and reconvene in an hours’ time.
A number of supporters who had taken time off from other commitments left at this point while a few arrived instead.
THE JUDGEMENT
After reconvening Judge Hughes began his long drawn out summing up and it gradually became clear that he intended to find the accused guilty. However people awaited with varying degrees of patience for the details of the sentence.
The Judge referred to the right to protest but also to the restrictions upon it (usually limiting its effectiveness) though he did not say that, nor that powers exist to abolish those rights when the State feels it necessary.
With regard to the ‘element of fear’ required for conviction under the Public Order Act Hughes quoted a judgement as a reference that seemed neither relevant nor reasonable, involving a woman experiencing fear of being broken into and even fear of children playing outside her home.
Despite repeating the standard claim of capitalist law that judges cannot adjudicate emotionally nor be swayed by what was occurring in Palestine, John Hughes revealed his own political bias when he bizarrely claimed that a British fleet had been welcomed into an Irish port in 1820.
He revealed his political naivety also when he expressed surprise that the British had not replied to the Garda communication regarding the incident.
On submission by Coffey regarding the lack of previous convictions and effect of criminal convictions on the lives of the three, Johnson, again drawing out the moment, gave them what amounts to a conditional discharge with a provisional forfeit of 500 euro.2
No doubt the desire not to create martyrs around whom solidarity campaigns might intensify played at least as much a part as any concern for the lives of the activists.
The defendants and their supporters left; outside the court they were embraced by a number of supporters before the gathering broke up, some attending to other solidarity activities elsewhere. The show of support was a good sign of solidarity against state repression.3
View of some of the people outside the courthouse on Thursday in solidarity with the three activists (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
SERIOUS ISSUES AMONG ELEMENTS OF COMEDY
The name of the British naval vessel being The Penzance and the mention of a possible piracy charge brings to mind of course the Gilbert & Sullivan opera The Pirates of Penzance (1879).
The focus of the Gardaí on arresting peaceful protesters in preference to unauthorised people in foreign military uniform carrying unlicensed firearms on Irish soil and also trying to suggest that not they but the protesters would give rise to fear is not without its comedic elements.
However overall the whole matter is extremely serious, with regard to the zionist genocide in Palestine, the active collusion of the UK/NATO, the active collusion of the Irish ruling class4despite its verbal positions – and the repression of its State on more active and directed solidarity actions.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1 317. — (1) No person shall, save with the consent in writing of a Minister of State, enter or land in the State while wearing any foreign uniform. (2) No person shall, save with the consent in writing of a Minister of State, go into any public place in the State while wearing any foreign uniform.
2 It will not appear as a criminal record but in the event of a subsequent conviction, the 500 euro can be levied as a fine in addition to any other punishment in court sentence.
3 Though the absence of a number of political organisations and trends was also marked.
4 “Dual-use”exports to the zionist state which can be adapted to military use; failure to press for any economic, academic or cultural sanctions against the zionist state; shelving of the Occupied Territories Bill; failure to impose diplomatic sanctions of any kind.
The fundamental thing to grasp here is that there can be no peace deal as such. Although there can – and needs to be – an end to Israeli massacres of Palestinians, no arrangement that leaves the zionist settler state in situ can possibly deliver peace.
Even if the zionists could go against their settler nature and therefore abandoned expansion, the Palestinians will never reconcile themselves to their dispossession of most of their country, including their best land and water.
TALK OF A CEASEFIRE DEAL
Very recently Biden put forward a ceasefire plan which he claimed to be an ‘Israeli’ one; Netanyahu seemed to reject it but one of his ministers accepted it was their position.
News footage of Biden’s announcement of the ceasefire proposal “by Israel”. The Palestinian resistance states that the offer received from ‘Israel’ does not at all match the content or process laid out by Biden. (Source video clip: Internet)
Since it contains the main items in the deal brokered by the Arab state intermediaries and approved by the CIA’s man some weeks ago, naturally the Palestinian Resistance1 has welcomed the proposals.
But with caution – they have seen Netanyahu torpedo ceasefire deals before, including the earlier one. And Netanyahu has said repeatedly that eliminating Hamas (by which he means Palestinian Resistance capability) and recovery of the detained Israelis2 is a necessity for any ceasefire.
Of course, the actions of the IOF under his orders don’t suggest that he is serious about recovering the detainees – not alive, anyway. On the other hand, he dearly would like to eliminate the Resistance capability and was happy to wipe out more than the 36,000+ civilians he has already.
But it may be that he has come to believe – or has been pressured into believing – that that project may have to be put off for awhile. The settler society is deeply divided over the question of the Israeli detainees and in a recent poll only 10% believed that the IOF was winning the war.3
Netanyahu’s position is rational from the settler perspective which is that the Indigenous have to be dispossessed and, because they naturally resist, have to be also heavily repressed. But he would like to keep the war going for another reason, which is that he is due to face trial for corruption.
However, he doesn’t get to be where he is or do what he does as an individual but rather with the backing of, in the first place the Israeli ruling class and secondly, of course, of the US Government, which really means by the rulers of the US financial-industrial-military complex.
Supporting ‘Israel’ has been basic US imperialist policy since 1948, when the zionist lobby in the US was not anywhere near as strong as it is today. Biden now, Trump before (and possibly again), Obama, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Reagan – all of them have supported the zionist colony.
Contrary to what many people think, the main reason for the US supporting ‘Israel’ is that it is the only state in the Middle East totally safe from national liberation revolution (because it’s a settler state fighting the Indigenous) or Islamic fundamentalist revolution (because it’s zionist).
In other words, it’s the only safe long-term USA foothold in the Middle East. Or at least it was.
Current map of the Middle East states. The US has overthrown the Iraq ruling regime and made clients of the regimes of all the others with the exception of Yemen and Iran, both of which overthrew their western-aligned ruling elites. (Source map: Internet)
So if Biden is really pressuring Netanyahu– which is not clear yet, given that money and weapons are still being supplied and massacres of Palestinians continue daily — that means that the US ruling class (or at least its dominant section) is pressuring the Israeli ruling class.
Perhaps that’s why John Kirby, Biden’s Middle East envoy is now heading back to the Middle East, in the first place to the zionist state then possibly to Egypt afterwards, where some Resistance leaders have gone already (at least of Islamic Jihad and of the PFLP, according to Arab media).
But every passing day, the IOF massacres between 50-100 Palestinians on average, the population of Gaza suffers from malnutrition, their housing and shelters are bombed, rescue workers are targeted and the only functioning hospital4 is low on fuel and out of many medicines and drugs.
Since the talk of a deal began, the known death toll in Gaza (not to mention the West Bank) passed 5,000 and is now half way through its sixth thousand.
The cold hard fact is that if the US shut off finance and munitions delivery to Israel, the massacres would stop within a day or two and, because the IOF can’t fight without air cover, it would have to withdraw from its blockade of the Rafah crossing, instantly allowing in food, fuel and medicine.
But also as the Medical Director of GLIA5 Tarek Loubani stated in a recent very informative interview,6 the Palestinian bordering states of Egypt and of Jordan, which also have gates, could break the siege tomorrow. Of course these are ruled by elites that are clients of the imperialists.
“THE TWO-STATE” OPTION
But what’s the long-term plan for Palestine?
For some Zionists, including a couple of members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, it’s the expulsion (sorry, “voluntary resettlement”) of Palestinians from Gaza to be run by ‘Israel’ and resettled by zionists. Not many outside the state would openly espouse that objective.
Although liberal ‘Israeli’ journalist Gideon Lev, who no longer supports the “2-State solution” (sic) commented that Biden dropped that objective from his outline of the alleged deal,7 it has been for decades the only long-term plan of the US, UK and EU and of their main political parties.
This plan is to get some kind of collaborator management to run less than 20% of historic Palestine next to the robbers of most and the best of its land and most of its water, in a “state” dominated by the robbers and under their constant eyes, genocidal guns and air force.
Who gets the Quisling management job? The USA suggested months ago a “revamped Palestinian Authority” which is despised by most Palestinians, corrupt and authoritarian (hence to be “revamped”). Others have suggested some kind of Arab state partnership to manage at least Gaza.
The most recent map of the imagined two-state “solution”, drawn up during Trump’s earlier presidency – areas in green allocated to Palestine, beige to the zionist state. (Source: Wikipedia)
But Netanyahu says the PA will not run Gaza. Of course, if he’s on the way out, he may be ignored but the Resistance is on record saying that what they have, whether part of 2-State setup or not, must be run by Palestinians and that they will not accept any other states doing so.
And that for Palestinian unity, the PLO8 must be opened to Islamist organisations such as Hamas.9
If legislative elections (overdue by almost two decades) are run now, the likelihood is that Hamas will win again10as it did in Gaza and the West Bank in 2006.11
MEANWHILE, THE DEAL …
“The first stage proposes to involve a six-week ceasefire during which the Israeli army will withdraw from the populated areas of Gaza. Hostages, including the elderly and women, would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
“Civilians would also return to all of Gaza, with 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid flooding the enclave daily, Biden said.
“The second phase would see Hamas and Israel negotiate terms for a permanent end to hostilities. “The ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue,” the president said.
“In the third phase, a permanent ceasefire would follow, facilitating the reconstruction of the enclave, including 60 percent of clinics, schools, universities and religious buildings damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces.”12
The Resistance leadership, while welcoming what Biden said, declare they want to see all the provisions spelled out – and quite rightly so – before they commit to the pacification plan. They also want to see that Netanyahu himself commits to it, which is far from what he’s currently saying.
They want to stop the genocidal murder of their people through bombing, starvation and destruction of medical care facilities. No doubt they also welcome the opportunity for a respite for their surviving veterans and for training new recruits, perhaps also stocking up on war materiel.
But what game are the USA and the Zionists playing? Could this just be electioneering for Biden? Is there a serious split in the Zionist war-cabinet? Or could it be a playing for time and divide-and-rule game by the US, the Zionists and allies?
A statement given by “a senior leader in the Palestine resistance” to Al-Akhbar and published in Resistance News Network suggests that the latter might be the imperialist game.13
The latest attempts will occur in the coming days, following an invitation issued in the name of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi through his intelligence chief Major General Abbas Kamel to senior leaders of the Popular Front and Islamic Jihad
to visit Cairo for consultations on the situation and the possibility of “creating a breakthrough which would lead to a deal the United States wants to happen now.”
The factions will visit Egypt, and there will be separate or joint meetings.
It is expected that a Hamas leadership delegation will also arrive in Egypt, where representatives from the United States and Qatar will be present, while the “israelis” will be sitting in a private hotel waiting for the results of the meetings.
However, it is clear and decided by the resistance factions that the message that will be conveyed to the Egyptians or any other party present will be much higher than the position announced by Hamas.14
However all this pans out, despite the huge toll of its genocidal campaign, the Zionist state gained nothing militarily, while it has lost hugely on the international political stage. Which means its primary sponsor, the US has lost influence too.
The world is not the same place it was up to the first week in October last year. Nor is it likely to be ever so again. Not just in the Middle East but also in the global South and even in the global West, especially in the latter for thousands of young people.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Spokesmen of a number of different Palestinian resistance organisations have made it clear that the negotiators of Hamas represent them in the talks and that they are kept informed.
2I use this term to describe what are normally called “hostages”, given that the hostages of the zionists are usually called “prisoners”.
3Quoted by Jon Elmer in last week’s Intifada Update. This is in a society with military censorship of the press and, as Jon Elmer remarked on an Electronic Intifada update, “10% is an error margin for zero.” Elmer also quoted the result of 40% who believed “Hamas” was winning.
4For a million people, according to a recent of the almost daily appeals from the Health Authority.
7Interview today on line (can’t recall which agency).
8The Palestine Liberation Organisation, dominated by Fatah, which has largely been sidelined in the Resistance struggle, in particular since October last year.
9And Islamic Jihad – and there are others. Secular organisations like the PFLP are in the minority. The latter have been in the Fatah-dominated PLO, which excluded Islamist resistance organisations and which has been seen as betraying Palestinian objectives and colluding with the zionist occupation while indulging in substantial corruption until the Palestinian electorate voted them out and Hamas in in 2006.
10Probably with gains too for any Resistance group standing and even less votes than before for Fatah, from which the PA leadership comes.
11In Gaza Fatah refused to accept the electoral verdict and to give up their control; in a short battle they were removed by Hamas which chose not to do the same in the West Bank, where civil war would have been much more intense. From the moment Gaza came under Hamas management it was blockaded physically by the zionist state with Egyptian and Lebanese regimes collusion and politically and financially with full backing of the US and the imperialist states of the EU and the UK (and again, collusion of the Palestinian Authority). The intention was to make life in Gaza so unbearable that it would be abandoned or otherwise ripe for ‘Israeli’ control.
13The context about attempts to split the Resistance: “They attempted to open communication channels with local leaders in Gaza but were met with the shocking response to go to Hamas. They then tried to open side channels with the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] and factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization that have military wings in the Strip, and they led an initiative they believed would be tempting to the leadership of [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, only to hear the same response. Nevertheless, the enemy continues to try to break the unity behind Hamas.”
14I interpret that as meaning that the factions will exceed the demands of Hamas, forcing the negotiators to abandon their splitting plans and deal with the actual issue of a ceasefire deal and present the detailed written terms as presented by Biden (and previously agreed by the Resistance but refused by Netanyahu) with the ‘Israeli’ Government’s acceptance, which the Resistance will accept.
On 25 May, a video surfaced on Israeli social networks in which an armed and masked man in an Israeli army uniform stood in front of a camera and threatened mutiny to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The message was also directed to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, the reserve soldier said Gallant should resign.
He warned that 100,000 reservists in Gaza are not willing to “hand over the keys of Gaza to any Palestinian Authority” or other “Arab entity,” and said these soldiers would only take orders from Netanyahu.
Among the many that shared the video was Yair Netanyahu, son of the Israeli prime minister, who later deleted it following the resulting controversy.
Despite being masked, the rifle in the video appears to carry the name “Luzon,” which helped eventually identify the man a few days later as Ofir Luzon, a right-wing activist from Herzliya, a town north of Tel Aviv.
He is a supporter of the local Likud party, which is also the party of Netanyahu.
Luzon is a reserve soldier serving in Gaza, but the video probably wasn’t shot in Gaza but rather in an abandoned building in the Tel Aviv area. He was likely acting alone.
Israeli media have since published many of his social media posts in which he expresses right-wing views, is seen alongside Likud ministers and city council members in Herzliya, threatens leftists and Israeli protesters against the judicial overhaul and opposes Gallant.
He expresses enthusiasm about the approaching attack on Rafah.
Day after
The immediate context of the video was a recent ultimatum issued by Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, to Netanyahu, in which Gantz demanded that his concerns over the management of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its aftermath be answered by 8 June.
And threatening to resign from government if they aren’t.
The “day-after” scenario is a heated subject of debate within the war cabinet. Gantz wants clarity around a “governing alternative” to Hamas to rule over Gaza, envisaging an international, Arab and Palestinian administration to handle civilian affairs in Gaza.
Netanyahu, however, is insisting there be no discussion of post-war scenarios or who should govern Gaza, arguing that as long as Hamas is not defeated, such discussions are “meaningless.”
Netanyahu has expressed strong opposition to the Palestinian Authority taking over, and maintains that Israel must keep “security control over the entire territory to the west of Jordan,” meaning Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, or all the area from the river to the sea.
This is in direct contrast to Gallant, who is pressuring Netanyahu to declare that Israel will not take over civil rule or maintain a military occupation in Gaza.
Disintegrating army
The wider context, however, is a bit different, and has to do with dynamics that some Israeli analysts describe as part of the “disintegration” of the military.
Luzon’s video may be the first time that an open expression of mutiny has been voiced from within the ranks of the Israeli military, but Israeli reservists in Gaza during the current genocide have regularly disobeyed orders right from the outset in October.
The Israeli military has admitted to disciplinary problems and difficulty in controlling the rank and file. So far, these issues have been seen on social media, especially TikTok, where soldiers have filmed themselves giving political speeches, trashing homes and vandalizing shops.
Or blowing up universities and committing other war crimes.
These disciplinary problems have also surfaced over nationalist graffiti on houses and properties in Gaza, some calling for revenge and some for the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in the territory.
The military has not investigated most of these incidents, perhaps out of fear of pressure from right-wing politicians or protest from within the military, borne out of experience.
In November, an order to soldiers in Gaza to erase their own graffiti led to a public outcry from right-wing politicians, including from minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who called on Gallant to rescind the order.
Some soldiers openly refused to obey the order.
Chain of command
In addition to disciplinary issues with reservists, problems in the chain of command have also been exposed, notably between the chief of staff and division commanders on the ground.
Infamous, of course, is Barak Hiram, who gave orders to bomb an Israeli settlement near Gaza during the 7 October attack, and also gave the order to bomb a university in Gaza, without, the army says, prior approval.
Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss, meanwhile, was reprimanded following a statement to the media in which he said that national leaders must be “worthy of the soldiers.”
Whether from division commanders or rank and file reserve soldiers, it is clear that the Israeli military has a growing problem with discipline.
It is a problem that stems not only from deepening political divisions within Israeli society, but also from class and identity conflicts. Many reservists and regular soldiers are traditionally drawn from marginalized areas, and are often from religious and right-wing backgrounds.
It’s difficult to predict whether 100,000 soldiers will actually disobey orders to withdraw from Gaza, should such an order eventually come down.
But Luzon’s video does not come in a vacuum. It is rather the latest expression of a growing rift within the Israeli military, and in Israeli society more generally.
End.
Mati Yanikov is a Haifa-based anti-colonial activist.
This version of the original is very slightly edited organisationally with no matter changed or removed.
In the western world we observe the manifestation of solidarity with Palestine in giant marches and in college solidarity encampments and building occupations. But there are many other manifestations to be seen every week and on specific occasions.
These other smaller actions take place of special occasions or on a regular weekly, monthly or even daily basis. The Bridges of Solidarity event was organised as a specific one-off but others are organised weekly, for example in Dublin where one of them, by coincidence is also on a bridge.
These solidarity events are seen by passing people away from the routes of the big marches and locations of encampments and allow those people at minimums to express their approval and, for a few seconds at least, to be part of that solidarity expression.
This contributes to the popular public opinion. Smaller or special events sometimes also pull in people who might not normally participate in marches for a variety of reasons.
The Solidarity Bridges protest day was set for Friday 31st May and Palestine solidarity flags were waved and banners hung from bridges over motorways and rivers across the nation, disregarding the foreign-imposed border.
In Dublin, motorway and main road bridges, over river and stream showed the Palestinian colours and were greeted every few seconds by motor horns sounding in support.
One of the Bridges of Solidarity with Palestine events that took place across different parts of Ireland on 31 May 2024, this one on the Dublin Fairview pedestrian bridge across the road.
On the “RTÉ Bridge”1 the numbers were small with Palestinian flags and a drop banner bearing the message “RTÉ LIES”. However the horns of passing traffic blowing in approval sounded every ten seconds or so, sometimes individually and sometimes in a chorus, accompanied by thumbs up.
Irish and Arabic recorded resistance music sounded out from an amplifier. On the UCD Bridge, chanted slogans replaced recorded music with a couple of songs too, sung accapella; the numbers here were boosted with students from the ongoing solidarity encampment there.
A huge “Ireland Stands With Palestine” banner figuring the watermelon slice2 hung off the southern side of the bridge with flags and a text banner facing north.
According to media reports and its FB on 28th June, the IPSC called for those bridge protests but none of the Dublin ones were listed and today there were no photos of any such events on its FB page; however its website lists nineteen such protests for next Friday 7th June.
Every Thursday evening in Dublin a solidarity picket takes place from six to seven o’clock in four areas in prominent locations passed by much motorised traffic: Annesley Bridge Fairview/ East Wall (alternating between them weekly); Ballymun; Cabra and Donnycarney.
One of weekly Palestine solidarity picket every Thursday in four Dublin city areas – this one on Annesley Bridge, Fairview, 30 May 2024.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee does not for some unexplained reason promote these events. In its weekly list of activities for participants around the country, it does not list the Thursday events.
The IPSC is long-established and the main organisation promoting Palestine solidarity across Ireland but this kind of censorship, for that is what it amounts to, is harmful to that solidarity. These initiatives are not even radical3 nor organised by people hostile to Palestinian solidarity in any way.
Bernadette McAlliskey joined the weekly protest on Annesley Bridge on 22nd May.
Of course in themselves these actions do not stop the genocide but nor do big marches, while the college encampments may force some limited divestments and academic boycotts. But all together form part of the political ambience of the country upon which yet other actions may be based.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1So called because of its proximity to the headquarters of Radio Teilifís Éireann, the national broadcasting service.
2The Palestinian Flag is forbidden in “Israel” and wherever else they exercise control in Palestine and, because the colours of the watermelon slice are those of their flag, the Palestinians have used it as a “legal” substitute (green and white in the rind, red in the flesh and black in the seeds). An interested 6th Year student cycling past asking the reason for the design had it explained to him and told participants, whom he thanked, that he’ll be taking Politics as a subject in university.
3 Not that there is anything wrong with radical protests and in fact they are needed but one might think that the IPSC was not supporting certain types of protest because it was concerned that they might be perceived as being too radical.
Diarmuid Breatnach – Talk given at 1916 Performing Arts Club, May 2024.
(Reading time: 6 mins.)
There was a time when from Dublin to Galway, from Kerry to Donegal, the dominant language was Irish. There was a time too when it was widespread in Scotland, in parts of Wales and the main language on the Isle of Man.
Now however one can travel through all of those places and not hear it.
Irish was the first vernacular language to be written down in Europe and though island people, its speakers were not “insular”. The educated spoke Greek and Latin too and when the Dark Ages fell upon Europe it was the Irish intellectuals, the monks who revived and spread literacy there.
But here we are, you and I, speaking English – which did not even exist until at least the 12th Century.
She (I say ‘she’ because language in Irish is a feminine noun and in many other languages too) – she is all around us in place names, though we may know them only through their corrupted forms into English.
Árd/ Ard, a height; Baile/ Bally, a town or village; Béal/ Bel, the mouth of; Bun, the bottom of; Carraig/ Carrig, a rock; Cnoc/ Knock, a hill; Cluain/ Clon, a meadow; Dún/ Dun, a fort or castle; Inis/ Inis or Ennis, an island or a raised mound surrounded by flat land; Loch/ a lake …
The English-language names of twenty-nine of our counties are corruptions of words in Irish: from Ciarraí to Dún na nGall, from Átha Cliath Duibhlinne to Gaillimh. This includes all six counties in the colony: Aontroim, Árd Mhacha, Doire Cholmcille, An Dún, Tír Eoghain, Fear Manach.
Just over half the States of Stáit Aontaithe Meiriceá on Turtle Island have names in the indigenous native languages, so we’re doing well with placenames and also of course have survived the colonial genocidal campaigns and wars much better.
By the way we also have Irish names for some places in Britain: Glaschú, Dún Éidin, Manchuin, Leabharpholl, Brom agus Lúndain. In fact probably none of the names of those cities are originally English anyway.
Irish has left only a small imprint on the general English language for example with “a pair of brogues, whiskey and slogan” (from slua-ghairm, a call to or by a multitude), banshee, carn and smithereeens. And shebeen, in parts of the USA, the Caribbean and in South Africa.
But its influence on the way we speak English in Ireland is clear.
We might say, instead of complaining that we are thirsty, that we have a thirst on us – a direct translation from Tá tart orainn. Or that the humour is on us – Tá fonn orainn. We might “have a head on us”, as in a headache. “The day that’s in it” – an lá atá ann.
We pronounce “film” with a vowel between the L and the M, as it would be in Irish – take the name for a dove and also a personal male name, Colm. We get that with R and M and R and N too, in some areas “a carun of stones” or “down at the farrum”.
We often indicate the absence of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in Irish by replying in English to the verb in the question: ‘Will you be there?’ ‘I will surely’ (Beidh, cinnte). ‘Will you do it?’ ‘I will not’ (Ní dhéanfad).
We have an extra tense in Irish, the very recent past tense, which we translate into English as spoken in Ireland: ‘I’m just after cleaning that floor!’ Táim díreach thréis an urlár sin a ghlanadh!
Renaissance of language and culture has often preceded periods of heightened national struggle: the Harp Festival of 1792 was followed soon by the uprising of the United Irish; the cultural work of The Nation newspaper was followed by the rising of the Young Irelanders.
The Nation newspaper of the Young Irelanders sought to create and encourage a nationalist republican culture and was followed by an unsuccessful rising in 1848, during the Great Hunger. (Source image: Internet)
LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL STRUGGLE
The Fenians too had their cultural precursors and the great revivals of the Irish language, Irish sport, speaking and writing in Irish and Irish theatre were not long in finding expression of another kind in the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence.
And campaigns of civil disobedience in the 1960s secured for us Irish-language broadcasting in Radió na Gaeltachta and TG4. Not to mention motor insurance documentation in Irish which Deasún Breatnach won only after going to jail for refusing to display the documentation in English.
Though we can hear the influence of the indigenous language upon our speaking Sacs-Bhéarla, or English, the Irish language itself at this point is in retreat. In fact some might say that it’s in a rout.
Yes, the Gaelscoil movement is broader and deeper than ever before but outside the schools? The Gaeltacht areas are receding, receding … and where can the language be heard outside of those?
Though the Great Hunger caused the most impressive loss of Irish-speaking modern Ireland on the map, the percentage lost during the period of the Irish State is greater. (Image source: Internet)
I had an experience recently that illustrates the problem. In a pub with some friends, I observed a man wearing a silver fáinne, the ring that many people wore to show a proficiency in Irish. It identified the wearer to other Irish-language speakers (my father wore a gold one).
The man had overheard me bidding farewell to friends in Irish and asked me: “Are you an Irishman?” I thought the question strange and said so. Then he asked me was I an Irish speaker, to which I replied in Irish language.
Eventually he came over and said that he didn’t speak Irish himself.
The fáinne was a family heirloom and he had been wearing it, he said, for six months in Dublin, wanting to come across an Irish speaker to whom he would give the ring. Since I had been somewhat abrupt with him, he gave the ring to one in the company who can speak Irish.
Badge inviting people to speak Irish to the wearer (Image sourced: Internet)
LABHAIR Í
Six months in Dublin without hearing Irish spoken or recognition of the fáinne! That illustrates one aspect of the linguistic problem in Ireland. But it is one that we can resolve, fairly easily too. And that brings me to the kernel, the poinnte or point of this talk here today.
I am asking you to speak a cúpla focal, regularly, go rialta, so that she may be heard. Labhair í ionnas go gcloisfear í. Imagine if everywhere in Dublin, on every side, one heard just a few words in Irish – imagine the social and psychological effect over time!
Those who know some Irish would speak her more often. Many who don’t, would feel it worthwhile to learn at least some phrases and some responses. Some might take it further and learn Irish well. Public services might regularly facilitate services through Irish.
Dia dhuit. Dia’s Muire dhuit. Or the non-religious form: Sé do bheatha. Go mba hé duit.
Má sé do thoill é or le do thoill.
Go raibh maith agat in many situations, including to the driver of the bus.
Tá fáilte romhat.
Gabh mo leithscéil.
Would you like a bag? Ní bheidh, go raibh maith agat.
Cash or card? Íoch le cárta, le do thoill as you wave your bank card. Or Airgead thirm, as you take out your wallet or purse.
Go léir, as you indicate that you wish to pay the full amount.
Isteach, le do thoill, when returning a book to the library. Amach, le do thoill, when borrowing one.
Slán, as you leave.
Easy enough, yes? Yes? But though a part of the mind is willing, another part is afraid.
“What if I get a big load of Irish in response and not even understand it? Won’t I look like a right eejit!” Well, there are risks in anything worth doing as was demonstrated in a short play here some time back when two fellas were debating whether and when to chat up a certain woman.
She was not uninterested but they took so long about it she walked out and left them, like fish brought up by fishing line, gasping on the dry quay.
So you could prepare a small survival kit: “Gabh mo leithscéil. I only have a few words/ níl agam ach cúpla focal.”
“Níl agam ach beagán ach tá mé ag iarraidh í a úsáid/ I only have a little but I want to use it. Is foghlaimeor mé/ I am a learner.”
I am not asking for any of us to campaign, to agitate for services to be provided through Irish though that is certainly a linguistic civil right and, as far as state or semi-state services go, a constitutional one.
I am only asking that you contribute to the audibility of the language, to use a few standard greetings and responses and to use them not only to people you know to be Irish speakers, not only to friends and relations … but everywhere in public.
Everywhere
in public.
Go ye out among the people and spread the word – or rather the few words. Scapaigí an cúpla focal.
rebelbreeze 