EXCLUSION OF ISLAMISTS FROM THE PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANISATION ENDING

On July 23, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, PalestineLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time article: 5 mins.)

The historic exclusion from the Palestine Liberation Organisation of Islamist resistance organisation is ending. In a conference taking place currently in Beijing, two secular resistance organisations called for the Islamists’ inclusion in the PLO.

That news came earlier in the day from Resistance News Network (on Telegram) and much later, from the same source, the news of an agreement (see Appendix) of all on forming a consensus resistance government – but no mention of opening the PLO to the Islamist groups.

*Participants in the Palestine Resistance Unity Conference in Beijing days ago*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The PLO has been internationally recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people but it was dominated by Arafat’s Fatah, which became a corrupt organisation colluding with the Occupation and with US Imperialism.

This morning some of the published contents of the agreement¹ leaked to the media, were disputed in statements from Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Ihsan Ataya² and Hussam Badran of Hamas,³ in particular in reference to UN resolutions which contained a recognition of the state of ‘Israel’.

Reading between the lines one suspects an attempt to bring in false elements of agreement with elements of collusion with the entity and/or undermining and sabotaging any agreement at all. In any such manoeuvres, due to past behaviour first suspicion must fall on the Fatah leadership.⁴

If no agreement was reached on enlarged PLO membership, then given the statements of the PFLP and the DFLP, one must assume that the Fatah leadership vetoed that decision. In agreeing to a consensus government then one must also suspect the Fatah leadership of playing for time.

The Western Left and the Palestinian Resistance

A decision on opening the PLO has been coming for some time but will not be welcomed by some groups in the West. Islamist resistance organisations hold a number of socio-political ideological positions that are in opposition to the socialist or even secular positions held in Left circles.

*Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in parade in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 29, 2014.* (Photo cred: *Abed Deb /Pacific Press Credit: PACIFIC PRESS/Alamy Live News*)

In those sectors of the Western Left, most support was divided among Fatah, the leading faction in the PLO, or for the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine, its second organisation in size there, with some supporting the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

With regard to the first, the ability of organisations claiming to be revolutionary or even just democratically socialist to support a leadership founding the Palestine Authority as a Vichy-type government run by the corrupt Quisling Abbas has been astonishing and also revolting.

While the PA and Fatah leadership engage in active collusion, a military section of Fatah has broken away and is part of the active armed resistance to the Occupation,⁵ though overshadowed in quantity and effect by the operations of the Islamist groups.

*Two Islamic Jihad fighters* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Need for Unity but Not a Simple Thing to Achieve

There is clearly a need for a unified resistance in terms of military operations but also with regard to political position. How far is the resistance to go? What are to be its objectives beyond defeating the current genocidal campaign? Who will run the territory and how will that be decided?

And of course, what is the national territory to be claimed: historic Palestine? Or the territory as it stood prior to the 1967 War? Into that question comes the other: a unitary secular state of the whole of Palestine, or 20% of the national territory under sight and guns of the larger Occupation state?

According to reports from Resistance News Network two secular organisations, PFLP and DFLP have already laid out their initial positions and both called for the inclusion in the PLO of the Islamist organisations Hamas and ICJ, along with the formation of an interim unity government.

This is a demand made in the past by Hamas and the ICJ also. Should all 14 organisations participating agree, there will remain a long road ahead of them. The Fatah leadership is wedded to Western imperialism and is likely to face rejection in elections, even more than it did in 2006.

Western imperialism and of course the Israeli settler regime don’t want a united Palestinian national resistance.

The fact is that not only are the Islamist organisations doing most of the fighting against the ‘Israeli’ Occupation’s genocidal campaign but there are more of them and they generally acknowledge the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who have also been careful to consult them.

It was the latter two that organised and led the October 7^th breakout from the Gaza ‘concentration camp’ into Palestinian territory seized and occupied by the settler regime, though resistance operations immediately afterwards were coordinated by the Joint Operations Room.

Hamas is not only the major leader in terms of military resistance, it is also a political organisation and was the electoral choice of the Palestinian people in the 2006 elections, the result of which was repudiated by the Fatah leadership and by the Western powers.

In addition, while the Palestinian secular Leftists have few external allies, those of the Islamist Palestinian resistance are active and powerful: Hizbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Islamic Resistancein Iraq,⁶ Ansar Allah in Yemen⁷ and the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

All of those with the exception of Iran are in constant action against the ‘Israeli’ Occupation and Iran has shown its capacity to flood ‘Israel’s’ air defence systems and, despite Western allies’ air force operations, to strike three military bases of its choice in occupied territory.

Yemen, in addition to its effective interdiction in three seas of shipping allied to the genocidal entity, last week slipped an explosive drone into Tel Aviv without even setting off alarms. The IOF bombed its oil tanks and electricity generator in revenge but this contest is far from over.

Hizbollah developed missiles capable of striking anywhere inside territory occupied by ‘Israel’ and has displayed detailed footage captured by their undetected drone over ‘Israel’s’ claimed territory comprehensively detailing military, industrial and civilian infrastructure.

In the event of the creation of a genuine national independent Palestinian state, it will not be socialist, at least initially — but will it be secular or Islamic in law? In the case of the latter, what will be the fate of the secular resistance sector?

In 2007 Hamas dealt harshly with Fatah forces in Gaza but that was after months of the Fatah administration refusing to relinquish control in line with the 2006 election results and also, no doubt, in recognition of the PA’s collusion with imperialism and the Occupation.

And will Shia and Sunni sections of the Islamist sector find a long-lasting accommodation? Come to that, will the secular organisations agree with one another? Apart from the collusive role of Fatah, in their statement the DFLP supported a two-State solution which the PFLP does not.

*Mass demonstration of unity of different Palestinian resistance organisations* (Source photo: *Internet*)

These questions will be answered by events yet to come and of course the right to decide on them belongs to the Palestinians. The Left in Palestine and outside will need to find a way to accommodate themselves to the results and continue to oppose imperialism and Zionism.

The defeat of the genocidal state of ‘Israel’ will be a huge boon to humanity, a significant damage to western imperialism (in that also a huge great boon to the world) and a huge achievement of the heroic resistance, armed and unarmed, of the Palestinian people.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1See Appendix

2Head of Arab and International Relations, statement to Al Mayadeen, summarised in Resistance News Network. Excerpt:

3Head of the National Relations Office in the Hamas movement and a member of its political bureau, in press statement summarised in Resistance News Network. Excerpt: Some points that implicitly and explicitly recognize the naming of UN resolutions that include recognition of “israel” have been amended. The Palestinian political leadership must realize that all negotiations with the occupation forces have failed. The guarantee of implementing the clauses of the “Beijing Declaration” lies in the hands of the Palestinians themselves. The dialogue in Beijing took place in two sessions, and after drafting the statement, there were objections to a number of its contents, and our position was clear. The final reading of the statement was supposed to take place before its approval, but due to the limited time, it was based on what the committee drafted. We passed the statement with our implicit reservations to thwart those who wanted to sabotage this meeting.

4The possibility of collusion in such manoeuvres by the DFLP cannot be excluded, given its position (reiterated in its opening statement to the Beijing Conference, as published by RNN) of claiming Palestinian land on the basis of pre-1967 War only, thereby accepting the State of Israel and its occupation of most of Palestine.

5I have not seen a full list of the represented organisations at the Beijing conference and therefore am unable to say whether they were there. They have been mostly fighting the Occupation in the West Bank and two of their field commanders were martyred yesterday in Tulkarem alongside a commander of Hamas forces by an IOF drone strike during the battle there.

6This coalition recently decided to end its truce in attack on US military bases in Iraq as a result of the long delay by the US in carrying out their agreed departure.

7In effect the government of Yemen, though the Western powers recognise only their proxy, a government in exile.

REFERENCES & SOURCES

Number of postings by Resistance News Network (on Telegram platform) yesterday and today.

https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/plo_parties/

https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/introduction_armed_groups/ (RNN gives a more comprehensive list and more detailed explanation but the link is for Telegram only)

APPENDIX

🚨🇵🇸 “The Beijing Declaration to End Palestinian National Division: To unify national efforts to confront aggression and stop the genocide war.”

The following was agreed upon by 14 Palestinian factions at the end of the reconciliation meeting in Beijing, China (https://t.me/PalestineResist/49595) today, including Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, DFLP, and Fatah:

– The Palestinian factions welcome the opinion (https://t.me/PalestineResist/49245) of the International Court of Justice, which confirmed the illegality of presence, occupation, and settlement.

– Continuing to follow up on the implementation of the agreements to end the division that took place with the help of Egypt, Algeria, China, and Russia.

– Commitment to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Al-Quds in accordance with international resolutions, especially 181 and 2334, and ensuring the right of return.

– We affirm the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation and end it in accordance with international laws, the UN Charter, and the right of peoples to self-determination.

– To form a temporary national unity government with the consensus of Palestinian factions and by a decision of the president based on the Palestinian Basic Law.

– The formed government exercises its powers and authorities over all Palestinian territories, confirming the unity of the West Bank, Al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip.

– To resist and thwart attempts to displace our people from their homeland, especially from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Al-Quds.

– Working to lift the barbaric siege on our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and deliver humanitarian and medial aid without restriction or condition.

Important Call for a United Resistance Front

On July 21, 2024July 21, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, History commemoration, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, NATO, Peace Process, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time article: 3 mins.)

Earlier this month there was an oration delivered at the grave of Wolfe Tone¹ which contained some important elements which deserve inspection and discussion.

– The path to rebuild our struggle is the development of an Anti Imperialist Broad Front – said the speaker. – A United Front of Revolutionary republicans, working in cooperation to advance our common republican objectives and to achieve a common republican programme.

Looking around us at the parties and groups in the socialist and republican spectrum, the ostensibly revolutionary varieties, we see that for many of them, building up their own organisation takes precedence over anything else, including revolution – for them the revolution IS their party.

*Speaker giving oration at Wolfe Tone’s grave in front of the monument, faced by colour party.* (Photo: *RSM*)

The call given in this oration runs counter to that kind of thinking. “But we’ve heard all that about ‘unity’ before,” a reader might say. Yes we have and often “unity” meant only “unity” around that particular party or, even more often, around this or that leadership.

There is nothing of that to be found in this address “recognising and respectful of the autonomy and independence of the groups and independents involved”. “Hmmm,” the reader might say “but is it a genuine intention?” Given our experience, it’s a valid and important question.

The most dependable test is in the practice. The speaker of the oration at its annual Wolfe Town Commemoration² was representing the Socialist Republican Movement organisation (more often manifested publicy in recent years in the form of the Anti-Imperialist Action broad group³)

As an independent revolutionary activist for many years I have often participated in AIA’s actions and at times they have supported actions of which I had been part of organising. I have found that their practice matches their words and there is no truer test.

The speaker followed with practical suggestions for the implementation of the broad front: Trust and co-operation must be developed … through activism and the development of National Republican Campaigns that can be taken up by all Republican groups and independents …

There are many campaigns that could be developed from support for POWs to opposing internment and extradition, environmental campaigns such as (overcoming) the unacceptable situation at Lough Neagh, to campaigns that oppose the British and NATO presence in Ireland.

*One of the banners in the crowd at the event in Bodenstown.* (Photo: *RSM*)

Such a Republican Broad Front would be a fitting tribute to our Patriot Dead, the speaker added, to martyrs like Cathal Brugha,⁴ who gave his all in fighting for the sovereign, Independent Irish Republic and gave his life on this day in 1922 as a hero in the war in defence of the Republic.

In many of the pleas for unity of the fragmented resistance in Ireland, individuals have called for a conference to form a united front, others called for a unity document of principles around which to unite while in at least one case, two distinct organisations merged.

I have for years spoken out against such endeavours and advocated as a first step unity in practice. If organisations and individuals are not capable of that step, what kind of unity can they achieve around discussion of documents? Unity in practice also helps to break down distrust.

The speaker at the Wolfe Tone commemoration takes the same line, presumably speaking for the SRM when he does so and one supposes that this will continue to be the approach of the AIA in campaigns such as against internment, in solidarity with political prisoners⁵ or with Palestine.⁶

The above piece discussed two elements of the oration given by the SRM earlier this month which I believe to be of great revolutionary importance and in need of application in Ireland, one in advocating a principle and the other in suggesting avenues for practical application.

Later I will be taking a look at some other elements in that talk (the text of which, as published by the SRM, I attach as an appendix).

Beirimís bua.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Wolfe Tone, born into settler stock and of the Establishment Anglican congregation, was a leading figure in the formation of the revolutionary republican organisation The Society of United Irishmen, seeking “to unite Catholic, Protestant (i.e Anglican) and Dissenter” (i.e the other sects, Presbyterian, Methodist, Unitarian, Quaker etc.) to “break the connection with England. In 1798, the year of the Unitedmen uprising, the first of many Irish Republican uprisings and campaigns, Tone was captured by the British Navy on a French warship and, despite his French officer rank, tried and sentenced to death.

Tone died in jail some months before his brother Matthew was taken prisoner during the surrender at Ballinamuck (Baile na Muc) in Co. Longford of another French expedition to Ireland, late and too small, at the tail end of the Rising that year. Also ignoring his officer POW status, he was hanged in Dublin and his body reputedly thrown into the mass grave at Croppies’ Acre in Dublin city.

2Since even earlier than Thomas Davis’ (1814-1845) song In Bodenstown Churchyard, Irish Republican organisations and individuals have been making the pilgrimage to that grave in County Meath, at times with thousands in attendance.

3Also for an intense time as the Revolutionary Housing League in its attempt to spark a movement of occupation of empty properties to overcome the widely-acknowledged housing crisis in Ireland.

4Cathal Brugha (nee Burgess), son of a mixed Catholic-Protestant marriage, was a leading figure in Irish nationalist movement and in Republican rebellion in the last decades of the 19^th and early decades of the 20^th Centuries, learned Irish as a member of the Gaelic League, member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (which he later left, considering it undemocratic), officer in the Irish Volunteer, 2^nd in command in the South Dublin Union in 1916 served as Minister for Defence in the revolutionary government from 1919 to 1922, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann in January 1919 and its first president from January 1to April 1919, Chief of Staff of the IRAfrom 1917 to 1918. He served as a TD (electe parliamentary representative) from 1918 to 1922. He was mortally wounded by Irish Government troops in the early days of the Irish Civil War.

5Both on their own and for example in support of the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign.

6Both on their own and for example as part of the Saoirse Don Phalaistín broad front.

APPENDIX

The following is the text of the main oration of which some sections are discussed in the preceding article and more to be discussed anon. It was delivered at the annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown, organised by the Revolutionary Irish Socialist Republican Movement on Sunday July 7, 2024 and published on its Telegram page.

A Chairde is a chomrádaithe,

Táimid anseo i relig bodenstown ag uaimh ár n-athair, Wolfe Tone agus táimid ag rá go bhfuil an gluaisteacht a bhunaigh sé fós beo, agus tá sé ag fás arís.

Wolfe Tone is the father of Irish Republicanism. We come here each year not just for commemoration, but like Pearse, Connolly, Mellows and Costello before us, we come because we believe that the ideas and the vision that Tone put forward of a free independent Ireland is as relevant today as they were in the 1790s and because we believe that by remaining true to the teachings of Wolfe Tone we can build a revolutionary movement that will successfully free our country. Maybe not today, but our freedom is inevitable.

Tone’s most important belief was that we must ‘break the connection with England’ by any means necessary. It is for this reason that he established revolutionary military-political organisation the United Irishmen in 1791 and led a mass armed uprising in 1798 against British Rule in Ireland.

Tone was also clear that the revolutionary struggle could only be successful if it was based on the masses of the Irish People, stating that, ‘Our Strength shall come from that great and respectable class, the men of no property’.

And in these two simple quotes from Wolfe Tone, we have two of the most important teachings for the Revolutionary Republican Movement today. Firstly, that Republicans must work as a priority for National Liberation by any means we decide necessary.

That we must break the connection with England and defeat all forms of Imperialism in Ireland to establish a sovereign, Independent, Irish Republic.

And secondly, we learn from Tone that the fight for our Republic is a class struggle and that the driving force of that struggle will be the working class fighting for their own liberation.

These are two key teachings that when deviated from lead to compromise and the selling out of our revolution.

It is the duty of all of us here today and of all Republicans across Ireland, to ensure that the struggle for national liberation is kept at the fore of our revolutionary republican objectives and that we work tirelessly to achieve it and to ensure that our movement remains centred on and driven by the working class.

Some other key points laid down by Tone include that Republicanism is Anti Imperialist and it is Internationalist. Our struggle in Ireland is part of a wider international struggle of oppressed people against occupation, colonialism and imperialism.

Tone understood this when he looked to Revolutionary France to support the 1798 uprising. Today, Republicans must fight our struggle while also supporting Liberation struggles around the world in the belief that every blow struck against imperialism brings our victory closer.

So from Palestine to the Philippines and from India to the Basque Country, and everywhere people take a stand against NATO, the Revolutionary Republican movement must raise our cries in solidarity. The tide of revolution is rising in the world and there is much to be optimistic about.

But as revolutionaries we also have to be realistic. Since the time of Wolfe Tone the tide of revolutionary Republicanism has ebbed and flowed.

After the days of Tone and Emmet and the final defeat of the United Irishmen in 1805, Republicanism was reduced to an ember, spoken about in quiet corners until the birth of Young Ireland and the uprisings of 1848 and 1849 when revolutionaries such as Thomas Davis, Fintan Lalor, James Stephens and John O’Mahony would carry forward the vision of Tone, take up the hard work of rebuilding the Republican Movement and become the spark that would renew the Revolutionary fire, giving birth to Fenianism and the struggle that has carried us until today.

And today, we are 26 years on from the surrender of 1998, a surrender that had a devastating effect on the movement. Later this month it will be 19 years since the Provisionals ended their armed campaign.

These two great betrayals have led to the situation where the movement is fractured and split.

The revolutionary forces, though active, are scattered and there is mistrust between Republicans, whether in different groups or independents across Ireland, and this mistrust and division is exploited by our enemies.

It is a situation that all Republicans want to reverse and one of the revolutionary priorities in this phase of our struggle to overcome.

Comrades, like the revolutionary republicans after the defeat of the United Irishmen and Young Ireland, we find ourselves with the hard and gruelling task of rebuilding and reasserting the revolutionary republican struggle.

And the path to rebuild our struggle is the development of an Anti Imperialist Broad Front. A United Front of Revolutionary republicans, recognising and respectful of the autonomy and independence of the groups and independents involved, working in cooperation to advance our common republican objectives and to achieve a common republican programme. This is what our enemies most fear.

But again, this will not just happen overnight.

Trust and co-operation must be developed and we assert that this will be best achieved through activism and the development of National Republican Campaigns that can be taken up by all Republican groups and independents in a unity of purpose, that shows the real and forgotten strength of the Republican Movement.

There are many campaigns that could be developed from support for POWs to opposing internment and extradition, environmental campaigns such as the unacceptable situation at Lough Neagh, to campaigns that oppose the British and NATO presence in Ireland.

Such a Republican Broad Front would be a fitting tribute to our Patriot Dead, to martyrs like Cathal Brugha, who gave his all in fighting for the sovereign, Independent Irish Republic and gave his life on this day in 1922 as a hero in the war in defence of the Republic.

Over the last seven years we have put down a solid foundation as a movement. We have reasserted Irish Socialist Republicanism as the driving force of Revolution in Ireland.

We have recruited a new generation of republicans not damaged by the 1998 surrender who are now working with more experienced republicans to drive the struggle on.

While we can be happy with these achievements, the Republic needs more from each and every one of us and we all need to ask what we as individuals can do to carry the struggle forward.

Now is the time to move to the next phase of development in our revolutionary struggle, unsurprisingly by taking it back to Tone. Now is the time to strengthen and embed ourselves in the people of no property and to engage in systematic Republican Community work across the country.

In doing so, we would do well to return to Seamus Costello and the oration that he delivered from this spot in 1966, signalling the rise of Socialist Republicanism within the Movement. Costello outlined how it was the duty of all republicans to be active in our community.

How we should be involved in community groups, trade unions, tenants and residents associations, sporting, cultural and educational organisations and how we must take and assert our revolutionary republican position within them.

This is a task for all revolutionary republicans. Look at the groups in your area and see which ones your involvement in would advance the strengthening of Socialist Republicanism in your community.

Where no such groups exist, establish them. Where help is needed reach out to us as we have experienced comrades who excel in this area that would be happy to help in this work.

To conclude the comrades, this is a brief outline of our tasks in the time ahead.

While these plans will be deepened with discussion and debate within the movement, no one should leave this graveyard thinking there is no work for them to do, and the responsibility is on you to come forward and volunteer instead of waiting for others to come and ask you.

Our work is to free Ireland and our people by any means necessary to establish the 32 county All Ireland Socialist Republic, sovereign, independent, Gaelic and free, and we will not be stopped.

Redouble your efforts comrades, onwards to the Republic of 1916.

Beir Bua,

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá

MAJOR PRO-SETTLER CENSORSHIP BY META

On July 14, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

Meta, the company that runs the social media platform Facebook, is banning¹ the use of the word Zionism by FB users, claiming the word is used interchangeably with ‘Israel’ and Jewry and is ‘anti-semitic’ and that their ban is in defence of Jews.

The word Zionism is often used in connection with Israel but it does not follow that its use is synonymous with Judaism or that it is therefore antisemitic, any more than to use the word “Nazism” in the 1930s and 1940s would have necessarily been anti-German.

The word ‘Zionism’ is associated with the state of ‘Israel’ for a very good reason – it was founded precisely as a Zionist project, a homeland for people of Judaic background. Palestine happened to be already occupied and so the initiative became also a European settler project in the Middle East.

Christians who support the project for religious – as distinct from political — reasons, mostly in the US, are also regularly described as “Zionist Christians” and form the majority of US Zionists.

But Zionism, rather than describing a religious movement, is essentially political. The Israeli State gives right of citizenship to those from anywhere who can prove being of Judaic background but does not require them to practice the religion or, in fact, to believe any Judaic tenet.

A Gallup survey in 2015 had 65% of Israelis self-identifying as being either “not religious” or “convinced atheists”, while 30% identified as being “religious”. More recently, polls found only 55% identifying as non-secular.

But its Jewish citizens being religious or not, the State is Jewish and the result of a Zionist movement with 19^th-Century origins.

Of course, not all Israelis are Jewish either – there are also Muslims, Christians of various Eastern varieties and some western, Druze and others.

The Israeli State came into being on 14 May 1948 as a Zionist state, the culmination of decades of Zionist planning and search for a location, also a settlement project in Palestine promoted by British imperialism and a terrorist campaign against the indigenous Palestinians.

*Theodor Herzel, key founder of Zionist Movement and author of Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and one of his statements.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Origins of Zionism

Zionism as an ideology and movement was founded “in the late 19th century by secular Jews, largely as a response by Ashkenazi Jews to rising antisemitism in Europe, exemplified by the Dreyfus affair in France and the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire.

“The political movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in 1897 following the publication of his book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State).

“At that time, Herzl believed that Jewish migration to Ottoman Palestine, particularly among poor Jewish communities, unassimilated and whose ‘floating’ presence caused disquiet, would be beneficial to assimilated European Jews and Christians.

“Political Zionism was in some respects a dramatic break from the two thousand years of Jewish and rabbinical tradition.

“Deriving inspiration from other European nationalist movements, Zionism drew in particular from a German version of European enlightenment thought, with German nationalistic principles becoming key features of Zionist nationalism.

“Although initially one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to Jewish assimilation and antisemitism, Zionism expanded rapidly. In its early stages, supporters considered setting up a Jewish state in the historic territory of Palestine.

“After World War II and the destruction of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe where these alternative movements were rooted, it became dominant in the thinking about a Jewish national state.

“During this period, Zionism would develop a discourse in which the religious, non-Zionist Jews of the Old Yishuv who lived in mixed Arab-Jewish cities were viewed as backwards in comparison to the secular Zionist New Yishuv.”

Jewish use of the word

It was the Jewish Zionists who tried to equate Judaism with Zionism, an effort that was initially repudiated by many (probably most) Jews around the world prior to the Holocaust. After that and in particular with the creation of ‘Israel’, the majority seemed to identify with the Israeli state.

But there was always opposition to that among Jews, including famous ones. The Jewish historian of nationalism Hans Kohn argued that Zionism nationalism “had nothing to do with Jewish traditions; it was in many ways opposed to them”.²

Zionism had its critics from early on and the cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’am in the early 20th century wrote that there was no creativity in Herzl’s Zionist movement, and that its culture was European and specifically German.³

“He viewed the movement as depicting Jews as simple transmitters of imperialist European culture.”⁴

In recent decades the Zionists worked harder to demonise anti-Zionist Jews, calling them “self-hating Jews” and hounding those who spoke out against Zionism and the apartheid and genocide of the Israeli state, even destroying the employment prospects of such academics.

However, increasingly non-Israeli Jews around the world, including some commentators think the majority of their youth in the USA, are non-Zionist and even anti-Zionist. Many have been prominent in Palestine solidarity and anti-Israel actions.

*A well-established Jewish sect that rejects Zionism and therefore the State of Israel.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Jews using the term “Zionism” seem to be clear about its meaning and increasingly tend to identify themselves as either Zionist or Anti-Zionist. But most Jews in Israel might be considered ‘Zionist’ in the de facto sense of special ethnic entitlement status and occupation of Palestinian land.

Meta’s ban on use of the word on its social media platform therefore has nothing to do with defending Jews from anti-Semitism and in fact is aligning itself with the Zionist coercion of Jews from which a large section around the world are escaping.

By equating Judaism with Zionism, with the genocidal actions of the Israeli State, Meta is actually strengthening anti-Semitic thinking in many parts of the world.

*Jews in solidarity with Palestine and therefore presumably anti-Zionist, photographed on Palestine Solidarity march in London recently*. (Photo: *Morning Star*)

Non-Jewish Use of the word

It may be that not everyone is clear on the difference between Jews and Zionists but the likelihood is that despite obfuscation by the Zionists themselves, most understand the difference.

It is also possible that some may disguise their anti-Semitism by denouncing Zionists when they mean “Jews”.

Even so, that cannot serve as an excuse for banning the use of an appropriately descriptive and historical word, one in addition based on a political movement created — and practice carried out — by Jewish Zionists themselves.

Effect of the ban

The immediate effect of the ban is to increase the one-sided censorship which is already prevalent in the West, sheltering the European Settler State in the Middle East from much criticism for its genocidal policy and actions against the Palestinians.

The effect of that “sheltering” (and in many cases its objective) is to assist that state to continue its genocide and also to facilitate the western states’ support for that genocide in politics, journalism, sport, culture, trade, finance and armament.

The longer-term effect will be to energise the search for other platforms that will not impose such bans on speech. Already Telegram is gaining many users on both Right and Left ends of the political spectrum. This does not mean however that the State cannot find the means to spy on them.

Those wishing to use terms that describe what the western imperialists do not wish described may abandon platforms owned by Meta in favour of others, at the same abandoning many mainstream Meta users to the dominant discourse and ideology.

Image sourced: https://palestinelegal.org/distorted-definition

Other pro-Israeli censorship

Meta previously banned the word Shaheed, meaning “martyr”, which it lifted after a period of a year. This is a term regularly used by the Palestinians to describe their dead, their fallen Resistance fighters but also the huge number of civilians killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces.

The term is also used in a similar way in relation to other other Arab resistance groups from the Lebanon to Yemen. Meta suspends accounts or closes them for promotion of resistance organisations (termed “terrorists” by Western states) across the globe, not only in the Middle East.

Ex-Minister for Home Affairs for the UK Suella Braverman attempted to ban the slogan “From the river to the sea” in Palestine solidarity context,⁵ claiming that because it encapsulated the desire for a Palestinian state, it was anti-Israeli and therefore anti-Semitic, a giant anti-logical leap.

A small group of anti-Zionist protesters in ‘Israel’ some weeks ago was suppressed by Israeli police and one of the latter was filmed loudly declaring that any placard or banner including the word “genocide” would be removed, an attitude mirrored by police in Germany.

People, including supporters of Juedische Stimme (Jewish Voice), a Jewish organisation, gather for a ‘Global South United’ protest to demand freedom for Palestine on 28 October 2023 in Berlin, Germany. [Getty]

Challenging Israeli atrocity hoaxes of the Palestinian resistance beheading babies or mass raping Israeli women has also drawn fire and accusations of “anti-Semitism”. Placard representations likening Israeli actions to those of the Nazis were often suppressed in the West.⁶

The issue of banning publication of certain words is not an easy one though liberal and social-democratic trends present it uncritically. We may object to the use of any of a huge number of racist epithets, for example and understand that these can be used to build up racist cultures.

However, when the State is asked to ban these and other kinds of speech, it is in effect being publicly empowered to ban what is in the interests of the elite to ban, i.e those words that convey unpleasant images of the ruling class, however valid.

“Property speculator”, “vulture capitalists”, “imperialists”, “colonialists”, “sectarian”, “collaborators”, “quisling” and “settlers” could be on a future list for banning under “hate speech”, along with combinations of words such as “police” with “brutality” or “politician” with “corrupt”.

Liberals and social-democrats tend to forget at times where the real power lies and what interests are served by the State.

Meta’s ban will be circumvented in many ways of course but it represents a major attack in social media on democratic freedom, all in the service of a genocidal colonial state which itself is in the service of imperialism.

End.

Footnotes:

1 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/09/meta-hate-speech-policy

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zionism

3Ibid

4Ibid

5Though it has also been used as a slogan of Zionist expansion, including by Netanyahu.

6Including by mainstream Palestine solidarity organisations.

Sources:

Meta banning most use of the word: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/09/meta-hate-speech-policy

Zionism: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/zionism

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism

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

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/12/24/zionism-anti-semitism-and-colonialism

https://palestinelegal.org/distorted-definition

Religion in Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel

Chiquita, the multinationals and the bloodbath in Colombia

On June 17, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Massacres, Political Analysis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (16/06/2024)

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

It was an open secret that the US multinational, Chiquita, financed the paramilitaries. But the company always denied it, until one fine day, due to the insistence of the victims the company had to acknowledge its guilt and pay a fine of $25 million US.

On June 10^th, this year, a tribunal in Florida ordered the company to pay $38 million to the families of 8 people who were murdered by the groups Chiquita financed.¹

However, the victims in the same period for which Chiquita accepts it financed the paramilitaries and to have allowed them import weapons through their free zone port number more than eight victims, there are thousands.

But it is not just a matter of the number of victims but rather the number of victimisers. The judgement lays bare the discourse of the transitional justice system and that of all the governments, including the current one, about the nature of the conflict.

The peace agreement signed with the FARC, described the problem as one of some criminal guerrillas (and among their ranks there were) and some “rotten apples” in the armed forces (there weren’t any but rather it was a problem with the military institution itself).

The business people were designated as third parties and are not obliged to testify before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). But the judgement in the US against Chiquita clearly shows that they are not “third parties” in the conflict but “first parties”.

Once upon a time the role of the multinationals in the conflict was the starting point for all of the left and the human rights groups too, but not anymore.

Before we look at the matter, we should bear in mind that among many of those who are now part of the government, those that signed or promoted the agreement with the FARC are various spokespersons that previously denounced many companies.

I had the honour of investigating the role of the British oil company BP and other companies in the case of Casanare, where the role of the company could be proven.

The company itself, partially acknowledged its bloody role in financing the 16^th Brigade alleging that it was legal at that time.

Many organisations have denounced BP, and the voices raised against the company increase in number.² But legally BP is as innocent as Chiquita once was. In Southern Bolívar we saw how mining companies fomented the war against communities.³

*Carlos Castano, right, the leader of the right-wing paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.* (Photo cred: *New York Post/ AP*)

It wasn’t just in that region, but rather in the whole country and included national companies as well.⁴ The palm companies did their part and the cattle ranchers publicly accepted their role in fomenting paramilitaries,⁵ to name just a few sectors.

Other reports, as yet not proven to the same degree as the ones against Chiquita, cameout, but few doubt the reports against Coca Cola and Nestlé. Perhaps in a few years we can state it with the same legal certainty as we do now in relation to Chiquita.

And if we get there, it will be exclusively due to the struggle of the victims.

For the current government, the truth commission and many sectors of the Historic Pact (PH) the conflict is to be explained in terms of drug trafficking, minor disputes (never major ones) for land, corruption and the “culture of death in Colombia”.

But none of that is true. It is true that drug trafficking has, up to a point, played a role, and sometimes there are land disputes between neighbours that end badly and violence as a method of resolving problems is socially acceptable amongst many sectors of the country.

But none of this explains the conflict.

The Colombian conflict can be explained in terms of one between national capital, but above all international capital and the Colombian people and can be seen in the fight for land, the economic model, the war on unions, grassroots organisations etc.

Once upon a time it was not controversial on the left to say so, not even among the NGOs and even some politicians did so. Now, however, whoever states as much, dies politically.

Petro has given the excuse that he holds office but not power as a justification to explain the lack of operational capacity of his government and the lukewarm nature of his proposals. But we knew that, we always knew that, even when Petro on the campaign trail said he would “take power”.

People used to accept the idea that Colombian policies are not decided in the Nariño Palace (presidential palace) but rather in the White House and the cafés of Wall Street. The owners of the “cafés” decide more than do the Colombian people.

Those that serve the coffee are companies like Chiquita and it is the Colombians who wash the dishes.

President, are you the owner of one of these cafés, a waiter or a dishwasher? Tell us in detail. We would like to know who took the decision to allow Chiquita and the rest of the companies to kill left, right and centre.

We would like you to name those companies that kill peasants. Or, do you not as President have access to the military and police archives etc.?

On the election campaign, Petro said he was the Biden of Colombia.

But Biden and the Democrats have always received funds from multinationals, particularly from the agribusiness sector. So Petro should tell us whether he is still the Biden of Colombia and what he intends to do with Chiquita and other companies behind the Colombian conflict.

The peace process with the FARC and the rise of the PH as a party of government has left us a pernicious legacy, where we talk about the conflict in psychological terms, of evil, or individual responsibility (except when dealing with the insurgency).

And from the onset deny the role of the US in the conflict and the role of companies, particularly the multinationals. The business people are not on trial in the JEP, except those who voluntarily place themselves before the tribunal.

And that is only done by those who face a sure sentence in the ordinary justice system and see in the JEP the possibility of avoiding jail time. The Truth Commission excluded the business people.

In 2015, in the middle of his speech to the Colombian Oil Association, the then President Santos tried to reassure them and promised that he was not going to pursue them.

He gave them some advice, suggesting that if there was ever report made against them they could allege they were coerced.

Furthermore he stated, “Which businessman is guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity? If there is even one, he might be put on trial, but I don’t see how, or where…”⁶

Well, for the moment we could reply that perhaps in Florida, but not in Bogotá and not due to the NGOs, state bodies and other personalities who sell us that image of the conflict in which companies are not the driving force behind the conflict.

End.

Comment by Rebel Breeze:
Chiquita is the current manifestation of the infamous United Fruit Company which organised a massacre against striking fruit workers in December 1928:

*Leaders of the 1928 strike including two martyrs.* (Photo sourced: *Wikipedia*)

NOTES:

1 The Guardian (11/06/2024) Chiquita ordered to pay $38 million to families of Colombian men killed by death squads. Luke Taylor. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/11/chiquita-banana-deaths-lawsuit-colombia

2 Declassified UK (18/07/2023) La financiación de BP a los militares asesinos de Colombia. John McEvoy. https://www.declassifieduk.org/es/la-financiacion-de-bp-a-los-militares-asesinos-de-colombia/

3 Ó Loingsigh, G. (2003) La estrategia integral del paramilitarismo en el Magdalena Medio. España. https://www.academia.edu/96631813/LA_ESTRATEGIA_INTEGRAL_DEL_PARAMILITARISMO_EN_EL_MAGDALENA_MEDIO_DE_COLOMBIA

4 Ramírez, F. (2010) Gran minería en Colombia, ¿Para qué y para quién? Revista Semillas No. 42/43 https://semillas.org.co/es/revista/gran-miner

5 Ó Loingsigh, G. (2006) El Catatumbo: Un reto por la verdad. Cisca. Bogotá. P.153 https://www.academia.edu/16951015/Catatumbo_Un_Reto_Por_La_Verdad

6 Cited in Sinaltrainal et al (2016) Ambiguo y decepcionante acuerdo: itinerario para la impunidad de crímenes de Estado. P.24 https://rebelion.org/docs/208980.pdf

IF WE DON’T SUPPORT THE RESISTANCE

On June 12, 2024June 13, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Political Prisoners, Socialist Revolution1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

In an anti-imperialist struggle, if we don’t support the Resistance, what are we doing?

Among the Left – and even among many liberals — the importance of internationalist solidarity is generally accepted as taken for granted. However, as with many principles, it is in its application that we find substantial disparity.

After the October 7^th breakout from the Zionist siege of Gaza the leading elements of the western world rushed to condemn the Palestinian resistance led by the Hamas group. Atrocity propaganda created by the Zionists abounded.¹

Hamas² and Islamic Jihad³ had planned and carried out the breakout operation in which they knocked out the Zionist surveillance and automatic firing defences, damaged communications, went through and over the apartheid wall and overran the Golani Brigade⁴ forces.⁵

The Resistance killed many of the IOF⁶ and captured others. In addition, the Resistance captured a number of civilians in order to exchange them for the huge number of Palestinian political prisoners held by the Zionist authorities.

Some Left groups joined the anti-Resistance chorus immediately while others took a little longer but then did so too. In Ireland, for example, leading figures in People Before Profit and the Socialist Party condemned Hamas, seen as the leading Palestinian element in the operation.

So too did the leadership of the formerly revolutionary Irish Republican political party Sinn Féin.⁷

Of the Left Zionists in ‘Israel’ (in so far as they can be called ‘Left’), they too joined the chorus. The Israeli state’s presidency has had representation from the Labour Party without interruption from 1948 to 1977 and most of the settlement expansions took place under a Labour government.⁸

Saoirse Don Phalaistín solidarity group banner (bearing logo of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine on right of photo) after Palestine solidarity march in Dublin 27 January 2024. Also visible in addition to the Palestinian national flag perhaps are two versions of the Starry Plough flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the Republican Congress version at extreme left and the original version above the banner. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

CIVILIANS

Some of the western ‘Left’ organisations stated that it was not the armed breakout of the Palestinians to which they objected but instead the killing of civilians. The liberals and media also made much of the issue of ‘civilians’ – to an extent never accorded to Palestinian civilians.

It is important to note that the adult civilians in the ‘Israeli’ state are, apart from tourists, settlers. They are colonising land from which the indigenous Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed. In addition military service is required of all ‘citizens’⁹ and a great many are armed anyway.

This is similar to what the Indigenous people of the Americas and Antipodes faced from European settlers from the 18^th to the 20^thCenturies or the Irish during the various plantations from the 17^th Century onwards and the Land War during the 19^th.

One baby was killed on October 7^th quite likely by excessive heat in a burning building and another 13 children were killed, according to ‘Israeli’ social services. But by whom? By Palestinians or by indiscriminate Hellfire missiles from IOF helicopters and at least one tank firing into a building?¹⁰

Civilians may have been deliberately killed knowing they were civilians or by crossfire or by Israeli counterattack. Certainly there was at least one teenager taken captive, the daughter of the Irishman settler who infamously said he would rather his daughter were dead than captured by Hamas.

We’d like to know, of course, which case and how many. But in terms of solidarity principle, it’s beside the point: While we are not required by internationalist solidarity basic principles to approve of every one of its actions, we ARE required to be in solidarity with the Resistance.

*A number of Palestinian armed resistance groups displaying unity in the struggle* (Photo sourced: *Iran News*)

BUT, ISLAMIST…!

Many in western society are secular in their politics, many of agnostic or atheist position. So, that is our choice. Others belong quite strongly to one religious belief or another. What is different about Islamists (or fundamentalist Christians) is that they aspire to a society run in accordance with their religious beliefs.

We may not agree with that objective. We should not agree with the subordinate social and political status accorded to women in some religious cultures nor to the outlawing of LGBT sexuality. But even so, we should support the Resistance, Islamist or otherwise, in resisting repression.

Basque society was largely conservative Catholic while resisting Spanish State fascism up to the 1970s; Welsh mining society was often conservative Methodist in the struggles of the miners in the 1930s. The Irish Republican movement was permeated by Catholic symbolism and ideology.

We could have been, should have been capable of supporting the resistance in each of those cases while not supporting the religious conservative, reactionary or fundamentalist beliefs or conduct of participants or leaders in those struggles.

For revolutionaries, the general principles or internationalist solidarity are not of the kind from which one can pick and choose, while rejecting others. We are however entitled to accord ‘favoured status’ to an organisation the ideology and practice of which we most approve.

We may for example prefer a secular or even socialist resistance organisation (e.g the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine). We may carry its flags, promote its statements, share its social media postings. But we do so while also expressing solidarity with the Resistance as a whole.

That is reasonable and honourable. It is neither to participate in attempts to break up whatever unity exists among the organisations of the resistance.

During the 30 Years War in Ireland, there were those in Britain who participated in those activities – people who colluded for example with SF refusing to share a platform with the IRSP¹¹ on Hunger Strike commemorations, threatening refusal to attend if their wishes were not acceded to.

No doubt that seemed justified to the Provisionals in their promotion of their organisation above any other choice but that activity split commemoration committees, disheartened activists and killed some solidarity events on the annual calendar.¹²

HOW BEST TO DO IT … AND IN PUBLIC

We often hear people ask a speaker from the resistance movement what we should do in solidarity. This is in general incorrect behaviour because we have our own revolutionary program and we best know our own circumstances and capabilities.

It is a different thing to ask what are the things that the resistance movement needs: medicines, weapons, representation, contacts, publicity etc. But we still have to decide how well to fit the effort of obtaining those within our capabilities or even whether the objective is worth the energy expanded.¹³

The Resistance can tell us what they need but the decision on which solidarity actions to take is ours. However whether to express solidarity is not a choice for revolutionaries – it is an obligation.

As revolutionaries we have a public position and part of that should be public solidarity with the Resistance. It is not unknown for some to claim to support a resistance organisation but to decline to do so publicly.

An African National Congress speaker in London years ago told me privately that they supported the Palestinian and Irish resistance but would not do so publicly as it might undermine support they were receiving from UK and other western bourgeois organisations.

I argued with him against this.¹⁴ Relating the discussion to a senior SF activist later I was astounded at the response that they would do the same if required.

Solidarity with the Resistance means also solidarity with those incarcerated during the struggle, the resistance in the jails. Again, though an organisation may think differently, we are not required to support the specific organisation to which the prisoners owe allegiance.

Nor does any Resistance organisation have the right to dictate to us whether we may or may not express solidarity with political prisoners who are aligned with that organisation. Over the years, the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign has faced down attempted coercion along those lines.

So also did the Irish Political Status Committee in London. And both groups remained independent. Unfortunately the Troops Out Movement of the day was unable to do so and after a brief period of asserting independence, eventually succumbed to domination by Provisional Sinn Féin.¹⁵

Supporting political prisoners is an act of necessary solidarity with the resistance and also one of self-defence in the longer term but it does not necessarily mean expressing support with the actions or organisation of the prisoners before or indeed after they were jailed.

*Banners and flags presumably at Celtic FC home stadium during the current episode of the Zionist genocidal war*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*).

SUMMARY

We are entitled if we wish to prioritise support for a specific organisation or its program but not obliged to do so, nor to accept their advice on how to conduct our solidarity work. Nor is it required of us to condone every action of the Resistance in general.

But we are required to publicly support the Resistance in general and not to join in public condemnations. And that’s the minimum to do if we are going to claim being in solidarity with a struggle.

For any revolutionary struggle, internationalist solidarity is an important factor, in encouragement to the Resistance, in de-legitimising the repression and in practical terms of supplies to the resistance, also in hampering the repression through blockades, boycotts or industrial action.

If we don’t support the Resistance, how can we claim to be in solidarity with Palestinians? Charity is not the same as solidarity. Pity is not the same as support. Outrage at the crimes of the oppressor is not the same as solidarity with the Resistance.

Furthermore, why should we expect solidarity with our struggles, now and in the future, if we cannot express that solidarity with the struggles of others?

End.

POSTCRIPT

Some will have searched in vain for a reference from Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, Luxemburg – or Connolly or even a famous Irish Republican leader – to justify the principles I have discussed here. At the end of the day, people should stand by principles because they have been tried and tested and are aligned with revolutionary experience but should also test them on their own experience in struggle.

In presenting some credentials towards giving these principles some consideration I can only say that I have thought about them and sought to practise them over decades of activism in Britain and Ireland.

Among the areas of Resistance and of political prisoners which have claimed my activity have been Ireland, Palestine, S. and SW Africa, Vietnam, Housing struggle, US Indigenous and African American people, organised Workers, Anti-Fascism & Anti-Racism, Kurdistan, the Basque Country, Syria, Haiti, Western Sahara, Catalunya, the Donbas …

FOOTNOTES

1All since thoroughly debunked though still repeated on occasion: “‘Israeli’ babies beheaded, torn from a womb and stabbed, women raped, people and houses burned.” These fake atrocity stories were repeated in the western media and by some politicians, including Biden and helped create an atmosphere assisting genocide by the ‘Israeli’state.

2Hamas began as an Islamist community organisation which then became a political party and developed an armed wing (like most Palestinian political groups, in response to the armed Zionist State and its settlers). In 2006 the party won the Palestinian legislative elections but the defeated Fatah (widely acknowledged as corrupt) administration in Gaza refused to give way and, in a short conflict, the Fatah armed group was defeated by that of Hamas. They chose not to do the same in the West Bank, presumably to avoid civil war from which the ‘Israeli’ state would benefit but from that moment onwards the Zionist State blockaded Gaza and the organisation was labelled a “terrorist” group in the west and financial support went instead to the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in the West Bank (which has refused to run new elections in two decades).

3Palestinian Islamic Jihad was formed in 1981. The armed wing of PIJ is Al-Quds Brigades (also known as “Saraya”), also formed in 1981, which is active in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with its main strongholds in the West Bank being the cities of Hebron and Jenin. In addition to this organisation and Hamas there exist a number of other resistance factions, some of which are secular, all working together as a broad armed resistance front with organisational autonomy but ofen in joint operations also.

4The Golani Brigade of the Gaza Division is the most highly decorated IOF Brigade, having taken part in all of the state’s major ethnic cleansing and genocidal operations. On October 7^th hey were overrun in minutes and 72 killed with an unknown number captured (‘unknown’ because many, along with their Palestinian fighter captors were burned to death in their cars by ‘Israeli’ Apache helicopter Hellfire missiles).

5 The Palestinian operation went deep, passing Golani’s 3^rd defensive line.

6‘Israeli’ Occupation Forces, aka the official but misnomer IDF (“Israeli Defence Forces”).

7The current iteration of Sinn Féin abandoned its revolutionary anti-colonial and anti-imperialist path in embracing the pacification process in1999. It stood down its armed wing, the IRA and largely dissolved it, also having their weapons decommissioned, since when it has participated in the administration of the colony and in recruitment of the colonial police force.

8Yet for years the Socialist Party have opposed boycotting the Zionist State, calling instead for unity with the “Israeli Left”.

9With the exception of most ‘Israeli’ Palestinians and all ultra-Orthodox ‘Israelis’ but for the latter is in the process of change https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/11/israels-knesset-advances-contentious-ultra-orthodox-conscription-law

10Documented by military and survivor sources on ‘Israeli’ media.

11The Irish Republican Socialist Party with an armed wing up to the 1990s, the Irish National Liberation Army, which contributed three Volunteers to the 10 martyrs who died on hunger strike in 1981.

12And what, in the end, did the Provisionals achieve with the supremacy gained?

13The Resistance organisation may ask us to arrange meeting for them to address our state’s parliament, or for interviews with the media … Or even to restrict our propaganda from solidarity to self-interest for people, as Sinn Féin did in England in the 1980s when they were promoting Time To Go: “Push the issue of the expenditure on troops, better spent on the health and social services.@

14If to do so incurred a legal penalty would have been a different situation, of course.

15And from that moment onwards became a less broad and less effective, eventually ceasing to exist as a solidarity organisation.

SOURCES

Including a discussion on the importance of solidarity with the Resistance: https://youtu.be/yj9hQaqeeio?si=z1oSOAYGX8z-Ney8

Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign: https://www.facebook.com/p/Ireland-Anti-Internment-Campaign-100063166633467/

BRITISH NAVY VESSEL PROTESTERS SENTENCED IN DUBLIN

On June 8, 2024June 8, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, NATO, Palestine, Political Analysis1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Around 30 people demonstrated outside Dublin’s Criminal Court on Thursday, many of them displaying Irish flags (Tricolour and Starry Plough) along with those of Palestine in solidarity with three activists before the court.

The activists were charged under Public Order legislation arising out of protesting a British war ship at Dublin docks in November last year, in solidarity with Palestine and against NATO’s support for the Israeli state’s slaughter in Gaza.

It was alleged that the activists (variously from Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Anti-Imperialist Action organisations) had entered a restricted part of the Dublin Docks and, holding a Palestine flag, had approached a British warship docked there and then occupied the gangway.

*British military displaying firearms on Irish state soil* *in November last year*. (Photo: *Anti-Imperialist Action*)

Gardaí had been called and the activists had refused their instruction to leave under the Public Order legislation and they had then been arrested. No act of violence, physical or verbal, took place on either side other than the refusal to leave and the arrests.

The activists appeared in the Parkgate Street building before Justice John Hughes and all three were defended by Damien Coffey of Sheehan Partners, a law firm which often handles political and human rights cases. Three Gardaí from Store Street acted in the role of the Prosecution.

The Garda in charge of the prosecution and his two colleagues gave evidence as to the arrests. Questioned by Coffey for the Defence, all confirmed that although the protesters had refused to leave, there had been no violence offered by them during their arrests.

Strangely, as shall become evident and relevant, one did not recall the British military presence on the gangway to be armed, whereas another did and confirmed that a photo of the armed men was of those who had been present.

One of the Garda offered his opinion that whereas the vessel was regarded in law as “British soil”, the gangplank was legally “Irish soil” and, if the protesters had actually set foot on the ship, they might have been charged with piracy. This piece of evidence also had unintended consequences.

*One of the placards displayed by supporters outside the courthouse* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

According to this evidence, the British in a foreign military uniform had been present on Irish state soil and all replied to the defence lawyer that they were unaware of any Ministerial permission to do so — or that this could have constituted an offence under Section 317 of the Defence Act 1954.¹

Furthermore, none were aware of any special permission granted to them to carry firearms on Irish state ground. The British military personnel themselves were not present as witnesses as their superiors had not replied to the Garda request to discuss giving evidence in the case.

Port security camera footage was shown as evidence by which protesters could be seen at the gates of a fenced-off section of the docks and some time later proceeding through a gate. A port security employee had been summoned by the Gardaí as a witness.

After he had been taken through his evidence (and failed to respond to what seemed an attempted prompt) by the Garda in charge the only relevance of his evidence was that a) the area was restricted and b) that he was worried for the safety of the protesters.

This (and the reason for the possible attempted prompt) was of importance when Coffey developed his defence summary on the legal grounds that Section 14 (1) of the Public Order Act required there to be an element of fear arising from the actions of those to be charged under the Act.

None of the evidence for the Prosecution had shown the presence of fear of anyone from the defendants and, furthermore, he submitted, any element of fear was much more likely to arise from the presence of two men holding firearms, to whit, the British military personnel.

The second part of the Defence summary dealt with right to protest, Coffey quoting a number of legal sources, also referencing the Irish Government’s recognition of a Palestinian state and statistics of people killed by the Israeli state against which the activists had been protesting.

Judge Hughes announced that a recess was due for lunch and that he wished to consult legal authority (case law etc) so they would recess and reconvene in an hours’ time.

A number of supporters who had taken time off from other commitments left at this point while a few arrived instead.

THE JUDGEMENT

After reconvening Judge Hughes began his long drawn out summing up and it gradually became clear that he intended to find the accused guilty. However people awaited with varying degrees of patience for the details of the sentence.

The Judge referred to the right to protest but also to the restrictions upon it (usually limiting its effectiveness) though he did not say that, nor that powers exist to abolish those rights when the State feels it necessary.

With regard to the ‘element of fear’ required for conviction under the Public Order Act Hughes quoted a judgement as a reference that seemed neither relevant nor reasonable, involving a woman experiencing fear of being broken into and even fear of children playing outside her home.

Despite repeating the standard claim of capitalist law that judges cannot adjudicate emotionally nor be swayed by what was occurring in Palestine, John Hughes revealed his own political bias when he bizarrely claimed that a British fleet had been welcomed into an Irish port in 1820.

He revealed his political naivety also when he expressed surprise that the British had not replied to the Garda communication regarding the incident.

On submission by Coffey regarding the lack of previous convictions and effect of criminal convictions on the lives of the three, Johnson, again drawing out the moment, gave them what amounts to a conditional discharge with a provisional forfeit of 500 euro.²

No doubt the desire not to create martyrs around whom solidarity campaigns might intensify played at least as much a part as any concern for the lives of the activists.

The defendants and their supporters left; outside the court they were embraced by a number of supporters before the gathering broke up, some attending to other solidarity activities elsewhere. The show of support was a good sign of solidarity against state repression.³

*View of some of the people outside the courthouse on Thursday in solidarity with the three activists* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

SERIOUS ISSUES AMONG ELEMENTS OF COMEDY

The name of the British naval vessel being The Penzance and the mention of a possible piracy charge brings to mind of course the Gilbert & Sullivan opera The Pirates of Penzance (1879).

The focus of the Gardaí on arresting peaceful protesters in preference to unauthorised people in foreign military uniform carrying unlicensed firearms on Irish soil and also trying to suggest that not they but the protesters would give rise to fear is not without its comedic elements.

However overall the whole matter is extremely serious, with regard to the zionist genocide in Palestine, the active collusion of the UK/NATO, the active collusion of the Irish ruling class⁴despite its verbal positions – and the repression of its State on more active and directed solidarity actions.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 317. — (1) No person shall, save with the consent in writing of a Minister of State, enter or land in the State while wearing any foreign uniform. (2) No person shall, save with the consent in writing of a Minister of State, go into any public place in the State while wearing any foreign uniform.

2 It will not appear as a criminal record but in the event of a subsequent conviction, the 500 euro can be levied as a fine in addition to any other punishment in court sentence.

3 Though the absence of a number of political organisations and trends was also marked.

4 “Dual-use”exports to the zionist state which can be adapted to military use; failure to press for any economic, academic or cultural sanctions against the zionist state; shelving of the Occupied Territories Bill; failure to impose diplomatic sanctions of any kind.

REFERENCES AND USEFUL LINKS

Anti-Imperialist Action

Defence Act, 1954, Section 317 – irishstatutebook.ie

A PEACE DEAL IN PALESTINE?

On June 7, 2024June 8, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Massacres, National Liberation, Palestine, US Imperialism, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

The fundamental thing to grasp here is that there can be no peace deal as such. Although there can – and needs to be – an end to Israeli massacres of Palestinians, no arrangement that leaves the zionist settler state in situ can possibly deliver peace.

Even if the zionists could go against their settler nature and therefore abandoned expansion, the Palestinians will never reconcile themselves to their dispossession of most of their country, including their best land and water.

TALK OF A CEASEFIRE DEAL

Very recently Biden put forward a ceasefire plan which he claimed to be an ‘Israeli’ one; Netanyahu seemed to reject it but one of his ministers accepted it was their position.

News footage of Biden’s announcement of the ceasefire proposal “by Israel”. The Palestinian resistance states that the offer received from ‘Israel’ does not at all match the content or process laid out by Biden. (Source video clip: Internet)

Since it contains the main items in the deal brokered by the Arab state intermediaries and approved by the CIA’s man some weeks ago, naturally the Palestinian Resistance¹ has welcomed the proposals.

But with caution – they have seen Netanyahu torpedo ceasefire deals before, including the earlier one. And Netanyahu has said repeatedly that eliminating Hamas (by which he means Palestinian Resistance capability) and recovery of the detained Israelis² is a necessity for any ceasefire.

Of course, the actions of the IOF under his orders don’t suggest that he is serious about recovering the detainees – not alive, anyway. On the other hand, he dearly would like to eliminate the Resistance capability and was happy to wipe out more than the 36,000+ civilians he has already.

But it may be that he has come to believe – or has been pressured into believing – that that project may have to be put off for awhile. The settler society is deeply divided over the question of the Israeli detainees and in a recent poll only 10% believed that the IOF was winning the war.³

Netanyahu’s position is rational from the settler perspective which is that the Indigenous have to be dispossessed and, because they naturally resist, have to be also heavily repressed. But he would like to keep the war going for another reason, which is that he is due to face trial for corruption.

However, he doesn’t get to be where he is or do what he does as an individual but rather with the backing of, in the first place the Israeli ruling class and secondly, of course, of the US Government, which really means by the rulers of the US financial-industrial-military complex.

Supporting ‘Israel’ has been basic US imperialist policy since 1948, when the zionist lobby in the US was not anywhere near as strong as it is today. Biden now, Trump before (and possibly again), Obama, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Reagan – all of them have supported the zionist colony.

Contrary to what many people think, the main reason for the US supporting ‘Israel’ is that it is the only state in the Middle East totally safe from national liberation revolution (because it’s a settler state fighting the Indigenous) or Islamic fundamentalist revolution (because it’s zionist).

In other words, it’s the only safe long-term USA foothold in the Middle East. Or at least it was.

Current map of the Middle East states. The US has overthrown the Iraq ruling regime and made clients of the regimes of all the others with the exception of Yemen and Iran, both of which overthrew their western-aligned ruling elites. (Source map: *Internet*)

So if Biden is really pressuring Netanyahu– which is not clear yet, given that money and weapons are still being supplied and massacres of Palestinians continue daily — that means that the US ruling class (or at least its dominant section) is pressuring the Israeli ruling class.

Perhaps that’s why John Kirby, Biden’s Middle East envoy is now heading back to the Middle East, in the first place to the zionist state then possibly to Egypt afterwards, where some Resistance leaders have gone already (at least of Islamic Jihad and of the PFLP, according to Arab media).

But every passing day, the IOF massacres between 50-100 Palestinians on average, the population of Gaza suffers from malnutrition, their housing and shelters are bombed, rescue workers are targeted and the only functioning hospital⁴ is low on fuel and out of many medicines and drugs.

Since the talk of a deal began, the known death toll in Gaza (not to mention the West Bank) passed 5,000 and is now half way through its sixth thousand.

The cold hard fact is that if the US shut off finance and munitions delivery to Israel, the massacres would stop within a day or two and, because the IOF can’t fight without air cover, it would have to withdraw from its blockade of the Rafah crossing, instantly allowing in food, fuel and medicine.

But also as the Medical Director of GLIA⁵ Tarek Loubani stated in a recent very informative interview,⁶ the Palestinian bordering states of Egypt and of Jordan, which also have gates, could break the siege tomorrow. Of course these are ruled by elites that are clients of the imperialists.

“THE TWO-STATE” OPTION

But what’s the long-term plan for Palestine?

For some Zionists, including a couple of members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, it’s the expulsion (sorry, “voluntary resettlement”) of Palestinians from Gaza to be run by ‘Israel’ and resettled by zionists. Not many outside the state would openly espouse that objective.

Although liberal ‘Israeli’ journalist Gideon Lev, who no longer supports the “2-State solution” (sic) commented that Biden dropped that objective from his outline of the alleged deal,⁷ it has been for decades the only long-term plan of the US, UK and EU and of their main political parties.

This plan is to get some kind of collaborator management to run less than 20% of historic Palestine next to the robbers of most and the best of its land and most of its water, in a “state” dominated by the robbers and under their constant eyes, genocidal guns and air force.

Who gets the Quisling management job? The USA suggested months ago a “revamped Palestinian Authority” which is despised by most Palestinians, corrupt and authoritarian (hence to be “revamped”). Others have suggested some kind of Arab state partnership to manage at least Gaza.

*The most recent map of the imagined two-state “solution”, drawn up during Trump’s earlier presidency – areas in green allocated to Palestine, beige to the zionist state.* (Source: *Wikipedia*)

But Netanyahu says the PA will not run Gaza. Of course, if he’s on the way out, he may be ignored but the Resistance is on record saying that what they have, whether part of 2-State setup or not, must be run by Palestinians and that they will not accept any other states doing so.

And that for Palestinian unity, the PLO⁸ must be opened to Islamist organisations such as Hamas.⁹

If legislative elections (overdue by almost two decades) are run now, the likelihood is that Hamas will win again¹⁰as it did in Gaza and the West Bank in 2006.¹¹

MEANWHILE, THE DEAL …

“The first stage proposes to involve a six-week ceasefire during which the Israeli army will withdraw from the populated areas of Gaza. Hostages, including the elderly and women, would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

“Civilians would also return to all of Gaza, with 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid flooding the enclave daily, Biden said.

“The second phase would see Hamas and Israel negotiate terms for a permanent end to hostilities. “The ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue,” the president said.

“In the third phase, a permanent ceasefire would follow, facilitating the reconstruction of the enclave, including 60 percent of clinics, schools, universities and religious buildings damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces.”¹²

The Resistance leadership, while welcoming what Biden said, declare they want to see all the provisions spelled out – and quite rightly so – before they commit to the pacification plan. They also want to see that Netanyahu himself commits to it, which is far from what he’s currently saying.

They want to stop the genocidal murder of their people through bombing, starvation and destruction of medical care facilities. No doubt they also welcome the opportunity for a respite for their surviving veterans and for training new recruits, perhaps also stocking up on war materiel.

But what game are the USA and the Zionists playing? Could this just be electioneering for Biden? Is there a serious split in the Zionist war-cabinet? Or could it be a playing for time and divide-and-rule game by the US, the Zionists and allies?

A statement given by “a senior leader in the Palestine resistance” to Al-Akhbar and published in Resistance News Network suggests that the latter might be the imperialist game.¹³

The latest attempts will occur in the coming days, following an invitation issued in the name of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi through his intelligence chief Major General Abbas Kamel to senior leaders of the Popular Front and Islamic Jihad

to visit Cairo for consultations on the situation and the possibility of “creating a breakthrough which would lead to a deal the United States wants to happen now.”

The factions will visit Egypt, and there will be separate or joint meetings.

It is expected that a Hamas leadership delegation will also arrive in Egypt, where representatives from the United States and Qatar will be present, while the “israelis” will be sitting in a private hotel waiting for the results of the meetings.

However, it is clear and decided by the resistance factions that the message that will be conveyed to the Egyptians or any other party present will be much higher than the position announced by Hamas.¹⁴

However all this pans out, despite the huge toll of its genocidal campaign, the Zionist state gained nothing militarily, while it has lost hugely on the international political stage. Which means its primary sponsor, the US has lost influence too.

The world is not the same place it was up to the first week in October last year. Nor is it likely to be ever so again. Not just in the Middle East but also in the global South and even in the global West, especially in the latter for thousands of young people.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Spokesmen of a number of different Palestinian resistance organisations have made it clear that the negotiators of Hamas represent them in the talks and that they are kept informed.

2I use this term to describe what are normally called “hostages”, given that the hostages of the zionists are usually called “prisoners”.

3Quoted by Jon Elmer in last week’s Intifada Update. This is in a society with military censorship of the press and, as Jon Elmer remarked on an Electronic Intifada update, “10% is an error margin for zero.” Elmer also quoted the result of 40% who believed “Hamas” was winning.

4For a million people, according to a recent of the almost daily appeals from the Health Authority.

5 https://glia.org/products/gaza-medical-support-initiative

6 https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-16-gaza-physicians-brace-impact

7Interview today on line (can’t recall which agency).

8The Palestine Liberation Organisation, dominated by Fatah, which has largely been sidelined in the Resistance struggle, in particular since October last year.

9And Islamic Jihad – and there are others. Secular organisations like the PFLP are in the minority. The latter have been in the Fatah-dominated PLO, which excluded Islamist resistance organisations and which has been seen as betraying Palestinian objectives and colluding with the zionist occupation while indulging in substantial corruption until the Palestinian electorate voted them out and Hamas in in 2006.

10Probably with gains too for any Resistance group standing and even less votes than before for Fatah, from which the PA leadership comes.

11In Gaza Fatah refused to accept the electoral verdict and to give up their control; in a short battle they were removed by Hamas which chose not to do the same in the West Bank, where civil war would have been much more intense. From the moment Gaza came under Hamas management it was blockaded physically by the zionist state with Egyptian and Lebanese regimes collusion and politically and financially with full backing of the US and the imperialist states of the EU and the UK (and again, collusion of the Palestinian Authority). The intention was to make life in Gaza so unbearable that it would be abandoned or otherwise ripe for ‘Israeli’ control.

12 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/2/how-significant-is-bidens-gaza-peace-plan-will-hamas-and-israel-agre

13The context about attempts to split the Resistance: “They attempted to open communication channels with local leaders in Gaza but were met with the shocking response to go to Hamas. They then tried to open side channels with the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] and factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization that have military wings in the Strip, and they led an initiative they believed would be tempting to the leadership of [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, only to hear the same response. Nevertheless, the enemy continues to try to break the unity behind Hamas.”

14I interpret that as meaning that the factions will exceed the demands of Hamas, forcing the negotiators to abandon their splitting plans and deal with the actual issue of a ceasefire deal and present the detailed written terms as presented by Biden (and previously agreed by the Resistance but refused by Netanyahu) with the ‘Israeli’ Government’s acceptance, which the Resistance will accept.

SOURCES

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/2/how-significant-is-bidens-gaza-peace-plan-will-hamas-and-israel-agree

ZIONIST STATE DOES EXACTLY THAT OF WHICH IT ACCUSES ITS OPPOSITION

On May 27, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Responding to its latest genocidal atrocity which it claims was “a tragic error”,^¹ bombing a displaced person’s tent camp^², the zionist state offered some excuses for its general behaviour which are not only not acceptable but are not even true.

In fact the Israeli state does exactly the things of which it accuses its Palestinian resistance.

*Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people declared “safe area” by the Israeli military in Rafah, Gaza Strip, May 27, 2024* (Photo cred: *AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi*)

Let’s examine one of its claims in the statement: “Israel says it does its best to adhere to the laws of war and says it faces an enemy that makes no such commitment, embeds itself in civilian areas and refuses to release Israeli hostages unconditionally.”^³

Every phrase about its own conduct is the opposite of what the zionist state does. Every accusation directed at the ‘other’ is what it does itself.

The Israeli state embeds its armed forces in civilian areas by a) requiring military service of nearly every Israeli male and female and b) by providing military backing to its settlers, including those in areas of what international bodies recognise as ‘illegal occupation’.
The Israeli regime and its armed forces ignore the international rules of war with regard to attacks on (Palestinian and Arab) civilians, journalists, medical and aid personnel^⁴ and civilian cultural, administrative, infrastructural, educational and religious locations and buildings.
It is the zionist state that refuses to release their captives unconditionally (even re-detaining those they’ve agreed to release under prisoner exchange deals). At the time of writing the zionist state has detained 8,875 Palestinians since 8^th October last year, including about 295 women, 630 children, 76 journalists (49 still in detention) and has issued 5,210 “administrative detention orders” (i.e internment without trial).^⁵

On the other hand, the resistance forces target mostly the Israeli armed forces but also settlers. They allow military helicopters to land and remove IOF dead and wounded but do not fire on them, unlike the IOF who fire on paramedics, doctors and hospitals, killing many medical personnel.

Of course the Resistance is embedded amongst the people because it is of it, born of the population’s will to resist and also fights to protect it, insofar as it can. Were this not so the Resistance would long ago have been expelled by the people or exposed to the occupying forces.

However, the Resistance does not base itself in hospitals, in mosques or in refugee centres, which the Occupation’s military does not hesitate to bomb or invade.

*Two Medical Staff Kuwait Hospital Rafah, South Gaza, Killed by Israeli Missile 27 May 2024* (Photo sourced: *Resistance News Network*)

Recently, Netanyahu, Biden, Sunak and some others, in responding to the International Criminal Court’s statement that it was going to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant,⁶ along with three Hammas officials, exclaimed in rage that there is no equivalence between the two groups.

They are absolutely correct.

The Palestinian resistance has not stolen land, does not target Israeli women and children, hospitals, schools and universities nor are its members afraid to fight its enemies on the ground without armour or air cover.

*Bodies of two workers of the Kuwait Hospital in Rafah killed by missile strike on othe gate of the hospital today.* (Sourced at: *Resistance News Network*)

The symbolic decision of the Irish, Spanish and Norwegian states to recognise a Palestinian state drew the ire of the same parties as with the ICC statement, the Israeli Foreign Minister accusing the Irish State’s leaders in a racist video of having rewarded Palestinian “terrorism” with statehood.

This is yet another example of the zionists accusing others of what they themselves have done.

The zionist settlers waged a war against the English occupiers and the indigenous Palestinian people from the 1920s to the 1940s through the terrorist groups of the Irgun, Lehi, Haganah and Palmach, going on in 1948 to kill and rape Palestinians, burning villages and expelling 700,000 people.⁷

The Zionists declared their state in 1948 and demanded recognition, granted by the USSR and the USA, thereby rewarding their terrorism with recognition of their state, which was followed by other states later.

One of the terrorist groups, the Haganah, became the core of the army of the zionist state.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/netanyahu-acknowledges-tragic-mistake-after-rafah-strike-kills-dozens-1630680.html

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

1At first they tried to justify it by saying that Resistance militants were gathered there, then remembered it was an area they had claimed safe from bombing and so changed their story to one of “tragic error”, blaming the chaos of war. But these bombings are ordered and directed far from any battle-chaos and with satellite and drone imagery to consult. Which means the area could not be confused with some other and the bombing was deliberate.

2On Sunday, 26^th May 2024 killing 45 Palestinians and wounding 250 (at the time of writing), having also bombed a number of UNRWA displaced person centres.

3 https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/netanyahu-acknowledges-tragic-mistake-after-rafah-strike-kills-dozens-1630680.html

4As recently as today the Occupation killed two medical workers as they shelled the doorway to Kuwait Hospital in southern Rafah, Gaza. There is not a medical centre in Gaza which the Occupation has not partially damaged or completely destroyed.

5Source: Adameer, Palestinian prisoner support organisation.

6Prime Minister and Minister for ‘Defence’ (sic) of ‘Israel’, respectively.

7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_political_violence

LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE – IN ALL ITS FORMS!

On May 20, 2024October 20, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media Criticism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

WITHOUT RESISTANCE WE ARE NOTHING

Resistance to colonialism and imperialism takes many forms but there are those who try to downgrade, deny or even condemn its armed aspect and this has been happening recently in the case of the Palestinian struggle.

Historically, resistance has taken the form of strikes, sabotage, protest pickets, marches, rallies, placards, hunger strikes, songs, poetry, visual arts, arson, petitions, articles, books, leaflets, speeches, graffiti, clothing, language promotion, riots … and armed action up to and including revolution.

All have proved useful and the question of whether the prevailing circumstance favour some more than others is a tactical one, never one of principle. Those who seek to forbid some tactics to the movement in all circumstances are they who cannot be trusted in leadership of the struggle.

The facet of resistance that temporisers and outright opponents of the resistance movement most often seek to outlaw and remove from the struggle is the armed one, presumably because it is one of the least amenable to sidetracking into cosmetic reform.

Ruling classes of states regularly outlaw armed resistance activity including the organisations that espouse that, usually dubbing them “terrorists”, while of course ensuring they themselves have military forces which, even when aggressive invaders, they dub “defence forces”.

Indeed, those elites usually arm even their civil security forces, i.e their police. But arms and their use in the hands of working people or the invaded populations? No, that would be terrorism!

*Joint press conference with representatives of different resistance organisations.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

THREE-PRONGED ATTACK ON ARMED RESISTANCE

Recently a three-pronged ideological and propaganda attack was carried out on the Palestinian armed resistance from sources that are seen by some as friends of the Palestinian people: The Palestine BDS National Committee, the President of the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League.

The National Committee made their attack through a document advising on tactics and principles in presentation of BDS demands, in particular of the student campus encampments or occupations, advising activists that upholding the armed resistance was not advisable.¹

Around the same time, the Arab League was having its summit meeting and, though not stupid enough to advocate giving up the armed struggle, long upheld by the Palestinian people, recommended the resistance to place themselves under the leadership of the PLO² and the PA.

The PLO is controlled by the leadership of Fatah; their nominee, President of the PA Mahmoud Abbas, who was also at the Arab League summit, accused the October 7^th attack by the Palestinian resistance of providing the Israelis the excuse for their genocidal war on Palestine.

In October 2023, during the genocidal war by “Israel”, Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State and envoy to the Middle East, shakes hands with Mahmoud Abbas, “President” of the Palestinian Authority, who remains in office despite his term having concluded in 2009. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The Arab League is composed of the current 22 Arab states, i.e those for which the dominant language is Arabic.³ But the elites of the majority of those states are clients of imperialism, chiefly of the United States. In the case of Yemen, it is the overthrown ‘government’ that is a member.⁴

Apart from their weakness against imperialism, one must wonder at their impertinence in telling the Palestinian armed resistance, which they do not at all assist, who should be their leadership⁵ and that the “two-state solution” (sic) is the only option available and recommended.⁶

The leadership of Fatah under Arafat betrayed the struggle for an independent Palestine and the right of return of the millions of Palestinian refugees when they agreed to the Oslo Accords in 1993/’95, for which they received limited autonomy through a “Palestine Authority”.

The corruption of Fatah in the PA and their betrayal of fundamental objectives of the Palestinian struggle led to their ousting in the elections of 2006, which were won instead by Hamas, who then had to fight Fatah who were refusing to hand over administration in Gaza.

Fatah refused to recognise the electorally-expressed wish of the people in the West Bank too but Hamas chose not to enter into a civil war with them there. From that point onwards, Gaza was besieged by the zionist authorities and periodically bombarded.

Meanwhile the PA continued in their corruption, Abbas continued to be unelected President, occupying the office and sharing the funds coming in among his clique but using their security force primarily to control and repress the Palestinians of the West Bank.

During this week alone, Resistance News Network reported that the PA’s forces dismantled explosives prepared by the resistance in the home of Tamer Fugaha which was planned for demolition by the Israeli occupation forces, where the explosives would target them.

The zionist forces regularly demolish the homes of Palestinian fighters and Tamer Fugaha was killed, along with another four Palestinian comrades, in an epic 15-hour battle with the IOF early this month in Tulkarem.

The PA has Palestinian political prisoners and also identifies these for the IOF to arrest later. Naturally (as even admitted by western mass media) the PA is hated by Palestinians, yet the Arab League wants the armed resistance to place themselves under its rule!

The armed resistance movement, which is composed of a number of distinct organisations⁷ fighting in unity, has of course rejected any such move and instead continued its calls for the support of the Arab people and to break the zionist blockade at the Rafah gate of desperately-needed aid convoys.

*Palestinian fighters from different resistance organisations.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The Palestine BDS National Committee headquarters is also, like that of the PA, in Ramallah (West Bank). A recent statement of theirs also advised organisations working for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions with regard to the Israeli State to drop mention of armed resistance.

Furthermore, they did so in the name of a host of organisations that sponsor Palestine BDS but the Boycott and Anti-Normalization Campaign, condemning the advice given,⁸ established that those organisations had not been consulted at all and if they had, would not have given approval.

The BANC criticised the offending committee not only for the original statement but also for acting as though they commanded the BDS movement.⁹ The statement in question was quickly withdrawn and replaced with another with the offending section on armed struggle removed.

Among the Palestinian groups that criticised the statement was the PFLP’s Haitham Abdo, head of the organisation in Lebanon, at the Popular Women’s Committees festival in Beirut on the occasion of Nakba Day, celebrating also the memory of a group of women fighters:

“Holding the resistance responsible for what happened after October 7 serves the zionist narrative and harms our people’s struggle and national fight. This statement is rejected, regardless of who says it.”¹⁰

In Yemen, the weekly “million-men march”¹¹ sent a solidarity message to the Palestinians¹² but also rebuked the participants in the Arab League summit with a non-too subtle hint as to where lie their allegiances:

“to the rulers of the Arab regimes meeting in Manama, near the embassy of the enemy entity: We regret to inform you that the enemy has committed more than 3,000 massacres to date, and even one massacre should have stirred your consciences.”¹³

*Scene from Palestine solidarity demonstration in Vancouver, Canada.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

OPPOSITION TO ARMED RESISTANCE IN IRELAND

The dislike of or even hostility to promoting the armed Palestinian resistance can be seen in Ireland. A Garda confiscated a demonstrator’s a flag of one of the resistance groups, the secular Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while another was asked by IPSC stewards not to fly it.

In one of the student encampments, the PFLP flag was taken down too. The PFLP is a secular resistance organisation while others are Islamist but all are fighting in unity.

In some cases this opposition could be seen as a reluctance to have the solidarity movement associated with one specific liberation organisation which would be understandable but then a compromise would allow the flags of all groups — or one non-specific one of armed resistance.

To restrict the solidarity movement to the Palestinian national flag only is the imposition of an undemocratic “unity” and removes one of the most salient features of the Palestinian resistance – its armed aspect, fighting now amid the ruins and alleys of Gaza and in the West Bank.

Every week RNN posts photos of fighter martyrs of different resistance organisations, killed as they fought tanks, IOF bulldozers and, more rarely, IOF troops on the ground. The fighters too have been killed by aerial bombardment as of course there is no Palestinian air force or air defences.

Yet every week RNN also lists IOF tanks, bulldozers, troop carriers and IOF ground troops hit by the resistance at close quarters or at remove by mortars and rockets. The IOF dead and wounded are evacuated by helicopters which – unlike Palestinian ambulances – are never fired on.

The western mass media is not reporting these engagements and Al Jazeera reports only some of them.¹⁴

Our internationalist duty to support the Palestinians means also supporting their right to resist and that means in effect to support the armed resistance, whether we elevate one organisation or more, or just the broad principle of the right to armed resistance.

*An Israeli tank hit by Palestinian fire.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

THE IRISH EXPERIENCE

In the struggle for Irish liberation we have used – in different combinations – all the forms of resistance listed in the second paragraph at the beginning of this article ; indeed one of those forms during the Land War gave the word “boycott’ to the world!¹⁵

But the armed aspect has been a part of that struggle from the time of the clans right down through eight hundred centuries, against even internal opposition. In July 1846, John O’Connell’s proposal to have the Union Repeal Association renounce the use of armed force split the organisation.¹⁶

At the meeting, Thomas Meagher, said that “There are times when arms will alone suffice, and when political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But … force must be used against force.

“The soldier is proof against an argument, but he is not proof against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned with; but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone avail against battalioned despotism.”¹⁷

LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE – IN ALL ITS FORMS!

End.

*Palestinian youth respond to an Israeli raid on Beita in the West Bank Aug 2023* (Photo cred: *Nidal Esthayeh/ Xinhua*)

FOOTNOTES

1 We reiterate our firm position and call for a just and comprehensive peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue, and we support the call of His Excellency President Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, to convene an international peace conference and to take irreversible steps to implement the two-state solution in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative and resolutions of international legitimacy to establish an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the lines of 4 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, and to accept its membership in the United Nations as an independent and fully sovereign state in common with other countries in the world, and to ensure the restoration of all legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, in particular, the right to return and self-determination, empowerment and support.

2At its first summit meeting in Cairo in 1964, the Arab League initiated the creation of an organization representing the Palestinian people. The Palestinian National Council convened in Jerusalem on 28 May 1964. After concluding the meeting, the PLO was founded on 2 June 1964. Its stated “complementary goals” were Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine. (Wikipedia) Under Fatah domination it banned Islamist groups from membership.

3 Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

4 Rather than those in power, the Ansar Allah (“Houthis”) government, preferred by the vast majority of Yemenis to the western-recognised exiled government.

5 We call on all Palestinian factions to join together under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and to agree on a comprehensive national project and a unified strategic vision to focus efforts towards achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people to achieve their legitimate rights and establish their independent national State on their national soil, on the basis of the two state solution, and in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy and established references.

6 The 2-state option, supported by the imperialist powers, is of a much smaller Palestine state alongside an Israeli state at least the size of its current dimensions. However even this has arguably been made impossible by the spread of Israeli settlements and is rejected by most Palestinians and many Israelis. The 1-state option envisages the whole of historic Palestine under a democratic regime.

7 Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (QQB) – Hamas; Al-Quds Brigades (AQB) – Islamic Jihad; Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (PFLP) – People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine; National Resistance Brigades (DFLB) – Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade – Fatah (not under Fatah political control); Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades (PRC) – Popular Resistance Committees; Lion’s Den; Mujahideen Brigades.

8 The Boycott Campaign – Palestine condemns the statement issued by the Boycott National Committee, in Ramallah, which asserts the danger of supporting the Palestinian resistance on their work and the necessity to distance themselves from any positions that support the resistance, especially armed resistance.

This disgraceful stance comes at a time when the zionist enemy is committing the crime of genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip for over seven months, resulting in the killing and injury of more than 120,000 innocent Palestinians and the destruction of 70% of Gaza’s buildings.

Such dangerous statements provide cover and legitimacy for the enemy to continue its aggression.

What is more dangerous is that the BNC claims it issued the statement in consultation with a large number of national entities and organizations.

However, through our communications with several entities mentioned in the statement, it is certain that they were not presented with this statement nor consulted about it, and they would certainly refuse to sign such statements that promote non-national positions.

All struggles for freedom around the world have seen various forms of struggle side by side, with armed resistance at their core. Therefore, our Palestinian struggle strategy should reinforce different forms towards the major goal of dismantling this zionist project on our land.

Accordingly, we call on the BNC to revise its position and align with the authentic national stance that glorifies resistance in all its forms.

We also urge it to stop this approach that attempts to monopolize the legitimacy of international work for Palestine and issue top-down orders to everyone. Palestine is greater than all, and the global revolution today to support our people is greater than something that can be monopolized by anyone.

Boycott Committee — Palestine / Boycott and Anti-Normalization Campaign

9 See above

10 From RNN

11 For the 31st week, the Yemeni people turned out in massive crowds across various cities in Yemen in support of Gaza under the slogan: “With Gaza: Holy Jihad and No Red Lines.” A million-man flood took place in the capital Sana’a, a massive rally occurred in the city of Ibb, and marches were reported across 23 locations in Rima, among other cities. (RNN)

12 “The statement at the weekly turn out reiterated the legendary steadfastness of the fighting Palestinian people and the perseverance of its fighters in this critical phase. The people assured the American and British enemies that they will not be deterred from maintaining a steadfast stance.” (RNN)

13 Source RNN.

14Electronic Intifada updates reports a number with analysis and RNN posts the reports of the groups themselves.

15 The word comes from the National Land League successful campaign of withdrawal of labour along with isolation of services (or even social contact) with Captain Charles Boycott, the agent of an absentee settler landlord who was planning to evict some tenants in 1886. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott Boycott is a non-violent tactic but the fact of the use of violence during the Land War by the Occupation and in response by the peasantry is often overlooked. The Fenians supported the campaign and landlord’s agents were shot at, police and bailiffs stoned and scab labour attacked.

16 The Repeal organisation’s leadership became dominated by the rising Catholic Irish bourgeoisie of which John and his father Daniel were leading members. The “split” became known as the Young Irelanders and contributed nationalist culture and journalism, in particular through The Nation newspaper and some long-lasting songs such as A Nation Once Again. The Irish Tricolour was first presented to Meagher by French women during the revolution in Paris in 1848; the Young Irelanders also staged an ill-fated uprising that same year.

17 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sword_Speech

SOURCES & USEFUL LINKS

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/16/arab-league-calls-for-un-peacekeepers-in-occupied-palestinian-territory

https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/05/16/full-text-arab-league-summit-bahrain-declaration/

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

Resistance Network News: https://t.me/s/PalestineResist

Profile of Palestinian armed groups: https://www.jordannews.jo/Section-20/Middle-East/The-seven-military-wings-of-the-Palestinian-Resistance-32955

Comprensive and comprehensible analysis of the armed resistance and their weapons industry but including a political analysis also:

BOBBY SANDS – FREEDOM FIGHTER AND BEACON FOR THE DIASPORA

On May 7, 2024May 28, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, peace processes, Poetry, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

The anniversary on Sunday of the death on hunger strike of IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands was marked with a number of posts on social media. I would like to add an Irish migrant’s¹ perspective and some analysis of his legacy.

The Irish diaspora was a powerful sector in solidarity for the Irish struggle not only because of their cultural background but also because of their numbers. Some British cities had an estimated diaspora population of 10% (Irish-born and 1^st and 2^nd generations).

Furthermore, the higher proportion of those in turn was of the working class, a section of society which, although they in no way had their hands on the standard levers of power, certainly had a strong potential of the kind the British ruling class had learned to fear.

Irish Republicans of course formed part of that sector and organised within it but on the other hand the IRA’s bombing campaign in Britain was of no help at all. The popular fear of being caught in an explosion greatly enabled the Government to tighten the screws under the guise of “security”.

Karl Marx, a strong supporter of Irish freedom had commented after the Clerkenwell prison bombing of 1867² that “One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of the Fenian emissaries” (i.e who they were trying to free from the jail).

In 1974 the Labour Government had repressive legislation ready and on 29 November, using hysteria arising from the Birmingham and Guildford pub-bombings they rushed through the Prevention of Terrorism Act (1974) which permitted the holding of suspects for two days without charge.

An underground cell in London’s Paddington Green police station – this is where Irish detainees under the Prevention of Terrorism Act might be kept and interrogated for seven days without visitors or access to solicitor. “The old cells were 12-foot square, contained no windows and were reportedly too hot in the summer and too cold in winter” *(Wikipedia)*.(Photo: *Posted in 2020 on Internet by Green Anti-Capitalist Front who occupied the empty building intending to turn it into community centre.*)

That could be extended for another five days – and often enough was — by application to the Home Secretary. Access to solicitor was usually denied and though not lawful, the fact of the detention itself was often denied to concerned people making enquiries of the police station.

The prospect of disappearing for seven days into police custody somewhere was naturally terrifying and a ‘suspect’ could also be deported without trial to Ireland – even to the British colony of the Six Counties, which amounted according to their law to “internal exile”.

*Snapshot of London police harassment and intimidation of Irish solidarity activists in 1981*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The framing of a score of innocent Irish people³ in five different trials⁴ with very heavy sentences added to the intended terrorising of the Irish community in Britain, the “suspect community”⁵, many of whom believed the victims to be not only innocent but most not even politically active.⁶

Irish solidarity activity in Britain diminished greatly after 1974 as state repression impacted across the Irish community. But the hunger strikes and concerns to save the lives of the strikers in 1981 broke the hold of state terror as people took to the streets in their thousands once again.

They were unsuccessful but never returned to that state of immobilising fear that had settled over the community.

The Irish in Britain Representation Group got its initial start in 1981 which happened as follows: the bourgeois Federation of Irish Societies had its AGM in May 1981 and one of the members proposed that a motion of sympathy to the Sands family be recorded when he died.

*IBRG and Irish Republican POW Support Committee banners on march Birmingham 1984* (Source: *Mullarkey Archive*)

The meeting’s Chairperson ruled the proposal out of order and ‘the Fed’ continued with their ordinary business. The then Editor of the Irish Post⁷, writing in his “Dolan” column, found this disturbing and suggested there might be a need for a new type of Irish community association.

A number of individuals wrote in and the ball got rolling, though it took until 1983 to set up the branch-based organisation with a constitution and democratic safeguards in operational rules. The IBRG soon had a number of branches in London and others in the North and Midlands.

For the next two decades the organisation campaigned for the release of the framed prisoners, against the Prevention of Terrorism Act, strip-searching, all racism but in particular the anti-Irish and anti-Traveller varieties, for Irish representation in education, services, Census category, etc.

Lewisham Irish Centre Management Committee and Staff, possibly 1994. The Centre was campaigned for and won by the Lewisham Branch of the IRBG in conjunction with the Lewisham Irish Pensioners’ Association (which the IBRG had also founded).

The IBRG also called for British departure from Ireland and collaborated with other organisations in marches, demonstration, pickets, conferences, producing also a number of important report documents. The organisation’s officers were drawn from migrant Irish and those born in Britain.

THE LARK⁸ – a poem

Last night, from afar, I watched the Lark die

and inside me, began to cry,

and outside, a little too.

There’s nothing more that can now be done,

to save the life of this toilers’ son;

another martyr – Bobby, adieu.

Imperialism takes once more its toll,

another name joins the martyrs’ roll

and a knife of sadness runs us through.

But sorrow we must watch,

for it can still,

yes, it can kill

the song that Bobby listened to.

And if his death be not in vain,

let’s fuel our anger with the pain

and raise the fallen sword anew;

and this sword to us bequeathed:

let its blade be never sheathed

’till all our foes be ground to dust

and their machines naught but rust ….

Then will the servant be the master

and our widening horizons ever-vaster

and our debt

to Bobby

paid

as due.

(D.Breatnach, May 1981, London)

*Bobby Sands Mural on gable end of a house in Belfast* (Photo cred: *Brooklyn Street Art*)

REPRESENTATION OF BOBBY SANDS

Bobby Sands was a man of great courage whose leadership qualities were recognised by his fellow political prisoners when they elected him as their Officer Commanding in the H-Blocks. He was also an accomplished writer and poet.

When the British reneged on the agreement that ended the 1980 hunger strike and a new one was planned, Sands insisted on being first on the list, which also meant that in the event of resulting deaths, his would be the earliest.

*Bobby Sands (front left, colour party), Andersonstown Road,1976.* (Photo: *Gérard Harlay Archive*)

Most people will agree easily with all the above evaluation of the man but from that point onwards, his representation is manipulated to suit different agendas, in particular those of pacifists, social democrats, liberals and a variety of opportunists.

Some of them love above all his quotation that “Our revenge shall be the laughter of our children”. They forget many other things he wrote and seek to turn him into an angel or saint of pacifism.

Since they embraced the pacification process, Sinn Féin try to represent Sands as an advocate for and proof of the effectiveness of participating in the parliamentary electoral system, based on his success in a 1981 Westminster by-election with 30,492 votes, 51.2% of the total of valid votes.

What both these groups fail to recognise is that Sands was an IRA volunteer and was sentenced for possession of handguns in 1972 and again in 1976. If he was an angel, it was of the Archangel type, fighting against what he considered evil.

He was proposed in the Fermanagh-South Tyrone by-election mainly in order to support the campaign of the prisoners against criminalisation and for the political status recognition that they had previously. Saving the lives of the hunger strikers was of course part of the plan too.

Nine protesting Republican prisoners contested the general election in the Irish State in June. Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew (who was not on hunger strike) were elected in Cavan-Monaghan and Louth respectively, and Joe McDonnell narrowly missed election in Sligo-Leitrim.

But that is a long way from proving that the electoral process is a viable way of dislodging the ruling class and their system and, in fact, history has proven the opposite.

Nobody knows what position Sands and the other nine would have taken on the electoral process had they lived. Possibly some would have gone along with the SF leadership on that and some others would now be reviled as “dissidents” (as are indeed some H-Block survivors).

All we can say for certain is that they were men of courage in that all of them had joined the armed struggle for Irish national liberation. They had even higher courage of a level hard to imagine, to risk and then experience slow physical disintegration and death by the day and by the hour.

Long after their erstwhile prominent enemies are forgotten, their names will shine in our history and Bobby Sands’s, the brightest of them all.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1At the time I was living and working in England.

2A bomb was planted against the prison wall to free a member of their group who was being held on remand awaiting trial at Clerkenwell Prison, London. The explosion damaged nearby houses, killed 12 civilians and wounded 120; no prisoners escaped and the attack was a failure. Michael Barrett was found guilty of the bombing despite his claim supported by witness testimony of having been in Glasgow during the bombing and was hanged on Tuesday 26 May 1868 outside Newgate Prison, the last man to be publicly hanged in England (the practice was ended from 29 May 1868 by the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerkenwell_explosion.

3Carole Richardson of the Guildford Four was not Irish but she was the girlfriend of one of three Irishmen.

4Birmingham Six, Guidford Four, Giuseppe Conlon, Maguire Seven and Judith Ward. They were not acquitted and released until decades later, by which time Giuseppe Conlon had died in jail.

5Suspect Community by Paddy Hillyard, Pluto Press (1993)

6Believing them innocent and not active worked even better to terrorise because if the likes of those could be framed and jailed, no-one was safe. But perhaps safest was to do absolutely nothing to draw the attention of the State.

7Brendán Mac Lua, co-founder of the Irish community newspaper in 1970 which is now a very different periodical.

8The lark is associated with Sands because he wrote a story about a man who had captured a skylark, a bird that unusually sings in flight. In the cage the bird would not sing so the man draped the cage with cloth and still the bird would not sing, nor would it do so when he refused it food and water until eventually, it died in the dark, silent to the last.

REFERENCES

Powers under the Prevention of Terrorism Act: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/hmso/pta1974.htm