TENS OF THOUSANDS IN PALESTINE SOLIDARITY IN DUBLIN MARCH – AND ZIONIST PROVOCATION

On March 25, 2024March 25, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Executions, Gaeilge, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Resistance Art, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

Numbers approaching 100 thousand marched in Palestine solidarity in Dublin on Saturday as the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign held its 5^th national march since October, attended by people from Donegal to Cork and from the 6-County British colony.

It took place in a week in which the genocidal zionist settler state exercised its “right to defence” by its fourth attack on the Al-Shifa Hospital, massacring over 170 unarmed civilians including women and children and using others as human shields.

In addition the zionists executed the Chief of the Gaza police and a Deputy (along with the latter’s family), claiming them to be guerrillas but apparently in retaliation for their successful organisation of a recent flour delivery without riots or any civilians murdered by the Occupation Forces.

Meanwhile, the response of the colonial and zionist collaborator, the Palestine Authority, was to continue its repression of Palestinians in parts of the West Bank and to open fire on the funeral of three martyrs¹ of the heroic latest battle of Jenin, a scene of many past battles.

*The front of the march begins to enter Dublin’s main street, O’Connell Street* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The official figure for Palestinians killed in this latest genocide on screens and before the eyes of the world is now nearing 33,000 dead with well over 74,000 injured and an estimated 8,000 buried under rubble from Israeli bombing in the zionist state’s “right to defence”.

None of the leaders of the Western imperialist states seem to ask themselves whether, if this is truly the necessary cost to Israel’s ‘defence’, does that state deserve to exist at all?

*“Nakba never ended” placard seen in this section of the march in O’Connell Street* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

MARCH AND ZIONIST PROVOCATION

The march began as has become customary at the Garden of Remembrance² in the north side of the capital city from where it eventually began to make its way down through the city’s main street, its end taking nearly half an hour to pass through and to cross the river to the south side.

From there, chanting slogans that have since become well-known in solidarity of the Palestinians and their right to self-determination, in outrage at the actions of the zionist state and its imperialist supporters, the marchers made their way to rally outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Here many listened to speeches and performances but significant numbers shortly peeled away to make their ways back home or to relax in the city’s cafes and restaurants (after all, what were they going to hear that they had not heard and read before?).

Irish Republican organisations were not noticeably present, even those few that had been visibly present on recent demonstrations; difficult to guess at the reason, even with preparations for 1916 commemorations no doubt being undergone for next weekend and afterwards.

As usual on large demonstrations, the marchers had not experienced the insults and bizarre shouts of “Traitors!”³ by far-Rightists and racists to which smaller solidarity pickets are often subjected but, as part of the march neared Cuffe Street, a man with a large Israeli flag passed them.

From near me shouts of “Zionist! Baby-killers!” arose but he passed. Later he was seen being escorted by a Garda from the rally with his Zionist flag but also a Palestinian flag which people speculated he had taken from a demonstrator.⁴ Some more Gardaí gathered around the Zionist.

Shortly thereafter, he was permitted/ encouraged to leave the area with at least his flag pole⁵. Many commented that the outcome would have been very different if it had been a case of a Palestinian supporter provoking a Zionist rally and, indeed, I have witnessed such some years ago.

When I lived in London I regularly saw Zionists provoking Palestinian supporters and dancing Israeli dances near them. Whenever outraged demonstrators drew near to challenge them, the Palestine supporters were attacked by the London Metropolitan Police.

At a parallel Palestine solidarity march on Saturday in London, a small group of Zionists waved Israeli and Union Jack flags but were soon swamped by Palestinian and Irish – yes Irish! – flags. In London at least there have been Irish flags on every Palestinian solidarity march since October 8^th.

TRADE UNIONS

Banners and flags of Irish-based trade unions were well-represented on the march but with at most a couple of dozen marching behind them. Specific worker groups such as “Health Workers for Palestine” replied to my enquiry that they had organised the group without support from their unions.

*Banners of INTO, the largest teaching union in Ireland (primary level in the state and primary and post levels in the colony) precedes some flags of the UNITE union.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Where are the militant actions by the trade union brothers and sisters of murdered Palestinian medical staff including paramedics, journalists (for which job Palestine is the most dangerous place in the world), food distribution workers, poets and writers?

It is well past the time when it was sufficient for Irish trade unions to bring banners and flags on to the street every couple of weeks with a dozen members or so marching behind them. In October they should have been leading their members to the marches in at least their hundreds.

By November last year at least, the trade unions should have been planning actions to take in physical solidarity, moving beyond marches and pickets to sit-downs and other kinds of solidarity action. How do Israeli goods come into Ireland and how are they sold?

Clearly they are handled and administered by workers and some of those at least⁶ are unionised. Union-backed boycott actions would put pressure not only on the Israeli economy but also on other companies colluding with them, as with the supermarkets who stock their products.

Pressure on the latter would translate into pressure not only on the Israeli state but on the political management of the economic bases of states and also on the political management of the countries where they are operating, for example in Ireland.

Who knows, the unions might even boost their recruitment with such action, in a country where once most would not dream of crossing a picket line but where now many youth do not even comprehend the nature or purpose of a trade union.

REPRESSION

Meanwhile, those who ARE taking action in solidarity with Palestine are experiencing repression, not yet to the extent that is occurring in the French and German states, but repression nevertheless. Some marchers on Saturday carried a banner protesting the criminalisation of solidarity.

In recent months a number of people have experienced dawn house raids by the police, in addition to arrests in the course of demonstrations or pickets. Defence of people victimised for solidarity actions has always been an important part of solidarity movements.

Most of the political parties nor the IPSC will be organising or even calling for such defence and it is up to the ordinary people in the solidarity movement to mobilise to attend and protest the court cases and attend pickets in solidarity with victimised activists.

In the months ahead, those victimised up to now and quite possibly more still will be attending court on separate dates as their cases are scheduled to be heard. It is also important as a general principle that activists refuse to agree to refrain from solidarity actions as a condition of bail.

A number of Palestine solidarity activists recently had a private meeting with officials of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the organisation also held a recent day of sessions and workshops on civil rights for protesters.

*Campaigning organisation for housing and against evictions* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

SHAMEFUL SHAMROCKS

Saturday’s march took place a week after St. Patrick’s Day when to the disgust of many people in Ireland, representatives of the Irish Government and even of a number of Opposition political parties attended in Washington to celebrate the day with President Biden and others.

As a result, no doubt, the presence of the Sinn Féin party on the march was small and muted and the flags of the Social Democrats absent, a party recently prominent in pressure on the Irish Government to join the ICJ case against the Israeli State and even to expel their Ambassador.

One supposes that those who are in a queue to manage the Gombeen state have to show their fitness for doing so by bowing before the leader of western imperialism; whatever their private feelings may be, they need to show that they have the stomach to do what the system requires of its servants.

*“No shamrocks for Genocide Joe” placard in this section of the march* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

LESS SLOGANS and LESS IRISH?

It seemed to me that there were in general less slogans being chanted on this demonstration and that that their range was less than usual. Possibly this reflects a feeling that the demonstrations are becoming more routine and less capable of stirring emotion.

Possibly too, the sheer daily weight of zionist atrocities is oppressing people and wearing down their capacity for outrage. In either case it would seem that in addition to giant demonstrations, other actions are needed to release the latent emotional energy of the people.

On this demonstration there was much less Irish language seen in placards, flags or banners than has been the case recently and which had been growing over the months, as I’ve been commenting upon in previous reports. This is regrettable and hopefully will be remedied.

The Irish language NGO Connradh na Gaeilge had a group and banner on the march as has been the case for months, shouting among other slogans “Saoirse don Phalaistín!” A small group also had a banner in Irish declaring that they were Múinteoirí (teachers) ar son na Palestíne.

ART AGAINST GENOCIDE

The lines of baby romper suits or baby-grows made their appearance on the march again as did the bloody butcher image of Prime Minister Netanyahu, with a diabolical Biden on the reverse of the placard. A large ‘puppet’ of Biden with bloody hands was carried riding above the march.

*Tail end of Mothers Against Genocide followed by puppet of bloody-hands US President Joe Biden* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*LGBT section denounces Israeli state’s attempt to paint itself as liberal through decriminalising the LGBT community* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The A2-size beautiful coloured image of Palestinian resistance solidarity was seen again but however overall the variety and ingenuity of home-made placards seen previously had diminished.

The Mothers Against Genocide group carried their white bundles depicting the slaughter of Palestinian children and sang sentences in Arabic and Irish from Róisín Elsafty and Sharon Shannon’s song “An Phalaistín”, effectively interspersed with slogans.

The sight that brought a hush over all witnessing it was the section carrying many yellow infant school chairs, a grim reminder of the huge daily ongoing Zionist genocide inflicted on the Palestinian children in Gaza.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Mohammed Al-Fayed, Ahmed Barakat, Mahmoud Al-Fayeed (Resistance News Network on Telegram, 20/3/’24)

2Originally dedicated to those who fought for Irish freedom since the first Republican uprising in 1798 it has since been recognised as commemorating all those who gave their lives in the nation’s struggle for self-determination (though certainly officialdom would disagree with honouring those who fought that struggle since the founding of the current Irish state in 1921).

3These elements claim it is ‘treason’ for Irish people to support any other struggle than the Irish national one, which they conceive of as attacking immigrants and LBGT people. Their concept of “national struggle” has never included struggling against foreign occupation, supporting Republican prisoners, opposing multinationals’ exploitation of national resources and infrastructure or fighting for universal affordable housing.

4He might also have carried it concealed all along, with the intention of destroying it in front of the marchers; how it came into his possession is unknown to me at this point. He may have departed carrying both flags in his coat etc.

5It did not seem from a distance that the Gardaí had confiscated his Israeli flag but more likely he had been told to remove it from the pole while leaving the area.

6Despite the huge drop in the percentage of unionised workers in Ireland over recent decades.

SOME SOURCES

Latest statistics on zionist genocide: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/-palestinians-killed-by-israel-in-gaza-since-last-oct-7-near-32-000/3169468

PA Security fired on funeral of Jenin martyrs: Resistance News Network on Telegram (20/3/’24)

Al Shifa Hospital massacre: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/20/israeli-military-says-90-people-killed-in-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-raid

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/international-community-must-act-immediately-stop-israeli-armys-massacre-palestinians-al-shifa-hospital-enar

https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/fleeing-palestinians-describe-israeli-raid-on-gaza-strip-hospital-1605671.html

The Influence of the Working Class on the 1916 Rising

On March 20, 2024March 21, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, Workers' Struggles, World War OneLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

The 1916 Rising is usually seen as a nationalist Rising of Irish Republicans with perhaps some socialist involvement. Even Connolly is often portrayed as a patriot only (see the song James Connolly the Irish Rebel) with socialist views.

Of the six organisations that participated actively in the 1916 Rising¹ only one of them was specifically of the Irish working class. Perhaps that’s why the great influence of the working class on the Rising tends to be generally overlooked.

As is well-known, James Connolly is one of the Seven Signatories² of that wonderful and progressive document, the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. However, Connolly only became part of the planning committee for the Rising a very short time before the scheduled date.³

That is true but we should ask ourselves why they included him at all. The Irish Volunteers had a nationwide organisation with the also nationwide Cumann na mBan as auxiliaries, whereas Connolly could perhaps mobilise a couple of hundred fighters.

It is said he was brought on board because the IRB believed that his constant demand for a Rising during WWI and the military exercises of the Irish Citizen Army indicated that Connolly was likely to lead the ICA to rise on their own and would spoil their schedule.

How likely was he to do that? It’s true that as a socialist Connolly was horrified by the slaughter of war, where workers of one state are sent to kill and be killed by workers⁴ of another and perusal of his writings do show that he thought an uprising to sabotage war was desperately needed.

Would he have gone ahead alone with the roughly 250 men and women of the Irish Citizen Army, hoping perhaps to inspire a popular upsurge and to encourage the Irish Volunteers to join it, in spite of even their leaders?⁵ It’s hard to believe so but of course it’s possible.

However, from the moment the Republican planners of the Rising took Connolly on board, we can see a significant organisational shift towards the working class in Dublin and nowhere more so than around Liberty Hall, where the first flag for an uprising was hoisted and the Proclamation printed.

Liberty Hall was of course the headquarters of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ union,of which James Connolly was the leader at that time and also editor of its newspaper,The Irish Worker.

And for a person brought in to the planning so recently, how extraordinary that Connolly was given the rank of Commandant General! A responsibility he took seriously, sending couriers around the country and attempting to direct defence preparations around the various Dublin garrisons.

The first battle flag of the Rising

A week before the Rising Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army had an Irish Republican flag raised above Liberty Hall as a flag of war and the one chosen to do the raising was a girl of 16 years, Molly O’Reilly.⁶

The associated circumstances are worth retelling, if only to illustrate the difference between the Liberty Hall of then and today. Adults took classes in Irish language and cultural activities there while their children and those of union activists waited for their parents, took dancing classes or played.

In playing, Molly O’Reilly accidentally broke a window and in terror and shame, ran home.

When Connolly sent a message to her home that he wanted to see her, she went to Liberty Hall expecting a severe telling off. Instead he told her not to worry and what he was asking of her. She was proud to do it but so small she had to stand on a chair to pull the cord raising the flag.

*Remnant of the flag raised on Liberty Hall* (Image sourced: *National Museum*)

*Commemoration ceremony “Women of 1916” with relatives of Molly O’Reilly in place of honour (note the uniforms are of Irish Volunteers rather than Irish Citizen Army).*(Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Of course we know that flag was not of the revolutionary workers but instead the harp on green which was that of the early Fenians and was very similar to that of the United Irishmen, the first revolutionary Irish Republican organisation.⁷

Those early Fenians were mostly composed of working class members and their 1867 proclamation to the world was largely proletarian in outlook. In Britain, the Fenians formed part of the First International Workingmen’s Association which was led by Marx and Engels.

Their flag was flown over at least one of the 1916 Rising garrisons, I believe at theJameson Distillery in Marrowbone Lane.

*Similar flag to that hoisted over Liberty Hall* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The other flags of the Rising included the Tricolour, presented to the Irish Republicans of the ‘Young Irelanders’ by women in revolutionary Paris in 1848, which was one of two flown on the roof of the GPO, the headquarters of the Rising.

Sharing the GPO roof with the Tricolour was the flag made only days before from domestic material and painted with the words “Irish Republic” in the house of Constance Markievicz, an officer in the Irish Citizen Army, shortly before the Rising.

The Irish Citizen Army’s own flag, the Starry Plough, flew over the Clery’s building facing the GPO. Sadly today most Irish people do not know that flag, though awareness of it and its background is growing among the indigenous Irish and the migrant community.

*The design of the Starry Plough, flag of the ICA as it was in 1916* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The first workers’ army in the world⁸

The Irish Citizen Army was formed as a workers’ militia during the great Lockout and strike of 1913-1914, to defend against the attacks of the police, the physical repressive front line of the capitalist class; the ICA’s flag was placed above Murphy’s Imperial Hotel in Clery’s.⁹

*The Irish Citizen Army on exercises at their grounds near what is Fairview today* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Though its constitution was more nationalist than socialist, the ICA was in its membership and purpose the first workers’ army in the world and when reorganised a few years later, represented also working class feminism, recruiting women, some of whom were officers commanding men.

Once the preparations for the Rising were in tatters with MacNeil’s countermanding order, where did organisers gather to discuss what to do? In Liberty Hall, the building of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and it was there that the decision to rise on Monday instead was taken.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the fact that the decision to go ahead with insurrection was taken in the building which had become de facto the HQ of the revolutionary working class in Dublin, with an illegal flag of rebellion flying and where the Proclamation was to be printed.

The writing and text of the Proclamation

The wording of the Proclamation is thought largely composed by Pearse but influenced by Connolly, including its address to “Irish men and Irish women” and perhaps “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies”.

Another section which could bear Connolly’s fingerprint reads: The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally.

But, whoever composed or influenced the Proclamation text, it was printed in Liberty Hall. An Irish Citizen Army member went to Stafford Street (Wolfe Tone St. today) to borrow the print type from a printer there to bring back to Liberty Hall, which was under daily 24-hour armed guard.

Having printed the Proclamation in Liberty Hall under armed guard and having decided there to rise on Easter Monday, where did the assault groups for Stephens Green, Castle and the GPO, including the Headquarters Battalion, meet on the morning of the Rising? …. Again, at Liberty Hall.

An early non-combatant casualty of the Rising was Ernest Kavanagh,¹⁰ who drew cartoons for the newspaper of the ITGWU, The Irish Worker. For some reason he went to Liberty Hall on Tuesday and was shot dead on the steps of the union building, presumably by a British Army sniper.

The working class in armed resistance

Once the Rising was in motion, the Irish Citizen Army had primary responsibility for two areas, the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons garrison and the Dublin Castle/ City Hall garrison but also fought in other areas, for example on Annesley Bridge and in the GPO/ Moore Street area.

All who fought alongside them commented on their courage and discipline. After the surrender, many, along with Irish Volunteers were sentenced to death, most being commuted to life imprisonment. But two leaders of the Irish Citizen Army were shot by firing squad.

One of the areas from which the British forces were sniped at for days after the Rising was the docks area, then predominantly surrounded by working class residential areas.

A question we should ask ourselves is why the forces coming from Britain to suppress the Rising landed at Dún Laoghaire, from where they had to march nearly 12 km (approaching eight miles) to Dublin city centre, instead of at the excellent Dublin docks on the Liffey.

Hugo McGuinness, who specialises in history of the North Wall area, believes that the British expected Dublin to be in the hands of the working class resistance and that it was simply too dangerous to land British troops there, though gunboats could fire from the Liffey.

Certainly, the British believed Liberty Hall and buildings along Eden Quay were occupied as fighting posts by the Irish Citizen Army and they fired artillery at the union building from Tara Street, as photos of shell holes in that building and right through to the next testify.

*Photo shell-damage Liberty Hall (first building with corner towards the camera, viewed northwards from Butt Bridge) as one of a set of commemorative postcards.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

*Another postcard with closeup of shelling damage to Liberty Hall and to the building next to it. Interestingly, in this one Liberty Hall is labeled “the Rebel Headquarters”.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Much is made in some historical accounts of the opposition to the Rising from sections of the Dublin population, during and immediately after the Rising. The city was the capital of a British colony, only just over a century earlier spoken of as “the second city of the British Empire”.

A substantial proportion of the wealthy and middle classes were Loyalist, including some Catholics; even ‘nationalist’ sections were committed to supporting the UK in WWI and John Redmond, leader of the ‘nationalist’ political party had openly recruited for the British Army.

Also, among the working class and the lumpen elements, many were depending on “Separation Allowances” with regard to males serving in the British Army. It is true that the insurgents in some places had to threaten, club or even shoot some civilians who tried to obstruct the Rising.¹¹

These incidents during the Rising were not many but afterwards there were insults and other things thrown at prisoners being marched to imprisonment (or firing squad). The city was under martial law but even so a Canadian journalist reported the insurgents being cheered in working class areas.

There were also other individual witness accounts, such as a man on a tram saluting prisoners in Parnell Street until threatened by soldier escorts and a firefighter in the GPO doing likewise. A year later most of even the earlier hostility had changed to admiration and pride in the fighters.

Leadership of the working class

James Connolly wrote and said many things of importance but surely, with regard to the struggle for Irish national independence, the greatest of these was: “Only the Irish working class remains as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.”

By that he meant — and I agree — that all other social classes can gain something from selling out the interests and resources of Irish nationhood but that the working class can gain nothing from that.

The Irish working class staked their claim on the struggle for Irish independence in 1916 but have not succeeded in leading it and because of that, that struggle remains to be won.

Today and in other days, remembering that long struggle and the class whose leadership revolutionary socialists seek to represent and to uphold, we declare the need for that leadership over a broad front of all others who wish to struggle to advance.

In doing so, we declare that far from the working class having to wait for socialism, in the course of national struggle it must also shape its own demands around the economy, natural resources, infrastructure, social services, social questions, culture and, above all, to the fruits of its labour.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann, Hibernian Rifles.

2All of which were executed by British firing squad, along with another seven in Dublin and yet another in Cork. The 16^th execution was by hanging in London.

3(See Sources: Cooption of James Connolly etc) Connolly was a lifelong socialist and a revolutionary throughout his adult life, author, historian, journalist, song-writer, trade union organiser; active politically in Scotland, Ireland, New York and back in Ireland.

4The international socialist movement viewed the imperialists’ movement towards war with horror and in international conferences vowed to oppose it with all their might, including turning war resistance into revolution (“War against war”). However, once imperialist war was declared that resolve collapsed in most states, Russia, Germany and Ireland being notable exceptions and each saw a rising against war, in Ireland’s being the first.

5Joseph E.A. O’Connell (Jnr.) suggests a possible intention of goading of the State into attacking him and the ICA which might spark the general rising.

6(See Sources)

7The harp on the United Men’s flag was more ornate and was inscribed with the words “It is newly-strung and shall be heard”.

8 https://www.connollybooks.org/product/irishcitizenarmy

9It was a good central location but more than that – the Hotel was one of the businesses of William Martin Murphy, chief organiser of the employers’ bloc to break the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union.

10Kavanagh was a supporter of the workers, of votes for women and against participation in the imperialist war, contributing cartoons also to the Irish Citizen, Fianna and Irish Freedom publications, also to accompany poems of his sister, Maeve Cavanagh McDowell.

11I do not include in this the three members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police who were a force for the British occupation and also for the Dublin capitalists. The Irish Citizen Army in particular had good reason to settle accounts with them for attacks on them including inflicting mortal baton injuries on two workers during a charge on a union meeting on 30^th September 1913 on Eden Quay and beating people and smashing up furniture in Corporation Street a little later.

SOURCES

Co-option of James Connolly to the Military Council planning the Rising: https://www.historyireland.com/connollys-kidnapping/

Raising the flag on Liberty Hall: https://microsites.museum.ie/1916objectstories/ObjectDetail/remains-of-irish-flag
Molly O’Reilly breaking a window incident: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ladies-day-for-1916-heroines/26528456.html

Printing of the Proclamation of Independence: https://libguides.ucc.ie/1916Proclamation
https://www.dublincity.ie/library/blog/printing-1916-proclamation-transcript

Decision taken to go ahead with the Rising on Easter Monday: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/easter-rising-uneasy-calm-before-the-storm-1.2575638
https://www.nli.ie/1916/exhibition/en/content/risingsites/libertyhall/

“Only the Irish working class remains the incorruptible heirs …” (end second sentence from last): https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/foreword.htm

Erasing Murals and Erasing Gaza

On March 15, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 13 March 2024

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Original Latuff cartoon. West Belfast mural. Mural blacked out.

Once upon a time, Belfast was famed for its murals, so much so that even now a part of the tourist industry depends on a plastic paddy tour of the current murals on display in nationalist areas of Belfast.

It was the 1981 hunger strike and its aftermath that saw an explosion in political murals in nationalist areas. As the 1980s went on, the technical and artistic quality of them improved dramatically and the politics they sought to represent expanded.

Some of them were very militaristic, others much more political in content. On international issues, murals sprang up on South Africa, Palestine and figures from revolutionary struggles around the world were to be found on gable ends all over the city and indeed in other cities throughout the North.

Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Camilo Torres, Che amongst others looked down at the wandering revolutionary tourists who would come over in August. The message was clear: Ireland was part of an international struggle against imperialism.(1)

After the peace process the quality continued to improve, but the politics went for a walk. Twee Celtic murals abounded, young girls dancing a jig displaced images of women holding an armalite aloft for International Women’s Day.

about Imperialism were softened, when not blunted entirely or removed. So, it comes as no surprise to see what has happened to recent murals.

Sinn Féin supporters recently unveiled murals in solidarity with Palestine. They are of good quality and try to capture the suffering of the Palestinians through the images and poignant quotes.

However, they say nothing about who is causing the suffering: the US and Israel, though there are silhouette ghostly like images of soldiers standing over dead children.

There was once a mural on the White Rock Road which pictured a US Indian superimposed over a US flag saying Your struggle, Our struggle. No references are to be made now to the US role in exterminating a people. That is strictly Verboten.

However, someone decided to reproduce a cartoon from the artist Carlos Latuff in mural form in Belfast. It depicts Joe Biden, standing with bloodied hands in front of Mary Lou, who is clearly identifiable in the image, and the leaders of FG and FF, who can be identified from the initials FG and FF on their backs.

The British Army and the RUC used to deface republican murals, not any more. Very quickly, Sinn Féin, officially or unofficially (no pun intended, though it is apt) painted over the mural. It was quickly restored by others, who the artist Latuff described as real republicans.(2)

Sinn Féin are clearly uncomfortable about the issue in the run up their fest in Washington with Biden and not only are they content to throw Palestinians out of public meetings, they will now supress any public artistic attempts to draw people’s attention to the Slaughter Soirée they will have in the White House.

Many Palestinian voices such as the Electronic Intifada have called on Sinn Féin not to go to Washington, the calls in Ireland have been much more muted and tamer on the issue. However, it is a clear issue, what is colloquially called a no-brainer.

You don’t have to think very deeply to understand that Sinn Féin shouldn’t go to Washington DC, that they should tell Genocide Joe they don’t want to meet him. They will go and they will say nothing about Palestine.

Their erasure of a mural criticising them, tells you everything you need to know about their real attitude to Palestine.

Whatever you say, say nothing used to be a catchphrase about loose talk and informers, now it means never to mention Joe Biden and the Palestinians in the same breath, unless you are green washing genocide.

Meanwhile Sinn Féin does its part, emulating the British army and vandalising political murals.

Notes

(1) A selection of images can be seen on Bill Rolston’s website. Rolston has chronicled and photographed murals going right back to the 1970s. See https://billrolston.weebly.com

(2) See https://x.com/LatuffCartoons/status/1767239594083324017?s=20

Return to top of page

Stand Together but How? And Militant Response to Fascist Provocation

On March 12, 2024March 15, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

A large number of people gathered in Dublin on 2^nd March in what was advertised as a “Stand Together” march for “Homes, Health & Rights for All”; “Against Racism, Hate & War”; to “Share Wealth and End Inequality”.

A large part of the context in which the event was organised is a high number of arson attacks on properties intended (or thought to be) for housing refugees and asylum seekers, along with an increase in mobilisations of people by the far-Right and outright fascists.

In that context, the advertising poster for the march was insipid in colouring, using pastel shades reminiscent of a certain type of sweets. On some versions the clenched fist appeared but it was missing from many others shared on social media.

Le Chéile, the main organising or coordinating body, was formed some years ago at a time when the Far-Right was becoming increasingly visible in street events they organised and on occasion countering progressive events and a number of clashes had taken place.

The main organisers not only had been absent from most of those confrontations but deliberately chose to exclude from the founding of Le Chéile the majority of those among Irish Republicans, Socialists, Anarchists etc who had already been counter-protesting the far-Right.

*Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*On the march soon after starting in Parnell Square* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

This may account for the absence of most Irish Republican organisations from the march (if so I understand but disagree with the decision). Dublin Communities Against Racism however contain some veteran antifascists and were present as were a group of Italian antifascists.

There was a big turnout of Traveller groups which would be welcome any time, in particular as the longest-racialised minority in Ireland, but more welcome in recent years when the far-Right have been making efforts to recruit some from that community against migrants.

*Banners of Irish Traveller organisations on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Given the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli Zionist state, many Palestine flags were naturally enough seen on the march — and not only within the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s contingent.

Groups of marchers from a number of trade unions were good to see too, though the numbers were not great and the spread of unions small. One might expect trade unions to be to the fore in combating the harmful divisiveness of racism but their record is poor even on straight pay issues.

*Flags of Palestinian solidarity, Unite the union* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

A number of political parties were present too: People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, as were a couple of faith-based groups.

Banners of religious groups and coming up behind, some trade union banners *Banners of CATU and Drogheda For All on the march soon after starting in Parnell Square* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Anti-fascist fans of Dublin soccer team Shamrock Rovers marched behind their banner with their green-and-white flags and at one point a green smoke flare was set off in their midst. The colours of some of the 134 Gaelic Athletic Clubs based in Dublin would have been good to see there also.

The earlier announced route of the march, to end at Custom House Quay, was changed for some reason and without announcement, at least from O’Connell Street and eventually ended up in north Merrion Square, with a stage set up across the street at the eastern end.

*Banner of fans of Shamrock Rovers FC on the march* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*On stage at the rally* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Poet performer at the rally* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The MC of the event on the stage, a man of colour, greeted participants in English and Irish but shocked antifascists present by advising any who felt unsafe to approach a steward or a Garda (!). There are few more likely to make people feel unsafe than that members of that very force.

Speakers from both indigenous and migrant backgrounds addressed the crowd and the cultural performances were by people from both backgrounds.

The MC at one point drew in the war in Ukraine in parallel with the Israeli genocide, which was inappropriate even if one were a supporter of US/NATO’s proxy war against Russia using the puppet Ukrainian state (which I am not).

*One of the participants reads the List Of Some Migrants and Sons of Migrants who contributed to Ireland.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Also the PBP know that their view on this is hotly refuted through much of the Left and a great many of those on the march.

In the time I was there, though speakers attacked the divisiveness of racists and fascists and on occasion pointed to the real culprits in manufacturing a housing crisis, none pointed to the capitalist class need for dividing the working class and particularly so when their system is in difficulty.

A noble call but the organisation whose placard this is did not do so and furthermore when a certain organisation, Revolutionary Housing League were actually doing so, neither this nor other organisations mobilised in support. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Not to speak of how we might organise to “Share the Wealth”, which means socialist revolution, surely, unless it refers to some liberal pipe-dream? The far-Right have risen to prominence in Ireland is because most of those who claim socialist policies have failed to fight for them.

Fighting for socialist policies means actually fighting which means going into all the battlegrounds and organising the people, providing revolutionary education and example and inevitably will mean suffering because the ruling class will not just sit back and watch.

While some benefit can be obtained from representation in the parliaments and local authority councils, they can never be the main battleground. Street demonstrations are an improvement but nor can they be the main area for revolutionary effort.

In the clear context of general elections widely speculated to take place later this year, a speaker asked the crowd not to vote for anti-immigration candidates. Since the likelihood of anyone there doing so was nil, the inference was clearly to encourage voting for the current parliamentary parties.

In conclusion it is hard to imagine this organisation or any similar kind of coordination providing strong organisation or leadership to counter fascism and racism effectively.

This is not the kind of organisation that would have fought the Blueshirts in the 1930s or even prevented the Islamophobic Pegida founding a branch in Dublin, which a militant antifascist mobilisation succeeded in doing in February 2016.

*Section of the march viewed from the Parnell Monument southward* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Anti-NATO Picket Rescues Palestine Flag from Fascist Provocateur

A more militant antifascist attitude was seen in Dublin a few hours later when a fascist grabbed a Palestine flag from a participant in an anti-NATO picket outside the GPO, the iconic building housing the headquarters staff of the 1916 Rising.

The picketers were standing peacefully with banners and flags, including Palestinian and Irish Starry Plough, distributing leaflets and engaging passers-by in conversation. The incident occurred some time into the event, the man shouting in an Irish accent, grabbing the flag and running.

*Anti-NATO picket organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation outside the GPO in Dublin’s main street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The surge forward in response might have caught him by surprise but, though the flag was rapidly retrieved, he continued to be aggressive in words and, as is described in slang, “throwing shapes”, behaviour that ended with his sitting in the road.

Though the population of Ireland is overwhelmingly in sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians and many in solidarity with their struggle, many in the far-Right here object to displays of that solidarity and call the solidarity activists “traitors” and demand they act for Ireland only.

Ironically, many of those same people acting in Palestine solidarity have also over the years agitated for affordable housing, against social provision cuts and British colonial occupation, in support of Irish political prisoners – while the far-Right’s only ‘contribution’ is to agitate against migrants.

Fascists in Ireland also collude with Loyalists and with British fascists; it is they who are the traitors, to the nation and to the working class, hiding behind flags the meaning of which their leaders secretly despise and which some of their lumpen followers do not understand.

End.

*List of some migrants and sons of migrants who have contribute to Ireland (including fighting and in some cases dying for her freedom)* (Photo: *O.Dunne*)

Sources

Le Chéile: https://www.facebook.com/LeCheileDND

Anti-Imperialist Action: https://t.me/aiaireland

RAPE ALLEGATIONS AS WAR PROPAGANDA – ISRAEL/ PALESTINE

On March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, WomenLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 13 mins.)

Almost immediately after the Al Aqsa Flood breach of the Israeli military wall and subsequent raid, the Israeli state’s stories of alleged atrocities by Hamas¹ were being widely repeated in the western mass media.

The accounts, always levelled at Hamas, included burning alive and mutilation of adults, rape, beheading of babies and even ripping of a baby from the womb of a pregnant woman, most of the allegations quickly proven untrue.

The rape story however continues to run. So far there has been not one piece of forensic evidence, not one certifiable victim and not only have the journalistic standards been flawed but the backgrounds of the original reporters are deeply suspect.

*Or “Mass media and atrocity”?* *Or “Mass media atrocity”?* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

“Beheaded babies”

Since according to Israeli statistics one baby alone died during the Al Aqsa Flood operation and was neither headless nor premature, all the allegations about atrocities towards babies or pregnant women have been disproven and the “witnesses” discredited.

The latter were reported in the media as serving Israeli military and some civilians but were quoted at length and no attempt was made to question the accused, Hamas, nor to interrogate the logic (which we’ll come to later). President Biden quoted the “beheaded babies” as fact.²

“Mutilation” allegation

Despite the frequent allegations of mutilations of bodies of babies and women no forensic examples have been provided by the Israeli authorities, who had full access to all sites of the Al Aqsa Flood raid within hours of the operation.

“Burning people alive” allegation

There is certainly much evidence of the immolation of buildings and cars (the latter with occupants) – but by whom? There is no evidence that the Palestinian military possess flamethrowers or carried any inflammable devices. In the course of a battle of course some buildings can catch fire.

But deliberately burning people alive when the objective is to take live prisoners? Certainly not logical. However, we have known almost since the date of the operation that Israeli fighters were firing Hellfire missiles at cars on the ground without being able to identify their occupants.³

There is also eyewitness testimony from an Israeli survivor that an Israeli tank fired a shell into a house in which Palestinian fighters were holding Israeli prisoners known to her, killing everyone including a child.

First “Mass rapes” allegation

In an article titled “Scream without words” on 28^th December, this allegation was published in the New York Times, a US periodical that considers itself ‘a newspaper of record’, i.e one with high standards of checking and the reports of which therefore can be relied upon.

Though Pulitzer-Prizewinner Jeffrey Gettleman was the article’s main author, Anat Shwartz and Adam Sella were researchers on this story with Shwartz in the lead.

The two-month investigation produced no forensic evidence and no named alleged victims except one, Gal Abdush. According to Gal’s sister the allegation of rape was concealed from the family by the NYT; she does not believe her sister was raped and they know of no forensic tests performed.

… at 7:00 a.m., Nagi Abdush called his brother Nissim to say Gal was shot and dying. The Times never explains how Gal could be captured, raped, fatally shot, and burned to death in nine minutes while Nagi messaged his family and never mentioned any physical contact with Hamas forces.⁴

The team claimed interviewing “150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors … identified at least seven locations” where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated. Yet not a single named individual (other than Gal).

During this period, the team published an article rehashing Israeli propaganda claims of Palestinian atrocities but containing false assertions. Under pressure the NYT had to publish a correction on December 8^th stating that the Israeli police had no forensic or autopsy evidence for the claims.

Among the few “witnesses” identified by Shwartz are an Israeli Army paramedic, a special forces soldier and members of the ZAKA group. The latter claims to be a philanthropic organisation but is mired in claims of inventing horror stories,⁵ with some of its leaders on trial for sexual abuse.

The military paramedic changed the location of victims of rape from one kibbutz to another and, though his story coincides perfectly with that of the special forces soldier, it is flatly contradicted by family and kibbutz members regarding rape and the location and status of the bodies.⁶

The person who filmed the original video of Gal Abdush’s body, Eden Wesley says that at first she did not understand the importance of the image but that Shwartz and Sella kept pressurising her for the footage and telling her it would be valuable ‘hasbara’ (Israeli State propaganda) material.⁷

It emerged after the article’s publication that Schwarz had previously “liked” a number of rabid anti-Palestinian posts on Twitter/X, including one with the false story of “beheaded babies” and another about the need to equate Hamas with ISIS in the narrative for propaganda purposes.

Sella is Shwartz’s nephew and neither he nor his aunt had a history of covering stories of this size or of working with or for the NYT and it is curious how in November 2024 Schwartz came to be an investigative reporter for the prestigious newspaper on alleged atrocities by the Al Aqsa Flood.

Though the NYT has yet to admit the story is basically faulty it has criticised Shwartz for ‘liking’ zionist posts and is carrying out an investigation, declaring such to be violating its standards.

It may be that in time the NYT will sacrifice the reporters to save its reputation. But the newspaper needs to answer why it employed them in the first place and ran a story of such serious allegations (and consequences) under Gettleman without a shred of actual evidence.

Debunked – but the allegations run on

The latest version of these allegations is by UN Envoy Pramila Patten who, once again, admits to being able to name no victims and to having no forensic evidence. But even so she is able to suggest that female Israeli prisoners may be experiencing “ongoing” sexual assault in captivity!⁸

The report of her delegation, which had not been sent in an investigative capacity, claimed finding in various locations, “that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head”.

Although of course captives would have their hands tied, I don’t recall this detail of partial nakedness and shooting of Israeli captives being reported before and its emergence five months after the military operation must give rise to extreme suspicion.

*Anti-German military WWI poster* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Control of the investigation, control of the discourse

As with a number of other war propaganda allegations in various parts of the world, the Israeli State insisted it will not permit any independent international agency investigation and also declined to carry out its own investigations “until after the war” (while forensic evidence is compromised).

That does not prevent the western mass media from giving credence to Israeli State stories.

LOGIC?

Let’s set aside all horror or distaste for a moment and apply some logic to the situation. The short-term objectives of the Palestinian military raid were to

Coordinate rocket bombardment of Israeli settlements with six simultaneous infantry assaults
Knock out local Israeli Wall automatic guns and military communications
Get through or over the Israeli Wall
Overcome the Israeli garrison at the Wall
Take Israelis prisoners to exchange for the release of Palestinians prisoners of the Israeli state

It is worth noting that the Palestinian operation achieved all of its short-term objectives, No. 5 only partially since we now know that many Palestinian fighters were killed by Israeli fire along with their captives.

In addition to the short-term we can assume longer-term objectives

strike back at the oppressor
destroy the occupier’s sense of invulnerability
keep the Israeli prisoners taken safe
negotiate for the exchange of prisoners and
probably to force the rulers of Israel to negotiate with the elected representatives of the Palestinians.⁹

How logical would carrying out atrocities be with regard to any of those objectives, bearing in mind that the Palestinian resistance wants its justifications acknowledged and supported domestically and internationally? And to be able to negotiate with the Israeli State’s leaders?

Would the short-term mission directives be compatible with “mass rape”? The mission directive is to knock out communications, kill any resistance necessary, grab prisoners and – get out quickly! Speed was essential for the success of the operation and the survival of its personnel.

To knock aside any evaluation on the basis of logic we are encouraged to regard the Palestinians as irrational, violent and sub-human – in fact the very kind of propaganda used for centuries by the British-based colonisers against the Irish, both in text and cartoons.¹⁰

The joint Palestinian limited military operation was represented in the media as “a rampage” “slaughtering”, “massacring” while a number of Israeli politicians described Palestinians as “animals”, openly calling for genocide.

Part of the British propaganda depicting slaughter of men, women and children settlers by the Irish in 1641, which helped to gain recruits and funds for Cromwell’s genocide and plantation campaign in Ireland in 1649. (Source of image: *Article in Guardian*)

WAR PROPAGANDA

Propaganda has always been a part of preparing the combatants and their society for war and, once war begins, sustaining it. The English-based invaders racialised the Irish as uncouth, barbarians, dishonest (but then had to pass laws to prevent the integration of their own colonists!).¹¹

In the 1800s the Irish were described for British society as lazy, violent, drunkard, dirty and treacherous while a number of cartoons depicted them as brutish and ape-like, drawing on literature from Shakespeare, Mary Anne Shelley and evolutionary theory for its caricatures.

Much more recently, the leaders of the USA and of the UK, in order to justify their invasion of Iraq, falsified the reports of their intelligence agencies to accuse Saddam Hussein of being somehow responsible for the Twin Towers atrocity and of having weapons of mass destruction.¹²

*A poster to boost recruitment for the USA’s troops in WWI – note the common theme of a murdered child and atrocity (crucifixion) towards a woman with perhaps suggestion of sexual violation also.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

ACTUAL RAPE & SEXUAL ASSAULT

Sexual assault and rape of Palestinian female prisoners

A UN body of seven sexual violence experts reported on 19^th February that there is credible evidence of Palestinian females being shot and female prisoners being subjected to sexual assault, humiliation and even rape by Israeli military officers.¹³

To contrast this situation with that of alleged victims of “mass rapes” of Israeli women by Al Aqsa Flood on October 7^th, with no actual victims yet produced, at least two female Palestinian prisoners have alleged being raped and others of sexual assault and humiliation.

Furthermore, the taking of Palestinian prisoners and their detention is no hurried military operation with severe time constraints, unlike that of the Al Aqsa Flood operation.

Thirdly, while any Israeli victim of rape cannot ordinarily expect retribution for testifying to such an experience but rather the opposite, Palestinians in Israeli jail and ex-prisoners anywhere in Palestine are always vulnerable to Israeli retribution and eight have died in jail since October 8^th.

Another difference is that while Palestinians have to think about how their actions will be perceived not only internally but also externally, this is not the case with the Israeli State and its armed forces, who boast about their human rights violations in official videos and on soldiers’ social media.

Victims of rape and sexual assault by Palestinians in Palestinian society

There are sadly bound to be such victims but we know nothing about them because of the siege and genocidal war conditions to which Palestinian society is subjected. Such a situation conditions complicity in silence due to feelings of solidarity and fear of seeming to help the enemy.

We know this from our own history in Ireland in the Republican movement during the 30 Years War in the occupied Six Counties, some accusations of sexual abuse within Republican families only emerging to the public eye only after the end of the War.

Victims of rape and sexual assault by Israelis in Israeli society

However, there are substantial statistics on complaints of rape and sexual assault in Israeli society, which are according to one source, 40% higher there than the average in OECD countries. Furthermore they have been on the increase (which may mean greater occurrence or of reporting).

In 2013, 40,000 calls were received by the Israeli rape crisis centres, a rise of 12% from previously but only 15% were reported to the police. Even more disturbingly, 31% of callers reporting assault were under the age of 12 and 33% of callers reporting assault were between 13-18 years of age.¹⁴

The Association of Rape Crises Centres in Israeli reports that one in three women in Israel is sexually assaulted during her lifetime, with one in seven raped during her lifetime.¹⁵

Gang rapes seem to be on the increase and the risk of punishment for rapists and sexual assaulters seems statistically low as a study found that 90% of cases are closed without charges.¹⁶

Some of the allegations of sexual assault and rape of Israeli personnel within the Israeli military

In 2013 there were 561 reports of sexual assault in the IDF that were of military circumstances, with 396 reports not of military circumstances. 91% of reports were of assault against women, 49% were of physical assault but in 61% of cases a complaint was not submitted.¹⁷

There have been two notorious cases of alleged gang rapes by Israeli men but in Cyprus, a common holiday destination for Israelis.¹⁸ One, of a woman in 2019 was dismissed due to police incompetence and the other, of a UK woman, is currently being tried. ¹⁹

In Conclusion

During the many hours of Israeli military missing after the Wall breaches, other Palestinians entered and could possibly have robbed, assaulted, raped or killed a small number of Israelis. However forensic, victim or credible witness evidence of rape remains absent to date.

The mass rape allegations against the Palestinian resistance in the course of their Al Aqsa Flood operation originate in Israeli propaganda, are not credible logically, have provided neither victims nor forensic evidence and the track record of the “investigators” is tainted by zionist sympathies.

Despite debunking by statistics and investigation, the “mass rapes” and other allegations such as the numbers killed by the Palestinian resistance continue to be repeated in the western mass media or to be allowed to resurface after the allegations and/or the sources have been discredited.

Sadly even liberal anti-Zionist reporters appear at times to allow themselves to believe the propaganda while at the same time criticising the Israeli State’s actions or their extent.²⁰

The original source is Israeli war propaganda and those who ignore that fact and the number of investigation results refuting the allegations but rather give them some kind of credence and currency in reporting are deeply complicit in the ongoing zionist genocide of the Palestinian people.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1In order to deny that the target of operations by the Israeli State is the Palestinian people, the propaganda always talks about “Hamas” alone. It is rarely admitted but well-known by the authorities that the Al Aqsa Flood operation was a joint one including not only the military wings of Hamas but also of Islamic Jihad, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Resistance Committees and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

2 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/18/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-october-7th-terrorist-attacks-and-the-resilience-of-the-state-of-israel-and-its-people-tel-aviv-israel/ Some of his own staff however soon sounded a note of caution, saying he had not seen the evidence of “beheaded babies” himself and was quoting Israeli sources.

3Merely that they were heading for Gaza, so driven by Palestinian fighters – but with or without Israeli prisoners? The pilots had no way of knowing and some reported firing, reloading and firing again. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-admits-burning-hundreds-people-7-october

4 https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/03/05/israel-hamas-oct7-report-gaza

5 https://www.timesofisrael.com/zaka-exploited-hamass-october-7-attack-to-campaign-for-donations-report/

6 https://theintercept.com/2024/03/04/nyt-october-7-sexual-violence-kibbutz-beeri/

7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfE3vasBQyE&t=41s

8The U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict says there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture,” and other cruel and inhuman treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

There are also “reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing,” said Pramila Patten, who visited Israel and the West Bank from Jan. 29 to Feb. 14 with a nine-member team. (Washington Post – see Sources). Contrast this claim with the accounts of female prisoners of the Palestinian resistance released to date.

9The elected representation of the Palestinian people since the 2006 elections has been Hamas (no 5-yearly elections have been held since by the PA which is under Fatah control). The Fatah political structure in power in Gaza refused to respect the electorate’s decision and in 2007 Hamas was obliged to remove them by force (which they decided not to do in the West Bank). The Israeli ruling class likewise refused to accept the decision of the Palestinian electorate and besieged Gaza. The rulers of the western states followed suit in not recognising Hamas either, though UN aid organisations and NGOs had to deal with Hamas in Gaza.

10“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime,” said the President of the Israel State, Herzog.

11For example, the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1666 by the British-Norman rulers of England were series of 35 Acts aimed at preventing the British-Norman settlers (also described as Norman-Irish) from continuing to be “the degenerate English” who had “become more Irish than the Irish themselves” by adopting traditional Irish customs, culture, language and even law.

12The ironical truth is that while the UK and the USA are some of the few powers that do indeed posses weapons of mass destruction, Iraq had none; also the Twin Towers atrocity had been carried out by Al Qaeda, an Islamicist organisation originating in jihadists supported and supplied by the USA in order to overthrow the Russian-supported Afghanistan regime of 1979-1988. Furthermore Al Qaeda was a known opponent of the Saddam Hussein regime.

13Though reported in some western mass media, neither as often nor nowhere nearly as much as the Israeli story of “mass rapes by Hamas”.

14 https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/arcci-statistics

15 https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/general-statistics

16 https://www.timesofisrael.cobm/9-out-of-10-rape-cases-in-israel-closed-without-charges-study/

17 https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/arcci-statistics

18Second in popularity as a holiday destination only to British tourists.

19 https://www.timesofisrael.com/5-israelis-charged-over-cyprus-gang-rape-of-british-woman/

20“The shocking ways in which Hamas butchered Israeli civilians, including small children, and then celebrated the slaughter reminded me of reporting the Rwandan genocide three decades ago …” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/the-language-being-used-to-describe-palestinians-is-genocidal

SOURCES

Israelis killed by their own military on October 7^th: https://www.tbsnews.net/features/panorama/what-really-happened-7-october-753058

Rape and sexual assault in Israeli society:

https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/arcci-statistics

https://www.timesofisrael.com/9-out-of-10-rape-cases-in-israel-closed-without-charges-study

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/gang-rapes-in-israel-a-spike-in-cases-or-business-as-usual-662060

https://www.972mag.com/why-are-so-many-women-subjected-to-sexual-harassment-in-israel

Problems with citing ZAKA as sources for sexual violence – or anything: https://theintercept.com/2024/02/27/zaka-october-7-israel-hamas-new-york-times/https://

mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/

BBC drops some of the atrocity claims: https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/bbc-distances-itself-from-7-october

Yes Magazine critically examines claims of Israeli organisation against sexual violence: https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/03/05/israel-hamas-oct7-report-gaza

Ongoing Electronic Intifada investigation debunking of rape allegation against Palestinian fighters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfE3vasBQyE&t=41s

Discussion of report from the Intercept quoting residents of the Kibbutz Be’eri: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-kibbutz-near-gaza-says-allegations-of-sexual-abuse-on-oct-7-not-true-report/3156033

Latest rape allegations against the Palestinian resistance: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2024/03/04/israel-hamas-war-latest-03-04-2024/933648ec-da18-11ee-b5e9-ad4573c62315_story.html

Allegations of sexual assault and rape by Israeli military against Palestinian prisoners: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against

Dunnes Stores, South Africa, Gaza: A Tale of Two Boycotts

On March 5, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, History, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Palestine, Political Analysis, Sud Africa, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

29 February 2024

Anti-apartheid activist Nimrod Sejake with some of the Dunnes Stores striker.

Reference has been made on a number of occasions to the heroic actions of the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers in 1984 who spent nigh on three years on strike because they refused to handle South African merchandise.

It has been pointed to as a success story for boycotts and one to emulate. The real story of the strike points to the difficulties we now face in implementing a real boycott of Israel.

I used to go down to the picket line at the Dunnes branch in Henry Street every Wednesday, as we had a half day at school and on Saturdays when there was no school and then more regularly once I had sat my Leaving Cert exam and was, like many young people in 1980s Ireland, unemployed.

So, I recently bought a copy of Mary Manning’s autobiographical account of the strike, Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker (Collins Press).

The book brought to mind many of the instances and difficulties that they faced and it raises many questions for those who wish to point to them as an example to follow.

The strikers were implementing a trade union resolution, and at first knew little of the reality of South Africa, something they corrected relatively quickly, thanks in no small part to a South African exile, Nimrod Sejake, who turned up to join them on the picket line.

Sejake was an activist who had been arrested as part of the infamous Treason Trial. Mary Manning is full of praise for Nimrod and rightly so.

Others do not come out so well and it is worth remembering the reality of that strike as it tells us some of the things that need to happen if we want to see similar action in relation to Israel.

The first thing that jumps out of the pages, early on, is that the trade bureaucracy did not give them any support and even their own trade union, IDATU (now called Mandate) was very reluctant to support them.

What support they got was down to their official Brendan Archbold who was a stalwart in supporting them and the then head of the union John Mitchell. At every twist and turn they had to fight the executive of IDATU, whilst the rest of the trade union movement ran for cover.

There will be no similar type of action around the Zionists unless it is put to the bureaucracy and they are challenged over their inaction in the midst of a genocide.

Karen Gearon, the shop steward at Dunnes Store made a call at the National March in Dublin on February 17th for the trade union movement to stop talking and take action. It is not something that has been seriously echoed by others.

Neither People Before Profit TDs or the IPSC have ever made a clear call for action from the trade union movement. It should be a central part of any boycott movement now.

It is all well and good picketing Starbucks, but stopping the importation of Israeli goods would be more important and will only happen if the bureaucracy is pushed to it. The history of PbP is one of cowering in the shadow of the bureaucrats and never putting it up to them on any issue.

They frequently share polite platforms with the bureaucrats and never challenge them. Their calls, when made are generic and are in passing. Their website and the IPSC site is limited to a consumer boycott with calls for the government, not workers, to take action.

I was also reminded by the book how the great and good in Irish society stood by whilst these workers were on strike. The Minister for Labour at the time was Ruairí Quinn, a member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and yet he did nothing.

He was not the only mealy-mouthed figure in Irish society, nor indeed in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.

The head of the Catholic Bishops Aid Agency, Trócaire, Bishop Eamon Casey privately wrote to IDATU early on describing the strike as ‘economically harmful to the already impoverished Black South Africans.’

The strikers’ request for support from the Catholic Church was described as impertinent and just in case anyone doubted how he saw himself, he was of the view that both he and Trócaire should have been consulted before the strike took place.

Their currency now is much devalued in Ireland but there are others like them who also think they have a veto on decisions.

He was later forced to publicly back the strike having been embarrassed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to present two strikers to the world at his London press conference en route to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.

Though that took a while and meantime nuns proudly scabbed and crossed the picket line. Casey’s attempts at sabotage and his later hypocrisy in belatedly supporting the strike, should not be forgotten.

At the time he was seen as a moral guardian, his plundering of church funds to keep his lover and his child comfortable was not known.

There are lots of other figures like him around now, who we might expect to support workers implementing a boycott, but might not when faced with the reality of it.

Another figure who comes out badly in it is Kader Asmal, the head of the IAAM. After three months of strike action, he met with John Mitchell and Brendan Archbold and told them to call off the strike, that it had served its purpose and that he was pulling his support.

When Desmond Tutu invited the strikers to South Africa he privately told them he would not support them going as it was a breach of the cultural boycott of South Africa.

Their trip to the country and the refusal of the Apartheid regime to let them in along with their detention at the airport was a pivotal moment in the strike.

Upon their return to Ireland, Asmal was one of the people to rush to the airport and give interviews and bask in the glory, as his position opposing the trip was never made public. He comes across very badly in the book.

I recall him asking me for information on South African goods coming through the port where I had begun working and Brendan Archbold telling me not to trust him, that he was a sleiveen and would hang me out to dry. He was, and like him there are others just like that on the issue of Gaza.

The contrast with Nimrod Sejake could not have been greater.

Sejake was a working class militant who suffered greatly and enjoyed none of the middle class trappings of Kader Asmal’s life in Ireland and unlike Asmal he had never crossed a picket line, something Asmal did in Trinity College where he worked, scabbing during a strike there.

There are Palestinian equivalents to Asmal and also to Sejake. The IPSC pretends otherwise.

So, what are the lessons of the Dunnes Stores strike?

One is that it wasn’t just a consumer boycott, it was a workers’ boycott and they were left high and dry by many of those who would have been expected to support them.

If we are going to call for workers action, various people and bodies need to be challenged and would have to commit themselves publicly to it. So far this is absent. PbP and the IPSC are not putting it up to any of the institutions.

View of the protest outside Axa Insurance 14 December 2023 while others inside carried out a protest sit-in. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In fact, the UNITE union complained about a sit-in at Axa Insurance company saying it was harmful to the workers. The sit-in was not organised by the IPSC but by CATU and Dublin for Gaza.

It turns out that UNITE is a bit like IDATU.

The union has also passed resolutions supporting the campaign of BDS and yet “according to union insiders, Axa is Unite’s insurer in Ireland – and Unite’s designated provider of hotel accommodation is the Leonardo hotel group, which is part-owned by the Israeli Fattal group.”(1)

UNITE members taking action would most likely be shunned by their own union. Just like the head of the IAAM, Kader Asmal had tried to undermine the Dunnes Stores strike, there are those in the IPSC who would run for the hills were workers to take action against Israel.

So, we do need to emulate the Dunnes Stores strikers, but we need to be clear about the challenges and the opposition we would face from the trade union movement itself, the Catholic Church (they never went away either) and sectors of the IPSC.

It is time for action, but it is also high time that both PbP and the IPSC made clear calls for action and workers are not left hung out to dry, should they take action.

Notes

(1)Skwakbox (15/12/2023) Outrage builds over Unite’s use of Israel-linked firms as protestors occupy Axa Dublin office
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/12/15/outrage-builds-over-unites-use-of-israel-linked-firms-as-protesters-occupy-axa-dublin-office/

“THEY WANT US TO MOVE OUT – BUT WE’RE STAYING”

On March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, City Planning, Current Affairs Comment, Dublin Lockout 1913, Education, History, Housing, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Song, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In Dublin’s south docklands the property developers and the corporations dominate city planning and therefore the landscape. And the working class community there feel that they’re being squeezed out.

I’ve met with some concerned people from parts of this community in the past to report on their situation and concerns for Rebel Breeze and did so again recently.

A view eastward of a section of the south Liffey riverfront, showing a very small amount of more traditional buildings squashed between or loomed over by the “glass cages that spring up along the quay”. (Photo 1 March 2024: *D.Breatnach*)

YOUNG PEOPLE – education, training, socialising

“There’s nothing here for our young people” said one, expressing concern over the attraction for teenagers of physical confrontations with other teens from across the river which have taken place on the Samuel Beckett Bridge over the Liffey.

A young man training as an apprentice in engineering attends a mixed martial arts club but has to go miles away to another area to attend there. Between his industrial training, travel and athletic training he has little time to spare for socialising.

I comment that those sporting activities tend to concentrate on male youth and only some of those also but he tells me that nearly half the regular membership of his club is female. A community centre could provide space and time for such training but they say they have no such centre.

St. Andrew’s Hall is a community centre in the area and there are mixed opinions in the group about it but I know from my own enquiries that the available rooms are committed to weekly booked activities (and our meeting had to take place in a quiet corner of an hotel bar).

As a former youth worker and in voluntary centre management, I know that a community centre can serve all ages across the community, from parents and toddlers through youth clubs to sessions for adults and elders.

Discussing youth brings the talk into education and training. As discussed in a previous report of mine, the youth are not being trained in information technology, which is the employment offered in most of the corporations in “the glass cages that spring up along the quay.”¹

Section of the south Liffey docks showing some of the few remaining older buildings as they are swamped by the “glass cages”. The building on the far right of photo, very near to Tara Street DART station, once an arts centre, is already targeted for demolition and replacement with commercial building. (Photo sourced: *Internet)*

“If they’re lucky, they’ll get work in the buildings as cleaners or serving lattes and snack in the new cafes”. Some opined that the corporations in the area should be providing their youth with the training while others thought Trinity College should be doing so.

HOUSING – price and air quality

Universal municipal housing in the area has declined due to privatisation of housing stock and refusal to build more. A former municipal block in Fenian Street, empty for years is now to be replaced but the “affordable” allocation has been progressively reduced, ending now at zero.

*Pearse House in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators*. (Photo 1 March 2024: *D.Breatnach*)

Property speculators (sorry, “developers”) with banker support are building office blocks and apartment blocks in the areas, the latter units priced beyond the range of most local people. The average rent for a two-bed apartment in the area is €2,385;² to buy a 3-bedroom house €615,000.³

The Joyce House site and attached ground area could provide housing and a community centre but appears planned to go to speculators.

*Continuation of ‘Pearse House site’ in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators.* (Photo 1 March 2024: *D.Breatnach*)

The Markievicz swimming pool near Tara Street has been closed and the local people are told they can go to Ringsend for swimming, an area which already has better community facilities than are available to the communities further west along docklands

A huge amount of traffic goes through the area and one person stated that Macken Street tested as having the worst air quality in Ireland. “I have to close my windows to keep out the noise and pollution,” said another; “the curtains would be black.”

*Townsend Street side of ‘Pearse House site’ in south Liffey docklands, believed earmarked for demolition and site sold to property speculators (prospective property speculators must be salivating). The gambling advertisement coincidentally erected there seems to show the likely social types to benefit from these kinds of deals.* (Photo 1 March 2024: *D.Breatnach*)

‘They want us out’

If some town planner were intending to establish a community somewhere, s/he would plan for housing, obviously, so the people would have somewhere to live. But a proper plan would provide also for education and training, along with social facilities — and employment.

But if someone were intending instead to get rid of a community, s/he would target exactly the same elements, whittling them down or removing them altogether. This what some local people feel is intended for their community.

“We feel we’re not wanted here,” said one and others agreed, “They want us to move out.” “But we’re not going! We’re staying,” said another, to grim nodding of heads around.

HISTORY of struggle … and of neglect

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Dublin had the worst housing in the United Kingdom and many of its elected municipal representatives – including a number of Nationalists of Redmond’s party – were themselves slum landlords.

When the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was formed by Jim Larkin with assistance from James Connolly and the Irish Women Workers’ Union founded by Delia Larkin, many of the dockers, carters and Bolands Mill workers who joined them came from the south docklands.

And when the employers’ consortium led by William Martin Murphy set out to break the ITGWU in 1913, many of those workers

… Stood by Larkin and told the bossman
We’d fight or die but we would not shirk.
For eight months we fought
And eight months we starved,
We stood by Larkin through thick and thin …⁴

And the women of Bolands’ Mill were the last to return to work, which they did singing, in February 1914.

They also formed part of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world,⁵ to defend the striking and locked-out workers from the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and which later fought prominently in the 1916 Easter Rising.⁶

Many also joined the larger Irish Volunteers which later became the IRA, along with Cumann na mBan,⁷ fighting in the Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, supporting resistance of class and nation for decades after.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (the Fenians) was founded in the area; Peadar Macken⁸ was from here and has a street named after him; Elizabeth O’Farrell⁹ is from the area too with a small park named after her and Constance Markievicz¹⁰ also lived locally.

The Pearse family lived in the area too and Willie Pearse and his father both worked on monumental sculpture at the same address; Connolly and his family for a while lived in South Lotts.

*Home of the Pearse family and monumental sculpting business* (Photo: *Dublin Civic Trust)*

The working class communities in urban Ireland suffered deprivation throughout the over a century of the existence of the Irish state and the colonial statelet. The communities in dockland suffered no less, traditional work gone, public and private housing in neglect in a post-industrial wasteland.

The population of Ireland remained static from the mid-1800s until the 1990s, despite traditionally large families — emigration in search of employment kept the numbers level. Married couples lived with parents and in-laws while waiting for a house or flat – or emigrated.

In the 1980s, like many parts of the world, Ireland fell prey to what has been described as the “heroin epidemic” and the neglected urban working class worst of all, with the State assigning resources to fight not so much the drug distributors as the anti-drug campaigners.

One of those in the meeting became outwardly emotional when he talked of “the squandered potential” of many people in the local community.

*A workers’ day out trip on the Liffey ferry* (Photo sourced: *Dockers’ Preservation Trust*)

The heirs of these then are the marginalised and abandoned that are targeted with disinformation and manipulated by the far-Right and fascists, to twist their anger and despair not against the causes of their situation but against harmless and vulnerable people.

But the Left has to take a share of the blame, for leaving them there in that situation, for not mobilising them in resistance. After all, issues like housing, education and employment are supposed to be standard concerns for socialists, of both the revolutionary and the reformist varieties.

Republicans cannot avoid the pointing finger either. These communities provided fighters and leaders not only in the early decades of the 20^th Century but again from the late 1960s and throughout the 30 years war.

The Republicans led them in fighting for the occupied Six Counties but largely ignored their own economic, social and educational needs at home. Perhaps this is why the people are now organising themselves.

*Protest placard by housing block in Macken Street protesting noise and dirt from nearby construction* (Photo: *Macken Street resident*)

“THEY DON’T VOTE”

A number of the local people to whom I spoke quote a local TD (Teachta Dála, elected representative to the Irish parliament) who commented that most of the local residents don’t vote in elections.

Whether he meant, as some have interpreted, that therefore they don’t matter or, that without voting, they cannot effect change, is uncertain. However, community activism is not necessarily tied to voting in elections.

As we know from our history and that of others around the world, voting is not the only way to bring about change and, arguably, not even the most effective one.

Whatever about that question, people are getting organised in these communities and those who hold the power may find that they are in for a fight.

End.

*The landscape (and airscape) viewed from a housing block in Macken Street* (Photo: *Macken Street resident*).

FOOTNOTES

1From song by Pet St. John, Dublin in the Rare Aul’ Times.

2 https://www.statista.com/

3 https://www.dublinlive.ie/

4From The Larkin Ballad, about the Lockout and the Rising, by Donagh McDonagh, whose father was one of the fourteen shot by British firing squad after the 1916 Rising.

5Formed in Dublin in 1913 to defend strikers and locked-out workers from the Dublin Metropolitan Police; members were required to be trade union members. The ICA was unique for another reason in its time: it recruited women and some of them were officers, commanding men and women.

6Historian Hugo McGuinness based on the other side of the Liffey believes that the reason the British troops sent to suppress the Rising disembarked at Dún Laoghaire rather than in the Dublin docks was because they feared the landing being opposed by the Irish Citizen Army and its local supporting communities.

7Republican Female military organisation, formed 1914.

8Fenian, socialist, trade unionist, house painter who learned and taught Irish language, joined the Irish Volunteers, fought in the Rising and was tragically shot by one of the Bolands Mill Garrison who went homicidally insane (and was himself shot dead).

9Member of the GPO Garrison in the 1916 Rising, subsequently negotiator of the Surrender in Moore Street/ Parnell Street and courier for the 1916 leadership to other fighting posts.

10Member of multiple nationalist organisations, also ICA and in the command echelon of the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons Garrison. Also first woman elected to the British Parliament and first female Labour Minister in the world.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Biography Peadar Macken: https://www.dib.ie/biography/macken-peter-paul-peadar-a5227

SOUTH DUBLIN DOCKLAND COMMUNITIES ORGANISE FOR THEIR NEEDS

CLASS-CLEANSING IN DOCKLANDS

DUBLIN POLITICAL PRISONERS’ PICKET REFUTES MINISTER’S LIE

On February 28, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

On Tuesday evening in one of Dublin city centre’s high-end shopping street picketers refuted colonial Minister for ‘Justice’ Naomi Long’s lie that “There are no political prisoners in Northern Ireland” (sic – she means the Six-County colony).

The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign came on to the street to highlight that yes indeed, there ARE political prisoners in Ireland – over two score between both sides of the Border. And that furthermore, they are convicted in special political no-jury judicial processes.

View of the picket and the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The IAIC states that these judicial processes are called the “Diplock Court” in the occupied Six Counties and the “Special Criminal Courts” in the Irish state and were “specifically created in both cases for the easy conviction and jailing of Irish Republicans.”

The SCC has been labelled “a sentencing tribunal” rather than a court of law by human rights campaigners. IAIC states that the Diplock Court is “now being administered by former Republicans while the SCCs have now, after years of opposition, been approved by those same people.”

View of placards on the IAIC banner in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

However, as accused before these courts are also regularly refused bail, IAIC points out they are also effectively administrators of internment without trial, jailing activists for around two years before judicial process. If bail is granted, it is always under severe conditions preventing political activity.

The IAIC, an independent group campaigning for ten years, was supported in their picket yesterday by Irish Republicans and Socialists including from the Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, in addition to some independent activists.

Although Henry Street is a high-end shopping street of Dublin city centre, lots of working class people use it also.

A member distributes leaflets to passers-by near the picket in Henry Street on Tuesday (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Over 100 leaflets were distributed and a number of people stopped to discuss the issues. Some queried the mix of flags flown (Irish Starry Plough, Palestinian and Basque) and participants explained that these represented some of the struggles where repression has taken prisoners.

“We thought it particularly important to refute the colonial Minister’s lie today,” commented a spokesperson for the IAIC “and we’re glad for the support we received on the picket line and from interested people on the street. We hope to do it more often this year.”

“Internment continues in Ireland, just on a different scale and more selectively than for example in the Six Counties in the 1980s”, continued the spokesperson.

The IAIC states that it is “an independent campaigning group run on a participative democratic basis” and that it “welcomes democratic people” on their pickets. The Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063166633467 is their usual public outlet for notification of events and highlighting of related issues.

End.

DUBLIN PROTEST AGAINST NATO’S ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE

On February 26, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Event Report, Environmental, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

I learned that the Truth and Neutrality Alliance would be organising a protest on Sunday afternoon (18th) in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and attended in order to take some photos, talk to some people and report on it.

The small gathering with a banner and placards on the central pedestrian reservation in Dublin’ main street opposite the iconic General Post Office building¹ included apparently Irish and East European people. They were addressed by a number of speakers.

Separately nearby was a small number of floral tributes dedicated to Alexei Navalny, right-wing anti- immigration Russian political activist and opponent of the Putin regime about whose recent death in Russian jail the Biden regime had made critical statements.

SPEAKERS

The first speaker, who appeared to be one of the organisers, denounced the “massive censorship” about the conflict in Ukraine and said we live “in a world of lies” and that “anyone who tells the truth is accused of being a Russian agent”.

He went on to draw parallels between anti-Russian propaganda and that which had been against Syria also. “The end of the war in Ukraine is now in sight”, he said and looked forward to a democracy with full rights for all including Russian-speakers.

The speaker said that one cannot (legally, publicly) be a communist in the Ukrainian state and talked about radio stations being closed down by the Kiyv regime.

In preparation for the end of the war he said that the regime is planning sabotage groups, training terrorists to act in the post-war Donbas as they are doing currently in Russia.

He ended with a reference to “the Banderites” (a reference to followers of the memory of WWII Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera) and the antifascist slogan from the defence of Madrid during the Spanish Antifascist/ Civil War: “No pasaran!”

Bill O’Brien spoke on behalf the Truth and Neutrality Alliance which, he said, had been founded two years previously. “The Russian intervention was necessary”, he said, to act against the carrying out “of atrocities like some in Gaza.”

He went on to refer to “proxy wars such as those in Gaza, Ukraine and Yemen which are financed by NATO” and referred to the Minsk Agreements to which the Ukrainian Government had signed but “had been told by Britain not to honour”, he said.

The Minsk Agreement had been signed twice, O’Brien said and if adhered to, “the war would be over.” He said that “we need to push for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.”

The speaker felt that despite the use of Cold War propaganda, the war would soon be over since the Ukrainian Army was “mainly mercenaries” and currently recruiting women and 60-year-old men.

A third speaker with an Irish accent said that he had been in the Crimea until two weeks previously and that “no-one wants to return to Ukrainian rule. NATO will never get their hands on any of it”, he said.

The Crimea was invaded by Russia in February 2014 and later annexed after a referendum in which the vast majority voted for inclusion into the Russian Federation. Though condemned by NATO allies, the result was no surprise, partly because 60% of the residents were of Russian ethnicity.

The official result from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was a 97% percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation, with an 83% voter turnout and from Sevastopol where there was also a 97% vote for integration with Russia, with an 89% voter turnout.

Crimea and the Donbas region had been under threat or actual attack since the 2006 overthrow of the Ukrainian Government of Yanukovych in what many have described as a US proxy coup. As the war continued, Russia returned to invasion of other parts of Ukraine in February 2012.

The war continues in the Donbas and the Zelensky regime has sworn to retake the Crimea which does not look possible.

*One of the people in attendance displays a satirical poster of Zelensky.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

CONVERSATIONS

I interviewed one person from the Ukraine/Russian region who was willing to talk and who asked me first whether I would report truthfully, to which I replied that I would. (But wouldn’t most reporters claim that they were being truthful?).

Larisa Keller told me that although born in Georgia she has lived in other countries during her life and now in Ireland for 14 years. Ms. Keller has grandchildren and wants an environmentally-sound and peaceful world for them in which to grow.

“Dismantle NATO is the solution”, she said and “Weapons kill everything in nature” and “new types of weapons” are worse, she indicated, arguing for a ban on the development of weapons. But isn’t Russia also a state with a military, I asked – how does she feel about that?

“At this moment Russia is defending itself,” Ms. Keller said and she herself is supportive of “activities against the pressure of fascism”.

In conclusion, she had this to say: “Tell the world that they should recognise that we live in one world and we should appreciate our ability to stay there; it’s important that we support one another”.

*One of the placards displayed at the event* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

A young man with an Irish accent in attendance approached and told me that he had an East European girlfriend. He told me also that priests from his Russian Orthodox Church have been killed while pastoring with troops in the Donbas,² that they are targeted “because they are morale-boosters”.

The young man told me he had friends among the Chechens also.

End.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Truth and Neutrality Alliance: https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/02/25/thinking-of-sinn-fein-trying-not-to-think-of-palestine/

1Many protests and other events take place in this vicinity, not only due to its central location but also because the building was occupied by the leadership of the 1916 Rising against British occupation for five days.

2The area in the east of Ukraine that is predominantly Russian-speaking where the war is taking place and was besieged by Ukrainian troops, often fascist-led, from 2014 onwards (i.e 8 years before the Russian invasion).

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

On February 25, 2024February 25, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

(1. Letter in reply to claims that Sinn Fein has betrayed the Palestinians; 2) Reply by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)

Greetings Comrades,

I am a former member of Sinn Féin who still lives in a Republican and working-class community. I see a lot of point to your views on Sinn Féin and the peace process. But I think you hit the wrong note in your article: Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh.

The idea that: “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

Is not true, is offensive and will put off the people who might otherwise listen to you. The leaders put forward a political analysis and the members accept it. If you want to oppose this, kick the ball and not the player.

Yours, Owen

Reply

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

22 February 2024

Biden poses for a selfie with Gerry Adams.

To my surprise I have received some feedback from a Republican on my article Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians, published on the Socialist Democracy site and elsewhere in which I took issue with Sinn Féin’s abominable decision.

Which was to fly to Washington to meet and greet Joe Biden, a man whose hands drip with Palestinian blood. Though given the scale of the genocide, dripping with blood is an understatement as Palestinian blood gushes off his hands, like a burst oil well.

There were a number of points made, some of them more important than the others. One, was my insinuation that corruption was at the heart of the decision, that Sinn Féin were not going to give up on a hooley and a lavish shindig paid for by others.

My comment on the matter was a bit facetious in part. I did describe the event as a hooley, and it is fair to say that it is a lot more than that, though the drunken shenanigans are a part of the festivities and the informal deals to be struck.

Colum Eastwood from the SDLP stated that “I could not rub shoulders, drink Guinness and have the craic while the horrifying impacts of the brutal war in Gaza continue”(1).

I had stated that “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

There is a part of those sentences that is obviously tongue in cheek. I don’t actually believe that Mary Lou will be trying to get her leg over anyone at the White House, though I wouldn’t discount any of the lower ranking minions on the junket trying their hand.

The furtive political romance was a more serious comment.

St Patrick’s Day at the White House is one for showcasing Ireland, not just in the paddywhackery sense of the word, but it is where informal and formal discussions can take place on economic policy, foreign policy and other matters.

Not for nothing that Varadkar used last year’s event to shore up his support for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a false historical narrative about US government support for Irish freedom.(2) The Government’s own propaganda about its importance actually says as much.

Sinn Féin have various corrupt reasons for going. I should point that there are various forms of corruption, there is the type of corruption of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians seeking or giving favours.

There is another type of corruption, which is that where politicians go along with policies they know to be wrong, immoral, damaging or dangerous for reasons of political expediency, as part of an overall strategy.

Or because money will be legally made by the chosen few as a result of these decisions. Current government policies around vulture funds, the bank bailout (for which Sinn Féin also voted), privatization of the health industry etc., are examples of this type of corruption.

I have no doubt that Sinn Féin members are involved in the brown paper envelope type of corruption, the building industry still reeks of Republican involvement, though they have a long way to go yet to outdo Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

But it is more the latter type of corruption that is important.

Two and a half years ago, Pearse Doherty stated that “big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”(3). The issue has come up again recently with Sinn Féin seeking to assure US companies that the corporate tax rate is safe with them.

The new head of the Industrial Development Authority Fergal O’ Rourke, in January this year described Sinn Féin as being on an outreach programme to reassure US companies.(4) He was fulsome in his praise for Sinn Féin and he wasn’t the only one.

Henry Goddard from Deloitte Ireland claimed that Sinn Féin had done a good job in calming down international investors by reaching out to them, by meeting with them and even Mary Lou McDonald visiting Silicon Valley was cited as an example.

He stated “Fair play to Sinn Féin, they went out to the US, they engaged, said all the right things and provided a lot of confidence. They now need to follow through on that.”(5)

They are going to Washington to follow through, to reassure not only US businesses but the Irish capitalist class that the economy will be in safe hands with them and those business leaders from IBEC, various companies like PwC and others who have praised Sinn Féin are not mistaken.

Sinn Féin has stated that it is worried that it might not win the next election and has repeatedly spoken about reassuring the so-called business community.

The other aspect of the visit is that were they not to go, it would send a message to their reactionary base in the US that they are on the side of “Islamic terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how true this is, their base in the US has never been very discerning about these issues.

It would also give the government parties something to beat them with and allow them to claim that Sinn Féin are a party unfit for bourgeois government.

Implicit in the feedback is the idea that my criticisms of the provos would annoy or offend Republicans who would otherwise be open to the general message i.e. ‘kick the ball not the player’. But the player and the ball cannot be separated in politics.

If someone is upset at facetious comments about romances and would otherwise be won around, then they clearly haven’t appreciated the scale of the slaughter in Gaza, nor Biden’s role in it and Sinn Féin’s ditching of what would, once upon a time, have been a no-brainer for their base.

Proof is in the pudding and the fact that some Sinn Féin supporters see through the party’s position shows that those who can be won round have been won round already. Those in attendance at the meeting from which three Palestinians were ejected are all lost causes, political degenerates.

This brings us to the last item which is how Sinn Féin is selling this to their base. Part of the criticism of ‘kicking the player’ is that Sinn Féin has taken a position, spelt it out publicly and its members have accepted this. This is not how democracy works in that organisation.

But the position was best spelt out by Gerry Adams. He stated that Palestinians would understand why they had to go. Would they really?

Apart from the corrupt and contemptible Palestinian Authority that spends a full third of its budget on security and repressing other Palestinians, who in Palestine would understand? The parents who saw their children shot and bombed? The prisoners? The families of prisoners?

The thousands of people who pulled others from the rubble with their bare hands? Or just Abbas who while busy stifling Palestinian dissent has had little to say or do on the genocide.

Adams made one further point. He claimed there was a lack of coherence amongst Sinn Féin critics.

“Some folks are saying the Sinn Féin leadership shouldn’t meet with the American political system… They are not saying we shouldn’t meet with the British political system. The Brits are up to their neck in this.”(6)

He is right about the contradiction, but it doesn’t absolve him, rather it condemns those who are ambivalent about it.

All Adams is pointing out, indeed boasting about, is that they are in cahoots with British imperialism and treasure that relationship as much as they do their “special relationship” with the US. He went on to underline this point.

Serious people involved in struggle, particularly people who are involved in national liberation struggles, understand that your own struggle whether it be internationalist has to be your primary focus.

So, they will expect you to raise their issues and we should. They would expect you to stand with them, and so we should. But they would not expect us to do anything – any more than we would expect them to do anything – which would set back our own struggle.

So, I think it’s Irish-America’s day, it may be dominated by what’s happening in Washington.(7)

Adams clearly hasn’t a clue about what an internationalist struggle is. How could boycotting Biden harm the Irish struggle?

Adams’ question goes to the heart of the matter, he and Sinn Féin not only cling to the illusion that the Irish peace process is bringing unity closer but also that US imperialism plays a progressive role in Ireland.

And that upsetting Biden would be a setback and annoy a regime that is committed to some progressive outcome in Ireland.

Adams is not the only one to believe in this progressive role of US imperialism, Yasser Arafat also believed in it and thus we got the Oslo Accords and 30,000 people in Gaza have been murdered by this progressive imperialism of Adams and Arafat.

Courting reactionary elites in the US is not putting the Irish struggle first, it is continuing with Sinn Féin’s gallop to the right. It is to paraphrase the expression about the struggle for socialism in Ireland that Labour Must Wait!

Now Palestine must wait, indeed everything and everyone must wait. What must never happen is that US imperialisms and Sinn Féin’s reactionary base in the US be upset.

Whilst the Republican who gave the feedback is clearly aware of Sinn Féin’s limitations on the issue of Palestine, there is no republican milieu waiting to be won round on this issue that may be put off by the tone of my last piece or other such pieces by other writers elsewhere.

There is no world in which the player and the ball do not both get a well-deserved kicking, indeed, were I in a position to do so, I would give them the hiding of their lives. Alas my efforts are unfortunately more modest than that.

Anyone who is Republican and thinks Sinn Féin is right to go to Washington is thinking only of Sinn Féin and not of Palestine. They are, like Adams and co, looking the other way in the midst of a genocide, something you would have thought was an easy issue to take a position on.

But when you drink of the Peace Process Kool Aid, you don’t drink half the glass, but chug the whole glass down in one go, like Mean Joe Greene in the famous Coca Cola ad of the 1970s. Like Greene, Sinn Féin has been asked to reshoot the scene time and again.

Greene vomited after his sixth coke, though he had to swallow eighteen, 16-ounce bottles on the final day of shooting.(8)

There is no end to what peace process supporters are asked to swallow and unlike Greene, no sign anyone in Sinn Féin is about to puke at the nauseous spectacle of being asked to sideline a genocide for the meet and greet in Washington DC.

End.

Notes

(1) The Derry Journal (29/01/2024) SDLP Leader, Derry MP Colum Eastwood ‘cannot in good conscience’ go to US for St Patrick’s Day. Brendan McDaid. https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/sdlp-leader-derry-mp-colum-eastwood-cannot-in-good-conscience-go-to-us-for-st-patricks-day-4495907

(2) Remarks by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the White House Shamrock Ceremony and St. Patrick’s Day Reception https://www.gov.ie/en/speech/5b46b-remarks-by-taoiseach-leo-varadkar-td-at-the-white-house-shamrock-ceremony-st-patricks-day-reception/

(3) Irish Independent (10/10/2021) Pearse Doherty Interview: ‘Big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them’ Hugh O’ Connell. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pearse-doherty-interview-big-business-and-investors-know-sinn-fein-wont-go-after-them/40933992.html?

(4) Business Post (14/01/2024) IDA boss reveals Sinn Féin plans to woo US firms on corporate tax. Donal MacNamee and Lorcan Allen. https://www.businesspost.ie/news/ida-boss-reveals-sinn-fein-plans-to-woo-us-firms-on-corporate-tax/

(5) Ibíd.,

(6) Irish Independent (27/01/2024) Gerry Adams says calls for Sinn Féin to boycott St Patrick’s Day visit to US are ‘inconsistent’. Maeve McTaggart and Hugh O’Connell. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gerry-adams-says-calls-for-sinn-fein-to-boycott-st-patricks-day-visit-to-us-are-inconsistent/a410016838.html

(7) Ibíd.,

(8) See Pendergrast, M – For God, Country and Coca Cola. New York. Basic Books. paragraph 34.99 and footnote 34.117