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.
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
Almost immediately after the Al Aqsa Flood breach of the Israeli military wall and subsequent raid, the Israeli state’s stories of alleged atrocities by Hamas1 were being widely repeated in the western mass media.
The accounts, always levelled at Hamas, included burning alive and mutilation of adults, rape, beheading of babies and even ripping of a baby from the womb of a pregnant woman, most of the allegations quickly proven untrue.
The rape story however continues to run. So far there has been not one piece of forensic evidence, not one certifiable victim and not only have the journalistic standards been flawed but the backgrounds of the original reporters are deeply suspect.
Or “Mass media and atrocity”?Or “Mass media atrocity”? (Image sourced: Internet)
“Beheaded babies”
Since according to Israeli statistics one baby alone died during the Al Aqsa Flood operation and was neither headless nor premature, all the allegations about atrocities towards babies or pregnant women have been disproven and the “witnesses” discredited.
The latter were reported in the media as serving Israeli military and some civilians but were quoted at length and no attempt was made to question the accused, Hamas, nor to interrogate the logic (which we’ll come to later). President Biden quoted the “beheaded babies” as fact.2
“Mutilation” allegation
Despite the frequent allegations of mutilations of bodies of babies and women no forensic examples have been provided by the Israeli authorities, who had full access to all sites of the Al Aqsa Flood raid within hours of the operation.
“Burning people alive” allegation
There is certainly much evidence of the immolation of buildings and cars (the latter with occupants) – but by whom? There is no evidence that the Palestinian military possess flamethrowers or carried any inflammable devices. In the course of a battle of course some buildings can catch fire.
But deliberately burning people alive when the objective is to take live prisoners? Certainly not logical. However, we have known almost since the date of the operation that Israeli fighters were firing Hellfire missiles at cars on the ground without being able to identify their occupants.3
There is also eyewitness testimony from an Israeli survivor that an Israeli tank fired a shell into a house in which Palestinian fighters were holding Israeli prisoners known to her, killing everyone including a child.
First “Mass rapes” allegation
In an article titled “Scream without words” on 28th December, this allegation was published in the New York Times, a US periodical that considers itself ‘a newspaper of record’, i.e one with high standards of checking and the reports of which therefore can be relied upon.
Though Pulitzer-Prizewinner Jeffrey Gettleman was the article’s main author, Anat Shwartz and Adam Sella were researchers on this story with Shwartz in the lead.
The two-month investigation produced no forensic evidence and no named alleged victims except one, Gal Abdush. According to Gal’s sister the allegation of rape was concealed from the family by the NYT; she does not believe her sister was raped and they know of no forensic tests performed.
… at 7:00 a.m., Nagi Abdush called his brother Nissim to say Gal was shot and dying. The Times never explains how Gal could be captured, raped, fatally shot, and burned to death in nine minutes while Nagi messaged his family and never mentioned any physical contact with Hamas forces.4
The team claimed interviewing “150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors … identified at least seven locations” where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated. Yet not a single named individual (other than Gal).
During this period, the team published an article rehashing Israeli propaganda claims of Palestinian atrocities but containing false assertions. Under pressure the NYT had to publish a correction on December 8th stating that the Israeli police had no forensic or autopsy evidence for the claims.
Among the few “witnesses” identified by Shwartz are an Israeli Army paramedic, a special forces soldier and members of the ZAKA group. The latter claims to be a philanthropic organisation but is mired in claims of inventing horror stories,5 with some of its leaders on trial for sexual abuse.
The military paramedic changed the location of victims of rape from one kibbutz to another and, though his story coincides perfectly with that of the special forces soldier, it is flatly contradicted by family and kibbutz members regarding rape and the location and status of the bodies.6
The person who filmed the original video of Gal Abdush’s body, Eden Wesley says that at first she did not understand the importance of the image but that Shwartz and Sella kept pressurising her for the footage and telling her it would be valuable ‘hasbara’ (Israeli State propaganda) material.7
It emerged after the article’s publication that Schwarz had previously “liked” a number of rabid anti-Palestinian posts on Twitter/X, including one with the false story of “beheaded babies” and another about the need to equate Hamas with ISIS in the narrative for propaganda purposes.
Sella is Shwartz’s nephew and neither he nor his aunt had a history of covering stories of this size or of working with or for the NYT and it is curious how in November 2024 Schwartz came to be an investigative reporter for the prestigious newspaper on alleged atrocities by the Al Aqsa Flood.
Though the NYT has yet to admit the story is basically faulty it has criticised Shwartz for ‘liking’ zionist posts and is carrying out an investigation, declaring such to be violating its standards.
It may be that in time the NYT will sacrifice the reporters to save its reputation. But the newspaper needs to answer why it employed them in the first place and ran a story of such serious allegations (and consequences) under Gettleman without a shred of actual evidence.
Debunked – but the allegations run on
The latest version of these allegations is by UN Envoy Pramila Patten who, once again, admits to being able to name no victims and to having no forensic evidence. But even so she is able to suggest that female Israeli prisoners may be experiencing “ongoing” sexual assault in captivity!8
The report of her delegation, which had not been sent in an investigative capacity, claimed finding in various locations, “that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head”.
Although of course captives would have their hands tied, I don’t recall this detail of partial nakedness and shooting of Israeli captives being reported before and its emergence five months after the military operation must give rise to extreme suspicion.
Anti-German military WWI poster (Image sourced: Internet)
Control of the investigation, control of the discourse
As with a number of other war propaganda allegations in various parts of the world, the Israeli State insisted it will not permit any independent international agency investigation and also declined to carry out its own investigations “until after the war” (while forensic evidence is compromised).
That does not prevent the western mass media from giving credence to Israeli State stories.
LOGIC?
Let’s set aside all horror or distaste for a moment and apply some logic to the situation. The short-term objectives of the Palestinian military raid were to
Coordinate rocket bombardment of Israeli settlements with six simultaneous infantry assaults
Knock out local Israeli Wall automatic guns and military communications
Get through or over the Israeli Wall
Overcome the Israeli garrison at the Wall
Take Israelis prisoners to exchange for the release of Palestinians prisoners of the Israeli state
It is worth noting that the Palestinian operation achieved all of its short-term objectives, No. 5 only partially since we now know that many Palestinian fighters were killed by Israeli fire along with their captives.
In addition to the short-term we can assume longer-term objectives
strike back at the oppressor
destroy the occupier’s sense of invulnerability
keep the Israeli prisoners taken safe
negotiate for the exchange of prisoners and
probably to force the rulers of Israel to negotiate with the elected representatives of the Palestinians.9
How logical would carrying out atrocities be with regard to any of those objectives, bearing in mind that the Palestinian resistance wants its justifications acknowledged and supported domestically and internationally? And to be able to negotiate with the Israeli State’s leaders?
Would the short-term mission directives be compatible with “mass rape”? The mission directive is to knock out communications, kill any resistance necessary, grab prisoners and – get out quickly! Speed was essential for the success of the operation and the survival of its personnel.
To knock aside any evaluation on the basis of logic we are encouraged to regard the Palestinians as irrational, violent and sub-human – in fact the very kind of propaganda used for centuries by the British-based colonisers against the Irish, both in text and cartoons.10
The joint Palestinian limited military operation was represented in the media as “a rampage” “slaughtering”, “massacring” while a number of Israeli politicians described Palestinians as “animals”, openly calling for genocide.
Part of the British propaganda depicting slaughter of men, women and children settlers by the Irish in 1641, which helped to gain recruits and funds for Cromwell’s genocide and plantation campaign in Ireland in 1649. (Source of image: Article in Guardian)
WAR PROPAGANDA
Propaganda has always been a part of preparing the combatants and their society for war and, once war begins, sustaining it. The English-based invaders racialised the Irish as uncouth, barbarians, dishonest (but then had to pass laws to prevent the integration of their own colonists!).11
In the 1800s the Irish were described for British society as lazy, violent, drunkard, dirty and treacherous while a number of cartoons depicted them as brutish and ape-like, drawing on literature from Shakespeare, Mary Anne Shelley and evolutionary theory for its caricatures.
Much more recently, the leaders of the USA and of the UK, in order to justify their invasion of Iraq, falsified the reports of their intelligence agencies to accuse Saddam Hussein of being somehow responsible for the Twin Towers atrocity and of having weapons of mass destruction.12
A poster to boost recruitment for the USA’s troops in WWI – note the common theme of a murdered child and atrocity (crucifixion) towards a woman with perhaps suggestion of sexual violation also. (Image sourced: Internet)
ACTUAL RAPE & SEXUAL ASSAULT
Sexual assault and rape of Palestinian female prisoners
A UN body of seven sexual violence experts reported on 19th February that there is credible evidence of Palestinian females being shot and female prisoners being subjected to sexual assault, humiliation and even rape by Israeli military officers.13
To contrast this situation with that of alleged victims of “mass rapes” of Israeli women by Al Aqsa Flood on October 7th, with no actual victims yet produced, at least two female Palestinian prisoners have alleged being raped and others of sexual assault and humiliation.
Furthermore, the taking of Palestinian prisoners and their detention is no hurried military operation with severe time constraints, unlike that of the Al Aqsa Flood operation.
Thirdly, while any Israeli victim of rape cannot ordinarily expect retribution for testifying to such an experience but rather the opposite, Palestinians in Israeli jail and ex-prisoners anywhere in Palestine are always vulnerable to Israeli retribution and eight have died in jail since October 8th.
Another difference is that while Palestinians have to think about how their actions will be perceived not only internally but also externally, this is not the case with the Israeli State and its armed forces, who boast about their human rights violations in official videos and on soldiers’ social media.
Victims of rape and sexual assault by Palestinians in Palestinian society
There are sadly bound to be such victims but we know nothing about them because of the siege and genocidal war conditions to which Palestinian society is subjected. Such a situation conditions complicity in silence due to feelings of solidarity and fear of seeming to help the enemy.
We know this from our own history in Ireland in the Republican movement during the 30 Years War in the occupied Six Counties, some accusations of sexual abuse within Republican families only emerging to the public eye only after the end of the War.
Victims of rape and sexual assault by Israelis in Israeli society
However, there are substantial statistics on complaints of rape and sexual assault in Israeli society, which are according to one source, 40% higher there than the average in OECD countries. Furthermore they have been on the increase (which may mean greater occurrence or of reporting).
In 2013, 40,000 calls were received by the Israeli rape crisis centres, a rise of 12% from previously but only 15% were reported to the police. Even more disturbingly, 31% of callers reporting assault were under the age of 12 and 33% of callers reporting assault were between 13-18 years of age.14
The Association of Rape Crises Centres in Israeli reports that one in three women in Israel is sexually assaulted during her lifetime, with one in seven raped during her lifetime.15
Gang rapes seem to be on the increase and the risk of punishment for rapists and sexual assaulters seems statistically low as a study found that 90% of cases are closed without charges.16
Some of the allegations of sexual assault and rape of Israeli personnel within the Israeli military
In 2013 there were 561 reports of sexual assault in the IDF that were of military circumstances, with 396 reports not of military circumstances. 91% of reports were of assault against women, 49% were of physical assault but in 61% of cases a complaint was not submitted.17
There have been two notorious cases of alleged gang rapes by Israeli men but in Cyprus, a common holiday destination for Israelis.18 One, of a woman in 2019 was dismissed due to police incompetence and the other, of a UK woman, is currently being tried. 19
In Conclusion
During the many hours of Israeli military missing after the Wall breaches, other Palestinians entered and could possibly have robbed, assaulted, raped or killed a small number of Israelis. However forensic, victim or credible witness evidence of rape remains absent to date.
The mass rape allegations against the Palestinian resistance in the course of their Al Aqsa Flood operation originate in Israeli propaganda, are not credible logically, have provided neither victims nor forensic evidence and the track record of the “investigators” is tainted by zionist sympathies.
Despite debunking by statistics and investigation, the “mass rapes” and other allegations such as the numbers killed by the Palestinian resistance continue to be repeated in the western mass media or to be allowed to resurface after the allegations and/or the sources have been discredited.
Sadly even liberal anti-Zionist reporters appear at times to allow themselves to believe the propaganda while at the same time criticising the Israeli State’s actions or their extent.20
The original source is Israeli war propaganda and those who ignore that fact and the number of investigation results refuting the allegations but rather give them some kind of credence and currency in reporting are deeply complicit in the ongoing zionist genocide of the Palestinian people.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1In order to deny that the target of operations by the Israeli State is the Palestinian people, the propaganda always talks about “Hamas” alone. It is rarely admitted but well-known by the authorities that the Al Aqsa Flood operation was a joint one including not only the military wings of Hamas but also of Islamic Jihad, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Resistance Committees and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
8The U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict says there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture,” and other cruel and inhuman treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
There are also “reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing,” said Pramila Patten, who visited Israel and the West Bank from Jan. 29 to Feb. 14 with a nine-member team. (Washington Post – see Sources). Contrast this claim with the accounts of female prisoners of the Palestinian resistance released to date.
9The elected representation of the Palestinian people since the 2006 elections has been Hamas (no 5-yearly elections have been held since by the PA which is under Fatah control). The Fatah political structure in power in Gaza refused to respect the electorate’s decision and in 2007 Hamas was obliged to remove them by force (which they decided not to do in the West Bank). The Israeli ruling class likewise refused to accept the decision of the Palestinian electorate and besieged Gaza. The rulers of the western states followed suit in not recognising Hamas either, though UN aid organisations and NGOs had to deal with Hamas in Gaza.
10“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime,” said the President of the Israel State, Herzog.
11For example, the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1666 by the British-Norman rulers of England were series of 35 Acts aimed at preventing the British-Norman settlers (also described as Norman-Irish) from continuing to be “the degenerate English” who had “become more Irish than the Irish themselves” by adopting traditional Irish customs, culture, language and even law.
12The ironical truth is that while the UK and the USA are some of the few powers that do indeed posses weapons of mass destruction, Iraq had none; also the Twin Towers atrocity had been carried out by Al Qaeda, an Islamicist organisation originating in jihadists supported and supplied by the USA in order to overthrow the Russian-supported Afghanistan regime of 1979-1988. Furthermore Al Qaeda was a known opponent of the Saddam Hussein regime.
13Though reported in some western mass media, neither as often nor nowhere nearly as much as the Israeli story of “mass rapes by Hamas”.
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.
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.
We, the public have been bombarded daily with lies and propaganda from the western mainstream media (wsm) and nowhere has this been clearer than since October 7th in relation to the Israeli state and the Palestinian people.
It would be useful to unpick some of the most often-repeated items.
For five weeks after the raid, until mid-December the figures given and repeated without question were 1,400 killed1 by Palestinians along with Zionist stories of Israeli babies being beheaded and mutilated and women raped, also repeated without question, challenge or investigation.
The “mutilated and beheaded babies” lie was repeated by US President Biden. That story has now been sunk: ONE Israeli baby died during the attack by hands and means unknown. The rape story has also been debunked and the family of one alleged victim revealed they were manipulated.2
“The Hamas incursion killed 1,200 and took 240 hostages.” This contains at least one lie and another doubtful item. The lie is in the number of Israelis killed by guerrillas and though censored in the wsm this is being widely discussed in the Israeli media, both liberal and right-wing.3
The number of Israelis killed may or may not be not so much in doubt but the issue is who killed them?
Undoubtedly Palestinian guerrillas killed some but, according to Israeli survivors some were also killed in crossfire battles and some deliberately by an Israeli tank firing a shell into a house where guerrillas were holding hostages.
According to some of the Israeli military involved, some were also killed by a commander calling a missile strike on their own position. Israeli helicopter gunships also fired on cars being driven away by guerrillas – almost certainly all those burned-out wrecks — and containing hostages.4
A “graveyard” of burned-out cars, reported post-7th October 2024, all more likely burned by Israeli helicopter Hellfire missiles than by the Palestinian raiders. (Photo sourced: Interneti)
If the number of the Israeli dead has been revised at least twice,5 how can we be sure how many were taken away alive? Of course, this is not such a great issue internationally but will be so for their Israeli relatives and friends who are awaiting and campaigning for their return.6
“The Hamas invasion launched the war on Gaza.” This is inaccurate reporting for propaganda reasons. Certainly the current genocidal bombing of Gaza was begun the next day by Israel but it carried out other bombing campaigns many times in the past and sometimes for months.7
Not only Hamas on October 7th but also Islamic Jihad guerrillas carried out the raid on that date. And some other Palestinians entered when they noted the gaps blown in the walls by the guerrillas.8 Also in resisting the Israeli forces since, there are a number of other Palestinian forces in action.9
In addition, the territory the guerrillas raided is occupied by Israel but belonged to the Palestinians and is claimed by them. How often do we hear or read in the wsm of Israeli forces “invading” areas of the West Bank or Gaza, a district they don’t even officially claim is theirs?
The presentation of news and information in this way is Zionist propaganda aided by the wsm, turning truth on its head to make it seem as though the Palestinians are at fault, the problem is one Palestinian resistance organisation, not necessarily other Palestinians and certainly not the Zionists.
“ … since the Hamas take over of Gaza” is another propaganda twist of the truth, hinting at an illegal and undemocratic coup. The truth is that Hamas won the Palestine Authority elections of 2006 throughout the territory.
The Palestinian organisation formerly in power, Al Fatah, refused to accept the results and later, after a short struggle with Al Fatah, Hamas took their elected places but did not press the issue in the West Bank, where Al Fatah continues to receive funding from the EU and the USA.10
“ … the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority …”11 is clearly another misleading phrase since a) it does not reveal the fact that most Palestinians despise it (which is reported by many observers) and b) that it has not held its scheduled 4-year elections since 2008!
The Second Intifada was a rebellion led by youth against the Oslo Agreement treason of the Al Fatah-led PLO (Photo cred: Abbas Momani)
“Israel claims to have killed 9,000 Hamas fighters but without providing evidence”.12 OK, so they say and it’s fair enough to report it. But shouldn’t an impartial media also report the claims of the guerrillas?
Apart from statements quoting statistics, there have been many videos from the resistance showing them blowing up Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers by their rockets and with hand-delivered bombs. Claims of Israeli cover-up of casualty figures pop up frequently among commentators.
Also, if Israeli sources are claiming killing 9,000 fighters13 when the overall death toll had passed 25,000, is that not an admission of killing at least 14,000 civilians in three months? Why is the western mass media not making that simple subtraction and publicising its conclusion?
The Gaza health ministry “does not distinguish between military and civilian casualties”14 is quoted in almost every single wsm report listing Palestinian casualties.
The bombardment on our minds by the western mass media. (Cartoon: D.Breatnach)
What is the purpose of this except to allow the reader to infer that maybe most or a heavy proportion of the dead are not civilians? This is nearly always in the report alongside the fact that most of the dead are women and children (therefore without any question civilians.)
A line being repeated in the western mass media more recently is also profoundly misleading: “The Palestinians want a state to include the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.” How does the wsm know what the Palestinians want? Have they carried out a survey?15
In the Oslo Accords, the Al Fatah-dominated PLO agreed to a two-state arrangement, i.e one to be Zionist-run and the other run by Palestinians. The area on offer to the Palestinians composed less than 40% of the original Palestine, much unproductive land and the least accessible water.
However, since 2000, the Second Intifada expressed a clear rejection of Al Fatah which was even more clearly the case with their replacement in the 2008 Palestinian Authority election results. The second-largest organisation in the PLO, the PFLP wants a unitary democratic state.16
The Second Intifada was a rebellion led by youth against the Oslo Agreement treason of the Al Fatah-led PLO (Photo cred: Gallo/ Getty)
All the imperialist states, including the EU, USA and UK, along with the capitalist Arab states support the two-state “solution” (sic) for Palestine which, apart from being fundamentally unjust, is likely to store up trouble for the future — as indeed it has in Ireland.17
2https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-york-times-october-7-sexual-violence-report-renounces-story-says-reporters-manipulated-them The immediate purpose of the Palestinian raid was clear: to kill enemy military and take prisoners for exchange for Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails. Quite apart from any question of morals or morale among the guerrillas, the other type of crimes of which they were being accused were clearly impractical in the timescale and would also have given the Zionists and wsm valuable propaganda material against the guerrillas. They clearly did not carry out those crimes but they were accused of them anyway and the lies repeated again and again.
6As late as early this month, one believed hostage was confirmed not captured but killed https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67053011, i.e probably one of those bodies incinerated in a car by Israeli Hellfire missiles from helicopters and only recently identified.
9Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Jenin Brigades, Lion’s Den …
10Yasser Arafat’s Al Fatah party lost the 2008 elections because of their corruption and because of their agreement to the Oslo Accords giving them a kind of state to run through the Palestinian Authority but with no right of return for the Palestinian refugees. The youth rose up in the Second Intifada (2000-2005), against the Israeli occupation but also against Al Fatah misrule and collusion with Zionism. The Al Fatah control of the PA’s offices in the West Bank is in defiance of the 2008 election results but the EU and USA don’t mind sending them the money for the PA.
16And Hamas stated that they did not invade Israel on October 7th but rather “entered into a part of Palestine”.
17Ireland, like Palestine, was occupied by Britain and ruled as one country. In 1948, with imperialist support, Zionist settlers seized some of Palestine for a ‘Jewish State’ and occupied more of it in 1967. Ireland was partitioned by Britain in 1921, the creation of a sectarian colonial statelet alongside a neocolonial state, which led to a civil war 1922-1923 and a number of guerrilla resistance campaigns since.
Israeli journalists have been accusing the Israeli military command of re-activating their infamous “Hannibal Doctrine” to prevent Palestinians capturing Israelis “by any means necessary” – including killing the prisoners.
The Doctrine takes its name from a Carthaginian general and statesman famous in history for his early successes against the Roman Empire. In his declining days, unable to escape Romans coming to take him prisoner, Hannibal swallowed poison and took his own life.
After 2006, the Israeli armed forces were informed verbally that in the case of the Palestinian resistance capturing a member of their forces alive, they would kill him rather than be obliged to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldiers’ release.1
Photo of ruined building post-7th October in the kibbutz. Would raiders on an in-and-out mission taking captives have reason or time to cause this level of damage? Or is an Israel tank shell the more likely cause? (Photo sourced: Internet)
The military claimed to have abandoned the Hannibal Doctrine afterwards but within a couple of days of October 7th, people monitoring Israeli printed media and radio found references to an Israeli commander calling a strike on their own base and helicopters shooting cars heading to Gaza.
Some if not all of these would have likely contained Israeli prisoners taken by the Palestinian fighters and explains the torched wrecks containing incinerated bodies, the victims of Hellfire missiles from the helicopters – the kind of weapons not carried by the fighters.
There were also the statements of Israeli survivors in the kibbutz about an Israeli tank firing a shell into a house containing Palestinian fighters and their prisoners, in addition to a crossfire between the Israeli military and the Palestinian fighters in general.
Photo of interior of burned-out building post-7th October in the kibbutz. Would raiders on an in-and-out mission taking captives have reason or time to cause this level of damage? (Photo sourced: Internet)
Although these accounts were taken from Israeli sources, with quotations of named individuals and even audio record of a radio interview and shared on line, the western mass media chose to ignore them.
Now, the allegation that the “Hannibal Directive” was reactivated (if it was ever abandoned) is being widely discussed in Israeli media with calls for an investigation and for the military to come clean. They in turn have promised an investigation but only once this particular war is over.
But once again, the western mass media is not covering the discussion and continues to repeat the number of 1,200 Israelis killed by the Palestinian fighters on 7th October,2 which is clearly not the case. This is the ‘free press’ which we are told to value so much!
At some point in the future the facts will emerge and the western mass media will probably do a lot of reporting on the various admissions and theories, without once having the grace to even apologise for keeping all this from their readers for so long.
However, medical staff have been warned by Israeli authorities not to speak to journalists or to the United nations commission investigating the events of October 7th on Israeli-held territory.3
Meanwhile, relatives of the Israelis captured by the Palestinian fighters are demanding that the return of the prisoners be prioritised, even breaking into a Government meeting and shouting at Israeli government ministers,4 painting red the road outside Netanyahu’s home, etc etc.
Those in command at political and military level seem, by their actions rather than their words, ready to sacrifice the captives in order to wreak as heavy and long-lasting destruction and death as possible upon the Palestinian population of Gaza.
Photos of burned-out buildings post-7th October in the kibbutz. Would raiders on an in-and-out mission taking captives have reason or time to cause this level of damage? (Photo sourced: Internet)
Even medium-ranking military commanders (and some higher) are reported saying that Netanyahu’s purported twin strategic aims of wiping out Hamas and “freeing the hostages” are not doable and are even mutually exclusive.
This must have an impact on the morale of commanders and lower rank Israeli military who have also found the fighting much harder than they expected and were unable to occupy the whole of northern Gaza in the face of fierce united Palestinian resistance.
Indeed, the numbers of IOF dead announced by the Israeli military do not seem to match the losses of their armoured vehicles alone, given that the tanks have a crew of five and even a tank disabled by rocket and repairable later is likely to have a dead crew.
Their losses in battle commanders is also high; these have their command stations inside tanks.
The injuries of wounded Israeli soldiers are likely to be of a serious physical nature and to that one must add mental trauma. Indeed, for all their much-vaunted equipment and total control of the air, the military performance of the Israeli ground military is widely reckoned poorly.
The public jeers of the Palestinian resistance that the Israeli military is at its best when it comes to fighting civilians, women and children but that confronted with armed resistance, they are not much, seems more than just propaganda to boost the morale of the Palestinians.
End.
A graveyard of burned-out cars post-7th October 2024. Clearly the Palestinian raiders had no reason to be burning cars in a raid to get in to kill enemy soldiers and to take prisoners and then out again as quickly as possible, nor the type of weapons to be causing this kind of damage. Israeli helicopters do, however: US-supplied Hellfire missiles. (Photo sourced: Online)
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