One of a number of Palestine struggle supporters appeared in court again on Wednesday and, though the case was postponed for hearing until 26 February, was successful in having one of the conditions of his bail, his daily curfew, removed.
Jack Brasil raises a clenched fist outside the Dublin Court on Wednesday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Palestine struggle supporters sat in Dublin’s Central Criminal Court with Jack Brasil, New Zealander of Irish descent, through many other case applications until his own was dealt with, before accompanying him out of the intimidating building.
Another of the bail-related restrictions, that Brasil not present stationary in the Dublin 1 or 2 areas (i.e in the Dublin City centre) remains, at least for the moment. This restriction has also been imposed on a number of other Palestine solidarity activists in a clear restriction of their civil rights.
As in many other Western states, Palestine solidarity activists have been charged with offences under Ireland’s criminal code but, when released on bail, remain under restrictions for months at a time after their arrest, interfering with their normal routines.
It also hampers or even prevents their participation in solidarity activities.
Palestine struggle supporters outside the Dublin court on Wednesday after Jack Brasil had the curfew removed from the conditions of bail. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
To date it seems that none of the Irish civil rights NGOs have challenged the State on the wide-scale use of those undemocratic bail restrictions from participation in lawful solidarity protests on people who are, even according to the criminal code, innocent, unless convicted in a court of law.
During the 2014-2015 mass-popular protests against the imposition of a third water tax in preparation for the privatisation of water supply in the Irish state, similar restrictions were imposed on protesters. Two however refused to accept the conditions and were jailed.
Protests outside Mountjoy Jail followed and, under the threat of hunger strike by the detained, they were released and the restrictions removed. It may be that this option will need to be explored by Palestine supporters if charged in Ireland in the future.
A large Palestine solidarity march once again in Dublin included a Resistance Bloc, part of which also broke away to picket the Palestinian Authority’s Embassy, where collaboration and collusion were denounced in three languages.1
A section of the march has arrived in Molesworth Street in view of Leinster House but others are still arriving. (Photo: R.Breeze)
As Israel freed 200 of their Palestinian prisoners Saturday in exchange for four female Israeli Occupation Army soldiers, Dublin City Centre rang again to shouts of Palestinian solidarity and some banners of the Resistance Bloc saluted the Resistance and denounced the Palestine Authority.
The Resistance Bloc was organised by a broad front of organisations: Action on Palestine, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Queer Intifada and was also supported by independent activists.
(Photo: R.Breeze)(Photo: R.Breeze)
There had not been a major Palestine solidarity march in Dublinsince 7th December, though they had been held pretty regularly every two or three weeks throughout the previous year. On Saturday, as Netanyahu stopped blocking it, the ceasefire and prisoners transfer agreement finally went ahead.
The Agreement is in three phases, each including prisoners of each side to be exchanged but also the removal of the IOF from Gaza in matched stages and the return of Gaza residents to the South also including the delivery of food, fuel and medicine. But they return to a rubble wasteland.
(Photo: R.Breeze)(Photo: R.Breeze)
THE PA AND OSLO
The PA is a product of what was called the Palestinian Peace (more correctly called Pacification) Process and since it failed spectacularly to pacify the Palestinian people is more usually now called the Oslo Accords, from which the PA was established in 1994.
Reading a statement in Arabic outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The Oslo Accords is one of a wave of imperialist pacification processes or agreements of the last decade of the 20th Century and in particular one of interrelated processes in three distinct regions: in chronological order South Africa, Palestine and Ireland.
The ANC2 of South Africa recommended it to the Fatah3 of the Palestinians; then Fatah and the ANC recommended to the Provisionals4 in Ireland. In no case was what they had fought for achieved, with the exception of universal suffrage in South Africa.5
Banner Dublin Footballers for Gaza on the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze) (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
Later, the ANC and Sinn Féin would also recommend it to the liberation movements of the Basque Country, Colombia and the Kurds of Turkey, always with disastrous results for the movements in fragmentation, confusion, collusion with imperialism and disarming in the face of repression.
The Palestinian Embassies represent in fact the PA and this is the case in Ireland too. Despite th. PA’s long history of treachery to the Palestinian people and their struggle, including repression of the Resistance, it is being officially “recognised” as the representation of the Palestine people.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
Not only the traditional State Government parties of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil uphold the PA but so also does the major oppositional party, the former Republican party of Sinn Féin. This is also the case with the major political parties in the EU, UK and US.
These also support the ‘two-state solution’ (sic) which would see the indigenous Palestinian people get less than 20% of their country, with the least water resources under the eyes and guns of the Israeli State. In any case it is considered unworkable by most experts and serious commentators.
“Smash the chains of Zionism”banneron the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)Howth Stands With Palestine banneron the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
In a recent statement on the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterrez, also promoted the ‘solution’ of splitting Palestine into two states as a way towards peace. The PA too upholds that same plan.
Major Palestine solidarity organisations like the IPSC in Ireland have no formal position on the PA or the Two-State plan. Standing on the base of Palestine solidarity, ‘neutrality’ on the question is not excusable, even on a kind of basis of ‘it’s up to the Palestinians and not for us to intervene’.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
The PA is an imperialist creation against the Palestine struggle; for years it has been periodically attacking the Resistance and has now stepped up that aspect in its 6-week siege of Jenin in the West Bank and even military assaults on the Resistance groups in collusion with the IOF.
True solidarity with the struggle of a people also entails solidarity with their resistance, whether in non-violent or violent form and it also entails opposition to individuals and organisations that are colluding with the enemy; the PA should be publicly denounced by the solidarity movement.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
THE MARCH IN DUBLIN
In Dublin on Saturday any fears that much support would have dropped away6 disappeared as large numbers marched through the city centre, some having come from Kerry or Limerick. Not far from the front marched the Resistance Bloc which had assembled earlier outside the Rotunda.
Flying the national flag of Palestine, the Starry Plough and flags of Palestinian Resistance factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad, along with the national flag of Syria, the bloc marched behind banners upholding the Resistance and denouncing the PA.
Placard and flags outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)Banners, flags and statement reading outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The usual chants of Palestine solidarity marches could be heard from the Bloc in call-and-answer but also included From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Saoirse don – Phalaistín! Resistance is an obligation – In the face of occupation!
Soon after the main march reached its destination, much of the Resistance Bloc marched away to Leeson Street Lower and soon after crossing the bridge over the Grand Canal into Leeson Street Upper, crossed the road to assemble in front of the “Palestine Embassy”.
One of the placards outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)Reading translation of the statement in English outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The breakaway march was closely followed by a number of Irish police patrol cars and a Public Order Unit Van which remained at the PA Embassy until the event concluded.
One of the organisers then presented a man to read a statement in Arabic, the translation of which she followed to read in English, which pointed to happiness at the freeing of Palestinian prisoners in the exchange with the Resistance – but sadness at the collusion of the PA with the Occupier.
A protester holds a placard denouncing the PA outside their Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)Section of the crowd outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The speech declared that Palestinians have been striving for over a century to achieve their independence and freedom in their struggle against Israeli occupation. This has cost hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives and displaced nearly nine million Palestinians around the world.
Later: Given the current circumstances, Palestinians must resist the Israeli occupation and simultaneously confront the Palestinian Authority, which acts as an agent in killing and besieging Palestinians to defend Israel. The speech concluded in thanking the Irish people for their solidarity.
One of the banners outside the PA Embassybears a slogan but also the name of one of the organising groups (Photo: R.Breeze)Another view of the crowd outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
Another man spoke in part-Irish and part-English, congratulating people on having publicly confronted the PA with its collusion. This had only been done twice before in Ireland, once in Belfast when the “Palestinian Ambassador” had been addressing a Sinn Féin meeting.
There had been another outside the “Embassy” in Dublin some months earlier by a small gathering supporting a picket called by the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign. He drew parallels between the PA and the treason to the Irish resistance that had led to Partition and a subservient state.
Next to the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
Underlining the parallel in song, he sang verses of the Take It7 Down From the Mast ballad (against the Irish State during the Civil War 1922-1923), adapting a verse to call on the PA to Take it down from the mast Palestinian traitors ….. for you’ve (they’ve) brought on it nothing but shame.”
The picket concluded with thanks to the attendance and after a period of shouting slogans including There is only one solution – Intifada Revolution! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! Shame on you PA – Shame, shame, shame!
End.
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On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
3The major secular Palestinian national liberation organisation at the time.
4Provisional IRA with its corresponding party, Sinn Féin, the major Irish national liberation organisation at the time.
5But no other social or economic progress; in addition, fragmentation of the movement and enlisting of the former liberation fighters as ‘enforcers’ of the imperialist agreement.
6Due to a possible but mistaken attitude of “the war’s over”.
7A reference to the Irish Tricolour: Take it down from the mast Irish traitors/ It’s the flag we Republicans claim/ It can never belong to Free Staters/ For you’ve brought on it nothing but shame. “The Free State” was the name adopted by those who agreed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, including Partition.
Swiss police have arrested and detained Palestinian journalist and Executive Director of the popular Electronic Intifada website. According to reports he was interrogated for an hour at the airport after his arrival and released but arrested a day later.
Abunimah was due to give a series of talks in Switzerland and that fact, in addition to his journalistic work in writing for and organising weekly podcasts from the Electronic Intifada website give the context for his arrest which is simply pro-Zionist and pro-imperialist censorship.
The EI (Electronic Intifada) carries articles from its reporters inside Gaza and the weekly podcasts on YouTube provide analysis and discussion, along with interviews with commentators, writers and activists. Military expert Jon Elmer gives a roundup covering actions of the Resistance.
On a personal note, the weekly EI podcasts on Wednesday (now Thursday) evenings on YouTube became not only compulsory watching for me but also emotional therapy in the midst of the Zionist genocide in Gaza.
Ali Abunimah (Image cred: Al Jazeera screengrab)
Abunimah is a US citizen of Palestinian descent, fluent in Arabic, English and conversant with Hebrew. Founded in 2001, the EI website associate editors are Maureen Clare Murphy, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Michael Brown, David Cronin, Tamara Nassar and Asa Winstanley.
The site’s editors are no strangers to attempted and actual repression: Germany banned Abunimah from entering last year, while UK police raided Asa Winstanley’s home and confiscated his computer equipment, which they are still holding weeks later but without charging him.1
Palestinian solidarity activists in Switzerland have protested Abunimah’s detetion.
The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, called Abunimah’s arrest “shocking news” and urged his release while Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories bemoaned the European “toxic … climate” for free speech.
When free speech in one area of discourse is attacked, freedom of speech on all subjects is endangered so even those who are not very supportive of Palestine should protest Abunimah’s arrest in this blatant act of censorship and repression.
End.
Footnotes:
1 Winstanley is a member of the weekly broadcasting team as well as an author of articles on the site.
By Nicki Jameson13 January 2025 (Reading time: 12 mins.)
(NB: An unconnected article with very similar title about the Irish organisation IPSC, rather than the English one as this is, was published on this blog in December 2023)
The below speech was delivered by Nicki Jameson at a Revolutionary Communist Group public meeting in London on 12 December 2024 titled ‘Defend the right to defend Palestine: fight back against state repression and media lies’.It is reprinted here from its publication in the RCG’s Fight Racism Fight Imperialism newspaper with permission and reformatted by RB for publication.
The genocidal Zionist onslaught which followed the 7 October 2023 Al Aqsa Flood operation caused a crisis for the imperialist ruling class. In both the US and Britain this was reflected in election results, for example.
Whatever now happens in the aftermath of this week’s events in Syria, and what splits in the solidarity movement this may lead to, it remains the case that international support for the resilient Palestinian struggle is widespread and not diminishing.
In this context, the British government, both under the previous Conservative administration and now under Labour, has sought to contain and limit the effectiveness of the protest movement.
It does not want to be seen to ban protests entirely, but it has aimed to render them impotent and tokenistic.
While it would, of course deny this, the role of the national Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is to facilitate this limitation.
It does this by ensuring that anger against the Zionist genocide is channelled into ‘safe’ slogans such as the demand for a ceasefire, and formulaic A to B marches, organised on terms dictated by the police, culminating with a passive crowd listening to anodyne speeches from the usual suspects.
Contained as they are, that PSC marches nonetheless constitute a regular expression of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle by a significant section of the British public is way too much for some in the political establishment.
And also for the vocal cohort of Zionists whose angry social media presence is used to decry ‘hate marches’ and demand greater policing and more arrests.
The police themselves vacillate between different approaches, dependent on the whims of the Home Secretary of the moment and Zionist political pressure.
Palestine protests
The very first protests in early October 2023 after the AAF operation were lightly policed. On 9 October we stood directly outside the Israeli embassy with no conditions or attempt to prevent the demo.
Within a very short period of time this had changed dramatically and the then weekly protests organised by PSC were subject to heavy policing.
Zionist keyboard warriors on twitter began immediately to play a role in fingering people, posting video footage of alleged crimes, with the demand that people be arrested. The police duly obliged.
While total overall arrest figures seem hard to track down, between October 2023 and March 2024 there were 305 arrests under the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Brocks – the policing operation related to Palestine protests in London.
This included 89 far-right counter protesters arrested on Remembrance Day, when – riled up by then Home Secretary Suella Braverman – they came to ‘defend the cenotaph’ from a non-existent attack.
During this period eight people were arrested on FRFI contingents in London. Their experience is fairly typical of those targeted at the time.
London police making an arrest on Palestine solidarity march 13 January 2024 (Photo cred: FRFI)
In the main they were profiled by Zionists on twitter, who flagged up to the compliant police that the comrades either had placards bearing the words ‘Victory to the Intifada’ or were using that slogan.
A young person was also arrested on the spurious pretext that he was wearing a symbol of a proscribed organisation, although the PFLP is not in fact proscribed in this country. He was subsequently de-arrested but not before those who came to his aid were also swept up.
Of this eight, only one person was charged. This was subsequently thrown out of court. Of the others, all but one have been definitively told they will not be charged.
A ninth comrade, arrested in a dawn-raid on their home remains on bail under the Terrorism Act in relation to a speech made 15 months ago.
It was clear from police interviews, that the cops in Operation Brocks had no idea what Intifada actually meant and had been given a script by their political masters.
We take the exoneration of those arrested to mean that VICTORY TO THE INTIFADA, a call for solidarity with the uprisings of Palestinians against Zionist oppression, is entirely legitimate and in no way criminal.
Spurious arrests continue to take place, using the now tried and tested process of Zionist twitter posts highlighting the offensive words or item, prompting either immediate arrest or the publishing of a police ‘wanted’ notice.
Following the lack of any prosecution for slogans such as ‘From the river to the sea’ or ‘Victory to the Intifada’, the most common ‘crime’ is comparison of Israeli genocide to the Nazi holocaust.
Although no-one has been successfully prosecuted along these lines, Zionists continue to claim it is an anti-Semitic hate crime.
Many of these arrests are farcical.
People will remember the arrest, charging, trial and not guilty verdict of Marieha Hussain, who had depicted Conservative politicians Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts on a homemade placard she took to a protest on 11 November 2023.
In May 2024, four activists from Camden Friends of Palestine were arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding a banner depicting a dove flying through the Israeli apartheid wall.
Police claimed that as the banner depicted ‘a clear blue sky with no clouds’ and there had been similar weather on 7 October, this showed obvious support for Hamas. After 3 months on bail they were told that there would be no charges.
A tremendous amount of police time and money is being spent on this process with what would appear to be no tangible reward in terms of convictions or imprisonment.
However, what simply looking at the charge or conviction rates fails to show is the way these arrests are used as harassment and interference both in people’s ability to protest and their everyday lives.
Those described here have had bail conditions which specified variously that they could not enter the borough of Westminster, could not enter university premises other than for study and must surrender their passports and not leave the country.
Arrestees from the CPGB-ML were banned for the duration of their bail from attending protests and distributing literature. People flagged for arrest by Zionist twitter have also been reported to their employers, professional bodies and universities in an attempt to ruin their ability to work or study.
While most early arrests were under Public Order police powers, there is increasing use of the Terrorism Act (TA) 2003 to criminalise solidarity with Palestine, targeting both protesters on the streets and what people say on line.
Journalists and youtubers, such as Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson and Asa Winstanley have been subject to arrests and house raids.
The TA was brought in by the last Labour government at a time when Keir Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions.
On 27 November, the Met Police used the TA to raid the premises of the Kurdish Community Centre in Haringey, north London, arresting six people and placing the centre under siege.
Anti-Zionist blogger/activist Tony Greenstein will be in court next week on a charge under section 12 of the TA, for responding over a year ago to a Zionist tweet accusing him of being a Hamas supporter with the words: ‘I support the Palestinians, that is enough and I support Hamas against the Israeli army.’
Anti-imperialist Jewish and Palestine Solidarity activist Tony Greenstein, who is being persecuted by the British police. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The aim is to create a climate of fear in which people become scared to attend even the most peaceful and routine of protests, where we censor our own slogans, placards and behaviour in order to evade the eyes of the on-line harassers and the police.
Palestine Action and Elbit
Alongside all this has run another process in which the brave participants show no fear in the way they exercise their solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
Palestine Action was set up in 2020 by activists who were frustrated by the PSC’s lack of direct action to enforce BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
Since then it has primarily targeted the British operation of Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems, as well as other companies collaborating with Elbit or are otherwise implicated in the arming of the Zionist war machine or sale of its ‘battle tested’ technology to other countries’ militaries.
Palestine Action’s tactics mainly consist of occupations, blockades and drenching premises in red paint to symbolise the blood on the hands of these profiteering companies.
Until recently, although a lot of these actions led to arrests, very few Palestine Action activists ended up behind bars. This has changed since Keir Starmer’s Labour government came to power. There are currently 18 Palestine Action activists in prison in England, along with 2 in Scotland.
One of the Scottish prisoners is the last of the group known as the Thales 5, who were convicted of occupying the roof of the Glasgow premises of French company Thales in 2022. Thales was working with Elbit to produce Watchkeeper drones for the British military.
The prisoners in England have not been convicted and are all held on remand, having been refused bail by the courts. The majority were arrested in relation to actions against the Filton arms factory in Bristol. Ten people were remanded in August and a further eight in November.
Although none have been charged with terrorism offences, the TA was used to effect their arrests, allowing the police more powers to detain pre-charge, raid homes and generally act in a heavy-handed manner.
In the latest arrests in November, flatmates and families were evicted from their homes, sometimes for several days while the police searched premises. In one raid, the mother and younger brother of the person arrested were both handcuffed, despite not being accused of any offence.
In prison, those on remand for pro-Palestine direct action have come in for special scrutiny and additional intrusive measures on top of those which all prisoners are forced to deal with.
The six women detained in Bronzefield prison in August were all allocated to separate wings and deliberately prevented from associating with one another. Their mail has been heavily censored.
Four male prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, although not subject to the same separation regime, have also had their correspondence held up, censored and returned to sender, with supporters being served with notices to the effect that no communication between them is permitted.
FRFI successfully appealed against such a notice in relation to our sending the paper to the prisoners, although the prison claims it still has a right to withhold the paper or other publications if the censors decide they are ‘inappropriate for a prison setting’.
The purpose of all this is clearly to scare those it is directly targeting it and to deter others from coming forward to join Palestine Action’s activities.
As Palestine Action carries out more actions against Elbit, including repeatedly blockading the UAV Engines site at Shenstone in the Midlands, which manufactures engines for Elbit, it is clear that the repression is not succeeding.
Palestine solidarity demonstration Downing Street 14 December 2024. (Source photo: Internet)
In addition to the litany of his war crimes, he will be remembered for authoring the text book Low Intensity Operations – Subversion, Insurgency and Peace-keeping (1971), a manual for dealing with subversive and recalcitrant populations, both at home and abroad.
Kitson’s work continues to form a central plank of British strategy for policing dissent and his disciples are clearly leading policing operations against pro-Palestine protesters.
In Kitson’s book, he details how ‘psychological operations’ should be used to isolate ‘subversives’ from the people while building links with and strengthening support for moderate elements who do not oppose the state but disagree on certain policies.
This technique was used both abroad in Britain’s colonies, and at home to police, for example, the Irish solidarity movement of the 1970s-80s.
Today’s ‘moderates’ take the form of the PSC, Stop the War and similar organisations. PSC marches are negotiated with the police, with strict conditions imposed on the protests.
The PSC has provided no support for people arrested on its demonstrations, citing the low arrest rates as proof of how respectable their protests are, while distancing itself from those who have been targeted.
While the PSC opposes Zionist massacres of the Palestinian people, it does not support the resistance of those under attack.
Consequently it does not complain when the British police uses Terrorism Act powers to criminalise people for supporting the right of Palestinians to resist their oppressors through armed struggle.
This treachery puts the PSC on the wrong side of international law – oppressed nations successfully fought for the right to self-defence by means of armed struggle to be enshrined in UN resolutions in 1974 and 1982.
Fighting back, building solidarity
For some of us, the culture around supporting our arrested comrades was drilled into us many years ago. A whole new generation has had to learn these lessons.
It is positive to see that, although the PSC and such organisations continue not to want to get their hands dirty with supporting anyone targeted by the police, a different attitude is also widespread and ‘arrestee support’, prison solidarity letter-writing etc are common currency among activists.
At the same time there is an element of this solidarity which is depoliticised. For example, the provision of a constant presence at a police station to monitor things and be there when arrestees are released is a good thing and the support organisations which provide this do an invaluable job.
However, when we have comrades under arrest, we want to do more than legal monitoring and instead turn the police station into a focus for protest. The same with courts and prisons.
It’s very positive to see Palestine Action, the SOAS encampment and others also doing this to great effect, thus ensuring that the focus is not just on the Israeli companies who are their principle targets, but also on the British criminal justice machinery which is being marshalled against those who take a stand.
Our task, as always, here in the belly of the imperialist beast, remains to protest against the British government and British corporations’ complicity in the Zionist genocide.
And to show unconditional solidarity with those who fight back against the Zionist war machine by whatever means are at their disposal.
Supporting the resistance and opposing the British state cannot fail to bring us into conflict with that same state and we must continue to stand alongside everyone who is criminalised for their solidarity.
Not only has the retaliation against the violence and racist and fascist provocation of a Zionist football team ultra thugs been misrepresented as ‘anti-semitism’ but the Dutch authorities send the provoked to jail.
And the western mass media continues to misreport the events. It’s an absolute disgrace.
What actually happened in Amsterdam is that many ultra fans of the ‘Israeli’ football team Maccabi, arriving in Amsterdam on 6th November, the day before the game, went on a provocative rampage through the city, celebrating the murder of Palestinian children and chanting anti-Arab slogans.
They armed themselves with bottles and material from a building site, chased people they identified as ‘Arabs’ and attacked a taxi driver’s vehicle. In addition they were filmed trying to tear down Palestinian flags from outside people’s houses, in one case successfully.
By and large the Dutch police did not intervene though one was later reported injured. The following day, that of the football match of Maccabi Tel Aviv Vs Ajax, the provoked responded and handed out retribution.
Separately, the city authorities had refused permission for a Palestine solidarity picket near the game and ‘dispersed’ those who attempted to demonstrate nevertheless1 which may have encouraged some rioting and some attacks on the police.
The media reports that 60 arrests were made of which only 10 had ‘Israeli’ addresses.2 Because of the clear bias in reporting and in the trials so far, one can almost guarantee that none of the latter will be handed prison sentences.
However the evidence of the true nature of the events was available in videos of the actions of the Maccabi Tel Aviv ultras and in reports of eyewitnesses and even in some media reporting, but usually far down the report after repeating the slurs of “anti-Semitism” and alleged crimes.
That follows the wide political media misrepresentation with such accusations of anti-Semitism by western political leaders from USA’s Biden to Amsterdam’s Mayor, Femke Halsema, (later admitting that accusation had been misused as propaganda in describing the events).3
However the Dutch premier Dick Schoof did not retract his accusations of “anti-Semitism”,4 even though he also referred to the violence and provocation by Maccabi ultras, conflating the retribution on the ultras or Israelis with attacks “on Jews” (as did the western media in general).
Of course, leader of the current ‘Israeli’ fascist and genocidal government Netanyahu was quick to make a similar accusation, even going so far as to compare it to the Nazis’ Kristalnacht in 1938, when Jewish businesses and homes were attacked and an estimated 91 Jews killed.
The German media had played its part assisting the climb to power of the Nazis in the 1930s, and the western mass media misrepresentation today also facilitates the repression of Palestinian solidarity and the continuation of daily Zionist genocide.
This is particularly egregious while Palestinian journalist colleagues risk their lives reporting the facts from the ground and over 141 have been murdered since October 2023.
Maccabi Tel Aviv ultras in Amsterdam for their team’s game against Ajax in which they were beaten 5-0. (Photo: AP)
The reputation of the Maccabi ultras did not contradict their actions in Amsterdam, having a name for violent behaviour and racist slogans.5 They were recorded in Amsterdam chanting in celebration that “there are no schools in Gaza because there no children left”6 and “Death to Arabs!”
The trials were in the context of wide-scale repression of Palestinian solidarity across the West, losing or threatening the livelihoods of academics, information technologists, journalists and the studies of students. Activists have been charged, fined, jailed or threatened by the authorities.
Despite the judge’s admission that the crimes alleged would have normally warranted sentence of community service, five of the accused were jailed because of “the seriousness of the offence and (in) the context … only imprisonment is appropriate.” 7
What is that if not a clear admission of political motivation and bias in the sentencing?
Why was the incident so blatantly misrepresented? What is the reason for the repression of Palestinian solidarity in the West? It is all simply so that the genocide in Palestine may continue without any obstruction from within the fortresses of western imperialism.
4“The images and reports for Amsterdam and what we’ve seen this weekend of antisemitic attacks against Israelis and Jews are nothing short of shocking and reprehensible,” he told journalists. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78dzr432x7o No reports of attacks “on Jews” as such had been verified, though certainly passports were examined to establish whether people were Israelis. It was their origin from the Zionist state that was the issue in the context of its ongoing genocide and the fans racist, arrogant and violent behaviour the previous dayl
Leader of the Dutch social-democratic minorities-based Denk party denounces the actions of the Maccabi ultras and the biassed response of the right-wing Government, also using the events for racist propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwobmhPNu2g
The Zionist state announced the closure of its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish Government of being anti-Israel.1 The broad Palestine solidarity movement celebrated the announcement while Harris for the Irish Government expressed regret.
The Zionist Embassy at 28 Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin has been without an Ambassador since she left Ireland last May in protest after the Irish Government, along with the Spanish and Norwegian governments, officially recognised the state of Palestine.2
D.B cartoon drawing of celebrations outside the block in which the Zionist Embassy was located (and under 24-hour Garda protection). Many of the other users of the building will be relieved at the departure also.
However the Irish State’s recent decision to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice3 seems to have prompted the closure of the Embassy and led once again to allegations of “anti-semitism” in Ireland which the President called a “gross slander”.4
Simon Harris, Taoiseach (prime minister equivalent) of the outgoing Irish Government5 expressed his regret at the ‘Israeli’ decision while at the same time rejecting vigorously the allegation that the Government is anti-Israel. He is absolutely correct in doing so.
Irish Governments have consistently been pro-Israel and colluding with Zionism, in contradiction to Irish popular opinion. The outgoing government6 has allowed military supplies for ‘Israel’ to fly through Irish airspace and the US military to land and depart from Shannon Airport.
One of the participants outside the Israeli Embassy yesterday celebrating its imminent departure. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish Government has also held up for years the relatively mild UN-compliant Occupied Territories Bill. These points were well made in an Al Jazeera Inside Story7 program by Mícheál Mac Donncha, Sinn Féin Dublin City Councillor and by Zoe Lawlor, IPSC8 Chairperson.
Both did well outlining the general attitude of the Irish people to which the government was – to an extent – responding and in refuting the slur of anti-semitism on the Irish people. Lawlor pointed to the Irish history of resistance as a motivator but appears unaware that we once supported Israel.
This is important (and I have written about it9) because it shows that we are capable of changing our position to a better one when presented with the evidence of the need to do so, which task the Zionist themselves carried out for us.
However both speakers failed to answer the interviewer’s question of why the Irish government did not go further.
This is an essential question for us and the answer makes sense of the current political landscape with crucial import beyond the issues of Palestine and Zionism. Mac Donncha seemed to avoid the question entirely and chose instead to talk about actions that the Government should take.
The interviewer however put it bluntly to Lawlor that the reason was a reluctance to offend the USA, though presenting it as a fear of putting off US corporations’ investments. Lawlor correctly replied that corporations make decisions based on profit but avoided giving the political answer.
The Irish ruling class is a neo-colonial one and responds to requirements of its masters. These have been firstly the UK, followed by the US and more recently the EU. All of these are imperialist states and bound up with the interests of the colonial fort in the Middle East which is the Zionist State.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
I am sure that Mac Donncha is aware of those facts and pretty sure that Lawlor is too but both declined to provide the explanation being asked for. One must suspect in Mac Donncha’s case the reason is that his party, Sinn Féin, is busily making itself acceptable to that very ruling class.
And Lawlor probably wants to keep the clean image for the ruling class which the IPSC leadership has been at pains to develop, particularly during this current genocidal offensive.
While the IPSC leadership has played an important role in mobilising national demonstrations much of the activism has been and continues to be by organisations on the ground. The Embassy itself was invaded some time back by such groups and has seen militant blockades.
Jimi Cullen yesterday performing his composition “We Are All Palestinians” during a modest celebration outside the Zionist Embassy. Cullen has been performing outside there for an hour every Wednesday afternoon for 41 weeks. (Photo D.Breatnach)
Axa Insurance has been picketed frequently and occupied at least once and the Foreign Affairs Department was splattered with red paint while the Department of Transport was occupied. The US Embassy was picketed for three days in a row by organisations from Galway without IPSC support.
Only one IPSC march since October last year had the US Embassy as destination and on that occasion the march was led up quiet suburban streets to the stage set up next to police barricades blocking access to the Embassy gates and the main road into Dublin.
Section of the crowd yesterday afternoon celebrating its imminent departure outside the Zionist Embassy. (Photo D.Breatnach)
The general Irish public and in particular of course the activists in solidarity with Palestine can justly celebrate the departure of the Zionist Embassy. It is their symbolic victory.
However, there is no doubt that the Irish ruling class needs to be put under much heavier pressure than has heretofore been the case, if we are to shut down the collusion of the Irish Gombeen state with the Zionist genocide of Palestinians.
Outside the Zionist Embassy yesterday, an Irish healthworker calls for more effective solidarity with the Palestinians, in particular with the healthworkers being targeted by the IOF in Gaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
2https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/71936-ireland-recognises-the-state-of-palestine. While the decision of those states has enraged the Zionist state, it is not as progressive as may seem at first glance. The ‘state’ that is being recognised is a) in addition to the state of Israel, i.e “the two-state solution” (sic); b) grants the Palestinians around 20% of Palestine which would be under the constant eyes and guns of the Zionists and c) is widely considered not realisable due to the proliferation of Zionist settlements and their special roads connecting them. Currently the only ‘government’ of such a state is the undemocratic, repressive and corrupt Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.
3Again this decision too has its deeply negative side since the Attorney General of the Irish State in his submission to the Preliminary Hearings on Genocide at the ICJ repeated the many times debunked Zionist propaganda of “mass rape by Hamas” during its breakout attack on October 7th.
5The elections of 29 November did not return any party with an absolute majority and discussions on forming a coalition government have been ongoing since the election results were confirmed.
Irish trade unions could play a significant role in Palestine solidarity but they are not doing it. They are well-placed to do so by virtue of the crucial role of their members in production and distribution.
Union members are also members of families, neighbourhood communities, sports fans, social groups, clubs ……………
Every trade union or joint unions in a workplace could form committees to plan and organise Palestine solidarity activity both within their workplaces but also more generally, forming links with community solidarity groups where these exist or helping to create them where they do not.
Every workplace trade union notice board – which employees are entitled to have installed – should carry updated information on the genocide and on solidarity actions such as boycotts, marches, pickets etc.
Every union could mobilise its members to support Palestine solidarity actions and in the case of demonstrations, marches etc., to organise strong contingents to attend, marked out by banners, flags and in some cases by clothing (hi-viz vests, surgical scrubs for health service workers, etc.)
INFORMATION, PROPAGANDA, MEDIA
The trade unions in the media could help the campaign against genocide by countering the dominant western propaganda narrative, e.g. that “Israel has a right to self-defence”, that the Palestinian resistance are “terrorists”, that the “Hamas rampage” (sic) on 7th October 2024 started the genocide.
Those unions could take protest industrial action, pay for advertisements in the media, produce their own database and news detailing media misrepresentation and censorship and update their members on the reality of the situation in Palestine through a newsletter or social media group.
Their members could hold pickets protesting against disinformation, Zionist propaganda and censorship and in solidarity with the almost two hundred of their counterparts murdered by the Zionist military in Palestine in a little over a year.
SUPPLIES, DISTRIBUTION, BOYCOTTS
Unions involved in transportation and deliveries could refuse to transport goods from or to the State of Israel, as well as maintaining a database of products and companies identified as boycott targets.
Pickets could be placed on centres of sale of boycotted goods, such as supermarkets and chain stores, also of distribution centres at haulage firms, docks and airports. Pickets on chain stores in local areas would attract local people to support and widen the net of active solidarity.
Irish healthcare workers in solidarity with healthcare workers and people in Palestine, marching in an IPSC national march on 31 August 2024. But where is their trade union? (Photo: D.Breatnach)
MOBILISATION
Every union national HQ or regional HQ, or Palestine solidarity committee could mobilise its union members to support Palestine solidarity actions and in the case of demonstrations, marches etc, to organise strong contingents to attend, marked out by banners, flags or hi-viz vests,
Health workers could march in solidarity with Palestinian health workers who are threatened and prevented from reaching victims of IOF bombing or shooting, other health workers shot or bombed, ambulances targeted, health workers kidnapped to the terrible ‘Israeli’ jails and possibly tortured.
Education workers could march in solidarity with their counterparts in the bombed universities and schools of Gaza, of the teachers and students bombed and shot. Athletes and sport workers might identify their solidarity with Palestinian athletes bombed, shot or maimed for life.
Construction workers might be organised to express their solidarity with Palestinians’ destroyed homes, roads and facilities, while civil defence and municipal workers march in support of their counterparts in Palestine, deliberately targeted by the IOF.
The destruction of Palestinian olive groves, fruit trees, farms and grow-tunnels could be protested by union members in agriculture and food processing. Workers in fishing and fish-processing might protest the blockading, harassment and even shooting of Palestinian fishermen.
Sanitation and water supply workers could increase public awareness of the deliberate destruction of those types of infrastructure in Gaza, while workers in telecommunication might protest regular cutting of access to the Internet and also the weaponisation of handheld communicators.
Banners of two main Irish trade union contingents marching in solidarity with people in Palestine, in an IPSC national march on 20 July 2024. But FÓRSA has a membership of “88,000” and SIPTU of “around 200,000” — it does not appear as though these unions made any attempt to mobilise their members to support the march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
OBJECTIONS
There might be some – and not only among the paid officials of the trade unions — who would say that internationalist solidarity is all very well but that it’s a distraction of from domestic bread-and-butter issues, or fighting closures of workplaces, casualisation of work contracts etc.
Others might object to anything that might smack of illegality, such as industrial action of a solidarity nature or ‘political’ actions by a trade union. They might also point out trade unions in Ireland are much reduced in membership and strength.
Indeed. Unions did not come into being without facing anti-union laws, or indeed police batons, courts and jail. Collusion with the system exemplified by twenty years of Social Partnership has weakened the unions to the degree that many workers do not even understand their relevance.
History teaches us that solidarity work does not weaken organisations, least of all militant ones. It makes them stronger. And visibly active and fighting trade unions will surely attract the interest and appreciation of lapsed or as yet non-unionised workers.
The Irish trade unions on the whole, with some exceptions such as primary school teachers, are not doing this Palestine solidarity work. But are people of Palestinian solidarity minds organising in their trade unions to bring any of that work forward? If they are not to do it, then who?
The founding of workplace Palestine solidarity action committees is probably the place to start, the first small step with many and bigger steps to follow.
End.
Cartoon by D.Breatnach depicting the general inactivity in Palestinian solidarity by most Irish trade unions, despite traditions of internationalist solidarity and the daily genocide by the Israeli Zionists.
Clare Daly stood for election in the 2024 elections of the Irish State, in the Dublin Central parliamentary constituency, one with a tradition of independent representation going back to Maureen O’Sullivan and Tony Gregory before her.
Daly was standing as one of the loose Left coalition of Independents for Change in a heavy competition for the four-seat constituency.
Clare Daly has a track record as elected public representative and socialist political activist, also as a prominent Socialist Party activist, with which organisation she partedcompany in August 2012.
She was elected MEP for the Dublin constituency from July 2019 to July 2024, TD1 for Fingal from Feb. 2016-July 1999 and TD Dublin North Feb. 2011-2019; in recent years Daly has been better known outside Ireland due to her public interventions in the European Parliament.
Daly and her partner Wallace were both vilified by pro-imperialist liberals and ‘Left’ for publicly opposing US/NATO/ EU imperialist campaigns against Islamic regimes and the Russian Federation, being subjected to a host of unfounded allegations contrary to their actual record.
Tik Tok clips of Daly’s biting attacks on the EU’s complicity in the US-backed ‘Israeli’ genocide provided relief for many around the world from the Zionist sycophancy and insincere and ineffective concern for the victims of that daily genocide prevalent in the EU Parliament.
And who can forget Daly’s calling German politician and EU Commission President Ursula Van Der Leyen out as ‘Frau Genocide’ in the European Parliament in December last year!2
While an MEP, Daly also intervened in the discussion around the Irish Gombeen3 class’ attempt to push us towards NATO, further undermining a quite tattered Irish neutrality. And while a TD, she and her partner Mick Wallace TD were arrested protesting the foreign militarisation of Shannon.
To their credit both risked jail by refusing to pay the fines imposed but the Gombeen ruling class decided to restrict the damage of its exposure of collusion with US imperialism by also reducing the punishment of both to a few hours in captivity.
Daly has been one of the few TDs prepared to speak in public against the repression of Irish Republicans and to visit some of the consequent victims in jail.
In the EU Parliament, Daly also denounced the Spanish State’s police invasion of Barcelona and violence against voters there on 1st October 2017 during the referendum on Catalunya’s independence.
2024 Dublin Central election poster for Clare Daly.
In Ireland today
In her election flyer here Daly highlighted representation independent of political party for her electoral area, housing, health service, cost of living, Palestine, the endangered climate and Irish neutrality without any indication of how these issues might be effectively addressed.
Daly’s election flyer did not mention capitalism or imperialism, nor did she campaign on a platform of overthrowing the current neo-colonial and neo-liberal capitalist system in force, instead indicating her wish to “hold to account the people who’ve got us into this mess.”
“Holding to account” is something to which Daly is accustomed doing and does it well, eloquently, with passion and fluently, scarcely having to refer to her notes while doing so. But like ‘speaking truth to power’, it has little effect on those who are in control of the political-social system.
It can indeed have an effect on the victims of the system but we are left with the question of what to do about the situation. Refreshing as it may be to hear her again in Leinster House, neither voting Daly in — nor fifty Dalys — is going to change any of the conditions under which we suffer.
BY THE WAY,
in case anyone’s interested, I gave my first preference vote to Daly and hope she does get elected.
End.
1Teachta Dála, the title of a public representative elected to the parliament of the Irish State.
2Imperialist politician and proven plagiarist in her doctoral thesis.
3Vernacular term in Ireland for huckster, carpet-bagger-type capitalists, derived from the Irish language gaimbíneachas, profiteering, nowadays used to describe the neo-colonial Irish capitalist class.
While thousands marched once again in Palestine solidarity in Dublin, a section of the demonstration marched as a bloc in specific solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance with banners, flags and slogans declaring their position.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign with a number of branches has been for many years the major organiser of Palestinian solidarity events and had once again called for a national march in Dublin, again to Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament.
Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday. In this photo may be seen the flags of three factions of the Palestinian Resistance and, left foreground, the flag of Irish revolutionary socialist Republicanism, the Starry Plough (Photo: R.Breeze)
This has become a pattern of the main IPSC street activity in Dublin, along with holding a rally on the central pedestrian reservation in Dublin’s O’Connell Street, with occasional marches to the Department of Foreign Affairs (though in the past it organised boycott pickets of ‘Israeli’ products).
The US Embassy seems to have become out of bounds for the IPSC. This is despite the clear responsibility of the USA for supplying most of the armament, political and financial backing for the genocide being carried out by the Zionist state against the Palestinians.
Some believe that the IPSC leadership is complying with the wishes of the Irish police, the Gardaí, not to have Palestine solidarity marches go to the US Embassy. The offices of the EU, Germany and the UK, major contributors to the genocide, have also been given in effect a waiver.
The national march called by the IPSC at its destination in Molesworth Street last Saturday. The photo is taken from the platform and PA lorry facing the crowd, with its back to Leinster House (of the Irish Parliament) which also has crowd barriers erected behind it. (Photo sourced: IPSC)
Neither the march last Saturday nor any organised before it by the IPSC was going to promote solidarity with the Resistance, despite their former chairperson having once said of them in public that they are ‘freedom fighters’. Of course, to the ‘Israelis’ and EU they are ‘terrorists’.
Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday (Photo: R.Breeze)
The IPSC has organised only one public meeting during this year’s genocide to highlight the terrible conditions of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in ‘Israeli’ jails and rarely mentions them, nor in solidarity with the Samidoun1 organisation being banned in USA and Canada.
In October last year, as this phase of the genocide began, the IPSC dithered over whether to call for the expulsion of the ‘Israeli’ Ambassador to Ireland, as did the Sinn Féin leadership until a near revolt of the party’s members forced them to return to their previous position. As did the IPSC.
Clearly the IPSC leadership is trying to keep itself somewhere around the ‘middle road’ in Palestinian solidarity, probably in order — as it sees it – to remain with influence among the ruling circles. However, the actual results among those circles do not bear testimony to their effectiveness.
NO CHANGE
The Irish state continues to permit US military planes and personnel to violate the State’s nominal independence through Shannon International Airport, to permit Zionist armament overflights of its air space (similarly with the RAF) and to permit British Navy docking in Irish ports.
The relatively mild Occupied Territories Bill, long approved through Leinster House, remains not brought into force, blocked by the Coalition Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. It could not be clearer that the ruling class in Ireland do not feel under enough pressure.
This is despite a clear popular feeling among the public in Ireland of solidarity with Palestine and revulsion at their genocidal attacks by the Zionist state.
There is a long-established train of thought that maintains that solidarity with the Palestinians is not just calling for the genocide to stop – that alone is charity and that actual solidarity means solidarity with the people’s resistance and the political prisoners.
If the IPSC were to adopt that position they might find it easier to support more radical action to pressure the Irish state to break with the western powers’ consensus of support for the ‘Israeli’ state and consequently for its genocide against the Palestinians.
Perhaps that is one of the very reasons that the IPSC leadership will not take that stand and that its stewards have at times even tried to convince people to remove their flags supporting various Resistance factions.
Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday (Photo: R.Breeze)
On Saturday independent activists joined those of Saoirse Don Phalaistín, Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Queers For Palestine in forming a sizeable bloc on the march with banners, flags and call-and-answer slogans advertising its solidarity with the Resistance.
This seems a welcome trend likely to grow.
End.
FOOTNOTE
1Palestinian political prisoner support and advocacy organisation.
Thousands marched recently in two cities of the Basque Country, Bilbo and Iruña/ Pamplona,1 respectively the capitals of the Bizkaia and Nafarroa2 provinces, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with their Resistance.
And almost immediately posters could be seen calling for the same on the 11th November, but in four Basque cities, including a city in one of the provinces on the French state’s side.3
“Well that’s great but sure we do that here every second week or so,” some might say. But they’d be wrong. The marches organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, while calling for solidarity with the Palestinians and BDS4 of the ‘Israeli’ state and businesses, do not support the Resistance.
The rally stage at the end of the march in Bilbao, on the east bank of the Nervion river. Banner exalting the Resistance in the centre facing the crowd, banner to the left calling for solidarity with the Resistance and another to the right calling for struggle against ‘Israel’. (Photo cred: Resumen Latinamericano)
Nor do the marches organised by the main Palestine solidarity organisations in England or in Scotland. It might be pleaded that in the UK at least, people could be arrested for declaring support for a number of Palestinian resistance organisations that are on the EU “terrorist” list.5
The leadership of the Basque Patriotic Left6 does not support the resistance either, preferring to draw the Palestinians and Basques together as victims under a Gernika-Gaza initiative and even criticising the resistance along with the Zionists in a “both sides” kind of analysis.
But no law exists in these countries forbidding expression of “solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance.” The organisers of those campaign organisations don’t declare for the Resistance because a) they don’t support it or b) wish to remain tolerated by the upholders of the status quo.
View of section of the crowd, giving an idea of its size, the largest Palestine solidarity demonstration in the Basque Country since the present phase of Zionist genocide began on 8th October last year. (Photo cred: Resumen Latinamericano).
IT MATTERS
Well, ok, but does it really matter? Yes, it does and it matters a lot, for the Palestinians, for others struggling against imperialism elsewhere around the world – and for us. Not supporting the Resistance leaves open the question of, for example, the Palestinian Authority.
This Vichy-like organisation headed by a corrupt Quisling sends its security force to intimidate and beat up critics and demonstrators, to arrest them and also Resistance fighters (including invading hospitals to chase down the wounded) and removes defences against IOF invasion.
The PA, despite its widely-acknowledge corruption and the contempt in which it is held by broad Palestinian society, is formally recognised as the ‘representative of the Palestinian people’ by the western imperialists and by many social-democratic parties in Europe.
It is an offence against the Palestinian people and internationalist solidarity to accept the PA as any kind of representation of the heroic Palestinian people – or even to leave the question open. Furthermore, such a stance leaves the door open to all kinds of traitors and confusion.
In our own struggles, we need to be clear who are our enemies and friends. To accept treasonous agencies as representatives of struggling people contaminates our own attitudes in struggle, confuses and undermines our thinking, clouding our vision.
A woman holds high a placard calling to “Free Palestine” and to “Boycott Israel.” (Photo sourced: Internet)
BEING CLEAR AND MAKING IT CLEAR
We need to be clear – and to make it clear – that we support the Palestinian resistance in all its forms: popular, armed, trade unionist, cultural, artistic … and that we abhor collaboration and collusion with the enemy.
We can do that – and it has been done on occasion – by mobilising all who agree on a demo behind a banner celebrating the Palestinian Resistance. But how much better, if like the Basques today in Bilbao and in Iruña/ Pamplona, the whole demonstration marched behind that kind of slogan!
It might be thought that the demonstrations on 5th October would gather less than the safer Gernika-Gaza group of the official leadership of the Left Basque Patriotic movement (Otegi & co.) and other liberals but this was not the case in Bilbo anyway, on the biggest solidarity demonstration since October last year.
Advance posters for the solidarity march. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Two Palestinian Resistance factions, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine sent messages of thanks to the organisers and the demonstrators.
The demonstration and its theme were covered widely in Basque, Spanish, European and Latin American media, usually with photos.
Addressing the rally after the march in Bilbo on 5th October, a speaker listed the many crimes of the Zionist State and was loudly cheered when she said that only the abolition of that state could bring that career of genocidal crimes to an end.
The cheers grew louder still as she called for solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and all others fighting against imperialism and Zionism. And continued as she went on to call for a break with all states and political parties that support the Zionist State.7
The cheers might even have reached EH Bildu’s office and the leadership of the Gernika-Gaza group.
The march on its way to the rally across the river pauses on the way for photos.The long banner calls for “Support for the Palestinian Resistance” but also ” Oppose Israel and its accomplices.”(Photo cred: Boltxe)
End.
FOOTNOTES
1A number of places with Basque toponymics, under Spanish colonialism, were given Spanish names.
3There are seven provinces in the Basque Country, three on the French side of the Border (Iparralde, ‘the North Country’) and four on the Spanish side (Hegoalde, ‘the South Country’).
6That was the broad movement of legal and banned organisations of revolutionary Left and independentist outlook, the movement now reformist, much reduced and fragmented under the leadership of Arnaldo Otegi and the EH Bildu party.
7That clearly includes the conservative Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) currently in coalition government in the Basque Autonomous Regional Government.
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