SUPERIORITY ENTITLEMENT COMPLEX AND RACIST IDEOLOGY

On August 31, 2025August 31, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Sovereignty, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)

A video clip of Tom Barrack, US Ambassador to Turkiye giving a press conference in Lebanon, in which he accused the journalists of ‘animalistic’ behaviour and threatened to be ‘out of there’ if they continued has led to much criticism.

I’d imagine Tom Barrack was tired and his patience thereby more easily stretched – I know myself how that can be. But in that circumstance, his diplomatic training stalled and out slipped his real inner attitude to the people to whom he had been sent as ambassador – the Arabs.

The journalists accepted it meekly but according to reports, the Lebanese Press Editors Syndicate called on US envoy Tom Barrack and the US State Department to issue a public apology to the Lebanese media. Some Lebanese politicians and ordinary civilians reacted even more angrily.

Lebanese in the south held a protest rally and scrawled on the ground in large letters that “Barrack is animal” and reportedly had baskets of tomatoes ready to throw at this man who is not only the USA’s Ambassador to Turkiye but is in fact also their envoy to much of the region.

*Protest at Barrack’s comments in southern Lebanon where he had been intending to go but then cancelled his visit.* (Photo sourced: *Online*)

As a result Barrack had to cancel trips to other Lebanese regions. Most media reporting and criticism has focused on Barrack’s description of the reporters’ behaviour as ‘animalistic’ but his following words were actually more insulting and had wider implication.

“This is the problem with what’s happening in the region,” he said. In other words, the allegedly “animalistic behaviour” of the reporters was symptomatic of the Lebanese in general, in Barrack’s opinion and further, one can reasonably speculate Barrack meant, of the wider Arab world.

Of course in Barrack’s mind the USA is the epitome of civilisation, the standard by which to judge all others. A European settler colony of 250 years built on genocide of the indigenous inhabitants through massacres, disease, starvation, ethnic cleansing and racist culturecide.

The USA built up an extensive agricultural plantation system maintained on slave labour, both kidnapped and imported and also raised domestically.

The colony expanded aggressively to the lands colonised by other settlers, such as the Spanish, French and the Mexican Empire, bringing legalised slavery to lands where it had been abolished, then declared the whole southern sub-continent a sphere of influence for itself alone.

This epitome or high point of civilisation is $1.8 trillion in a debt¹ that rises annually, has among the highest prisoner per population ratio in the world,² one of the highest ratios of murders³ and of number of fatal gunshot incidents per population and of regular massacres by lone gunmen.

Most of the citizens of this state will be unaware of these facts: surveys have revealed time and again the low level of geographical, political and historical awareness of even high school students in the USA.⁴

*Tom Barrack (centre, next to US Ambassador to Lebanon) in meeting with President Lebanon, Joseph Aoun in June 2025.* (Photo: *Reuters*)

So where does this attitude of superiority in an ambassador of this state come from? The USA became a world power after WWI through its industrial and military power, its oil and gas reserves and possession of the Atom Bomb. Might is not only right but the right – the right to decide!

The right to decide for others whether and how they should live. And inevitably with that must accompany the attitude of the unfitness of others to make those decisions for themselves. Not just ‘manifest destiny’ for the USA but to decide the destiny of the rest of the world.

Of course, there are categories among the unfitting and, since the settler colony was of Europeans, all other ethnic groups are even less fitted, in the US imperialist mentality. Hence the attitude toward Arabs, which annoyingly are sitting on even more oil and gas reserves than are the US.

The contribution to this attitude by the despised themselves is not to be underestimated. The ruling elites of nearly all Middle Eastern/ Eurasian states, by their servile and self-interested complicity, have contributed to the superior feeling of the rulers of the USA exhibited by Tom Barrack.

The behaviour Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Foreign Minister Joe Rajijehplays to the feeling of USA superiority. While Israeli planes bomb their land daily, drones assassinate people, troops invade, on what are they focused? Why on what the US wants, the disarming of Hezbollah!⁵

The first report on the Barrack meeting with Aoun from the Lebanese Presidential Office was of glowing servility and did not mention Barrack’s insulting behaviour,⁶ while a second statement reacting to the outrage apologised on Barrack’s behalf without mentioning him by name.⁷

Everybody who has played the servile yet threatening ‘nigger’, the drunken and dangerous ‘paddy’, has justified the superior attitude. All who abandoned their language and aped their conquerors did so too. But it is a process that can be reversed – at least by and for the subjugated.

You’ll be able to recognise those reversing the process by their descriptions in the western mass media – they will be the ‘militants’, ‘diehards’, ‘extremists’ and even the ‘terrorists’. They will usually also be described as ‘proxies’ of some state to which the Imperial West is opposed.⁸

End.

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APPENDIX

Tom Barrak is the son of Lebanese immigrants to the USA and has built his career initially around law, then property and other investments and politics, as a political and business fixer for high-level Saudi and US interests.

He has never been mistaken for a friend of the people, as opposed to of ruling circles, whether in the US or in the Middle East.

Whether a sense of shame at his origins and wanting to aspire to the values of the modern USA or his sense of entitlement as a US Government official is the cause of his attitude to the Arab Middle East world is unknown.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2020/04/24/why-kids-know-even-less-about-history-now-and-why-it-matters/ and https://thepigeonpress.org/american-students-flunk-geography/ along with many other sources.

5The US-backed Israelis, whose daily violations of the Lebanon-Israel truce (guaranteed by the US!) have reached thousands, want areas of South Lebanon for permanent occupation and want the Lebanese Government to resettle their populations, according to reports of recent talks.

6President Joseph Aoun received a US delegation, which included Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Representative Joe Wilson, in the presence of US envoy Tom Barrack, Ms. Morgan Ortagus, and US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson.

The meeting reviewed the situation in Lebanon and the region, as well as the outcomes of the delegation’s tour, in addition to the talks held by Envoy Barrack and Ms. Ortagus in Israel and Syria.

During the meeting, President Aoun renewed his gratitude to the US administration and Congress for their continued attention to Lebanon and their commitment to assist it, in line with the directives of US President Donald Trump.

He was also briefed by the delegation members on the results of their visit to Damascus, expressing great satisfaction with what they conveyed regarding Syria’s readiness to establish the best possible relations with Lebanon. He emphasized that this reflects a shared will and desire between the two countries.

President Aoun also reaffirmed Lebanon’s readiness to immediately address outstanding bilateral issues in a spirit of brotherhood, cooperation, good neighborliness, and the historic ties between both peoples, stressing Lebanon’s full support for the unity and territorial integrity of Syria. (Reported by The Cradle)

7The Presidency of the Republic regrets “the words that were inadvertently spoken from its podium by one of its guests today. It emphasizes its absolute respect for human dignity in general, and wishes to reaffirm its full appreciation for all journalists and accredited media correspondents in particular, extending to them its greetings for their efforts and dedication in carrying out their professional and national duties.”

8An old trope to rob the opponents of their own motivation and legitimacy. The insurgents of 1798 and 1803 in Ireland were described by the British as agents of France; the insurgents of 1916 as agents of Germany.

SOURCES

https://t.me/thecradlemedia/41608

US Imperialism Tries to Disarm Two Countries’ Resistance Forces

On August 18, 2025August 19, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 10 mins.)

US Imperialism is currently meeting resistance in two Middle Eastern/ West Asian states as, through pressure on their governments, it tries to disarm the guerrilla organisations.

People in most Western states are familiar with political binaries of Right and Left but in many parts of the world, though that exists, the dominant binary is sovereignist or clientist¹, the former placing national interests above all and the latter aligning with the interests of imperial powers.

LEBANON

This country is known as the heartland of Hezbollah but many may not be aware that this resistance movement is fairly new in historical terms, coming into existence as it did in opposition to the ‘Israeli’ occupation of 1982 and instrumental in forcing total IOF withdrawal by 2000.

Hezbollah has been described more recently as “a state within a state”, with its Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc political representation and its Jihad Council army. It works in alliance with the Amal Party, also majority Shia and the Free Patriotic Movement (mostly Christian).²

Lebanon had been earlier occupied by French colonialism and its colonial elite was typically among the Catholic Christian sect known as Maronites,³ as were half the population then, the reason why the Constitution (National Pact of 1943) gives half the seats to Christian candidates.

However no population census has been carried out since 1932 and many believe that a census today would not justify half the Parliament seats allocated to Christian representatives, even in a sectarian Constitution. The others sects are Muslim (Shia and Sunni) and Druze.

This has been the case in Lebanon which, outside of the Civil War of 1975-1990, has been governed in a balance of these forces, with the recent former President, though a Maronite, sympathetic to the country’s sovereign interests and therefore also to Hezbollah and the Amal party.

On the clientist side (but proclaiming Lebanese ‘independence’) are the remains after its 2016 dissolution of “the March 14 Alliance,” consisting now of the Lebanese Forces party, with the largest parliamentary representation⁴ and of the Ketaeb, the fascist Phalangist party of the Civil War.

The main political representation of the Druze community, the Progressive Socialist Party, has supported one bloc or the other at various times.

The Lebanese Constitution (National Pact) stipulates that the President must be a Maronite but cannot be a serving member of the military. On 9^th January, Josef Aoun was elected President of the Government, for which he had to give up his position of Commander of the Armed Forces.

His election and cabinet choices were not good news for the sovereignists since the USA, as in many countries had been penetrating the armed forces through weaponry and recruitment grants and Aoun was considered their proxy – a description which his conduct has done nothing to refute.

Josef Aoun (centre right) in discussion with US Envoy Tom Barrack (middle left).

On 5^th August the Lebanese Parliament began to discuss the question of who is entitled to bear arms with a clear intention to follow the US lead that it should be the State only.⁵ Many in the West would perhaps think this a normal position but only Hezbollah fighters have defended Lebanon.

Since the ‘Israeli’ armed forces attacked Lebanon on 1^st October 2024,⁶ not once has the Lebanese Army fought them. Hezbollah fought the IOF to a standstill in the south of Lebanon, also bombing troop concentrations in northern ‘Israel’⁷ in support of Gaza and causing large settler evacuations.

The IOF had to beg for a ceasefire, to which Hezbollah and the Lebanese Government (also US, France …) agreed and which the IOF, true to form, has violated since thousands of times in bombing flights, drone assassinations, invasion of Lebanese land and kidnapping of Lebanese civilians.⁸

Hezbollah and Amal’s representatives walked out of the Government disarmament discussions, accusing their reigning opposition of failing to stand up to US threats and seeking to disarm the Resistance while at the same time failing to confront ‘Israeli’ occupation and ceasefire violations.

*Hezbollah parade 2024, Beirut, Lebanon.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The Government went ahead and tasked the Army with preparing a plan – not to defend Lebanon against the occupation and constant attacks by the IOF but instead to disarm Hezbollah.

No observer thinks the Government or Lebanese Army are capable of disarming Hezbollah and serious commentators view this move by US proxies as seeking to delegitimise the Lebanese Resistance and blame them for the attacks of the IOF upon targets in Lebanon.

Hezbollah in fact is the only force that has fought the Zionist occupation⁹of 1982 after the PLO left, also during later IOF invasions of 1993 and 1996. Josef Aoun is widely believed to have asked Hezbollah to defend Lebanon’s western border with Syria against infiltration from ISIS.¹⁰

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi commented on the reason for trying to disarm Hezbollah “is that it has shown its capability on the battlefield”, and “that the positions of the party and its Secretary-General are strong showing the Resistance’s steadfastness in the face of pressures.”¹¹

The Lebanese Foreign Minister accused Araghchi of “violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty,”¹² which might have been considered fair comment, were it not for the fact of Lebanon’s government’s acting under admitted US pressure and toleration of ‘Israeli’ bombing and assassinations.

This kind of dialogue continued up to very recently as Ali Larijani, Iran’s Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Council visited the country but he pointed out in public statements that interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs is not by them but rather by others in an overseas faraway office.

Nightly protest demonstrations,¹³ including huge motorcades have been carried out in many areas since the Government’s decision, mostly by young people, often flying Hezbollah flags.

An opinion poll taken between 27 July and 4 August 2025 indicates that 76% wouldn’t trust diplomacy with ‘Israel’, 71.7% don’t believe the Lebanese Army is capable of defending the country against ‘Israel’ and 58% don’t think Hezbollah should surrender its weapons at this point.¹⁴

On Saturday, the Lebanese army said an explosion at a weapons depot near the Israeli border killed six soldiers as troops were sent to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure in the area as part of a disarmament plan; the Government is now mourning them but blaming Hezbollah.

However, observers note that people in the south are angry that the Government never had a word to say about all the Lebanese civilians killed by the IOF since October 24 or about the Hezbollah fighters that fell fighting the ‘Israeli’ invasion then.

IRAQ

The position in Iraq is very different, although the USA is also keen to restrict arms to the State there only. The US armed forces have a base in Iraq and in addition, control its air space.¹⁵ However, the resolve of the Iraqi Government is different to that of Lebanon’s.¹⁶

US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce criticised the recent visit of Ali Larijani, Iran’s Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Council and the signing of a joint security pact between Iraq and Iran. Iraq’s Embassy in New York replied that they are a sovereign state.¹⁷

Let us recall for a moment that Iraq was ruled by the Sadam Hussein regime, first a client of the US when it went to war with the Islamic Republic of Iran 1980-1988 but an enemy when, in pursuit of his own policies in 1990, his armed forces invaded Kuwait, a US client state.

In order to justify their regime-change war of 2003, political leaders of both the USA and the UK lied to their populations claiming that Iraq held WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) which were an imminent threat. The subsequent war overthrew Hussein but destroyed the country for years.

The US occupation was widely criticised even by sources within the imperialist camp for its absence of an integrated governing policy and structure to replace the Hussein regime, with jihadist and Kurdish warlords ruling different areas and at times in conflict with one another.

Until the US forces agreed to pull out in 2011,¹⁸ the US proxy Iraqi administration and armed forces, along with the armed forces of the US itself faced constant attacks from both Iraqi national resistance organisations and Islamic jihadists, including by roadside bombs and suicide bombers.

The independent or citizen armed forces¹⁹ mostly came into existence during the war against the ISIS invasion of Iraq in 2014, being instrumental not only in defence of Baghdad but also in taking the war to the sectarian jihadists at a time when much of the Iraqi armed forces were failing.

Most of the media commentary on those Popular Mobilisation Forces characterises them as proxies of Iran and raises fears about their integration into the state armed forces without being under direct control of the military command, instead answerable only to the President.

While such media raises concerns about dangers to Iraq’s sovereignty from the militias, the same media sees no problem with the USA control of Iraq’s airspace, of foreign troops installed on their land past the date they agreed to leave, and openly pressuring Iraq on how to deal with the militias.

With regard to the call that all armed forces should be unified under the State, that generally suits the USA since they often arm, train and educate the armed forces in countries where they have influence, not to mention actual military bases.

The position of Western powers that only the State should have weapons is hypocritical given their history of supporting armed insurrection to topple regimes they consider unfriendly, also with regard to the right for citizens to bear arms in the USA’s own Constitution.

The hypocrisy of the USA and Western powers is exposed not only in that but also by the fact that they sponsored Muslim fundamentalist terrorist forces to overthrow secular regimes such as Assad’s in Syria, including supporting a prominent former ISIS commander to take over that state.

The multitude of militias under the self-proclaimed current President of Syria, Al Julani, former second-in command of the Nusra Front,²⁰ have been massacring Alawites, Druze and Christians but despite some murmurs of concern Macron welcomed Julani to the Elysée Palace in Paris.

For the US and the Western imperialists then, the real issue is not about a need for one effective central military command or state sovereignty, but rather about whether or not all the armed forces within the State are under a command over which the imperialists can exercise control.

And even more so, whether the guerrilla groups or at least their commanders are orientated towards the western powers or instead towards an oppositional centre, whether that be a state such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, or an internal force in favour of national sovereignty and anti-imperialism.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

Lebanon: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/07/us-pushes-lebanon-towards-dangerous-course-of-disarming-hezbollah

https://thecradle.co/articles/damascus-requests-russian-patrols-in-south-syria-to-limit-israeli-incursions-report

Iraq: https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/04/07/iraqi-militias-considering-to-disarm-ahead-of-us-iran-talks-sources-say/

https://thecradle.co/articles-id/32447

US pressure on Iraq re popular resistance forces: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2025/04/02/iraq-wrestles-with-us-pressure-over-iran-backed-militias/

1I do not think these handy short descriptive terms exist in English but I am going to employ them nevertheless.

2Known as “the March 8^th Alliance.”

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronites

4According to the National Pact sectarian allocation of seats between the various religious communities. However, as noted, there has not been a census since 1932 and many suspect that the Christian community no longer has dominance in numbers.

5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/07/us-pushes-lebanon-towards-dangerous-course-of-disarming-hezbollah

6For the sixth time.

7In solidarity with the people of Gaza.

8In April, the most recent reference I was able to find, The Cradle quoted Lebanon’s Information Minister stating the occurrence since the 27 November 2024 ceasefire signing of 2,740 such violations by ‘Israel’ https://thecradle.co/articles/nearly-200-killed-in-2740-israeli-violations-of-ceasefire-with-lebanon

9And the main force that drove the Zionist occupation out in 2006.

10Hezbollah is reputed to have refused, not surprisingly, while the current Lebanese regime is following US dictates (which is the major cause of the presence of ISIS in Syria) and demanding the disarmament of the Resistance.

11Reported by The Cradle on its Telegram Updates.

12Ibid: “The recent statements made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mr. Abbas Araghchi, in which he addressed internal Lebanese matters that do not concern the Islamic Republic in any way, are rejected and condemned. They constitute a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, unity, and stability, and are considered interference in its internal affairs and sovereign decisions.

Relations between states can only be built on the basis of mutual respect, equality, non-interference in internal affairs, and full adherence to the decisions of legitimate constitutional institutions. It is completely unacceptable for these relations to be exploited to encourage or support internal parties outside the framework of the Lebanese state and its institutions, and at its expense.”

13 https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/08/11/hezbollah-doubles-down-on-rejecting-lebanons-impossible-disarmament-plan/

14 https://thecradle.co/articles/majority-of-lebanese-oppose-hezbollah-disarmament-say-army-incapable-of-confronting-israel

15Over the protests of the Iraq Government, the US used its airspace from which to bomb Iran in the recent attack.

16Though one might not think so from the predominance of current media headlines announcing government and resistance groups’ alleged acquiescence.

17‘Iraq is a fully sovereign state and has the right to conclude agreements according to its constitution and laws, without being subject to any country’s policies‘. Details of the agreement remain unknown.

18But have yet to actually do so.

19This excludes the Kurdish peshmerga who fought ISIS mostly to defend their areas and many with a desire to create an independent Kurdish authority there.

202016 description of Al Nusra Front by pro-western publication: https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/11/al-nusra-is-stronger-than-ever.html

THE GIDEON CHARIOTS ARE HEADING FOR A CRASH

On August 4, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Even as European imperialists and imperialist client Arab states try to save the Zionist state with a proposal to disarm the Palestinian Resistance and put the quisling Palestine Authority in charge of Gaza,¹ many Israeli Zionists are signalling that it’s too late.

Middle East Spectator reports that six hundred members of the ‘Commanders for Israel’s Security’ (CIS) have written a letter to President Trump urging him to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the war in Gaza due to Israel’s ‘desperate situation’ regarding ‘global legitimacy’.

The MES source is The Jerusalem Post. The ‘Commanders’ consists of former senior officials from the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet, which is to say the ‘Israeli’ armed forces, external and internal state intelligence services.

On the popular free-to-air Channel 12 TV, ex-general Noam Tibbon complained that ‘Israel’ was facing international isolation through its starvation of Gaza while its unsuccessful “Gideon Chariots”² military campaign has resulted in the deaths of 50 of its soldiers.

Actually the Zionist army’s deaths are almost certainly under-reported³ as are the 6,145 wounded stated by the IOF, in comparison to the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Division reported 18,500 soldiers and other security forces wounded with varying severity.⁴

In addition, seven of its soldiers took their own lives during July this year. Seventeen IOF suicides were recorded in 2023 and twenty-one in 2024 with another 17 already this year. Those figures do not include reservists taking their lives in periods after military duty.⁵

The IOF’s losses in damaged tanks, armoured bulldozers and personnel carriers are also high. Despite this situation, the Zionist State is also carrying out military operations in Syria and Lebanon and its leaders talk about resuming its war with Iran, which had disastrous results for ‘Israel’.

Palestinian Resistance operations of various factions occur every day, while every second day or so ‘Israeli’ media reports “a security incident” in Gaza, their coded description for a Resistance operation resulting in the death of at least one IOF soldier.

In addition to the armed resistance of Palestinians particularly in Gaza putting a strain on the armed Zionist Occupation, it has strained also the relationship between the latter and the Government coalition led by Netanyahu, as discussed on Zionist Army radio and reported by The Cradle.

IOF Army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir is quoted as saying that the Zionist army lacks clear strategic direction from the Government and that it favours a deal with Hamas allowing it to return to Gaza’s periphery as before October 8^th and to ‘exhaust’ Gaza.⁶

As a practical alternative the IOF could occupy the whole of Gaza, which Zamir says can be done in a period of months but the ‘clearing’ of the Resistance above and below ground (in the tunnels) would take years and though he left it unsaid, would drain the IOF to cracking point.

The Resistance is fighting a long war of attrition. While the IOF can and does kill civilians in thousands it cannot operate with impunity on the ground against the Resistance fighters, despite its high technology and drones, both for surveillance and attack, in addition to artillery and air cover.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkiye-eu-arab-league-16-countries-endorse-new-york-declaration-supporting-2-state-solution/3646558

2IOF Codeword for the military operation since they broke the ceasefire agreement in March this year and restored the genocidal blockade, along with bombing of residential areas and ethnic cleansing of whole districts.

3(390 soldiers reported in January since launch of its ground operation in Gaza, with 61 of those individuals falling in the last months of 2023). https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/01/israel-takes-stock-of-military-casualties-over-a-year-of-war.php

4 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/at-least-18-500-israeli-soldiers-injured-since-outbreak-of-gaza-war-media/3643460

5 https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-suicides-tied-to-combat-trauma-internal-probes-said-to-reveal/

6What this term entails is not clear but could be a return to the conditions of constant power cuts, restriction on food entry to the minimum and heavy restrictions on entry and departure, along with regular raids in force to capture or kill Palestinians.

SOURCES

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/ex-israeli-general-says-gaza-starvation-campaign-isolated–i

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/at-least-18-500-israeli-soldiers-injured-since-outbreak-of-gaza-war-media/3643460

https://thecradle.co/articles/tensions-between-israeli-army-chief-government-reach-their-peak-report

USA GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY DEFEATED

On July 30, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Middle East, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: One minute)

(23/ 07/ 2025: Continuing conversation on the control deck of the USS Fitzgerald, a destroyer of the US Navy in the Sea of Oman, off the coast of Iran.)

…. Sir, that course takes us into Iranian waters.

That’s right son. We’re the US Navy. We go where we like. Stay on course.

Yes sir, steady on course.

Sir, an Iranian helicopter is buzzing us, wanting us to turn back.

Signal the pilot to move off or we’ll shoot him down.

Yes, sir. Signalling.

Sir, he continues buzzing us.

Signal the pilot we’re a destroyer of the US Navy. He should move off or we’ll shoot him down.

Yes, sir. Signalling.

Sir, he continues buzzing us, says we’re heading for Iranian national waters and ordering us to turn away.

Warn the god-damn pilot again. We’ll shoot the fucker down.

Yes s …
Sir, message received from the Iranian shore.

What does it say?

Sir, message reads “Your ship is in the cross hairs of our missile battery. Stop threatening our airforce pilot. Turn around and leave Iranian territorial waters. Repeat. You are in the cross hairs of our missile battery. Desist and turn away from our territorial waters forthwith.”

Sir? …

Sir?

Change course away towards international waters. Full speed.

Sir? Away from …

Yes! NOW, goddamn you! Back to international waters!

Yessir. Changing course now, sir.

End.

The idea for the cartoon was a good one, showing the confident sailing towards Iran and then the sharp turn away after warnings. The panels would have probably worked best in black and white: The blue in No.1 overwhelmed the overall image and in No.2, trying for a lighter touch, still did not work all that well. (Cartoon: *D.Breatnach*)

SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/24/iranian-helicopter-confronts-us-warship-approaching-territorial-waters

Occupied Territories Bill: Too Little, Too Late, if Ever.

On July 28, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Trade unions, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (18/07/2025)

(Reformatted entire for publishing in Rebel Breeze from article of same title in his Substack

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

The saga of the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) has been dragging on for years now. It was first put forward by Senator Frances Black in 2018 and was approved by both houses of the Oireachtas (parliament) but never enacted.

The Irish capitalist class that is resolutely on the side of the Israelis, despite the illusions of many and the odd PR stunt, dragged its heels on the issue, even boasting that it had effectively blocked it.

Simon Coveney who was the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time said during a visit to the Zionist state in 2019 that:

We don’t believe that it is legally sound because trade issues are EU competence as opposed to national competence in Ireland. And because we don’t believe it’s legally sound we have effectively blocked the legislation from moving through parliament as it normally would…

It’s essentially frozen in the process and it isn’t making progress. And I don’t expect that it will make progress, either, unless the government supports it, and the government won’t be supporting it.¹

A demonstration outside Leinster House, parliament of the Irish State recently. (Image chosen and sourced: by RBreeze on line)

This came as no surprise to anyone paying attention. Ireland is not an independent capitalist state; it is what Marxists term a neo-colony with 88% of all corporate tax paid by foreign companies and just three companies accounting for 38% of all corporate tax.

Foreign corporate tax in turn represents 29% of the total tax take in the country.² It is entirely dependent on the US and also the British state.

Many months prior to Coveney’s boast, the then Taoiseach (prime minister), Leo Varadkar had written a grovelling letter to Joe Biden to apologise for the behaviour of Irish politicians who had voted for the bill. In it he stated:

The Government has consistently and strongly opposed the Bill on both political and legal grounds and will continue to do so… Can I take the opportunity to reiterate my deep appreciation for the strong bonds of friendship between Ireland and the US, including our growing and mutually economic ties.³

There is no world in which the Irish state will stand up to the US. It won’t stop US planes shipping arms to Israel through Shannon Airport, just like it allowed the US to use the airport during the Iraq war.

Putting the OTB to parliament was not a bad idea, believing that is how we would achieve something concrete was.

They are now attempting to water it down further and exclude services from its remit, limiting it to only goods. (Note: at the time this article was written campaigners were still fighting an attempt to limit the bill in that way – Rebel Breeze)

IBEC (the Irish Business and Economic Confederation) came out with a statement that it would harm the Irish economy to enact the bill, whilst paradoxically accepting that trade in goods with Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank only amounted to €240,000.⁴

On the radio the Government reminded us that we are a trading nation, as if any of us thought that everything we buy in the country was made here and we exported nothing.

The reason they can make these statements of course, is because of the limited scope of the bill itself and the intentions of those pushing for its enactment.

The Irish government was at great pains to say that it would only apply to the territories occupied in 1967 and not to Israel itself i.e. not to the territories occupied in 1948 during the Nakba and the foundation of the Zionist state.

If you accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel or if you are one of those liberals still prattling on about a Two State Solution then all of this makes sense. It could have even been argued when it was first proposed that it was a stepping stone to a wider boycott of Israel, not that any of them said that.

*For those who believe in the two-state solution (sic) the map shows what’s available for a Palestinian State (sic).* (Image chosen and sourced: *by RBreeze on line*)

Events have overtaken our liberal friends and they shudder at the consequences. There is no longer any case to be made for a bill that limits business dealings with modern Zionist invasions of the West Bank.

Francesca Albanese in her recent report made it abundantly clear that many companies doing business with Israel are profiting from or contributing to the genocide.⁵ Now is not that time for half measures. Israel, just like the Nazis is carrying out a genocide.

Asking for a boycott of goods from the Warsaw Ghetto, rather than Nazi Germany would have seemed stupid at the time and actual calls for a boycott of the Nazis were portrayed as anti-German.

Some Jewish organisations opposed the boycott and the US government response to violence against German Jews was that the

U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull issued a mild statement to the American ambassador to Berlin complaining that “unfortunate incidents have indeed occurred and the whole world joins in regretting them.” He expressed his personal belief, however, that the reports of anti-Jewish violence were probably exaggerated.⁶

We know how this ended. The Nazis in the face of the timorous and timid response from the US and other western powers would eventually enclose Jews in ghettos, then camps and then push six million of them through the ovens.

Now is not the time to repeat history but to be bold and decisive. Now it is equally ridiculous to meekly petition, those who grovelled to Genocide Joe in 2019, to restrict goods from the West Bank.

In the midst of a genocide there is only one option on the table: a complete and total severance of all trade, military and diplomatic ties with Israel. There are no “settlements” without the Nazis in Tel Aviv, without the Israeli military, without the companies that keep Israel going.

*A Banner on the IPSC National March 19th April 2025 in Dublin, appearing to show a believed organic connection between the enacting of the OTB and ending the Zionist genocide in Palestine.* (Image sourced and chosen: *R.Breeze*)

Total isolation of the entire regime is needed. Not an orange, not a single electronic component, not a kilobyte of software. Such isolation should continue not just till the acts of genocide have ceased.

They will cease when the repugnant reality that Israel has run out of Palestinians to murder comes to pass.

Israel should be isolated until all those involved have been tried, had all their assets confiscated, given lengthy prison sentences or hung until dead, depending on the actual degree of participation.

This is not an outrageous proposal, it is what was theoretically done at Nuremberg, though many of the businessmen were given back their assets after a number of years and only a handful of Nazis got the actual death penalty and most never saw the inside of a jail.

No such leniency should be shown to the Zionists.

Those campaigning on the OTB will never make such a call. They will continue to petition the government. They do have another weapon to hand in fighting the Nazis in Tel Aviv, but they won’t call for that either.

The Irish Council of Trade Unions denounced the government’s handling of the OTB and called on the Oireachtas to reject the “business lobby scaremongering” and to pass the OTB.⁷

Of course, the unions don’t need to persuade the Zionists who dominate the coalition parties, they could just have told their members in 2018 to refuse to handle all products coming from the Occupied Territories, or indeed the entire Zionist state and that would have settled it.

They would have to organise that and back all their members who engaged in such boycotts. But under no circumstances will the fat cat bureaucrats ever confront the government over this issue.

If they are not prepared to fight for decent wages, a proper health system, public housing etc, all of which directly affect their members, less still will they fight for Palestinians. They are traitors to their class and also betrayers of the Palestinian people, despite all their lofty statements.

The OTB was a nice propaganda measure whose time has passed. It is, in the midst of a genocide, no longer fit for purpose, neither is a solidarity movement which limits itself to half measures. We need to be bolder.

End.

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

NOTES

1 The Times of Israel (03/12/2019) Visiting Israel, Irish FM says he’s open for ‘new thinking’ on peace process. Raphael Ahren. https://www.timesofisrael.com/visiting-israel-irish-fm-says-hes-open-for-new-thinking-on-peace-process/

2 Reuters (30/04/2025) Ireland’s reliance on foreign multinational taxes grew in 2024. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/irelands-reliance-foreign-multinational-taxes-grew-2024-2025-04-30/

3 The Irish Times (22/03/2019) Economics should not trump ethics when it comes to Occupied Territories Bill. Suzanne Mulligan. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/economics-should-not-trump-ethics-when-it-comes-to-occupied-territories-bill-1.3834221

4 The Irish Times (17/07/2025) ‘No real evidence’ Ocuppied Territories Bill would cost Ireland dearly, Amnesty Chief says. Colm Keena & Mark Henessy. https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/17/ibec-head-labels-occupied-territories-bill-symbolism-and-moral-positioning/

5 UN (2025) From economy of occupation to economy of genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Francesca Albanese. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session59/advance-version/a-hrc-59-23-aev.pdf

6 Feldberg, M. (n/d) U.S. Policy During World War II: The Anti-Nazi Boycott. Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/1933-anti-nazi-boycott

7 ICTU (17/07/2025) Oireachtas must reject business lobby scaremongering and pass the Occupied Territories Bill. https://ictu.ie/news/oireachtas-must-reject-business-lobby-scaremongering-and-pass-occupied-territories-bill

“70,000” IN DUBLIN MARCH DEMAND GOVERNMENT ACTION AGAINST GENOCIDE

On July 22, 2025July 22, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Uncategorized, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

The fact that the Irish Times reported ‘tens of thousands’ on Saturday’s march in Dublin was telling, avoiding their usual euphemism of ‘thousands’ or even ‘hundreds’ for a demonstration’s great multitude.¹

Even so, it was much larger, the organisers claiming 70,000 participants.

It was huge, without a doubt. From the D’Olier Street northern corner, the front of the march organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign had gone to the gates of Trinity College while the rest of it could be seen northwards the length of O’Connell Street and possibly beyond.

*In the distance marchers may be seen along the length of O’Connell Street. Behind the photographer, a section of the march is proceeding while the front has reached the Trinity College gates.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

This was the 16th national mobilisation in Palestine solidarity since October 2023 organised to take place in Dublin, while many smaller marches, pickets, vigils, public meetings, talks, film shows and other solidarity events have been held weekly across the nation.

BANNERS, FlAGS & PLACARDS

In addition to local branches of the IPSC, banners on the march also proclaimed party, trade union and professional body allegiance, along with specific declarations and calls for actions.

Placards included the professionally-printed but also a wide range of the ‘home-made’ examples and these can be of particular interest, such as the one that declared that “Blaming Hamas for firing rockets at Israel is like blaming a woman for punching her rapist.” Indeed.

*“Gaza is a death camp”.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

As the marchers passed the iconic General Post Office a small group organised by socialist Irish Republican organisation Éirigí held up giant letters spelling SAVE THE GPO.² A group wearing blue tops with PRESS on the back marched and held up photos of individual journalists in Gaza.³

The PBP-Solidarity contingent carried a banner calling for the enacting of the Occupied Territories Bill which seemed a rather tame demand of the Irish State from an organisation claiming to be revolutionary socialist (see Irish State Options section).

*A bagpiper playing amongst the marchers.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The most popular non-party flag on the march was of course the Palestinian one but the Irish Tricolour has been making a greater appearance on these marches of late and not before time.⁴ I noted only one Starry Plough, in green with the Plough design in gold and white stars.

DESTINATIONS AND ROUTES

The IPSC marches tend to begin at the Garden of Remembrance and end near Leinster House,⁵ seat of the Irish State’s parliament, or occasionally at the Department of Foreign Affairs. Saturday’s march also went to Molesworth Street but through a longer circular route.

This route saw the march take in part of Dame Street, then the whole of South George’s St. and Aungier Street, turn left towards Stephens Green and proceed along the Green’s west side, then along part of its southern side before turning down Dawson Street.

Molesworth Street was full of marchers already but IPSC stewards hustled marchers off Dawson Street, eventually giving up their usual endeavour to push the crowd past the Schoolhouse Lane junction so the Gardaí could erect barriers across that section to enclose the marchers.

The unusual route on this occasion avoided the temptation to march up the pedestrianised shopping area of Grafton Street, which the Gardaí do not like and at which there was a confrontation during the previous IPSC march when a number of protesters tried to take that route.

*One of the supporters of the march.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Despite the crucial role of the USA as chief supplier of arms, funding and political cover for the genocidal Zionists of the ‘Israeli’ state, since 2023 the IPSC have approached Dublin’s US Embassy only twice, no doubt respecting the Gardaí wish not to have the main road outside blocked.

On those two occasions the IPSC halted the march in a street behind the Embassy and away from one of the main roads into Dublin from the south (and along which the ill-fated Northumberland Fusiliers marched in April 1916). Marches to the Israeli Embassy were rare during the period too.⁶

IRISH STATE & OPTIONS

Both leaders of the Irish Coalition Government⁷ have built up some kudos with many anti-genocide people around the world for publicly stating that Israel is committing genocide – the first leaders of an EU or indeed Western state to say so.

In addition, the Irish Government joined with those of the Spanish and Norwegian states in a failed attempt last week to have the EU remove ‘Israel’ from its preferential trade agreement for violation of the human rights conditions of the Agreement.⁸

However, as a number of speakers at the IPSC rally and some marchers’ placards declared, the Irish State is in fact complicit in genocide by allowing military equipment for ‘Israel’ to fly through Irish airspace and by not enforcing its neutrality on US military transit through Shannon Airport.

And in allowing the Central Bank of Ireland to process ‘Israeli’ war bonds, which was the target of a number of representations including its huge logo on the march and a speech by Gary Gannon, DCC Councillor of the Social Democrats party.

The glacial progress of the moderate Occupied Territories Bill,⁹ delayed and then attempted weakening of it by removing services from the ban,¹⁰ is another hallmark of the Irish Government’s collusion (notwithstanding expressed Zionist rage and bullying by some US Congressmen).

Next to the USA, the Irish state is the biggest importer of ‘Israeli’ goods and a ban on these would greatly affect the genocidal state not only morally but also practically. In the absence of government action, the trade unions could impose a ban on their members handling those goods.

The contradiction is that the Western state most overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian is the biggest importer of ‘Israeli’ products and having hardly any practical effect towards preventing the genocide against the Palestinians, contrary to what the majority in Ireland actually want.

End.
Note: For the photos in this report I concentrated on the more unusual of those participating.

*Molesworth Street, the destination, is full from one end to the other*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

FOOTNOTES

IRISH MEDIA REPORTING

Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/19/this-war-took-my-entire-life-from-me-thousands-attend-pro-palestine-march-in-dublin

RTÉ: Thousands take part in march for Palestine in Dublin

1 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/19/this-war-took-my-entire-life-from-me-thousands-attend-pro-palestine-march-in-dublin Nevertheless, that was the national broadcaster RTÉ’s approach.

2 https://www.businesspost.ie/politics/plan-for-gpo-to-house-offices-and-retail-to-be-signed-off-by-government/

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_journalists_in_the_Gaza_war

4The Irish far-Right of fake patriots has been permitted illegitimately to almost monopolise the Irish Tricolour.

5‘Near’ rather than at Leinster House, because the Gardaí set up a crowd barricade at the end of Molesworth Street across the street from the House and that is as far as the march goes and also where the speakers’ platform is set up.

6This was so even before the Israeli Ambassador abandoned her Dublin post in disgust at popular Irish hostility to genocide and prior to the reputed closure of the Embassy (despite which the site has a 24-hour Garda guard).

7Taoiseach (Prime Minister equivalent) Mícheál Martin of the Fianna Fáil party and Tánaiste (Deputy PM equivalent), also Minister of Defence Simon Harris of the Fine Gael party. The Green Party is also a member of the Coalition.

8The European Union as a body and economic area is the largest consumer of Israeli exports https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-trade-the-most-with-israel-and-what-do-they-buy-and-sell

9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_Territories_Bill

10 https://www.trocaire.org/news/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-occupied-territories-bill/

CIVILIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS: ‘ISRAEL’, USA AND THE BRITISH

On July 13, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

The Zionist state’s latest genocidal plan involves driving the inhabitants into a densely-packed area in the south of Gaza where they will be examined on the way in and then never allowed to leave unless to emigrate to another state.¹

This plan was announced recently by ‘Israeli’ Minister of Defence (sic) Israel Katz and has been enthusiastically approved by a number of ‘Israeli’ politicians, including Finance Minister Smotrich.

It’s being suggested Katz’s plan is to be run by the GHF food-and-bullets organisation and to connect to Trump’s earlier remarks about turning Gaza into a seaside resort once the Palestinians had left. However, Trump and his administration have declined to comment on this latest plan.

*The* Gaza Humanitarian (sic) Foundation, responsible for the deadly food traps in Gaza, has been suggested as the organisation to run the concentration camp (also being called Humanitarian Camp). (Image: *Cartoon by D.Breatnach*)

But wasn’t Gaza previously a concentration camp? Well, it has been called “the largest open-air prison in the world”² due to its intensified blockade since 2007 with Israeli control over who went in or came out.³ The intention was to make living intolerable but the Palestinians managed.

The refugees who came there from the Nakba in 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli War built houses, shops, community centres, mosques and churches, shops and markets, schools, colleges and university, farmed land and grew produce in polythene tunnels, dug wells, desalinated sea-water …

The IOF have destroyed nearly all of that (even roads and sewage treatment facilities) and now of course with water, fuel and food blockaded and frequent forced internal displacement, Gaza conditions are much much worse, with starvation andcontagious disease spreading.

This new plan however, is to compress the population into a smaller and smaller area, a concentration camp within that prison.

CIVILIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS

The plan announced by the Zionazis is a concentration camp for civilians and this was in fact admitted by an Israeli journalist on one of their news channels. It’s fascist and racist but it’s not a new idea, having been practised by others including the British, USA and the Turks previously.

Concentration camps for civilians were used by the Nazis and Spanish fascists4 for example; in those cases their punitive function was clear. But during WWII the British interned Germans (including Jewish refugees) and allowed the Poles to run camps for dissidents in Scotland.

‘Concentration Camp’, drawing by David Ludwig Bloch. (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The British too built two Jewish concentration camps in Germany to prevent them from emigrating to the British Protectorate of Palestine, where the Zionists, encouraged to emigrate there by the British originally, were now destabilising British control and antagonising the indigenous people.⁶

The British also held Jewish civilians in a concentration camp in Cyprus, many of them Holocaust survivors who had tried to enter Palestine without British authorisation.⁷

During their war in Malaya (1948-1960) also the British ran civilian concentration villages, a model which the USA were to adopt later in Vietnam. These British measures were under the Briggs Plan and formed part of widescale repressive measures including forced deportations of Chinese.⁸

Those interned by the British in Frongoch concentration camp after the 1916 Rising were not all military personnel but included civilian members of Irish nationalist organisations.

The USA interned Japanese ethnic minority people during its war with Japan, allegedly as a purely security non-punitive measure. 1,862 deaths (out of 180,000) were recorded in those camps⁹ for which the USA did not apologise until 1976¹⁰ or pay reparations until 1998.

The Imperial Japanese forces during the same war period established concentration camps in their conquered territories for civilians, mostly Dutch and British colonial settlers, administrative officials and their families. More than 140,000 of those died in the camps.¹¹

Previously the USA had briefly used concentration camps against Native Americans but later shifted to removal and reservations policed by state-appointed officials. They also interned civilians, tens of thousands dying, in the US-Philippines War of 1898-1914.

In its war against the PKK (1978-2025) the Turkish State forced the evacuation of Kurdish villages where it felt unable to prevent guerrilla penetration, forcing relocation of the people and placing them under a collaborator administration in the new residential location.

The Turks also created a paramilitary police force to operate in the local areas but responsible centrally to the State which they called the Jandarma. In fact this was on the model of similar gendarmerie of the British in Ireland, of the Spanish, French and Italian states.¹²

Large rural areas of Turkish Kurdistan villages were cleared and relocated forcibly by the authorities. Arguably, despite the difficult conditions, the final defeat of the PKK was internal through adoption of a pacification process under the orders from captivity of their leader Ocalan.¹³

The village had Turkish-appointed guards and the headman was expected to ensure that the guerrilla forces did not enter and, if they did, to inform the South Vietnamese authorities (and through them the US military). Presumably he was also charged with informing them of ‘disloyal’ villagers.

Of course this put those recruited by the authorities in danger from the insurrectionary forces who viewed the guards and any collaborating headman as traitors. On the other hand, the headman might come under great pressure from the authorities to comply with their plan.

The USA’s version in Vietnam, the Strategic Hamlet Program was practised in 1962 during their War through their proxy, the South Vietnam government.¹⁴ Villagers either had their hamlet fortified or more often, they were forcibly relocated to a fortified location.

The Program was reportedly sabotaged but it is doubtful if it would have succeeded in any case as the forced relocations alienated even those who did not already sympathise with the insurrectionary forces. It marked President Kennedy’s last attempt to fight their war in Vietnam ‘indirectly’.

The living conditions in Israel’s version currently being contemplated for Palestinians in Gaza will be intolerable and the clear intention is for those who survive to want to emigrate – so, once again ethnic cleansing within a genocidal framework.

*Israel Katz, Minister for Defence (sic) in centre of photo on his sally with IOF into Lebanon with IOF occupying troops.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

It will also be very dangerous for those trying to enter, especially men, having to pass the interrogation process at the gate. Those suspected of Resistance activities – or even related to such suspects – will be deeply interrogated and many no doubt interned without trial.¹⁵

Families which have survived the genocidal bombing and starvation will be broken up as some enter and some refuse to enter (or are refused).

Overall, the historical experience of people confined in civilian concentration camps has been oppressive but for many a death sentence also. Despite the suffering, as a measure of repression against insurgency amongst the population, it has largely been ineffective.

Actually, there is one recorded case of the civilian concentration camp being successful in a counter-resistance context and that was of the British (again!) against the Boers of South Africa. In the Second Boer War the British (who had been defeated in the first) killed Boer livestock and burned their farms.

The British constructed a civilian concentration camp¹⁶ in which they placed the abducted Boer women and children in order to get their menfolk to submit. (The IOF are not above using relatives also, frequently arresting relatives in order to coerce a ‘wanted’ resistance person to surrender.)

80,000 Boer civilians were interned and, in separate camps, 115,000 African servants of the Boers. Due to the conditions, between 18,000 and 28,000 Boers died, 80% of them children. The British kept no records of African deaths but their losses are believed to have been similar.¹⁷

However, the British-Boer wars were between one group of settlers and another. So far, for all the suffering it causes, the record of the civilian concentration camp as a repressive measure by an occupying state against a resistant nation is one of failure.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/israeli-minister-reveals-plan-to-force-population-of-gaza-into-camp-on-ruins-of-rafah

2David Cameron, Prime Minister UK called it a prison in 2010, as did others, including Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director Human Rights watch in 2022. As late as 2023, so did British-Israeli historian and emeritus professor of International Relations at Oxford University Avi Shlaim who said it had evolved into “an open-air graveyard” at the time of his writing (there are numerous sources for the description by various people).

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

4The civilians in General Franco’ hugely overcrowded camps and jails contained large numbers of Basque, Catalan, Galician nationalists, Republican, Communist non-combatant nationalist civilians in addition to opposition military.

5 https://jacobin.com/2017/05/uk-concentration-camps-wwii-poland-internment-prisoners

6Ibid.

7 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24457292

8A good account is given in this admittedly anti-communist biased report: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-15/issue-3/oct-dec-2019/civilians-in-crsfire

9 https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

10Admission by US President Gerald Ford.

11 https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-short-history-of-civilian-internment-camps-in-east-asia

12The RIC (later RUC now PSNI in the British colony) in Ireland, the Guardia Civil in the Spanish state, Gendarmerie in France and Carabinieri in Italy. Those forces in the last three named operate throughout the different nations that are incorporated in those states.

13Highly critical analysis https://noria-research.com/ceasefire-and-the-end-of-the-pkk/

14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Program, a hostile source like most I’ve found on line.

15A process the Zionist State calls ‘Administrative Detention’, resulting in six months trial without judicial process, which can be renewed.

16The main reason for the belief that the British originated the practice of concentration camps.

17 https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/south-african-concentration-camps

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Israeli plan: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/israeli-minister-reveals-plan-to-force-population-of-gaza-into-camp-on-ruins-of-rafah

Turkey civilian concentration villages: https://smallwarsjournal.com/2024/06/19/assessment-turkish-kurdish-conflict-1984-1999/

British concentration camps for Boer civilians: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/south-african-concentration-camps

and for civilians in Malaya, good account is given in this admittedly anti-communist biased report: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-15/issue-3/oct-dec-2019/civilians-in-crsfire

USA civilian concentration camps for ethnic Japanese civilians https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment and ‘strategic hamlets’ in their Vietnam War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Program (a hostile source, like most I’ve found on line).

GAZA CEASEFIRE DISCUSSION: A PANTOMIME WITH MANY ACTORS

On July 4, 2025July 6, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, Uncategorized, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Trump says he convinced Netanyahu to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and the Palestinian Resistance¹ had better take it because it’s the best they are going to get. Does the deal include the IOF pulling out of or an end to bombing Gaza? No, neither.

Mass media speculation abounds that the Resistance are under pressure (by starving Gaza residents in the midst of daily massacres) to agree to the ceasefire promoted by Trump and that it will be announced during Netanyahu’s visit to meet his imperialist backers in the USA.

Netanyahu says he won’t agree to ultimate peace nor even to the IOF pulling out of Gaza. His aim, he declares is the total defeat of Hamas (i.e. all the Palestinian resistance and the expulsion of their leaderships). Details of the deal mention a 60-day ceasefire.

Older now but still holding hands: back on 23 May 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and US President Donald Trump shake hands at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. (Photo cred: *Sebastian Scheiner/AP*)

And Gaza afterwards? All options are open, perhaps even the Israeli seaside resort of which Trump and Netanyahu were speaking earlier.² But not a Palestinian administration by free and popular elections, because that would mean the election of supporters of the Resistance).³

No doubt in order to increase the pressure on the Resistance, the IOF intensifies its daily bombing of civilian housing and refugee centres and food queue massacres. Starvations deaths begin to appear, first of children then of adults too, emaciated bodies and skull-like faces.

The Palestinian Resistance factions led by Hamas have been adamant all along that they will sign up to an end to the war but not to a temporary ceasefire. The IOF must pull out of Gaza and the gates must be opened to let desperately-needed food, medicine, fuel and water in.

The Resistance will release living Israeli prisoners and dead (bodies) and ‘Israel’ will release Palestinian hostages. This has been their position for a long time and was part of the US envoy’s (Witkoff)-approved agreement of 19 January with ‘Israel’ this year which the latter broke on 18March.⁴

Smotrich and Ben Gvir threaten to bring down Netanyahu’s coalition if there is a ceasefire agreement, saying the war should continue without pause until the defeat of the Resistance. But Smotrich and Ben Gvir also shadow-box against one another through the Israeli media.

There are elements of pantomime and farce between some pushing for a deal and those against – “Look out, Netanyahu: Ben Gvir’s behind you!” But Trump and Zionists are playing with real lives, primarily those of the Palestinians but also those of their own IOF on the ground.

Funeral of IOF Captain Elkana Vizel in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery Jerusalem 23 January 2024. Vizel was killed with 20 other IOF when the Resistance fired a rocket into a house where the IOF had stored explosives intended for demolishing Palestinian houses. (Photo: *Getty*)

The armed Resistance, fighting in areas of Gaza cleared of civilians by the IOF have been hitting the latter hard, Israeli media reporting “a security incident” (its shorthand for fatalities of their soldiers by Resistance action) every second day or so (sometimes a number in the same day).

This after 20 months of attack by the strongest and best-supplied military force in the region which has undisputed air cover over Gaza.

Jon Elmer, in his Resistance Report on Electronic Intifada Updates podcast on Thursday evening said that June had been the worst month for the IOF in a year of battle fatalities and injuries. He recorded nearly 200 Resistance operations with IEDs, snipers, RPGs, rocket and mortar attacks.⁵

The IOF are being hit in areas they have invaded before and claimed to have ‘cleared’ of the Resistance. In approaching two years Netanyahu has failed to achieve his two declared war objectives: to defeat Hamas (Resistance leading faction) and recover the captives.

By any sober assessment Netanyahu and his coalition government have lost the Gaza war so far but he wants to cover that over and knock out the Israeli opposition which demands a deal with the Resistance to free the Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinians.

Netanyahu and his wife face a trial for corruption as soon as he can no longer use the war in Gaza (or with Iran!) as an excuse not to stand trial. So peace is not a good option for him personally. A deal releasing the prisoners of the Resistance followed by renewal of the war might be best for him.

The Resistance is taking heavy toll of the IOF whenever they try to move forward in Gaza. But in the limited area of the Resistance, possibly the IOF can defeat them eventually by massive continuous bombing with ordnance supplied by the USA, the UK and some EU states.

But who knows what other factors might develop in the meantime and whom they might favour?

The resistance of the Palestinian people and the operations of their armed Resistance factions have challenged not only the actions of the Zionist colonial state but its very legitimacy to a degree not seen before, across the world and among the people of the Zionist-supplying heartlands.

The desperation of the ruling classes of the colonial state and of its principal backer was behind their short recent war against Iran, leading to a danger of World War. They were defeated for now but in the logic of imperialist power must try again.

The world is changing but whether that will favour the Palestinians in the short or medium-term is not certain. However that the question can even be asked is the result of the long cultural and political resistance of the Palestinian people and of their armed resistance movement.

End.

FOOTNOTES & SOURCES

1Trump, Netanyahu and the western mass media generally identify the Resistance as Hamas, whether to avoid the legitimising term, as a shorthand or to conceal the fact that the Palestinian resistance is composed of a number of factions, some of them Islamist (e.g. like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others secular (such as the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine, perhaps the longest-surviving Resistance organisation.

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/1/26/hamas-wins-huge-majority and https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/if-palestinian-elections-proceed-hamas-may-have-upper-hand

3 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-gaza-riviera-echoes-kushner-waterfront-property-dreams-2025-02-05/

4 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5klgv5zv0o

5The Resistance in Gaza have made June the worst month for the IDF in a year (mostly in just one area, Khan Younis). “180 (resistance infantry) operations in Khan Younis in one month alone plus 60 artillery operations” (discussion at end of Jon Elmer’s Resistance Report @ 3.16 minutes mins.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4nuYJp5RC0&t=11283s)

AFTER A 12-DAY WAR – HOW DOES THE BALANCE LOOK?

On June 27, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Middle East, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins)

Both the USA and its proxy Israel carried out an unprovoked attack on Iran, both attacking nuclear facilities and Israel, as per their playbook, bombing civilians and their public facilities.

Iran targeted every category in Israel (generally not civilians) matching those the IOF bombed in Iran, assassinations excepted. And replied to the USA’s attack by hitting their most forward base in a Middle Eastern state, Al-Udeid in Qatar.¹

The objectives of the US and of Israel were ostensibly to wreck Iran’s nuclear program. But more than that, to achieve a change of regime to one amenable to the western powers, such as is the case with most of the Middle Eastern regimes.

The regime change was to take place internally by subversion, terrorism and uprisings as it was fighting bombing by Israel.

Neither the US nor Israel achieved those listed objectives.

Iran’s objectives were to maintain its sovereignty and independence in general and, because of the US and Israeli public focus, defend its sovereignty with regard to uranium enrichment to improve its nuclear energy and by-products.

Iran achieved those objectives,² at least for the time being and it will probably now leave the IAEA with justification³ so western powers will know very little of what is going one with Iran’s nuclear program, which is to Iran’s benefit.

Iran however also wanted the lifting of sanctions and it has not achieved that.

Once the Israeli attack started, Iran’s objectives were a) to recover from the initial external and internal assaults and assassinations; b) defend the state from internal subversion and terrorism and from Israeli bombing; b) strike back at Israel and punish it so thoroughly as to prevent repetition.

Iran successfully and quickly recovered from internal assaults and assassinations; b) put up a strong defence but was unable to down enemy planes other than drones, which was not a success;⁴ c) punished Israel very severely, to an extent that will become clearer as time goes on.

*Scene of Iranian missile damage in ‘Israel’, June 2025* (Photo sourced: *Telegram*)

But the level of Iran’s attack was not enough to ensure Israel will never attack it again and the Zionist entity’s political and military leadership is probably even now concentrating on how to rebuild itself to strike again.

Once the USA attacked, Iran had to show that it was capable of eliminating US bases across the region and would do so if attacked again. The strike on its evacuated Al-Udeid base in Qatar was largely symbolic but in fact proved Iran’s point and willingness to go that far if necessary.

In that, Iran was resoundingly successful. No other state has attacked a Middle Eastern US base, albeit warned and evacuated at the time, without serious repercussion.

This conflict ended overall as a draw but with the preponderance of success on Iran’s side.

It is more difficult to assess the political wins and losses but in so far as there is any change in the overall political situation one would have to say it has shifted in Iran’s favour.

One process of assessment is to investigate what the antagonists think:

Iran is celebrating nationally before turning to the funerals of their martyrs, in particular state funerals of victims of assassinations;
Israel is full of recriminations against its leadership but also against the US⁵ for not going further and imposing a ceasefire;
The USA leadership seems divided but opinion is increasingly mounting that Trump is mistaken in his assessment of ‘obliteration’ of Iran’s enriched uranium production sites.

Another measure is the relative financial expenditure and loss.

Although this picture is far from clear from either side we know of over 39,000 insurance claims in Israel so far⁶and the state spent $5 Billion in the first week of the war.⁷

They lost a prominent military science development site and lost or sustained damage to military and military intelligence sites too but it will be some time before the true level or even approximation will escape Israeli military censorship.

Israel also lost presumably a great deal of its Mossad-run sabotage and terrorist network in Iran which exposed itself as part of Israel’s attack, much of which is now under interrogation, on trial or already executed.

U.S. spending on aid for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere in the region between Oct. 7, 2023 – Oct. 7, 2024 was calculated at over $17.9 billion; spending on related U.S. operations in the region at over $4.86 billion.⁸
Iran produces missiles much more cheaply than Israeli munitions and has greater productive capacity; its greatest loss was the human cost (the disparity in civilian deaths shows who was really targeting civilians) and it lost a lot of scientists through Israeli assassinations.

On the political-psychological level, an extremely important one:

Iran emerged as a strong state with popular support in defence of sovereignty that cannot easily be defeated. Internally this has led to greater unity, at least for the moment.

Externally, Russia and China will see it not only worthwhile but important to support Iran and possibly even to part-arm them (which Pakistan too may do).

Iran’s western-friendly neighbours will be wondering whether US airbases brings them greater security or the opposite and also whether any alliance with Israel is a good idea, even though pushed by the USA and other Western powers.

Israel has seen its image of military superiority and even invincibility destroyed, internally by its war in Gaza and externally by its recent war with Iran and this process will increase as those from other areas view the damage in ‘Tel Aviv’ for example.

For a decade the state has been seeing a steady exodus of dual-nationality Israelis, particularly among its technocrat population and during this war mass evacuations by boat and land after the Israeli State closed its airports.¹⁰

The degradation of the IOF through mental fatigue, injuries and deaths (totalling more than 10,000 since their Gaza offensive), along with damaged armour, will continue in a deeply divided body politic.¹¹

The USA’s population will continue to see protests not only against the wars in the Middle East and genocide in Palestine but also against the increasing decrees and police repressing free speech and the right to organise and participate in protests.
Western capitalist companies will continue to reduce or even end their investment in – or relationships with – the Israeli state,¹² pushed in part by targeted protests and probably more largely by doubts about how financially safe Israel really is, even in the mid-term.

IN CONCLUSION

Iran is the overall winner, Israel definitely the big loser and the USA somewhat also (not forgetting that any Israeli loss is ultimately one for the US also). But the Zionazis will rearm and increase spying, sabotage and probably covert assassination operations in Iran.

Iran will rearm also, possibly even in nuclear terms and will intensify its intelligence war against subversion and spying and always viewing future attacks on it as inevitable.

The US will continue to view Iran as its primary adversary in the Middle East, in terms of its sovereignty and military capabilities.

Also viewing Iran as a necessary obstacle to remove before its future full confrontation with China, a state financially and economically already ahead of the US and a strong proponent of a multi-polar world against the existing unipolar version with the US as its head.

The world geopolitically-militarily will not be a better place as the result of the outcome of this 12-day war and may even be worse for it – after all, Israel and the US were permitted by the rest of the western alliance to bomb nuclear installations while continuing to support genocide in Gaza.

But with the weakening of US Imperialism and Israeli Zionism, it will offer opportunities for reversing damaged sovereignty, for anti-imperialist revolutions and for social progress.

End.

FOOTNOTES & SOURCES

1 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjxdgjpd48o

2 https://thecradle.co/articles/european-intel-says-irans-enriched-uranium-survived-us-attacks

3 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/25/irans-parliament-approves-bill-to-suspend-cooperation-with-iaea

https://thecradle.co/articles/russian-fm-warns-new-iaea-inspections-of-iran-can-lead-to-sensitive-leaks

4Sharmine Narwani on the Cradle podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK8tYo3jdIk pointed out that none of the many Israeli photos taken from the air over central Iran could be ascertained as typically originating from IOF planes and were instead likely taken from drones. This raised the possibility that all the air-launched missiles of the IOF were all from airspace outside Iran (and we know that the Iraqi Government complained about the US violation of its airspace by opening it to the IOF). This also seems to answer a question that was bothering me: What happened in this war to the sophisticated radar that allegedly caused enemy planes to veer away from Iranian airspace in the attack last year, with some leaks alleged from pilots claiming that the Iranians were able to ‘see’ and target the latest stealth fighter planes. However ‘seeing’ fighters is not the same as ‘targeting’ them and may not even be possible at all with US B2 bombers – see interesting short presentation from this hostile source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz6cd9tHiyM No doubt scientists are working on the problem and technology will develop further so that stealth bombers may be detected and fighters and bombers targeted, with US technology developing technology to confuse the targeting and so on … and on.

5Including reported tweets and comments calling for Israel to bomb the US!

6 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-receives-nearly-39-000-compensation-claims-for-damages-caused-by-iranian-missiles/3611868 and https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-multi-billion-shekel-price-tag-iran-war

7“The David’s Sling system, used to intercept short- and long-range threats, costs around $700,000 per activation when firing its minimum of two interceptors.” https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/12billion-a-month-the-cost-of-israels-daily-strikes-and-defence-against-iran-war-at-a-premium/articleshow/121979978.cms

8 Costs of War

9 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/world/middleeast/gulf-states-iran-attack-us-qatar-base.html

10Even before the retaliation by Iran https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/over-550000-israelis-flee-country-amid-gaza-war-data-shows-18176225 and during the war reported leaving by sea and land, after Israel closed airports https://www.newarab.com/news/israelis-quietly-flee-europe-yacht-escape-iran-missiles

11 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-10-000-israeli-soldiers-killed-or-wounded-in-gaza-war-says-military-officer/3587606

12The largest European consumers’ cooperative with 2,700,000 members (Wikipedia) joins boycott of Israeli products European retailers drop Israeli goods in solidarity with Gaza – TRT Global

The feminist call to war

On June 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, US Imperialism, WomenLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 24 June

Reprinted in full from G.Ó.L’s substack and formatted for the Rebel Breeze blog.

Feminism used to be associated with pacifist anti-militarist movements, but times have changed and now there are feminists who call for war, whilst they still continue to blame all wars on men. It is an enormous contradiction.

For the last two years Gaza has lived under a siege and a genocide, supported by some sectors of feminism and in the midst of the conflict with Iran, once again feminist voices come out with a clamour for war. The reason is their supposed rush to free the women of Iran.

Four female political prisoners in Evin prison in Tehran (before it was bombed by Israel), conscious of the cynicism of some feminist groups in the West issued a communiqué denouncing the war and those who support it.

They stated that Israel wanted a submissive and weak Middle East and they opted to continue their own struggle against the government in Tehran without allying themselves with Yankee imperialism.

Our liberation…from the dictatorship ruling the country is possible through the struggle of the masses and by resorting to social forces – not by clinging to foreign powers or placing hopes in them.

The powers that have always brought destruction to the countries of the region through exploitation and colonisation, by inciting wars and killing in pursuit of greater benefits, will have no way out for us except for new destruction and exploitation.[1]

The four women are pro-Kurdish and also women detained in the protests following the death of Masha Amini at the hands of the Morality Police in 2022. One of them fought against ISIS in Syria. They are not coffee house feminists.

*Women ‘of colour’ probably of the Combahee Collective with banner in what seems to be a general women’s liberation demonstration in the early 1970s.* (Photo sourced: Internet)

They branded as traitors those Iranian who have called for war, amongst them the son of the despotic Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah imposed by the USA in 1953 following the CIA coup.

He ruled with an iron hand murdering and torturing the opposition, both the Left and Right, men and women. His son wants to go back to robbing the country’s coffers.

Traitors to Iran and traitors to the peoples of the Middle East and traitors to the people’s years of freedom-seeking struggles against oppression will know that their betrayal and disdain will be recorded in the memory of the Iranian people and in history.

Future generations will remember with shame those who stand on the corpses of defenceless people and trample them.[2]

Whilst these women who did actually rise up against the regime are opposed to the war, in the West there are those bourgeois feminists who in between their macchiatos ask for more attacks on Iran, in order to “free” the women.

They only think of Iran when a US president or the Nazis in Tel Aviv want to attack the country. They believe that the sexual predator who acts as US president is going to fight for the women. Maybe the way he did in Syria by installing ISIS.

One of the first to invoke the repression of women was none other than Netanyahu,[3] a man who has bombed maternity hospitals in Gaza killing women and children all around.

The US said something similar about Afghanistan and various bourgeois feminists came out to justify the war, deliberately ignoring that without US support the Taliban would never have existed.

It was Jimmy Carter and then Reagan who started to finance the troglodytes of the Mujahadeen and later the Taliban i.e. the bourgeois feminists too.

I should clarify that many of those feminists are not bourgeois in the sense of their social class, they have no capital, they are not rich, though there is no lack of those who are.

They are bourgeois in an ideological sense, although they use terms such as liberal, radical, separatist etc., but what unites them is their defence of capitalism and the bourgeoisie.

You could say right wing feminists but many of them like to present themselves as progressive when they are bourgeois, or in the case of the less wealthy ones, acolytes of the bourgeoisie.

Hillary Clinton, a bourgeois feminist (both in the ideological sense and also in terms of her bank balance) who has her hands stained with the blood of women in Libya and other parts is one of the spokeswomen for bourgeois feminism.

Much though they may shout, down with patriarchy! Their favourite slogan is Long Live Capitalism and Imperialism! This includes feminist intellectuals like Julie Bindel.

They kept silent about the genocide in Gaza and now believe that whoever criticises the war against Iran supports the regime. I suppose this includes the political prisoners who don’t sip macchiatos in their cells.

Bindel writing in The Sun said that those who criticise the war support Iran and the oppression of women. She repeated the usual lies about October 7th, mixed with some truths about Iran with the aim of supporting the war.[4] Bindel has kept silent about the massacres of women in Gaza.

She doesn’t support the women of Iran, but rather the West. It is worth pointing out that the owner of the paper, where she writes, has supported reactionary governments around the world, including in Great Britain where Bindel lives.

It is a misogynist, homophobic paper that frequently runs campaigns against the poor and migrants. Bindel is not alone, Kelly Jay Keen shares videos of the son of the Shah, perhaps to indicate that she supports the monarchy.[5]

The bourgeois feminists, like all of the bourgeoise in practice see other cultures as inferior ones. They use the same imperialist language to justify wars as did Rudyard Kipling, the author of the infamous poem The White Man’s Burden. They boast about the White Woman’s Burden.

It should be remembered that Kipling wrote that poem to seek and to justify the US invasion of the Philippines.

Take up the White Man’s burden
The savage wars of peace
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Then they say that men are to blame for wars and not their dear capitalist system. Over and again the bourgeois feminists call for war.

But if they want wars and invasions, well why not ask for the US to be invaded, where women are pursued fleeing from one state to another to obtain an abortion, or where access to sex education is restricted and deficient as is access to contraceptives,[6] where women earn less than men and are under-represented in a wide range of fields.

Afghanistan is a country where women are more repressed than in any other part of the world. Throughout the conflict the US financed the Mujahadeen and later the Taliban.

They had the option of supporting organisations such as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a women’s organisation that opposed the Islamists and also the Russians and later the US invasion.[7]

No, between one macchiato and another our dear bourgeois feminists let the men in the Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton support the Taliban troglodytes.

They said the same in Iraq. I am sure more than one reader is asking themselves what Iraq has to do with it all. It was a secular country, that promoted women’s education and participation.

However, one of the reasons bandied about by Bush was that he was rescuing and defending women and he compared their situation to that of Afghanistan, despite Saddam promoting women’s education.[8]

In fact, under Saddam, 30% of faculty staff were women, trained in Europe and the USA with full funding from the government. It is no longer like that, in fact there is no intellectual world in Iraq, the bombs the bourgeois feminists asked for, put paid to that.[9]

In the US the bourgeois feminists paid to go to universities, but Iraq promoted women as a state policy, something the Yanks have never done. In Britain, just 31% of the lecturers were women.

Iraq almost beat them, but in-between macchiatos the bourgeois feminists called for a war to improve the situation of women in Iraq and of course their investment portfolios.

Now the drums of war are beating again and the bourgeois feminists once more give themselves over to the war, despite believing that wars are a male product rather than a capitalist one.

They are not going to analyse their own participation, whilst a refugee from one of their wars prepares another macchiato for them.

As the female political prisoners in Evin said, it will be the Iranian people and the Iranian women who will free Iran and the Iranian women and not the bourgeois with the macchiatos, wine and caviar.

They are just as much the enemy of the women of Iran as the male bourgeois and are as deserving of our contempt.

There is no lack of Iranian voices asking for war and not just the son of the despot Pahlevi. Masih Alinejad is an exiled journalist. She took part in the movement against the obligatory use of head coverings in Iran and other things.

So far so good, unlike others she has fought against the oppression of women in the country.

But in exile, she turned out to be a Zionist and in the first Trump government met with the hawk Mike Pompeo and also worked at the official US propaganda radio station, Voice of America, transmitting programmes in Farsi.

*Masih Alinejad & Jake Sullivan, Intelligence Adviser to US President Biden 2021 2025.* (Source: *Wikipedia*)

Now she criticises Netanyahu, but not for bombing Iran and killing civilians but because of his bad timing. She believes he should have waited for protests against the government and attacked at that time. Of course the bombs were not going to fall on her, safe in New York.

Those feminists who keep silent about the genocide in Gaza do not seek the liberation of women in Iran, but rather a geopolitical reorganisation of the region and the victory of Zionism.

But that slogan doesn’t sound too good and you can easier convince the dozy in the world by talking about the rights of women in Iran. Meanwhile they have little to say about why their governments installed and recognised the Islamists from ISIS in Syria.

It is an exercise in public relations rather than real concern for the future of women in Iran. At the end of the day bourgeois feminists defend the bourgeoisie more than they defend women.

End.

NOTES

[1] Middle East Eye (19/06/2025) Iran: Jailed women activists issue letter condemning Israeli attacks. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jailed-female-activists-iran-issue-letter-condemning-israeli-attacks

[2] Ibíd.,

[3] See https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/ab68f07d-68ef-4e79-9561-0c8062663882?j=eyJ1IjoiMzBqYW1wIn0.0Y_uIvVCiPFxQqpA0lVO04u7LmUWrBGajjuhH6mjvNk

[4] The Sun (23/06/2025) Stupid ignorant lefties who support Iran when it stones women for adultery are mad and immoral. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/35536772/support-iran-death-cult-opinion-julie-bindel/

[5] See https://x.com/Mylovanov/status/1937201198370549828

[6] The Guardian (23/01/2025) As Trump returns, state lawmakers pursue bills that would treat abortion as homicide. Carter Sherman. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/abortion-homicide-bills

[7] See http://www.rawa.org/index.php

[8] The New Arab (22/10/2021) Colonial feminism and the un-liberation of women in Iraq. Jyhene Kebsi. https://www.newarab.com/opinion/colonial-feminism-and-un-liberation-women-iraq

[9] Al Jazeera (01/10/2013) The Destruction of Iraq’s Intellectuals. Matthew Schweitzer. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/10/1/the-destruction-of-iraqs-intellectuals