WHAT WE’VE LEARNED FROM SINWAR’S DEATH

On November 6, 2024November 15, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Popular Resistance, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian resistance organisation Hamas, was killed in action by an Israeli Occupation Force in what was for them a routine operation in Gaza on 16^th October, his last moments captured on video and broadcast widely.

From that event alone there is much for us to learn about Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance in general as well as about Sinwar himself — but also about the IOF, the way it fights and the extent of its self-discipline.

For the bare details as publicly shared, Sinwar was in military outfit, in tac vest, armed with a pistol and automatic rifle and accompanied by two local Hamas commanders in the Tal as-Sultan, Rafah area of Gaza patrolled by the IOF, very close to the semi-permanent IOF front lines.¹

One may assume Sinwar was on a reconnaissance operation.

Sinwar with Hamas comrades in 2021 (photo cred: *John Michillo*)

Something gave away their position to a passing patrol in an area where, as far as the IOF were concerned, nothing should be alive except themselves. Pursued, they split up, local commanders in one building and Sinwar into another so the patrol called a tank to fire into each.

The patrol attempted to enter the building into which the individual fighter had gone but two grenades beat them back, injuring one soldier,² so they retreated and called for a tank to put another shell in the building.

Still wary in the aftermath, they sent a surveillance drone into the building and the image it captured was what was seen in the widely-circulated video: a Palestinian fighter, apparently unarmed, right hand mangled. As they watched, he threw a stick at the drone with his left hand but missed.

So the IOF patrol had another tank round fired into the building and they went on their way.³

The last image of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar alive. Right arm mangled he stares at the IOF drone videoing him in house ruined by IOF bombing in Tal Al-Sultan, Rafah, before throwing a stick at it. Moments later the IOF call a tank to put a shell in the building, collapsing it on top of him.

But unusually,⁴ they came back. Perhaps someone thought they recognised Sinwar in the camera video? It was then they discovered that one of the three fighters they had killed was Yaha Sinwar, confirmed by test results matching his DNA records they had from his years in captivity.

According to ‘Israeli’ postmortem, although he’d been hit by shrapnel and his right hand was mangled, what killed Sinwar was a bullet to the brain – which raises other questions.⁵

Whatever he was doing at that time, it was clear that he was there as a commander and Resistance fighter, armed and dressed for combat in a highly dangerous area, regularly patrolled by the IOF and only a short distance from their secured front lines.

That alone spoke of courage but also his and his comrades’ resistance in the face of superior numbers declared their courage and determination. But Sinwar’s continuing to resist while badly wounded and his comrades dead, spoke of heroism.

Although only weeks from his 62^nd birthday and after 22 years in a Zionist jail, Sinwar seems to have been quite fit. However, according to the results of a postmortem examination carried out by the IOF, Yahya Sinwar had not eaten in 72 hours prior to his death – a period of three days.⁶

The event was revealing in outlining how the IOF infantry is accustomed to fighting. They are fine with killing civilians but when confronted with armed resistance fighters, they hold for a short while if at all before retreating and calling up artillery or air strikes.

Their dead and wounded are picked up by helicopter and rushed to undamaged ‘Israeli’ hospitals, well equipped and staffed less than an hour away, a journey that is never fired upon by the Palestinian Resistance.

The contrast could not be starker, as the IOF fire on Palestinian paramedics and their vehicles, blockade Palestinian hospitals from receiving fuel and other essential supplies, even bombing and occupying them, kidnapping and killing medical personnel.

What people saw in the video of Sinwar’s last moments exposed Israeli lying propaganda about Sinwar, accusing him of living safe and well inside the tunnels and never emerging or, if he does, going about in a burka, disguised as a woman, also of intending to flee to Egypt with ‘hostages’.⁷

Iconic photo of Yahya Sinwar in May 2021, sitting in an armchair outside his home in Gaza, ruined by IOF bombardment. He went there directly after concluding an interview with words to the effect that he did not fear assassination by the IOF, that they knew who he was and the route he would take and if they wanted to kill him “Be my guest … I won’t bat an eyelid.”

The quick circulation of the video by the IOF exposed also the renowned indiscipline of their military and their total lack of comprehension of the mental and emotional processes of the people they have been occupying and oppressing for seven decades.

Their indiscipline is attested to by the thousands of videos on social media posted by the IOF during their genocidal operations as, contrary to orders, they film themselves blowing up buildings including a university, humiliating and brutalising prisoners, even on occasion raping them.

The IOF are renowned too for leaving graffiti inside occupied houses and for prancing around houses they have destroyed, often wearing the intimate underclothing of Palestinian women, whom they have at least turned into refugees and may have killed.

In those circumstances their release of the video before discussing it with their intelligence and propaganda department is not surprising but doing so underlines their failure to understand their enemy. They thought that killing Sinwar would undermine Palestinian morale.

They, colonialists and other oppressors in general fail to take account of the human will to resist and the potency of the memory and example of martyrs. This is an aspect we understand well in Ireland.

The Zionist intelligence services would surely have preferred not to have Sinwar’s last moments shared publicly and possibly would have liked the opportunity to lie about them.

*Yahya Sinwar gives the victory sign with both hands while speaking from a rally in Gaza.*

Sinwar was clearly a remarkable individual, Palestinian Resistance fighter, thinker and leader but the IOF made him a martyr and in their arrogance showed his heroism not just to the Palestinians — nor to Arabs alone — but to the world.

End.

APPENDIX: HIGHLY ABBREVIATED BIOGRAPHY (Reading time: 2 mins.)

Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar (Arabic: يحيى إبراهيم حسن السنوار, romanized: Yaḥyá Ibrāhīm Ḥasan al-Sinwār; 29 October 1962 – 16 October 2024) was a Palestinian resistance fighter, former political prisoner and subsequently politician who was killed in action.

Sinwar served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from August 2024 and as the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from February 2017, until his death in October 2024, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh (assassinated by Israeli strike while on a fraternal visit to Iran) in both roles.

He was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Egypt-ruled Gaza in 1962 to a family who were refugees from Majdal (Hebrew: Ashkelon) during the 1948 Palestine War. He gained a bachelor’s degree in Arabic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza.⁸

Sinwar’s first arrest was in 1982 for ‘subversive activities’, serving several months in the Far’a prison where he met other Palestinian activists and dedicated himself to the Palestinian cause. Though arrested again in 1985, upon his release he continued his organising trajectory.

Israeli propaganda has claimed that during this period his work in internal security against Zionist agents and informers earned him the nickname “Butcher of Khan Younis” but no-one who knew him or seriously studied him even heard of that alleged nickname until after his death.⁹

*Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas politburo, welcomes Sinwar with a kiss after the latter’s release from jail in the prisoner exchange of 21 October 2021* (Photo cred: *Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash 90*)

Sentenced to four life sentences in 1989, Sinwar spent 22 years in prison until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. According to John Elmer¹⁰ Sinwar wanted others released before him but the prisoners insisted he be one of those leaving.

The prisoners had elected Sinwar as their leader in the prison¹¹ and he was known for encouraging prisoners to use their time productively and to study – in particular to study the enemy. He certainly practised what he preached, becoming fluent in Hebrew and studying IOF tactics.

And also, incredibly, in writing a political novel, The Thorn and the Carnation.¹²

Sinwar (centre photo) photographed carrying the son of Mazen Faqha, a Hamas leader who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Gaza at martyrs’ memorial 27 March 2017. Another photo of Sinwar shows him carrying the child and an automatic rifle; yet another, carrying an automatic rifle and a child who might be a girl, perhaps the child of another martyred fighter. The child and the gun may be seen as symbolising the future through resistance.

On 21 November 2011, a month after his release, Sinwar married Samar Muhammad Abu Zamar and the couple had three children. Sinwar’s wife received a master’s degree in theology from the Islamic University of Gaza. His brother Mohamed remains active in the resistance and is being sought by the IOF.

Re-elected as Hamas leader in 2021, Sinwar survived an ‘Israeli’ assassination attempt that same year.

FOOTNOTES

1At their ‘Philadelphi Corridor’

2According to Jon Elmer, admittedly only days after the event, this is not mentioned in most reports or discussion on line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE

3All of this is according to the Israeli Occupation Force.

4 According to Jon Elmer, blogger and weekly podcast military analyst for the Electronic Intifada, also in discussion with Justin Podur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE (at 1.23.3), that was so unusual because the IOF don’t usually go back to carry out battle analyses for intelligence.

5 https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-death-autopsy-report-idf-israel-13827027.html Not that carrying out field executions would be any stranger to the IOF

6 https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-death-autopsy-report-idf-israel-13827027.html

7 https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-aide-arrested-over-intel-leak-used-to-sabotage-gaza-ceasefire

8 Often attacked by the IOF and once by Fatah, its campus was bombed and its buildings destroyed on the night of 10 October 2023.

9This is admitted even in the hostile Wikipedia page about Sinwar.

10Discussion Justin Podur and Jon Elmer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE

11This seems not unusual among political prisoners:Irish Republican prisoners also elected their OC in the British Occupation jails: Mairead Farrell had been O/C in Armagh Jail and, before he entered his fatal hunger strike, Bobby Sands had been O/Cof the H-Blocks.

12 https://books.google.ie/books/about/The_Thorn_and_the_Carnation_Part_I.html

BARMBRACK, HALLOWEEN PARTY – AND NO ‘TRICK OR TREAT’!

On November 4, 2024November 18, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Folk Custom, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, Traditions & Folk Custom, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Years ago we did not have the USA import of ‘trick or treat’ – but we did have Halloween. In fact, the UStaters got their Halloween originally from – us. Yes, us.

And it was based on the ancient Gaelic feast of Samhain (which is also the name of the month in Irish).

“Happy Halloween” as a wish would seem an oxymoron since it is a feast of the dead or at least for the dead and to propitiate pagan gods. It is recorded in Ireland as far back as the 9^th Century, one of the four great feast days of the Gaelic year.

While the festival is often described as Celtic, a number of neolithic passage graves in Ireland and in Britain, predating the arrival of the Celts, are aligned to face sunrise at the time of Samhain.

In the Celtic world it seems to have been a particularly Gaelic festival, being also our name for November, with strong survivals in Ireland, parts of Scotland and Manx, though there are also some echoes of customs in Wales and Brittany.

However, some researchers believe that the word Samhain is related to the month of Samon, in an ancient calendar of the Gauls, the main body of Continental Celts.

No ancient feast of Samhain could have involved pumpkins, unless it was something thought up by a deviant among St. Brendan’s followers when they got to America in the mid-6th Century. Of which there are a number of sound reasons for believing they did.

But no plant we know of came back from that voyage.

*Some varieties of pumpkin squash* (Photo cred: *The Garden Museum*)

Pumpkins of course and many other squashes come from Turtle Island/ America, where they were cultivated by the indigenous people as an important source of food or dried to make containers, utensils and even musical instruments — and they taught the settlers how to cultivate them.

Pumpkin pie is a traditional USA settler culture dish, particularly in the annual Thanksgiving feast, where the arrival of the original English settlers is celebrated along with their survival (thanks to help from the Indigenous, against whom they later committed genocide in gratitude).

Although most people in the US will not be conscious of this aspect of the Thanksgiving celebration there is a pushback against it gathering in the US of late, as there is also in many parts of the world against the celebration of the ‘discovery’ of America for European colonisation by Columbus.

IN DUBLIN, IRELAND

The traditional Irish Halloween cake is the báirín (boyreen) breac, the báirín being Irish for a cake, according to Dineen’s Dictionary and breac meaning piebald or speckled (i.e. from the dried fruit), becoming mispronounced as ‘barmbrack’.

Quite when it became traditional Halloween fare I’m not sure but the basic ingredients would have been available centuries ago – except for the tea, which came from China originally and only became widespread in Ireland through our colonisers in the early 1800s.

Now of course, we’re marbh le tae agus marbh gan é (‘killed by tea but dead without it’) and still pronounce our name for the beverage in Irish as apparently they did in English in Shakespeare’s time. Many cultures call it ‘chai’ from which the English soldiers in India brought back ‘char’.

*This one was apparently made with whiskey which is not the original. The one produced by a number of baker companies was round and more yellow inside.*

Anyway, to get back to the báirín breac, it was soaking the dried fruits in tea that gave a yellow tint to the dough when it was baked. We children all looked forward to eating the báirín when we got back home after going from door to door collecting donations of apples or nuts or sweets.

Taste apart, it had a ring hidden in it and, though we had no interest in the prospect of marriage symbolism, we each wanted to be the lucky one to get the slice with the ring. Our Da cut up the slices carefully so we couldn’t tell which had the ring and we had to eat them in sequence.

Earlier on the Halloween evening we had been out in costumes knocking from door to door and of course, other children had knocked on our door too. Many of those would have been known to us but it was surprisingly difficult to identify them, even if only face-painted and without a mask.

It was for us a kind of thrill to knock at a neighbour’s door in costume and be unrecognised. All the houses except a very few welcomed callers at Halloween and kept a supply of fresh fruit, nuts and sweets on hand for the callers.

“Any apples or nuts?” we called as they opened the door or, later “Help the Halloween party?” None of that imported “trick or treat” nonsense!

Three types of nuts that were available and traditionally eaten in Ireland on Halloween at least from the 1950s: hazel nuts, walnuts and Brazil nuts (this one not so commonly seen more recently, apparently due to bad harvests attributed to El Nino). Also available would have been almonds, peanuts, and pieces of broken coconut.

In an amusing piece about that contrast between earlier days and now, a social mores commentator in song at the monthly 1916 Performing Arts Club commented on how pleased he was to see children at his door in costumes made from ‘traditional’ black bin-liners.

Until they spoiled it all by chanting “trick or treat”. “Get outa the garden!” was his response.

You can listen to the song on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k-JmfVZ2lw

Kids still go out (usually escorted by adults now) from door to door at Halloween in Ireland, often with elaborate costumes and chanting the UStater-borrowed “trick or treat”.

*A gaggle of kids in what was for many in areas of Dublin a ‘traditional’ Halloween costume but some of course were more elaborate.* (Photo sourced: *Hill Sixteen FB page*)

In clubs or pubs the festival seems to have been taken over by late teens and young (and not-so-young) adults in costumes depicting horror and death and, for mostly women it must be said, also sexual allure.

And strange though it might seem, the festival was originally primarily for adults and was an occasion of blessing of kine, divination and at least in recorded history, of “mummers” and “guising” going door to door, performing and begging for donations.

‘BARMBRACK’ IN LONDON

In SE London, I was for some years involved in organising an annual Irish Children’s Halloween Party as part of the annual activities of the Lewisham branch of the Irish in Britain Representation Group.

The event was primarily for the benefit of children of the Irish diaspora but children of any other background were welcome to attend.

A local shop selling fresh fruit and vegetables was approached for a donation of fruit and nuts to which they agreed and of course were thanked publicly by word and in print. The local print media were invited to take photos.

The program for the day included street games (but indoors), Halloween activities including apple-bobbing, face-painting and food that would have been traditional for Irish Halloween parties.

Funds raised by the branch through the year bought Irish brand biscuits, Cidona and red lemonade from a shop supplying Irish food items in South London and of course included the ‘barmbrack’.

The children on the day were largely from Irish, Caribbean or mixed background.

As I doled out slices of ‘barmbrack’ to children sitting at the long table, recommending it as traditionally Irish, one Caribbean-seeming child turned to the other and began: “It’s like …” “bun-and-cheese!” finished the other.

This turned out to be a traditional Jamaican food at the other end of the year, at Easter, two slices of a spiced moist ‘brack’ (the “bun”) with a slice of cheese between. They are not as fond of butter in the Caribbean as are the Irish (not many people are) and so that is absent.

One day I decided to try a slice of buttered (of course) ‘barmbrack’ with a slice of cheese on top. The sweetness and slightly spicy taste of the ‘brack’ contrasted with the tart taste of the cheese. And do you know? It’s not at all bad.

End.

IRAN – WILL IT OR WON’T IT?

On October 31, 2024October 31, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Opinions seem divided on whether ‘Israel’s’ recent attack on Iran did much damage and whether Iran will retaliate. On the first, the Zionist Government and its allies claim great success while Iran claimed most missiles shot down and minimal damage.

One takes it for granted that all sides in a war will have an eye to useful propaganda. During the attack, while Zionist and western mass media were claiming numerous ‘Israeli’ strikes on Iran, allegedly real time videos of a quiet Tehran were being posted on line.

It must be said that no satellite photos of any real damage to Iranian installations have been posted on the internet and one of a military facility seeming to show a huge crater appeared later intact on the Internet with a claim that the earlier photo had merely shown a shadow.¹

The Iranian authorities did admit to the deaths of four soldiers and a little minor damage, the latter quickly repaired, according to their updates. They also claimed to have shot down all but a few of the incoming missiles.

It seems that none of the manned Zionist aircraft entered Iranian airspace but a few approached the border from Iraq in order to launch their missiles from there, which raises another issue regarding the violation of Iraqi sovereignty by the US military.

According to Alastair Crooke, commentator on Middle East affairs, former British diplomat (then probably MI6 asset) on Judge Napolitano’s Youtube site,² the first of three planned ‘Israeli’ attack waves encountered something unexpected in the Iranian air defence and the rest of the attack was aborted.

Narratives from each side would be tailored to suit their own propaganda needs but even some of the ‘Israeli’ media and other commentators were critical of the effectiveness of the attack, some saying Iran was hardly damaged while others said economic targets should have been included.

It also does seem that the Zionist attack was unusually restrained in restricting its targeting to military installations.

The speculation has been that the reason for that restraint was the US being quite firm with Netanyahu that the oil etc. installations were not to be hit as Iran’s retaliation would have engulfed not only the Zionist colony but wider western interests in the region and the world economy.

Whichever side is correct in its damage estimation may be relevant or may not. Iran has reiterated its right to defend itself but seemed not to be saying that it would definitely retaliate.

But on Wednesday Admiral Ali Fadavi, Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran was quoted in some media stating that his country’s military will retaliate, stating that such “is inevitable”, today backed by the Director of the Supreme Leader’s Office.

Michael Jansen, a correspondent on the Middle East in the Irish Times wrote that because Iran was allegedly hard hit in the ‘Israeli’ attack, it will not retaliate and claims that Iran’s previous retaliation was a flop. If that is Jansen’s main basis for her opinion, it is to my mind an unsafe foundation.

In the past I’ve had respect for Jansen’s analysis of the war in Syria and the positions of different factions but this time I think she is very wide of the mark. The previous Iranian retaliations swamped the Zionist air defence system³ with cheap drones but hit many targets with missiles.

It seems to me that Iran WILL retaliate and the only thing that might hold that off or at least moderate the strength of its attack would be if the ‘Israeli’ Government ties up a peace deal with the Palestinian Resistance, led by Hamas. And that looks extremely unlikely, for a number of reasons.

The Resistance is sticking to the terms that were announced by Biden back in May, which he claimed were the ‘Israeli’ Government’s and to which the Resistance agreed, only to see the talks sabotaged again and again by Netanyahu in proposing additions and deletions.

The basics of the Resistance position are:

Immediate end to the ‘Israeli’ attacks now and in future
Total withdrawal of the IOF from Gaza (including the Nezarim Corridor and Rafah)
Total removal of all obstacles to arrival of humanitarian food, medicine etc. supplies
Return of all displaced from parts of Gaza as they wish
Exchange of prisoners (including bodies of dead Israelis and to include Palestinians nominated by the Resistance, without Israeli veto)
Reconstruction of infrastructures and buildings: housing, medical, educational, social, commercial

None of those terms except the exchange of prisoners has been agreed and even there, Netanyahu wanted to exclude some Palestinian prisoners from the exchange. Most fundamentally, he insists on the IOF staying in Gaza, in particular in the “Nezarim corridor”.

It is frequently commented that Netanyahu cannot afford personally to end the attacks in defeat as a postponed court case for alleged fraud and bribery awaits him and, without a victory in his belt, his political fascist friends would abandon him to be savaged by his enemies in the Zionist entity.

However, the continuing Zionist massacres of civilians and wide-scale urban destruction is intended in large part to force the Resistance to accept terms with which the Zionist state agrees, to gain in negotiations what it has been unable to win on the battlefield against the Resistance fighters.

No doubt there are some who think that the Resistance should abandon its demand about total IOF Gaza withdrawal, just to end the massacres. That kind of thinking results in a partial peace to which the enemy will return again and again with violence.

The Palestinian Resistance has clearly decided that they will tough this out in the sacrifice of their people, fighters and leaders in order to get a more stable position for the Palestinian nation, from which to go forward to self-determination – and peace, should that be obtainable.⁴

US Imperialism in the form of Bill Clinton supervises handshake between Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of US proxy’Israel’ and Yasser Arafat, then leader of Fatah in control of the PLO at the conclusion of the Oslo pacification process. The Agreement spawned the Zionist-colluding and repressive Palestinian Authority but never gained the Palestinians anything. (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The last time the Resistance caved in to Zionist and imperialist demands was with the Oslo Accords in 1993, signed for the Fatah leadership by Yasser Arafat. Since then not only did the Palestinians not make any advances but additional Zionist settlements have grown apace.

And every few years have seen new genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people.

The Axis of Resistance considers the Zionist State to be a constant threat to the Arab states and indigenous people of the Middle East, in addition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The history of the Zionist state’s wars with its neighbours and its backing by imperialism seems to bear that out.

Looked at soberly, the Palestinian Resistance has inflicted a huge defeat on the IOF and the Zionist military mystique on October 7^th and, notwithstanding daily genocidal massacres, the Resistance has gone on for a year to deny the IOF a victory in Gaza or on the West Bank.

Hezbollah’s bombardments have cleared much of north Palestine of settlers in addition to hitting targets in central ‘Israel’ and they’ve also fought the IOF to a standstill on Lebanon’s borders. Missiles and drones of the Iraqi Resistance and the Yemeni State have also hit the Zionist State.

The balance of battlefield supremacy is tilting against Israel, thanks to the adaptability, courage and sacrifice of in particular the Palestinian people but now also the Lebanese — and world popular opinion is against the Zionist European settler project as never before.

*Iranian drones, one launching, Iran 4 October 2023* (Photo cred: *Reuters*)

It is necessary to continue the process both to inflict an unmistakeable defeat on the Zionist State and to win substantial advances for the Palestinian people and, incidentally, for the people of the Middle East. These advances entail in addition setbacks for US and western imperialism.

It is important to hammer that nail home, lest it works itself loose before long. I think that at some point Iran will likely retaliate against the Zionist state for its own dignity and defence but also as part of the Axis of Resistance, striving to rid the area of an extremely dangerous infestation.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

1The imperialists have Iran constantly under satellite surveillance and it beggars belief they would not have posted photos of significant damage were such to exist.

2Crooke claims that the first wave was to destroy the air defences but failed and encountered something which put all the rest of the attack in danger so they called the attack off and then claimed a victory. Crooke is speculating up to a point about the reasons but claims the facts about the attack are from ‘Israeli’ sources. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkNk76E3SI

3Both ground-based, as with Iron Dome and David’s Sling but also airborne with US and European allied aircraft.

4A similar position was outlined with respect to Hezbollah by Sheikh Naim Qassem in his first speech on Wednesday since his election to the General Secretaryship of the organisation.

Ta-Nehisi Coates – A Zionist Repents

On October 29, 2024October 30, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Book Review, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (21/10/2024)

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

A number of years ago I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power, which was a eulogy to the Obama era and people like himself who had done well out of that period in the US.

It was a terrible book, rightly slated by many and led to black academic and activist Cornel West describing him as the neoliberal wing of the black freedom struggle.^[1] The book was so bad, I barely got half way through it and put it down never to pick it up again.

*Cornel West (left) described Ta-Nehisi Coates (right) as the neo-liberal wing of the black freedom struggle.*

I never thought I would read another of his books, though I have read some articles of his. Then came his new book The Message and the criticism from the Right on his comments on Palestine. So, I surrendered and read it. This time in its entirety.

It is an easy well-written read.

As with all his books, this is very much about him. His preferred pronouns are definitely I and My (yes, I know My is not a pronoun, but none of this pronoun nonsense obeys the rules of grammar in any case).

It deals with three trips he made and how he felt about them and the issues that arose. Given the CBS interview I fully expected to find some hard critique of the US, Israel and Apartheid, though that is not his style.

Instead, he relates stories about his experiences in Palestine, talking to Palestinians and also to Israeli settlers. That is it. The Israelis obviously do not come out well in the book. How could they?

Coates likens his experiences in Palestine to Jim Crow in the US and Apartheid in South Africa. They are the comments and observations on what he saw, and pretty much middle of the road.

He is no Norman Finkelstein with his searing condemnations of Israeli massacres and Apartheid. It says more about the US media that Coates’ interesting, but in no way extreme comments, have provoked such fury.

This part of the book, is partly a Mea Culpa for previous articles he had written in which he praises Israel, chief among them, apparently, is his essay published in The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations.

In the essay, he liberally and uncritically quotes terrorists and murderers such as David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin.^[2] He has much to apologise for in that essay.

The essay starts off with a biblical epigraph from the book of Deuteronomy and also an anonymous quote from 1861 “By our unpaid labor and suffering, we have earned the right to the soil, many times over and over, and now we are determined to have it.”

Except the land in question, that which Lincoln promised to give to freed slaves was land that had or would be stolen from native American Indians, who do not figure in his case for reparations, just like Palestinians didn’t exist for him.

It is a thoroughly vile, though well researched piece, that I have criticised previously in an essay entitled Reparations Without Talking About Capitalism^[3] and won’t go into again here.

He now says that he is ashamed of some of the things he said in that essay, which he mentions in his book. He does not mention an earlier essay which leaves no doubt as to where his loyalty and politics lies: The Negro Sings of Zionism.^[4]

In it he compares Zionism to Black Nationalism, Theodore Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement to Huey Newton and even Malcolm X! This essay was written only months before Obama, his hero, came to power and was in the throes of his election campaign.

Obama was and, like Kamala Harris, still is an ardent supporter of Israeli atrocity. Coates was not going to challenge Obama on this point, ever.

And even now in the midst of the genocide in Gaza he has publicly called for people to vote for Kamala Harris, saying that sometimes the choices are bad.^[5]

And further, he says a Kamala presidency which supports “apartheid and genocide” would be nightmare scenario “of being the first Black woman president and having 2,000-pound bombs with your name on them dropping on Gaza.”^[6]

Except it is not. It is business as usual. The only nightmare is for the Palestinians, not for him or the rest of the liberals who will vote for Harris.

Under Obama, the US bombed at least six countries, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, where the Houthis are actually challenging both the US and Israel and of course Libya

where the toppling of Gaddafi led to the reintroduction of open-air slave markets where black Africans were once again for sale. Not a minor point you would think for a black identitarian.

In 2016 alone, Obama in his final year of his presidency dropped a staggering 26,171 bombs i.e. three bombs every hour, every day of the year.^[7] Meanwhile Coates was waxing lyrical about how he and others like him had spent eight years in power.

He should own it! That was on Coates as well. He doesn’t get to wash his hands now.

Sometimes the choices are bad, he claims. But would he tolerate a white person voting for a racist politician on the grounds that they had good positions on other issues, such as abortion? I think not.

His arrogance leads him to think he and Harris deserve a pass on this now. He doesn’t, nobody does. Neither does the hypothetical white voter who wants to vote for some racist who has good positions on other issues.

The level of ignorance that Coates claims for himself is hard to fathom and even harder to believe. He claims to not be sure when exactly in his visit to Palestine he first heard the term Nakba.

He also states that “For as sure as my ancestors were born into a country where none of them was the equal of any white man, Israel was revealing itself to be a country where no Palestinian is ever the equal of any Jewish person anywhere.”

Revealing itself? Under which rock had Coates been hiding? Had he not heard of Operation Cast Lead?

It was launched in the same year he sang his hymn to Zionism. It resulted in around 1,500 Palestinian deaths, mainly civilians and the displacement of 100,000 people. Did he never hear of the Goldstone Report on that operation?

And the scandal when Goldstone was forced to recant? It was one of many such assaults on Gaza. All of this and other incursions have been well documented.

Writers write. Everyone knows that, it is their art, their trade. But more than write, they read. All writers read, even the bad ones have to read something occasionally. Coates’ ignorance is not credible.

When he researched his essays praising Zionism, did he not come across a single solitary article to give him some pause for thought? Any piece by Finkelstein, Ilán Pappé, Chomsky, anyone at all? His feigned ignorance is not plausible.

In his song to Zionism, Coates looked at the conflict through his identitarian eyes, and chose a side that he thought was closest to his own identity. His “repentance” is a similar process. He now sees the Palestinians through those eyes.

We have no idea how far he will go with this and when he will backtrack. Like many writers he can read the room and probably feels now is a good moment to be on the Palestinian side. But his repentance only goes so far.

If Harris wins the election, he will at some point write Another Eight Years in Power. Or if she loses, The Land of Milk and Honey We Were Deprived of.

He states early on his book that “we could never practice writing solely for the craft itself, but must necessarily believe our practice to be in service of that larger emancipatory mandate.” Like Gandhi said of British civilisation, it would be a good idea.

But what is that mandate? Abortion rights in the US, but genocide in Palestine?

He has little understanding or willingness to deal with issues of capitalism, imperialism, or his own role in it all. The book will through its anecdotes prove interesting to many and he has an easy-to-read style. You could read this book in one sitting.

Just don’t expect any deep analysis or understanding, there isn’t any. I have said nothing of the other two parts to the book, which almost deserve a critique of their own, though it would be more favourable than I have been thus far on his coverage of Palestine.

Borrow it, don’t buy it. Money is hard to come by, Coates is not short of a bob or two and there are better things to spend your money on.

End.

NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

^[1] The Guardian (17/12/2017) Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle. Cornel West. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/17/ta-nehisi-coates-neoliberal-black-struggle-cornel-west

^[2] The Atlantic (06/2014) THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS. Ta-Nehisi Coates. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

^[3] Ó Loingsigh, G. (18/08/2020) Reparations Without Talking About Capitalism. https://www.academia.edu/124919533/Reparations_Without_Talking_About_Capitalism

^[4] The Atlantic (13/05/2008) The Negro Sings of Zionism. Ta-Nehisi Coates. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/05/the-negro-sings-of-zionism/5201/

^[5] Des Moines Register (15/10/2024) Ta-Nehisi Coates says he’ll likely vote for Kamala Harris. ‘Sometimes, the choices are bad’. F. Amanda Tugade. https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/des-moines/2024/10/15/ta-nehisi-coates-says-he-has-a-responsibility-to-people-in-new-book-the-message-kamala-harris/75673159007/

^[6] Forward (10/10/2024) Ta-Nehisi Coates says Harris funding Gaza war as first Black female president would be ‘nightmare’. https://forward.com/fast-forward/663139/ta-nehisi-coates-harris-gaza/

^[7] The Guardian (09/01/2024) America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama’s reign. Medea Benjamin.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy

THERE WILL BE NO RED LINES

On October 25, 2024October 27, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Torture3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

In future, there will be no red lines in attacking your country.

Yes, I do mean YOUR country, wherever you are. In whatever war it’s in. And in this imperialist world, it’s a safe bet your country will be part of a war, directly or a little indirectly, sometime in your lifetime. Or in your kids’ lifetimes.

The Adversary will be able to carpet-bomb your residential areas, your hospitals and medical centres, schools and universities, places of religious worship, markets, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, bakeries, internet access sites, gyms, your infrastructures and municipal authorities.

There might be some condemnations at high levels abroad, even threats of court cases but nothing will be actually done in practice.

The Adversary will be able to attack your food stores, blockade you from food and fuel imports, bomb your farms and fishing fleets. It will be able to call down aerial strikes on people in their homes, in vehicles or shoot them by snipers or drones as they walk in the street.

Your cities’ food delivery trucks, construction and rubble-clearing and heavy lifting vehicles will be targeted, along with their drivers and operators. That is so that your people will have to dig with your hands to find victims under the rubble of bombed buildings.

Your ambulances and paramedics will be targeted so that picking up wounded or even corpses becomes a high-risk job and your hospitals will be bombed, shot at and invaded to reduce the life chances of any bombing victim found alive in the rubble or on the street.

Your country’s infrastructures of electricity generation and supply, water supply, sewage collection and treatment, waste collection and treatment, telecommunication and public transport will be bombed and bombed and bombed again.

Your reporters will be shot on the street and their homes bombed, as will your media networks offices. That hardly seems necessary anyway since no-one who sees any of the atrocities, no-one with power anyway, will even try to stop what is being done to you and your people.

That’s because there are no red lines anymore.

Your populations will be refugees in your own land and their tents and shacks will be bombed and fire-bombed. They will be bombed wherever they go and they will be bombed on the way there. They will be told some areas are safe and then they’ll be bombed and shot at there also.

Food, fuel, water and medicine supplies will be blocked, blockaded and even bombed. Many of you will be hungry, thirsty and cold. The weaker ones, also the very young and the elderly, will die prematurely of diseases and ailments or untreated wounds and sores.

People with special medical needs will die from lack of specialised medical treatment, procedures, equipment or medication.

Your children will be denied education, safety and even life. Your young and middle-aged men and women will be denied work, safety and even life. Your elders will be denied safety in retirement — and even life.

Some of you will resist, of course. Those the Adversary can catch will be put in prisons; mostly not even a trial will be required but when it does, it will be a mockery of standard judicial procedure. In jail they will be beaten, humiliated, tortured, degraded, half-starved, raped and die.

Some of your resistors will be shot after they’ve been captured. Random civilians will be shot by snipers or drones, thrown into graves and earth pushed over them, perhaps even while alive; other bodies will lie in the street to make you sick with terror and the smell of their decomposing bodies.

Other civilians – including children – will be used as human screens or shields for the Invader’s troops and even their armoured vehicles. They will be used to test mines, booby traps and IEDs.

You will be taught how little your lives matter and how easily they can be wiped out.

There is no longer humanitarian international law, no Geneva Convention; there are no longer any red lines.

It will happen because …

The Zionist state has committed all the crimes listed above and has done so while being photographed, filmed and even live-streamed by reporters, victims, witnesses and even by the Zionist soldiers themselves, in thousands of boastful videos and photographs.

*Jabalia, North Gaza, IOF rounding up Palestinian civilians after destroying their neighbourhoods.*

Their military leaders, politicians and media have proclaimed their intentions and followed them up in practice.

There have been some high-level international complaints and criticisms and even court cases but nothing in practice has been done by the relevant international bodies to physically stop the Zionist genocide or even to deprive them of the weapons and finance to carry out that genocide.

Yes, we know that there have been many human rights violations committed by Western powers in other wars: Dresden, Hiroshima/ Nagasaki, Korea, Algeria, Vietnam, Ireland, Lebanon, Iraq … And some of them were photographed too.

But never before has there been such blatant and daily violation of all principles of international law at so many levels to be seen live on our screens while Western powers leaders justified it and all international institutions were either complicit or helpless.¹

So now that the unthinkable has been done there, it is no longer unthinkable anywhere. And if not unthinkable, then history shows us that it will indeed be thought of. History shows us too that what is thought of will also be done.

What hasn’t been done yet?

Poisoning your water supplies? Why not? So long as there be a water supply for the invading soldiers and good clean water for the occupiers, the settlers. Germ warfare? Why not? As long as the invaders and settlers are immune or the pathogens die out in time for occupation.

There are no red lines any longer and you can expect none when war comes to your country.

Anything goes.

End.

Footnotes

1And people who protested it in western states were maligned, hounded in work and academia, beaten on the street, arrested …

IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE, THOUSANDS MARCH IN BASQUE CITIES

On October 21, 2024October 21, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Euskal Herria, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Thousands marched recently in two cities of the Basque Country, Bilbo and Iruña/ Pamplona,¹ respectively the capitals of the Bizkaia and Nafarroa² provinces, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with their Resistance.

And almost immediately posters could be seen calling for the same on the 11^th November, but in four Basque cities, including a city in one of the provinces on the French state’s side.³

“Well that’s great but sure we do that here every second week or so,” some might say. But they’d be wrong. The marches organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, while calling for solidarity with the Palestinians and BDS⁴ of the ‘Israeli’ state and businesses, do not support the Resistance.

The rally stage at the end of the march in Bilbao, on the east bank of the Nervion river. Banner exalting the Resistance in the centre facing the crowd, banner to the left calling for solidarity with the Resistance and another to the right calling for struggle against ‘Israel’. (Photo cred: *Resumen Latinamericano*)

Nor do the marches organised by the main Palestine solidarity organisations in England or in Scotland. It might be pleaded that in the UK at least, people could be arrested for declaring support for a number of Palestinian resistance organisations that are on the EU “terrorist” list.⁵

The leadership of the Basque Patriotic Left⁶ does not support the resistance either, preferring to draw the Palestinians and Basques together as victims under a Gernika-Gaza initiative and even criticising the resistance along with the Zionists in a “both sides” kind of analysis.

But no law exists in these countries forbidding expression of “solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance.” The organisers of those campaign organisations don’t declare for the Resistance because a) they don’t support it or b) wish to remain tolerated by the upholders of the status quo.

View of section of the crowd, giving an idea of its size, the largest Palestine solidarity demonstration in the Basque Country since the present phase of Zionist genocide began on 8th October last year. (Photo cred: *Resumen Latinamericano*).

IT MATTERS

Well, ok, but does it really matter? Yes, it does and it matters a lot, for the Palestinians, for others struggling against imperialism elsewhere around the world – and for us. Not supporting the Resistance leaves open the question of, for example, the Palestinian Authority.

This Vichy-like organisation headed by a corrupt Quisling sends its security force to intimidate and beat up critics and demonstrators, to arrest them and also Resistance fighters (including invading hospitals to chase down the wounded) and removes defences against IOF invasion.

The PA, despite its widely-acknowledge corruption and the contempt in which it is held by broad Palestinian society, is formally recognised as the ‘representative of the Palestinian people’ by the western imperialists and by many social-democratic parties in Europe.

It is an offence against the Palestinian people and internationalist solidarity to accept the PA as any kind of representation of the heroic Palestinian people – or even to leave the question open. Furthermore, such a stance leaves the door open to all kinds of traitors and confusion.

In our own struggles, we need to be clear who are our enemies and friends. To accept treasonous agencies as representatives of struggling people contaminates our own attitudes in struggle, confuses and undermines our thinking, clouding our vision.

A woman holds high a placard calling to “Free Palestine” and to “Boycott Israel.” (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

BEING CLEAR AND MAKING IT CLEAR

We need to be clear – and to make it clear – that we support the Palestinian resistance in all its forms: popular, armed, trade unionist, cultural, artistic … and that we abhor collaboration and collusion with the enemy.

We can do that – and it has been done on occasion – by mobilising all who agree on a demo behind a banner celebrating the Palestinian Resistance. But how much better, if like the Basques today in Bilbao and in Iruña/ Pamplona, the whole demonstration marched behind that kind of slogan!

It might be thought that the demonstrations on 5th October would gather less than the safer Gernika-Gaza group of the official leadership of the Left Basque Patriotic movement (Otegi & co.) and other liberals but this was not the case in Bilbo anyway, on the biggest solidarity demonstration since October last year.

Advance posters for the solidarity march. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Two Palestinian Resistance factions, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine sent messages of thanks to the organisers and the demonstrators.

The demonstration and its theme were covered widely in Basque, Spanish, European and Latin American media, usually with photos.

Addressing the rally after the march in Bilbo on 5th October, a speaker listed the many crimes of the Zionist State and was loudly cheered when she said that only the abolition of that state could bring that career of genocidal crimes to an end.

The cheers grew louder still as she called for solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and all others fighting against imperialism and Zionism. And continued as she went on to call for a break with all states and political parties that support the Zionist State.⁷

The cheers might even have reached EH Bildu’s office and the leadership of the Gernika-Gaza group.

*The march on its way to the rally across the river pauses on the way for photos.* *The long banner calls for “Support for the Palestinian Resistance” but also ” Oppose Israel and its accomplices.”*(Photo cred: *Boltxe*)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1A number of places with Basque toponymics, under Spanish colonialism, were given Spanish names.

2Also known as ‘Navarre’ and ‘Navarra’.

3There are seven provinces in the Basque Country, three on the French side of the Border (Iparralde, ‘the North Country’) and four on the Spanish side (Hegoalde, ‘the South Country’).

4Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

5 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations–2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version There is actually no universally agreed definition of ‘terrorism’ neither in objectives nor in actions but if we were to accept “use of violence to achieve a political end” then we’d had to include the chief actors fitting that definition in the world – the western imperialist states, in particular the USA and the UK!

6That was the broad movement of legal and banned organisations of revolutionary Left and independentist outlook, the movement now reformist, much reduced and fragmented under the leadership of Arnaldo Otegi and the EH Bildu party.

7That clearly includes the conservative Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) currently in coalition government in the Basque Autonomous Regional Government.

SOURCES

Organizaciones de la resistencia palestina envían mensajes de solidaridad a manifestación celebrada en Bilbao el 5 de octubre

Palestina. Exigen en todo el mundo el cese del genocidio israelí / Miles de manifestantes en numerosos países apoyan la Resistencia al ocupante sionista

DUBLIN RALLY HONOURS THE MARTYRED PALESTINE RESISTANCE LEADER

On October 21, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

People with Palestinian flags including one containing a slogan in Irish, flags of Palestinian resistance factions and holding portraits of Ismail Haniyeh and Nasrallah rallied on Sunday evening outside Dublin’s General Post Office.

The Action for Palestine organisation had advertised the solidarity and honouring event at short notice. Originally planned to take place on O’Connell Bridge, the storm conditions¹ made that venue unsuitable and the GPO² was chosen as an appropriate alternative.

Calling and replying to solidarity chants, the crowd of Irish people and others from the Middle East also listened to four speakers, two Irish and two Palestinian, while two plain-clothes Special Branch Gardaí photographed them from east side of the street.

One passing Zionist sympathiser insulted the gathering, giving rise to a wave of chants in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance. On the other hand, many pedestrian passers-by congratulated demonstrators and some stopped to join or pressed horns on their vehicles.

The speakers referred to the horrors of the genocide being inflicted upon the Palestinian people in particular in North Gaza³ at this time by the IOF, the armed forces of the Zionist state, backed up and supplied by the USA and a number of European states.

They spoke also to praise the resistance of all kinds of the Palestinian people, including armed resistance and at all levels up to leadership, who are assassinated and replaced, always under threat of death.

One speaker also spoke about the need to also support the resistance struggles and the prisoners as a result of resistance too. “It is not required of us that we agree with everything they say or do but it is required of us that we support the resistance”, he said.

Among the slogans chanted were Long live the Intifada! There is only one solution – intifada revolution! From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! Resistance is an obligation – in the face of occupation! Saoirse – don Phalaistín!

From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! From the Sea to the River – Palestine will live forever! In our thousands, in our millions – we are all Palestinians! Free, free Palestine! Netanyahu you can’t hide – you’re committing genocide! (Repeated also for Joe Biden).

A speaker also reminded the crowd of the long resistance to occupation of the Irish people, against Vikings and English occupation and the need to support the resistance of people around the world. “Resistance is everything”, he said and referred to the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people.

To conclude an organiser thanked all for their attendance at short notice and promised other actions in future, then encouraged those who wished to gather for a photo in front of the statue to “our hero in Irish myth, Cú Chullainn”,⁴ which stands in the central front window of the GPO building.⁵

*Some gathered for a photo in front of the representation of the Irish mythological hero Cú Chulainn statue in the display window of the GPO.* (Photo sourced: *Action For Palestine*)

While they were doing so, another reminded them that in the epic legend, Cú Chulainn’s enemies dared not approach him while he was alive and only finally did so when they saw a carrion crow or raven alight on his shoulder to reassure them that he was dead.

“Yahya Sinwar’s enemies did not face him while he was alive either. They fired a tank shell into the building where they believed the fighters were, retreating when grenades were tossed at them, firing another shell into the building and even then only dared send a spy drone in.

“When they saw on their monitor the badly-injured Sinwar throw a stick at the drone, they fired yet another shell into the building, finally killing him.”

End.

*View of the Cú Chullainn statue in the GPO window on a working day* (Photo cred: *Cambridge University*)

Far distant from any kind of heroism or solidarity, two plainclothes members of the political police, the Special Branch of the Gardaí, surveilling the participants. (Photo cred: *Rebel Breeze*)

Footnotes

1Storm Yellow level https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41499104.html

2Also a central location, i.e on Dublin’s main city centre street but also the HQ of the 1916 Rising against British rule.

3Some Palestinian commentators have called this phase the worst of all in the intensified genocide since October last year. Constant aerial strikes on buildings and tent encampments, shooting at people, besieging hospitals and blocking food or fuel from entering and constantly insisting that the people move out in ethnically cleansing.

4The hero is a central figure in the epic of the Táin Bó Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), along with back and after-stories, in the Ulster Cycle of Irish myths and legends. The sculpture, cast in bronze, is by Oliver Sheppard.

5The sculpture by Oliver Sheppard was later dedicated to the martyrs of the 1916 Rising.

IOF INVASION FAILS TO PENETRATE HEZBOLLAH DEFENCE

On October 11, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

After a terrorist attack through exploding hand-held communication devices¹ and later, following the assassination of veteran Hezbollah leader Nasrallah,² the IOF announced on 30^th September their intention of a ground invasion of Lebanon.³

The reaction of the western imperialist allies to the terrorism was mostly silent but to the Zionist planned invasion was either positive or worried – not about the predictable ensuing carnage but about its impact on their assets in the region.

The current Zionist leadership was gung-ho albeit with worried comments from the sidelines, including from some high-ranking retired commanders. Those campaigning for a peace deal with the Resistance and the return of their captured relatives were naturally mostly hostile.

People who knew something about the situation, both those in solidarity with the Resistance and those supporting the Zionist state, wondered how the IOF imagined they were going to be successful, considering the calibre of Hezbollah combined with logistics.

Firstly, the IOF would have to prepare its staging or invasion launch areas in the reach of Hezbollah missiles, rockets and drones. Then they would have to cross at least 300 kilometres under bombardment in terrain well-zeroed already by Hezbollah.

If and when the invaders crossed that land, they would confront their old enemy Hezbollah, many battle-hardened veterans from fighting ISIS and NATO proxies in Syria. And strongly motivated ideologically also, in particular in defending their homeland.

The IOF infantry on the other hand has not faced any conventional fighting force in pitched battle since 1966, being mostly experienced in repression and genocidal operations against civilians already under close surveillance with air dominance and much intelligence support.

Despite their advantages, against the armed resistance of those areas, the IOF have not performed at all well, with a high rate of casualties in personnel and armoured vehicles. In invasion of Lebanon, their armour would be even more vulnerable.

True, the IOF has air advantage in air-to-ground strikes with their US-supplied fighters. But the resistance artillery⁴ batteries are situated far back from the Lebanon front line, yet able to strike targets with coordinates called in from Hezbollah facing the enemy.

The Zionist air force boasts of having eliminated those batteries in their bombardment were quickly proved false as missiles rose behind the returning IOF aircraft to fall on their regular targets in northern occupied Palestine. Most of those batteries and launchers are underground.

So the main IOF assault and penetration would have to be of their infantry, the issue decided by the calibre of contending fighting personnel, their weapons, along with defences of the defenders, remembering also that a 3-1 superiority is necessary for offensive breakthrough at any point.⁵

The situation would be bad enough for the IOF if they could at least prepare their staging areas in safety but of course Hezbollah is not letting them do that, pounding their bases and visible troop movements and assemblies again and again with missiles, drones and rockets.

IOF INVASION PROGRESS?

So how has the invasion force fared to date? Hezbollah chose not to fall back fighting the IOF on the way, sucking them further in and hitting their supply lines. Instead, they met the invasion on or around their front lines, with some flexibility and so far have remained there.

All outcomes into the second week so far have justified the pessimists in the Zionist and Western allies camp. Ground assault after assault has been beaten back by Hezbollah, at times in ambushing or other targeting of approaching infantry and some armour.

In one such ambush, Hezbollah forward fighters observed a special IOF force reconnoitring and decided to leave them under observation while they figured the route of advance. When the whole IOF special unit advanced they were hit with a pre-laid explosive and then by small-arms fire.

The IOF are widening their attack front and in the western sector, the IOF attempted to infiltrate again through Labouneh, despite the previous day’s qualitative ambush where according to reports, Zionist vehicles “burned live on air”; the resistance again forced their retreat.

This last was a reference to Ras Al-Naqoura where an entire IOF convoy was struck by the resistance. Al-Mayadeen reports that the convoy was made up of about 60 soldiers, 5 Merkava tanks, and a number of other vehicles and repeated IOF rescue services have been repulsed.

Al-Manar added that “The occupation army advanced along the western line near the sea and attempted to take control … to oversee the coastline stretching to Sour,”⁶ and “attempted six times in recent days to enter this area and was met with resistance missiles and fire.”

The Resistance reported numerous confrontations against enemy infantry forces in the forests of Al-Labouneh, south of Naqoura and engagements on the Blida, Muhaybib, and Maroun Al-Ras axis.

The Zionist forces have also attempted to use the UNIFIL station as cover and the Hezbollah decision to hold on targeting them for fear of hitting uninvolved forces, reported by Al Mayadeen, raised concerns for the safety of Irish state troops garrisoned there.⁷

In 10 days of repeated attempts, the IOF has not managed to enter and hold one southern Lebanese village or town and advances of even a 100 metres have been beaten back with casualties. The Zionists have been reduced to fantasy stories of advances and staged photos.⁸

And this IOF fighting here are considered by the Zionists the elite of their infantry, facing not even Hezbollah’s elite, the al-Hajj Radwan Regiment. Hezbollah is much more a medium-sized army than guerrilla force, though it grew from one, created against the ‘Israeli’ occupation of Lebanon.

On Wednesday the IOF, which maintains a strict censorship on casualties and battle-damage reporting and is well-known for vastly underplaying their battle casualties in Gaza, admitted that over the past 24 hours, 38 soldiers had been wounded in ground battles in southern Lebanon.

In what seems a departure from the Gaza norm, some reports seem to suggest that Hezbollah may not be granting the IOF the same freedom to recover their dead and wounded as has been the case until now from the Gaza resistance (despite IOF targeting of hospitals and medical personnel).⁹

As it was in Gaza, bombing the civilian population has been the response of the IOF, targeting multi-occupation housing blocks, medical services, emergency services, media service, gatherings of displaced people and refugee routes into Syria.

The only large-scale comprehensive defeats suffered by the IOF were against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in 2000 and in 2006, forcing the Zionist retreat from Lebanon on both occasions. Many Hezbollah are battle-hardened from Syria and of high morale, particularly in battle against the IOF.

REASON

Given the history and sober assessments, why is the Zionist state engaging in this attack and being backed by the western imperialists? Yoav Gallant, Minister for the armed forces, claimed it was in order to degrade Hezbollah and return the Zionist settlers to northern occupied Palestine.

This is a large area denuded of thousands of settlers now being housed in hotels or even camps deeper in occupied Palestine (‘Israel’) or who have left the state altogether, whether temporarily of permanently. Currently it is occupied mostly by the IOF, in bases and Settler houses.

The reason for the emptying of the region of Settler communities is its daily bombardment by Hezbollah since October 8^th, the day the IOF began this latest and most intensive period of genocidal bombings. And they’ve been clear: Stop the genocide and we stop the bombardment.

*Hezbollah artillery rocket batteries* (Photo credit: *AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS*)

However, despite the wishes of a large section of ‘Israeli’ society, the dominant section of the Zionist ruling class is not prepared to stop its Gaza bombardment and do a deal which would result in admission of defeat and, for Netanyahu, appearance in court to face corruption charges.

Some of the western imperialist alliance are worried that ‘Israel’ will drag¹⁰ the US and with it the rest of the Western alliance, at a time also of a war in Ukraine, into a regional war with Hezbollah, Yemen, the Iraqi resistance, Syria and of course Iran, a long-intended NATO target.

Many voices from different positions regarding the Zionist state have warned that in a regional Middle Eastern war, all western military bases in the Middle East become targets, as do all oil and gas wells delivering to the West, with huge economic results across the world.

There are indications of other motivations, beyond loss of Zionist face, of extending ‘Israel’ ‘from the sea to the river’ (!),¹¹ re-occupying Gaza with settlers and ‘remodelling of the Middle East’ in a Zionist messianic dream but combined with a gung-ho attitude in the White House.

In a recent interview on YouTube, Iranian professor Marandi commented that strategic and tactical decisions made by the imperialists are not logical but emotional. I would agree that emotion is involved however also logical calculation — but there are times when emotion overcomes logic.

Such was the situation for example in the ‘forever war’ of the US in ‘Indochina’ when it continued despite all the evidence that it was losing, year after year, could not possibly win and was alienating huge populations even at home.

*One of the many jacket designs of the classic Sci-fi novel, based to large extent on the War of the USA in Viet Nam.*

It took the logic of a section of the ruling class to overcome emotion and to subdue the Reagan section to sue for peace, under of course the heroic assault of the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But the arrogance and world ambition of the US ruling class never died.

Can this now extended war of the IOF endanger all of Western imperialism’s substantial assets in the Middle East? Most certainly. So stop it, pull back! says one section of the imperialists. But Bring it on, says the other section, because after this we’ll have only Russia and China to worry about.

For the next war.

End.

Footnotes

1On 17 and 18 September https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/18/more-devices-exploding-across-lebanon-whats-happening

227^th September https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/israel-says-it-has-killed-hezbollah-leader-hassan-nasrallah

3 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/01/israel-lebanon-attack-hezbollah-ground-operation-war-latest

4Using the term here to encompass missiles, rockets such as the Katyusha-types, rather than cannon.

53-1 advantage in numbers needed for the attacker, other considerations being equal. (Seehttps://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/A0013.pdf)

6Perhaps with the additional intention of establishing a beachhead for IOF naval landings.

7 https://www.thenational.scot/news/24636493.israel-endangering-irish-troops-lebanon-border/

and https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/ireland-calls-israeli-demand-to-move-un-troops–outrageous

8These included stories of paratroop landings, overrunning Hezbollah defences and a photo of IOF taken in a very forward but abandoned Settler village, which Hezbollah commented had cost the IOF 10 dead and wounded.

9In one notorious instance, they executed two wounded fighters in hospital. Both from the air and the ground the IOF has repeatedly targeted paramedics and civil defence crews and have continued doing so from the air in Lebanon. However commentators have noted how IOF helicopters landing to evacuate wounded and dead IOF, though clearly under observation, are never targeted by the Resistance in Gaza.

10,Assuming its unwilling to do so which may not at all be the case.

11 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2024-09-05/ty-article/.highlight/netanyahus-map-shows-israel-from-the-river-to-the-sea-its-no-accident/00000191-c2a8-d09f-ab91-debc90e60000

and https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/benjamin-netanyahu-maps-brief-history-enduring-love-affair

References
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/01/israel-lebanon-attack-hezbollah-ground-operation-war-latest

FUNERAL OF ZIONISM HELD IN DUBLIN – ITS COFFIN DUMPED IN THE RIVER

On October 8, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Palestine, Song, Song in Struggle, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Scores of people participated in a symbolic ‘funeral of Zionism’ on Monday evening (7^th October) in Dublin’s city centre. In front of the James Connolly monument^¹ and near a mock coffin of ‘Zionism’, they listened to a song and short speeches.

This was followed by a march carrying the ‘coffin’ through city centre streets to O’Connell Bridge, where it was dumped in the Liffey river.

The ethnic composition of the mostly young mixed-gender crowd, by appearance and accent, seemed to be a mixture of Irish and Middle Eastern origin.

The chairperson of the event recalled that a year had passed since the heroic action from Gaza of October 7^th and the events that followed, all being gathered there at the James Connolly memorial to hold a funeral for Zionism, the ideology of settler colonialism and genocide.

The first contribution was from a man introduced as Seán Óg with a song of his own composition, three verses rendered acapella in fine voice to the air of two well-known Irish patriotic ballads, Men of the West/ Fir an Iarthair and The Boys of Killmichael.^²

The audience began to pick up and join in the chorus lines:

So here’s to the boys of Gaza,
Jenin, Nablus and Hebron,
Who fought ‘neath the brave flag of Palestine
and sent the Settlers on.

*Section of crowd at event listening to speeches, viewed facing north-eastwards.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

Two speakers followed, pointing out the unanimity of imperialism nowadays in supporting Zionism as distinct from the 1950s and the importance of struggles such as that in Palestine to our own in Ireland, of internationalist solidarity and the need for that solidarity to be for the Resistance.

One speaker interspersed his words in English with some phrases in Irish and recalled the protest against the 1897 visit of the British Queen Victoria which saw James Connolly and Constance Markievicz leading a funeral cortège through the streets bearing a coffin for British Imperialism.

Though a ‘funeral’ for British Imperialism might’ve seemed only aspirational in 1897, the speaker said, signs of its decline were there to be seen for the educated, the intelligent and those who wished to see them — and before two decades elapsed it had received a major challenge.

It survived that challenge of the First World War victorious but weakened and the embers of revolt were burning around its Empire. Before two decades after that funeral march, the torch of freedom had been lit in Dublin,^³ the first uprising against world war of that century anywhere in the world.

The speaker went on to recall the subsequent War of Independence in Ireland three years later and remarked that had it not been for some Irish failures in unity and resolution that British Imperialism might have been given its mortal blow then in Ireland.

Subsequently British Imperialism survived by serving as a subject ally to US Imperialism. “Zionism is a rotten tree”, he said, “planted in Palestine by British Imperialism and nurtured by US Imperialism. Even so, Zionism is damaging its very fosterers and we welcome that.”

“Rotten trees don’t fall on their own,” the speaker continued. Trees that are rotten inside may seem healthy on the outside but when a strong storm comes along, they are knocked down. It is then we can easily see the rot inside them that we may not have noticed before.

Storms are now breaking out around the world, he said. We can and need to play our own part in those storms, “to knock down the rotten tree of Zionism and go on to demolish the whole rotten evil forest of imperialism.”

*Section of crowd listening to speeches at the event, photo taken facing south-eastwards.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

After applause some chants were led, among them: From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Saoirse don-Phalaistín! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! Resistance is an obligation – in the face of Occupation!

The attendance then took to the street, carrying the coffin and flying Irish and national flags of Palestine along with those of factions of the Resistance, also Hezbollah’s and Lebanon’s, continuing the chants as they marched up lower Abbey Street,^⁴ then turning left along O’Connell Street.

Along the way, some bystanders cheered and a man leaned out of a delivery van to shout encouragement with clenched fist in the air.

On O’Connell Bridge, after a few words, the ‘coffin’ containing ‘Zionism’ was pushed over the parapet into the river Liffey, to cheers, which then changed to cycling through the accustomed solidarity chants.

*The ‘coffin’ is on the Bridge parapet (left of photo) and about to be dumped into the river Liffey.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

There were three external interventions.

A known Irish Zionist who regularly tries to harass Palestinian solidarity participants appeared at the outset in attempted intimidation of an activist but was quickly discouraged from doing so. At the Bridge, a person under the influence of alcohol and shouting confusedly was calmed by activists.

*Break the Chains of Zionism banner next to James Connolly Monument* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

A Garda patrol car crew whose political undercover colleagues had clearly overlooked keeping informed drew up at the Bridge bemusedly during the chanting and, after attempting to gain some information as to events, left again – as did the participants soon afterwards.

The event was organised by Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Saoirse Don Phalaistín, the former’s Facebook page having been taken down by Meta while the event was being organised but the groups may be followed on Instagram and Twitter.

End.

Footnotes

1The location of this fine monument is in Beresford Place, across from the site of the original Liberty Hall, home of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union which Connolly led after Jim Larkin departed for the USA at the end of the 1913 Dublin Lockout. The site is now occupied a multi-storey building of SIPTU.

2The first is about the last major engagements of the 1798 Republican uprising, when a relatively small French force landed in Co. Mayo and was joined by Irish Republican insurgents; the second celebrates the IRA ambush of a column of the Auxiliary Regiment in West Cork, wiping it out almost to the last British terrorist.

3The 1916 Rising.

4Until they reached O’Connell Street they were following in the footsteps of the GPO Garrison on Easter Monday, 1916 and passed by a number of historical political and artistic locations of 1848 and of the early 20^th Century.

SUPPORT THE RESISTANCE, CONDEMN THE COLLABORATORS

On October 4, 2024October 5, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, irish history, Journalism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Not only our internationalist duty but also our longer-term practical interests are with supporting the Resistance. If so, then it is surely even more required of us that we condemn the collusion of the collaborators.

This is based on the fact of the Resistance opposing colonialism, occupation, imperialism, fascism, exploitation and so on. It is not based on whether the Resistance embraces all of our particular ideology or objectives. But that also means that we do not necessarily offer unconditional support.

Karl Marx, who from Britain not only went to some lengths to support the Irish Resistance to colonialism¹ but advised the working class in Britain to do likewise,² also remarked that it was not to be expected that British workers would support themselves being blown up for Irish freedom.³

I say that internationalist solidarity is not only a question of a kind of moral duty, but also a practical one. If we examine our own situation here in Ireland and our hopes for a united independent and socialist republic, we must also look to what happens when we achieve it.

The lessons of struggles in the world have surely taught us that we cannot hope that the imperialist countries around us will allow us to nationalise our resources and infrastructures which they’ve appropriated in full or in part, close their military bases and wish us good fortune!

Or that they will allow a positive example of the potential of socialist society to exist for the encouragement of their own working classes or for those they exploit elsewhere.

No, we will need movements of solidarity, especially in the states which will be the quickest to threaten us, i.e the western imperialist states. And, whether by coincidence or not, those are in great part the very states that are at this moment attacking Palestine and independence in the Middle East.

We think in that respect first of the United States, UK, Germany but also France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden (even Switzerland⁴). Of course, we’ll be dealing with their interventions of various kinds before we even reach our independent, united socialist republic.

*PA Security Forces attacking a demonstrator* (Photo cred: *Getty Images*)

COLLABORATORS AND COLLUSION

Naturally, if we support the Resistance, we must have a corresponding attitude to those who collaborate and collude with colonialism, occupation, imperialism, fascism, exploitation and so on, not only in our own immediate struggle but also in those we support internationally.

The genocidal attacks of the ‘Israeli’ Zionist state could not last a week without the financial, military and material support in particular of the USA, but also without those from Germany, the UK and France, nor in turn without the collusion of many Arab states of the Middle East.

That is a collusion in many cases of the regimes and not supported by most of their own populations. Most dangerous of all of course are those agencies of collusion among the oppressed people themselves and we have experienced those throughout our history of anti-colonial struggle.

Our historical culture is full of contemptuous references to them, even to terms such as “Castle Catholics”; Marx too was scathing in reference to Daniel O’Connell, who sought only Irish autonomy within the British Empire, as did John Redmond, later rejected by the population.⁵

Many other struggles around the world have had such temporisers and actual collaborators in their midst. Indeed after liberation from fascism in countries in WWII, many of them were executed, some such as “Quisling” and “Vichy” becoming bywords in treachery and collusion.⁶

Palestinians hold posters depicting human rights activist Nizar Banat during a protest triggered by the violent arrest and death in custody of Banat, in his hometown of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, on June 27, 2021. [ Photo cred: *Mosab Shawer/AFP*]

*Al Jazeera correspondent Laith Jaar, beaten up by PA officer while covering the Tulkarem massacre by the IOF, then jailed when he complained to the PA.* [Photo sourced: *Internet*]

Well then, how is that we tolerate the presentation of the ‘Palestine Authority’ as a representation of the Palestinian people? This corrupt agency with its ‘security force’ beating up and jailing critics and freedom fighters, some of which it also shoots? And dismantling defensive anti-IOF bombs?

This agency which in the Oslo Accords gave up the struggle in exchange for corrupt control of 20% of Palestinian land, which has held no elections since 2006 because the Palestinian people across the political and religious spectrum rejected the Fatah party then and elected Hamas instead.

It is no surprise then that the western imperialist countries claim the PA to be the legitimate representation of the Palestinian people and that some of them fund it, that Palestine ‘embassies’ are PA-run and that Palestine ‘Ambassadors’ are employed by the PA.⁷

But how is that the PA is not publicly denounced by the wide Palestine solidarity movements in the Western countries? Why this conspiracy of silence and spreading of ignorance?

It is not easy in on-line searches to find how many political prisoners the PA has in its jails or wounded or shot dead – and of course the amount of information about the Resistance passed on to the Zionists and the US awaits some historical investigations in a free Palestine of the future.

What we do know is that the PA holds over 100 political prisoners, that it arrests freedom fighters (even invading hospitals to arrest wounded fighters), that it tortures prisoners, beats up critics and demonstrators and clears the way of explosives for IOF invasion of West Bank communities.

Very recently, Palestinian journalist Laith Jaar, after reporting on the Palestinian Resistance in Tulkarem, was beaten up while covering the massacre there by Ahmed Ghassan Qawzah, an officer of the PA’s security force. When the journalist went to complain to the PA, they threw him in jail.

The Palestinian Resistance periodically denounces the PA, calling on it to support the people, threatens it when the PA’s actions are particularly egregious but refrains from using arms against it. I admit that I cannot understand that degree of forbearance, even for temporary tactical reasons.

But what about us? How is that only one protest against the PA’s Ambassador to Ireland took place and that the protesters were ejected by alleged Irish supporters of the Palestinian people? How is that only one small protest to date has taken place outside the PA’s Dublin Embassy?

How can we stomach this collusion in what is effectively a conspiracy of silence?

End.

*Palestinian Police – their firearms are for opposing the Palestinian Resistance* (Photo cred: *Issame Ravi/ Flash90*)

FOOTNOTES

1Marx and Engels had led the International Workingmen’s Association (later known as the “First International”) in not only supporting the Fenian movement but also accepting Fenians in Britain into the organisation.

2Not out of altruism but in their own interest! “As to the Irish question….The way I shall put forward the matter next Tuesday is this: that quite apart from all phrases about “international” and “humane” justice for Ireland – which are to be taken for granted in the International Council – it is in the direct and absolute interest of the English working class to get rid of their present connection with Ireland.And this is my most complete conviction, and for reasons which in part I cannot tell the English workers themselves. For a long time I believed that it would be possible to overthrow the Irish regime by English working class ascendancy. I always expressed this point of view in the New York Tribune.Deeper study has now convinced me of the opposite. The English working class will never accomplish anythingbefore it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is so important for the social movement in general.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/letters/69_12_10-abs.htm

3Karl Marx, then living in London, observed: The London masses, who have shown great sympathy towards Ireland, will be made wild and driven into the arms of a reactionary government. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of Fenian emissaries.Marx was commenting on the reaction to the disastrous explosion attempt to liberate Fenian prisoners from Clerkenwell Jail in London, on 13 December 1867, when 12 mostly working class people were unintentionally killed and around 120 injured.

https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1867/letters/67_12_14.htm

4 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/swiss-arms-exports-jump-29-as-industry-laments-neutrality

5That was the essence of the O’Connell’s constitutional Repeal Movement objective of the 1840s and of the Home Rule promised by the UK ruling class to the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1914, against which the 1916 Rising took place. In the British General Election of 1918 in Ireland, Redmond’s party was all but annihilated.

6Nazi collaborator Prime Minister in occupied Norway and the French collaborator government under Petain and Lavalle.

7It should perhaps be a surprise that certain parties in Europe, including Ireland, also support the PA but then, perhaps not. Not a year has passed since a meeting hosting the ‘Palestine Ambassador’ for Ireland in Belfast was protested by Palestinians who were ejected among cheers by ‘Irish Republicans’.

SOURCES

Marx on need for the British workers to support the Irish struggle: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/letters/69_12_10-abs.htm

Broader discussion on Marx and need for solidarity to progress revolution in general: https://www.developmentresearch.eu/?p=1347

Marx’s brief comment on the problematic effect of the Clerkenwell Bombing on Irish solidarity in Britain: https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1867/letters/67_12_14.htm

The ‘Palestine Authority’ prisoners:

(1999) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/political-detainees-in-the-palestinian-authority

(also 1999) https://www.amnesty.org/es/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde210071999en.pdf

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/14/pa-security-forces-are-not-serving-the-palestinian-people

PA attacks on Resistance fighters:

PALESTINE AUTHORITY PREVENTED FROM ARRESTING RESISTANCE FIGHTER IN HOSPITAL

PA security forces assassinate resistance fighter in Tulkarem

PA arrests a resistance fighter wanted by the occupation

PA dismantling Resistance explosives for defence against IOF invasions:

Agreement between PA, occupation to dismantle explosives planted by West Bank resistance

PA agrees security deal with occupation regime amid Gaza genocide

Periodic reports also on Resistance News Network