RAPE ALLEGATIONS AS WAR PROPAGANDA – ISRAEL/ PALESTINE

On March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, WomenLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 13 mins.)

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 28^th 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 8^th 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 19^th 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 7^th, 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 8^th.

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.

2 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/18/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-october-7th-terrorist-attacks-and-the-resilience-of-the-state-of-israel-and-its-people-tel-aviv-israel/ Some of his own staff however soon sounded a note of caution, saying he had not seen the evidence of “beheaded babies” himself and was quoting Israeli sources.

3Merely that they were heading for Gaza, so driven by Palestinian fighters – but with or without Israeli prisoners? The pilots had no way of knowing and some reported firing, reloading and firing again. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-admits-burning-hundreds-people-7-october

4 https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/03/05/israel-hamas-oct7-report-gaza

5 https://www.timesofisrael.com/zaka-exploited-hamass-october-7-attack-to-campaign-for-donations-report/

6 https://theintercept.com/2024/03/04/nyt-october-7-sexual-violence-kibbutz-beeri/

7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfE3vasBQyE&t=41s

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”.

14 https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/arcci-statistics

15 https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/general-statistics

16 https://www.timesofisrael.cobm/9-out-of-10-rape-cases-in-israel-closed-without-charges-study/

17 https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/arcci-statistics

18Second in popularity as a holiday destination only to British tourists.

19 https://www.timesofisrael.com/5-israelis-charged-over-cyprus-gang-rape-of-british-woman/

20“The shocking ways in which Hamas butchered Israeli civilians, including small children, and then celebrated the slaughter reminded me of reporting the Rwandan genocide three decades ago …” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/the-language-being-used-to-describe-palestinians-is-genocidal

SOURCES

Israelis killed by their own military on October 7^th: https://www.tbsnews.net/features/panorama/what-really-happened-7-october-753058

Rape and sexual assault in Israeli society:

https://www.1202.org.il/en/union/info/statistics/arcci-statistics

https://www.timesofisrael.com/9-out-of-10-rape-cases-in-israel-closed-without-charges-study

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/gang-rapes-in-israel-a-spike-in-cases-or-business-as-usual-662060

https://www.972mag.com/why-are-so-many-women-subjected-to-sexual-harassment-in-israel

Problems with citing ZAKA as sources for sexual violence – or anything: https://theintercept.com/2024/02/27/zaka-october-7-israel-hamas-new-york-times/https://

mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/

BBC drops some of the atrocity claims: https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/bbc-distances-itself-from-7-october

Yes Magazine critically examines claims of Israeli organisation against sexual violence: https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/03/05/israel-hamas-oct7-report-gaza

Ongoing Electronic Intifada investigation debunking of rape allegation against Palestinian fighters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfE3vasBQyE&t=41s

Discussion of report from the Intercept quoting residents of the Kibbutz Be’eri: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-kibbutz-near-gaza-says-allegations-of-sexual-abuse-on-oct-7-not-true-report/3156033

Latest rape allegations against the Palestinian resistance: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2024/03/04/israel-hamas-war-latest-03-04-2024/933648ec-da18-11ee-b5e9-ad4573c62315_story.html

Allegations of sexual assault and rape by Israeli military against Palestinian prisoners: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against

JULIAN ASSANGE LAST DITCH FIGHT IN UK LAW AGAINST EXTRADITION TO USA

On February 22, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, NATO, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Crowds gathered in London on Tuesday and a solidarity picket with the Australian whistleblower was held in Dublin on Monday night as Julian Assange and his legal team fight their last chance in UK law to prevent his extradition to the USA.

On Wednesday the crowds in attendance inside and outside of the High Court and watching from around the world had to be content with awaiting the decision of the judges to be given at a later date.

Julian Assange has been hounded since he exposed murders and other murky secrets of the USA through the Wikleaks website he set up, posting items sent to him by former serving US Marine Chelsea Manning (who served military prison time but was pardoned by Obama) and others.

The CIA planned to assassinate Assange physically and then tried to assassinate his character by setting up a false rape allegation in Sweden and when all that failed, applied for his extradition from the UK under USA espionage legislation — though Wikileaks posting was entirely public.

Shamefully the UK colluded with the USA and, not trusting UK ‘justice’, he skipped bail from extradition hearings, sought and was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There a Spanish agency spied on confidential conversations between him and his legal team.

Assange lived in the Embassy under siege from 2012 to 2019, when the Ecuadorian State abrogated his asylum and allowed British police to enter what is legally Ecuadorian sovereign territory and remove him, since when he has been nearly seven years in high-security Belmarsh jail.

The Premier of Australia has now called for his release after the Parliament passed a motion valuing Wikileaks exposure of US wrongdoing and calling for dropping the case¹ but for years governments of the ex-British colony, now much more under USA influence, did not do so.

As an indication of what Assange can face in the US system, the Guardian reports that “Earlier this month, in a separate case, Joshua Schulte, a former CIA officer, was imprisoned for 40 years for passing classified material to WikiLeaks.”

The small size of the picket in Dublin was in my view less a reflection of the level of concern in Ireland but about the organisation of his support being on occasion taken over and undermined and in earlier times depended on high-profile individuals rather than collective organisation.

The western mass media for which Assange provided a huge amount of column inches and many headlines through the Wikileaks exposés hardly fought for him. The Guardian spoke out for him recently but also took part in his character assassination years ago.

Even though it had been the main British benefactor of his news items. And the media is still getting footage viewing his travail, being drawn behind the cart on his way to – his execution?

The Irish Times recently spoke out for him and so did the Irish branch of the National Union of Journalists but the latter had no presence on the picket or on any other public protest at this time of which I’m aware.

*Scene from very wet and windy day outside the High Court in London* (note Irish Tricolour and Palestine joint flags in background). (Photo cred: *Kin Cheung/ AP*)

However, the Irish Tricolour flew near the Australian flag in London outside the High Court building. Our people have been executed in that city too and we’ve had their executioners here in Ireland as well.

What we are witnessing is years of mental torture and attempt to silence permanently a man whose “crime” is to expose the sins of the world superpower and some of its allies and clients. The chief criminal of the world is hunting down a whistleblower to shut him up about its crimes.

And the ruling class of the UK, a world-class criminal also but in this case the accomplice of Mr. Big, is assisting him. The writers and editors in the mass media should be outraged and campaigning as Victor Hugo did in the Dreyfus case.

But they know who buys their bread and on which side it is buttered, as their ‘reporting’ on the genocidal Israeli campaign in Palestine has shown every day – and on the war in Ukraine before that.

My father was a journalist who had been made somewhat cynical about “the free press” by his experiences but even so he would be thoroughly sickened were he alive today.

End.

*US Liberty satirised outside the High Court in London* (Photo cred: *Alastair Grant/ AP*)

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/20/julian-assange-court-considers-last-ditch-bid-to-fight-us-extradition

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/18/the-guardian-view-on-julian-assange-why-he-should-not-be-extradited

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/julian-assange-faces-wait-for-decision-on-whether-appeal-can-go-ahead-1591927.html

1 https://www.reuters.com/world/australia-pm-backs-parliament-motion-calling-julian-assanges-release-2024-02-14/

LESSONS OF POWER, RESISTANCE, SOLIDARITY AND HYSTERIA

On February 21, 2024March 4, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach: originally published in 2017, republished February 2024.

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Wikileaks/ Assange persecution saga should teach us some important lessons.

In the first place chronologically, it should teach us the lengths to which allegedly democratic countries such as the United States will go to dominate weaker countries and attack movements of resistance.

Where the USA feels its imperial interests are threatened, i.e where anyone may attempt to loosen its grip on the markets, natural resources and strategic emplacements, or to prevent its grip from clawing further than it has already.

Wikileaks also exposed some of the extent to which the US will interfere in the internal or foreign policy matters of even its allies, including the European powers.

Possibly most instructive of all was the determination of the USA to hunt down the chief executive of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, flying in the face of US Constitutional principles and law, as well as international law, with politician statements confirming that determination.

Statements even from Presidents, senior politicians and Government appointees, such as former US Secretary of State and the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US Presidency last year.¹

In the course of hunting him down, the USA turned to Sweden, subverting the country’s laws and criminal investigative procedures, then to the UK government (which, as a junior partner in many of the US crimes exposed by Wikileaks, was probably only too keen to assist).

*Swedish Prosecutor Marianne Ny, who commenced an investigation after another Prosecutor had already investigated and decided there was no case for Assange to answer* (Photo source: *Internet*).

Australia was brought to assist under threat and France turned away from Assange’s plight and his plea for asylum there. “No hiding place from the World Policeman,” seemed to be the message.

Eventually, however, he did find refuge (if not a hiding place) from Ecuador, a tiny power on the world political, economic and political stage.

In the midst of this, how did the mass media perform, that which we are often assured is the guardian of democracy, even more than the vaunted parliament? Badly, in a word.

Investigative journalism, intelligent evaluation, if they had been evident before, all went into the rubbish bin as print, radio and TV media joined in the lynch mob to a greater or lesser degree, including the British newspaper The Guardian.

The newspaper that had been given exclusive first use on the Wikileaks stories, “the greatest scoop in 30 years”, according to its Editor, not only refused to assist him but allowed its pages to be occupied by witch hunters and made money out of publishing a book about the affair.²

“Anti-journalism”, is what Australian film-maker and renowned journalist (Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award-winner in 1967 and 1978), John Pilger called it.

Assange learned some personal lessons too which should not be lost on us.

Sometime lovers manipulated by police, Prosecutor and media; a close working colleague denouncing him and flinging allegations against him (unsubstantiated but that did not prevent the media from publishing them).

Julian Assange on the balcony of his asylum quarters, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, after receiving news of the dropping of the Swedish ‘investigation’ of allegations of ‘rape’ against Assange and the voiding of the International Arrest Warrant. (Photo source: Internet)

LESSONS FOR US SPECIFICALLY

Suppose for a moment that one did not take to Assange’s character. Suppose one even objected to his work. Still, he was entitled to fair due process. That he did not receive it from so many is obvious. Did he receive it from us?

That community of people who would lay claim to having an alternative view, to be opposed to the status quo and, most of all, to be for Justice?

Injustice meted out by those in power often needs collusion and the more independent of the power the colluders are, the more justified the witch-hunt is made to seem.

The media whipped up a passionate hue and cry against Assange, who had not even been charged and had cooperated to all extents reasonable with the investigation of allegations against him.

That hysteria sought to drown Assange but also to catch in its flood any, no matter how puny or how mildly, calling for justice and due process. The cry of the mob must be “Hang him!” and no dissenting voices must be heard.

The hysteria generated in some sectors, even among people who would normally insist on justice and who opposed the status quo, reached a very high pitch.

For the crime of suggesting on Facebook at the time that the case against him seemed “dodgy” and that besides he was in any case entitled to due process, a person called me a “rape apologist” in public while people I had considered comrades (and had thought one even a friend) remained silent.

Shortly after that, a clutch of FB friends (which I made FB ex-friends quickly) backed up the allegation.

That taught me a valuable lesson about comrades and solidarity but it pales beside the severity of the lesson Assange has been taught, the mark of which he may carry for the rest of his life.

But the function of such a process goes far beyond the personal; it is intended to make dissent very uncomfortable and even painful.

We may face the attacks of our declared enemies with courage or at least resolve and commitment but it is a different matter when we are attacked, politically and personally, by those we take to be broadly on our side against the oppressive powers.

Most people would say they are for justice. It is usually easy to say so.

But unless we can stand up for it whether we like the victim or not, whether we approve of his work or not and, even in the midst of the hysteria calling for a hanging, we are prepared to cry instead for justice, our declarations are worth nothing.

There are many lessons in the saga for us to learn — but will we?

end

Footnotes

1“Can’t we just drone this guy?” Hillary Clinton, quoted in the Pilger summary article.

2Stated in the Pilger summary article.

Links

Excellent article by John Pilger summarising the persecution

DAILY LIES & PROPAGANDA – PALESTINE

On February 4, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Journalism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

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 7^th 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: *Internet*i)

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 7^th 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 Moman*i)

“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

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamas-october-7-attack-tactics-targets-and-strategy-terrorists

2 https://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.

3 https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-hostages-investigation-friendly-fire-3b6fdd4592957340b32a8ee71505b8e9

4Ibid.

5Anti-Palestinian sources reporting new body count etc https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/12/israel-revises-october-7-death-toll-after-agonizing-forensics/ and https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths

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.

72008-’9 (23 days), 2012 (8 days), 2014 (50 days), 2021 (11 days) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/7/timeline-israels-attacks-on-gaza-since-2005 Israel fought 6 wars with Gaza from 1947 to 1987.

8 https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-two-months-after-oct-7-for-many-israelis-fate-of-relatives-still-a-mystery/

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.

11Quoted recently from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/china-calls-gaza-peace-conference-hamas-disclose-fate-israeli-hostages-2024-01-15/

12 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-rcna132421

13 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-rcna132421 Highly doubtful and almost certainly an over-estimation by a number of thousands (which would make the number of civilians killed even higher).

14 https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-01-25-2024 (paragraph 10)

15Any viable Palestinian state needs to be able to take in the Palestinian refugees, more than 5.6 million registered with the UN in 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees

16And Hamas stated that they did not invade Israel on October 7^th 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.

SOURCES

“ISRAELI MILITARY DELIBERATELY KILLED HOSTAGES ON 7th OCTOBER”

On February 3, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)

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 7^th, 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 7^th 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 7^th 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*)

FOOTNOTES

1Invoked in 2014 at least, leading to the death of a captured Israeli soldier https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/whats-the-hannibal-directive-a-former-israeli-soldier-tells-all

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/israel-revises-death-toll-from-october-7-hamas-attack-to-1200-people

3 https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-forbids-doctors-from-speaking-to-un-group-investigating-oct-7-atrocities/

4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=956PmusMABk

SOURCES

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

Israeli media discussion on whether their armed forces killed Israelis: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-13/ty-article-opinion/.premium/if-israel-used-a-procedure-against-its-citizens-we-need-to-talk-about-it-now/0000018c-6383-de43-affd-f783212e0000

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-17/ty-article/.premium/unlawful-unethical-horrifying-idf-ethics-expert-on-controversial-hannibal-directive/0000018d-186c-dd75-addd-faedd2b80000

External media with Israeli testimonies on the Doctrine:

Electronic Intifada re the Doctrine: https://youtu.be/-yxEMYRoYBc

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/whats-the-hannibal-directive-a-former-israeli-soldier-tells-all

https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1358197/a-dead-soldier-is-better-than-a-living-captive-israels-hannibal-directive.html

https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/hannibal-directive-did-israel-kill-its-own-15574953

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/israel-revises-death-toll-from-october-7-hamas-attack-to-1200-people

Reiterating the incorrect numbers: https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visualizing-data

Israeli relatives of prisoners held by Palestinians demonstrate against Israeli Government and storm cabinet meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=956PmusMABk

Relatives https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/israel-s-netanyahu-rejects-any-palestinian-sovereignty-in-post-war-gaza-rebuffing-biden-1.6734919

ISRAELI EMBASSY BLOCKADED AGAIN: “ZIONIST AMBASSADOR OUT!”

On February 3, 2024February 3, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Clive Sulish
(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Palestinian solidarity supporters demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin again this afternoon, calling for the expulsion of the legation and the Israeli Ambassador. The protest was maintained from around 3pm to after 6pm today.

Organised by Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Action for Palestine, supported by Anti-Imperialist Action and independent activists, the protest kept up an almost endless chorus of slogans in English, Irish and Arabic languages, calling for a free Palestine and an end to genocide.

Slogans were shouted denouncing the genocide being committed by the USA, the EU, the “Western Powers” and the “western media”, along with the collusion of the Irish Government. As large numbers of Gardaí arrived their collusion with zionism was called out also.

The latest figures of the Zionist genocide have now passed 27,000 dead in four months, more than two-thirds of them women and children, 66,287 injured, with 70% of Gaza housing destroyed and over 85% of its population displaced, a quarter starving and without clean drinking water.

17,000 children are without parents or separated, according to UNICEF. And now evidence is mounting of Israeli ‘field executions’ and random sniper killing of Palestinian civilians and an Israeli military murder squad shooting three young Palestinian men sleeping in a hospital.

Meanwhile, outside the Zionist Embassy in Dublin …

No less than three van-loads of the POU Gardaí (riot police) and many uniformed officers were there eventually. Later one of the latter threatened all those sitting in front of the entrance as a group with arrest under the Public Order Act, though no public disorder was taking place.

For the rest of their time there, the protesters separated to each side of the Embassy building entrance and the event concluded without any arrests.

Every few minutes car horns could be heard as passing drivers indicated their support, often with a clenched fist or thumbs-up sign out the window. Only two objected: a man walking his dog who said he only cares about Ireland and a woman who shouted from across the road.

It has often been remarked by activists that those who “only care about Ireland” and object to Palestinian solidarity are not seen on the many demonstrations in Ireland protesting lack of housing, health service in tatters or British occupation of the Six Counties.

The Israeli Embassy is in an upper floor of a building rented to the zionist entity by a foreign property company with Irish directors, Quanta Capital at 15 Merrion Square North, a location which has also been the subject of protests.

Other tenants in the building say they have complained about the Embassy tenancy to the company but “they don’t care.”

No doubt protesters will return and the pressure on the Embassy (and on the Irish Government protecting it) will be maintained. Some TD should surely ask in Leinster House how much the taxpayers are being charged for maintaining an official zionist presence in Dublin.

End.

SOURCES

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/2/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-downplays-settler-violence-in-west-bank

Resistance Antidote to Despondency

On January 18, 2024January 18, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

Amidst the horror of the daily zionist genocide of Palestinians, actively aided or condoned by the western states, it is easy to feel helpless (although there is always something we can do) and despondent. We offer this from the Electronic Intifada as an antidote.

BRITISH IMPERIALIST ESCAPES JUSTICE

On January 3, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Assassination, British imperialism, Current Event Report, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

(from Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland) (Reading time: 2 mins.)

Frank Kitson, a leading terrorist and General in the British Army, died today at the age of 97.

As the national liberation struggle of the Occupied 6 Counties began, Kitson was appointed as commander of British forces in Belfast in 1970. He organised “countergang” death squads such as the Military Reaction Force and the Force Research Unit.

These units bombed and randomly targeted innocent nationalists, attempting to place the blame on the IRA. He promoted infiltration of and psyops against the Republican movement. He emboldened and directed Loyalist death squads and deployed the Paras to massacre nationalists.

Kitson was a leading figure in the British counterinsurgency campaigns in Malysia and Kenya. It was here he developed his theories on how to crush national liberation and communist struggles.

He advocated for massive population control and terror to deprive struggles of support. He advocated for forming paramilitary groups that were free to terrorise and assassinate at will, as well as spread doubt among natives. He drew from these campaigns and deployed them in occupied Ireland.

As an advocate of psyops, Kitson used the mainstream media to spread malicious lies about the Republican movement, including absurd propaganda such as claiming that the IRA were found to be worshipping Satan.

Under his command and through his recommendations prisoners were tortured, civilians brutalised and countless were interned.

While Kitson was removed from his position in 1972, his theories and the framework he established in Belfast came to be adopted by the British imperialists in Ireland for decades.

Many of the terror strategies he developed are used in Ireland and in imperialist occupations around the world today as part of “low intensity operations”.

Frank Kitson was a crusader for Empire and he was well rewarded for his campaign of murder and terrorism. He also lauded by the British press and given countless awards.

It is shameful that he never faced the People’s Justice for his crimes. That this man was allowed to retire and live out his life in peace is a symptom of the deep sickness in British society. That this man dies with full honours shows that collusion, terror and murder were official British state policy in Ireland.

As the imperialists have developed their tactics and strategies, so have the people. No matter what new innovations in subversion, terror and brutality the enemy comes up with they will be overcome. The struggle of the Palestinian Resistance today has taught the imperialists that lesson once again.

The struggle for the All Ireland Republic continues despite the best efforts of British imperialism. One day soon the British Empire will be buried along with Frank Kitson.

THE LIFE OF RILEY IS AN EGOTISTICAL DENIAL OF HUMANITY

On January 3, 2024December 3, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine1 Comment

News & Views No. 13 Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins)

British TV personality Rachel Riley shared with the media that she is feeling sombre on New Year’s eve with reference to the conflict in Gaza. We could all empathise with that were it not for her further elucidation.

So, what makes you “somber” Rachel, is the number of Israeli settlers killed on October 7^th – not the genocidal slaughter of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women and children?

From some points of view, it is entirely understandable that should be making you somber three months later. But what is not understandable in any sense of humanity, Rachel, is that you are not in the least somber about the genocide being carried out every day.

A genocide that in just three months has taken the lives of tipping at 23,000, destroyed refugee camps, clinics, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, schools, bakeries, water treatment plants, whole neighbourhoods, fishing boats, and left a dislocated 1.9 million to starve and die from disease.

It is recorded that you give talks on a genocide committed nearly a century ago – for which you have been awarded an imperialist honour — but apparently the one occurring now does not move you.

Even for someone with Zionist credentials¹ that seems shocking — but perhaps we shouldn’t be shocked, for genocide is both the excuse, the aim and the practice of Zionism.

In an Instagram post on Sunday, you wrote that “Holocaust education feels present and urgent” since the attack by Hamas on October 7th. We agree — but not in the way you meant it, which was as a justification for the holocaust being visited upon the Palestinians.

Which would be bad enough if they had been the ones who carried out the other genocide, the one (the only one, apparently) which concerns you, but they aren’t. No, in fact, many of those states that carried out the genocide against the Jews are the very ones endorsing and supplying this slaughter.

Yes, the Palestinian offensive on 7^th October last year was brutal – it was a military operation. But how does it compare in scale and number of occasions to the brutal massacres carried out by the ‘Israeli’ state in the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their very land and ever since?

You claimed that “As a result (of the Palestinian attack), incidents of anti-Jewish hate are surging around the world”. Of course, we know that Zionists constantly try to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, even accusing anti-Zionist Jews of being “self-hating.”

But if anti-semitic incidents are indeed on the rise, do you not think that the bestial genocidal acts of the Zionist state might be a more likely source for such incidents? Along with the feeling of powerlessness engendered by the complicity of the major powers in the genocide?

You expressed a wish “for an end to the violence in Gaza and the region as soon as possible that allows for stable and safe home for everyone there to be able to live in peace.” We might be able to join you in that wish, “as every decent person” might, if we didn’t know what you really mean.

What homes remain to the people in Gaza, Rachel? What you mean is the ‘peace’ in ‘Israel’ before 7^th October last year.

What you want is the ‘peace’ of the end of Palestinian resistance to the wholesale robbery of their land, to the expulsion of refugees, to the thousands of indignities heaped upon a people made second-class denizens in their own land, where they cannot even be citizens.

Expelled from houses in Jerusalem, houses elsewhere demolished, water and sewage treatment plants ruined, fishermen forbidden beyond their polluted shores and harassed even there. Prisons full of Palestinians, even children, sentenced by military courts and many not even convicted.

Constantly under pressure from the encroachment of armed zealot European settlers even into the ‘reservations’ the State allows the Palestinians with the Gaza open prison deliberately kept at subsistence level, with no legal way in or out except by Zionist permission under Zionist guns.

We note that you were a forefront campaigner against the left-social-democrat Jeremy Corbyn. As a revolutionary I have more than one bone to pick with him but your campaign and that of the others with you was a complete fraud: there was no more anti-semitism there than anywhere else.

In fact, once again, it was the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-semitism which was the real issue and shamelessly used by Corbyn’s enemies and competition within the imperialist British Labour Party to overthrow his leadership.

MATHEMATICS

It is recorded that you are a qualified mathematician so I have some questions for you around numbers and statistics: how many Palestinians is it justified to kill to avenge the “around 1,200” claimed killed by the Palestinian incursion operation?

Or how many Palestinian civilians is it justifiable to kill for those Israelis killed? The Zionist state improbably claims it has killed 8,500 Palestinian fighters and if we deduct that figure from the overall number of those killed, 23,000, it still means the killing of 14,500 civilians since October.

On the other hand, from an analyst’s estimated death toll of 3,500 Palestinian fighters,² that means that the Zionist death toll of Palestinian civilians is 19,500. How do you justify that as payback for the revised figure of 1,200 Israeli civilians killed in the Palestinian operation of 7^th October?

But even that figure is false, isn’t it? Because many of those killed were Israeli soldiers, right? And most military age Israelis are either serving soldiers or reservists, like the ones called up to take part in the current genocide.

And now Bituah Leumi, Israel’s social security agency on its website lists 695 people killed during the attack, over half of which were Israeli security personnel, with names and the alleged circumstances of their deaths (but of course the media will keep repeating the old numbers).

And then even those can’t all be added to the total Israelis killed by Palestinian fighters on that day, since we know from Israeli civilian and army testimonies that many of the Israelis were killed by the IOF in panic, in crossfire or in deliberate shelling according to the “Hannibal” doctrine.³

So, after a quick “countdown” of which you are surely capable, Riley, how many indigenous Palestinian lives may justifiably be taken for each Israel settler in the Zionist colony? And what would happen, though I do not encourage it, if the Palestinians were to reverse the ratios?

End.

FOOTNOTES

1In case of confusion let me state clearly that has everything to do with your political outlook and next to nothing to do with your ethnic group or your mother’s.

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/1/analysis-is-the-israeli-army-as-militarily-successful-as-it-claims

3 https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/entertainment/rachel-riley-reflects-on-new-years-eve-feeling-sombre-amid-gaza-conflict-1570698.html

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

REVEALING WORDS AND SMOKESCREEN REPORTING

On December 27, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

News & Views No. 12 Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

“The President and I will not hesitate to take necessary action to defend the United States, our troops and our interests. There is no higher priority.”

“While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities.”

Those were the reported words of USA Defence (sic) Secretary Lloyd Austin to the mass media after US President Biden announced an air strike against a sovereign country,¹ Syria on three sites on Tuesday, killing people.

*Joe Biden, USA President, giving his statement on the US air attack on three sites in Syria.* (Photo: *AP Images*)

Austin’s words, though lightly coded are quite revealing. Rereading slightly, they will not hesitate to take action they consider necessary to defend (or to further) the imperialist strategic and economic interests of the United States or their imperialist troops.

While they do not wish to – and recognise the dangers – if they escalate conflict in the region, they are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect their interests and their imperialist facilities.

The logic is purely that of imperialism and colonialism: They take an economic or strategic interest in an area, place their troops there and then, if those troops are resisted, they have the ‘right’ to strike back (the same “right of defence” claimed by the European zionist settler Israel).

The reporting throws up a whole smokescreen then, hiding the scarcely disguised real meaning of those words and going on to provide a heavily-propagandised “context and background” to the incident. However, let’s reorganise it a little for greater accuracy:

Thousands of US imperialist troops are in occupied Iraq repressing resistance along with training the country’s forces and combating remnants of the Islamic State group, as well as hundreds in sovereign state Syria.

They were in Syria partly combatting Islamic State and partly engaged in trying to overthrow the Assad regime to install their own puppet.

“There is no higher priority”

This is another very revealing statement. Saving the human race from catastrophic collapse of civilisation? Not a priority and in fact the US is a major contributor to global warming. Ending the suffering of the Palestinians? Not a priority. Avoiding the danger of world war? Not a priority either.

Even for the US internally, resolving their social, economic and political crises? No, not a priority. What IS a priority for the leaders of the US financial-industrial-military complex is increasing their profits and protecting their imperialist gains across the globe.

The latest attack on US troops follows months of escalating threats and actions against American forces in the region since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, which sparked the devastating war in Gaza, the report says.

But if the “attack on Israel on October 7^th … “sparked the … war in Gaza”, what “sparked” the Palestinian attack? What has “sparked” every act of Palestinian resistance back through the periodic Israeli genocidal bombing campaigns right back to the colonisation of Palestinian land?

And the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians as the State of Israel was being created?

But not only are the Palestinians to blame, apparently but so also is Iran – anybody except the imperialist actions of the USA and the genocidal acts of the Zionist settler state!

The US has blamed Iran, which has funded and trained Hamas, for the rising violence by a network of proxy groups across the region, including attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against commercial and military vessels thorough a critical shipping choke point in the Red Sea.

Yes, a strategically vulnerable geographical area overlooked by Western imperialism!

The clashes put the government of Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in a delicate position – yes, since he is running a coalition government of parties in part supported by Iran but overall a puppet of and under occupation of western imperialism.

It is a difficult circus act to ride two horses and in a statement on Tuesday, Mr Sudani (Premier of the puppet government) condemned both the militia attack in Irbil and the US response. Mr Sudani said some of those injured in the strikes were civilians.

Ah, civilians – who cares about them? Oh but remember the screams of outrage that the Palestinian operation on October 7^th had “attacked Israeli civilians”? Before and since then, the Israeli Zionist state has amply demonstrated how much it cares for civilians, as have its imperialist supporters.

Available statistics show that in the current Israeli war on Gaza and on the West Bank, the Israeli state has killed 20,424 Palestinians, of which over one-third were women and children or, in other words, indisputably civilians. With thousands more buried under rubble.

And no doubt a huge proportion of the adult males, apart from the paramedics, doctors, writers and reporters killed by Israel were also civilians. And the killing goes on, in addition now to starvation.

Instead of passively swallowing the imperialist propaganda in the mainstream western media – or raging at it – it is sometimes useful to reorganise its sentences to reflect something closer to reality, the reality of imperialism in our world and to resistance against it.

End.

Source

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/president-biden-orders-strikes-against-iranian-backed-militia-groups-1568897.html

Footnote

1The point with mentioning “a sovereign country” is that the USA and other imperialist states make much of those words when action is taken against a state it favours but, as their practice shows repeatedly, they have no difficulty with attacking or even invading sovereign countries that go sufficiently against the imperialist states’ interests.