While thousands marched once again in Palestine solidarity in Dublin, a section of the demonstration marched as a bloc in specific solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance with banners, flags and slogans declaring their position.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign with a number of branches has been for many years the major organiser of Palestinian solidarity events and had once again called for a national march in Dublin, again to Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament.
Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday. In this photo may be seen the flags of three factions of the Palestinian Resistance and, left foreground, the flag of Irish revolutionary socialist Republicanism, the Starry Plough (Photo: R.Breeze)
This has become a pattern of the main IPSC street activity in Dublin, along with holding a rally on the central pedestrian reservation in Dublin’s O’Connell Street, with occasional marches to the Department of Foreign Affairs (though in the past it organised boycott pickets of ‘Israeli’ products).
The US Embassy seems to have become out of bounds for the IPSC. This is despite the clear responsibility of the USA for supplying most of the armament, political and financial backing for the genocide being carried out by the Zionist state against the Palestinians.
Some believe that the IPSC leadership is complying with the wishes of the Irish police, the Gardaí, not to have Palestine solidarity marches go to the US Embassy. The offices of the EU, Germany and the UK, major contributors to the genocide, have also been given in effect a waiver.
The national march called by the IPSC at its destination in Molesworth Street last Saturday. The photo is taken from the platform and PA lorry facing the crowd, with its back to Leinster House (of the Irish Parliament) which also has crowd barriers erected behind it. (Photo sourced: IPSC)
Neither the march last Saturday nor any organised before it by the IPSC was going to promote solidarity with the Resistance, despite their former chairperson having once said of them in public that they are ‘freedom fighters’. Of course, to the ‘Israelis’ and EU they are ‘terrorists’.
Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday (Photo: R.Breeze)
The IPSC has organised only one public meeting during this year’s genocide to highlight the terrible conditions of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in ‘Israeli’ jails and rarely mentions them, nor in solidarity with the Samidoun1 organisation being banned in USA and Canada.
In October last year, as this phase of the genocide began, the IPSC dithered over whether to call for the expulsion of the ‘Israeli’ Ambassador to Ireland, as did the Sinn Féin leadership until a near revolt of the party’s members forced them to return to their previous position. As did the IPSC.
Clearly the IPSC leadership is trying to keep itself somewhere around the ‘middle road’ in Palestinian solidarity, probably in order — as it sees it – to remain with influence among the ruling circles. However, the actual results among those circles do not bear testimony to their effectiveness.
NO CHANGE
The Irish state continues to permit US military planes and personnel to violate the State’s nominal independence through Shannon International Airport, to permit Zionist armament overflights of its air space (similarly with the RAF) and to permit British Navy docking in Irish ports.
The relatively mild Occupied Territories Bill, long approved through Leinster House, remains not brought into force, blocked by the Coalition Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. It could not be clearer that the ruling class in Ireland do not feel under enough pressure.
This is despite a clear popular feeling among the public in Ireland of solidarity with Palestine and revulsion at their genocidal attacks by the Zionist state.
There is a long-established train of thought that maintains that solidarity with the Palestinians is not just calling for the genocide to stop – that alone is charity and that actual solidarity means solidarity with the people’s resistance and the political prisoners.
If the IPSC were to adopt that position they might find it easier to support more radical action to pressure the Irish state to break with the western powers’ consensus of support for the ‘Israeli’ state and consequently for its genocide against the Palestinians.
Perhaps that is one of the very reasons that the IPSC leadership will not take that stand and that its stewards have at times even tried to convince people to remove their flags supporting various Resistance factions.
Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday (Photo: R.Breeze)
On Saturday independent activists joined those of Saoirse Don Phalaistín, Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Queers For Palestine in forming a sizeable bloc on the march with banners, flags and call-and-answer slogans advertising its solidarity with the Resistance.
This seems a welcome trend likely to grow.
End.
FOOTNOTE
1Palestinian political prisoner support and advocacy organisation.
Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian resistance organisation Hamas, was killed in action by an Israeli Occupation Force in what was for them a routine operation in Gaza on 16th October, his last moments captured on video and broadcast widely.
From that event alone there is much for us to learn about Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance in general as well as about Sinwar himself — but also about the IOF, the way it fights and the extent of its self-discipline.
For the bare details as publicly shared, Sinwar was in military outfit, in tac vest, armed with a pistol and automatic rifle and accompanied by two local Hamas commanders in the Tal as-Sultan, Rafah area of Gaza patrolled by the IOF, very close to the semi-permanent IOF front lines.1
One may assume Sinwar was on a reconnaissance operation.
Sinwar with Hamas comrades in 2021 (photo cred: John Michillo)
Something gave away their position to a passing patrol in an area where, as far as the IOF were concerned, nothing should be alive except themselves. Pursued, they split up, local commanders in one building and Sinwar into another so the patrol called a tank to fire into each.
The patrol attempted to enter the building into which the individual fighter had gone but two grenades beat them back, injuring one soldier,2 so they retreated and called for a tank to put another shell in the building.
Still wary in the aftermath, they sent a surveillance drone into the building and the image it captured was what was seen in the widely-circulated video: a Palestinian fighter, apparently unarmed, right hand mangled. As they watched, he threw a stick at the drone with his left hand but missed.
So the IOF patrol had another tank round fired into the building and they went on their way.3
The last image of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar alive. Right arm mangled he stares at the IOF drone videoing him in house ruined by IOF bombing in Tal Al-Sultan, Rafah, before throwing a stick at it. Moments later the IOF call a tank to put a shell in the building, collapsing it on top of him.
But unusually,4 they came back. Perhaps someone thought they recognised Sinwar in the camera video? It was then they discovered that one of the three fighters they had killed was Yaha Sinwar, confirmed by test results matching his DNA records they had from his years in captivity.
According to ‘Israeli’ postmortem, although he’d been hit by shrapnel and his right hand was mangled, what killed Sinwar was a bullet to the brain – which raises other questions.5
Whatever he was doing at that time, it was clear that he was there as a commander and Resistance fighter, armed and dressed for combat in a highly dangerous area, regularly patrolled by the IOF and only a short distance from their secured front lines.
That alone spoke of courage but also his and his comrades’ resistance in the face of superior numbers declared their courage and determination. But Sinwar’s continuing to resist while badly wounded and his comrades dead, spoke of heroism.
Although only weeks from his 62nd birthday and after 22 years in a Zionist jail, Sinwar seems to have been quite fit. However, according to the results of a postmortem examination carried out by the IOF, Yahya Sinwar had not eaten in 72 hours prior to his death – a period of three days.6
The event was revealing in outlining how the IOF infantry is accustomed to fighting. They are fine with killing civilians but when confronted with armed resistance fighters, they hold for a short while if at all before retreating and calling up artillery or air strikes.
Their dead and wounded are picked up by helicopter and rushed to undamaged ‘Israeli’ hospitals, well equipped and staffed less than an hour away, a journey that is never fired upon by the Palestinian Resistance.
The contrast could not be starker, as the IOF fire on Palestinian paramedics and their vehicles, blockade Palestinian hospitals from receiving fuel and other essential supplies, even bombing and occupying them, kidnapping and killing medical personnel.
What people saw in the video of Sinwar’s last moments exposed Israeli lying propaganda about Sinwar, accusing him of living safe and well inside the tunnels and never emerging or, if he does, going about in a burka, disguised as a woman, also of intending to flee to Egypt with ‘hostages’.7
Iconic photo of Yahya Sinwar in May 2021, sitting in an armchair outside his home in Gaza, ruined by IOF bombardment. He went there directly after concluding an interview with words to the effect that he did not fear assassination by the IOF, that they knew who he was and the route he would take and if they wanted to kill him “Be my guest … I won’t bat an eyelid.”
The quick circulation of the video by the IOF exposed also the renowned indiscipline of their military and their total lack of comprehension of the mental and emotional processes of the people they have been occupying and oppressing for seven decades.
Their indiscipline is attested to by the thousands of videos on social media posted by the IOF during their genocidal operations as, contrary to orders, they film themselves blowing up buildings including a university, humiliating and brutalising prisoners, even on occasion raping them.
The IOF are renowned too for leaving graffiti inside occupied houses and for prancing around houses they have destroyed, often wearing the intimate underclothing of Palestinian women, whom they have at least turned into refugees and may have killed.
In those circumstances their release of the video before discussing it with their intelligence and propaganda department is not surprising but doing so underlines their failure to understand their enemy. They thought that killing Sinwar would undermine Palestinian morale.
They, colonialists and other oppressors in general fail to take account of the human will to resist and the potency of the memory and example of martyrs. This is an aspect we understand well in Ireland.
The Zionist intelligence services would surely have preferred not to have Sinwar’s last moments shared publicly and possibly would have liked the opportunity to lie about them.
Yahya Sinwar gives the victory sign with both hands while speaking from a rally in Gaza.
Sinwar was clearly a remarkable individual, Palestinian Resistance fighter, thinker and leader but the IOF made him a martyr and in their arrogance showed his heroism not just to the Palestinians — nor to Arabs alone — but to the world.
Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar (Arabic: يحيى إبراهيم حسن السنوار, romanized: Yaḥyá Ibrāhīm Ḥasan al-Sinwār; 29 October 1962 – 16 October 2024) was a Palestinian resistance fighter, former political prisoner and subsequently politician who was killed in action.
Sinwar served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from August 2024 and as the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from February 2017, until his death in October 2024, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh (assassinated by Israeli strike while on a fraternal visit to Iran) in both roles.
He was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Egypt-ruled Gaza in 1962 to a family who were refugees from Majdal (Hebrew: Ashkelon) during the 1948 Palestine War. He gained a bachelor’s degree in Arabic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza.8
Sinwar’s first arrest was in 1982 for ‘subversive activities’, serving several months in the Far’a prison where he met other Palestinian activists and dedicated himself to the Palestinian cause. Though arrested again in 1985, upon his release he continued his organising trajectory.
Israeli propaganda has claimed that during this period his work in internal security against Zionist agents and informers earned him the nickname “Butcher of Khan Younis” but no-one who knew him or seriously studied him even heard of that alleged nickname until after his death.9
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas politburo, welcomes Sinwar with a kiss after the latter’s release from jail in the prisoner exchange of 21 October 2021 (Photo cred: Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash 90)
Sentenced to four life sentences in 1989, Sinwar spent 22 years in prison until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. According to John Elmer10 Sinwar wanted others released before him but the prisoners insisted he be one of those leaving.
The prisoners had elected Sinwar as their leader in the prison11 and he was known for encouraging prisoners to use their time productively and to study – in particular to study the enemy. He certainly practised what he preached, becoming fluent in Hebrew and studying IOF tactics.
And also, incredibly, in writing a political novel, The Thorn and the Carnation.12
Sinwar (centre photo) photographed carrying the son of Mazen Faqha, a Hamas leader who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Gaza at martyrs’ memorial 27 March 2017. Another photo of Sinwar shows him carrying the child and an automatic rifle; yet another, carrying an automatic rifle and a child who might be a girl, perhaps the child of another martyred fighter. The child and the gun may be seen as symbolising the future through resistance.
On 21 November 2011, a month after his release, Sinwar married Samar Muhammad Abu Zamar and the couple had three children. Sinwar’s wife received a master’s degree in theology from the Islamic University of Gaza. His brother Mohamed remains active in the resistance and is being sought by the IOF.
Re-elected as Hamas leader in 2021, Sinwar survived an ‘Israeli’ assassination attempt that same year.
3All of this is according to the Israeli Occupation Force.
4 According to Jon Elmer, blogger and weekly podcast military analyst for the Electronic Intifada, also in discussion with Justin Podur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE (at 1.23.3), that was so unusual because the IOF don’t usually go back to carry out battle analyses for intelligence.
11This seems not unusual among political prisoners:Irish Republican prisoners also elected their OC in the British Occupation jails: Mairead Farrell had been O/C in Armagh Jail and, before he entered his fatal hunger strike, Bobby Sands had been O/Cof the H-Blocks.
Opinions seem divided on whether ‘Israel’s’ recent attack on Iran did much damage and whether Iran will retaliate. On the first, the Zionist Government and its allies claim great success while Iran claimed most missiles shot down and minimal damage.
One takes it for granted that all sides in a war will have an eye to useful propaganda. During the attack, while Zionist and western mass media were claiming numerous ‘Israeli’ strikes on Iran, allegedly real time videos of a quiet Tehran were being posted on line.
It must be said that no satellite photos of any real damage to Iranian installations have been posted on the internet and one of a military facility seeming to show a huge crater appeared later intact on the Internet with a claim that the earlier photo had merely shown a shadow.1
The Iranian authorities did admit to the deaths of four soldiers and a little minor damage, the latter quickly repaired, according to their updates. They also claimed to have shot down all but a few of the incoming missiles.
It seems that none of the manned Zionist aircraft entered Iranian airspace but a few approached the border from Iraq in order to launch their missiles from there, which raises another issue regarding the violation of Iraqi sovereignty by the US military.
According to Alastair Crooke, commentator on Middle East affairs, former British diplomat (then probably MI6 asset) on Judge Napolitano’s Youtube site,2 the first of three planned ‘Israeli’ attack waves encountered something unexpected in the Iranian air defence and the rest of the attack was aborted.
Narratives from each side would be tailored to suit their own propaganda needs but even some of the ‘Israeli’ media and other commentators were critical of the effectiveness of the attack, some saying Iran was hardly damaged while others said economic targets should have been included.
It also does seem that the Zionist attack was unusually restrained in restricting its targeting to military installations.
The speculation has been that the reason for that restraint was the US being quite firm with Netanyahu that the oil etc. installations were not to be hit as Iran’s retaliation would have engulfed not only the Zionist colony but wider western interests in the region and the world economy.
Whichever side is correct in its damage estimation may be relevant or may not. Iran has reiterated its right to defend itself but seemed not to be saying that it would definitely retaliate.
But on Wednesday Admiral Ali Fadavi, Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran was quoted in some media stating that his country’s military will retaliate, stating that such “is inevitable”, today backed by the Director of the Supreme Leader’s Office.
Michael Jansen, a correspondent on the Middle East in the Irish Times wrote that because Iran was allegedly hard hit in the ‘Israeli’ attack, it will not retaliate and claims that Iran’s previous retaliation was a flop. If that is Jansen’s main basis for her opinion, it is to my mind an unsafe foundation.
In the past I’ve had respect for Jansen’s analysis of the war in Syria and the positions of different factions but this time I think she is very wide of the mark. The previous Iranian retaliations swamped the Zionist air defence system3 with cheap drones but hit many targets with missiles.
It seems to me that Iran WILL retaliate and the only thing that might hold that off or at least moderate the strength of its attack would be if the ‘Israeli’ Government ties up a peace deal with the Palestinian Resistance, led by Hamas. And that looks extremely unlikely, for a number of reasons.
The Resistance is sticking to the terms that were announced by Biden back in May, which he claimed were the ‘Israeli’ Government’s and to which the Resistance agreed, only to see the talks sabotaged again and again by Netanyahu in proposing additions and deletions.
The basics of the Resistance position are:
Immediate end to the ‘Israeli’ attacks now and in future
Total withdrawal of the IOF from Gaza (including the Nezarim Corridor and Rafah)
Total removal of all obstacles to arrival of humanitarian food, medicine etc. supplies
Return of all displaced from parts of Gaza as they wish
Exchange of prisoners (including bodies of dead Israelis and to include Palestinians nominated by the Resistance, without Israeli veto)
Reconstruction of infrastructures and buildings: housing, medical, educational, social, commercial
None of those terms except the exchange of prisoners has been agreed and even there, Netanyahu wanted to exclude some Palestinian prisoners from the exchange. Most fundamentally, he insists on the IOF staying in Gaza, in particular in the “Nezarim corridor”.
It is frequently commented that Netanyahu cannot afford personally to end the attacks in defeat as a postponed court case for alleged fraud and bribery awaits him and, without a victory in his belt, his political fascist friends would abandon him to be savaged by his enemies in the Zionist entity.
However, the continuing Zionist massacres of civilians and wide-scale urban destruction is intended in large part to force the Resistance to accept terms with which the Zionist state agrees, to gain in negotiations what it has been unable to win on the battlefield against the Resistance fighters.
No doubt there are some who think that the Resistance should abandon its demand about total IOF Gaza withdrawal, just to end the massacres. That kind of thinking results in a partial peace to which the enemy will return again and again with violence.
The Palestinian Resistance has clearly decided that they will tough this out in the sacrifice of their people, fighters and leaders in order to get a more stable position for the Palestinian nation, from which to go forward to self-determination – and peace, should that be obtainable.4
US Imperialism in the form of Bill Clinton supervises handshake between Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of US proxy’Israel’ and Yasser Arafat, then leader of Fatah in control of the PLO at the conclusion of the Oslo pacification process. The Agreement spawned the Zionist-colluding and repressive Palestinian Authority but never gained the Palestinians anything. (Image sourced: Internet)
The last time the Resistance caved in to Zionist and imperialist demands was with the Oslo Accords in 1993, signed for the Fatah leadership by Yasser Arafat. Since then not only did the Palestinians not make any advances but additional Zionist settlements have grown apace.
And every few years have seen new genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people.
The Axis of Resistance considers the Zionist State to be a constant threat to the Arab states and indigenous people of the Middle East, in addition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The history of the Zionist state’s wars with its neighbours and its backing by imperialism seems to bear that out.
Looked at soberly, the Palestinian Resistance has inflicted a huge defeat on the IOF and the Zionist military mystique on October 7th and, notwithstanding daily genocidal massacres, the Resistance has gone on for a year to deny the IOF a victory in Gaza or on the West Bank.
Hezbollah’s bombardments have cleared much of north Palestine of settlers in addition to hitting targets in central ‘Israel’ and they’ve also fought the IOF to a standstill on Lebanon’s borders. Missiles and drones of the Iraqi Resistance and the Yemeni State have also hit the Zionist State.
The balance of battlefield supremacy is tilting against Israel, thanks to the adaptability, courage and sacrifice of in particular the Palestinian people but now also the Lebanese — and world popular opinion is against the Zionist European settler project as never before.
Iranian drones, one launching, Iran 4 October 2023 (Photo cred: Reuters)
It is necessary to continue the process both to inflict an unmistakeable defeat on the Zionist State and to win substantial advances for the Palestinian people and, incidentally, for the people of the Middle East. These advances entail in addition setbacks for US and western imperialism.
It is important to hammer that nail home, lest it works itself loose before long. I think that at some point Iran will likely retaliate against the Zionist state for its own dignity and defence but also as part of the Axis of Resistance, striving to rid the area of an extremely dangerous infestation.
End.
FOOTNOTES
SOURCES
1The imperialists have Iran constantly under satellite surveillance and it beggars belief they would not have posted photos of significant damage were such to exist.
2Crooke claims that the first wave was to destroy the air defences but failed and encountered something which put all the rest of the attack in danger so they called the attack off and then claimed a victory. Crooke is speculating up to a point about the reasons but claims the facts about the attack are from ‘Israeli’ sources. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkNk76E3SI
3Both ground-based, as with Iron Dome and David’s Sling but also airborne with US and European allied aircraft.
4A similar position was outlined with respect to Hezbollah by Sheikh Naim Qassem in his first speech on Wednesday since his election to the General Secretaryship of the organisation.
A number of years ago I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power, which was a eulogy to the Obama era and people like himself who had done well out of that period in the US.
It was a terrible book, rightly slated by many and led to black academic and activist Cornel West describing him as the neoliberal wing of the black freedom struggle.[1] The book was so bad, I barely got half way through it and put it down never to pick it up again.
Cornel West (left) described Ta-Nehisi Coates (right) as the neo-liberal wing of the black freedom struggle.
I never thought I would read another of his books, though I have read some articles of his. Then came his new book The Message and the criticism from the Right on his comments on Palestine. So, I surrendered and read it. This time in its entirety.
It is an easy well-written read.
As with all his books, this is very much about him. His preferred pronouns are definitely I and My (yes, I know My is not a pronoun, but none of this pronoun nonsense obeys the rules of grammar in any case).
It deals with three trips he made and how he felt about them and the issues that arose. Given the CBS interview I fully expected to find some hard critique of the US, Israel and Apartheid, though that is not his style.
Instead, he relates stories about his experiences in Palestine, talking to Palestinians and also to Israeli settlers. That is it. The Israelis obviously do not come out well in the book. How could they?
Coates likens his experiences in Palestine to Jim Crow in the US and Apartheid in South Africa. They are the comments and observations on what he saw, and pretty much middle of the road.
He is no Norman Finkelstein with his searing condemnations of Israeli massacres and Apartheid. It says more about the US media that Coates’ interesting, but in no way extreme comments, have provoked such fury.
This part of the book, is partly a Mea Culpa for previous articles he had written in which he praises Israel, chief among them, apparently, is his essay published in The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
In the essay, he liberally and uncritically quotes terrorists and murderers such as David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin.[2] He has much to apologise for in that essay.
The essay starts off with a biblical epigraph from the book of Deuteronomy and also an anonymous quote from 1861 “By our unpaid labor and suffering, we have earned the right to the soil, many times over and over, and now we are determined to have it.”
Except the land in question, that which Lincoln promised to give to freed slaves was land that had or would be stolen from native American Indians, who do not figure in his case for reparations, just like Palestinians didn’t exist for him.
It is a thoroughly vile, though well researched piece, that I have criticised previously in an essay entitled Reparations Without Talking About Capitalism[3] and won’t go into again here.
He now says that he is ashamed of some of the things he said in that essay, which he mentions in his book. He does not mention an earlier essay which leaves no doubt as to where his loyalty and politics lies: The Negro Sings of Zionism.[4]
In it he compares Zionism to Black Nationalism, Theodore Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement to Huey Newton and even Malcolm X! This essay was written only months before Obama, his hero, came to power and was in the throes of his election campaign.
Obama was and, like Kamala Harris, still is an ardent supporter of Israeli atrocity. Coates was not going to challenge Obama on this point, ever.
And even now in the midst of the genocide in Gaza he has publicly called for people to vote for Kamala Harris, saying that sometimes the choices are bad.[5]
And further, he says a Kamala presidency which supports “apartheid and genocide” would be nightmare scenario “of being the first Black woman president and having 2,000-pound bombs with your name on them dropping on Gaza.”[6]
Except it is not. It is business as usual. The only nightmare is for the Palestinians, not for him or the rest of the liberals who will vote for Harris.
Under Obama, the US bombed at least six countries, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, where the Houthis are actually challenging both the US and Israel and of course Libya
where the toppling of Gaddafi led to the reintroduction of open-air slave markets where black Africans were once again for sale. Not a minor point you would think for a black identitarian.
In 2016 alone, Obama in his final year of his presidency dropped a staggering 26,171 bombs i.e. three bombs every hour, every day of the year.[7] Meanwhile Coates was waxing lyrical about how he and others like him had spent eight years in power.
He should own it! That was on Coates as well. He doesn’t get to wash his hands now.
Sometimes the choices are bad, he claims. But would he tolerate a white person voting for a racist politician on the grounds that they had good positions on other issues, such as abortion? I think not.
His arrogance leads him to think he and Harris deserve a pass on this now. He doesn’t, nobody does. Neither does the hypothetical white voter who wants to vote for some racist who has good positions on other issues.
The level of ignorance that Coates claims for himself is hard to fathom and even harder to believe. He claims to not be sure when exactly in his visit to Palestine he first heard the term Nakba.
He also states that “For as sure as my ancestors were born into a country where none of them was the equal of any white man, Israel was revealing itself to be a country where no Palestinian is ever the equal of any Jewish person anywhere.”
Revealing itself? Under which rock had Coates been hiding? Had he not heard of Operation Cast Lead?
It was launched in the same year he sang his hymn to Zionism. It resulted in around 1,500 Palestinian deaths, mainly civilians and the displacement of 100,000 people. Did he never hear of the Goldstone Report on that operation?
And the scandal when Goldstone was forced to recant? It was one of many such assaults on Gaza. All of this and other incursions have been well documented.
Writers write. Everyone knows that, it is their art, their trade. But more than write, they read. All writers read, even the bad ones have to read something occasionally. Coates’ ignorance is not credible.
When he researched his essays praising Zionism, did he not come across a single solitary article to give him some pause for thought? Any piece by Finkelstein, Ilán Pappé, Chomsky, anyone at all? His feigned ignorance is not plausible.
In his song to Zionism, Coates looked at the conflict through his identitarian eyes, and chose a side that he thought was closest to his own identity. His “repentance” is a similar process. He now sees the Palestinians through those eyes.
We have no idea how far he will go with this and when he will backtrack. Like many writers he can read the room and probably feels now is a good moment to be on the Palestinian side. But his repentance only goes so far.
If Harris wins the election, he will at some point write Another Eight Years in Power. Or if she loses, The Land of Milk and Honey We Were Deprived of.
He states early on his book that “we could never practice writing solely for the craft itself, but must necessarily believe our practice to be in service of that larger emancipatory mandate.” Like Gandhi said of British civilisation, it would be a good idea.
But what is that mandate? Abortion rights in the US, but genocide in Palestine?
He has little understanding or willingness to deal with issues of capitalism, imperialism, or his own role in it all. The book will through its anecdotes prove interesting to many and he has an easy-to-read style. You could read this book in one sitting.
Just don’t expect any deep analysis or understanding, there isn’t any. I have said nothing of the other two parts to the book, which almost deserve a critique of their own, though it would be more favourable than I have been thus far on his coverage of Palestine.
Borrow it, don’t buy it. Money is hard to come by, Coates is not short of a bob or two and there are better things to spend your money on.
Thousands marched recently in two cities of the Basque Country, Bilbo and Iruña/ Pamplona,1 respectively the capitals of the Bizkaia and Nafarroa2 provinces, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with their Resistance.
And almost immediately posters could be seen calling for the same on the 11th November, but in four Basque cities, including a city in one of the provinces on the French state’s side.3
“Well that’s great but sure we do that here every second week or so,” some might say. But they’d be wrong. The marches organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, while calling for solidarity with the Palestinians and BDS4 of the ‘Israeli’ state and businesses, do not support the Resistance.
The rally stage at the end of the march in Bilbao, on the east bank of the Nervion river. Banner exalting the Resistance in the centre facing the crowd, banner to the left calling for solidarity with the Resistance and another to the right calling for struggle against ‘Israel’. (Photo cred: Resumen Latinamericano)
Nor do the marches organised by the main Palestine solidarity organisations in England or in Scotland. It might be pleaded that in the UK at least, people could be arrested for declaring support for a number of Palestinian resistance organisations that are on the EU “terrorist” list.5
The leadership of the Basque Patriotic Left6 does not support the resistance either, preferring to draw the Palestinians and Basques together as victims under a Gernika-Gaza initiative and even criticising the resistance along with the Zionists in a “both sides” kind of analysis.
But no law exists in these countries forbidding expression of “solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance.” The organisers of those campaign organisations don’t declare for the Resistance because a) they don’t support it or b) wish to remain tolerated by the upholders of the status quo.
View of section of the crowd, giving an idea of its size, the largest Palestine solidarity demonstration in the Basque Country since the present phase of Zionist genocide began on 8th October last year. (Photo cred: Resumen Latinamericano).
IT MATTERS
Well, ok, but does it really matter? Yes, it does and it matters a lot, for the Palestinians, for others struggling against imperialism elsewhere around the world – and for us. Not supporting the Resistance leaves open the question of, for example, the Palestinian Authority.
This Vichy-like organisation headed by a corrupt Quisling sends its security force to intimidate and beat up critics and demonstrators, to arrest them and also Resistance fighters (including invading hospitals to chase down the wounded) and removes defences against IOF invasion.
The PA, despite its widely-acknowledge corruption and the contempt in which it is held by broad Palestinian society, is formally recognised as the ‘representative of the Palestinian people’ by the western imperialists and by many social-democratic parties in Europe.
It is an offence against the Palestinian people and internationalist solidarity to accept the PA as any kind of representation of the heroic Palestinian people – or even to leave the question open. Furthermore, such a stance leaves the door open to all kinds of traitors and confusion.
In our own struggles, we need to be clear who are our enemies and friends. To accept treasonous agencies as representatives of struggling people contaminates our own attitudes in struggle, confuses and undermines our thinking, clouding our vision.
A woman holds high a placard calling to “Free Palestine” and to “Boycott Israel.” (Photo sourced: Internet)
BEING CLEAR AND MAKING IT CLEAR
We need to be clear – and to make it clear – that we support the Palestinian resistance in all its forms: popular, armed, trade unionist, cultural, artistic … and that we abhor collaboration and collusion with the enemy.
We can do that – and it has been done on occasion – by mobilising all who agree on a demo behind a banner celebrating the Palestinian Resistance. But how much better, if like the Basques today in Bilbao and in Iruña/ Pamplona, the whole demonstration marched behind that kind of slogan!
It might be thought that the demonstrations on 5th October would gather less than the safer Gernika-Gaza group of the official leadership of the Left Basque Patriotic movement (Otegi & co.) and other liberals but this was not the case in Bilbo anyway, on the biggest solidarity demonstration since October last year.
Advance posters for the solidarity march. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Two Palestinian Resistance factions, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine sent messages of thanks to the organisers and the demonstrators.
The demonstration and its theme were covered widely in Basque, Spanish, European and Latin American media, usually with photos.
Addressing the rally after the march in Bilbo on 5th October, a speaker listed the many crimes of the Zionist State and was loudly cheered when she said that only the abolition of that state could bring that career of genocidal crimes to an end.
The cheers grew louder still as she called for solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and all others fighting against imperialism and Zionism. And continued as she went on to call for a break with all states and political parties that support the Zionist State.7
The cheers might even have reached EH Bildu’s office and the leadership of the Gernika-Gaza group.
The march on its way to the rally across the river pauses on the way for photos.The long banner calls for “Support for the Palestinian Resistance” but also ” Oppose Israel and its accomplices.”(Photo cred: Boltxe)
End.
FOOTNOTES
1A number of places with Basque toponymics, under Spanish colonialism, were given Spanish names.
3There are seven provinces in the Basque Country, three on the French side of the Border (Iparralde, ‘the North Country’) and four on the Spanish side (Hegoalde, ‘the South Country’).
6That was the broad movement of legal and banned organisations of revolutionary Left and independentist outlook, the movement now reformist, much reduced and fragmented under the leadership of Arnaldo Otegi and the EH Bildu party.
7That clearly includes the conservative Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) currently in coalition government in the Basque Autonomous Regional Government.
People with Palestinian flags including one containing a slogan in Irish, flags of Palestinian resistance factions and holding portraits of Ismail Haniyeh and Nasrallah rallied on Sunday evening outside Dublin’s General Post Office.
(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
The Action for Palestine organisation had advertised the solidarity and honouring event at short notice. Originally planned to take place on O’Connell Bridge, the storm conditions1 made that venue unsuitable and the GPO2 was chosen as an appropriate alternative.
Calling and replying to solidarity chants, the crowd of Irish people and others from the Middle East also listened to four speakers, two Irish and two Palestinian, while two plain-clothes Special Branch Gardaí photographed them from east side of the street.
(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
One passing Zionist sympathiser insulted the gathering, giving rise to a wave of chants in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance. On the other hand, many pedestrian passers-by congratulated demonstrators and some stopped to join or pressed horns on their vehicles.
The speakers referred to the horrors of the genocide being inflicted upon the Palestinian people in particular in North Gaza3 at this time by the IOF, the armed forces of the Zionist state, backed up and supplied by the USA and a number of European states.
(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
They spoke also to praise the resistance of all kinds of the Palestinian people, including armed resistance and at all levels up to leadership, who are assassinated and replaced, always under threat of death.
One speaker also spoke about the need to also support the resistance struggles and the prisoners as a result of resistance too. “It is not required of us that we agree with everything they say or do but it is required of us that we support the resistance”, he said.
Among the slogans chanted were Long live the Intifada! There is only one solution – intifada revolution! From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! Resistance is an obligation – in the face of occupation! Saoirse – don Phalaistín!
(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! From the Sea to the River – Palestine will live forever! In our thousands, in our millions – we are all Palestinians! Free, free Palestine! Netanyahu you can’t hide – you’re committing genocide! (Repeated also for Joe Biden).
A speaker also reminded the crowd of the long resistance to occupation of the Irish people, against Vikings and English occupation and the need to support the resistance of people around the world. “Resistance is everything”, he said and referred to the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people.
To conclude an organiser thanked all for their attendance at short notice and promised other actions in future, then encouraged those who wished to gather for a photo in front of the statue to “our hero in Irish myth, Cú Chullainn”,4 which stands in the central front window of the GPO building.5
Some gathered for a photo in front of the representation of the Irish mythological hero Cú Chulainn statue in the display window of the GPO. (Photo sourced: Action For Palestine)
While they were doing so, another reminded them that in the epic legend, Cú Chulainn’s enemies dared not approach him while he was alive and only finally did so when they saw a carrion crow or raven alight on his shoulder to reassure them that he was dead.
“Yahya Sinwar’s enemies did not face him while he was alive either. They fired a tank shell into the building where they believed the fighters were, retreating when grenades were tossed at them, firing another shell into the building and even then only dared send a spy drone in.
“When they saw on their monitor the badly-injured Sinwar throw a stick at the drone, they fired yet another shell into the building, finally killing him.”
End.
View of the Cú Chullainn statue in the GPO window on a working day (Photo cred: Cambridge University)Far distant from any kind of heroism or solidarity, two plainclothes members of the political police, the Special Branch of the Gardaí, surveilling the participants. (Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
2Also a central location, i.e on Dublin’s main city centre street but also the HQ of the 1916 Rising against British rule.
3Some Palestinian commentators have called this phase the worst of all in the intensified genocide since October last year. Constant aerial strikes on buildings and tent encampments, shooting at people, besieging hospitals and blocking food or fuel from entering and constantly insisting that the people move out in ethnically cleansing.
4The hero is a central figure in the epic of the Táin Bó Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), along with back and after-stories, in the Ulster Cycle of Irish myths and legends. The sculpture, cast in bronze, is by Oliver Sheppard.
5The sculpture by Oliver Sheppard was later dedicated to the martyrs of the 1916 Rising.
On Saturday 12th October, thousands of people descended on Shannon Airport1 in an organic action to protest our land and airspace being used in the transport of U.S. munitions bound for Zionist Israel.
Demonstrators arriving in buses and cars were immediately met with Garda pushback at checkpoints about 2 kilometres from the entrance of Shannon Airport.
The diverted protestors were led down side roads and cul-de-sacs away from the mini roundabout area where regular anti-war protests occur. Such diversions epitomise government strategy perfectly: Divert. Distract. Divide.
The protestors were met with a hostile environment of steel barriers erected to separate and divide them upon entering the airport from all directions.
The weather was not so unkind, as the sun emerged around noon in time for the beat of the drums striking up an atmosphere of resistance and bold defiance.
Drums, placards, flags and chants at Shannon Airport Saturday (Photo source: Participant)
As the crowd descended, the silence was broken by Social Rights Ireland with a number of speeches given addressing Ireland’s connection with Palestine’s struggle for liberation, whilst our banners, “Break the Chains of Zionism” and “Sovereignty for Ireland NOW!” acted as a backdrop.
Various chants ensued, such as, “From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is a crime!”, “Resistance is an obligation in the face of occupation!” and “Saoirse don Phalastín!” Overall, the protest was peaceful and lasted several hours.
Two arrests were made under Section 6 of the Public Order Act following some pushing at barriers where protestors were gathered.
(Photo source: Participant)
As we know, genocide has been ripping through Palestine, devastating an entire population. Reports of the most brutal and dehumanising acts have forced people of conscience from all corners of the earth to confront the questions: how can this happen?
Why is no government or institution able to stop this Zionist terrorism?
For the first time in human history, a government has openly declared and is conducting a live-streamed genocide. This government also claims it is civilised, democratic and an upholder of human rights.
What started as a war of displacement has turned into a war of total obliteration. Meanwhile, the Irish people look on aghast, lost for words and running out of ideas as to how to make it stop.
The Free State2 watches too, unwilling to act but feigning concern and placating the masses with saccharine-coated words and vacuous gestures.
On the 9th October 2024, Fine Gael blueshirt,3 Simon Harris4 declared, “I think the world in general has failed the children of Gaza,” speaking in abstraction as if he is indeed not “part of the world”.
Not only is this an expression of abdication of responsibility, this admission to the people of Ireland confirms that he knows he is indeed powerless, a mere subject of his U.S. imperialist masters. Whether most Irish voters realise this, is debatable.
Allowing U.S. weapons to pass through our civilian airport, while claiming to be a neutral country and letting on to be concerned about the children of Gaza, is not simply an example of Fine Gael’s hypocrisy or gaslighting.
It is also blatant testimony to Harris’s and the state’s complete unwillingness to cut any ties with the U.S. Today the Free State is a tool of the Zionist ruler, it cannot fathom a future that is not connected to U.S. imperialism.
It is important for the Palestinian solidarity movement to not confuse solidarity and sovereignty.
How can Irish voters fully and genuinely express solidarity with the oppressed and work hand in hand with the oppressor? How can Irish voters call for an end to genocide whilst continuing business as usual?
How can politicians feast with genociders and sympathise with the starving?
Those who understand how oppression works know instinctively that hypocrisy is inbuilt to the psyche of politicians and the ruling class. The idea that politicians or the ruling class can be appealed to is pointless.
(Photo source: Participant)
The façade of Western democracy has completely unravelled. European values have been dismantled and replaced by E.U. interests best illustrated in the rise of Zionist leaders such as Ursula von der Liar and fascist governments across the E.U.
Anti-genocide protestors must stop trusting, appealing to, working with or appeasing the oppressor, be that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Green fascist Party, or indeed, so-called opposition parties on the neo-liberal Left.
While those who descended on Shannon had a common, collective demand for the government to STOP THE PLANES! STOP THE BOMBS! what is still missing from our collective conversation is the topic of Ireland’s sovereignty.
To question WHY the U.S. or indeed the British forces can use our land, sea and air ports is of vital importance. Socialist Republicans understand that only a 32-county socialist workers’ republic can be truly sovereign, free from the chains of imperialism, free from Zionism.
We know Ireland’s long history of oppression. We know occupation, dispossession and genocide. We know what displacement means and being stripped of our land, our resources, our mother tongue.
However, the slow erosion of our identity as a people through persecution, plantation, genocide, occupation and pacification is not always grasped by the Irish population following the successful assimilation process which still has a tight grip on our people.
This process is mediated through a pervasive neo-colonial mindset which continues to infect many in our places of work, education and society more generally.
Yes, since October 2023, the Irish people have turned their outrage in action, mobilising in local communities and workplaces to take a stand against genocide.
(Photo source: Participant)
Yes, many have applied pressure to the government via petitions, rallies and calls to support bills in government that they believe will effect change.
In response, the Irish government agreed to recognise the state of Palestine, but of course, this action means nothing for the people in Palestine who continue to be bombed, brutalised and slaughtered. But nothing tangible has happened.
If anything, the situation grows worse as the threat of nuclear confrontation becomes imminent.
Trying to quell the rising anger on the streets, the Free State government has attempted to placate Irish voters by deceiving them in the run up to election time.
Real action begins with expelling the Zionist Ambassador from Ireland. Real action begins with stopping U.S. war planes from using our airports. The Free State’s social control mechanism via its fake support for Palestine may fool some voters and placate neo-liberals, just in time for the general election.
In the words of Connolly,5 “Yes, ruling by fooling is a great British art – with great Irish fools to practice on.”
Section of the protest at Shannon Airport on Saturday (Photo cred: Mostafa DarwishAnadolu via Getty Images).
End.
Footnotes
1Located in Co. Clare in the west of Ireland, one of two international airports in the Irish state and has been the target of protests over the years due to documented cases of US military planes landing and taking off from there and Irish Government refusal to inspect alleged non-military US planes for military personnel, materials or indeed prisoners subject to ‘extraordinary rendition’ to CIA dark sites in client states.
2This was the name the neo-colonial state adopted when it was formed in 1921 and the name stuck particularly among the abandoned nationalist population of the occupied Six Counties colony.
3A pejorative term for Fine Gael, recalling its founding from a coalition of three parties, one of which was the fascist Army Comrades Association, commonly known as the ‘Blueshirts’ which described a part of their uniform.
4Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the current 3-party coalition government of the Irish state: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.
5James Connolly, revolutionary socialist worker intellectual, historian, journalist, song-writer and trade union organiser, born and raised in Edinburgh, one of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Irish Independence and Dublin Commandant of the Rising, executed along with the other signatories after the surrender of the Rising in Moore Street.
In the Basque Country the Day of the Patriot Soldier is commemorated on two different dates: by the Basque Nationalist Party on October 28th and by the Patriotic Left on September 27th. Each date marks different events but each is anti-fascist in character.
On October 28th one of the many atrocities of the Spanish Civil War/ Anti-Fascist War was enacted by the Spanish fascist military when they executed 42 captured Basque soldiers of the Eusko Gudarastea, a Basque antifascist militia opposing the military-fascist coup of Franco and another three generals.
Section of the crowd at the Gudari Eguna commemoration in Arrigorriaga, Bizkaia province, southern Basque Country. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This atrocity occurred in 1937, when that war had another two years to run. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) was then the main political party in that part of the Basque Country1 and many of its politicians and administrative officials were executed by the Franco regime too.
Commemoration of the PNV´s Day of the Patriotic Soldier (Gudari Eguna) was carried out clandestinely during the four decades of the fascist Franco regime but was permitted in the post-Franco arrangement in the Spanish State, when the PNV were legalised.
The PNV became the dominant force politically in the two provinces that had declared for the Spanish Republic, which was the largest part of the Basque Autonomous Region. Nafarroa however was given a separate autonomous government which split the nation administratively in at least four.2
A DIFFERENT DATE TO COMMEMORATE
However in the 1960s a large part of the PNV´s youth wing had become disenchanted with the party and, entering into alliance with a Basque socialist movement, formed ETA, a mainly political organisation but, existing under a fascist-military regime, inclined also towards armed resistance.
The platform at the Gudari Eguna commemoration organised by Jarki with the event’s speaker/ chairperson addressing the participants. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
ETA grew in support and in actions, military but not only, the Left Patriotic movement (Izquierda Abertzale) widening to fight on a number of fronts, linguistic, social, trade unionist and political with the armed section carrying out many actions.
The last political executions of the Franco regime were in 1975 of two members of ETA and three of FRAP3; the two Basques were Juan “Txiki” Paredes4 and Angel Otaegui. All five, despite huge international solidarity mobilisations and appeals for clemency, were shot by firing squads.
Today, the Patriotic Left´s Gudari Eguna is commemorated by different groups and not all together. As has occurred in Ireland, the accommodation of the leadership of the Basque Patriotic Left to the Spanish electoral system and abandonment of armed struggle has resulted in fragmentation.
A protest in Arrigorriaga I passed by on my way to the Gudari Eguna commemoration. I did not stop to enquire as to the purpose; I had made an error on the journey, was late and in a hurry. From the arrows design I understand these to be the Sare group doing their last Friday of the month picket in solidarity with the prisoners. ‘Giltzak’ means ‘keys’ as the graphic banner design shows and so the aim is probably to have them all leave jail. That is also the aim of the ‘dissident’ group Amnestia but they seek complete amnesty for the political prisoners whereas Etxerat, Sare and EH Bildu normally refrain from even calling them ‘political prisoners’since, according to the Spanish State, that amounts to ‘supporting terrorism.’ (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The political party EH Bildu commemorated the executions but so did the dissenting Jarki and Tinko/Amnistia and the historical memory organisation, Ahaztuak. They did not do so together nor, naturally with the PNV on the different date.
In Arrigorriaga Jarki organised their event in the birthplace and home of Argala, nom-de-guerre of José Miguel Beñaran Ordeñana, a theoretician and activist of great importance in the development of ETA and assassinated by the state-sponsored GAL terrorists.
The attendance at the event listened to the event’s MC addressing them, after which a group of youth carrying flaming torches came on stage. The MC ended her talk with calls for a free and socialist Basque Country, after each which the audience chanted “Gora!” (‘Up!’).
She then led them in singing the Eusko Gudariak with clenched fist in the air, followed by introducing the Internationale in Basque, the revolutionary socialist song that emerged from the Paris Commune of 1871, the audience joining in (though not everyone as well-versed as with the previous song).
I sang the chorus in French, the only language other than English in which I know the chorus, sadly.
HISTORICAL MEMORY & THE MARTYRS
The martyrs of the people´s struggles around the world are remembered organically and kept close to their hearts by the people from which they came, at least for a few generations. Initiatives of conserving and transmitting historical memory keep those commemorations going further.
Section of the crowd at the commemoration of Gudari Eguna, organised by the Jarki organisation. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In Ireland we know that commemorating the risings of the United Irishmen (1798 and 1803) fed into the struggles of the Young Irelanders a half-century later, their memory in turn contributing to the Fenians which again became part of the history of future generations and of several armed struggles.
Counter-movements, recognising the potency of historical memory, try to appropriate it and adapt it to their political program or to diminish its importance and even deny it. Both those counter-currents can be seen in many parts of the world, including in Ireland and in the Basque Country
However, the ongoing revolutionary streams and their commemorations will always be closest to the real meaning of those events in the historical memory of the people, in the real social and political meaning of martyrdom.
Patrick Pearse remarked on this process in his famous oration over the grave of O´Donovan Rosa: Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.
Footnotes:
1The Basque Country is composed of seven provinces, four on the Spanish state´s side of its northern border and three on the French state´s side. The Anti-Fascist War split the southern Basque Country with principally two provinces, Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia, taking the side of the Spanish Republic, which at the last minute granted them national autonomy. Nafarroa (Navarre) mostly took the fascist-military side and murdered around 3,000 antifascists and Alava province took that side too.
2Two separate autonomous regions in the Spanish state and the provinces on the French side in different French regional administrative areas.
3Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota (Revolutionary Anti-Fascist & Patriotic Front); the three were: José Luis Sánchez-Bravo Sollas, José Humberto Baena Alonso and Ramón García Sanz.
4According to his brother who, despite being misdirected arrived as Paredes was being shot by the Guardia Civil, who were shooting at different parts of his body, Txiki Paredes continued to sing Eusko Gudariak (‘Soldiers of the Basque Country’) until he finally died.
After a terrorist attack through exploding hand-held communication devices1 and later, following the assassination of veteran Hezbollah leader Nasrallah,2 the IOF announced on 30th September their intention of a ground invasion of Lebanon.3
The reaction of the western imperialist allies to the terrorism was mostly silent but to the Zionist planned invasion was either positive or worried – not about the predictable ensuing carnage but about its impact on their assets in the region.
The current Zionist leadership was gung-ho albeit with worried comments from the sidelines, including from some high-ranking retired commanders. Those campaigning for a peace deal with the Resistance and the return of their captured relatives were naturally mostly hostile.
People who knew something about the situation, both those in solidarity with the Resistance and those supporting the Zionist state, wondered how the IOF imagined they were going to be successful, considering the calibre of Hezbollah combined with logistics.
Firstly, the IOF would have to prepare its staging or invasion launch areas in the reach of Hezbollah missiles, rockets and drones. Then they would have to cross at least 300 kilometres under bombardment in terrain well-zeroed already by Hezbollah.
If and when the invaders crossed that land, they would confront their old enemy Hezbollah, many battle-hardened veterans from fighting ISIS and NATO proxies in Syria. And strongly motivated ideologically also, in particular in defending their homeland.
The IOF infantry on the other hand has not faced any conventional fighting force in pitched battle since 1966, being mostly experienced in repression and genocidal operations against civilians already under close surveillance with air dominance and much intelligence support.
Despite their advantages, against the armed resistance of those areas, the IOF have not performed at all well, with a high rate of casualties in personnel and armoured vehicles. In invasion of Lebanon, their armour would be even more vulnerable.
True, the IOF has air advantage in air-to-ground strikes with their US-supplied fighters. But the resistance artillery4 batteries are situated far back from the Lebanon front line, yet able to strike targets with coordinates called in from Hezbollah facing the enemy.
The Zionist air force boasts of having eliminated those batteries in their bombardment were quickly proved false as missiles rose behind the returning IOF aircraft to fall on their regular targets in northern occupied Palestine. Most of those batteries and launchers are underground.
So the main IOF assault and penetration would have to be of their infantry, the issue decided by the calibre of contending fighting personnel, their weapons, along with defences of the defenders, remembering also that a 3-1 superiority is necessary for offensive breakthrough at any point.5
The situation would be bad enough for the IOF if they could at least prepare their staging areas in safety but of course Hezbollah is not letting them do that, pounding their bases and visible troop movements and assemblies again and again with missiles, drones and rockets.
IOF INVASION PROGRESS?
So how has the invasion force fared to date? Hezbollah chose not to fall back fighting the IOF on the way, sucking them further in and hitting their supply lines. Instead, they met the invasion on or around their front lines, with some flexibility and so far have remained there.
All outcomes into the second week so far have justified the pessimists in the Zionist and Western allies camp. Ground assault after assault has been beaten back by Hezbollah, at times in ambushing or other targeting of approaching infantry and some armour.
In one such ambush, Hezbollah forward fighters observed a special IOF force reconnoitring and decided to leave them under observation while they figured the route of advance. When the whole IOF special unit advanced they were hit with a pre-laid explosive and then by small-arms fire.
The IOF are widening their attack front and in the western sector, the IOF attempted to infiltrate again through Labouneh, despite the previous day’s qualitative ambush where according to reports, Zionist vehicles “burned live on air”; the resistance again forced their retreat.
This last was a reference to Ras Al-Naqoura where an entire IOF convoy was struck by the resistance. Al-Mayadeen reports that the convoy was made up of about 60 soldiers, 5 Merkava tanks, and a number of other vehicles and repeated IOF rescue services have been repulsed.
Al-Manar added that “The occupation army advanced along the western line near the sea and attempted to take control … to oversee the coastline stretching to Sour,”6 and “attempted six times in recent days to enter this area and was met with resistance missiles and fire.”
The Resistance reported numerous confrontations against enemy infantry forces in the forests of Al-Labouneh, south of Naqoura and engagements on the Blida, Muhaybib, and Maroun Al-Ras axis.
The Zionist forces have also attempted to use the UNIFIL station as cover and the Hezbollah decision to hold on targeting them for fear of hitting uninvolved forces, reported by Al Mayadeen, raised concerns for the safety of Irish state troops garrisoned there.7
In 10 days of repeated attempts, the IOF has not managed to enter and hold one southern Lebanese village or town and advances of even a 100 metres have been beaten back with casualties. The Zionists have been reduced to fantasy stories of advances and staged photos.8
And this IOF fighting here are considered by the Zionists the elite of their infantry, facing not even Hezbollah’s elite, the al-Hajj Radwan Regiment. Hezbollah is much more a medium-sized army than guerrilla force, though it grew from one, created against the ‘Israeli’ occupation of Lebanon.
On Wednesday the IOF, which maintains a strict censorship on casualties and battle-damage reporting and is well-known for vastly underplaying their battle casualties in Gaza, admitted that over the past 24 hours, 38 soldiers had been wounded in ground battles in southern Lebanon.
In what seems a departure from the Gaza norm, some reports seem to suggest that Hezbollah may not be granting the IOF the same freedom to recover their dead and wounded as has been the case until now from the Gaza resistance (despite IOF targeting of hospitals and medical personnel).9
As it was in Gaza, bombing the civilian population has been the response of the IOF, targeting multi-occupation housing blocks, medical services, emergency services, media service, gatherings of displaced people and refugee routes into Syria.
The only large-scale comprehensive defeats suffered by the IOF were against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in 2000 and in 2006, forcing the Zionist retreat from Lebanon on both occasions. Many Hezbollah are battle-hardened from Syria and of high morale, particularly in battle against the IOF.
REASON
Given the history and sober assessments, why is the Zionist state engaging in this attack and being backed by the western imperialists? Yoav Gallant, Minister for the armed forces, claimed it was in order to degrade Hezbollah and return the Zionist settlers to northern occupied Palestine.
This is a large area denuded of thousands of settlers now being housed in hotels or even camps deeper in occupied Palestine (‘Israel’) or who have left the state altogether, whether temporarily of permanently. Currently it is occupied mostly by the IOF, in bases and Settler houses.
The reason for the emptying of the region of Settler communities is its daily bombardment by Hezbollah since October 8th, the day the IOF began this latest and most intensive period of genocidal bombings. And they’ve been clear: Stop the genocide and we stop the bombardment.
Hezbollah artillery rocket batteries (Photo credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)
However, despite the wishes of a large section of ‘Israeli’ society, the dominant section of the Zionist ruling class is not prepared to stop its Gaza bombardment and do a deal which would result in admission of defeat and, for Netanyahu, appearance in court to face corruption charges.
Some of the western imperialist alliance are worried that ‘Israel’ will drag10 the US and with it the rest of the Western alliance, at a time also of a war in Ukraine, into a regional war with Hezbollah, Yemen, the Iraqi resistance, Syria and of course Iran, a long-intended NATO target.
Many voices from different positions regarding the Zionist state have warned that in a regional Middle Eastern war, all western military bases in the Middle East become targets, as do all oil and gas wells delivering to the West, with huge economic results across the world.
There are indications of other motivations, beyond loss of Zionist face, of extending ‘Israel’ ‘from the sea to the river’ (!),11 re-occupying Gaza with settlers and ‘remodelling of the Middle East’ in a Zionist messianic dream but combined with a gung-ho attitude in the White House.
In a recent interview on YouTube, Iranian professor Marandi commented that strategic and tactical decisions made by the imperialists are not logical but emotional. I would agree that emotion is involved however also logical calculation — but there are times when emotion overcomes logic.
Such was the situation for example in the ‘forever war’ of the US in ‘Indochina’ when it continued despite all the evidence that it was losing, year after year, could not possibly win and was alienating huge populations even at home.
One of the many jacket designs of the classic Sci-fi novel, based to large extent on the War of the USA in Viet Nam.
It took the logic of a section of the ruling class to overcome emotion and to subdue the Reagan section to sue for peace, under of course the heroic assault of the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But the arrogance and world ambition of the US ruling class never died.
Can this now extended war of the IOF endanger all of Western imperialism’s substantial assets in the Middle East? Most certainly. So stop it, pull back! says one section of the imperialists. But Bring it on, says the other section, because after this we’ll have only Russia and China to worry about.
8These included stories of paratroop landings, overrunning Hezbollah defences and a photo of IOF taken in a very forward but abandoned Settler village, which Hezbollah commented had cost the IOF 10 dead and wounded.
9In one notorious instance, they executed two wounded fighters in hospital. Both from the air and the ground the IOF has repeatedly targeted paramedics and civil defence crews and have continued doing so from the air in Lebanon. However commentators have noted how IOF helicopters landing to evacuate wounded and dead IOF, though clearly under observation, are never targeted by the Resistance in Gaza.
10,Assuming its unwilling to do so which may not at all be the case.
Scores of people participated in a symbolic ‘funeral of Zionism’ on Monday evening (7th October) in Dublin’s city centre. In front of the James Connolly monument1 and near a mock coffin of ‘Zionism’, they listened to a song and short speeches.
This was followed by a march carrying the ‘coffin’ through city centre streets to O’Connell Bridge, where it was dumped in the Liffey river.
The ethnic composition of the mostly young mixed-gender crowd, by appearance and accent, seemed to be a mixture of Irish and Middle Eastern origin.
The chairperson of the event recalled that a year had passed since the heroic action from Gaza of October 7th and the events that followed, all being gathered there at the James Connolly memorial to hold a funeral for Zionism, the ideology of settler colonialism and genocide.
The first contribution was from a man introduced as Seán Óg with a song of his own composition, three verses rendered acapella in fine voice to the air of two well-known Irish patriotic ballads, Men of the West/ Fir an Iarthair and The Boys of Killmichael.2
The audience began to pick up and join in the chorus lines:
So here’s to the boys of Gaza, Jenin, Nablus and Hebron, Who fought ‘neath the brave flag of Palestine and sent the Settlers on.
Section of crowd at event listening to speeches, viewed facing north-eastwards. (Photo: R. Breeze)
Two speakers followed, pointing out the unanimity of imperialism nowadays in supporting Zionism as distinct from the 1950s and the importance of struggles such as that in Palestine to our own in Ireland, of internationalist solidarity and the need for that solidarity to be for the Resistance.
One speaker interspersed his words in English with some phrases in Irish and recalled the protest against the 1897 visit of the British Queen Victoria which saw James Connolly and Constance Markievicz leading a funeral cortège through the streets bearing a coffin for British Imperialism.
Though a ‘funeral’ for British Imperialism might’ve seemed only aspirational in 1897, the speaker said, signs of its decline were there to be seen for the educated, the intelligent and those who wished to see them — and before two decades elapsed it had received a major challenge.
(Photo: R. Breeze)
It survived that challenge of the First World War victorious but weakened and the embers of revolt were burning around its Empire. Before two decades after that funeral march, the torch of freedom had been lit in Dublin,3 the first uprising against world war of that century anywhere in the world.
The speaker went on to recall the subsequent War of Independence in Ireland three years later and remarked that had it not been for some Irish failures in unity and resolution that British Imperialism might have been given its mortal blow then in Ireland.
Subsequently British Imperialism survived by serving as a subject ally to US Imperialism. “Zionism is a rotten tree”, he said, “planted in Palestine by British Imperialism and nurtured by US Imperialism. Even so, Zionism is damaging its very fosterers and we welcome that.”
“Rotten trees don’t fall on their own,” the speaker continued. Trees that are rotten inside may seem healthy on the outside but when a strong storm comes along, they are knocked down. It is then we can easily see the rot inside them that we may not have noticed before.
Storms are now breaking out around the world, he said. We can and need to play our own part in those storms, “to knock down the rotten tree of Zionism and go on to demolish the whole rotten evil forest of imperialism.”
Section of crowd listening to speeches at the event, photo taken facing south-eastwards. (Photo: R. Breeze)
After applause some chants were led, among them: From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Saoirse don-Phalaistín! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! Resistance is an obligation – in the face of Occupation!
The attendance then took to the street, carrying the coffin and flying Irish and national flags of Palestine along with those of factions of the Resistance, also Hezbollah’s and Lebanon’s, continuing the chants as they marched up lower Abbey Street,4 then turning left along O’Connell Street.
Along the way, some bystanders cheered and a man leaned out of a delivery van to shout encouragement with clenched fist in the air.
On O’Connell Bridge, after a few words, the ‘coffin’ containing ‘Zionism’ was pushed over the parapet into the river Liffey, to cheers, which then changed to cycling through the accustomed solidarity chants.
The ‘coffin’ is on the Bridge parapet (left of photo) and about to be dumped into the river Liffey. (Photo: R. Breeze)
There were three external interventions.
A known Irish Zionist who regularly tries to harass Palestinian solidarity participants appeared at the outset in attempted intimidation of an activist but was quickly discouraged from doing so. At the Bridge, a person under the influence of alcohol and shouting confusedly was calmed by activists.
Break the Chains of Zionism banner next to James Connolly Monument (Photo: R. Breeze)
A Garda patrol car crew whose political undercover colleagues had clearly overlooked keeping informed drew up at the Bridge bemusedly during the chanting and, after attempting to gain some information as to events, left again – as did the participants soon afterwards.
The event was organised by Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Saoirse Don Phalaistín, the former’s Facebook page having been taken down by Meta while the event was being organised but the groups may be followed on Instagram and Twitter.
End.
Footnotes
1The location of this fine monument is in Beresford Place, across from the site of the original Liberty Hall, home of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union which Connolly led after Jim Larkin departed for the USA at the end of the 1913 Dublin Lockout. The site is now occupied a multi-storey building of SIPTU.
2The first is about the last major engagements of the 1798 Republican uprising, when a relatively small French force landed in Co. Mayo and was joined by Irish Republican insurgents; the second celebrates the IRA ambush of a column of the Auxiliary Regiment in West Cork, wiping it out almost to the last British terrorist.
4Until they reached O’Connell Street they were following in the footsteps of the GPO Garrison on Easter Monday, 1916 and passed by a number of historical political and artistic locations of 1848 and of the early 20th Century.
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