Revolutionary socialist & anti-imperialist; Rebel Breeze publishes material within this spectrum and may or may not agree with all or part of any particular contribution. Writing English, Irish and Spanish, about politics, culture, nature.
The German Nazis invaded France during the Second World War, however, they did not occupy all of France, opting instead to leave a part of it in the hands of collaborationist government with its administrative centre in the city of Vichy.
This government, under the command of Marshall Petain, a French first world war hero, collaborated closely with the Nazis, repressing the French resistance and deporting Jews to the camps.
Marshal Philippe Pétain (left) with Adolf Hitler in Montoire-sur-le-Loir, France, October 1940. (Photo cred: Roger Viollet/Getty Images)
In addition, freeing up German troops to fight the war by taking over the daily work of occupation. Nowadays, the term Vichy is synonymous with “collaborator with an occupation”, betrayal and surrender.
Although the phrase originated in the context of the Nazi occupation of France, it can be applied to many conflicts following the second World War.
The Palestinian Authority government has a lot in common with Vichy. Following the Oslo Accords the PA took over the repression of the more coherent and revolutionary factions, just as Marshal Pétain had done in Vichy.
It also freed up Zionist troops and police forces from the daily work of occupation and collaborates closely with the fascist regime in Tel Aviv.
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, on Blinken’s recent visit to ‘Israel’ during the Israeli genocidal bombing. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Over the years this government has bent the knee time and again to the Israelis, sometimes begging the Western powers to intervene on issues such as settlements in the West Bank. At no point has it led a struggle against the Zionists.
In fact, it presents itself as the reasonable representative with whom negotiations can happen and agreements reached.
Now Israel commits endless war crimes in Gaza and is carrying out a genocide in Gaza against the Palestinians.
It aims to wipe Palestinians off the map, expel them from Gaza and also the West Bank, take control over sacred sites, such as the Al Aqsa Mosque destroy it and build their own temple in its place.
And what does the Vichy regime do in the face of such crimes? Little. It sticks to begging the West to put an end to the barbarity, ignoring that these same powers have always supported Israel, politically, militarily and economically.
It does have other options, but they require them declaring war on the Zionist regime and calling on the Arab masses to unite. Such a revolutionary option fills them with fear and they prefer to continue to collaborate with the fascist regime of Tel Aviv.
It could also ask the reactionary Arab regimes for help. But it hasn’t placed the first demand on those governments. First it could demand the expulsion of the Israeli ambassadors and to break all diplomatic and commercial relations with the regime.
Arab states & ‘Israel’, Middle East (Image sourced: Internet)
But it hasn’t done so, nor will it. The Houthi rebels who have been fighting against one of the most reactionary Arab regimes for eight years, namely Saudi Arabia have done more in a few days to strike a blow against the economy of the Zionist regime.
In a short period, the Houthis have attacked at least 12 commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to Yankee military sources. Their attacks have reduced the flow of trade through the sea and Suez Canal.
Four of the five big shipping companies, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGN Group & Evergreen have suspended shipments through the Red Sea(1) and the company OOCL announced that it would not accept shipments to or from Israel.
And the cost of transport had gone up from USD $1,975 to $2,300 within a few days.(2)
Meanwhile Vichy has done nothing. The Arab regimes have made no demands against Israel and the oil flows not only to Israel but also Great Britain and the USA. Without the Vichy regime, Israel would have had greater problems in the region.
Not only should the Zionist regime fall, but also the Arab regimes and the Vichy government of Palestine. They are all, in their own way, responsible for the genocide in ´Gaza.
Among Christmas shopping crowds in Dublin’s city centre, the calls for freedom of political prisoners rang out, while the Irish, Palestinian and Basque flags fluttered in the wind among festive lights and projected light-show.
The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign was holding its annual political prisoner solidarity picket in the busy O’Connell street, supported by socialist Republican groups and independent activists.
View of picket line looking southward. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
December is a traditional month in Ireland for focus on Republican prisoners. However, the IAIC campaign has always made a point of remembering political prisoners elsewhere too, with Palestinian and Basque flags erected on its regular pickets.
This year the Campaign had especially requested Palestinian flags and these were present, both the national flag and that of the Peoples Front for the Liberation Palestine, fluttering alongside Basque flags and the green-and-gold Starry Plough.1
In addition, one of the IAIC’s banner displayed a large copy of an image depicting a Palestinian’s arm extended through prison bars to grasp the hand of an Irish Republican prisoner’s hand also from nearby bars, from the original by political cartoonist Carlos Latuf,.
A black banner had been rigged with lights to spell “Saoirse”, the Irish word for “freedom” and the picketers set up in a line with other banners and flags facing the GPO building.2
Political prisoners sometimes have their family visits cancelled as a punishment and during the Covid pandemic prevention period it was used as an excuse to prevent Republican prisoners’ family visits. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
SHOUTS
A speaker using a megaphone informed passers-by that internment without trial had not ceased in Ireland and that Republicans were being charged and then refused bail by non-jury courts on both sides of the British Border, spending two years in jail regardless of their trials’ outcomes.
All the Republican prisoners, the IAIC speaker said, had been convicted in non-jury special courts. Palestinians were also being convicted in special courts, he said, military courts and many were in jail – in “administrative detention”, i.e interned without ever having been convicted or tried.
Over 3,000 had been arrested in Israeli Army raids since October 7th,3 the speaker said through the megaphone, bringing the overall number of Palestinians in jail to over 7,000.4
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The recent exchange of prisoners between the Zionist state and the Palestinian resistance had resulted in liberty for 240 Palestinians, of which 1075 were children and 68 women.
There was regular chanting from the picket line including: “From Ireland to Palestine – Free all political prisoners!” “When there is occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “Free political prisoners – Free them now!”
At one point some kind of religious procession was briefly enacted in front of the GPO building and an elderly woman in apparent religious garb approached the picketers shouting something at them which they largely ignored, maintaining their solidarity slogans.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
In addition to interested people taking photos or filming video of the protest on their devices, some approached the participants to ask questions and to receive a leaflet, after which a number actually joined the protest line for a while (some until the end).
Occasional passing traffic also sounded their horns in solidarity.
The pavement in front of the GPO showing shoppers and people queuing for food distribution. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
STATEMENT
As the end of the event’s allocated period approached, a representative of the IAIC asked the participants to gather around and spoke about how resistance brings repression and oppression brings resistance, resistance being the “crime” for which political activists are jailed.
The participants were thanked for their support, whether independents or activists of Ireland Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín organisations.
The event ended with the acapella singing of “The H-Block Song” by Diarmuid Breatnach, in an adaptation of the original air to the lyrics of what is “still a good song” he said, composed by a man who, along with his party, “no longer supported Republican prisoners”.6
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The lyrics recall the struggle of Republican prisoners in the late 1970s against the removal of their ‘Special Category’ political status, which began with refusal to wear prisoner uniform. The struggle escalated to the “no-wash protests” and to hunger strikes in 1980 with ten martyrs in 1981.
As the protesters collected their flags and wrapped up their banners, the nature of current Irish society was underlined by the queues forming up across the road for free food being distributed by charitable organisations.
Early view of picketers, looking northward. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
INDEPENDENT AND OPEN DEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION
The IAIC is “an independent organisation and open democratic organisation” of ten years’ existence and although it has held events for specific cases such as the framed Craigavon Two,7 its main activity has been regular public pickets in Dublin to highlight ongoing internment in Ireland.
The Campaign group encourages participation by democratic people in its regular pickets, regardless of political organisation affiliation or none and, according to one of the organisers, expects to hold its next one in Dublin in January or February.
The IAIC expects also to take part again in the annual Bloody Sunday Commemoration march in Derry on Sunday 29th January 2024.
end.
Unintentionally impressionistic image, photo taken from the east side of O’Connell Street (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
APPENDIX: ANNIVERSARY OF HANGING OF IRISH REPUBLICAN
Though not mentioned in the discourse, the above event took place within days of the anniversary of the British colonial execution of an Irishman in revenge for his killing of an ex-Republican who had turned informer.
James Carey, in the midst of a ‘witness protection program’ provided as a reward for his betrayal of his comrades in giving evidence in court to ensure the jailing of some and hanging of five others, was killed in a gunfight with Pat O’Donnell.
Carey had been a leading member of the National Invincibles’ (a split from the Fenians) cell in Dublin, and had given the signal for the fatal stabbing of British Under-Secretary Burke and Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park on 6th May 1882.
However, Carey turned “Queen’s Evidence” to testify ensuring the conviction of his former colleagues and even gloated in court at their fate. His reward, but for O’Donnell, would have been a new life with pension under an assumed name with wife and children in the South African colony.
O’Donnell was an independent Republican from the Irish-speaking Gweedore area in Donegal but had been to the USA, where he had cousins who were prominent in the “Molly Maguires”, an Irish-led resistance organisation among miners in the USA.
O’Donnell was hanged on 17th December 1883 but is commemorated in the satirical song “Monto” and also in the serious “Ballad of Pat O’Donnell”. His home town of Gweedore also holds a monument in his honour.
end.
FOOTNOTES
1Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, founded to protect workers from the police during the Dublin Lockout/ Strike of 1913.
2The General Post Office, iconic building on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, which was the HQ of the leadership of the 1916 Rising, left a shell by fire from British artillery bombardment but rebuilt later.
6Francis Brolly (1938-1920) of Provisional Sinn Féin, composed the song which was released in 1976. PSF abandoned the struggle in the imperialist-promoted pacification process towards the end of the last century and most of their prisoners were released under licence. However those who made public their disagreement with the colonial occupation and the pacification process were on occasion returned to jail while new “dissidents” were charged and refused bail in special no-jury courts, with tacit support of the PSF.
There is no doubt that the genocidal bombing of Palestine has radically politicised people around the world, exposing the Zionist colonial state of ‘Israel’ and its US and other imperialist backers to a greater degree than ever before.
The effect has been hugely but not alone on the mass of people and especially the young, it has been felt also on democratic organisations, pushing them towards more revolutionary positions and actions. Even representatives of states have had to pay close attention to what they say and do.1
There probably has not been a situation of anti-imperialist radicalisation to a similar degree around the world since the USA’s war in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia – of which the death of Kissinger this month was a reminder, if one were needed).2
Section of the march to the US Embassy passing through Baggot Street on Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach) (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Dublin saw thousands on its streets again at the weekend in a march towards the US Embassy, while Axa Insurance was occupied and picketed during the week for its investment in genocide. It seemed that every town across the land also saw a demonstration or picket.
The US Ambassador to Ireland’s residence was also picketed on the occasion he had invited Irish politicians and “VIPs” to a meal.
On Tuesday the broad Saoirse Don Phalaistín group organised an occupation of the Israeli Embassy with a picket of about sixty people outside, of different groups and individual activists. Furthermore, it became clear that the State was reluctant to create ‘martyrs’ with arrests.
Picket outside the Zionist Embassy Tuesday with some protesters in occupation before those were removed by Public Order Unit Gardaí (Photo sourced: Anti-Imperialist Action)
THE “FREE PRESS”
The mass media is an integral part of the imperialist system and that too has come under huge criticism.
The western mass media, “the free press” of the western capitalist world, has undergone a huge exposure of its biased reporting (and censorship, particularly on social media). Every atrocity committed by Israel has been represented as ‘caused’ by the Palestinian attack of 7th October.
On the other hand, the attacks of the Palestinian resistance have never been presented as what they truly are and have always been: responses to occupation, genocide, banishment, racism, murder, torture, land-theft and massive bombings by Israel.
Every lie of the Zionist administration and of its imperialist allies, including such patently ridiculous horror stories as ‘beheading of Israeli babies’ and ‘rape and mutilation of Israeli women’ has been repeated while entirely likely accusations by Palestinians have been treated as dubious.
Conversely, within the settler colony itself, some parts of its mass media have exposed the panicky reaction of its military to the October 7th incursion, in killing hostages along with their Palestinian captors and the very recent killing of three escaped or released Israeli hostages.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE “DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS”
The allegedly democratic state institutions have fared no better. The European Union was exposed in its voting and by words of its Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, as a profoundly imperialist backer of Israeli Zionism (e.g fulsomely celebrating the anniversary of the state’s founding3).
According to reports, the EU last week failed even to call for a ceasefire, despite a large majority of states being in favour. The opposition of the minority was so strong that they decided to completely avoid formally discussing the matter at all!4
The United Nations was exposed as a profoundly undemocratic body in that the vast majority of its member states wished the Israeli bombing to stop but were unable to force the Zionist state to comply, even with formally registered votes.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Only decisions of the Security Council are compulsory on the 193 members and any Permanent Member of that Council can veto any resolution. There are only five of those: UK, France, USA, Russia and China — and the USA vetoed the call for unilateral Israeli ceasefire.
The USA has consistently opposed any resolution that went counter to what Israel intends and recently twice vetoed a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow food, medicine and water to reach the besieged and displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
This was countered last week by a massive majority of the General Assembly voting for such a motion, which however has no obligatory effect by UN rules, thereby exposing the inherent undemocratic nature of the institution but also isolating the USA from its clients and allies.5
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In fact, the voting in the Security Council and in the General Assembly exposed fractures in European imperialist unity too, since the UK abstained and France voted for the ceasefire.
The allies of the USA fear that the actions of Israel are destabilising the Middle East and feel that the USA should be pressurising rather than backing the Zionist state.
When put under pressure reactionary alliances tend to strain and fracture and this too is a sign that events are developing along lines favourable to revolution.
The International Criminal Court, which a number of liberals and social democrats hope will try Israel for war crimes and genocide was also exposed, not only by its own record to date but by the biased actions of its Prosecutor Karim Khan on a recent visit to the Zionist state.6
Despite the overwhelmingly majority sympathy for and empathy with the Palestinians in many states, their rulers have not responded to anything like the degree wished for and demanded by their citizens, neither in states of the “western world” nor in those of the Arab or Muslim worlds.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The rulers of the German and French “democracies” have widened the gap by banning Palestine solidarity demonstrations and persecuting people wearing the keffiyeh (and in the case of France, previously outlawing wearing of traditional muslim dress in public places by women).
In Britain, the idea of banning the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!” as “antisemitic” was proposed by the Home Secretary7 and a number of direct activists and even posterers on social media have been arrested under criminal and even anti-terrorist legislation.
The British imperialist Labour Party has been exposed too by the words of its leader Keir Starmer; denunciations during his visit to his party’s organisation in Scotland exposed not only Starmer’s unpopularity but his party’s too, along with the massive support for Palestine there.
THEIR ACTIONS MAKE THINGS WORSE FOR THEM
When the enemy’s repressive actions make things worse, rather than better for them, it is a sign that revolutionary opportunities are on the rise.
Direct actions are an essential component of revolution and such have been on the rise too, from occupations of Government offices and buildings complicit with Zionism in Ireland, for example, to occupations and blockades of arms companies in Britain and of shipments in the USA.
Whether these actions are motivated in part by frustration at the lack of progress by other means or through revolutionary understanding, they put the system under greater pressure and tend to isolate the reformists while the activists gain deeper education about the nature of the system.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The world has witnessed unity in action too, with Hezbollah8 missiles launched from Lebanon against the Israelis causing casualties; but 60 martyrs of the resistance organisation have also fallen to Israeli bombs and missiles9 and Lebanese non-combatants have also, including journalists.
Houthi attacks on shipping off Yemen have caused disruption and financial cost to several major freight companies – including MSC and Maersk – which have begun to sail around Africa instead.
About 15% of shipping traffic regularly transited via the Suez Canal, the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. Combined, the companies that have diverted vessels “control around half of the global container shipping market,” ABN Amro analyst Albert Jan Swart told Reuters.10
Oil major extractor British Petroleum has also temporarily paused all transits through the Red Sea following the attacks over the weekend.11
Most impressive of all however has been the unity and coordination of the Palestinian armed resistance itself.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is Hamas’ armed wing and the party is a Muslim fundamentalist organisation, as are also Palestine Islamic Jihad. But the Lion’s Den, Jenin Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees are mixed.
The Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine12 and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine are secular, socialist organisations yet they and the Islamic organisations are fighting the Israeli state in unity coordinated through the Joint Operations Room.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
PRISONERS, HOSTAGES, CIVILIANS
The current struggle has also brought to light the huge numbers and treatment of Palestinian prisoners of the Zionist state, including women and children, when some of the latter were exchanged with prisoners taken by the Palestinian forces in their incursion on 7th October.
This issue also challenged the discourse about ‘rules of war’ regarding civilians about which politicians and media commentators made much in attacking the Palestinian incursion.
The question must be posed as to why the Zionist state can take “prisoners” while the Palestinians take “hostages”?13 Outside the US Embassy on Saturday, an IPSC speaker called Israel’s prisoners “freedom fighters” to loud applause, the first such public stance by the organisation.14
Here in Ireland it is a Republican tradition in December to focus on its members incarcerated in prisons within the Irish neo-colonial and British colonial states. The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign held its annual event in front of the GPO on Thursday 23rd including Palestinian flags.
Annual Prisoners’ picket for Christmas organised by the Ireland Anti-Internment Committee showing Palestinian and Irish flags (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sadly it was not only officials embedded in the system but also liberals and some of the Left who condemned the Palestinians for ‘attacks on civilians’, ignoring the fact that civilians and soldiers were being captured to exchange for the many Palestinian civilians behind Israeli prison bars.
Then too, rarely mentioned in the media is the fact that most Israeli men and women are military reservists. On the other hand, of over 20,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombing, at least a third are women and children, which shows who it is who really are attacking civilians.15
The draft requirement applies to any citizen or permanent resident, male or female fit to serve and who has reached the age of 18; many of the soldiers who complete their mandatory military service are later obligated to serve in a reserve unit in accordance with the military’s needs.16
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
IN CONCLUSION
The pain, loss and suffering inflicted upon the Palestinians is a horror almost too hard to grasp; it is intended to demoralise the Palestinians and destroy their resistance to colonisation and can create a feeling of helplessness in us, viewing it from afar.
But it is not destroying the resistance of the heroic Palestinian people who are teaching the world a lesson in resistance, an important attribute of humanity. We should not let our resolve be undermined either.
The oppressed people of the world are a step closer to revolution and liberation as a result of this struggle. Let us push forward together.
1This has been particularly the case with regard to the Irish State but not only there.
2Kissinger was a US imperialist strategist and chief advisor to US President Nixon but was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his steering the US out of their disaster in Indochina and thereby devaluing the Nobel Peace Prize forever hence.
3Without of course any mention of the 750,000 Palestinians expelled forever during the creation of the state.
7Suella Braverman; she has since been sacked but not for that, rather for suggesting that the London Metropolitan Police have been “soft” on Palestinian solidarity demonstrators in contrast to their policing of the far-Right. The latter took advantage of her comments to stage a number of actions including some attacks on police and Braverman’s comments were widely criticised by politicians as having helped set that up.
12According to Wikipedia, PFLP is the second-largest organisation in the PLO. However, the PLO has long been dominated by Al Fatah and, due to the latter’s collusion with Israel and imperialism, the PLO has come to lose much support. Hamas and the Islamic fighting organisations are not part of the PLO.
13There is a long Irish history of political prisoners of the English occupation which were often in the earlier centuries named “hostages” and a Republican prisoners’ newspaper
14Of course it may not be that but rather a personal position of the speaker.
The Irish State is one of four of the European Union which are not also members of the US/NATO military organisation1 but the Irish national ruling class keeps up propaganda to get its citizens to accept the “need” for membership.
The UK’s colony of Six Counties is included in NATO which means that over one-fifth of Irish land is already formally a part of the imperialist military alliance.2 In addition, successive Irish State governments have long been collusive in permitting US military use of Shannon Airport.
The ruling class’s propaganda is emitted not only by politicians’ statements and pro-NATO conferences3 but also through media articles. In this article4 the headline clearly gives the impression that the UK is rendering Ireland needed protection from Russia:
“UK had to come to Ireland’s aid with Russian submarine hovering off Cork harbour”!
Image shows two RAF Typhoons sitting off of the wing of a Voyager tanker after taking on fuel. A multitude of Royal Air Force aircraft flew in-support of Exercise Joint Warrior 2020, most notably 617 Squadron F-35B’s who flew alongside US Marine Corps (USMC) VMFA 211 Squadron F-35B aircraft. (Image sourced: Internet)
WITH ‘PROTECTORS’ LIKE THAT …!
In fact, throughout the history of the existence of the Russian entity, whether as kingdom, empire, socialist or capitalist state, not once has it caused or even threatened the Irish people (and during the 1916 Rising and war of independence its leaders praised the Irish struggle for independence).
On the other hand, the rulers of England, being cast as our protectors, have invaded and colonised Ireland, stolen our natural resources, exploited and massacred our people, repressed our resistance, undermined language and culture, sabotaged our economy and finally partitioned our nation.
To obliterate that reality from Irish popular consciousness is far from easy but first the English and then the Irish national ruling class or bourgeoisie has been at work on that project for centuries.
In 1366, less than two centuries after invasion, the Statutes of Kilkenny sought to end the cultural integration of its colonists, whom the English rulers called “the degenerate English” and whom they accused of having “become more Irish than the Irish themselves”.
During the 16th and 17th centuries the English Crown carried out a number of wars in Ireland to force the indigenous Irish and many of its colonists to accept the Crown’s religion as their own and even exported Irish people as slaves to their American and Caribbean colonies.5
They also organised a number of settlement colonies on Irish land from which they had expelled the natives, requiring the settlers to be English-speaking, non-Catholics, to build house and town for defence and not to employ Catholics.
In the 1780s the English occupation created an Irish colonial chivalric order, the Order of St. Patrick, with a red saltire, to which Irish settlers and Irish were encouraged to belong. That saltire, along with St. Andrew’s, is worked along with the cross of St. George to make the Union Jack.
Towards the end of the 18th Century the English founded the Orange Order to foster division between those of Catholic faith and adherents of the various Protestant sects; then repressed the Republican rising and instituted a reign of terror.
They followed that up at the turn of the Century by organising the dissolution of the Irish Parliament and repression of another Rising. Later that century they oversaw the elimination of a third of our population once again through starvation, disease and forced migration.
Their colonial education service spread the English language further, penalised Irish-speaking children and encouraged children to think of themselves as “English”: ‘Indeed, the following verse was to be hung in every national school:
“I thank the goodness and the grace That on my birth have smiled, And made me in these Christian days A happy English child.“’6
In the early decades of the 20th Century the English ruling class, by now of the UK, suppressed another rising and sent thousands off to die in imperialist war, outlawed an Irish popular democratic parliament and fought a war or repression and terror against the Irish people.
Following up on that, the Crown subverted a section of the nationalist movement and instigated a civil war against Irish Republicans, arming and clothing the army of the neo-colonial Irish Free (sic) State which executed formally and informally over a hundred Republicans.
During the 1970s British intelligence service agents and proxy militia terrorists carried out a number of bombings in Ireland, the one in 1974 killing 34 people (including a full-time foetus) in Dublin and Monaghan,7 the highest toll of any day during the whole three-decades war.
In the final three decades of the last decade the UK waged a direct military and proxy terrorist war against the Irish nationalist people in their colony.
MASS MEDIA PROPAGANDA
As noted earlier, the Gombeen (neocolonial) Irish bourgeoisie has been trying to obliterate the deep consciousness of that history by promoting equivocation and doubts through reactionary historical revisionism and even removing significant sections from the history curriculum.
The mass media is another important leader in this work. In the featured piece we see that it is the headline that delivers the NATO-and neo-colonial conditioning message, albeit without mentioning those and indeed by adding material that cannot be read in the actual text of the article.
British nuclear submarine (Image sourced: Internet)
“Security and defence analyst Declan Power said Britain often finds out about these things before we do.” Yes, we can be sure that it does!
“What exactly was the Russian submarine doing there? It should be looked at in the broader array of defence arrangements in that the Russians will be regularly testing the defence responses of Nato nations… in particular the UK.”
“Because the UK and the Scandinavian countries have responsibility for monitoring an area known as the Icelandic gap.”8The piece concludes with a suggestion of threat to Ireland, stating that the incident occurred “south of the entrance to Cork Harbour.
Perhaps but over at least 12 miles away, so in fact it would’ve also been in a line west of Devon and Wales in Britain and line north-west of France! The article concludes by stating that “Russia has been regularly testing British air defences off Irish shores in recently (sic) years.”
Yes, “testing BRITISH air defences” and the UK is no doubt doing the same to Russia. Britain, as the UK, is a member of US/NATO, which is not only opposed to Russia but has been encircling it for decades before instigating a proxy war against it.
Far from protecting Irish people, British military manoeuvres around and over9 Ireland, its bases in the Six County colony and US military uses of Shannon airport actually place us in great danger in any wide conflict in Europe or in world war.
And then of course, there’s the little matter of colonial occupation of a part of our nation and neo-colonial domination of the rest through our compliant national ruling class. The UK military is no friend of people anywhere — and least of all a friend of the Irish people.
End.
Footnotes
1The other three are Cyprus, Malta and Austria. As of yet nor is Sweden but the expectation is of joining very soon.
2There are 32 counties in the whole Irish nation and the names of all but three in English are corruption of Irish words (including all of the Six in the colony).
As the death toll of Israeli bombing in Gaza long passes the capacity of imagination and as even the means of counting the dead can no longer be accurate, marchers took to Dublin streets in another Palestine solidarity march.
About 18,000 Palestinians have been killed and 49,500 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7, including 300 in one 24-hour period.
View of section of the rally shortly after arrival at Molesworth Street. Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish State can be seen in the distant background but there were Garda barriers between it and the Palestinian supporters (in addition to the normal high railings). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Despite the debunking of Biden’s claim of “unreliability” of the Gaza mortality statistics, which have been verified as of a high standard, Israeli bombing has now made his words come true. The ability to collect the numbers and names of the dead no longer exists in Gaza.
Not much left of where to treat the wounded or otherwise sick either with all major hospitals in the area gone and less than half remaining in semi-operation. The hospitals were the place of treatment and of data collection for statistics compilation.1 The Zionist armed forces have bombed them too.2
Another section of rally crowd taken facing away from direction of previous photo, i.e towards the rear. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
First the Israelis bombed people to death and now they have also bombed the mechanisms of collecting and checking the data on how many victims. And they have also not only buried thousands under rubble but also bombed the machinery and equipment for digging them out.3
DUBLIN MARCH
The Dublin march organised by the IPSC rallied outside the north city centre’s Garden of Remembrance and then marched down the city’s main street to cross over via O’Connell Bridge to the south side, then describing a half-circle around Trinity College and up Dawson Street.
Ending in Molesworth Street, the marchers found themselves facing Leinster House, the seat of the parliament of the Irish State but kept well back from it by the special Garda barricades near where the IPSC had their speakers’ platform.
Marchers started to drift off a while after arriving and many missed a performance with two kneeling males blindfolded and stripped to their underpants, with hands seemingly tied behind their backs while a young woman led chants in solidarity with Palestine.
Men in Dublin’s Molesworth Street simulate treatment of Palestinian detainees in Gaza by Israeli Army while women lead solidarity chants. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The blindfolded nearly naked men was clearly a reference to the Israeli army having been photographed recently doing the same to a line of their Palestinian prisoners, on the excuse that they were being interrogated regarding possible Hamas membership.4
Another such video purported to be a mass surrender by Palestinians fighters but was debunked as a number were recognised by others, including relatives: a shopkeeper, a journalist and a UN aid worker, while the few hard sources available indicate the IOF5 is far from gaining surrenders. 6
The very existence of such propaganda testifies to the lack of Israeli military success against fighters, as distinct from ‘success’ against civilians, including women and children, hospitals, public sanitation/ water treatment/ health infrastructure, housing, fishing boats …
A notable feature of the Palestinian solidarity marches in Dublin since October 7th has been the appearance of the Irish language in the written and spoken (or shouted) word. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Many bystanders along the Dublin march route applauded the marchers and took photos of them. Some joined in the slogans: From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! In our thousands, in our millions – we are ALL Palestinians!
Other slogans included: Free, free – Palestine! Saoirse – don Phailistín! Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out! 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state! (I personally answer “Israel is a fascist state” which has long been an appropriate description).
IRISH PEOPLE MOSTLY IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE
Many other towns and cities in Ireland had marches, rallies or pickets on Saturday also. The Palestinian flag flies over Dublin City Hall for a week by vote of elected councillors and at least three city halls elsewhere have been lit up at night with Palestinian colours in solidarity.
With the exception of Loyalist areas in the Six Counties awash with Israeli state flags, the Irish overwhelmingly support the Palestinians.
Section of the crowd at the commencement rally outside the Garden of Remembrance, before the march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish population overall is clearly pro-Palestinian which, in the current context, is clearly to be pro-humanity. But although the public position of the Irish Government is among the most supportive in the EU of the Palestinians it is not applying hard pressure against the Israeli state.
The Irish state supports the imperialist/ colonialist two-state ‘solution’ (sic) for Zionists and Palestinians, declines to expel the Israeli Ambassador, to apply sanctions, to progress the Occupied Territories Bill or even to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court.
A number of commentators (including two published on Rebel Breeze) have commented how useless such a referral to the ICC would be, except for its propaganda value perhaps. But the bias demonstrated by an ICC Prosecutor shows the situation to be even worse than was thought.
Palestinians complained that the Prosecutor accepted Israeli refusal to allow visiting Gaza but yet spent days visiting Israeli areas attacked by Hamas and declined a Palestinian offer to visit the hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.
When Prosecutor Kharim Khan finally held a meeting with Palestinians, he spoke at length, leaving them only ten minutes for their own contributions, to their outrage. Although he later gave them an hour, they fear that he has revealed his deep bias against them.7
A new banner seen on this march in Dublin, it bears the logo of the PFLP, words in Arabic and also calls for freedom for Palestine in Irish. (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
A future government including Sinn Féin may not act very differently; the party supports the 2-State ‘solution’ and was pushing the Government to refer Israel to the ICC. More crucially perhaps will be its close relationship with the USA and its need to work with its future political partners.
The Irish mass media, in line with that of the West, continues to exhibit a deep level of partiality towards Israel, along with hostility towards the Palestinians. The genocidal bombing by Israel is never called that while the short Hamas offensive is called “a rampage”.
The bombing is always presented as a response to the Hamas attack while that attack itself is never portrayed as a response to the many, many Israeli bombings and murders going right back to the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in the Nakba coinciding with the 1948 foundation of the state.
The most effective and realistic lever for Palestinian-supportive action remains the ordinary mass of Irish people and it is upon their support that we must rely, along with actions making zionist support as difficult and uncomfortable as possible at all levels in Ireland, especially at the higher ones.
End.
Closeup of section of crowd at rallying point, at commencement of march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
4And the relevance of that to stripping and blindfolding? What else but intimidation and humiliation? An eyewitness also reported having seen a number of Palestinian detainees shot for non-compliance.
We now approach the festival called Christmas. A Christian festival, apparently, celebrating the birth of Christ, the baby Jesus. But are there darker aspects in its references?
Away in a manger No crib for His bed The little Lord Jesus Lay down His sweet head
The stars in the sky Look down where He lay The little Lord Jesus Asleep on the hay
Such a sweet, holy image.
But actually, when we look around us, it seems more like a festival of the pagan gods: of Bacchus, the god of alcohol and of Mammon, the god of wealth. Bacchus, because in non-Moslem countries, drinking of alcohol will be for most a big component of the festival.
Whiskey, brandy, wine and beer will be bought to stock up the house. Alcohol will be drunk at Christmas parties (including office parties, where for months afterwards some people will regret what they did or said – or even what they didn’t do or say).
Alcohol will be not just drunk but also put into some of the traditional food and even poured over it.
Then Mammon. Well, you can see the retail businesses stocking up for weeks or even months ahead of the festival which, after all, was only supposed to be a one or at most a two-day event.
Giving and receiving gifts has now become part of the festival and in most cases, gifts have to be bought. Which is a really big gift to the retail businesses and thence, really a sacrifice to Mammon.
In the Christian gospels of both Matthew and Luke, it is written that one “cannot serve both Mammon and God” — which goes to show how little they understood capitalism, where Mammon IS God.
A theologian of the Fourth Century saw Mammon as a personification of Beelzebub, which in his time was another name for Satan or the Devil.
Interestingly, Protestant Christianity, which some credit as having invented capitalism, at the same time regarded Mammon, or said they did, as “one of the Seven Princes of Hell”.
Cartoon depiction of Mammon, God of Wealth (Image sourced: Internet)
Sculpture representation of Bacchus, God of Alcohol, in California winery, USA (Image sourced: Internet)
SANTA
Now, Santa Claus is also a big part of the Christmas festival, especially in western countries, a much more acceptable face than that of greedy Mammon and alcoholic Bacchus, right?
But originally, the Christians saw him a representation of St. Nicholas, 4th Century Bishop of the Greek city of Myra, a location now in Turkey. He was he patron saint of archers, repentant thieves, sailors and prostitutes. The prostitutes probably had to be repentant ones too, of course!
The sailors, who probably had at least as much recourse to prostitutes as had any other calling, were apparently not required to be repentant – to be in danger on the sea was deemed enough.
But St. Nicholas was also the patron saint of children, pawnbrokers and brewers, so we can see how close he was getting there to the modern spirit of Christmas.
GERMAN TRAPPINGS
Now, the Christmas Tree, der tannenbaum, so much a part of the symbolism of modern western Christmas, came to us from Germany, as did the sled and the reindeer.
The reindeer are not autochthonous or endemic in historic times to Germany, so they must have been brought in their myths from Scandinavia from where originally, the Germanic tribes came.
In turn, the Christmas Tree, Yule Log, reindeer and sled were exported from Germany to England in the reign of Queen Victoria, by her consort Prince Albert, who was German.
And since the English ruled all of us in Victoria and Albert’s time, the Christmas Tree came to us too, to the cities first and then slowly spreading through the rural areas.
A representation of St. Nicholas (before he got the red suit makeover) looking more like a pagan god of the woods. (Image sourced: Internet)
***
When you think about it, this German-English worship of the tree was a bit ironic, since the English had wiped out most of our forests already and were still cutting down our remaining trees in Queen Victoria’s time.
***
And Victoria, through Albert, gave us the Santa Clause we know and love today. A jolly man, well fed, white beard, twinkly eyes, dressed all in red with white trim ….
IN RED?
Now, wait a minute! It turns out he wasn’t always dressed in red. Originally, he was dressed in a brown, or green cloak. He was, originally among the Germanic people, a god of the forests – hence the evergreen Christmas tree.
And like any sensible woodsman, he dressed in appropriate colours, brown or green. Neither Albert nor Victoria ever represented him as dressed in red. So how did it become so that we are incapable of seeing him today in any other colour than red?
Well, it turns out that Coca Cola is the responsible party.
Yes, although it was the cartoonist Thomas Nast in 1870s United States who first portrayed Santa in a red suit with a belt but it was Coca Cola, in their advertising campaign of 1931 and onwards who made his clothes red world-wide.
Coca Cola is a drink served cold and almost undrinkable when warm but who needs a cold drink in cold weather? I guess Coca Cola needed a warm image to make it still attractive in winter. So therefore the warm, jolly man dressed in red, with a bottle of Coca Cola in his hand.
1931, Santa Clause first appears in red, in Coca Cola advertisement, USA.
(Image source: Internet)
Coca Cola brand is worth about $106.1 billion dollars today,1 far ahead of any other cold drinks product. Which I guess brings us back to …. yes, Mammon.
You can mix the drink with a number of alcoholic beverages too, so tipping a nod – and a glass – to Bacchus.
Now, the German Santa Claus, this originally woodland god, is also thought to have been something like Thor, a god of fire and lightning. So can it be any coincidence that two of his reindeer are called Donner und Blitzen, i.e “Thunder” and “Lightning”? Nein – of course not!
A starry night over desert hills, like the Nativity scene but without the Guiding Star. (Photo source: Internet)
INVISIBLE
Although we see the image of Santa Claus everywhere and even pretend Santa Clauses all over our city streets, everyone knows that nobody sees the real Santa Claus. Children have to be asleep when he arrives to distribute his presents and somehow adults don’t see him either.
Which I suppose is a good thing ….
I mean if you found an adult intruder in your house at night, not to mention near your children, you’d be liable to whack him with a hurley (that’s an Irish cultural reference) …. or a baseball bat (that’s a U S cultural reference) …. or stab him with a sharp kitchen knife (that’s an international cultural reference).
It was bad enough when somehow that portly – not to say fat – man could somehow come down your chimney and go up again, without waking anyone … but now he can get in your house or flat even when you don’t have a chimney.
Which is at least creepy, if not downright scary.
Oh, let’s lighten the mood and sing together:
You better watch out You better not cry You better not pout I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’ to town Santa Claus is comin’ to town
He’s making a list He’s checking it twice He’s gonna find out Who’s naughty or nice
Santa Claus is comin’ to town Santa Claus is comin’ to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping He knows when you’re awake He knows if you’ve been bad or good So be good for goodness sake
Yes, lovely but wait …
“You better watch out, you better not cry …” — Is it just me, or is that not downright threatening? And he knows when we’re sleeping or awake? He has our children under surveillance? In some kind of list?
HO! HO! HO! IN MORALITY PLAYS
Morality Plays were a genre of theatrical performances of the medieval and Tudor eras in which a character was tempted by a personification of Vice.
Now Vice (not unlike a lot of police Vice Squads), was often seen as the epitome of evil, corruption and greed – in other words, the Devil. The playwrights tended to portray the Devil as somewhat of a comical character, perhaps to keep their audiences entertained (or to disarm them).
So the character who played the Devil would announce his arrival with a stage laugh: “Ho, Ho, Ho!”
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
Nowadays, we tend to see the Devil portrayed in black but in earlier times, he was more often seen as coloured in red. The colour in which Coca Cola just happens to have dressed Santa too.
The German or Nordic Santa was originally a god of fire also, while even the modern Santa drives a magical chariot pulled by horned beasts and he is portrayed all in red. Traditionally, the Devil is seen as residing in Hell, a supposed place of eternal flames below ground.
What does Santa Claus give to children who have not been good? A lump of coal! In other words, a mineral from underground that can burn to make fire.
NICHOLAS
Santa Claus is supposed to be modelled on St. Nicholas …. and what is the popular abbreviated version of Nicholas, i.e the nickname? Yes, Nick.
And the common name for the Devil, Mammon, Beelzebub, Satan is ….. Old Nick!
Demonstrations, like many organised activities, require a certain discipline: time and place set, conduct along the way, speakers and time allocated, dispersing afterwards. But just as discipline helps avoid dangers, its imposition also bring dangers.
I’ve been one of the organisers, or a steward on a number of public events over the years but more often a participant without any particular role.
Once, in London as a steward I was called “a State agent” as I moved to prevent a couple of people leading others out of an Irish demonstration to attack some British fascists and Loyalists who were chanting against us.
For us, the main objective was to hold an Irish solidarity demonstration in London from its start to its finish without giving the London Metropolitan Police and Special Branch the opportunity to disrupt it.1 Attacking fascist jeerers was secondary to our objective on that occasion.
And if those guys really wanted to attack fascists, they should have been travelling parallel to the march (as the Red Action group often did, for example) instead of inside the march body. Then they could have attacked the fascists without any disruption of the march.
I have also been a party on a broad antifascist mobilisation to a refusal to organisers’ direction to march away from the fascists, instead heading towards them with others.2 In those cases the organisers were, in effect, colluding with the State.
PALESTINE SOLIDARITY IN IRELAND
The main organisation for Palestine solidarity in Ireland for decades has been and continues to be the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Its steering group or executive committee is entirely unpaid and works with energy and determination over the years and at times more intensively.
Those intensive times have been with us again since last month in the horrific genocidal Zionist bombing of Gaza and the murderous ground attacks in the West Bank and the IPSC activists have organised large – sometimes huge – marches of solidarity in Dublin every week.
These have been combined with other events such as rallies, concerts and public meetings in the city and marches, rallies and pickets elsewhere to the south, the west and the north of the country.
No organisation however is perfect or right all the time and there are a number of areas and occasions that deserve constructive criticism for improvement.
I do believe that the cancelation of a Palestine solidarity march scheduled for 25th November was a serious error tactically and strategically.
Section of a midweek demonstration in persistent rain organised by the IPSC outside Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State in October. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In terms of strategy we must strive as far as is possible not to give ground in the public arena to fascists and other racists since as we vacate ground, they step forward to occupy it. To move the rallying point from the Garden of Remembrance3 made sense but the cancellation not at all.
Tactically, the absence of a Palestine solidarity march that weekend broke the momentum of large public Palestinian solidarity events occurring at least weekly throughout the capital city.4
WHICH SLOGAN?
The IPSC now calls for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador but earlier on in October it refrained from doing so. That was a mistake but what was worse was the attempt to influence others also not to do so, for example with regard to speakers from their platform.
During that period the presence of non-stop chant-leaders shouting the approved slogans, one after another, particularly near groups who might chant for the expulsion of the Ambassador seemed more than a coincidence.
It is good to hear now the ubiquitous “Israeli Ambassador – Out, out, out!” from the IPSC slogan-callers and, though perhaps not the IPSC’s choice, may the one stating that “There is only one solution – Intifada revolution!” be accepted in toleration.
WHICH FLAGS?
At the recent much-diminished Palestine solidarity march in Dublin5 – the first since the cancellation – I witnessed a man and woman acting for the IPSC organisers, they said, approaching a person with a PLFP6 flag, to ask not to fly any flag other than the Palestinian national one.
They were polite and not in any way intimidating; their manner was not the problem but the content of their message was.
Palestinians participate in a rally marking the 52nd anniversary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in Gaza City, December 7, 2019. (Photo cred: Hatem Moussa/ AP)
There are issues where the IPSC should be giving a lead and are of course doing so but just as there are some where they should but are not, this is one where they seem to be attempting to impose a discipline and uniformity that is both unnecessary and unhealthy.
There are organisations that send sacks of their group’s flags and placards to demonstrations to be carried by random participants, swamping the event to make it appear as though their organisation is bigger and more prevalent than is the case, a practice I detest.
It is not as though people are flooding the demonstration with PFLP flags or, indeed, Irish Tricolours and Starry Ploughs, though it seemed that they were not as worried about the latter two.
There are people who support different organisations in Palestine and why should it be a problem for them to fly the flag of the organisation of their choice?
Why should it be a problem for people to realise that there are many Palestinian organisations of struggle in opposition to the one of collusion?
In a demonstration for Irish independence would we demand that only the Tricolour7 could be flown? Or for Catalan independence, only accepting the display of the Senyera?8
WHAT KIND OF PALESTINIAN STATE?
The IPSC is formally neutral on the issue of what kind of Palestinian state to which to aspire, which in some respects is fair enough since that is a matter for the people there to choose. But it is not OK to be neutral on whether the ‘two-state solution’ (sic) is acceptable, never mind viable.
Yes, we know that the imperialists of the EU, USA and UK support that ‘solution’. We know that their allies do, including the Irish Government. We also know that the collaborationist Palestinian organisation9 and most Arab states’ leaders also support that arrangement.
BUT
The two-state solution is one where the settler-occupier gets to keep what he robbed and murdered to get while the indigenous receives less than 40% of her original land and the worst of it, with the least water and, furthermore, under the constant guns of the robbers and murderers.
The diminished part of Palestine being offered to Palestinians under “the 2-state solution” (Image sourced: Internet)
MOST PALESTINIANS POLLED IN PALESTINE REJECT IT.10 And you can guarantee, without polling, that the vast majority of the exiled Palestinian refugees reject it too, since it would close for ever any hope for a return to Palestine for most of them.
The IPSC supports the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” This is, one might say, an implicit rejection of the two-state proposal since it must mean a free Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean and Red Seas. But how many understand that?
In a world where imperialism is the main support of the European Zionist colonial (and genocidal) project, it is essential that the mass of people understand for what it is that the Palestinians are fighting and what we support, as distinct from what the imperialists want to foist upon them.
PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS
In the struggle for independence and for social justice, right across the world, many people are taken by those in power and put in jail. Solidarity with those prisoners, objections to their conditions and demands for their release have been an important part of those struggles.
This has been well-illustrated in Irish history too and in Britain, the First International (Workingmen’s Association) founded by Marx, Engels and others campaigned in solidarity with the Fenians incarcerated in English jails.
The “blanket protests” and in particular the hunger strikes in colonial jails in Ireland a little over 40 years ago drew huge attention and wide support not only in Ireland but across the world.
All the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are there as a result of the European Zionist occupation of Palestine and the natural resistance of the indigenous people.
When Hamas recently obtained the release of 180 prisoners from Israeli jails, most were women and children. Furthermore, many had not even been convicted in the Israeli military courts but were held in “administrative detention”, in effect, interned without trial.
Palestinian prisoner solidarity protest in Nablus 17 April 2023 (Photo credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh /AFP)
Though the IPSC has highlighted the number of children in Israeli jails and those in administrative detention, it does not have a position of overall solidarity with the rest of the 100,000 Palestinian prisoners nor in calling for their blanket release.
The organisation has however covered the release of prisoners in the recent exchange and shared reports of the brutality inflicted upon many, particularly after the Hamas offensive on 7th October. One must hope that this process will be extended to solidarity with all the Palestinian prisoners.
Solidarity with political prisoners does not necessarily imply support for their previous actions or for their organisations; what it does is to recognise that all liberation struggles produce martyrs and prisoners due to the repression of resistance to colonialism and occupation.
The existence of the prisoners is a direct result of the colonial occupation and if we oppose that occupation we should stand in solidarity with the prisoners, agitate around their conditions and demand their freedom, along with the departure of the colonists.
IN CONCLUSION
All organisations and movements need to instil some discipline around their activities. All also commit errors from time to time and it is crucial to learn from those in order to improve their effectiveness and to bring nearer the objectives for which they strive.
In their attempt to mediate between the different pressures upon them it is necessary to distinguish between what the dominant system wants or would like and what the movement’s supporters wish, between what is most welcome and what is most necessary.
Rally after large IPSC march 10 October 2023 (Photo sourced: Internet)
The IPSC is an important and valuable organisation in Ireland doing crucial work in the area of solidarity with the Palestinians and, in doing so, contributing to an atmosphere of internationalist solidarity which is essential for the advance of humanity.
While I have not for some years been part of its Dublin organisation I will of course continue to support its marches, rallies and pickets as I have been doing for decades, both in promotion and in attendance.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The police used attacks by fascists and resistance to them on Irish solidarity marches as opportunities to disrupt the march and to arrest march participants.
2The Communist Party of Great Britain despite the history of many of its members in the 1930s, did not wish to physically attack fascists from the late 1960s and tried to steer demonstrations away from direct confrontation, often leading them away from where the fascists were gathered.
3That place is less than 100 metres from the scene of the attack on the children and the march began there the participants would have to pass by the site.
4It also left exposed to attack any small group that went ahead with Palestine solidarity or anti-racism pickets, as some did, in the city centre.
7There is nothing wrong with the Tricolour but some Republicans and socialists prefer the Starry Plough, signifying a more socialist republicanism and also a separation from the State, which has appropriated the Tricolour.
8The original flag of Catalan independence, red stripes on a yellow field — but on Catalan demonstrations the Estelada Blava, including a blue triangle surrounding a white star, for left Republicans, is much more common and the Vermella, with a red star on yellow instead of the white one on blue is quite common also, especially among revolutionary socialists.
9The Al Fatah-dominated PLO from which a number of Palestinian resistance organisations are excluded. They also dominate the Palestinian Authority which has not held elections since Hamas won them in 2008.
Recently then-Minister for Home Affairs of the UK Suella Braverman claimed the common Palestinian solidarity slogan, From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free! to be antisemitic, genocidal in effect and looked set to try to have it banned.
In some other western institutions, for example Columbia University USA, it HAS been banned and a Palestine solidarity student group has had its rights within the University revoked despite, reportedly, the opposition of the majority of students to that sanction.
Suella Braverman, MP, former UK Minister for Home Affairs. (Photo sourced: Internet)
How can a basic solidarity slogan be claimed to be genocidal?
Definition of a genocidal act: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group …1
Obviously there can be such a thing as a genocidal slogan and, in fact, there are many examples in history: “The only good Indian (sic) is a dead Indian”2; “Juden raus”3; “To Hell or to Connaught”4; “Nits make lice”5; “Kill the cockroaches”6; “There are no Kurds, only mountain Turks”.7
Anti-Jewish racist and genocidal slogan in German with the Nazi Swastika symbol on wall in Florence, Italy.
But really, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”? Genocidal? For the Palestinian people to be free and in control of their own land, there has to be genocide?
Would “Scotland Free from Dunnet Head to Tweed” be considered a genocidal slogan? Or for example slogans such as “Ireland free from Donegal to Cork” or “A 32-County socialist Republic” be thought genocidal?
“Oh, but the Palestinian one means Palestine for the Arabs only, no Jews!” Really? And you know this how? Before the British started driving Jews into Palestine the maximum size of the Jewish population there was 6% but there was no attempt by the mostly Arab people to drive them out.
Could the slogan not equally or even more likely be a call for a free, equal, democratic state across the whole of the original Palestine? Such as the stated objective of a number of Palestinian resistance organisations, the PFLP for example?
The nationalist slogans for Ireland and Scotland could be interpreted to mean clearing out all non-Scottish and non-Irish respectively but for the vast majority they not mean that nor are they generally thought to do so. So why suspect genocidal intention of the Palestinians?
The opposition to the slogan is not at all based on fear of genocide but in fact on support for it: the Zionist genocide against the Palestinians! It is based on denying the right to self-determination of the indigenous Palestinian people, of which a huge majority are Arab.
To deny the right of the Palestinians to self-determination is to support the right of the Zionists to colonise, a project entailing expulsion or massacre of the ethnically Arab Palestinian majority that existed in Palestine even up until 1948.
That Zionist project has continued with a constant ethnic cleansing pressure and genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people.
And the same people who oppose the slogan “From the River to the sea” etc support such slogans as “Israel has a right to self-defence” and “The Jewish people have a right to their own state”, which ARE racist and genocidal statements based on Zionist and European colonial ideology.
If Israel has a right to self-defence, what that means is that those who occupy a territory, steal the land and resources, colonise it and attack the indigenous people … have the right to defend themselves against the legitimate resistance of the people.
It gives the settlers the right to defend their occupation and repress the resistance, which naturally is given no rights at all. The robber has the right to the loot.
If the Jewish people have a right to their own state, where is that to be? Where will a land be found without people in it for them to take as their own?
And if such an empty land does not exist – which it does not – then what gives Jews or anyone else the right to occupy and settle a land, removing the rights of the indigenous people? An alleged promise by a being of religious belief? Or the backing of imperialist colonial powers?
The defence of the solidarity slogan’s content and the right to use it across the world are important democratic standards in the peoples’ struggles for justice and to express and build internationalist solidarity across the world.
The realisation of the slogan will be an important contribution to peace and justice in the world.
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Article II, UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
2Whether correctly attributed to General Phillip Sheridan of the US Army or not it was certainly a popular saying in the white US colonial wars against the Indigenous native people.
4Attributed to Oliver Cromwell in his mid-17th Century genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaign against the Irish Catholics.
5Horrific slogan justifying the killing of children because they will grow up to be the hated/ feared people. This slogan or saying has probably been heard at one time or another in most parts of the world but certainly against Native Americans in the USA; among Nazis against Jews, Slavs and Gypsies; in Israel against Palestinians.
6One of the slogans of the Hutu against the Tutsi in the 1994 ethnic cleansing and massacres in Rwanda.
7Remark attributed to the Turkish nationalist Kemal Ataturk with regard to the very large ethnically distinct Kurdish people in Turkey.
When so many people and even states around the world are calling for a ceasefire, it may seem perverse to oppose the call, doing so not from a genocidal Zionist position but on the contrary from one of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
A search for definitions1of the word ‘ceasefire’ make it clear that it is a temporary status in conflict and that is exactly how the Zionist state intended it and practiced it, returning to bombing again this weekend (and shifting its main target to the very area to where it advised people to flee).
Poster from JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) a very active Jewish anti-Zionist organisation in the USA (Image sourced: Internet)
Is this truly what the Palestinians and billions of people around the globe want? No, we all want a permanent end to the bombing of Palestinians – nothing less!
The argument might run that “Surely even a temporary ceasefire brings some relief to the Palestinians, allows emergency supplies to reach them, release of hostages from both sides?” Well sure but can we not call for something better?
There is another problem with the calls for a ‘ceasefire’, which is that it seeks to impose a restriction on both sides and makes both appear as equally — or at least to some degree – the source of the problem. But the Zionists are guilty of occupation, Palestinians of nothing except resistance.
Nor are the two equally-balanced sides: the 4th larges military power against guerrillas and civilians. And do we have the right to call on the Palestinians to cease military resistance operations? Do we even want to? Do we want the IOF to remain in control of even their limited military gains?
(Image sourced: Internet)
This not a question of semantics alone but goes deep towards the heart of the matter. Resistance is the life-blood for a people, even as it costs the blood of many, many of its individuals. Without resistance, a people ceases to exist, its culture and history blown to the winds of time.
So how to give voice to the feelings of outrage and pain while viewing the atrocities of the Zionist State? How to express our solidarity with its victims?
Recent protest in Tokyo, Japan (Photo sourced: Internet)
We can simply call to STOP THE BOMBING – STOP IT NOW!
Beyond that, we must not support anything less than the departure of the colonisers – freedom, from the river to the sea! Not a two-state “solution” which, apart from being profoundly unjust to the Palestinians, would be only a stage in Israel’s program of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
That ‘two-state solution’ seeks to allow the occupiers to maintain what they have stolen and to condemn the indigenous Palestinians to less than 40% of their territory, with the most arid land and least water, permanently under the guns of the Zionist State.
Change.org petition poster and promotional photo (Photo sourced: Change.org)
It is the option favoured by all the imperialist states and their allies,2 also by the minority colluding Palestinian leadership and their political allies abroad3but scorned by the vast majority of Palestinians in Palestine and, one would assume, by all the exiled refugees.
The only long-term solution is an independent democratic unitary Palestinian state – preferably a socialist one but that is up to the people of that state. In the meantime and in order to achieve that: THE ONLY SOLUTION IS INTIFADA4 REVOLUTION.
FOOTNOTES
1 One definition: A cease-fire is an agreement that regulates the cessation of all military activity for a given length of time in a given area. It may be declared unilaterally, or it may be negotiated between parties to a conflict. (The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law.
3The Al Fatah political party leadership that controls the PLO and the PA (though they lost the elections to Hamas) in Palestine and for example in Ireland, the Sinn Féin party.
Israel uses white phosphorus munitions in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
Norman Finkelstein published a book a number of years ago entitled Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.
In it he looked at various major episodes in the long bloody onslaught on the people of Gaza, amongst them Operation Cast Lead and also the attack on the boat Mavi Marmara and the Goldstone Report, amongst other issues.
He could have written it yesterday about the current genocidal plans of the Israeli state.
The current Israeli offensive is just one more in a long line of massacres. This is not a review of Finkelstein’s book, though any book by him is worth reading and should be read. Rather I just want to use the book to show that what is happening now is not new, it is just more intense.
Israel has murdered before, it has lied, it has committed war crimes and it has always received the support of western states.
Above all we should be clear that we are where we are partly due to the Oslo Accord and also the role played by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. They cannot wash their hands of the affair.
“One of the meanings of Oslo,” former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami observed, “was that the PLO was . . . Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the intifada and cutting short . . . an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence.”
Rabin (left) and Arafat shake hands on the Oslo Accords under the management of then US President Clinton. (Photo sourced: Internet)
In particular, Israel contrived to reassign to Palestinian surrogates the sordid tasks of occupation. “The idea of Oslo,” former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky acknowledged, “was to find a strong dictator to . . . keep the Palestinians under control.”
“The Palestinians will be better at establishing internal security than we were,” Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin told skeptics in his ranks, “because they will not allow appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent the Association for Civil Rights in Israel from criticizing the conditions there. . .
They will rule by their own methods, freeing, and this is most important, the Israeli soldiers from having to do what they will do.”(1)
In other words, Gaza has bled under the passive gaze of the bureaucrats of the Palestinian authorities and of course of the reactionary Arab regimes that have never lifted a finger to help their Palestinian brothers and sisters.
They have not even threatened to cut off the supply of oil to the West, something they could do right now, but won’t. It has also happened under the gaze of those on the Left who run around shouting Implement Oslo! Two State Solution!
They ignore the fact that Oslo represented an ideological, political and military defeat for the Palestinians. The PLO accepted its role as puppet, administrator of a small urban city-like council and as chief repressor of those who continued to fight for Palestinian freedom.
A look at the Oslo II Accord, signed in September 1995 and spelling out in detail the mutual rights and duties of the contracting parties to the 1993 agreement, suggests what loomed largest in the minds of Palestinian negotiators.
Whereas four full pages are devoted to “Passage of [Palestinian] VIPs” (the section is subdivided into “Category 1 VIPs,” “Category 2 VIPs,” “Category 3 VIPs,” and “Secondary VIPs”), less than one page—the very last—is devoted to “Release of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees,” who numbered in the many thousands…
The barely disguised purpose of Oslo’s protracted interim period was not confidence building to facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace but collaboration building to facilitate a burden-free Israeli occupation.(2)
However, Israel is now militarily weak. Finkelstein points to a number of attacks where it has shown its weakness. Its predilection is for attacks on the civilian population that can’t fight back.
In 2006, it opted to bomb civilians in Lebanon rather than engage in a proper fight with Hezbollah “terrorizing Lebanese civilians appeared to be a low-cost method of “education.”(3)
In Gaza in Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9, it followed a similar path of aerial bombardments of civilians rather than land invasions, that would see its troops face the wrath of Hamas and other armed organisations. So first they relentlessly bombed Gaza before any troops went in.
When the troops went in, the civilian population was their preferred target then as it is now. The murder of civilians is not new. It is part of an Israeli strategy of claiming easy victories.
An Israelicombatant remembered a meeting with his brigade commander and others where the “rules of engagement” were “essentially” conveyed as, “if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot.”
Other soldiers recalled, “If the deputyBattalionCommander thought a house looked suspect, we’d blow it away. If the infantrymen didn’t like the looks of that house—we’d shoot” (unidentified soldier); “If you face an area that is hidden by a building—you take down the building.”
Questions such as ‘who lives in that building[?]’ are not asked” (soldier recalling hisBrigadeCommander’s order);
“As for rules of engagement, the army’s working assumption was that the whole area would be devoid of civilians … Anyone there, as far as the army was concerned, was to be killed” (unidentified soldier);
“We were told: ‘any sign of danger, open up with massive fire” (member of a reconnaissance company); “We shot at anything that moved” (Golani Brigade fighter); “Despite the fact that no one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly” (gunner in a tank crew).
“Essentially, a person only need[ed] to be in a ‘problematic’ location,” a Haaretz reporter found, “in circumstances that can broadly be seen as suspicious, for him to be ‘incriminated’ and in effect sentenced to death.”(4)
In all around 1,400 Palestinians were murdered in Operation Cast Lead, with 80% of them being civilians including 350 children. Israeli casualties were risible in comparison, just 10 combatants were killed, four of whom were killed by friendly fire.(5)
Then as now, Israel wheeled out the old trope of “human shields”. Amnesty International found no evidence of that,(6) in fact, it found evidence of Israel using children as human shields.(7)
It also found that Israel used then, as it does now, white phosphorous against schools, hospitals and even the UNRWA.(8) Furthermore, 99% of the air attacks were accurate.(9) If they murdered civilians, it is because the civilians were the target.
Following the operation, the Goldstone Report was published. It surprised no-one when it found evidence of Israeli war crimes and to a lesser extent of Hamas. It is a salutary lesson for those who now place their confidence in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Goldstone made various recommendations.
Individual states in the international community were exhorted to “start criminal investigations in national courts, using universal jurisdiction, where there is sufficient evidence of the commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
“Where so warranted following investigation, alleged perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice.”(10)
We know that nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the western governments paid little heed to the report. Goldstone was forced to recant on the conclusions to his report.
Netanyahu for his part announced that he wanted to amend the rules of war leading to Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell asking “What is it that Israel wants … Permission to fearlessly attack defenseless population centers with planes, tanks and artillery?”(11)
Exactly.
And here we are today, with Israel unilaterally amending the rules of war, with the green light from the EU and the USA, amongst others. They murder civilians and no one proposes doing anything.
In Operation Cast Lead, the harshest sentence emitted by an Israeli court was seven and a half months to a soldier who had stolen a credit card!(12) Minor financial crimes are of greater concern than war crimes or crimes against humanity.
After this genocide in Gaza, we can’t expect much from the ICC.
Throughout its history the ICC has opened just 31 cases, including one for genocide. All of them against African leaders. This does not mean that those leaders did not deserve to be judged for their crimes, but that the ICC is just the legal arm of imperialism.
It has never attempted to put on trial the powerful in the West and despite everything even less so Israel. This year it issued a communiqué announcing that it would issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes and did so on its own initiative.(13)
In the case of Gaza, it will do nothing of the sort. Those who place their trust in the ICC or in the Palestinian Authority are fooling themselves. This situation is the result of turning a blind eye to Israel for many years whilst it commits all sorts of crimes.
It didn’t act before and it won’t do so now. Neither will the Arab regimes do much, unless their own populations force them. They fear the Palestinians and their own people as they know that the struggle against Zionism is also a struggle against them.
The more revolutionary Palestinian groups used to say that the path to Jerusalem went through Amman and Damascus. They were right, it does pass through those capital cities and also Beirut, Riyadh, Cairo and all the others and not through the ICC.
In fact, one day the judges and prosecutors of that body should be put on trial for their complicity in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity through their inaction and omission.
It is beyond the scope of this article to deal with the role of Amnesty International in its own reports on Palestine.
They are what Finkelstein refers “as far from being the exception that proved the rule, Amnesty actually constituted a variant of the rule: instead of falling silent on Israeli crimes during Protective Edge, Amnesty whitewashed them.”(14)
I will leave it to the reader to look at the book for more information on that particular betrayal. Suffice to say, we can expect little from such organisations. At best they gather data we can sometimes use.
Notes
(1) Finkelstein, N. G. (2018) Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. California. California University Press. pp 6 & 7
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