CALL FOR UNITY IN ACTION AT 1916 RISING COMMEMORATION

On April 6, 2026April 6, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History commemoration, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

A call for unity of Irish Republicans in action to win Irish freedom and independence was made at a 1916 Rising commemoration in Dublin on Sunday, an event organised by the Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland organisation.

*Section of the marchers looking back towards Phibsborough as they approach*
*Cross Guns Bridge from Phibsborough.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

A relatively large number of people participated, including a number of delegations from organisations of struggle in the Spanish, Turkish, German and Italian states. Young people were particularly well represented.

Participants met outside the Phibsborough shopping area on Dublin’s northside from which they were led by a lone piper, a colour party and a number of banners. Among them flew various flags of national and social struggle in Ireland, the Basque Country, Catalunya, Palestine, Turkey …

*The lone piper in Phibsborough exercising his lungs and warming pipes and bag as he prepares to lead the procession towards Glasnevin.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The orders to the colour party, as is traditional, were all given in Irish.¹ At Cross Guns Bridge, the march halted and, in what has become a tradition for the AIA, flares were lit in memory of the presence of Irish Volunteers there in 1916 and the murder of a civilian by British soldiers.

Proceeding along Finglas Road to the interest of passers-by and the odd ‘beep’ of solidarity from a passing vehicle, the march turned left outside the gates of the older Glasnevin Cemetery to cross over the railway pedestrian bridge to the St. Paul’s section of the Cemetery.

*Section of the marchers approaching Cross Guns Bridge from Phibsborough, halting as flares are lit in memoriam.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Winding their way on a path through the headstones, what was now one thick column approached the monument to six Irish Republican armed uprisings, commissioned by the National Graves Association, where a representative of the AIA greeted them.

From the Monument, the AIA representative introduced the reason for the commemoration and listed in honour the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna Éireann, different organisations that fought together in the Rising.²

Central: Flags of the colour party, from left to right: Flag of AIA, Irish Citizen Army (mostly concealed), a version of Irish Citizen Army, emblems of the four provinces of Ireland, the Tricolour (mostly concealed), the Gal Gréine (Sunburst).
*The flag intervening from the left is of some participants in the Anti-Imperialist Front, a different organisation.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

He called for delegates of different organisations to meet to decide a basis for unity, following which, going on to note that the AIA has long been prepared to work alongside others for shared objectives, he announced floral wreaths to be laid on behalf of the CPI and IDR.³

After the laying of those wreaths, another man was called to read the text of the 1916 Proclamation.

The keynote speaker, a veteran Irish Republican and former political prisoner, was then introduced. He began by reminding his audience of Irish Republican armed uprisings before 1916 going back to 1798 and forward up to the war in the occupied Six Counties.

*The main speaker, veteran Irish Republican and ex-political prisoner, delivering the oration for the commemorative event.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The speaker made a number of points regarding the text of the 1916 Proclamation, the declarations of which remain to be fulfilled, in its address placing women on an equal standing with men, ‘cherishing the children of the nation equally’ and guaranteeing ‘civil and religious freedom to all.’

Drawing on the example of those of varying ideological positions who in the 1916 Rising united to “fight against the largest world empire in history”, the ex-prisoner called on Irish Republicans to find the means to unite in action today against imperialism and colonialism.

The speaker also highlighted that the objective of the Rising had been an independent democratic republic which is still to be achieved and that Republicans need to honestly confront the failures which, despite strong resistance, have weakened the struggle to date.

The piper played a slow air as the flags of the colour party were lowered and a few minutes’ silence observed – a traditional Irish Republican honouring of its martyrs in struggle. Announcing the end of the event the MC then called for the piper to play Amhrán na bhFiann⁴ to conclude.

*A moment in the lowering of the colour party’s flags during the moments’ silence in honour and remembrance of fallen martyrs.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

COMMENT

The attendance at this year’s event was numerous and encouraging, even discounting the numbers from abroad. The latter has been a feature of AIA commemorations for some years but has also grown visibly in numbers and in countries of origin.

In previous 1916 commemorations of the AIA, songs had been performed by singers but that feature was missing this year. Another missing feature was a part-address in the Irish language, au contraire to the main speaker’s call for the restoration of Irish as the nation’s spoken language.

In common with a great many commemorations by varied organisations at this spot, there was no mention of the independent National Graves Association, for whose work and the monument itself much thanks are due.

A large section of the participants chose to have their photo taken in a group with the monument behind them, their flags, banners and the portraits of the Seven Signatories of the Proclamation to the fore. (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The call for unity in struggle is a common one in the Socialist and Republican movement though less verified in practice across their organisations. That said, on many occasions the AIA has put the desire into practice in joint action with other organisations and independent activists.

It is certain that without general unity in action across the resistance movement in Ireland, neither independence nor revolutionary change in society can be achieved.

In the city centre, at the GPO,⁵ site of the HQ of the Rising in 1916, the State held its own commemoration, with admittance to the area close to the podium by ticket only. According to reports, the speeches of the Taoiseach⁶ of the Coalition Government were received in silence.

This was in contrast to the speech of the new Uachtarán or President, a native Irish speaker and of broadly left-nationalist political outlook, which was enthusiastically applauded.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1However, no other instructions were given in the language, not even ‘dhá líne’ (i.e two lines) when the marchers were being instructed by stewards to separate into two columns.

2Omitted, as it often is, was the participation of the Hibernian Rifles unit, who though not part of the planned Rising joined it and acquitted themselves well in the GPO Garrison and in support of the City Hall Garrison.

3Communist Party of Ireland and Independent Dublin Republicans.

4This air and its lyrics are widely considered the National Anthem of Ireland but for the State, it is only the air of the chorus that is their National Anthem. Composed shortly before the Rising by Peadar Kearney and Patrick Heeney in English, it was sung during the Rising and widely adopted by the Republican movement afterwards. The lyrics were translated to Irish by Liam Ó Rinn in 1923 and, unusually, that version became dominant.

5The General Post Office, an imposing building in Dublin’s main thoroughfare,¹ for which recently the Irish Government announced plans to remove the An Post (postal service) to develop in part as a shopping centre.

6Equivalent to Prime Minister. The Government is a coalition of formerly hostile parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, from oppositional sides of the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) and supported by the Green Party and some Independents.

USEFUL LINKS

Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland: https://www.facebook.com/p/An-Phoblacht-Ab%C3%BA-61551946386300/

The National Graves Association: https://www.nga.ie/
https://www.facebook.com/NationalGravesAssociation/

MARCH TO MONUMENT, RALLY – INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S DAY CELEBRATED IN DUBLIN

On March 23, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, History commemoration, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Resistance Art, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

The recognised date known as International Working Women’s Day is March 8^th and it was commemorated on that date with a march and revolutionary words and symbolism organised by Irish Socialist Republicans in Dublin.

The marchers gathered outside Wynn’s Hotel in Lower Abbey Street, to mark the founding there of the revolutionary Republican military women’s organisation, Cumann na mBan, on 2 April 1914. The organisation, with its own officers, was possibly the first of its kind for women in the world.¹

From there the march set off into O’Connell Street, then marching southward to cross the Liffey into D’Olier Street before turning left into Townsend Street, continuing to the statue of Constance Markievicz where the colour party’s flags were lowered in respect.

*The march near the start in O’Connell St* (photo credit: *An Pobal Abú FB page*)

Throughout, chants of “Ní Saoirse go Saoirse na mBan”² and “Britain out of Ireland” reverberated through the streets of Dublin as banners displayed the slogans “coinníonn na mná suas leath na spéire / women hold up half the sky” and “Queers Against Imperialism”.

Markievicz was an active member of Iníní na hÉireann, the Irish Citizen Army and of Cumann na mBan. She was part of the command of the Stephens Green/ College of Surgeons garrison in 1916 and elected MP on an abstentionist ticket in 1918 and Minister of Labour in the First Dáil in 1919.

Continuing along Townsend Street and ending at Elizabeth O’Farrell park where a commemoration was held outside in honour of the role of women in the struggle for national liberation while the colour party took up position inside the park.

A woman read a speech on behalf of the AIA, tracing founding of International Women’s Day from when women in Russia in 1917 had led strikes and marches against the Tsar and WW1, later becoming known as the February Revolution, leading later to the October Socialist Revolution.

The speaker went on to speak of the role of women in the Republican struggle, from Cumann na mBan, the Irish Citizen Army and Armagh Gaol Republican prisoners, followed by a woman reading the 1916 Proclamation of Independence and the burning of two green flares.

A new plaque of the Socialist Republican Mairéad Farrell was unveiled with the laying also of a commemorative wreath during a minute’s silence observed for all revolutionary women and gender oppressed people who gave their lives for national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle.

The Colour Party in Elizabeth O’Farrell Park (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

At the same time the colour party lowered their flags in respect, during which the command calls in Irish rang out in the area through the silence.

The area in which the Elizabeth O’Farrell and her life-long friend Julia Grenan³ grew up is a south Dublin docklands still largely working class area. It was in a yard in Lombard Street nearby, actually within sight of the park, that the IRB (Fenians) was founded on March 17^th 1858.

*Laying of the wreath* (photo credit: *An Pobal Abú FB page*)

Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grenan both participated in the 1916 Rising and, along with Winifred Carney, refused to join the earlier evacuation from the burning GPO building on the Friday, later participating in the final evacuation which ended in the central terrace in Moore Street.

When the leadership took the decision to surrender, O’Farrell went out to negotiate under a white flag even though a man had been killed under such a flag earlier in the very street. In 1922, along with almost the entirety of Cumann na mBan and the ICA, she rejected the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Many women were interned by the nascent neo-colonial Irish Government.

After the Elizabeth O’Farrell Park event, people gathered again at a recently-occupied social centre in Dublin, to view an exhibition of images in honour of the day and to watch an English-subtitled French-language film about women and the Omani Resistance, followed by a music session.⁴

*Part of exhibition for International Working Women’s Day in the social centre* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

End.

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Footnotes

1In its early years the organisation worked mainly as an auxiliary to the Irish Volunteers but asserted greater independence at a later stage. It coincided in time with the women in the Irish Citizen Army who shared equal status with male members and indeed in the case of some of them, such as Markievicz and Lynn, actually commanded men. Wynne’s Hotel was also where the decision to found the Irish Volunteers had been taken in 1913.

2Translated as ‘There can be no freedom until women are free.’

3And life partner, many have speculated – certainly they lived together until the end.

4The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived by Heiny Srour

Useful links

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551946386300

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

The Nazis Never Went Away: Israel, Allianz and Holocaust Companies.

On March 13, 2026March 17, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Fascism, History, Human Rights, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Popular Resistance, World War Two, ZionismLeave a comment

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(Reprinted from author’s substack on 01/03/2026 and reformatted for WordPress. All graphic images created or chosen by R. Breeze editor)

The English band Chumbawamba recorded a song called The Day The Nazi Died about how the Nazis never really went away.¹

The song references the Nazi leader Rudolf Hess, who was not executed following WWII but was instead held a prisoner in Spandau Prison until he took his own life at the age of 93.

The song asks why when we were told that the Nazis had died did they all come out on the day Hess died and points to the boardrooms of companies as maggots getting fat on the decaying flesh of capitalist society.

The band were not wrong. Some of the Nazis and boards of companies that did not go away are now involved in the genocide in Palestine.

Goosestepping as a military parade practice has gone out of fashion in most Western countries, but stomping on the peoples of the world is very much in fashion.

Many companies such as Porsche, Mercedes, Volkswagen and even IG Farben – the manufacturers of the gas used to murder millions in the camps – went unpunished after WWII. Some companies were even compensated for the damage to their factories.

Lots of other German companies passed under the radar.

Hugo Boss was never taken to task for making the Nazis look so sexy in their murderous swagger and Allianz the German insurance company that insured parts of the camps and the ghettos against fire and damage to their installations survived intact.

Apparently, they didn’t specifically insure the ovens or gas chambers, but the camps were a whole unit. Any part insured contributed to all of it running smoothly.

Of course those who died in the gas chambers and were pushed like peat brickettes through the ovens were not covered, just the Nazi property.

Hugo Boss can make no claims to being pressured, he was a member of the Nazi party before Hitler ever took power. He wasn’t betting on which horse won the race, he was the horse in the race.

Allianz likes to present itself as just another company that did business with the Nazis in order to continue functioning and that they had no choice, Krupps makes similar claims about its use of slave labour, saying they had to.

That is a dubious claim, when you look at their history. But also morally there is no basis to it. You always have the choice, some Germans lost their lives fighting the Nazis, not losing your money is hardly an excuse.

What companies such as Allianz did is make a cost benefit analysis. They calculated that not doing business with the Nazis would affect their profits, so they insured the camps but not the people pushed through the ovens.

The company claims a certain naivety on its part about what was happening.

But you can only take that at face value if you ignore that the director general of the company the antisemite Dr Kurt Schmitt resigned his post with Allianz in 1933 to become Hitler’s first Reich Minister of Economic Affairs.

He had previously turned down the post when it was offered to him by the Von Papen government before the Nazis took over.

He had to step down for health reasons, but when he recovered he went back to Allianz to administer it. It also claims it made no money from the camps contract.

This does not mean there was no money to be made, it means it wasn’t as profitable a contract as it thought, but it managed to get other contracts from the Nazis.

If you read the company’s website you come away with the distinct impression that they would like us to think they were a victim of the Nazis and we should pity them.

It turns out because they were on the losing side and because the war didn’t go ahead as planned with Hitler steamrollering his way to Moscow, the war was not as profitable as it should have been for insurance companies.

In the following quote it is clear that 1943, following the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad, the tide turned not only in the war but in the accounts ledgers.

After Germany overran Poland in 1939, the business of the insurance sector became characterized by the risks associated with the war.

Doing business in wartime meant obeying the principle of “minimizing new dangers and taking maximum advantage of new business opportunities.”

The repercussions of the war were detrimental to business as a whole and at the end of the war, Allianz was on the brink of ruin. Even so, until 1943 the company had managed to increase its profits by a considerable margin.²

Even today the company whitewashes its record and states in glowing language that:

Kurt Schmitt’s energetic course of expansion in the 1920s had made Allianz the largest insurance company in Germany. In 1933, Schmitt became Minister of Economic Affairs in Adolf Hitler’s government.

In 1935, he resigned from this post as he was unable to implement his political ideas and his health was failing. After his recovery, he returned to Allianz and in 1938 became General Director of Munich Re.³

No, not true, the Nazi stepped down because he had a heart attack, not over disagreements about economic policy and though it is not stated, there is a sleight of hand which leaves you wondering whether he had disagreements over the treatment of Jews.

This antisemite had no such disagreements with the Nazis at all. He was well known to them before they ever took power. He knew who and what they were.

The company’s site is not that detailed about the period and there are lots of sleights of hands in how it presents information. For example, it is mentioned that the company opposed Nazi attempts to nationalise the insurance industry.

But not because they opposed the Nazis, but because it might affect their profit margins.

But not even Allianz can completely deny reality. Their site does acknowledge that it began to come clean about its role following a lawsuit in the US against insurance companies and set up a study into its activities.⁴

It did it, because it was forced to. Had they really been forced to insure the Nazis against their will they wouldn’t have waited till 1997 to start publicly owning up.

They commissioned Dr Feldman a Jewish historian to look at their history. He quotes Schmitt as talking about the Nazi position on Jews as explained to him by Göring that:

I must honestly say, that I had no reservations about this line, for it cannot objectively be contested that in our public and intellectual life, beginning with the Reichstag, in the press, and also in many scientific faculties, in the legal field and above all in the Berlin banking business, the Jews had too strong and too loud and also an unhealthy influence.⁵

Feldman goes on to say of this that:

…it is important to recognize that the responsibility for the evils that he [Schmitt] and his organization [Allianz] were to experience and perpetrate during the coming years lay to an important extent in the fact that he (and others like him) shared a political culture and an anti-Semitic posture that made the coming and installation of the Third Reich possible.⁶

Of Schmitt he says that:

Schmitt was rather more enthusiastic and active than his colleagues in pandering to the new order at this time.

Not only was he prominently on display at the aforementioned Hitler birthday festivities, he also catered to the “socialistic” side of the regime while playing the public defender of employer interests with the new rulers as well.⁷

Now we have come full circle. The people who tried to profit from the Third Reich and the camps are once again involved in a genocide, not only as an insurance company but also as a direct investor.

Allianz has invested USD 960 million in Israeli war bonds, or genocide bonds as they are more accurately known. I

n 50 years’ time, they might hire some Palestinian historian to write the history of collaboration in yet another genocide and their website might just say they had no choice but to maximise profits in line with their legal duty to their shareholders or some such rubbish.

Last time, none of the Allianz board were sent to the gallows. They all did very well out of the war and the company went on to become not just Germany’s largest insurance company but a major player in the global insurance industry.

It is as the Chumbawamba song says:

The world is riddled with maggots; the maggots are getting fat
They’re making a tasty meal of all the bosses and bureaucrats
They’re taking over the boardrooms, and they’re fat and full of pride.

This time, should we ever get a day of reckoning to cite the much abused quote from Karl Marx we should make no excuses for the terror. They should have all their assets confiscated and they should meet their end hanging from a rope.

So if you meet with these historians, I’ll tell you what to say
Tell them that the Nazis never really went away.
They’re out there burning houses down and peddling racist lies
And we’ll never rest again until every Nazi dies.

End.

Note: You may wish to read other articles by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh on his substack https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com/

Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.

1 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLkPwxcIji0

2 See https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/company/history/allianz-in-the-nazi-era/world-war-ii.html

3 See https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/company/history/allianz-in-the-nazi-era/humans.html

4 See https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/company/history/allianz-in-the-nazi-era/insurance-compensation.html#tabpar_6554_1Tab

5 Feldman, G.D (2001) Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945. Berkley. University of California Press p.58

6 Ibid., p.59

7 Ibid., p.66

Iran’s Resistance Sparks Hatred in the Spanish Left

On March 8, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, Palestine, Political Analysis, Spanish State, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Translated by R. Breeze from Spanish-language post in Bultza, Basque Marxist-Leninist Telegram channel, 2 March 2026

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The armed resistance of the Palestinian people—the vast majority of whom are Muslim—has stirred up a kind of “neither-nor” sentiment. The “progressive” left refuses to take sides.

They labelled the acts of armed resistance on October 7, 2023, as terrorism and equated them with the genocidal policies of the State of Israel. Was terrorism that which the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto waged in their guerrilla operations against the Nazi occupation army?

This is not the first time we have heard the hackneyed rhetoric against the Muslim religion. A discourse cloaked in a “progressive” mantle, where they speak of human rights, freedoms, women’s rights, and so on.

Some even compare it to the Franco regime in a display of “intellectualism.” A comparison that cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny of logic. Did the Franco regime confront the greatest empire on the planet? Quite the contrary.

The fact that Francoism and its entire cultural and political apparatus existed was thanks, among other things, to the largest empire in the world today: the United States.

Trump has spoken, on several occasions, about how the Iranian government oppresses its people through Islam, that “the regime of the ayatollahs” must be overthrown, etc. This discourse has also been echoed by several European leaders, including the “progressive” Pedro Sánchez.

A few weeks ago, we heard Gabriel Rufián¹—the future leader of the “re-establishment of the Left”—saying that the burka and the hijab should be banned. But there is one aspect they all have in common: they all say this from NATO countries.

Countries that exploit the wealth of every continent, including Muslim countries where religion is not conceived in the same way as it is in imperialist countries. Yet, they say absolutely nothing about the Atlanticist organization. They do not question its crimes.

In addition to discrimination based on religion, there are two more forms: discrimination based on belonging to a culture different from Western culture (imperialism and colonization) and class discrimination.

The “progressive” Left only mobilises when the oppressed are portrayed as victims, not when they gain strength and resist the assaults. In other words, if you are massacred by the empire, they will offer you alms. If you resist, you become the target of their criticism.

We’ve already seen this with the constant denunciations of the Palestinian armed resistance, or the scant impact the resistance of the Shiite armed movement Hezbollah, which has repeatedly halted Israeli Zionism, has had on the Spanish population.

We’ve also seen it when the Shiite movement Ansar Allah fired rockets at the US Sixth Fleet, cutting off the Red Sea and Israeli communications.

In other words, the “progressive” left supports you if you die, not when you fight.

It’s the practical application of putting money into the coffers of the missions. If you’re a sovereign country seeking liberation from imperialist yokes and you fight with all your might, you’re labelled a terrorist and an oppressor.

And the media plays a significant role in this, the same media on which progressives occasionally complain of not being given as much airtime as before.

In the words of the African American leader Malcolm X: Beware of the media; they will make you hate the oppressed and love the oppressor.

In the world of social media, we easily lose our memory. Therefore, it’s necessary to remember that the Algerian separatists of the National Liberation Front were Marxist-Leninists. And this didn’t prevent them from also being Muslim.

The People’s Republic of North Yemen—Muslim—along with the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, supported the anti-fascist armed movements in the Spanish state.

In other words, Islam and anti-imperialist (and anti-fascist) resistance are concepts that have gone hand in hand on numerous occasions.

The USSR itself not only maintained but also promoted madrasas, or Islamic schools, in Muslim-majority territories. Was the USSR—the world’s first secular state—the same as Francoist Spain? But perhaps this doesn’t mean much to the progressive, or the purist of the moment.

In the 1960s, there emerged in Latin America a concept called Liberation Theology. This movement led to the creation of armed groups of Catholic origin whose demands included socialism and social justice.

Movements like the Montoneros in Argentina and the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) emerged from this context. It is important to remember Father Carlos Mugica, the priest and guerrilla leader.

These armed movements caused considerable headaches for Washington’s Operation Condor and all the dictatorships imposed by the School of the Americas—dictatorships that, incidentally, sympathised with and admired Francoism.

Were these guerrilla priests the same as their enemies in the White House and their puppets?

These movements resonated in Spain. This theory spread throughout the Basque Country and the working-class neighbourhoods of major cities like Madrid and Barcelona, as well as regions like Andalusia.

The parishes of Vallecas, Carabanchel, Moratalazo, and Vicálvaro² became meeting places for numerous anti-Francoist movements and groups, where these same worker-priests were active.

A very recent example is that of Father Diamantino García: one of the founders of the Andalusian Rural Workers’ Union (predecessor of the Andalusian Workers’ Union). Were these worker-priests the same as Francoism?

Fr. Diamentino Garcia Acosta (1943-1995) addressing a worker’s rally.

Let’s remove once and for all the veil that prevents us from seeing the reality of Third World countries. Who are we to tell oppressed countries what to do? Isn’t that just another form of imperialism? Do we fight in the same way they do?

We cannot view the processes of decolonization and liberation of those who are fighting with all their might against the West and its empire through Western eyes.

To paraphrase our Asturian comrades from La Clase Trabayadora:³ we must put an end to the left wing of imperialism and all that it entails. Even in the cultural sphere.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1MP and spokesperson of the Ezquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalan Republican Left) in the Spanish Congress, also active in left-social democratic coalition Súmate and the grassroots National Assembly of Catalunya. (R.Breeze)

2Particularly working-class areas of Madrid (R.Breeze)

3Anti-NATO and anti-rearming organisation based in Asturies. (R.Breeze)

THE QUISLING PA KILLS TEENAGER & CHILD WHILE HUNTING PALESTINIAN FOR ISRAEL

On February 24, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The quisling Palestine Authority killed a three-year-old girl and her teenage brother Ali in an ambush to capture their father, Amer Samara, whom they also shot in both legs. The reason? Amer was wanted by ‘Israel’.

If the PA represents the Palestinian people, why would they even try to arrest someone for the Occupation, never mind open fire on the family car? But this is not out of character – Samara is not the first member of the Resistance wanted by ‘Israel’ that the PA have hunted or even killed.

In May 2024, the PA forces shot dead Ahmed Abed-Foul in his car in Tulkarem and in December of that year also killed Yazeed Jayasa’a, a senior member of the Jenin Brigade of Islamic Jihad. In January 2025 they killed father and son Mahmoud and Qasem al-Jalqamousi, also in Jenin.

In March 2025, again in Jenin refugee camp, they added Abdul Rahman Abu al-Muna of Islamic Jihad to their toll, the PA calling him ‘an outlaw’. There are others who were captured alive and fill the PA’s prison while others, after highlighting by the PA, are arrested by the IOF.

Some escaped for awhile, like the wounded Abu Sujaa(Mohamed Jaber), when the community packed the hospital and prevented the PA from arresting him. The PA fired tear gas inside the hospital, pepper-sprayed and batoned people, including women but had to leave empty-handed.¹

*Photos of Rozan Samara before and in hospital after being shot by PA armed forces. She died shortly afterwards, as had her teenage brother, also shot by the PA.* (Photo sourced: *Palestine Chronicle*)

And not just resistance fighters but also dissenters, critics of Fatah, the PA and its repression like activist Nizar Banat in June 2021, beaten to death.² Palestinians in the West Bank have to be careful what they post about the PA on social media because people get arrested or beaten up for that too.

The creation of the PA is part of the Oslo pacification process of 1993-2000.³ The secular then-resistance organisation Fatah got elected in the West Bank and Gaza to run it, run by their man Mahmoud Abbas but in the next elections, people overwhelmingly voted for Hamas instead.

The western imperialists couldn’t manipulate Hamas and refused to recognise the people’s wish and so cut their finances. Fatah tried to ignore the election results in Gaza which led to a short civil war which Hamas won, then taking the positions to which they had been elected there.

In the West Bank, Hamas also had the majority of votes but pulled back from civil war, so Abbas held on to his and Fatah’s corrupt and repressive fiefdom, never holding elections again because they would lose them. Even the western imperialists admit that PA needs radical reform.

But they do so for the same reason that they support the two-state solution (sic), as a Quisling neo-colonial administration to buy off while it divides, spies upon and controls the Palestinian people on 20% of Palestinian land under the guns and eyes of the Israeli Zionists.

The Zionists however no longer desire even this, wanting now only the elimination of any idea of Palestine, hence the genocide and holocaust they are committing in Gaza and the further takeover of the West Bank, settler attacks on Palestinians and further expansion of Jewish settlements.

Reluctance to picket or denounce them?

To my knowledge the representative of the PA in Ireland has been confronted publicly and accused of working for a quisling organisation only once and their official residence in Dublin picketed only twice. I am glad to say I was able to attend on those two occasions.⁴

*View of Palestine solidarity marchers picketing the PA’s Palestine Dublin Embassy (building on the top right of photo) in January 2025* (*Photo sourced*: R.Breeze)

The public denunciation of the PA Ambassador was by a small group of Palestinians at a Belfast Sinn Féin meeting she was addressing a very little over two years ago⁵. The Palestinians⁶ were quickly silenced and evicted to cheers from many in the attendance.

Meanwhile, the PA continues to work against the majority of Palestinian society, both inside Israel-occupied territories and in the diaspora, continues its corruption and nepotism and repression against Palestinian dissent with active operations against those wanted by the occupying Zionists.

The PA is getting a relatively free from criticism ride in Ireland and some may say this is in order not to split the solidarity movement. But the split between the people and their traitors is already there and is marked by the actions of the collaborators.

*View of section of the crowd protesting the Palestine Authority’s Dublin Embassy (in photo background) in January 2025*. (Photo sourced: *R.Breeze*)

Some may object that exposing the PA will distract from the movement of solidarity with Palestine. How so, do they claim? Collaborators are an important part of occupation and repression and exposing them is an integral part of resistance and solidarity work.

Epstein, Trump, Mandelson etc are all part of the same evil and exposing them, far from being a distraction, shows us the linkages between them, amplifies the call for solidarity with the Palestinian people and educates us in the struggle for a just world.

The representatives of the PA should be shunned by all who are in genuine solidarity with the Palestinian people but furthermore their representatives and offices should be picketed frequently in order to expose them and what they represent.

We need to ask ourselves whether we really support the Palestinian people or do so while somehow also tolerating its quislings and traitors. Have we learned nothing from our own history and our cultural hatred, expressed in song and story, of collaborators, traitors, agents and informers?

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

Murder of Nizar Banat by PA police: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/24/critic-of-palestinian-authority-dies-during-arrest

Failure to punish Banat’s murderers: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/justice-remains-elusive-two-years-after-the-killing-of-palestinian-dissident-nizar-banat/

PICKETING THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IN DUBLIN

“SOLIDARITY WITH THE RESISTANCE” AND “DOWN WITH COLLABORATION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY!”

1 https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/07/26/palestine-authority-prevented-from-arresting-resistance-fighter-in-hospital/

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/24/critic-of-palestinian-authority-dies-during-arrest

3Although the Epstein scandals have now reached the Oslo Pacification (my word) Process, any anti-imperialist or even anti-colonialist should have seen through this (and any of the associated pacification processes) right away. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/oslo-accord-negotiator-s-epstein-links-raise-questions-about-integrity-of-middle-east-peace-process-report/3828636

4August 2024 and January 2025. https://rebelbreeze.com/2025/01/29/solidarity-with-the-resistance-and-down-with-collaboration-of-the-palestinian-authority/

5 https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/palestinian-protesters-criticise-sinn-fein-after-being-ejected-from-belfast-rally-ANEZSGBQZFHQZHARJVRANEX5IU/ Of course, SF, like the ANC in South Africa are deeply implicated in the Pacification Processes of the late last century and each used the support of the other to promote it to their own fighters and supporters.

6The protesters were also calling on SF not to attend the US Presidential St. Patrick’s Day party; SF did so that year (as in all years previously invited) but felt obliged to skip it in 2025.

RESIST IMPERIALISM BUT NOT COLONIALISM?

On February 8, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialismo, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

There is an unfortunate trend in the socialist movement in Ireland to underplay or even to completely ignore the continuing colonial occupation of Ireland, while at the same time raising the other evils of imperialism and capitalism.

This harmful trend is epitomised by an article from Paul Murphy in the current issue of the ecosocialist Rupture magazine¹ (of RISE, a network of the People Before Profit political party) – without conscious irony entitled THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOME – TODAY.

In the piece under discussion, Murphy discusses the blocs forming up in contention and for world war, with the US leading the western bloc and China-Russia the Eastern,² with the ruling classes of the EU and Ireland lined up with the USA, though the Irish State is not yet a part of NATO.

This is a correct analysis by Murphy and he is right to call for defence of the Triple Lock³ as far as we can in order to prevent or at least impede the Irish ruling class from dragging the population of the Irish state into imperialist war.

Invoking the threat of NATO as a war-making alliance and danger to the limited neutrality of the Irish state is of course absolutely correct. But how can the actual NATO membership of the Occupied Six Counties be ignored in that analysis? Yet Murphy does so, completely.

Murphy is neither blind nor stupid and one must suspect that he does not mention Britain’s Irish colony because his former and current parties both fear to mix their ‘class politics’ with any kind of Irish nationalism – even anti-colonialism – or to find common cause with Irish Republicans.

Those parties took a sudden interest in the potential politics of a united Ireland only when discussion of that possibility was being thrown around in the media and by some political actors.⁴ But before and afterwards, they ignored them (except on occasion to castigate Irish Republicans).

The ‘enemy at home’ is indeed, as Murphy states, Irish capitalism – however not also British colonialism? But it cannot be ignored that Irish capitalism is subservient to British colonialism, US and EU imperialism. Well, can’t be ignored by revolutionaries that is, whether Marxist or not.

*Ireland as treated in the Rupture analysis – but something’s missing!* (Image sourced: Internet)

It was through analysis of the subservience of the Irish capitalist class that Connolly wrote that “Only the Irish working class remains as the only incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland”⁵ – and that was even before the bourgeois counter-revolution/ Civil War of 1922-’23.

Murphy, PBP and the Socialist Party are all fond of quoting James Connolly but only selectively and never on the question of overthrowing British rule in Ireland.⁶

A TIMELY WARNING

Before ending let us note that Paul Murphy’s words are not those of some green novitiate; aside from being a TD,⁷ he is a long-standing member of the Irish Trotskyist movement, formerly a leading member of the Irish Socialist Party before he left it to join PBP-Solidarity.⁸

Furthermore he has been active at times in street events and was one of the Jobstown Five who were arrested in early-morning raids by the Gardaí and tried but found ‘not guilty’ on charges of ‘kidnapping’ Joan Burton, Tánaiste⁹ of the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition government.¹⁰

We are entitled to assume, given his prominence and the article’s publication, that Murphy’s political position outlined here is one with which PBP-Solidarity and Rise find no serious disagreement, to the disgrace of any party claiming to be Marxist and revolutionary in Ireland.

Furthermore, their position gives activists timely warning once again that although we may well join with PBP on certain issues, including opposition to US imperialism, they will not be found to the serious side against British colonialism in Ireland or in any fully-committed struggle against NATO.

While upholding principles of a broad front, in any struggle we need to be fairly sure of which forces will stand with us to the end and which may drop us, perhaps even at the worst and most dangerous moment.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1p.5, Issue 17, Winter 2025-2026

2In the course of which Murphy states that Russia is an imperialist country but neglects to show any evidence of that. Capitalist and undemocratic does not equal imperialist, which Marxists today understand as the export of finance capital to extract super-profits from under-developed lands through exploitation of the labour there and plunder of their natural resources.

3Ireland’s “Triple Lock” is a policy requiring UN mandate, Government approval, and Parliamentary approval before more than 12 Irish troops may be deployed in overseas support operations.

4Though never taken seriously by some, including myself. I commented that British colonialism/imperialism had many opportunities to end their colonial rule in Ireland and on each occasion had dug their heels in harder, most recently by fighting a vicious war of three decades. In addition, if it were ever even half-considered, it is the British who would decide what the proper majority percentage would be, after which it would need to be agreed in Westminster and then approved by the British Monarch.

5Connolly’s foreword to his Labour in Irish History (1910), last line of the final full paragraph. https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/foreword.htm

6Sadly it is also true that many Irish Republicans quote Connolly only in the reverse, i.e. only about Ireland’s national liberation struggle.

7Teachta Dála, elected member of the lower house of the parliament of the Irish State.

8People Before Profit is now what used to be called the Socialist Workers’ Party, an iteration of a British-based Trotskyist party, as is the Irish Socialist Party similarly of the British-based Socialist Party.

9The Tánaiste is equivalent to Deputy Prime Minister in the UK and many other parliamentary systems.

10(2011-2014)

THOUSANDS OF ISIS FIGHTERS FREED IN SYRIAN FORCES ASSAULT ON AL-SHADADDI PRISON

On January 19, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Kurdistan, NATO, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Religious Sectarianism, Syria, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

Thousands of ex-ISIL (ISIS) fighters and their families have been freed during the Syrian government forces assault on the SDF-guarded Al-Shaddadi jail. Both sides blame the other for the release although the Government forces admit their assault.

The SDF, mainly Kurdish forces supported by the US/ NATO coalition to oust the former Assad regime, have been guarding an estimated 10,000 prisoners in the jail since the collapse of the ISIS offensive in the region.¹

Observers have feared the release of the ISIS fighters and their ‘radicalised’ families since the December 2024 collapse of the Assad regime in a Turkey-supported offensive.

That attack was led by Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, former Al Qaeda fighter and second-in-command of the ISIS-supported al-Nusra forces in Syria, a coalition of fundamental Islamist jihadists fighting under ISIS leadership though their leader claims to have fundamentally changed.

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa changed his name to al-Jolani and claims to have renounced ISIS, proclaimed himself President of Syria and filled his cabinet with ‘former’ ISIS commanders, since which Western imperialist leaders have accepted him and Trump praised him greatly.

*Cartoon by Carlos Latuf depicting the Western imperialist makeover of the ISIS Ahmed al-Sharaa to al-Jolani, self-appointed President of Syria* (Sourced: *Internet*)

The western powers cancelled his designation of ‘terrorist’, presented their compliments at his throne, some, including French and German envoys, travelling to meet him² (even before the $10m bounty on his head³ had been removed). Or invited him to call, as Macron did for France.⁴

Al-Jolani offered friendship to ‘Israel’ even as the IOF occupied additional parts of Syria and bombed any remaining military installations of the Assad regime.⁵

THE KURDISH-LED SDF, TURKEY AND AL-JOLANI

The objective of the SDF had been to overthrow Assad so as to form a Kurdish state within Syria in order to link up with other Kurdish regions to create a federal Kurdish state. Turkey feared this project, having fought decades of bloody war against the PKK in its own Kurdish region.

*Apologies for use of CIA map but difficult to get publishable image showing Kurdish-controlled areas within Syria.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Consequently Turkey was at odds with US/NATO forces and the participation of the SDF within it, although Trump, as his previous Presidency drew to an end, publicly withdrew support for the Kurdish coalition. Turkey has welcomed the Damascus forces defeat of the SDF.

Since al-Jolani and his own coalition came to power, he attempted to integrate the SDF fighters within his own forces. The Kurds reluctantly agreed but insisted they be incorporated as a unit and not dispersed among al-Jolani’s forces, a proposal declined by the new President.

Since then there have been numerous clashes between the different forces, with the SDF holding their own, until the recent few days when they lost a number of strongholds, including that guarding the Al-Shaddadi prison, leading to thousands of former ISIS fighters being freed.

This prison breach, welcomed by Turkey,⁶ must be viewed with horror by many Syrians, in particular by the Yazidi, Alawite, Druze and Christian communities who have been subjected to home invasions, humiliation and massacres, along with rape and kidnapping of women.⁷

Neighbouring Iraq, Lebanon and even Jordan have cause to worry too.

*Again, difficulty in getting publishable map showing Syria with its neighbours but also Iran.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

In sifting through the disputing claims, it is worth noting that the SDF claimed that the International Coalition base, only two kilometres away from the jail in Syria’s Hasakah province, did not respond to calls for assistance⁸ and the SDF denounced the failure of the USA’s forces to support them.⁹

It is relevant too that the SDF are not Islamist Jihadists and fought them many times in Syria, although it is true that the Western powers, while supporting the SDF, also supported and instigated ISIS to overthrow Assad, although bombing them too in periodic control operations.¹⁰

Events from the coming to power of Al-Jolani to the freeing of the Al-Shaddadi Prison may hold lessons of importance too for some strains of the Western Left and Liberals who supported the insurgent opposition to Assad in favour of ‘democracy’ while parroting mass media propaganda.¹¹

It may also add a cautionary example to the dictum that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, often quoted by otherwise anti-imperialists who supported the IDF’s alliance with the US/NATO to overthrow the Assad regime.¹²

CUI BONO? WHO GAINS?

**What now?** (Cartoon *by D.Breatnach*)

One might think that the Western Powers, who have been in coalitions fighting ISIS and have suffered some attacks on themselves, including the Al Qaeda attack on New York’s Twin Towers, would be strongly opposed to this liberation of thousands of experienced Islamist jihadist fighters.

But if so, how are we to understand the refusal of the Coalition forces to intervene during the attack on the SDF forces guarding the jail? Or the Western Powers legitimising of the Al-Jolani regime running Syria, despite the al-Nusra background and religious sectarian massacres since?

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the imperialist powers wish to see those Islamic fundamentalist ex-fighters freed — but what could be their purpose? To instigate an internal conflict in Lebanon, perhaps, occupying Hezbollah away from ‘Israel’ and excusing foreign intervention?

Or keeping the Iraqi Government busy and deepening its reliance on US forces just as it seems to be asserting some independence. Or to sent north-eastwards against Iran. One thing is clear, the Western Powers allowed it and the reason nothing to do with concern about jail conditions.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1At the end of 2020, the U.S.-backed militia in northeast Syria held at least 10,000 ISIS prisoners, one of the largest populations of detained Islamists in the Middle East. Thousands of ISIS fighters were captured as the Islamic State collapsed in early 2019. The fighters were held in approximately 14 detention centers operated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-trained Kurdish and Arab militia that fought ISIS in Syria. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/islamists-imprisoned-across-middle-east

2 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/03/middleeast/eu-ministers-syria-visit-intl

3US scraps $10m bounty for arrest of Syria’s new leader Sharaa: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07gv3j818ko

4 https://thecradle.co/articles/julani-in-a-suit-how-france-turned-a-pariah-into-a-partner

5 https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250416-syria-leader-jolani-privately-promised-to-normalise-ties-with-israel-by-2026-ex-uk-diplomat-says/

6From The Cradle, on Telegram: Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, said that recent gains by Syrian government forces had “thwarted” attempts by Kurdish groups to obstruct Turkiye’s peace process. Feti Yildiz, deputy leader of the government-aligned Turkish nationalist MHP party, described Sunday’s agreement in Syria as having “a favorable impact.” “Things will become easier,” Yildiz told reporters in the Turkish parliament when asked how the Syrian deal affects the PKK process. “It had been standing like an obstacle, and for now it looks as though that obstacle has been removed.” Turkish security sources, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, called the deal a historic turning point.

7 https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacred-1500-alawites-chain-command-led-damascus-2025-06-30/ and https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/21/the-situation-in-syria-is-worse-now-than-under-isis/

8Quoted in https://shafaq.com/en/Middle-East/Syria-s-SDF-loses-control-of-Al-Shaddadi-prison-holding-ISIS-detainees and many other sources.

9 https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-forces-overrun-isis-prison-as-sdf-condemns-us-inaction

10The SDF contains female Kurdish and Yazidi fighters too which would be anathema to Islamist fundamentalists.

11It should not be understood from this that I was a supporter of the Assad regime; I attended demonstrations against imperialist invasion and regime change while also refusing to support the regime itself. I had arranged with Eva Bartlett, a much-publicised critic of the regime-change operations of the US/NATO forces, to organise a Dublin public meeting for her to address and had her stay at my home. After learning that I was also going to criticise the regime position against the Kurds she left without explanation and I had to cancel the meeting venue booking.

12In discussions with Anarchists of the WSM (organisation no longer in existence) and Irish Republicans of (Éirigí organisation much diminished since and now in coalition with another group) I refuted the correctness of application of this principle to the major imperialist power in the world, the USA. At a conference of the Éirigí group I spoke from the floor in criticism of that and some other aspects of the SDF and was heavily criticised from the floor also while the Chairperson reiterated support for the SDF. Though no-one spoke in my support, at least three Irish Republican activists approached me afterwards to express their support for my statements.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-forces-overrun-isis-prison-as-sdf-condemns-us-inaction

Battle over the jail with different outcome in 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Hasakah_(2022)

See Syria section in https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/islamists-imprisoned-across-middle-east

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/21/the-situation-in-syria-is-worse-now-than-under-isis/

Syria leader Jolani privately promised to normalise ties with Israel by 2026, ex-UK diplomat says

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_al-Sharaa

JUST BECAUSE SHE’S PALESTINIAN DOESN’T MEAN SHE’S RIGHT

On January 9, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Personal Blog, Political Analysis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

A lesson today: an important truth was demonstrated to a number of us protesting by visible presence and song outside the US Embassy (at the weekly Wednesday afternoon Palestine solidarity event there organised by Jimi Cullen).

We were accosted by a woman who said she was Palestinian, didn’t agree that we were supporting Palestine and insisted we should be pushing for peace.

‘Peace with Zionism?’ someone asked.

‘What is Zionism – do you know?’ she responded.

‘Yes, it’s a belief that Jewish religion gives them the right to occupy someone else’s land and kick the indigenous out.’

‘No, that’s not what it is!’ (but failed to elucidate for us what she claims it is).

Then: ‘That flag is not for freedom for Palestine! Do you know when it was created?’

We were saying ‘Yes’ when she started running down Hamas (which didn’t even exist when the flag was designed and popularised).

She kept saying: ‘I’m a Palestinian!’ (as though that meant she must be right and also that we had no right to contradict her).

Just in case we were confused about her wider ideology, she began to attack Venezuela under ‘communist rule’ (sic).

Most of those attending on 7th January, some time after our encounter with the person under discussion. (Photo source: J.Cullen)

THE LESSON

Her intervention and her manner were annoying but she underlined an important point in political discourse: Nobody’s nationality, ethnicity or residency status gives them guaranteed possession of the truth, nor the right to assert that other opinions must for that reason be wrong.

In every country there is a variety of people, including social classes and a range of opinions on important political and social questions. It is likely that some will have very progressive ideological positions, some less so but still progressive, some conservative and some others, reactionary.

It is more complicated even that that, for some might be progressive on some issues but conservative or reactionary on others – and vice versa.

Of course we fight for the right of Palestinian voices to be seen in print and heard on mass media, as a question of justice and also as the voices of witnesses, those who have experienced the genocide at first hand, or at close second hand through family and community.

We disagreed with silencing Palestinian voices objecting to the Palestinian Ambassador (she was a Palestinian too!) addressing a Belfast meeting organised by Sinn Féin in February ‘24 not because they had to be correct as Palestinians but because their objection was an important one to be heard.

The Ambassador does not represent Palestine but rather the Palestine Authority, which in turn cannot claim to represent the Palestinian people, if for no other reason than that it has not held elections for its Presidency in twenty years.

In fact there are many other reasons including financial corruption, nepotism, repression of any kind of criticism, collusion with the Zionist Occupation, jailing Resistance fighters and actually killing some. Those critics – even had they not been Palestinian – should have been heard instead of being ejected.

It would have been instructive, educational even, to listen to the condemnation by Palestinians of an official who claimed to represent them. But of course, the Sinn Féin party, like nearly all states and all western political parties of any size, supports the Palestinian Authority and its Embassy.¹

In this case, it appears from what they were saying and what we can verify, that the Palestinian critics were correct and we know too that the Ambassador is wrong and in fact illegitimate, both in representation status and also in terms of national sovereignty.

But when people claim possession of the truth and immunity from criticism solely on the basis of where they are from or to what ethnic or other group they belong, we need to oppose that undemocratic cloak very resolutely as they use it to close down debate and education.

It’s not only the person claiming a kind of ethnic certainty we must beware of but often also the one who claims to speak for them, who takes a position as their defender and therefore their spokesperson for the truth. Apart from being patronising, such a position is wrong in principle.

And usually opportunist in essence.

This general principle holds true with regard to individuals or groups from any social or ethnic group or community, whether Palestinian, West Asian, Muslim, Six-County, 32-County, homeless, Traveller, working class, disabled, migrant, Irish speaker … etc.

end.

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SOURCES

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

https://www.omsac.org/post/mahmoud-abbas-and-corruption-in-palestine-the-real-obstacles-to-democracy-and-good-governance

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/5/palestinian-authority-suppresses-criticism-of-jenin-operation-in-west-bank

1 https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/why-sinn-fein-love-palestinian-authority

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/palestinian-protesters-criticise-sinn-fein-after-being-ejected-from-belfast-rally-ANEZSGBQZFHQZHARJVRANEX5IU/

NEW YEAR MESSAGE FROM DUBLIN: SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTÍN agus FREE THE HUNGER-STRIKERS!

On January 2, 2026January 2, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Palestine, Political Prisoners, Uncategorized, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Through three events on Saturday, New Year’s Eve in the city centre, Dublin sent a solidarity message to the Palestinian people and also to the solidarity activists on hunger strike in British jails, referencing also those of the Irish Resistance in 1981.

*The Millennium Bridge on New Year’s Eve.* (Photo: *IPSC*)

Chronologically first was a protest in the Starbucks café¹ in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre obliging the management to close for hours and a balcony walkway banner drop calling for solidarity with the Elbit accused on hunger strike, referencing also the Irish hunger-strikes of 1981.²

I had not read the poster carefully and arrived at the Starbucks at the north end of Grafton Street, where there were a few other confused people also. By the time I made my way up to the southern end of Grafton Street, the protest there was about to leave and I was about to head elsewhere.

*Two main banners present at protest outside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, after closing down the Starbucks café inside.* (Photo: *Bas*)

The solidarity crowd continued to demonstrate in the shopping centre’s main doorway before marching away, then went into the Zara³ big shop and demonstrated there awhile before heading on to MacDonald’s in Grafton Street where the Gardaí began to let their nasty side show a little.

*Palestine solidarity protesters leaving the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, heading down to Zara to protest there* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Then another Starbucks, this one on Dame Street got a Palestine solidarity visit before the demonstrators went on to the iconic pedestrian Ha’penny Bridge, where the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign holds a Palestine solidarity protest every New Year’s Eve.

*Closeup of banner-drop inside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, during protest after closing down the Starbucks café inside.* (Photo: *G.O.L*)

There the demonstrators thronged the Ha’penny and Millennium Bridges and spilled out along the quays. I was elsewherefor the first time in years as it was a Wednesday and therefore Jimi Cullen’s weekly protest with songs at the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, this one to be his 97^th straight.

As usual there were police on guard there and one in uniform approached myself and Jimi as we were talking and asked Jimi how long the event would be, how many attending etc. Then she suggested I removed my bike which was leaning against a bollard.

*Conducting the protest inside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve which obliged management to close down for some hours the Starbucks café inside.* (Photo: *G.O.L*)

I told her I was happy with where it was, thank you. Then she said that it might fall on someone (but not, of course, if across the road!), then that someone might steal it, all of which was nonsense of course then said: ‘I am asking you to remove it’ to which I replied ‘And I am declining.’

She was getting quite angry but decided to walk it off. I have attended supporting Jimi’s protest perhaps a score of times and in the early days had a similar approach from a Special Branch⁴ officer who accused me of causing ‘a security risk’ to the Embassy’s ‘curtilage’ (on a public footpath)!

*The Ha’penny Bridge on New Year’s Eve.* (Photo: *IPSC*)

Some police just like to throw their weight around even with regard to things that have nothing to do with the law or causing harm to anyone and over which they have no legal power.

Anyway we unfurled the flags, Jimi had a placard displayed, got out his guitar and we sang through week 97 to frequent waves, clapping, thumbs up, clenched fists, shouts and horn blowing of appreciation and solidarity from passing motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.

*Section of northern quays/ Boardwalk on New Year’s Eve, during protest after closing down the Starbucks café inside.* (Photo: *IPSC*)

Jimi began this weekly protest outside the Israeli Embassy but when they left Ireland he moved up the road to the nearby US Embassy, representative of the world leader in terrorism and biggest supporter, politically, financially and militarily of the world’s leading genocider entity.

Usually there are more supporters present. Jimi has a fine stock of protest and solidarity songs, some of which he composed himself and performs them well. Today we did mostly Irish songs of struggle but also one from the black civil rights struggle and Jimi’s own about Palestine.

*Jimi Cullen and myself at Jimi’s weekly event outside the US Embassy on New Year’s Eve.* (Photo: *J.Cullen*)

We had a number of Palestinian flags there but also two Starry Plough flags and there were some Irish Tricolours to be seen on the other protests among the many Palestinian ones. It is from our own struggle that we stand in solidarity with Palestine.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.cjpme.org/fs_241

2Ten Irish Republican prisoners, seven IRA and three INLA died on hunger-strike in a British jail in 1981 in a struggle against criminalisation and for political status

3 https://bdsmovement.net/news/boycott-zara-dressing-apartheid-and-genocide

4Political branch of the Irish State police, inherited from Scotland Yard of the British police force.

LÁ FHÉILE STIOFÁIN or DAY OF THE WREN

On December 26, 2025December 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, History, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National Liberation, Song, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach (slightly edited repost from 2014)

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

In England it is called “Boxing Day” but in Ireland the 26th of December is “St. Stephen’s Day”. Despite the Christian designation it has long been the occasion in Ireland for customs much closer to paganism.

It was common for a group of boys (usually) to gather and hunt down a wren, a small songbird.

The wren can fly but tends to do so in short bursts from bush to bush and so can be hunted down by determined boys. The bird might be killed or kept alive, tied to a staff or in a miniature bower constructed for the occasion.

The Wren Boys would then parade it from house to house while they themselves appeared dressed in costume and/or with painted faces.

In some areas they might only carry staff or wands decorated with colourful ribbons and metallic paper while they might in other areas dress in elaborate costumes, some of them made of straw (Straw Boys) and these were sometimes also known as Mummers.

However a distinction should be drawn between these two groups. The Mummers in particular would have involved acting repertoires with traditional character roles and costumes, music and dance routines.

The simpler Wren Boys however might each just contribute a short dance, piece of music or song. In all cases traditional phrases were used upon arrival, the Mummers having the largest repertoire for in fact they were producing a kind of mini-play.

The origins of the customs are the subject of debate but a number of Irish folk tales surround the wren.

The bird is said in one story to have betrayed the Gaels to the Vikings, leading to the defeat of the former. There is a Traveller tradition that accuses the wren of betraying Jesus Christ to soldiers while another tradition has the bird supplying the nails (its claws) for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Yet another tradition has the wren as King of the Birds, having used its cunning in a competition to determine who would be the avian King, hiding itself under the Eagle’s wind and flying out above the exhausted bird when it seemed to have won.

By the 1960s the Wren Boy custom was beginning to die out even in areas where it had held fast but it slowly began to be revived by some enthusiasts. Nowadays fake wrens are used.

Christmas Day in Ireland was traditionally a day to go to religious service and to spend at home with family or to go visiting neighbours.

It was not a day of presents or of lights or Christmas Trees, customs brought in by the English colonizers in particular from Prince Albert, the British Queen Victoria’s royal consort, who was German.

St. Stephen’s Day may have celebrated the turn of the season heralded by the Winter Solstice (the wren being a bird that on occasion sings even in winter) but moved to a Christian feast day.

In any case it produced colour and excitement at a time which did not have the religious and commercial Christmas season to which, in decades, we have become accustomed.

The lovely song The Boys of Barr na Sráide from a poem by Sigerson Clifford takes as its binding thread the boys in his Co. Kerry childhood with whom Sigurson went “hunting the wren” but follows also their fight against the invader and their subsequent emigration to England or the USA.

*Drawing of Wren Boys out on their round.*

I’ve been singing this song in private recently but also at the December gathering of the monthly 1916 Performing Arts Club in Dublin.

In this recording it is sung by Muhammed Al-Hussaini (then resident in London and part of the singing circle of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí na hÉireann, meeting in the Camden Irish Centre) in which I had the pleasure of participating on a visit to London in 2014 (see The London Visit on the blog).

There are recordings of others performing this song well but the unusual origin as well as its quality persuaded me to choose this one and, in addition the memory of participating in a singing circle with this lovely and modest singer in London, who greeted me in Irish.

Muhammed also plays the violin on this recording, accompanied by Mark Patterson on mandolin and Paul Sims on guitar.

*Mummers from Fingal, north of Co. Dublin*

Ends.

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The photo with the recording shows some of the Limerick fighters of the Kerry IRA in the War of Independence (1919-1921) or perhaps in the Civil War (1922-1923)