Author: rebelbreeze
Revolutionary socialist & anti-imperialist; Rebel Breeze publishes material within this spectrum and may or may not agree with all or part of any particular contribution. Writing English, Irish and Spanish, about politics, culture, nature.
AN PHOBLACHT ABÚ CALLS FOR BROAD UNITY IN STRUGGLE
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 4 mins.)
The first edition of the socialist republican weekly newspaper An Phoblacht Abú for 2024 has been available in hard copy from sellers now for several weeks; I am reviewing it here as I have done on occasion with another few issues during 2023.
APA is a hard-copy newspaper of usually 12 x A4 sides, produced monthly from I believe the last months of 2022, including articles on anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, recent Irish history, internationalist solidarity and sometimes on older history, culture and reports on events, selling at €2/£1 per issue.
Hard-copy revolutionary papers are important as a means of distribution to those who don’t wish – or are unlikely — to seek it online but more than that, they also provide the opportunity to make contact on a personal and organisational level with people with whom to discuss events.
However, back issues are also available electronically, I’m told, from the producers.
This particular issue reports on the Palestinian struggle and the solidarity movement in Ireland, featuring a report of an occupation of the Israeli Embassy on 19th December with a following picket and blockade of the gates to the building which hosts it for many hours.
Another page carries a report on Palestine solidarity actions across the country and a “Hands Off Iran & Iraq” item, also an obituary on the death of a recent comrade of the organisers. Separately there is a report and comment on the death of an Irishman in the conflict in Ukraine.
Political prisoners in Ireland and the Basque Country are also covered, the latter focussing on the ‘non-compliant’ Basque prisoners and their support network, in contrast to the colluding “official leadership” and the great majority of prisoners who have come under their influence.
An article comments on the upcoming Referendum on Article 41 of the Constitution of the Irish State, condemns the treatment of women historically by the Irish ruling class and, without recommending how to vote, calls for the destruction of the State.
Commemorations of historical events, including martyrs, are an important part of the culture of all peoples in struggle and APA reports on some. A statement on the escape from justice by natural death of war criminal Brigadier Kitson was widely shared in appreciation on social media.
NEW YEAR CALL FOR BROAD FRONT UNITY
Organisations traditionally issue New Year statements, perhaps reflecting on the past year but always looking to the coming year. The ISR NY Statement covered three pages and called attention to all the struggles discussed in the reports, along with some others.
The one theme in the Statement dominating all others was the call for united action in developing a broad anti-imperialism united front to work for unity “around common Republican principles” while at the same time maintaining “the autonomy and independence of different groups.”
In furtherance, ISR proposes that a “Broad Front Congress” be organised before the end of this year and called on those interested to contact them “to turn the demand of the Republican base into action.”
COMMENT
The importance of revolutionary newspapers is underlined historically by the preparations of the British Government prior to the General Strike of 1926, when they purchased all stocks of newsprint paper to deny them to revolutionaries and other strikers.
Governments today can close down social media transmission and reception over an area and even nation-wide.
The APA editorial is undoubtedly correct in its call for a broad front while stipulating independence of organisations within that front. A congress may further this aim but I wonder if it will, without some advance agreement on working principles (about which I have written previously).
I find it striking that in the New Year’s message which mentions working class communities, there is nothing about workplace organisation, or trade unionism, to give it another name. Working class people do not live in communities alone – they also work many hours outside them.
And in the most commonly-imagined scenario for revolution in western countries, revolution is preceded by a general strike. To organise and carry out such a strike and maintain it against external repression and internal undermining, requires leadership deep and wide within the movement.
How this is to be achieved is an issue, the resolution of which can only follow of course from recognition of its necessity. Across the Left and Socialist Republican movement I see no sign of this recognition.
The founding of this newspaper for socialist republicanism and its monthly production and distribution is a great achievement and to their credit for a young and still relatively small organisation.
Some typographical errors persist in APA which could be removed by greater editorial checking. The reproduction of images might be improved substantially too, space made for enlargement possibly by reduction in the area covered by print, increasing the visual attractiveness of the page.
However, APA is right to concentrate on the written word and the spread of themes, the reporting of actions and the reasoning behind them. A regular revolutionary newspaper has long been needed but missing and monthly production at least is needed for its effectiveness.
Fáilte uaimse roimh an nuachtán míosúil réabhlóideach seo, An Phoblacht Abú!
end.
Note: Back copies of An Phoblacht Abú are available electronically from isrmedia@protonmail.com
PALESTINIANS EVICTED FROM PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MEETING
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time main text: 7 mins.)
Videos doing the rounds of social media sites show a brief intervention by Palestinians at a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast about Palestine followed by the party’s heavies evicting them to applause from many in the audience.
The event at the Europa Hotel on Thursday evening was intended, according to the party’s National Chairperson, “… as an opportunity to demonstrate that Ireland stands with the people of Gaza and the West Bank and to reiterate calls for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the occupation.”1
Actually Ireland is already – except for the Unionists — well behind the Palestinians as shown by attendance at marches and opinion surveys. What is needed is a) clarity on what we are calling for and b) direct action to put the States and companies under greater pressure.
The video of the intervention I’ve seen began with an apology for interrupting the Palestinian Ambassador, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, as “a mouthpieceof the Palestinian Authority” which, the challenger said, is an undemocratic organisation which has not had an election since 2006.
Boos and cries of objection followed from the audience as the Palestinian asked to be listened to, pointed out that those doing the intervention were all Palestinians but the party’s security men were soon hustling them out and periodically trying to block the phone camera.
When people don’t want to examine the issues or are feeling guilty about them, it’s always tempting to blame the critics, suggest they’re dissidents, trouble-makers, etc. That way the pointing finger is turned around and the actual issues don’t need to be thought about.
Of course this time some SF supporters commented along those lines, accusing their critics of being Loyalists, or as they have in the past outsiders, ultra-leftists, intelligence service agents, dissidents, malcontents, trouble-makers … or just plain Utopians.
“MOUTHPIECE OF … AN UNDEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION”
The intervention from the floor was challenging but what of the content? Palestinian Ambassadors are appointed and employed by the Palestinian Authority which, though never intended as a government is acting like one. So “mouthpiece for the PA”? Blunt — but entirely accurate.
The PA “has not had an election in 18 years”? Accurate also – though they’re supposed to have one every five years. The last time there were elections in Palestine was 2006 and Hamas won overall throughout Palestine. However Fatah, the losers, refused to give up their seats.
In 2007 in Gaza, Hamas moved against Fatah and after a short struggle, took the seats to which the electorate had voted them. However, they chose not to do that in the West Bank, where the PA’s HQ is and where EU and USA money comes flowing in to Abbas and his unelected cronies.
The reason for not holding elections is that Hamas would almost certainly win again. Meanwhile, “democratic Israel” refused to recognise the Gaza administration or the elected representatives of the Palestinians while the US, EU and UK followed suit and ‘Israel’ blockaded Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority, as well as being undemocratic, deeply corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive2 is also actively colluding with the Zionist state and feeding its masters intelligence on the Palestinian opposition and resistance while it represses their supporters.
That’s what most Palestinians think about the PA and, as is widely known and even tacitly admitted by the USA3, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, Palestinians have no confidence in the institution.4
Some of the comments on the circulating videos criticised SF’s bad management of the event, opining that the Palestinians should have been allowed to speak and then the meeting could have proceeded as the organisers planned and the challenge would have got little publicity.
True … but SF is used to throttling dissent inside its party or in the communities it controls and managing dissent – rather than crushing it — is just not its style.
In any case, is ‘bad management’ the main issue with regard to SF and Palestine? More important than supporting partition of Palestine, the institutionalisation of a Bantustan “Palestinian State” under the guns of the Zionists – and the PA’s collusion with those same Zionists?
The Provisionals weren’t always pro-Palestinian; though it might shock some people, they originally mirrored Irish society’s position of support for Israel, the perceived ‘underdog’ up to the mid-1960s, Hollocaust survivors (Zionists) who had fought the British police and army.5
THE PROVO LEADERSHIP AND PALESTINE
For a while pieces by a Fred Burns O’Brien apparently based in the USA were featured in the Provos’ newspaper but some time after he revealed himself as a Zionist he was ‘let go’, probably through internal pressure from those who thought the Palestinians were the natural ally.6
One of the problems with taking a political position, physically or ideologically, is that you might get called on it someday. This is why bourgeois politicians try to give themselves wriggle and even retreat room in their statements – lots of good-sounding bites with little content.
The Provisionals owe a debt to some Palestinians but it’s a very bad one. I don’t mean when they got some arms for the struggle7 but rather their following Fatah/PLO down the pacification process, for which Fatah and the ANC sent fraternal delegates to SF’s Ard-Fheiseanna (annual congresses).
Subsequently, Ireland and South Africa were used as promotional examples of the pacification process and their delegates travelled as kinds of sales representatives8 — but Palestine got dropped from 2000 onwards because of the Second Intifada, when Palestinians rejected Fatah’s deal.
You can’t sell a process as ‘working’ when the youth have overwhelmingly rejected it and are fighting the Occupation in the street.
“ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENT”
One prominent member of SF in the British colony told the Palestinian protesters they should have organised “their own event.” Er – was this event not advertised as being for solidarity with Palestine? But ‘Palestinians not welcome’? Or only zionist-collaborating Palestinians?
Imagine if back in the day some political party had been having a meeting about Ireland and were inviting an Irish State or British colonial minister as a speaker, would anyone have been shocked to see and hear SF activists challenging or even heckling the speakers during the meeting?
Would we not be reading statements from SF talking about ‘no right of colonialists to represent the Irish people’ and about ‘censorship of Irish voices’?
Gerry Adams, former President of the party was quoted as saying the calls are “inconsistent” because they are not making the same call with regard to the UK though “the Brits are up to their neck in this” and what is important for SF in the USA is Irish-America.
But SF long ago accommodated itself to the colonialist “Brits”, including its royalty. Irish politicians don’t flock to London for St. Patrick’s Day. Anyway the primary financial and military supplier – and political backer of the Zionist state in the UN Security Council — is the USA.
Why is the diaspora in the USA so important to Sinn Féin but not the diaspora in Britain or in Australia? It must be because the USA is the “boss of the world” and pathetic Irish gombeen politicians think their diaspora gives them them some kind of weight with the imperialists.
What would really help with the Irish diaspora would be if SF were to address the Irish-Americans and ask them to push their political representatives to call for the USA to stop supporting genocide in Palestine.
But of course there is no chance of them doing that because 1) some Irish Americans oppose imperialism from Britain but support it from the USA; also 2) because Irish gombeens, the political class to which SF aspire, are pro-western imperialism.
INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY AND THE HOME STRUGGLE
I have commented in the past that the level of commitment to internationalist solidarity is one of the indicators as to whether an organisation is going to carry through its own revolution or instead is going to finish up in liberalism and abandon its struggle, ending in actual collusion.
It seems some others have the same idea.
As she was being evicted, the Palestinian woman called out for SF not to attend Washington on St. Patrick’s Day and also shouted, though she may have meant it the other way around: “There will not be a free Palestine without a united Ireland!”
Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah put it quite succintly: “If you can’t say NO to the White House in the middle of a genocide, then you’d never be able to stand up, not even for Ireland.”
end.
FOOTNOTES
1https://vote.sinnfein.ie/solidarity-rally-for-palestine-to-take-place-in-belfast/
2“The PA has actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population. Many perceive the body as a tool of the Israeli security apparatus, its US-trained forces not only targeting those suspected of planning attacks on Israelis, but also arresting union figures, journalists and critics on social media.” (Al Jazeera – see Sources)
3Hence the USA’s post-war plan for Gaza, as expressed by Blinken, is to have it run by a “revamped PA”, i.e one that might have some credibility among Palestinians.
4“Today, a staggering 87 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that the PA is corrupt, 78 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombingpercent want Abbas to resign, and 62 percent believe that the PA is a liability.” (Washington Institute — see Sources).
5On 22 July 1946, Zionist militias bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which the British Mandate administration had offices including its police intelligence department, killing 91: “49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers; 13 were soldiers; 3 policemen; and 5 were bystanders. By nationality, there were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens ….” Forty-six were injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
6The same kind of pressure from the support base that caused the SF leadership recently to reestablish their ‘expel the Israeli Ambassador’ position that Mary Lou had announced they were abandoning.
7In 1977 a consignment of arms allegedly from the PLO bound for Ireland was seized by the authorities at Antwerp.
8To the Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc.
SOURCES
Criticism of the PA’s corruption and unpopularity
a) from a pro-imperialist source: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-palestinian-authority-failed-its-people and
b) from Al Jazeera (pro-Palestinian but not pro-Hamas): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-the-palestinian-authority-and-how-is-it-viewed-by-palestinians
ANTI-FASCISTS CONFRONT FAR-RIGHT & FASCISTS IN DUBLIN CITY CENTRE
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 6 minutes)
A far-right march containing known fascists and fascist organisations opposed to immigration or to providing housing for refugees confronted an antifascist counterprotest half its size in Dublin city centre’s main street on Monday.
The counter-protest was convened for 1pm by the United Against Racism organisation (a kind of liberal anti-racist and antifascist confederation set up by the People Before Profit party) in order to confront an advertised mobilisation of the far-Right on a broad racist platform.
The racists had been building for this ‘national’ march since early January.
The antifascists gathered on the central pedestrian reservation while a group of less than 20 strutted in front of the GPO waving Tricolours,1 an Erin go Bragh flag2 and, most unusually, a Cumann na mBan3 flag. Did they know or care that one of the founders of that organisation was a migrant?4
Or that the Tricolour was presented to us in 1848 by women revolutionaries in Paris? The far-Right in Ireland is replete with ironies, whether ignorant of them or aware while manipulating their ignorant followers in neglected cross-generational families and communities.
Among the anti-racist gathering, at first there were red, rainbow and some Palestinian flags but not one specifically Irish one apart from a white Starry Plough on a red background, until a little later when a number of Irish Tricolours made their appearance among the anti-racists.
This gives the unfortunate appearance that it’s the far-Right that cares about the national struggle and not the antifascists, which is untrue since the fascists have never lifted a finger for Irish freedom and unity (as pointed out by one of the placards displayed by the anti-racists).
It seemed strange that the anti-racists had not occupied the space directly in front of the GPO, thereby not only denying it to the far-Right but also giving them a position with a safe rear and only exposed from the front and flanks, as distinct from the central reservation, open on all sides.
Many Garda Public Order Unit vehicles had been seen at the Garden of Remembrance where the far-Right were rallying along with two mounted Garda, with another two of those outside the GPO and many police in ordinary uniform, along with a few POU there also.5
A strong turnout of Gardaí lined up in front of the GPO with their backs to the fascists and facing the antifascists, a formation clearly anticipating antifascists moving against the far-Right. A number of shouts were traded between the opposing forces.
A senior Garda officer approached an anti-fascist and obliged her to remove her mask, an action that exposed her not only to Garda photographers but also to media and far-Right snaps and video.
Unlike a number of other occasions prior to and during the Covid emergency, the police restrained the fascists from crossing the road or even engaging in sustained exchanges. After awhile, the latter departed to join the others at their rally at the Garden of Remembrance
The antifascist gathering listened to speeches (or ignored them and chatted among themselves) and a number of a cappella songs about Irish emigration and anti-racism, regularly joining in slogans of “Say it loud and say it clear – Refugees are welcome here!” and “Fáilte – roimh theifigh!”
Another slogan6 shouted was “When refugees are under attack – Stand up, fight back!”
THE FASCIST MARCH
Word reached the antifascists that the far-Right had finally got into their march and the whole anti-racist gathering moved to face the east side of O’Connell Street, where stewards packed them in tighter and tighter and Gardaí lined up facing them with arms linked.
A little later, perhaps conscious of the size of the far-Right march, the Gardaí turned their backs to the anti-racists and faced the street upon which the racists were going to march. The POU also deployed around the area and both mounted police moved across on to the central reservation.
The far-Right began to proceed southward along the street a couple of feet only away from the anti-fascists, from which the slogans in support of refugees were chanted in unison but there were also individual comments flying back and forth, along with gestures, between both groups.
Their stewards were clearly keen to keep them moving, however. At one point a large group of the far-Right mounted the central reservation and approached the antifascists aggressively but between the Gardaí and their own stewards they soon resumed their march south.
It became clear that the racist march outnumbered the counter-protest in the order of around two to one. When banners of the National Party and the Irish Freedom Movement were seen (and placards of Síol na hÉireann)7 a roar of “Nazi scum off our streets!” emerged from the anti-racists.
There were also some cries of “MI5!” at those. Some large placards bearing the legend “Ireland is full” drew the reply: “No it’s not – you don’t know your history or your geography!”8
The march passed and according to information received made its way to Custom House Quay for a rally. The antifascists were then called on to the street to march to the Garden of Remembrance in a move that puzzled some (one suggestion was that it was to “disinfect” the site!).
Later and photos from Anti-Imperialist Ireland confirmed the sighting of a number of known fascists at the racist rally, including Derek Bligh (IF), Jim Ferguson, Herman Kelly (IFM) and Rowan Croft, all with connections to British Loyalism and British Intelligence.
EVALUATION
The question must be asked how a minority of far-right and fascist parties in Ireland can outnumber the vastly numerically superior anti-fascist mass in the country at a public (and publicised) event? Clearly the counter-protest organisers failed to mobilise the wide anti-fascist masses.
Or the wide anti-fascist movement failed to respond to the call. Where were the Irish Republican forces, the specifically antifascist organisations, the anti-fascist trade unionists – and the broad masses that they can mobilise?
Some of those may say that they don’t trust the UAR group, that they’re not serious about confronting fascists, etc. That may be but it would be a poor and shameful excuse for allowing a successful fascist attack on an antifascist gathering.
On the other hand, when the UAR was being founded, it deliberately excluded those forces – Republicans, antifascist activists, anarchists – who had already been confronting the far-right in Dublin and had been in a number of clashes with the fascists.
This is a most serious situation in which the democratic masses to be as the racists and fascists mobilise their thugs and feel the wind behind their sails while simultaneously the State surreptitiously encourages them and the capitalist system seeks to make the workers pay for its crisis.
The racist march took place in the context of a recent fascist mobilisation in the city centre burning cars and public transport and ongoing burning of buildings across the country earmarked – or just believed to be earmarked – for housing of refugees.
Government Ministers can claim shock and anger at such fascist mobilisations but how is it that the wave of arson attacks is being permitted? And how is it that communications of the culprits are not being monitored by the State’s intelligence services?
How is that there is not one case of Garda or property security being on hand and apprehending the arsonists?
We need not believe any nonsense about insufficient personnel because the private security industry employs over 30,000 people across a broad range of sectors9 and the Gardaí can mobilise 100 with helicopter back-up to evict a handful of housing activists occupying an empty building.10
The State is clearly allowing the fascists a loose rein whilst at the same time permitting an atmosphere favouring repression to build up – repression which as is usually the case will be used not against the fascists but against the antifascists and against the Left resistance in general.
We are being given warnings and it is up to all of us whether we act upon them. If we don’t not only we but our children will pay the price.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The green, white and orange flag that became the ‘national’ flag of the Irish State.
2Anglicisation for pronunciation of Éirinn go Brách (Ireland for ever!), the slogan in gold on a green background, usually also bearing the emblem of the harp in gold was a common flag seen among gatherings of the Fenians (Irish Republican Brotherhood) in Ireland, Britain and the USA during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
3Possibly the world’s first female republican military organisation, it was founded in 1914 as an auxiliary to the male Irish Volunteers founded the year before; around 40 of them participated in the 1916 Rising. Later the organisation developed more independence.
4Constance Markievicz: A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.
5And some in ordinary street clothes, clearly the political ‘undercover’ police (now officially the Special Detective Unit but still widely known among political activists (and some of its own officers) by their former name of “the Special Branch”).
6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan
7Three of the prominent fascist and racist organisations recently founded in Ireland, though not much of “Síol” has been seen for many months.
8Presumably a reference to the fact that in 1845 Ireland had a population of over 8 million and was not “full” even then while the population today is around 7 million.
9“and has an estimated annual turnover in excess of €960 million” https://www.cpsa.ie/en/organisation-information/8018a-the-private-security-authority
10On two occasions in Dublin alone, against the Revolutionary Housing League occupations of empty buildings on Eden Quay in June 2022 and on Berkeley Road in July last year. https://rebelbreeze.com/tag/revolutionary-housing-league/
SOURCES
March and counter-demonstration: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2024/02/05/anti-immigrant-march-and-counter-protest-in-dublin-see-300-gardai-deployed/
https://www.thejournal.ie/anti-immigration-protest-dublin-6291088-Feb2024
Fascist speakers at Monday’s rally: https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2024/02/06/dont-be-fooled-by-britains-far-right-in-ireland/
Far-Right arson of buildings and riots: https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/arsonists-burning-buildings-set-house-28568335
https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/man-charged-in-connection-with-dublin-riots-1585211.html
Gardaí available in large numbers when evicting housing activists: https://rebelbreeze.com/tag/revolutionary-housing-league/
DAILY LIES & PROPAGANDA – PALESTINE
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 6 mins.)
We, the public have been bombarded daily with lies and propaganda from the western mainstream media (wsm) and nowhere has this been clearer than since October 7th in relation to the Israeli state and the Palestinian people.
It would be useful to unpick some of the most often-repeated items.
For five weeks after the raid, until mid-December the figures given and repeated without question were 1,400 killed1 by Palestinians along with Zionist stories of Israeli babies being beheaded and mutilated and women raped, also repeated without question, challenge or investigation.
The “mutilated and beheaded babies” lie was repeated by US President Biden. That story has now been sunk: ONE Israeli baby died during the attack by hands and means unknown. The rape story has also been debunked and the family of one alleged victim revealed they were manipulated.2
“The Hamas incursion killed 1,200 and took 240 hostages.” This contains at least one lie and another doubtful item. The lie is in the number of Israelis killed by guerrillas and though censored in the wsm this is being widely discussed in the Israeli media, both liberal and right-wing.3
The number of Israelis killed may or may not be not so much in doubt but the issue is who killed them?
Undoubtedly Palestinian guerrillas killed some but, according to Israeli survivors some were also killed in crossfire battles and some deliberately by an Israeli tank firing a shell into a house where guerrillas were holding hostages.
According to some of the Israeli military involved, some were also killed by a commander calling a missile strike on their own position. Israeli helicopter gunships also fired on cars being driven away by guerrillas – almost certainly all those burned-out wrecks — and containing hostages.4
If the number of the Israeli dead has been revised at least twice,5 how can we be sure how many were taken away alive? Of course, this is not such a great issue internationally but will be so for their Israeli relatives and friends who are awaiting and campaigning for their return.6
“The Hamas invasion launched the war on Gaza.” This is inaccurate reporting for propaganda reasons. Certainly the current genocidal bombing of Gaza was begun the next day by Israel but it carried out other bombing campaigns many times in the past and sometimes for months.7
Not only Hamas on October 7th but also Islamic Jihad guerrillas carried out the raid on that date. And some other Palestinians entered when they noted the gaps blown in the walls by the guerrillas.8 Also in resisting the Israeli forces since, there are a number of other Palestinian forces in action.9
In addition, the territory the guerrillas raided is occupied by Israel but belonged to the Palestinians and is claimed by them. How often do we hear or read in the wsm of Israeli forces “invading” areas of the West Bank or Gaza, a district they don’t even officially claim is theirs?
The presentation of news and information in this way is Zionist propaganda aided by the wsm, turning truth on its head to make it seem as though the Palestinians are at fault, the problem is one Palestinian resistance organisation, not necessarily other Palestinians and certainly not the Zionists.
“ … since the Hamas take over of Gaza” is another propaganda twist of the truth, hinting at an illegal and undemocratic coup. The truth is that Hamas won the Palestine Authority elections of 2006 throughout the territory.
The Palestinian organisation formerly in power, Al Fatah, refused to accept the results and later, after a short struggle with Al Fatah, Hamas took their elected places but did not press the issue in the West Bank, where Al Fatah continues to receive funding from the EU and the USA.10
“ … the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority …”11 is clearly another misleading phrase since a) it does not reveal the fact that most Palestinians despise it (which is reported by many observers) and b) that it has not held its scheduled 4-year elections since 2008!
“Israel claims to have killed 9,000 Hamas fighters but without providing evidence”.12 OK, so they say and it’s fair enough to report it. But shouldn’t an impartial media also report the claims of the guerrillas?
Apart from statements quoting statistics, there have been many videos from the resistance showing them blowing up Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers by their rockets and with hand-delivered bombs. Claims of Israeli cover-up of casualty figures pop up frequently among commentators.
Also, if Israeli sources are claiming killing 9,000 fighters13 when the overall death toll had passed 25,000, is that not an admission of killing at least 14,000 civilians in three months? Why is the western mass media not making that simple subtraction and publicising its conclusion?
The Gaza health ministry “does not distinguish between military and civilian casualties”14 is quoted in almost every single wsm report listing Palestinian casualties.
What is the purpose of this except to allow the reader to infer that maybe most or a heavy proportion of the dead are not civilians? This is nearly always in the report alongside the fact that most of the dead are women and children (therefore without any question civilians.)
A line being repeated in the western mass media more recently is also profoundly misleading: “The Palestinians want a state to include the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.” How does the wsm know what the Palestinians want? Have they carried out a survey?15
In the Oslo Accords, the Al Fatah-dominated PLO agreed to a two-state arrangement, i.e one to be Zionist-run and the other run by Palestinians. The area on offer to the Palestinians composed less than 40% of the original Palestine, much unproductive land and the least accessible water.
However, since 2000, the Second Intifada expressed a clear rejection of Al Fatah which was even more clearly the case with their replacement in the 2008 Palestinian Authority election results. The second-largest organisation in the PLO, the PFLP wants a unitary democratic state.16
All the imperialist states, including the EU, USA and UK, along with the capitalist Arab states support the two-state “solution” (sic) for Palestine which, apart from being fundamentally unjust, is likely to store up trouble for the future — as indeed it has in Ireland.17
End.
FOOTNOTES
1https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamas-october-7-attack-tactics-targets-and-strategy-terrorists
2https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-york-times-october-7-sexual-violence-report-renounces-story-says-reporters-manipulated-them The immediate purpose of the Palestinian raid was clear: to kill enemy military and take prisoners for exchange for Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails. Quite apart from any question of morals or morale among the guerrillas, the other type of crimes of which they were being accused were clearly impractical in the timescale and would also have given the Zionists and wsm valuable propaganda material against the guerrillas. They clearly did not carry out those crimes but they were accused of them anyway and the lies repeated again and again.
3https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-hostages-investigation-friendly-fire-3b6fdd4592957340b32a8ee71505b8e9
4Ibid.
5Anti-Palestinian sources reporting new body count etc https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/12/israel-revises-october-7-death-toll-after-agonizing-forensics/ and https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths
6As late as early this month, one believed hostage was confirmed not captured but killed https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67053011, i.e probably one of those bodies incinerated in a car by Israeli Hellfire missiles from helicopters and only recently identified.
72008-’9 (23 days), 2012 (8 days), 2014 (50 days), 2021 (11 days) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/7/timeline-israels-attacks-on-gaza-since-2005 Israel fought 6 wars with Gaza from 1947 to 1987.
8https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-two-months-after-oct-7-for-many-israelis-fate-of-relatives-still-a-mystery/
9Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Jenin Brigades, Lion’s Den …
10Yasser Arafat’s Al Fatah party lost the 2008 elections because of their corruption and because of their agreement to the Oslo Accords giving them a kind of state to run through the Palestinian Authority but with no right of return for the Palestinian refugees. The youth rose up in the Second Intifada (2000-2005), against the Israeli occupation but also against Al Fatah misrule and collusion with Zionism. The Al Fatah control of the PA’s offices in the West Bank is in defiance of the 2008 election results but the EU and USA don’t mind sending them the money for the PA.
11Quoted recently from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/china-calls-gaza-peace-conference-hamas-disclose-fate-israeli-hostages-2024-01-15/
12https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-rcna132421
13https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-rcna132421 Highly doubtful and almost certainly an over-estimation by a number of thousands (which would make the number of civilians killed even higher).
14https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-01-25-2024 (paragraph 10)
15Any viable Palestinian state needs to be able to take in the Palestinian refugees, more than 5.6 million registered with the UN in 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees
16And Hamas stated that they did not invade Israel on October 7th but rather “entered into a part of Palestine”.
17Ireland, like Palestine, was occupied by Britain and ruled as one country. In 1948, with imperialist support, Zionist settlers seized some of Palestine for a ‘Jewish State’ and occupied more of it in 1967. Ireland was partitioned by Britain in 1921, the creation of a sectarian colonial statelet alongside a neocolonial state, which led to a civil war 1922-1923 and a number of guerrilla resistance campaigns since.
SOURCES
“ISRAELI MILITARY DELIBERATELY KILLED HOSTAGES ON 7th OCTOBER”
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)
Israeli journalists have been accusing the Israeli military command of re-activating their infamous “Hannibal Doctrine” to prevent Palestinians capturing Israelis “by any means necessary” – including killing the prisoners.
The Doctrine takes its name from a Carthaginian general and statesman famous in history for his early successes against the Roman Empire. In his declining days, unable to escape Romans coming to take him prisoner, Hannibal swallowed poison and took his own life.
After 2006, the Israeli armed forces were informed verbally that in the case of the Palestinian resistance capturing a member of their forces alive, they would kill him rather than be obliged to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldiers’ release.1
The military claimed to have abandoned the Hannibal Doctrine afterwards but within a couple of days of October 7th, people monitoring Israeli printed media and radio found references to an Israeli commander calling a strike on their own base and helicopters shooting cars heading to Gaza.
Some if not all of these would have likely contained Israeli prisoners taken by the Palestinian fighters and explains the torched wrecks containing incinerated bodies, the victims of Hellfire missiles from the helicopters – the kind of weapons not carried by the fighters.
There were also the statements of Israeli survivors in the kibbutz about an Israeli tank firing a shell into a house containing Palestinian fighters and their prisoners, in addition to a crossfire between the Israeli military and the Palestinian fighters in general.
Although these accounts were taken from Israeli sources, with quotations of named individuals and even audio record of a radio interview and shared on line, the western mass media chose to ignore them.
Now, the allegation that the “Hannibal Directive” was reactivated (if it was ever abandoned) is being widely discussed in Israeli media with calls for an investigation and for the military to come clean. They in turn have promised an investigation but only once this particular war is over.
But once again, the western mass media is not covering the discussion and continues to repeat the number of 1,200 Israelis killed by the Palestinian fighters on 7th October,2 which is clearly not the case. This is the ‘free press’ which we are told to value so much!
At some point in the future the facts will emerge and the western mass media will probably do a lot of reporting on the various admissions and theories, without once having the grace to even apologise for keeping all this from their readers for so long.
However, medical staff have been warned by Israeli authorities not to speak to journalists or to the United nations commission investigating the events of October 7th on Israeli-held territory.3
Meanwhile, relatives of the Israelis captured by the Palestinian fighters are demanding that the return of the prisoners be prioritised, even breaking into a Government meeting and shouting at Israeli government ministers,4 painting red the road outside Netanyahu’s home, etc etc.
Those in command at political and military level seem, by their actions rather than their words, ready to sacrifice the captives in order to wreak as heavy and long-lasting destruction and death as possible upon the Palestinian population of Gaza.
Even medium-ranking military commanders (and some higher) are reported saying that Netanyahu’s purported twin strategic aims of wiping out Hamas and “freeing the hostages” are not doable and are even mutually exclusive.
This must have an impact on the morale of commanders and lower rank Israeli military who have also found the fighting much harder than they expected and were unable to occupy the whole of northern Gaza in the face of fierce united Palestinian resistance.
Indeed, the numbers of IOF dead announced by the Israeli military do not seem to match the losses of their armoured vehicles alone, given that the tanks have a crew of five and even a tank disabled by rocket and repairable later is likely to have a dead crew.
Their losses in battle commanders is also high; these have their command stations inside tanks.
The injuries of wounded Israeli soldiers are likely to be of a serious physical nature and to that one must add mental trauma. Indeed, for all their much-vaunted equipment and total control of the air, the military performance of the Israeli ground military is widely reckoned poorly.
The public jeers of the Palestinian resistance that the Israeli military is at its best when it comes to fighting civilians, women and children but that confronted with armed resistance, they are not much, seems more than just propaganda to boost the morale of the Palestinians.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Invoked in 2014 at least, leading to the death of a captured Israeli soldier https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/whats-the-hannibal-directive-a-former-israeli-soldier-tells-all
2https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/israel-revises-death-toll-from-october-7-hamas-attack-to-1200-people
3https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-forbids-doctors-from-speaking-to-un-group-investigating-oct-7-atrocities/
4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=956PmusMABk
SOURCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
Israeli media discussion on whether their armed forces killed Israelis: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-13/ty-article-opinion/.premium/if-israel-used-a-procedure-against-its-citizens-we-need-to-talk-about-it-now/0000018c-6383-de43-affd-f783212e0000
External media with Israeli testimonies on the Doctrine:
Electronic Intifada re the Doctrine: https://youtu.be/-yxEMYRoYBc
https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/hannibal-directive-did-israel-kill-its-own-15574953
Reiterating the incorrect numbers: https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visualizing-data
Israeli relatives of prisoners held by Palestinians demonstrate against Israeli Government and storm cabinet meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=956PmusMABk
ISRAELI EMBASSY BLOCKADED AGAIN: “ZIONIST AMBASSADOR OUT!”
Clive Sulish
(Reading time: 2 mins.)
Palestinian solidarity supporters demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin again this afternoon, calling for the expulsion of the legation and the Israeli Ambassador. The protest was maintained from around 3pm to after 6pm today.
Organised by Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Action for Palestine, supported by Anti-Imperialist Action and independent activists, the protest kept up an almost endless chorus of slogans in English, Irish and Arabic languages, calling for a free Palestine and an end to genocide.
Slogans were shouted denouncing the genocide being committed by the USA, the EU, the “Western Powers” and the “western media”, along with the collusion of the Irish Government. As large numbers of Gardaí arrived their collusion with zionism was called out also.
The latest figures of the Zionist genocide have now passed 27,000 dead in four months, more than two-thirds of them women and children, 66,287 injured, with 70% of Gaza housing destroyed and over 85% of its population displaced, a quarter starving and without clean drinking water.
17,000 children are without parents or separated, according to UNICEF. And now evidence is mounting of Israeli ‘field executions’ and random sniper killing of Palestinian civilians and an Israeli military murder squad shooting three young Palestinian men sleeping in a hospital.
Meanwhile, outside the Zionist Embassy in Dublin …
No less than three van-loads of the POU Gardaí (riot police) and many uniformed officers were there eventually. Later one of the latter threatened all those sitting in front of the entrance as a group with arrest under the Public Order Act, though no public disorder was taking place.
For the rest of their time there, the protesters separated to each side of the Embassy building entrance and the event concluded without any arrests.
Every few minutes car horns could be heard as passing drivers indicated their support, often with a clenched fist or thumbs-up sign out the window. Only two objected: a man walking his dog who said he only cares about Ireland and a woman who shouted from across the road.
It has often been remarked by activists that those who “only care about Ireland” and object to Palestinian solidarity are not seen on the many demonstrations in Ireland protesting lack of housing, health service in tatters or British occupation of the Six Counties.
The Israeli Embassy is in an upper floor of a building rented to the zionist entity by a foreign property company with Irish directors, Quanta Capital at 15 Merrion Square North, a location which has also been the subject of protests.
Other tenants in the building say they have complained about the Embassy tenancy to the company but “they don’t care.”
No doubt protesters will return and the pressure on the Embassy (and on the Irish Government protecting it) will be maintained. Some TD should surely ask in Leinster House how much the taxpayers are being charged for maintaining an official zionist presence in Dublin.
End.
SOURCES
6,000 March to Commemorate Derry’s Bloody Sunday and in Solidarity with Palestine
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 7 mins.)
Led by four Republican marching bands and containing a number of organisations, around 6,000 people supported the annual march in Derry on Sunday commemorating the 1972 massacre by the British Parachute Regiment in the city.
This year a special focus on solidarity with Palestine had been called for by the organisers of the Bloody Sunday massacre commemoration and Palestinian flags mixed with ones of Irish Republican organisations decorated the march route.
The march begins at the Creggan Heights, overlooking Derry, a steep walk up from the Bogside, the city’s centre near the river and winds its way down (with a great view of the Foyle river and surrounding area) but then up Westland Street again and along Marlborough Terrace.
For a number of years this commemoration has taken place in heavy rain and high winds, or snow, or sleet but it was dry this year – until the march started! However after a short period of strong gusts driving rain it stopped for the rest of the march.
Down Creggan Road to the Bogside once more and past the Bloody Sunday and H-Block memorials to the rally at Free Derry Corner where Kate Nash, one of the main organisers of the march for years and a sister of one of those murdered in the massacre, welcomed the marchers.
RALLY AND SPEAKERS
Nash condemned the punitive EU/ UK/ USA cutting of funds to the UNRWA organisation carrying out relief and educational work in Gaza following an Israeli State intelligence allegation1 and also called for no Irish politicians to attend the annual US Presidential St. Patrick’s Day event.2
Kate Nash’s brother Willie was murdered by the Parachute Regiment during the massacre and her father was wounded by fire while trying to reach his fallen son. Kate called for a minute’s silence for the dead and wounded that day but also for those in Gaza, in particular the children.
Kate Nash also mentioned the Noah Donohoe case as being close to everyone’s heart.
The names of the dead and wounded by the Parachute Regiment were read out by Damian Donaghy,3 son of Damian Donaghy one of the survivors on that day. Paddy Nash performed the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” which was popular among marchers of the time.
Kate Nash introduced Huda Ammori, a Manchester-based Palestinian activist and one of the Elbit Eight,4 who said she felt at home in Derry because of the people’s solidarity with Palestine.5 The State in Britain failed to convict all but one of any charges arising out of direct action against the arms company.
Ammori drew parallels between the Irish and Palestinian struggles against colonialism and stated that her grandfather had been assassinated for rising up against the British colonisation of Palestine in 1936, when it was a British “Mandate”.
AIA Short Video with Music Bloody Sunday Derry 2024 AIA Video.MP4 (viewable on FaceBook)
“The British signed away the land of Palestine in 1917,” Amori told the rally, “they colonised our lands and then they armed and trained the Zionist militia to commit a Nakba, to displace over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, over half the indigenous population.”
Huda Ammori said weapons were used on Palestinians in Gaza and then marketed as ‘battle-tested’. She also praised those who had taken direct action in Derry against arms firms (e.g Raytheon).
Geraldine Doherty, niece of Gerard Donaghy, youngest of the Bloody Sunday victims, also spoke from the platform, saying it was ‘sad’ but ‘heartwarming’ to see so many people attending the march.
“More than half a century since British troops committed this massacre on these streets, innocent children like my murdered uncle Gerard and hundreds of others as well are still being denied justice”, she said and denounced the British State attempting to prevent the trial of legacy cases being tried.
Doherty spoke of the remaining “trauma for Derry and for Ireland” from which many families have never recovered, with long-term post-traumatic damage such as depression, addiction and divided families.
“But while the people of Derry were battered and imprisoned, we were never broken,” she said to cheers from the rally participants. “Derry has rediscovered its … voice and we are using that voice to oppose the murder of children and women and men, and we stand with the people of Palestine.”
ON THE MARCH
Over the years since I returned to Ireland, I have marched in that commemoration many times, either as an individual or as a member of a solidarity committee and this year was glad to be welcomed as part of the Socialist Republican contingent, with Anti-Imperialist Action.
The bloc carried two banners: the one at the front was a new one in which the AIA called for anti-imperialist revolution and socialism, while at the rear the banner celebrated the Palestinian resistance. In between the banners marchers carried flags and placards.
In the bloc men and women marched with a flags of the AIA, the Starry Plough, Palestine and Cumann na mBan. From the contingent on many occasions could be heard slogans of solidarity with Palestine and some equally applicable to that nation’s resistance or to Ireland’s.
“In the face of occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “No justice – No peace!” were in the latter category while “From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free!”, “Free, free – Palestine!” and “Saoirse don – Phalaistín!” were specifically supporting the Palestinian struggle.
Most Republican organisations and some Irish socialist organisations attend the annual event, along with campaign groups and on occasion solidarity groups from abroad or Irish ones in solidarity with struggles abroad. Sinn Féin no longer attends but some supporters would as individuals.
THE MARCH ROUTE AND HISTORY
The Bloody Sunday march covers the same route as the anti-internment march in January 1972 when the British Paratroopers murdered 14 unarmed marchers and injured so many others. Preceded by the Ballymurphy Massacre in August 1971, it was followed by another in Springhill in July ‘72.
The British military claimed that the Derry victims had been armed and fired first and an inquiry tribunal headed by Lord Justice Widgery exonerated the Army and blamed the victims although the Derry Coroner, an ex-British Army officer had called it “sheer unadulterated murder”.
In 1998, presumably as part of the Good Friday Agreement deal, the British State began a new inquiry which however did not deliver a published verdict until 2010,6 stopping short of accusing the Army of murder but exonerating all the victims except one about which it was equivocal.
At that point, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness said that the march should not be continued; however not one British soldier had even been charged, to say nothing of the commanders and Government Ministers who had either given the orders or arranged the cover-up – or both.
A small group of veterans of the original march and relatives, Kate Nash prominent among them, however decided to keep the march going and have done so every year, often in the face of accusations and disparaging remarks from supporters of Sinn Féin and others.
In 2022, the Massacre’s 50th anniversary, 20,000 marched in it while the Bloody Sunday Trust, an institution and museum supported by the colonial state and Sinn Féin, organised a small “memorial walk” and indoors event in the Guild Hall – the only one reported by the mass media.7
Although veterans of the massacre and of the annual commemoration often meet one another only once a year at the commemoration, some having come from abroad, there are always new young people to be seen among them and hundreds come out to watch the march.
The march is an important commemoration of a massacre by British colonialism which still holds the colony of the Six Counties, a reminder no doubt inconvenient to unionists, neo-colonialists and those who have left the struggle, either through lack of will or for personal advancement.
In its championing and giving voice to other conflicts too, the commemoration march and other related events during the week are a strong expression of internationalist solidarity.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The Israeli state intelligence agency reported that 12 out of 13,000 employees of UNRWA in Gaza had been implicated in the 7th October Palestinian raid following which at least some, possibly all, were sacked by UNRWA, apparently without any hearing or appeal process. The US, UK, Germany, Italy followed this up by suspending all funding to the relief organisation catering for 2 million people in dire circumstances.
2Traditionally, leading politicians of the main Irish political parties, both mainstream and Sinn Féin, have sent representatives to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with US Presidents, many of whom are of Irish descent. This year a campaign has arisen calling on them not to do so but spokespersons of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have insisted they will attend, which the SDLP has declared it will not.
3Not to be confused with the family of Gerard V. Donaghy (20 February 1954 – 30 January 1972), sometimes transcribed as Gerald Donaghey, a native of the Bogside, Derry who was murdered by members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday.
4Eight activists of British-based Palestine Action, a direct action organisation, who as a result of their actions against the Israeli-based military technology company Elbit in Britain, were charged with a total of 12 charges which included criminal damage, burglary and encouraging criminal damage. The trial, which commenced on November 13th, related to a series of actions taken during the first 6 months of Palestine Action’s existence from July 2020 to January 2021. In December last year, one activist was convicted on one charge by 10-2 majority, two were completely cleared and jury failed to reach a majority verdict on the rest of the charges on six remaining activists.
5That would be true of the majority ‘nationalist’ population of the city but not so much of the unionist minority, where support for Israel is more dominant, due in part to susceptibility to British propaganda and also simply out of sectarian hostility to anything favoured by the ‘nationalist’ community.
6At a cost of nearly £200m (€227.7m), half of which went in legal fees, a lawyer’s bonanza, to arrive at a decision that just about everyone in Ireland knew and many abroad knew already and which established no safeguards against a similar massacre being carried out by British military in future.
7Browser searches throw up report after media report, including Al Jazeera’s, of “hundreds” attending the early event, without a mention of the many THOUSANDS who marched later in the day.
SOURCES
Elbit Eight trial and verdict: https://www.palestineaction.org/elbit-eight-verdicts/
The Saville Bloody Sunday Inquiry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_Inquiry
Cost of: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30477561.html
Big Deal! ICJ Interim Requirements of Israel
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 3 mins.)
The good news from South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of justice is that it considers that the zionist entity has a case to answer with regard to genocide against the Palestinians. But its interim instructions are profoundly disappointing.
The ICJ did not even order a humanitarian cessation of bombing from Israel and without that food, water, waterproof emergency shelters, blankets, medicine and fuel for heating cannot be brought in to Gaza. Ambulances often cannot get to bombed sites to collect and deliver victims to hospitals.
Or to collect the dead for burial.
And in addition to the Israeli bombing, the health situation of the Palestinians in Gaza is dire. According to the relief agency of the EU, though visibly biased against the Palestinians: “Urgent needs include water and fuel … to run generators of hospitals and desalinate water; and
“protection of civilians in line with international humanitarian law, including rapid, unhindered, and safe access of humanitarian aid – at the scale needed – into the Gaza Strip for it to reach those in need; health services; food; sanitation and hygiene; shelter and education in emergencies.”
A Victory?
Some states, organisations and people are calling the interim judgement of the ICJ a victory. I just cannot see that, even partially. So Israel has a genocide case to answer? NO. Israel in full view of the world has been guilty of genocide not just since this bombing of Gaza but since 1948.
Clearly. Repeatedly. And with impunity (save for actions of Palestinian resistance and allies). Not only that but the UK, the USA and the EU are complicit in that genocide, funding, arming and justifying the Zionist state’s actions.
And, like the Irish State, in failing to act to prevent genocide, which is a statutory obligation on signatory states.
The Zionist state is also of course violating the UN Convention on Genocide to which it is a signatory.
None of that is debatable to any degree whatsoever. Not according to the evidence of our eyes and ears and to the UN’s definition of genocide: a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
If killing well over 26,000 Palestinians – a national and ethnic group – in little over 100 days doesn’t fit that definition, what would?
If laying siege to Gaza and shutting off food, medicine and heating to its people, blanking telecommunications, bombing housing, hospitals, refugee camps, schools, bakeries, fishing boats, churches, mosques, water and sewage treatment plants, does not fit the definition, then what will?
And yet we may have to wait years for the final judgement of the ICJ on this question.
Interim Measures
Meanwhile, the ICJ, without specifying an interim humanitarian cessation of bombing, has instructed Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention (i.e on Genocide),
But since Netanyahu claims that they are already doing that, how is that instruction going to make any difference?
The ICJ specified in particular: “(a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
“(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. The Court recalls that these acts fall within the scope of Article II of the Convention when they are committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a group as such.
“The Court further considers that Israel must ensure with immediate effect that its military forces do not commit any of the above-described acts.”
Again, but since Netanyahu claims that they are already refraining from such acts, how is that instruction going to make any difference?
The only interim instruction of practical use would have been to oblige Israel to a humanitarian cessation of bombing, even if temporary but it failed to do that.
The international humanitarian restrictions on states to prevent and punish genocide after the European genocides of the 1930s and 1940s have failed. They failed before in Cambodia, the Balkans and they are failing now in Palestine.
Perhaps a socialist world order can restore them. It is clear that a world dominated by imperialism cannot.
End.
Sources
Reports on ICJ Interim Judgement:https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/26/world/israel-hamas-gaza-news and https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/26/world-reacts-to-icj-ruling-on-south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel
Text of Interim Judgement: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-sum-01-00-en.pdf
UN Definition of Genocide: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf
Dire situation of the Palestinians in Gaza (hostile source): https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/where/middle-east-and-northern-africa/palestine_en
IRISH SHAMROCK TO SOAK IN PALESTINIAN BLOOD?
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 10 mins.)
A call has gone out for Irish politicians, as part of pressure on the USA to stop supporting Israeli genocidal attacks on the Palestinians, not to attend friendship ceremonies with the President of the USA on St. Patrick’s Day this year.1
With the US Presidential election scheduled for September, “Genocide Joe” Biden will still be in office on March 17th, a man who apart from representing the major imperialist power in the world, ordered his state’s veto in the UN against a call for a humanitarian ceasefire.
A man who repeated ridiculous Zionist propaganda against the Palestinians of beheading children and rapes, who said that if Israel had not existed the US would have had to invent it, who received more Zionist lobby for his campaigns as Congressman than any other in the whole USA.2
Even without his personal history, after a US-supported slaughter so far of 25,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children and displacement of 85% of Palestinians, you’d think that this would be what UStaters call “a slam dunk”, that Irish politicians would feel too disgusted to make the trip.
Sadly this revulsion is not felt among most politicians in Ireland, who from from Varadkar in the Government to Mary Lou MacDonald of Sinn Féin in the Opposition have indicated that they have no intention of foregoing this annual pilgrimage to the Boss of the World
What is this strange Irish obsession with the United States of America anyway? Yes, of course, it is a (or the) major world power and yes, a number of people of Irish antecedence have become its Presidents – including the first Roman Catholic to reach that office.3
But really, what has the US concretely done for Ireland? Did it send us troops to help drive the English from our land? No, the Spanish Kingdom did that once and the French did it twice, once as Kingdom and again as Republic. But the US? Never.
It might be protested that the USA permitted Irish to emigrate there but a) it did so for many others too and b) only in order to populate its European colonisation of the Indigenous land and c) to compete against other European colonial powers – in particular the Spanish, French and Dutch.
It is true that it has on occasion served as a haven for Irish ‘on the run’ from British jurisdiction but so did France and in any event, those cases were nearly always when the USA was at war or in diplomatic conflict with the United Kingdom in the USA’s own interests.
WHEN THE USA COULD HAVE REALLY HELPED THE IRISH STRUGGLE
When the US-based Fenians raised an army to invade British colonial Canada in 18664, they had hopes that the government of the US would at least not impede them. The British had supported the Confederacy in the American Civil War which had cost 650,000-800,000 lives.5
That number represented the highest number of US dead in any military conflict before that (or since), fought to eliminate slavery, which the UK had abolished 50 years earlier6 – yet it supported the Confederacy7 in a number of ways including building warships for them.
The USA closed the border with Canada and arrested Fenian war veterans under arms8 waiting to cross but only after (perhaps to make a point with the British) an advance Fenian force had already entered British Canada, seized Fort Erie and defeated British soldiers of the line and militia.
The US President, Andrew Johnson issued the border closure and arrest of Fenians by Executive Order on June 5th 1866, which was enforced under orders from General Ulysses Grant9 and put an end to the operation, as the US did to subsequent attempts.
The British subsequently paid $15.5 million in 1872 for damage caused by the British-built Confederate warship, the Alabama, after which both states entered into friendly relations.10
The USA did not support the Irish insurrection of 1916 nor the War of Independence. After WWI, while the victorious imperialists held their “Peace Conference” to discuss the new world order and re-divide up the world, US President Wilson declined to meet the Irish Republican delegation.11
The USA did not support the Irish in the War of Independence (1919-1921) nor support the Republican side in the Civil War (1922-1923). Nor again during the Border Campaign, nor during the Civil Rights Campaign followed by armed struggle (1968-1998).
In 1992, after a long legal and political battle, IRA Volunteer Joe Doherty, in the US since 1983 was finally extradited to the Six Counties despite a) the political nature of his charge and b) the well-known low proof standards of the political courts in the British colony.12
It is true of course that, in deference to the feelings of its large Irish-American population and their representation in the US polity, that it has permitted certain Irish solidarity activities on US soil and, at times, issued statements of concern over British actions in Ireland – but nothing more.
The Irish-American political representation is for the most part US first and Irish second, i.e US Imperialist first and foremost. Ireland is also used by US monopolies as a side door into the markets of the EU and, through registering head offices in Ireland, for avoiding taxes in the USA.
NEO-COLONIAL ASPIRANTS TO THE GOMBEEN CLUB
So what is all this US homage in the Irish official polity about — and in particular among Sinn Féin? How can leaders of the party correctly criticise the genocidal actions of the Israeli State and yet speak no word against the main backer of the zionist state, i.e the USA?
The answer is simply that the new SF, which was never overall socialist nor even particularly anti-imperialist throughout the Provisionals phase, is now neo-colonialist and knocking on the doors of the established gombeens,13 asking for admittance, which they are sure to receive in time.
They are not the first to make the transition from revolutionary Irish Republicans to gombeen party. Fianna Fáil, representing some of the leadership of the losing IRA side in the Irish Civil War, was an Irish ‘constitutional’ party and became the preferred choice of the gombeen ruling class.
Fianna Fáil has been in government more often than any other party in the history of the Irish State and is there now, sharing government with their former binary opposition party, Fine Gael, along with the Greens. The FF party too considered the friendship of the USA to be important.
For the SF party leadership however the US is important also based on their perception of it being a guarantor in the Irish pacification process. In their twisted reality, US imperialism is forcing British imperialism and colonialism to do – what?
Remove the British colonialists? Remove the sectarian colonial government? Stop the penetration of the Irish economy by foreign multinationals, including those of the USA?
Of course not and in the unlikely event that thoughts of doing so ever crossed the minds of US imperialists, they would discard them instantly in favour of the continued alliance with the imperialist UK as their junior partner.
NO SOAKING THE SHAMROCK IN PALESTINIAN BLOOD
Although there are many other complicit states, the USA is the major supporter of the Israeli State, financially, militarily and politically, using its position as one of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council to veto resolutions proposed against the Zionist state.
The Israeli State represents a western imperialist foothold for the USA in the Middle East, the only one that is entirely safe from either internal national liberation or fundamentalist islamist uprising and it has continued to support Israel throughout the state’s genocidal history.
The role of the US in this conflict is to defend and supply the Zionist state but also to manage client states in the region and around the world get them to support ‘Israel’ (or at least to limit their opposition to the state), alongside preventing or hampering assistance reaching the Palestinians.
Sinn Féin called recently for the Zionist Ambassador to be expelled from Ireland but initially, Mary Lou had declined to do so, saying it would not be helpful. She came under strong pressure from within the party’s membership and had to join the call for the person’s expulsion.
However, that’s easy to explain to Biden as the necessity of staying on top of a troublesome horse in order to bring it eventually under control. After all, the Government wasn’t going to expel the Ambassador, no matter what anybody said, was it?
There is a statement applicable here from the Christian Bible which has since become a proverb (if it was not already one at the time of writing), that “one cannot serve two masters”. One of the ‘masters’ is usually understood to mean money but that’s not what I mean here.14
The SF leadership cannot serve both Palestinian solidarity and US imperialism but there’s no danger of their even trying to do so – they know who their real master is. The Palestinian solidarity posturing is for their supporters and to show they can play their required role in the world.
Their President, Mary Lou did so when she offered the Irish pacification process as an example for the Palestinians15 and the whole of the SF leadership does so in supporting the imperialist “two-state solution” (sic) in which a colonial Palestinian state is to be set up under Israeli guns.
And on 40% or less of their original land, with the least water.
Neither the SF leadership nor the other politicians have any intention of missing the event in the USA in March when they offer their allegiance along with the symbolic tribute, the bowl of leaders’ shamrock which now, however, is soaked in Palestinian blood.
We should at least make it difficult for them by signing the petition and in other opportunities as may arise between now and that date.
End.
end.
Footnotes
1In three weeks, this has received 5,000 signatures so far https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/petition-calling-for-white-house-st-patricks-day-boycott-surpasses-5k-signatures. The petition was originated I believe in Derry by PBP supporters and the IPSC has backed the call publishing their own statement on their media.
2“During his 36 years in the Senate, Biden was the chamber’s biggest recipient in history of donations from pro-Israeli groups, taking in $4.2 million, according to the Open Secrets database.” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens-lifelong-bond-with-israel-shapes-war-policy-2023-10-21/
3John F. Kennedy, elected in 1963. Biden, current US President has an Irish Catholic background and Obama and Reagan both had Irish antecedents.
4The Civil War ended that year and many Fenians were War veterans, mostly of the Union but with some of the Confederacy.
5https://www.history.com/news/american-civil-war-deaths
6https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/britain-slavery-abolition-act/
7https://www.military-history.org/feature/american-civil-war/it-was-british-arms-that-sustained-the-confederacy-during-the-american-civil-war-peter-tsouras.htm and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_and_the_American_Civil_War
8And many in US Army uniforms, for it was straight after the end of the American Civil War.
9https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2021/03/25/celebrating-irish-americans-the-fenian-brotherhood/ Grant’s mother and grandfather were from Co. Tyrone, as was Johnson’s grandfather. https://epicchq.com/story/us-presidents-with-irish-heritage/
10https://history.state.gov/milestones/1861-1865/alabama
11Or even to reply to their correspondence although interestingly he did reply to that of a young Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam in ‘French’ Indo-China (according to research presented in Dublin some years ago and noted by me)
12He had been a member of a unit in Belfast that killed a captain of an SAS undercover unit attempting to surround them.
13From the Irish language “gaimbíneachas”, a pejorative term describing the practice of those Irish with capital who took advantage of the hardships of the Great Hunger to appropriate land holdings and businesses, something similar to the disdained “carpetbaggers” in the defeated states of the American Confederacy. The term is now applied to Irish politicians and business people who facilitate foreign exploitation of Irish natural resources, labour, infrastructure and housing need.
14Although in that sense too the saying is applicable to the SF leadership.
15 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41308273.html
Sources
Fenian invasion of Canada: https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2021/03/25/celebrating-irish-americans-the-fenian-brotherhood/
Petition: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/boycott-st-patrick-s-day-celebrations-at-the-whitehouse-2024
rebelbreeze 