In Ireland, at this time small children will be in playgroups or nursery schools (if their parents can afford them), or in primary schools fearing or looking forward to assessments and turning in homework. In Palestine there are no longer any playgroups, nurseries or functioning schools.
Post-primary students in Ireland will be preparing for the Junior or Leaving Certificates, a high-stress situation for many. Palestinian children in Gaza don’t have to work about any of that, only about whether, their parents, friends, neighbours will survive the Israeli bombings and sniper attacks.
Or get enough to eat every day and dry warmth protection from the weather. There wouldn’t be much point in sitting the final post-primary exams in Gaza anyway, even if there were somewhere safe to hold them. The Israelis have demolished all their universities.
Even before last year, what would the young do with a degree in besieged enclave of Gaza? Yes, some could get out to other countries in the West or in the Arab world but, if they did, they knew there was never any guarantee of being allowed back.
Over all, there is a horrific statistic to add to all the others of Israel’s genocide in the past six months: the zionist state has killed 13,800 Palestinian children in Gaza and injured over 12,000, which is why some people carry bloodstained white bundles or empty nursery chairs on Palestine solidarity marches.
Easter is the time of year in Ireland for Easter Egg hunts and/or for attendance at religious services but for the Republican movement it is one of commemoration of the Easter Rising and its martyrs, with parades and speeches.
The commemoration parade proceeding along Phibsboro and approaching the Cross Guns canal bridge. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Easter Monday in Dublin saw one of those commemorations organised by the Socialist Republican organisation Anti-Imperialist Action at the Citizen Army plot in the St. Paul’s section of the famous Glasnevin Cemetery at the Republican Struggle Monument1.
Participants rallied near the Phibsboro Shopping Centre to march from there to the Cemetery, a distance of around two kilometres, over the “Cross Guns” bridge over the Royal Canal, then passing the main entrance to the Glasnevin Cemetery on the right before turning left for St. Paul’s.
Garda POU van parked extremely dangerously, hiding left turn from view of eastbound traffic, as they chat with other Gardaí and a ‘Branch man.As is said, “one rule for the people …!” In the laneway between houses visible in the background, a cameraman lurked taking photos. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
In a marked departure from the previous year, the State’s political police, plainclothes Gardaí of the “Special Branch”2 did not approach the participants to attempt to intimidate them and gather intelligence, demanding their names and addresses under the Offences Against the State Act.3
That had been followed up by a raid on the home of one of the leading activists. Sunday’s police behaviour was an even greater difference from Saturday’s, when a different Republican group, Saoradh, had their Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin’s city centre.
Around 300 police, including many in riot cop uniform (Public Order Unit) had harassed the participants demanding names, addresses and other information, attempting to intimidate them. At least seven police vans had been in attendance also to the bemusement of onlookers.4
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
LOCAL 1916 HISTORY
The Phibsboro/ Glasnevin area also figured in the 1916 Rising, with an insurgent barricade in Phibsboro and a Fianna youth, Sean Healy, mortally wounded at the crossroads by a British artillery shell fragment (a plaque on the ground at the SW corner commemorates his death.
Earlier, Irish Volunteers had guarded the canal bridge briefly; these were seen by the dozen Volunteers that marched along the canal from Maynooth, slept in Glasnevin Cemetery and got into the headquarters garrison at the General Post Office on Tuesday.
Later British soldiers set up a barricade on the Bridge preventing even foot traffic across and shooting dead a deaf and dumb man who could not hear their challenge.
EYE IN THE SKY? (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
PARADE THROUGH STREETS TO CEMETERY
The parade from Phibsboro on Sunday was led by the Glasgow Republican Flute band (formerly the Garngad RFB, which is where most of them are based) playing the airs of known Republican ballads, muted to regular tocks on their drums as they entered the housing estate.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Also leading was the colour party dressed in white shirts, black trousers, jackets, berets and sunglasses, carrying the traditional flags for Republican colour parties: the Tricolour, Starry Plough, Sunburst, followed by the flags of the four provinces of Ireland: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster.
Over the marchers the flags of the Tricolour and the Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army flew in the breeze while those of the Basque nation, Palestine and of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine lent an international flavour to the commemoration of the Irish Rising.
There was some beeping of passing traffic and cheering from bystanders at the entrance to the laneway that leads to the bridge across the railway tracks to the St. Paul’s section of the graveyard. The marchers filed in and proceeded to the monument.
The Chair of the proceedings welcomed the attendance before reading from the 1916 Proclamation of Independence and calling a singer to step forward. Revolutionary activist Diarmuid Breatnach introduced the two songs he was going to sing as emphasising the role of the working class in the Rising.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
“The decision to go ahead with the Rising on Easter Monday was taken in Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the working class at the time,” he reminded the gathering, “which is also where the Proclamation of Independence was printed.”
He sang the “JimLarkin Ballad”: In Dublin City in 1913, the boss was rich and the poor were slaves; The women working, the children hungry, till on came Larkin like a might wave …
Diarmuid Breatnach singing(Photo: Donated by participant)
Pausing to focus on a different key, the singer followed the ballad with Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly?
After applause, floral tributes were laid on behalf of Anti-Imperialism Action Ireland and of Dublin Republicans Against Fascism.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)(Photo: Donated by participant)
The chairperson asked for a minute’s silence in honour of those men and women who had given their lives in the struggle for freedom in Ireland. The colour party lowered their flags slowly in homage to the fallen, raising them again slowly to signify the continuation of the struggle.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
John Heaney, Republican ex-prisoner from Armagh was called to give the oration for the event, which he dedicated to all those men and women who had opened their doors and their homes to fighters in the struggle, whether the latter were in hiding or just resting – his audience applauded.
The speaker also congratulated on those who came forward to carry on the struggle, youth, women and stated he was proud to see the traditions of struggle being upheld in the process to achieve the Republic for which so many gave their lives.
The speaker, John Heaney delivering his oration. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The marching band then played the air of Amhrán na bhFiann/ The Soldiers’ Song, verse and chorus and the formal part of the event came to an end. Band members lined up in front of the Monument for photos and a little later played the air of “Black Is the Colour” on whistles, to general applause.
SECOND 1916 COMMEMORATION FOR AIA THIS EASTER
This was the second 1916 Rising Commemoration to be attended by Anti-Imperialist Action as they had also participated in another organised by the Seamus Costello Memorial Committee in Bray on the previous day.
AIA is a young organisation, founded by socialist Republicans unhappy with the direction of the Republican organisation of which they had been members but now containing many young people.
AIA gave rise to the Revolutionary Housing League that occupied empty buildings in a campaign against homelessness and called for a general occupation campaign across the state. A number of court cases against them followed but sadly their lead was not followed.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
AIA have also been very active against NATO, picketing promotional meetings and a number have been charged following a demonstration against a visiting British Navy ship in Dublin last November.5 They have also been active as part of the Saoirse don Phalaistín activist group.
Following the event in Glasnevin, many of the participants relaxed at a social evening in a different part of the city where many songs of struggle were sung.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
OTHER EASTER COMMEMORATIONS
Other Easter Rising commemorations have been held around this time, for example: Lasair Dhearg held one in Belfast on Easter Monday, while Independent Dublin Republicans held theirs in the capital, marching from Liberty Hall to the GPO, then to Moore Street to lay a floral tribute.
On Monday too the Derry 1916 Memorial Committee held an event in its city.6
Former revolutionary Republican party Sinn Féin held theirs in Arbour Hill7 cemetery on Sunday; a large part of their President’s address was devoted to justification of support for the EU and a plea to support the party whenever the state’s general elections are held (this year or next)8.
1My name for the Monument in the St. Paul’s part of Glasnevin Cemetery which stands in recognition of six periods of Irish Republican-led insurrectionary activity in Ireland: 1798-1916.
2Now officially the Special Detective Unit, they were previously known as the “Special Branch”, a name they inherited from the British occupation which had set up a political intelligence unit, the Irish Special Branch, to spy on and disrupt the Fenian movement among the Irish diaspora in British cities. Most political activists in Ireland continue to call them “the Special Branch” or simply “the Branch”. Their equivalent in Britain today and in a number of its colonies and former colonies continues to officially bear the name “Special Branch”.
3As amended in 1972 after a British Intelligence bombing killing two public transport workers in Dublin but blamed on the IRA; the amendment also permitted the setting up of no-jury Special Courts which are in existence to this day.
4In the context of assaults on persons in the city centre there have been regular complaints in the media and in the Parliament about the lack of Gardaí visibly patrolling the area.
7Where the 14 Dublin 1916 executed were buried, now a national monument in a former prison and church graveyard around the back of the former military barracks and now National Museum of Collins Barracks
There is a belief around that the reason that Israel is being supported by the US and getting away with genocide as far as the Western powers are concerned, is because the Palestinians are dark-skinned and that it wouldn’t happen to ‘whites’.
Those who believe that are mistaken: it would and it did. It is only marginally about skin colour but rather about where the Palestinians are.
Palestine sits in a strategic spot in the heart of the Middle East, with borders to Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, with the Red Sea to the South-east and a Mediterranean coastline to the west, connecting by sea to Europe, Africa and Asia. That made it important to old and to new empires.
The historic land known as “Palestine” in the 19th and early 20th Century was that which up until 1917 was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, now occupied by the zionist Israeli State and those areas recognised as Palestinian by international law including Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
After WWI, during which the Ottoman Empire, along with Germany had been on the losing side, in the divvying up of the colonial spoils, Palestine (occupied by the British since 1917) was given by the League of Nations in 1922 to one of the War’s victors, the UK.
The UK began to invite Ashkenazi Jews to settle there as part of a European colonial and partly anti-semitic1 project. Of course in those days “semitic” was understood to apply to the Arabs as well as to the Jews and the latter were often referred to by Europeans as “oriental”.
The British, as is the wont of colonisers in general and of them in particular, played the settlers off against the Arab majority.
And of course broke promises about restricting the number of settlers. But after WWII, a high influx of Holocaust survivors organised by Zionists began to head for Palestine and the British, fearing the destabilisation of their colony, tried to prevent unapproved Jews from landing.
The zionist terrorist militias (Irgun, Haganah, Stern Gang) began to attack the British colonial forces and Arab villages. In July 1946, Zionist group Irgun killed 91 people and injured 46 in an explosion at the King David Hotel, location of the British administrative and occupation army HQ.
Damage to the King David Hotel after bomb planted by Zionist terrorist group Irgun in 1946. (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)
The British pulled out in 1947, reneging on all their promises to the native Palestinians. The Zionists began their genocidal settler project with threats to and massacres of Palestinians and the expulsion of 700,000, mostly Muslims — and declared a Jewish State in 1948.
Thereafter the Israeli State began a program of repression and oppression of Palestinians and of colonial expansion. Naturally, this project required ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians and aggression against Israel’s neighbours.
The USA and the USSR quickly recognised the Zionist State, the USA increasingly funding the state and supplying it with weapons while the USSR permitted its Ashkenazi Jewish citizens to emigrate to the settler colony.
In October 1956, eight years after the founding of the Zionist state, in response to Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the Israeli air force attacked Egyptian airfields without warning while British and French Army and Naval forces invaded the country.
The invaders were forced to retreat and the USA admonished France and the UK for, in effect, not realising that the USA and not the old European colonial powers was now the boss of most of the world.
The zionist lobby (both Jewish and Christian) in the USA is often blamed for that imperialist state’s continual support for Israel’s genocidal attacks on the Palestinians.
But the US imperialists have their own reasons for supporting the only state in the Middle East that is susceptible to neither internal national liberation struggle or muslim fundamentalist uprising. It gives the US a safe foothold and also a guard dog to watch the neighbours (e.g Syria and Iran).
RACISM
The Nazis had a racist view of the Ashkenazi Jews, who were mostly fair-skinned. But they also considered the Slavic people (the majority European and light-skinned) as “untermenschen” (i.e ‘subhuman’). It’s estimated they killed at least 1.9 million Polish non-Jewish civilians.2
The Nazis also murdered millions of Russian non-Jewish civilians in genocidal ethnic cleansing of territory, in labour concentration camps, near sensitive battle formations and in reprisals for partisan resistance.
Fair-skinned and even blonde children victims of Nazi racism and genocide. (Source: New Zealand Holocaust Centre “Button project”)
The South African settler racist regime discriminated against all non-European people, in their official categories of “Native”, “Coloured” (mixed race) and “Asian” (mostly from the Indian sub-continent). Nevertheless, they also made some groups “honorary whites”.3
Racism isn’t primarily about skin colour anyway: It is a discriminatory social ideology based on ethnicity and the marker for ‘difference’ can be ‘racial’, national or religious. The Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland in the mid-12th Century racialised the Irish, who were generally fair-skinned.4
The rational reason behind the racism is to unite in opposition to the targeted groups, whether in order to wage war against them or so as to repress their resistance as slaves or as occupied people. The racists colonise their own minds and attempt to colonise the minds of their targets also.
Not quite two centuries after the initial invasion and part-occupation of Ireland, the British-based Anglo-Normans, now describing themselves as “English”, criticised most of their people settled in Ireland for ‘going native’ and passed laws against their social acclimatisation.
The Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 attempted to prevent “the degenerate English” from speaking Irish, adopting Irish customs and laws, dressing in Irish style, patronising Irish cultural performance, intermarrying with the Irish and becoming “more Irish than the Irish themselves.”
The main purpose for the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland had been occupation by feudal lords to gather rents from the natives but it soon became a question of replacing the natives with settlers. This was not always successful since the Irish people and many clan chiefs resisted.
The cities became fortified centres of colonial occupation, administration and garrison, the colonial city of Dublin known as “the Pale” in reference to the original earthworks surmounted by a palisade; hence “beyond the Pale” signified the native Irish and barbarism to the colonists.
The earlier occupation settlements were in or around fortified constructions, castles and ‘keeps’. Later, town and villages were established with a central square or diamond, i.e in a good defensive shape and entry by natives forbidden. Settler churches were also built as defensive structures5.
Pseudo-scientific racism from white Anglo-Saxon Harper’s Weekly magazine 1899 in the USA. (Sourced: Nothing But the Same Old Story, Liz Curtis).
With the creation of Irish Republican Brotherhood (or the ‘Fenians’) in the 19th Century and their activities in Ireland, the USA and in Britain, the British elite combined anti-Irish racism with pseudo-evolutionary ‘science’ representing the Irish as not quite human or childlike – but violent.
Cartoons in some British popular periodicals, in particular Punch, Fun, Judy(and Puck in the USA) represented the Fenians as monsters, in particular ape-like creatures and racist jibes and ‘humour’ were popularised, a practice which sprouted new variants during the recent 30 Years War.
Updated British anti-Irish racism by cartoonist Cummings, Daily Express, London, 12 August 1970, depicting the colonial British Army as “keeping the peace” between the colonised Catholic/ Nationalist population and the British Loyalists. (Sourced: CAIN)
ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE
All European settler projects imply ethnic cleansing accompanied by genocide to one degree or another: in Africa, Latin America, North America, Australia, New Zealand … but this was practiced by a European power against a European nation also: Ireland.
The British elite used atrocity stories from the 1641 uprising of the Irish to justify and encourage the genocide by Oliver Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland in 1649. Through ethnic cleansing, battle and starvation, Cromwell killed nearing 40% of the Irish population.6
British atrocity propaganda image about the Irish uprising of 1641 to justify Cromwell’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, genocide and enslavement. (Sourced: online).
These figures do not include those he had sent to British colonies in the Americas as slaves.7
The Great Hunger (1845-1848) wiped out, through starvation, well over 2 million of the Irish population of around 8 million and during that and the following decade, probably another 2 million emigrated (many of those too dying on the way or on arrival8).
Monument on the Liffey quays in Dublin to the Great Hunger (1845-1852) genocide of the Irish by the British ruling class. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
DOES IT MATTER WHETHER IT’S DRIVEN BY RACISM OR BY COLONIAL EXPANSION?
Yes, it does. The difference between the two does not change the situation of the Palestinians but it does affect how the genocide may be understood and what the targets of our actions may be.
Liberals would probably prefer the issue to be primarily of racism. If that were the source of the problem we could still be pushing for economic and isolation pressure as was the focus with the anti-apartheid campaign against the South African racist regime.
That is being done now and that’s fine. But the assumption would be that with enough pressure, Israel would be obliged to change its ways and the US leaders would feel pressured to advise it to end its racist discrimination (as they did in the case of white South Africa).
But if the project is colonial expansion, presupposing ethnic clearing and genocide, it is a different situation completely.
No arguing with Israeli zionists, boycott or isolation culturally and in sport is going to change that or get ‘liberal’ Zionism to act against their Right; as Finkelstein recently pointed out, the Nakba and all the settler expansions were carried out under ruling periods of the ‘Left’ side of zionism.
Also, if this settler expansion (or supporting such at least) is part of a US imperialism project, then no amount of campaigning to expose the behaviour of the Zionists is going to be effective in persuading the ruling class of the USA to apply corrective pressure to the zionist regime.
The fact that the basic source of the problem is zionist settler expansion means that genocide and ethnic cleansing will continue as long as the Israeli zionist state exists. And US and Western imperialism will continue to support that as long as they believe it benefits their regional interests.
This makes it clear that the long-term solutions can only consist of ending the zionist project or the ending of imperialism which supports it. The former is of course a smaller objective but at the moment western imperialism is energetically defending the zionists.
A whole neighbourhood in Gaza wiped out by Israeli bombardment months ago (Photo cred: WAFA agency)
It is doings so politically and culturally, with armaments, also with propaganda from its mass media, by repression of its own populations where these are protesting in solidarity with the Palestinians – and in the course of that it is endangering all its facades of justice and objectivity.
In the longer term that is probably a good thing, helping to create the subjective conditions for the overthrow of imperialism and monopoly capitalism.
But we need to help that process along in our own struggles while also making their continued support for zionist genocide of Palestinians as costly for them as we possibly can. While we act in solidarity with the Palestinians we are acting also against our own immediate enemies.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1This may surprise some but the British ruling class was deeply anti-semitic even before Shakespeare wrote his Merchant of Venice script. Not only that, but Balfour, infamous for his eponymous Declaration that Palestine was suitable for Jewish settlement, was personally strongly anti-semitic (I am thankful to Ali Abunimah for pointing that out in one of the youtube discussions of the Electronic Intifada)
4I keep telling people struggling against colonialism and imperialism that they should study Irish history. It’s practically all there: racism, invasion, division, settlers, plantations and ethnic cleansing, recruitment of native enforcers, undermining of native culture, religious oppression, genocide (twice), partition, recruitment of sections of the elite and nationalist political parties.
5Though this also had a history in medieval Europe. The administrators of the Ulster Plantation at the start of the 17th Century allocating grants of land specified that those who got parcels of land had to be English-speaking, be Protestant, build defensive structures and not employ Catholics.
7This has become something of a controversy, with racists of Irish diaspora background claiming parity with the slavery experience of Africans in the southern USA and some anti-racists denying it, saying the Irish were indentured servants. Both are mistaken: Irish were sent in slavery by Cromwell but subsequent Irish were sent in indentured servitude which, bad as it is, is not chattel slavery and the historical slavery period of the Irish in the USA was nowhere near as long as it was for the Africans.
8Over 3,000 are buried on Grosse Isle alone, an island in the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada.
Numbers approaching 100 thousand marched in Palestine solidarity in Dublin on Saturday as the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign held its 5th national march since October, attended by people from Donegal to Cork and from the 6-County British colony.
It took place in a week in which the genocidal zionist settler state exercised its “right to defence” by its fourth attack on the Al-Shifa Hospital, massacring over 170 unarmed civilians including women and children and using others as human shields.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In addition the zionists executed the Chief of the Gaza police and a Deputy (along with the latter’s family), claiming them to be guerrillas but apparently in retaliation for their successful organisation of a recent flour delivery without riots or any civilians murdered by the Occupation Forces.
Meanwhile, the response of the colonial and zionist collaborator, the Palestine Authority, was to continue its repression of Palestinians in parts of the West Bank and to open fire on the funeral of three martyrs1 of the heroic latest battle of Jenin, a scene of many past battles.
The front of the march begins to enter Dublin’s main street, O’Connell Street (Photo:D.Breatnach)
The official figure for Palestinians killed in this latest genocide on screens and before the eyes of the world is now nearing 33,000 dead with well over 74,000 injured and an estimated 8,000 buried under rubble from Israeli bombing in the zionist state’s “right to defence”.
None of the leaders of the Western imperialist states seem to ask themselves whether, if this is truly the necessary cost to Israel’s ‘defence’, does that state deserve to exist at all?
“Nakba never ended” placard seen in this section of the march in O’Connell Street (Photo: D.Breatnach)
MARCH AND ZIONIST PROVOCATION
The march began as has become customary at the Garden of Remembrance2 in the north side of the capital city from where it eventually began to make its way down through the city’s main street, its end taking nearly half an hour to pass through and to cross the river to the south side.
From there, chanting slogans that have since become well-known in solidarity of the Palestinians and their right to self-determination, in outrage at the actions of the zionist state and its imperialist supporters, the marchers made their way to rally outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Here many listened to speeches and performances but significant numbers shortly peeled away to make their ways back home or to relax in the city’s cafes and restaurants (after all, what were they going to hear that they had not heard and read before?).
Irish Republican organisations were not noticeably present, even those few that had been visibly present on recent demonstrations; difficult to guess at the reason, even with preparations for 1916 commemorations no doubt being undergone for next weekend and afterwards.
As usual on large demonstrations, the marchers had not experienced the insults and bizarre shouts of “Traitors!”3 by far-Rightists and racists to which smaller solidarity pickets are often subjected but, as part of the march neared Cuffe Street, a man with a large Israeli flag passed them.
From near me shouts of “Zionist! Baby-killers!” arose but he passed. Later he was seen being escorted by a Garda from the rally with his Zionist flag but also a Palestinian flag which people speculated he had taken from a demonstrator.4 Some more Gardaí gathered around the Zionist.
Shortly thereafter, he was permitted/ encouraged to leave the area with at least his flag pole5. Many commented that the outcome would have been very different if it had been a case of a Palestinian supporter provoking a Zionist rally and, indeed, I have witnessed such some years ago.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
When I lived in London I regularly saw Zionists provoking Palestinian supporters and dancing Israeli dances near them. Whenever outraged demonstrators drew near to challenge them, the Palestine supporters were attacked by the London Metropolitan Police.
At a parallel Palestine solidarity march on Saturday in London, a small group of Zionists waved Israeli and Union Jack flags but were soon swamped by Palestinian and Irish – yes Irish! – flags. In London at least there have been Irish flags on every Palestinian solidarity march since October 8th.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
TRADE UNIONS
Banners and flags of Irish-based trade unions were well-represented on the march but with at most a couple of dozen marching behind them. Specific worker groups such as “Health Workers for Palestine” replied to my enquiry that they had organised the group without support from their unions.
Banners of INTO, the largest teaching union in Ireland (primary level in the state and primary and post levels in the colony) precedes some flags of the UNITE union. (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Where are the militant actions by the trade union brothers and sisters of murdered Palestinian medical staff including paramedics, journalists (for which job Palestine is the most dangerous place in the world), food distribution workers, poets and writers?
It is well past the time when it was sufficient for Irish trade unions to bring banners and flags on to the street every couple of weeks with a dozen members or so marching behind them. In October they should have been leading their members to the marches in at least their hundreds.
By November last year at least, the trade unions should have been planning actions to take in physical solidarity, moving beyond marches and pickets to sit-downs and other kinds of solidarity action. How do Israeli goods come into Ireland and how are they sold?
(Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Clearly they are handled and administered by workers and some of those at least6 are unionised. Union-backed boycott actions would put pressure not only on the Israeli economy but also on other companies colluding with them, as with the supermarkets who stock their products.
Pressure on the latter would translate into pressure not only on the Israeli state but on the political management of the economic bases of states and also on the political management of the countries where they are operating, for example in Ireland.
Who knows, the unions might even boost their recruitment with such action, in a country where once most would not dream of crossing a picket line but where now many youth do not even comprehend the nature or purpose of a trade union.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
REPRESSION
Meanwhile, those who ARE taking action in solidarity with Palestine are experiencing repression, not yet to the extent that is occurring in the French and German states, but repression nevertheless. Some marchers on Saturday carried a banner protesting the criminalisation of solidarity.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In recent months a number of people have experienced dawn house raids by the police, in addition to arrests in the course of demonstrations or pickets. Defence of people victimised for solidarity actions has always been an important part of solidarity movements.
Most of the political parties nor the IPSC will be organising or even calling for such defence and it is up to the ordinary people in the solidarity movement to mobilise to attend and protest the court cases and attend pickets in solidarity with victimised activists.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In the months ahead, those victimised up to now and quite possibly more still will be attending court on separate dates as their cases are scheduled to be heard. It is also important as a general principle that activists refuse to agree to refrain from solidarity actions as a condition of bail.
A number of Palestine solidarity activists recently had a private meeting with officials of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the organisation also held a recent day of sessions and workshops on civil rights for protesters.
Campaigning organisation for housing and against evictions (Photo: D.Breatnach)
SHAMEFUL SHAMROCKS
Saturday’s march took place a week after St. Patrick’s Day when to the disgust of many people in Ireland, representatives of the Irish Government and even of a number of Opposition political parties attended in Washington to celebrate the day with President Biden and others.
As a result, no doubt, the presence of the Sinn Féin party on the march was small and muted and the flags of the Social Democrats absent, a party recently prominent in pressure on the Irish Government to join the ICJ case against the Israeli State and even to expel their Ambassador.
One supposes that those who are in a queue to manage the Gombeen state have to show their fitness for doing so by bowing before the leader of western imperialism; whatever their private feelings may be, they need to show that they have the stomach to do what the system requires of its servants.
“No shamrocks for Genocide Joe” placard in this section of the march (Photo: D.Breatnach)
LESS SLOGANS and LESS IRISH?
It seemed to me that there were in general less slogans being chanted on this demonstration and that that their range was less than usual. Possibly this reflects a feeling that the demonstrations are becoming more routine and less capable of stirring emotion.
Possibly too, the sheer daily weight of zionist atrocities is oppressing people and wearing down their capacity for outrage. In either case it would seem that in addition to giant demonstrations, other actions are needed to release the latent emotional energy of the people.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
On this demonstration there was much less Irish language seen in placards, flags or banners than has been the case recently and which had been growing over the months, as I’ve been commenting upon in previous reports. This is regrettable and hopefully will be remedied.
The Irish language NGO Connradh na Gaeilge had a group and banner on the march as has been the case for months, shouting among other slogans “Saoirse don Phalaistín!” A small group also had a banner in Irish declaring that they were Múinteoirí (teachers) ar son na Palestíne.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
ART AGAINST GENOCIDE
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The lines of baby romper suits or baby-grows made their appearance on the march again as did the bloody butcher image of Prime Minister Netanyahu, with a diabolical Biden on the reverse of the placard. A large ‘puppet’ of Biden with bloody hands was carried riding above the march.
Tail end of Mothers Against Genocide followed by puppet of bloody-hands US President Joe Biden (Photo: D.Breatnach)LGBT section denounces Israeli state’s attempt to paint itself as liberal through decriminalising the LGBT community (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The A2-size beautiful coloured image of Palestinian resistance solidarity was seen again but however overall the variety and ingenuity of home-made placards seen previously had diminished.
The Mothers Against Genocide group carried their white bundles depicting the slaughter of Palestinian children and sang sentences in Arabic and Irish from Róisín Elsafty and Sharon Shannon’s song “An Phalaistín”, effectively interspersed with slogans.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The sight that brought a hush over all witnessing it was the section carrying many yellow infant school chairs, a grim reminder of the huge daily ongoing Zionist genocide inflicted on the Palestinian children in Gaza.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Mohammed Al-Fayed, Ahmed Barakat, Mahmoud Al-Fayeed (Resistance News Network on Telegram, 20/3/’24)
2Originally dedicated to those who fought for Irish freedom since the first Republican uprising in 1798 it has since been recognised as commemorating all those who gave their lives in the nation’s struggle for self-determination (though certainly officialdom would disagree with honouring those who fought that struggle since the founding of the current Irish state in 1921).
3These elements claim it is ‘treason’ for Irish people to support any other struggle than the Irish national one, which they conceive of as attacking immigrants and LBGT people. Their concept of “national struggle” has never included struggling against foreign occupation, supporting Republican prisoners, opposing multinationals’ exploitation of national resources and infrastructure or fighting for universal affordable housing.
4He might also have carried it concealed all along, with the intention of destroying it in front of the marchers; how it came into his possession is unknown to me at this point. He may have departed carrying both flags in his coat etc.
5It did not seem from a distance that the Gardaí had confiscated his Israeli flag but more likely he had been told to remove it from the pole while leaving the area.
6Despite the huge drop in the percentage of unionised workers in Ireland over recent decades.
Original Latuff cartoon. West Belfast mural. Mural blacked out.
Once upon a time, Belfast was famed for its murals, so much so that even now a part of the tourist industry depends on a plastic paddy tour of the current murals on display in nationalist areas of Belfast.
It was the 1981 hunger strike and its aftermath that saw an explosion in political murals in nationalist areas. As the 1980s went on, the technical and artistic quality of them improved dramatically and the politics they sought to represent expanded.
Some of them were very militaristic, others much more political in content. On international issues, murals sprang up on South Africa, Palestine and figures from revolutionary struggles around the world were to be found on gable ends all over the city and indeed in other cities throughout the North.
Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Camilo Torres, Che amongst others looked down at the wandering revolutionary tourists who would come over in August. The message was clear: Ireland was part of an international struggle against imperialism.(1)
After the peace process the quality continued to improve, but the politics went for a walk. Twee Celtic murals abounded, young girls dancing a jig displaced images of women holding an armalite aloft for International Women’s Day.
about Imperialism were softened, when not blunted entirely or removed. So, it comes as no surprise to see what has happened to recent murals.
Sinn Féin supporters recently unveiled murals in solidarity with Palestine. They are of good quality and try to capture the suffering of the Palestinians through the images and poignant quotes.
However, they say nothing about who is causing the suffering: the US and Israel, though there are silhouette ghostly like images of soldiers standing over dead children.
There was once a mural on the White Rock Road which pictured a US Indian superimposed over a US flag saying Your struggle, Our struggle. No references are to be made now to the US role in exterminating a people. That is strictly Verboten.
However, someone decided to reproduce a cartoon from the artist Carlos Latuff in mural form in Belfast. It depicts Joe Biden, standing with bloodied hands in front of Mary Lou, who is clearly identifiable in the image, and the leaders of FG and FF, who can be identified from the initials FG and FF on their backs.
The British Army and the RUC used to deface republican murals, not any more. Very quickly, Sinn Féin, officially or unofficially (no pun intended, though it is apt) painted over the mural. It was quickly restored by others, who the artist Latuff described as real republicans.(2)
Sinn Féin are clearly uncomfortable about the issue in the run up their fest in Washington with Biden and not only are they content to throw Palestinians out of public meetings, they will now supress any public artistic attempts to draw people’s attention to the Slaughter Soirée they will have in the White House.
Many Palestinian voices such as the Electronic Intifada have called on Sinn Féin not to go to Washington, the calls in Ireland have been much more muted and tamer on the issue. However, it is a clear issue, what is colloquially called a no-brainer.
You don’t have to think very deeply to understand that Sinn Féin shouldn’t go to Washington DC, that they should tell Genocide Joe they don’t want to meet him. They will go and they will say nothing about Palestine.
Their erasure of a mural criticising them, tells you everything you need to know about their real attitude to Palestine.
Whatever you say, say nothing used to be a catchphrase about loose talk and informers, now it means never to mention Joe Biden and the Palestinians in the same breath, unless you are green washing genocide.
Meanwhile Sinn Féin does its part, emulating the British army and vandalising political murals.
Notes
(1) A selection of images can be seen on Bill Rolston’s website. Rolston has chronicled and photographed murals going right back to the 1970s. See https://billrolston.weebly.com
(1. Letter in reply to claims that Sinn Fein has betrayed the Palestinians; 2) Reply by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)
Greetings Comrades,
I am a former member of Sinn Féin who still lives in a Republican and working-class community. I see a lot of point to your views on Sinn Féin and the peace process. But I think you hit the wrong note in your article: Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh.
The idea that: “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”
Is not true, is offensive and will put off the people who might otherwise listen to you. The leaders put forward a political analysis and the members accept it. If you want to oppose this, kick the ball and not the player.
Yours, Owen
Reply
Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
22 February 2024
Biden poses for a selfie with Gerry Adams.
To my surprise I have received some feedback from a Republican on my article Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians, published on the Socialist Democracy site and elsewhere in which I took issue with Sinn Féin’s abominable decision.
Which was to fly to Washington to meet and greet Joe Biden, a man whose hands drip with Palestinian blood. Though given the scale of the genocide, dripping with blood is an understatement as Palestinian blood gushes off his hands, like a burst oil well.
There were a number of points made, some of them more important than the others. One, was my insinuation that corruption was at the heart of the decision, that Sinn Féin were not going to give up on a hooley and a lavish shindig paid for by others.
My comment on the matter was a bit facetious in part. I did describe the event as a hooley, and it is fair to say that it is a lot more than that, though the drunken shenanigans are a part of the festivities and the informal deals to be struck.
Colum Eastwood from the SDLP stated that “I could not rub shoulders, drink Guinness and have the craic while the horrifying impacts of the brutal war in Gaza continue”(1).
I had stated that “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”
There is a part of those sentences that is obviously tongue in cheek. I don’t actually believe that Mary Lou will be trying to get her leg over anyone at the White House, though I wouldn’t discount any of the lower ranking minions on the junket trying their hand.
The furtive political romance was a more serious comment.
St Patrick’s Day at the White House is one for showcasing Ireland, not just in the paddywhackery sense of the word, but it is where informal and formal discussions can take place on economic policy, foreign policy and other matters.
Not for nothing that Varadkar used last year’s event to shore up his support for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a false historical narrative about US government support for Irish freedom.(2) The Government’s own propaganda about its importance actually says as much.
Sinn Féin have various corrupt reasons for going. I should point that there are various forms of corruption, there is the type of corruption of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians seeking or giving favours.
There is another type of corruption, which is that where politicians go along with policies they know to be wrong, immoral, damaging or dangerous for reasons of political expediency, as part of an overall strategy.
Or because money will be legally made by the chosen few as a result of these decisions. Current government policies around vulture funds, the bank bailout (for which Sinn Féin also voted), privatization of the health industry etc., are examples of this type of corruption.
I have no doubt that Sinn Féin members are involved in the brown paper envelope type of corruption, the building industry still reeks of Republican involvement, though they have a long way to go yet to outdo Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
But it is more the latter type of corruption that is important.
Two and a half years ago, Pearse Doherty stated that “big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”(3). The issue has come up again recently with Sinn Féin seeking to assure US companies that the corporate tax rate is safe with them.
The new head of the Industrial Development Authority Fergal O’ Rourke, in January this year described Sinn Féin as being on an outreach programme to reassure US companies.(4) He was fulsome in his praise for Sinn Féin and he wasn’t the only one.
Henry Goddard from Deloitte Ireland claimed that Sinn Féin had done a good job in calming down international investors by reaching out to them, by meeting with them and even Mary Lou McDonald visiting Silicon Valley was cited as an example.
He stated “Fair play to Sinn Féin, they went out to the US, they engaged, said all the right things and provided a lot of confidence. They now need to follow through on that.”(5)
They are going to Washington to follow through, to reassure not only US businesses but the Irish capitalist class that the economy will be in safe hands with them and those business leaders from IBEC, various companies like PwC and others who have praised Sinn Féin are not mistaken.
Sinn Féin has stated that it is worried that it might not win the next election and has repeatedly spoken about reassuring the so-called business community.
The other aspect of the visit is that were they not to go, it would send a message to their reactionary base in the US that they are on the side of “Islamic terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how true this is, their base in the US has never been very discerning about these issues.
It would also give the government parties something to beat them with and allow them to claim that Sinn Féin are a party unfit for bourgeois government.
Implicit in the feedback is the idea that my criticisms of the provos would annoy or offend Republicans who would otherwise be open to the general message i.e. ‘kick the ball not the player’. But the player and the ball cannot be separated in politics.
If someone is upset at facetious comments about romances and would otherwise be won around, then they clearly haven’t appreciated the scale of the slaughter in Gaza, nor Biden’s role in it and Sinn Féin’s ditching of what would, once upon a time, have been a no-brainer for their base.
Proof is in the pudding and the fact that some Sinn Féin supporters see through the party’s position shows that those who can be won round have been won round already. Those in attendance at the meeting from which three Palestinians were ejected are all lost causes, political degenerates.
This brings us to the last item which is how Sinn Féin is selling this to their base. Part of the criticism of ‘kicking the player’ is that Sinn Féin has taken a position, spelt it out publicly and its members have accepted this. This is not how democracy works in that organisation.
But the position was best spelt out by Gerry Adams. He stated that Palestinians would understand why they had to go. Would they really?
Apart from the corrupt and contemptible Palestinian Authority that spends a full third of its budget on security and repressing other Palestinians, who in Palestine would understand? The parents who saw their children shot and bombed? The prisoners? The families of prisoners?
The thousands of people who pulled others from the rubble with their bare hands? Or just Abbas who while busy stifling Palestinian dissent has had little to say or do on the genocide.
Adams made one further point. He claimed there was a lack of coherence amongst Sinn Féin critics.
“Some folks are saying the Sinn Féin leadership shouldn’t meet with the American political system… They are not saying we shouldn’t meet with the British political system. The Brits are up to their neck in this.”(6)
He is right about the contradiction, but it doesn’t absolve him, rather it condemns those who are ambivalent about it.
All Adams is pointing out, indeed boasting about, is that they are in cahoots with British imperialism and treasure that relationship as much as they do their “special relationship” with the US. He went on to underline this point.
Serious people involved in struggle, particularly people who are involved in national liberation struggles, understand that your own struggle whether it be internationalist has to be your primary focus.
So, they will expect you to raise their issues and we should. They would expect you to stand with them, and so we should. But they would not expect us to do anything – any more than we would expect them to do anything – which would set back our own struggle.
So, I think it’s Irish-America’s day, it may be dominated by what’s happening in Washington.(7)
Adams clearly hasn’t a clue about what an internationalist struggle is. How could boycotting Biden harm the Irish struggle?
Adams’ question goes to the heart of the matter, he and Sinn Féin not only cling to the illusion that the Irish peace process is bringing unity closer but also that US imperialism plays a progressive role in Ireland.
And that upsetting Biden would be a setback and annoy a regime that is committed to some progressive outcome in Ireland.
Adams is not the only one to believe in this progressive role of US imperialism, Yasser Arafat also believed in it and thus we got the Oslo Accords and 30,000 people in Gaza have been murdered by this progressive imperialism of Adams and Arafat.
Courting reactionary elites in the US is not putting the Irish struggle first, it is continuing with Sinn Féin’s gallop to the right. It is to paraphrase the expression about the struggle for socialism in Ireland that Labour Must Wait!
Now Palestine must wait, indeed everything and everyone must wait. What must never happen is that US imperialisms and Sinn Féin’s reactionary base in the US be upset.
Whilst the Republican who gave the feedback is clearly aware of Sinn Féin’s limitations on the issue of Palestine, there is no republican milieu waiting to be won round on this issue that may be put off by the tone of my last piece or other such pieces by other writers elsewhere.
There is no world in which the player and the ball do not both get a well-deserved kicking, indeed, were I in a position to do so, I would give them the hiding of their lives. Alas my efforts are unfortunately more modest than that.
Anyone who is Republican and thinks Sinn Féin is right to go to Washington is thinking only of Sinn Féin and not of Palestine. They are, like Adams and co, looking the other way in the midst of a genocide, something you would have thought was an easy issue to take a position on.
But when you drink of the Peace Process Kool Aid, you don’t drink half the glass, but chug the whole glass down in one go, like Mean Joe Greene in the famous Coca Cola ad of the 1970s. Like Greene, Sinn Féin has been asked to reshoot the scene time and again.
Greene vomited after his sixth coke, though he had to swallow eighteen, 16-ounce bottles on the final day of shooting.(8)
There is no end to what peace process supporters are asked to swallow and unlike Greene, no sign anyone in Sinn Féin is about to puke at the nauseous spectacle of being asked to sideline a genocide for the meet and greet in Washington DC.
On a day when the Irish Attorney General repeated Israeli Zionist lying propaganda in the ICJ and the Irish State’s expenditure of at least €8.5 million on Israeli military equipment was reported, people protested the Irish Dept. of Transport’s complicity at Shannon.
Around 30 protesters gathered with flags, banner and placards at short notice this afternoon outside the Irish Dept. of Transport’s office in Leeson Lane, Dublin 2 (very close to Stephen’s Green). They chanted: Irish Government you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!
View of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators outside the Dept. of Transport Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Slogan chanting specific to the Dept. of Transport and to Ireland generally included: US warplanes – Out of Shannon! US Military – Out of Shannon! From Ireland to Palestine — Occupation is a crime! No peace – On stolen land! No justice – No peace! Resistance is an obligation – In the face of occupation!
Other chants included the now-familiar: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!1 From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! Free, free – Palestine! Boycott – Israel! Sanction – Israel! Saoirse don – Phalaistín! In our thousands and our millions – We are all Palestinians!
The Irish Department of Transport has Government oversight on the safe and appropriate use of airports within the Irish state. USA military use of Shannon airport in violation of Irish neutrality has repeatedly been witnessed and reported for decades.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The position of Irish Governments has been, without proof and in the face of collected evidence, that the US are not flying military material through the international airport. However, The Village magazine reported a significant increase in exemptions on such US traffic during the current war.
The Irish state, its deference to the world’s major superpower (as repeatedly shown by Government and even Opposition parties), declines to board the planes for inspection, though it is entirely legally entitled to do so and, in defence of neutrality, obliged, declines to do so.
Three people took turns to read out a short letter the organisers, Dublin For Gaza, had delivered to the Department of Transport, calling attention to the increased military flight exemptions through Ireland granted and on it to prevent military air traffic through Irish airports and Irish airspace.
Another view of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators outside the Dept. of Transport Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Irish Attorney-General repeats Israeli lies in the ICJ
While many will be glad that the Attorney-General of the Irish State was in the International Court of Justice presenting a case that the Israeli State was colonising Palestinian land, unfortunately he repeated zionist propaganda against the Palestinian resistance.
Israeli accusations of rape against the Palestinian resistance fighters on October 7th, among other items of Israeli propaganda, have been thoroughly debunked but Fanning, the Irish Attorney-General repeated them as allegedly established fact in his presentation of the Irish case in the ICJ.2
He repeated the false accusation of rape against the resistance but also included others which ignore the effect of Israeli military bombardment, tank shells and Hellfire missiles fired from Israeli helicopters on October 7th against fleeing and captive Israelis.
As usual, he also ignored the thousands of Palestinian civilian hostages held and tortured by the zionist authorities, to exchange for which was the main reason for taking Israeli prisoners.
View of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators with the Dept. of Transport in the background Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
ELSEWHERE
UN: “… a UN report released on Monday by a group of UN experts expressed alarm over “credible allegations” of Palestinian women and girls being subjected to “multiple forms of sexual assault … by male Israeli army officers”.
The allegations include rape and detention of Palestinian women in cages, in addition to “photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances … reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online”
USA/ UN: The exposure of Israeli lies and western government acceptance of them continued with a US Intelligence briefing that the Israeli claims of UN refugee aid agency (UNRWA) workers participating in the Hamas operation “could not be independently verified.”
Let us recall that Israel, which hates UNRWA for providing aid to Palestinians in need and from time to time criticising Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights, claimed to have intelligence confirming the participation of 12 UNRWA workers in the Palestinian operation on October 7th.
Without even seeing the Israeli ‘intelligence’, the UNWRA bosses sacked 10 workers3 and 10 western states, including the US and most of the EU, suspended their contributions to the agency’s funding, in other words cutting off food, heating and shelter to the Palestinians under Israeli attack.
UK: The negative impact on democratic norms by Israeli allegiance of the western powers was demonstrate by subversion of Parliamentary procedures in London yesterday in response to a scheduled motion from the Scottish National Party calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The norms laid down are that the proposer of the motion speaks first and, if not carried by the required majority, amended versions proposed will be discussed and voted upon. The British Labour Party proposed an amendment calling for the ceasefire requiring the surrender of Israeli “hostages”.
If the SNP’s motion had gone forward, the indications were that many Labour MPs would vote for it against the instructions of the party’s ‘whips’ (party discipline enforcers). The Speaker of the House however allowed the Labour motion/ amendment to go to vote before the SNP’s!
The result was uproar in the UK Parliament and that Labour’s motion, more hostile to the Palestinian resistance, was voted and accepted and the SNP’s was never discussed.
Since then 60 MP’s have signed a petition demanding the resignation of the Speaker, a previous Labour Party member who, in order to demonstrate the Speaker’s political independence, had to resign from Party when he took up the post.
Frances Black speaking at the rally prior to the vote in the Seanad, Wednesday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Ireland: Though receiving little coverage in the mass media, a motion proposed by Civic Engagement Group members of the Irish Senate calling for an end to the Israeli genocide in Palestine and concrete Irish Government measure in support was passed without opposition.
Unreported by the media, a few hundred gathered outside Leinster House in a Palestinian solidarity rally and were addressed by two of the proposers, Frances Black and Alice Mary Higgins.4 A speaker for Healthworkers for Gaza, occasionally overcome by emotion, was given rapt attention.
A few minutes earlier, a colleague in blue surgical overalls was also applauded as she announced the group’s presentation of a petition signed by their colleagues. This action of support for their colleagues in Gaza however also underlined the abysmal failure of the relevant Irish trade unions.
The motion passed in the Senate has no enforcing effect on the Irish Government but adds its weight to that of a number of Opposition motions calling for the Government to support the genocide charge by South Africa in the ICJ and to expel the Israeli Ambassador.
Speaker for Health Workers for Palestine at the Palestine solidarity rally outside Leinster House prior to the Seanad vote Wednesday . (Photo: D.Breatnach)
It adds too the more widely demonstrated and visible solidarity with Palestine of the vast majority of the Irish population expressed in marches, pickets, demonstrations, opinion surveys and in beeps of support from passing vehicle traffic, from drivers of private, company and public transport.
The Irish state and government, like many throughout the world, continues in its failure to reflect the will of its people in this matter.
End.
Music piece composed for Gaza played at solidarity gig in the Olympic Theatre, Dublin, last November:
FOOTNOTES
1Though “fascist state” seems closer to the truth.
4Of the other two proposing Senators, Eileen Flynn was present outside Leinster House but did not speak and apologies were given for the absence of Lynne Ruane.
Diarmuid Breatnach: originally published in 2017, republished February 2024.
(Reading time:4 mins.)
The Wikileaks/ Assange persecution saga should teach us some important lessons.
In the first place chronologically, it should teach us the lengths to which allegedly democratic countries such as the United States will go to dominate weaker countries and attack movements of resistance.
Where the USA feels its imperial interests are threatened, i.e where anyone may attempt to loosen its grip on the markets, natural resources and strategic emplacements, or to prevent its grip from clawing further than it has already.
Wikileaks also exposed some of the extent to which the US will interfere in the internal or foreign policy matters of even its allies, including the European powers.
Possibly most instructive of all was the determination of the USA to hunt down the chief executive of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, flying in the face of US Constitutional principles and law, as well as international law, with politician statements confirming that determination.
Statements even from Presidents, senior politicians and Government appointees, such as former US Secretary of State and the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US Presidency last year.1
In the course of hunting him down, the USA turned to Sweden, subverting the country’s laws and criminal investigative procedures, then to the UK government (which, as a junior partner in many of the US crimes exposed by Wikileaks, was probably only too keen to assist).
Swedish Prosecutor Marianne Ny, who commenced an investigation after another Prosecutor had already investigated and decided there was no case for Assange to answer (Photo source: Internet).
Australia was brought to assist under threat and France turned away from Assange’s plight and his plea for asylum there. “No hiding place from the World Policeman,” seemed to be the message.
Eventually, however, he did find refuge (if not a hiding place) from Ecuador, a tiny power on the world political, economic and political stage.
In the midst of this, how did the mass media perform, that which we are often assured is the guardian of democracy, even more than the vaunted parliament? Badly, in a word.
Investigative journalism, intelligent evaluation, if they had been evident before, all went into the rubbish bin as print, radio and TV media joined in the lynch mob to a greater or lesser degree, including the British newspaper The Guardian.
The newspaper that had been given exclusive first use on the Wikileaks stories, “the greatest scoop in 30 years”, according to its Editor, not only refused to assist him but allowed its pages to be occupied by witch hunters and made money out of publishing a book about the affair.2
“Anti-journalism”, is what Australian film-maker and renowned journalist (Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award-winner in 1967 and 1978), John Pilger called it.
Assange learned some personal lessons too which should not be lost on us.
Sometime lovers manipulated by police, Prosecutor and media; a close working colleague denouncing him and flinging allegations against him (unsubstantiated but that did not prevent the media from publishing them).
Julian Assange on the balcony of his asylum quarters, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, after receiving news of the dropping of the Swedish ‘investigation’ of allegations of ‘rape’ against Assange and the voiding of the International Arrest Warrant. (Photo source: Internet)
LESSONS FOR US SPECIFICALLY
Suppose for a moment that one did not take to Assange’s character. Suppose one even objected to his work. Still, he was entitled to fair due process. That he did not receive it from so many is obvious. Did he receive it from us?
That community of people who would lay claim to having an alternative view, to be opposed to the status quo and, most of all, to be for Justice?
Injustice meted out by those in power often needs collusion and the more independent of the power the colluders are, the more justified the witch-hunt is made to seem.
The media whipped up a passionate hue and cry against Assange, who had not even been charged and had cooperated to all extents reasonable with the investigation of allegations against him.
That hysteria sought to drown Assange but also to catch in its flood any, no matter how puny or how mildly, calling for justice and due process. The cry of the mob must be “Hang him!” and no dissenting voices must be heard.
The hysteria generated in some sectors, even among people who would normally insist on justice and who opposed the status quo, reached a very high pitch.
For the crime of suggesting on Facebook at the time that the case against him seemed “dodgy” and that besides he was in any case entitled to due process, a person called me a “rape apologist” in public while people I had considered comrades (and had thought one even a friend) remained silent.
Shortly after that, a clutch of FB friends (which I made FB ex-friends quickly) backed up the allegation.
That taught me a valuable lesson about comrades and solidarity but it pales beside the severity of the lesson Assange has been taught, the mark of which he may carry for the rest of his life.
But the function of such a process goes far beyond the personal; it is intended to make dissent very uncomfortable and even painful.
We may face the attacks of our declared enemies with courage or at least resolve and commitment but it is a different matter when we are attacked, politically and personally, by those we take to be broadly on our side against the oppressive powers.
Most people would say they are for justice. It is usually easy to say so.
But unless we can stand up for it whether we like the victim or not, whether we approve of his work or not and, even in the midst of the hysteria calling for a hanging, we are prepared to cry instead for justice, our declarations are worth nothing.
There are many lessons in the saga for us to learn — but will we?
end
Footnotes
1“Can’t we just drone this guy?” Hillary Clinton, quoted in the Pilger summary article.
On a day when the Israeli military killed another 83 Palestinians, to bring the state’s death-tally since October 8th to almost 29,0001 known dead and thousands injured and missing,2over 50,000 people marched in solidarity through Dublin city centre.
The Israeli military is killing, on average, a Palestinian child every ten minutes.
Section of Mothers Against Genocide Ireland marching with bundles simulating children killed by Israel (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The national demonstration was convened by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign and, though people came from all over the country and from many organisations, the numbers did not seem to quite match their last national demonstration, believed attended by 100,000.
As they marched from the Garden of Remembrance, the usual slogans were prompted and taken up in chanting responses: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!3 Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry – Palestine will never die! Free, free – Palestine!
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Taking over 20 minutes to pass through the north city centre’s O’Connell Street, they marched over O’Connell Bridge into D’Olier Street, through College Green and right into Dame Street, constantly chanting out the slogans4 of solidarity to which, by now, thousands have become accustomed.
From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands and our millions – we are all Palestinians! Netanyahu (also Joe Biden, Western Powers etc) what do you say? – How many kids did you kill today? Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out!
In some sections could also be heard: There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! Irish Government (also Western powers, USA), you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!
Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, looking northwards. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, viewing southward. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish Government, the EU and the Genocidal Israeli State
Among EU states, the leaders of the Irish Government have been the most pressing on the EU to call for a ceasefire and have now teamed up with the Spanish state’s current government leadership to press the EU to revise its preferential trade agreement with the Israeli State.
They are not likely to succeed since Germany and France have led the strident pro-Israel position of the EU, rejecting even a call for a humanitarian pause to deliver food, fuel and shelter to starving Palestinian refugees or any attempt to restrain the Zionists’ leaders from their genocidal bombing.
But in addition the main concern of the Irish Government ministers (probably Spain’s also) is that the whole situation is going to escalate further in Palestine and further, across the Middle East; in other words they are offering ‘good advice’ and concerned that it’s being ignored by Israel.
Children on the march – a reminder that the Israeli state kills a Palestinian child on average every ten minutes. Also Irish language flag and placard in this photo employing the “Saoirse don Phalaistín” slogan. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In any case, although the USA is the main supplier of finance and arms to Israeli Zionism, the EU is by far the Zionist state’s largest export market and could stop the genocide tomorrow with an ultimatum to stop bombing or face an embargo on Israeli products.
The International Court of Justice determined that the Israeli State is plausibly guilty of genocide but declined to order a ceasefire and again during the week rejected a South African application to order a cessation of genocidal actions though it did warn the zionists not to commit genocidal acts.5
Meanwhile the UN court is to begin hearings on Monday to determine whether the Israeli occupation is guilty of practising apartheid but the verdict is months away and the Israeli State continues its genocide unabatedly.
Palestinian solidarity in the Irish language
Small banner, group unknown with what has become a common slogan in Irish. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
At the junction with South Great George’s Street the marchers turned left and continued up into Aungier Street and then left again into Cuffe Street with people gathered on the pavements and at junctions, sometimes applauding but never expressing hostility.
A number of slogans and messages of solidarity in the Irish language could be seen on placards, flags and banners; two of the latter calling for Saoirse don Phalaistín. One of the banners had a large group behind it which included marchers calling out slogans in Irish.
Ón dtalamh go dtí an spéir – Beidh an Phalaistín saor! Stad an slad!
The Mothers Against Genocide group used Irish too, singing the chorus from Róisín Elsafty’s song and video with Irish and Arabic: A Phalaistín, a Phalaistín, hosni alaikum ya falastin. (Good luck to you, Palestine) and mixed the singing with chants of solidarity.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Once reaching the south side of Stephens’ Green,6 where the IPSC stage was set up near the Department of Foreign Affairs’ building,7 many marchers just stopped, began socialising, folding up banners or just going off for coffee etc (some also had long journeys ahead to return home).
Of course some stayed to hear speakers and performances but I didn’t.
Once again the thought struck me that this period could be used to advantage in small public meetings on the street but removed from the central stage; different currents in the solidarity movement could be discussed, along with basic principles and demands in our solidarity.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Collusion and Repression
As a Sinn Féin contingent self-identified by banners and placards marched in, some greeted them with Oh hey, oho! — No shamrocks for Genocide Joe! in a clear rebuke to the party’s leader’s intention to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the US President at the White House.8
Passing through the southside’s city centre afterwards, people were frequently seen wearing Palestinian keffiyehs in various colours (black and white, red and white, green and white and the Irish green, white and orange version) as were people walking with furled Palestinian flags.
Indeed, action the health worker unions could have taken but failed to do so (Photo: D.Breatnach)
At least two people were arrested by Public Order Gardaí for demonstrating in the city centre outside Israeli-colluding businesses, to be bailed until their case in March, amid reports9 that activists have been threatened with charges and court for December’s Israeli Embassy occupation.
Although people came from many parts of Ireland, there were smaller solidarity demonstrations in many of those too.
2Another 7,000 are believed buried under rubble of buildings bombed by the Israeli military. Palestinians had very little undamaged digging and earth-moving equipment and the pieces of masonry are often massive but they do try and dig through it, often with their bare hands.
3I think “israel is a fascist state!” would be entirely appropriate.
4“slogan” in English is of Irish-language origin, perhaps via Scottish Gaedhlig, from ‘slua/ slóga’ = “a host/ large gathering, troop” and ‘gairm’ to “call, address”. The original root is of Indo-European origin.
5Which the Israeli State has continued to do every single day since the ICJ initial judgement, killing thousands of civilians since then and bombing and invading hospitals.
6As in most parts of Dublin city the Green has been the scene of important historical events but this one perhaps more than most: it was a 1916 battleground, the location of a force of mostly Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Rising before they were forced to relocate to the Royal College of Surgeons, where the garrison remained until the surrender. The Commandant Michael Malin and another senior officer, Constance Markievicz, were both sentenced to death by British Army military court. Michael Malin was shot dead by firing squad but Markivicz’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
7A Palestine solidarity activist accused of ‘decorating’ the building with red paint in protest at the Government’s collusion with Israeli zionism was in court last week, having been raided at 7am, arrested and charged. The case has been deferred until next month.
8In a Belfast meeting organised by the party in Palestine solidarity recently a small group of Palestinians were ejected for pointing out that one of the speakers, the Palestine Ambassador is “a mouthpiece of the Palestine Authority” which is an undemocratic organisation working in collusion with the zionist occupation and has not held an election since 2006 (though supposed to do so every five years).
Videos doing the rounds of social media sites show a brief intervention by Palestinians at a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast about Palestine followed by the party’s heavies evicting them to applause from many in the audience.
The event at the Europa Hotel on Thursday evening was intended, according to the party’s National Chairperson, “… as an opportunity to demonstrate that Ireland stands with the people of Gaza and the West Bank and to reiterate calls for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the occupation.”1
Actually Ireland is already – except for the Unionists — well behind the Palestinians as shown by attendance at marches and opinion surveys. What is needed is a) clarity on what we are calling for and b) direct action to put the States and companies under greater pressure.
The video of the intervention I’ve seen began with an apology for interrupting the Palestinian Ambassador, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, as “a mouthpieceof the Palestinian Authority” which, the challenger said, is an undemocratic organisation which has not had an election since 2006.
Boos and cries of objection followed from the audience as the Palestinian asked to be listened to, pointed out that those doing the intervention were all Palestinians but the party’s security men were soon hustling them out and periodically trying to block the phone camera.
When people don’t want to examine the issues or are feeling guilty about them, it’s always tempting to blame the critics, suggest they’re dissidents, trouble-makers, etc. That way the pointing finger is turned around and the actual issues don’t need to be thought about.
Of course this time some SF supporters commented along those lines, accusing their critics of being Loyalists, or as they have in the past outsiders, ultra-leftists, intelligence service agents, dissidents, malcontents, trouble-makers … or just plain Utopians.
“MOUTHPIECE OF … AN UNDEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION”
The intervention from the floor was challenging but what of the content? Palestinian Ambassadors are appointed and employed by the Palestinian Authority which, though never intended as a government is acting like one. So “mouthpiece for the PA”? Blunt — but entirely accurate.
Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland of the undemocratic and corrupt Palestinian Authority at a Sinn Féin meeting (note SF President Mary Lou McDonald applauding in the background). (Sourced: Internet)
The PA “has not had an election in 18 years”? Accurate also – though they’re supposed to have one every five years. The last time there were elections in Palestine was 2006 and Hamas won overall throughout Palestine. However Fatah, the losers, refused to give up their seats.
In 2007 in Gaza, Hamas moved against Fatah and after a short struggle, took the seats to which the electorate had voted them. However, they chose not to do that in the West Bank, where the PA’s HQ is and where EU and USA money comes flowing in to Abbas and his unelected cronies.
The reason for not holding elections is that Hamas would almost certainly win again. Meanwhile, “democratic Israel” refused to recognise the Gaza administration or the elected representatives of the Palestinians while the US, EU and UK followed suit and ‘Israel’ blockaded Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority, as well as being undemocratic, deeply corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive2 is also actively colluding with the Zionist state and feeding its masters intelligence on the Palestinian opposition and resistance while it represses their supporters.
That’s what most Palestinians think about the PA and, as is widely known and even tacitly admitted by the USA3, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, Palestinians have no confidence in the institution.4
Some of the comments on the circulating videos criticised SF’s bad management of the event, opining that the Palestinians should have been allowed to speak and then the meeting could have proceeded as the organisers planned and the challenge would have got little publicity.
True … but SF is used to throttling dissent inside its party or in the communities it controls and managing dissent – rather than crushing it — is just not its style.
In any case, is ‘bad management’ the main issue with regard to SF and Palestine? More important than supporting partition of Palestine, the institutionalisation of a Bantustan “Palestinian State” under the guns of the Zionists – and the PA’s collusion with those same Zionists?
The Provisionals weren’t always pro-Palestinian; though it might shock some people, they originally mirrored Irish society’s position of support for Israel, the perceived ‘underdog’ up to the mid-1960s, Hollocaust survivors (Zionists) who had fought the British police and army.5
THE PROVO LEADERSHIP AND PALESTINE
For a while pieces by a Fred Burns O’Brien apparently based in the USA were featured in the Provos’ newspaper but some time after he revealed himself as a Zionist he was ‘let go’, probably through internal pressure from those who thought the Palestinians were the natural ally.6
One of the problems with taking a political position, physically or ideologically, is that you might get called on it someday. This is why bourgeois politicians try to give themselves wriggle and even retreat room in their statements – lots of good-sounding bites with little content.
The Provisionals owe a debt to some Palestinians but it’s a very bad one. I don’t mean when they got some arms for the struggle7 but rather their following Fatah/PLO down the pacification process, for which Fatah and the ANC sent fraternal delegates to SF’s Ard-Fheiseanna (annual congresses).
Subsequently, Ireland and South Africa were used as promotional examples of the pacification process and their delegates travelled as kinds of sales representatives8 — but Palestine got dropped from 2000 onwards because of the Second Intifada, when Palestinians rejected Fatah’s deal.
You can’t sell a process as ‘working’ when the youth have overwhelmingly rejected it and are fighting the Occupation in the street.
“ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENT”
One prominent member of SF in the British colony told the Palestinian protesters they should have organised “their own event.” Er – was this event not advertised as being for solidarity with Palestine? But ‘Palestinians not welcome’? Or only zionist-collaborating Palestinians?
Imagine if back in the day some political party had been having a meeting about Ireland and were inviting an Irish State or British colonial minister as a speaker, would anyone have been shocked to see and hear SF activists challenging or even heckling the speakers during the meeting?
Would we not be reading statements from SF talking about ‘no right of colonialists to represent the Irish people’ and about ‘censorship of Irish voices’?
Cartoon by DB.
Gerry Adams, former President of the party was quoted as saying the calls are “inconsistent” because they are not making the same call with regard to the UK though “the Brits are up to their neck in this” and what is important for SF in the USA is Irish-America.
But SF long ago accommodated itself to the colonialist “Brits”, including its royalty. Irish politicians don’t flock to London for St. Patrick’s Day. Anyway the primary financial and military supplier – and political backer of the Zionist state in the UN Security Council — is the USA.
Why is the diaspora in the USA so important to Sinn Féin but not the diaspora in Britain or in Australia? It must be because the USA is the “boss of the world” and pathetic Irish gombeen politicians think their diaspora gives them them some kind of weight with the imperialists.
What would really help with the Irish diaspora would be if SF were to address the Irish-Americans and ask them to push their political representatives to call for the USA to stop supporting genocide in Palestine.
But of course there is no chance of them doing that because 1) some Irish Americans oppose imperialism from Britain but support it from the USA; also 2) because Irish gombeens, the political class to which SF aspire, are pro-western imperialism.
INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY AND THE HOME STRUGGLE
I have commented in the past that the level of commitment to internationalist solidarity is one of the indicators as to whether an organisation is going to carry through its own revolution or instead is going to finish up in liberalism and abandon its struggle, ending in actual collusion.
It seems some others have the same idea.
As she was being evicted, the Palestinian woman called out for SF not to attend Washington on St. Patrick’s Day and also shouted, though she may have meant it the other way around: “There will not be a free Palestine without a united Ireland!”
Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah put it quite succintly: “If you can’t say NO to the White House in the middle of a genocide, then you’d never be able to stand up, not even for Ireland.”
2“The PA has actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population. Many perceive the body as a tool of the Israeli security apparatus, its US-trained forces not only targeting those suspected of planning attacks on Israelis, but also arresting union figures, journalists and critics on social media.” (Al Jazeera – see Sources)
3Hence the USA’s post-war plan for Gaza, as expressed by Blinken, is to have it run by a “revamped PA”, i.e one that might have some credibility among Palestinians.
4“Today, a staggering 87 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that the PA is corrupt, 78 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombingpercent want Abbas to resign, and 62 percent believe that the PA is a liability.” (Washington Institute — see Sources).
5On 22 July 1946, Zionist militias bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which the British Mandate administration had offices including its police intelligence department, killing 91: “49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers; 13 were soldiers; 3 policemen; and 5 were bystanders. By nationality, there were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens ….” Forty-six were injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
6The same kind of pressure from the support base that caused the SF leadership recently to reestablish their ‘expel the Israeli Ambassador’ position that Mary Lou had announced they were abandoning.
7In 1977 a consignment of arms allegedly from the PLO bound for Ireland was seized by the authorities at Antwerp.
8To the Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc.
rebelbreeze 