PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

On May 29, 2026May 29, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Two famous people addressed a crowd outside Leinster House, home of the Parliament of the Irish State on 25^th May. Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian scholar, had forged a remarkable friendship.

*Section of participants in the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Bassam Aramin, now a Palestinian scholar, had been sentenced to a 7-year term of imprisonment for throwing a grenade at Israeli soldiers when he was 17 and had lost his daughter later to a plastic bullet fired at short distance by an IOF soldier.

Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, had also lost his daughter Smada but to a suicide bomber in 1997. Both men became advocates of peace and dialogue and friends to one another.

Their audience was the weekly Dubs for Palestine gathering outside Leinster House on Wednesdays 12 noon to about 1.00 pm, with speeches, songs and poetry and David Hickey as MC. This week’s was the 113^th such weekly gathering and the duo had been invited to speak.

The broad group has of late been concentrating on parting the Gaelic Athletic Association¹ from its sponsor and insurance underwriter, the former Nazi and since Zionist-friendly Allianz company, along with now campaigning for the Irish soccer team not to play the ‘Israeli’ team.

*Rami Elhanan (L-R) and Basam Aramin* *addressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Rami Elhanan referenced his descent from Holocaust survivors and outlined the different living standards of the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish communities, commenting on the sickness in Israeli society, that they did not want to know what is being done in their name to the Palestinians.

Basam Aramin’s contribution was against the Occupation and claimed that without that, Palestinians and Israelis could live in peace (it was not clear whether he was referring to the ‘Two State’ proposal²). David Hickey, the MC of the group presented them with an Arum Lily each.³

After their speeches had been applauded, they were asked to comment on the recent Leinster House debate and the Government’s refusal to endorse a boycott of Israel. Rami Elhanan replied that boycotts entrenched opposing sides and that continuing to talk was the answer.

Singer and activist Emma Browne, invited next to the microphone, sang Keep the Little Flame Alive, among the lyrics of which Faye, Dolores, Bernadine, Table grapes and gasoline, Homemade rifles, kitchen knives, Kept the little flame alive riposted the previous speakers.

Soon afterwards, Paul Lynch read a poem of a Palestinian father mourning the killing of his child. Poet and activist Dorothy Collin declared that in order to have peace there must be justice first and that we must support the oppressed in whatever way they choose to resist.

*Áine Ruttley reading her poem while addressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Áine Rutley also upheld our duty of solidarity and the right of the Resistance movement to choose its own methods, as did Jimi Cullen who then performed his own song composition The Freedom Fighter about a fighter from Gaza.

As I was called to the microphone, I commented that my views had already been well expressed in song and speech and that one of the forms of resistance is song, of which we had more than probably any other people in the world and sang An Dord Féinne,⁴ which is banned in Germany.

A little later the event came to an end with another song from Emma Browne, Never Again Is Now and with group chanting for Palestine, against Allianz and against playing the ‘Israeli’ team.

IN CONCLUSION

It is a popular proposition in certain circles that all social conflicts can be resolved by discussion, by understanding our opponents’ view. It is an attractive idea but flies in the face of history and of contemporary reality.

The interests of Occupied and Occupier are opposed and cannot be reconciled through understanding. The Occupier understands that the Occupied wish to be rid of them. The Occupied do understand that the Occupier wishes to continue appropriating their land and resources.

In this kind of situation one must win and the other lose. Far from understanding leading to peaceful resolution, the more the oppressed understand the nature of their oppressor, the more resolutely they are likely to resist and this is surely true of the Palestinians resisting the Zionist settlers.

The false proposition of resolving irreconcilable interests through discussion is usually of liberal or social-democratic origin when applied to anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-racist struggles and though appearing even-handed, always ends up disempowering the victimised.

The journeys of both these men is extraordinary and interesting but it should not be presented as representative of the Palestinian struggle against Occupation, Theft and Genocide. Each father lost a child but the Palestinian is losing a lot more on top.

Furthermore, a just resolution can only come about through the total defeat of the Zionist forces and the dismantling of their State, so that if we really want that kind of resolution we are called to support the Palestinian side, unequivocally and resolutely.

Of course, in reality there is no question of real peace without justice, for ultimately the oppressed (unless wiped out) will rise in struggle again and again. The proposition of accommodation of opposites by discussion can only undermine or distract the struggle of the oppressed.

We cannot take the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, however remarkable, as even a metaphor for a just resolution nor allow ourselves to be seduced from resistance nor our struggle undermined by it.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1The management of the Gaelic games, including hurling and Gaelic football. The GAA has teams in every one of the 32 counties of Ireland, crossing the colonial border and is the biggest community sports association not only in Ireland but also in Europe and perhaps in the world.

2This proposal came out of the Oslo Accords, to give the Palestinians 20% of their land for peace with the Zionist settlers who would own the remaining 80%. Apart from its basic injustice the proposal was never realistic since Zionist settlers continued to construct settlements on additional land. Despite this, supporting that proposal is the formal position of most western imperialist states and the Irish State and of most parliamentary political parties.

3In Ireland these are often viewed as symbolic of the 1916 Easter Rising.

4Also known as Gráinne Mhaol and Óró Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile, an Irish traditional song of some antiquity refashioned into an Irish resistance song by Patrick Pearse, a martyred leader of the 1916 Rising.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeirogon_(novel)

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/

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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, 2026June 16, 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.

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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.

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.

OUTSIDE DUBLIN’S BRITISH EMBASSY: GARDAÍ SCUFFLES, ‘BLOODY CORPSES’, SPEECHES, SONG AND POETRY

On December 23, 2025December 23, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Song, Song in Struggle, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish
(Reading time: 3 mins.)

There were lively scenes today outside Dublin’s British Embassy in solidarity with the hunger strikers in British jails awaiting trial on charges arising out of Palestine Action’s operations against the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems UK.

Two of the six hunger strikers are in their 50^th days without food and approaching the point where fatal seizures are possible or suffering irreversible damage to body systems. Their demands are release on bail, a fair trial, de-proscription of Palestine Action and the closure of Elbit Systems.

*Early shot of hunger-striker solidarity protesters outside the British Embassy compound today.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

There have been daily solidarity protests in Britain, including those led by the Irish Brigade¹ in London amid general mass media silence but the arrest of Greta Thurnberg today on ‘terrorism’ charges may bring a focus on the hunger-strikes for a change.

Today also The National newspaper revealed that Barclay’s had asked the British Government to ban Palestine Action and already the question is being asked: How is it that was not admitted by the Government when Huda Ammori took the Palestine Action banning to judicial review?

(*Greta Thurnberg about to be arrested earlier in Central London*). Photo source: *Internet*)

The rally today, like that outside the British Embassy last week, was organised by the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, while another solidarity rally in Dublin last week but on College Green, in the City Centre, was organised Communities for Palestine.

*The ‘corpses’ in the road outside the British Embassy compound today.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The chants led outside the Embassy today included the usual ones heard on Palestine solidarity marches, including those referencing the Intifada, the occupation of Ireland and the Irish-language Saoirse don Phalaistín! But there were also new ones and additions to older slogans.

A new Four, Five and Six was added to a previous only One, Two and Three: One – We are the people; Two – We won’t be silenced; Three – Stop the bombing now, now, now! Four – Free our people; Five – Free our land; Six – Kick Zionism out, out, out!

Some other changed and new chants included: One, Two, Three, Four – Support the Filton 24! Five, Six, Seven, Eight – Israel is a terrorist state. We are all Palestine Action! Victory to the hunger-strikers! Brick by brick, wall by wall – all the colonies will fall!

Slogans also castigated British Government collusion in the Israeli genocide, Irish state collusion through militarisation of Shannon Airport and Gardaí collusion through their defence of the British Embassy.

*Numbers of Gardaí and one of their vehicles actually inside the British Embassy compound today.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

On two occasions the MC asked demonstrators to line both sides of the road outside the Embassy, which is one of the main Dublin routes from and towards the South. Passing traffic frequently sounded their horns in solidarity, passengers often signing thumbs-up or with clenched fist.

But at one point, most of the demonstrators occupied the road, blocking traffic in each direction. The Gardaí moved quickly to break this up and were soon violently shoving demonstrators off the road, one in particular screaming with wild eyes so that he was twice seen restrained by colleagues.²

However part of the northbound road remained occupied in front of the Embassy entrance and at this point a new group of protesters arrived and, unpacking white curtain material, began to squirt red paint on it, then to lie down in the road under the material like massacre victims.

A number of speeches were made during the event and later a man called the crowd to remember also the 1981 hunger strikes in Ireland, for which he sang the Joe McDonnell³ Ballad, with its wonderful chorus lines: You dare to call me a ‘terrorist,’ while you look down your guns!⁴

Another man recounted the story told by Bobby Sands⁵ of the caged lark which would not sing for its captor and how that bird came to represent Sands himself, before reciting a poem of an Irish migrant in London in anguish as Bobby Sands lay dying.

*The ‘corpses’ were moved from the road to immediately in front of the British Embassy compound today.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The current hunger-strikes are sometimes referenced as “the first coordinated hunger strikes in Britain” since those of the Irish Republicans in 1981. Of course, those strikes were not in Britain but in occupied Ireland and therefore currently part of the United Kingdom.

There are important differences of course. The Irish Republican hunger strikers were convicted, albeit by special non-jury courts, of armed resistance to British occupation; the current hunger strikers have not yet even been tried and none of the charges against them include armed action.

And the motivation of the Palestine Action accused is purely internationalist solidarity against a regime committing daily massacres in a programmed genocide.

Nevertheless, the British ruling class may yet come to regret the day they permitted anti-Zionism to become so strongly linked to anti-British colonialism, and anti-genocide internationalism so closely linked to the memory of Irish colonial resistance.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1An ad-hoc broad Palestine solidarity organisation composed of Irish migrants and diaspora in London.

2This may possibly be the same Garda who was seen wildly striking with his baton and pepper-spraying peaceful participants at a Palestine solidarity march to Dublin Port some weeks ago.

3One of the Ten hunger strike martyrs of 1981.

4And you dare to call me a terrorist, while you look down your guns!
When I think of all the things that you have done:
You have plundered many nations, divided many lands,
You have terrorised their people, ruled with an iron hand –
And you brought the stain of terror, to my land.

5Bobby Sands relinquished his elected post of Officer Commanding the Republican male prisoners in Long Kesh in order to lead the hunger strikes of 1981. On 5^th May he was the first of the Ten to die.

REFERENCES

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25716637.barclays-urged-john-swinney-crack-palestine-action/

THE CHIEF CAUSE OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE WORLD

On December 21, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Censorship & Witch-hunting, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

In the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, we might ask: Is anti-Semitism¹ on the rise?

It is hard to be certain, given that politicians and media keep conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Israel feelings with anti-Semitism, mixing acts against one with acts against the other, despite their being two very different things.

*People pay respects at Bondi Pavilion to victims of a shooting during a Jewish holiday celebration at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams*

But would it be surprising if anti-Semitism were indeed on the rise? And if it is, who are the main culprits?

Undoubtedly, the western imperialists who support the Israeli settler colony and repress their own citizens for opposing genocide must contribute to anti-semitism.

Above all however the Israeli State itself and its genocide against the indigenous Palestinian people, while insisting that the Zionist State is the ‘national’ expression of Judaism, that their Zionism is Judaism, must be counted as particularly responsible.

Zionism is a late 19^th Century political movement for the creation of a Jewish state, founded by a small group of European Ashkenazi² Jewish background which received the support at the time of imperialist European capitalists, particularly the British variety (some of them anti-Semites too!).

A branch of Evangelical Christianity, especially in the USA has also become Zionist.³ Leaving aside religious and prophetic belief, this sector provides a strong base of political and financial support, particularly through AIPAC,⁴ for US imperialist support for the Israeli Zionist state.

Judaism is a religion, often described as ‘of the Book’, which it shares with Christianity and Islam, all of them with origins in West Asia but with Christianity recruiting most of its congregations and states in Europe (now also the whole West, with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

Later, the main supporters of the Zionist project were the USA. A dedicated foothold in West Asia, secure from socialist revolution among its colonial Zionist settler population and with any nationalist Arab movement suppressed by this garrison, was of course attractive to the imperialists.

The project of conflating Judaism with Israeli Zionism has been underway for well over a century but even in the wake of the Nazi genocide, Zionism did not have the support of the majority of Jews around the world.⁵ This changed as the 20^th Century progressed but appears to be reverting now.⁶

ANTI-SEMITISM?

As more and more people, particularly youth around the world take to the streets and to educational establishments to denounce the daily genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli State and the collusion of the Western regimes, they face heavy repression of the states.

Beating with truncheons, use of irritant sprays, threats to academic study programs, arrests, strip-searching and serious charges are already occurring in the Irish state. To those must be added banning of organisations under false ‘terrorism’ classification in the UK and Canada.⁷

Special repressive measures are routinely taken against public displays of Palestinian solidarity in Germany, Austria and France. Journalists have been harassed and arrested, recording equipment confiscated and professionals have their careers threatened, all for opposing the Israeli genocide.⁸

Some of the resentment felt by the victims of such repression may be misdirected upon people of Jewish background, particularly since the Zionists and the Imperialists work so hard to identify the one with the other.

In addition there is a long anti-Semitic tradition in European Christian society from the Middle Ages⁹ which was employed and extended by fascist and Nazi movements in the 1930s, combined with a false and perverted nationalism. And currently fascist movements are once again on the rise.

It is instructive to see British fascist and Israeli flags side by side among groups counter-protesting gatherings of Palestinian solidarity in England, or British colonial Loyalists burning Palestinian flags alongside symbols of Irish Republicanism such as the Irish Tricolour.

AN ANTI-SEMITIC ATROCITY

Is is difficult, particularly in the absence so far of information from the perpetrators,¹⁰ to view the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia as other than an anti-Semitic atrocity. The victims were attending a Jewish religious festival when fired upon.

First panel shows the shooters, father and son, said to be linked to ISIS; Second panel shows one of the shooters being tackled and disarmed by Syrian-born Australian Ahmed al Ahmed who was later injured and underwent surgery. (Photo sources: *Internet*)

Had one of the victims, media-characterised as a saintly rabbi but in fact a Zionist supporter of the genocidal Israeli State (who had himself photographed among its soldiers while holding an automatic rifle)¹¹ been an intended target cannot justify the resulting civilian ‘collateral damage’.

In fact, such disregard for other casualties surrounding a targeted individual is a standard feature of Israeli Occupation Forces assassinations and can never be those supported by Palestine internationalist supporters or by any other democratic movement.

Western politicians and media now strive to employ this massacre and its attendant horror to further strengthen Zionism and to further conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, none more so than Netanyahu who claimed that recognition of Palestinian nationhood was a causative factor.¹²

And in Australia, the massacre is already being used in propaganda against the Palestine solidarity movement: Prime Minister Albanese has stated the intention to outlaw the Palestinian liberation and solidarity slogan: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’.¹³

The fact remains that the Israeli Zionists themselves are the greatest cause of any rise of anti-Semitism in the World.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Bondi_Beach_shooting

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/bondi-beach-attack-how-western-allies-are-enabling-netanyahus-grotesque-logic

1Although the term ‘Semitic’ describes ethnic cultural groups including Jews and Arabs, the term ‘anti-Semitic’ has been taken largely to mean anti-Jewish, i.e. against people of Jewish religious background, despite its much more recent conflation with anti-Zionism.

2One of the European-based sections of the Jewish community, speaking European languages and the German-based Yiddish, using Hebrew only for religious purposes.

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

4American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israeli Zionist lobbying organisation providing funding to most US Congress and Senate elected members.

5 https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2019/01/12/a-partial-history-of-jewish-alternatives/

6 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/one-third-american-jewish-teens-say-they-sympathise-hamas-israeli-government-poll-shows

7The direct-action organisation Palestine Action was declared a ‘terrorist organisation’ under UK law on 5 July 2005 and so far over 2,490 people have been arrested for declaring support for the organisation.

8e.g. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/professor-david-miller-fired-after-israel-lobby-smear-campaign and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/mccarthyite-backlash-response-to-criticism-of-israel-alarms-rights-groups

9Jews in many Christian European countries were required by law to live in ghettoes or were expelled, such as the expulsion of Jews and Muslims by the Christian Monarchs of the Spanish Kingdoms 1492-1614.

10According to reports they were a father and son, the first killed at the scene and the second hospitalised, just now out of a coma.

11Manchester-born and raised Eli Schlanger, in media manipulation often paired with Matilda Britvan, the 10-year-old girl victim of the massacre (for example https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ckgk391yzm7t and https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/15/what-we-know-about-the-victims-of-the-bondi-beach-terror-attack and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUE4IXCk5g)

12 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/bondi-beach-attack-how-western-allies-are-enabling-netanyahus-grotesque-logic

1 3https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/legcon/bud2425/AGD/11_Anthony_Albanese_issues_strongest_condemnation_yet_of_anti-Israel_slogan_from_the_rier_to_the_sea.pdf and a broader piece on the use of the massacre to embed Zionist defence in Australian society https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/federal-antisemitism-plan-marks-the-death-knell-of-the-public-sphere/

STRONG IRISH SUPPORT AS ELBIT HUNGER-STRIKERS REACH CRITICAL POINT

On December 19, 2025December 23, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Britain, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, irish history, Middle East, PalestineLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

As two of the six hunger strikers awaiting trial on actions against the Israeli arms company Elbit approach 50 days fasting and concern for their survival rises, the Irish recall their own history and the 10 Republican deaths on hunger strike in 1981.

The 1981 hunger striker martyrs were jailed active service Volunteers of the Provisional IRA (7) and Irish National Liberation Army (3) demanding their treatment as political prisoners. On May 5^th Bobby Sands died on hunger strike, followed in stages by another nine Irish Republicans.

The Palestine Action activists on hunger strike in jail face charges of criminal damage and alleged assault during actions targetting buildings belonging to Elbit Systems in Britain, involving destruction of manufacturing equipment and weapons and daubing with red paint.

*Placards representing the hunger-strikers and banners calling for solidarity with them on College Green, facing Trinity College, Dublin Saturday 13 June *organised by Communities for Palestine*.* (Photo:*Rebel Breeze*)

The actions and charges predate the banning on 5 July of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000. That designation has since been protested across the UK¹ with around 2,500 charged with “supporting terrorism” under the same Act (potential penalty 14 years prison or more).

The hunger-strikers have won strong support in Britain with solidarity pickets taking place now daily, along with demonstrations and marches. The protests have seen support from among the Irish diaspora, in particular in London led by the ad-hoc broad grouping of the Irish Brigade.²

Apart from humanitarian considerations, protests have also been directed at the UK’s mass media and its attempt to ignore the hunger-strikes and the solidarity actions.

MPs raised the issue too in the Westminster Parliament. Particularly shocking to many was not so much the video recording of the curt dismissal of Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary question by a UK junior Minister but rather Labour MPs laughing at the put-down of Corbyn.³

On Thursday, more than 800 doctors, nurses, therapists and carers wrote to Justice Secretary David Lammy to warn that “without resolution, there is the real and increasingly likely potential that young British citizens will die in prison, having never even been convicted of an offence”.⁴

In Ireland itself, solidarity protests have taken place in Dublin city centre and at the British Embassy on the city’s outskirts, in addition to in Belfast and Derry within the British colony of the Six Counties. Again and again speakers referenced Irish history and in particular that of 1981.

*Placard-holders facing westward traffic at College Green rally near Trinity College, Dublin Saturday 13 June.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

In Dublin on Saturday 13 June, facing Trinity College, speakers at event organised by Communities for Palestine called for solidarity with the hunger strikers, denounced daily genocide in Palestine, the chairperson also leading the crowd in the now-famous chant led by the Bob Vylan band of “Death to the IDF!⁵”

Threatened Irish neutrality in the face of the growing threat of war by NATO was also raised by speakers, as was the continued British occupation of part of Ireland, the Irish State’s collusion with the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the US militarisation of Shannon Airport.

View of a section of the *organised by Communities for Palestine* *rally from behind the main bannercalling for solidarity with the hunger-strikers on College Green, facing Trinity College Saturday 13 June. (Photo:*Rebel Breeze*)*

On Wednesday afternoon, in almost incessant rain, a large crowd protesting outside the British Embassy in Dublin heard calls from a variety of speakers (independent Palestine solidarity, Irish Republican, Socialist TD Paul Murphy) to save the hunger-strikers’ lives.

The chairperson of the rally repeatedly referred to the building as “the colonial British Embassy” and led chants in solidarity with the hunger strikers, with Palestinian prisoners of Israel and with Irish Republican prisoners in both administrations.

*Section of protest rally at main entrance British Embassy (the actual building is set back from the road) on Wednesday 17 June. (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)*

Referring to the Labour Party MPs laughing at Jeremy Corbyn’s pleas for the hunger strikers, she reminded participants of their cheering the 1916 execution of Connolly⁶ and dubbed the police “Lackeys of imperialism” as they tried to prevent demonstrators climbing up along the railings.

The slogans were not only of humanitarian concern but also of solidarity, of rage at the genocide in Palestine, of memory of Irish struggle and continuing British occupation. Among chants of hunger striker solidarity at least two speakers voiced the Republican slogan Tiocfaidh ár lá.⁷

The hunger-strikers’ demands are release on bail, a fair trial, deproscription of their organisation and closure of Elbit factories. The State would claim fair trials and as their period in detention has far exceeded the normal length even for those refused bail, could easily at least release them on bail.

The problem at issue for the British State is that conceding at all risks undermining their according terrorist status to the organisation (which postdates the arrests), a status already in serious danger.

And they need that to stamp out resistance to their genocide collusion, which they perceive as essential to their imperialist system. In that sense a concession in Britain now would have more impact than would have had to the hunger strikers in the colony in 1980 and 1981.

On the other hand, the State’s repression has brought more and more people into the struggle and has exposed the roles of the media, police, judiciary and the Labour Party. Now, the hunger-strikes are helping to draw Palestine solidarity feeling alongside Irish anti-colonial sentiment.

After some time at protest rally some demonstrators mount the wall to display their flags over the railings towards the British Embassy building, set back from the road on Wednesday 17 June. (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1Led by the Defend Our Juries civil rights organisation.

2A broad and growing section of the Palestine solidarity movement in London that has been leading the Kneecap court case music solidarity sessions and the hunger-strikers’ solidarity actions there.

3 https://www.thenational.scot/news/25701679.mps-laugh-minister-rejects-call-meet-hunger-strikers/

4 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/palestine-action-hunger-strikers-are-dying-in-prison-uk-doctor-warns

5The famous occasion was in June at this year’s Glastonbury Festival with the irony that it was live-streamed by the BBC in order to avoid featuring the Kneecap band from Ireland and their unequivocal expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. ‘IDF’ is the acronym of the armed forces of the Israeli state, more often named “Israeli Occupation Forces” (IOF) by Palestinian supporters.

6It was actually worse than that: as has been pointed out on occasion in articles in Rebel Breeze, the Labour Party, being in the UK coalition war government, were part of actually agreeing the post-1916 death sentences.

7Irish language, meaning “Our day will come.”

SOURCES & USEFUL LINKS

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/palestine-action-hunger-strikers-are-dying-in-prison-uk-doctor-warns

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/palestine-action-hunger-strike-prison-b2887068.html

New York protest includes Irish, Middle East Eye:

THE TRUMP GAZA PLAN AND IRELAND PACIFICATION

On December 12, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Kurdistan, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, South Africa, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4mins.)

It was great to see the Irish pacification process being referenced with regard to the Trump plan for Gaza¹ because that is exactly what the latter is: a plan to pacify the Resistance while ensuring it gets none of what it fought for.²

In other words, exactly like the Irish pacification process.

Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad grew out of previous Palestinian pacification processes. The Madrid Conference (1991) and the Oslo Agreement (1993) were imperialist/ Zionist attempts to pacify the wide-scale militant Palestinian resistance period of the First Intifada.³

Fatah at that time was the leading group in numbers and influence in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (from which Islamic groups were excluded) but also in Palestinian society in general. But Fatah had agreed to recognise ‘Israel’ and also the two-state solution (sic).

In the Oslo Agreement, furthermore, the question of the return to their homeland of the refugees was left aside. It appears that the Fatah leadership had lost faith in the eventual victory of their people’s struggle and had decided to get what they could by using the struggle to bargain.

The Oslo Agreement: US Imperialism’s President Clinton oversees Yitzak Rabin, Premier of Zionist state of ‘Israel’ shaking hands with Yasser Arafat of Fatah, then leader of the PLO.

What Fatah got was Palestinian Authority control in the first elections (1996), with internal control over/ management of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, but not of the Palestinians in Jerusalem (captured by ‘Israel’ in 1967): a far cry from a free Palestine.⁴

In the Algiers conference of 1988 Fatah had won majority agreement to recognise ‘Israel’ and to accept the two-state solution⁵ (sic), i.e. embodying a Palestinian state on 20% of Palestinian land, under the eyes and guns of their Zionist neighbour).

Fatah’s rule became known for corruption and nepotism, which then had to be protected and defended from the Palestinian masses, leading to authoritarian, repressive and often arbitrary rule. And repression of the Resistance, along with direct collusion with the ‘Israeli’ State.

Continuing ‘Israeli’ repression and settlement expansion in turn led to the Second Intifada; Fatah lost to Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections of 2006 followed by defeat of Fatah’s attempted coup in Gaza in 2007 (but the West Bank remaining under unelected Fatah control).

Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah has refused to announce elections since, sitting in unelected control of the PA’s office in the West Bank, collecting the various international grants, presiding over corruption,⁶ repressing Palestinian resistance of deed or word and colluding with the ‘Israeli’ Occupation.

US Imperialism’s then Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas in Palestine, soon after the start of the accelerated Zionist genocide in Gaza, December 2023

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IRISH CONNECTION?

Starting with Palestine and South Africa in 1991, an imperialist pacification process spread to Ireland, Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka. With some variations the drive has been the same: to give up revolution and join the system.

One of the features of this process was the apparent need of a recognised leader to sell it to the resistance support base and to front it for the world: Arafat (Palestine), Mandela (S. Africa), Adams/McGuinness (Ireland), Ocalan (Turkish Kurdistan), Otegi (Basque Country).

The Provisional IRA was by far the major organisation in the Irish Republican resistance; it gave up armed struggle in return for vague promises and the release of its prisoners under licence.⁷ Another organisation complied also even as new ‘dissident’ fighters were being jailed.

Nearly 30 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland is no nearer the Provisional IRA’s declared aims Irish reunification, independence and sovereignty. The Sinn Féin party helps run the colony⁸ and is attempting to become part of the neo-colony’s government.

*Sinn Féin representatives Tina Black (Mayor of Belfast) and Michelle O’Neill, First Minister of the British colony, laying a wreath at the British War Memorial in Belfast, July 2022* (Cred: *Liam McBurney/ PA Wire*)

Neither the Spanish, French nor Turkish states were interested in other than crushing the Basque and Kurdish resistance and the corresponding movements disabled themselves without getting anything in exchange other than continued repression.⁹

The resistance movements in parts of India and Philippines continue to resist but in Sri Lanka was wiped out.¹⁰

One feature of the spread was the contagion-like way in which leaders of one infected resistance sought to entice others to follow suit: S. Africa and Palestine to Ireland; S. Africa and Ireland to Basque Country; Ireland to Colombia (where only the FARC but not the ELN accepted it).

In only one iteration of the pacification processes was there a partial achievement of the stated aims of the resistance: South Africa got national enfranchisement but the economy remained under imperialist extractive control and its working people under repression.¹¹

In the course of giving up armed struggle, allegedly just changing the methods, the leaders gave up what they had fought for, the very reason for which they had first come into the struggle. Of course, they could still shout the slogans, just not make them real in any way.

The Irish version (and the Basque one) decommissioned their weapons, which makes it very relevant to the Trump Plan for the Palestinian Resistance, particularly Hamas and PIJ. No resistance movement should even discuss giving up their weapons until the defeat of the enemy.

It will be interesting to see what positions the former parties of Irish and Basque resistance, Sinn Féin and EH Bildu¹² and their supporters take on this US/ ‘Israeli’ plan for the Palestinian Resistance.

One of the features of the pacification process was the apparent need of a recognised leader to sell it to the resistance support base and to front it to the world: Arafat (Palestine), Mandela (S. Africa), Adams/McGuinness (Ireland), Ocalan (Turkish Kurdistan), Otegi (Basque Country).

Who will the imperialists find to play this role in Palestine?¹³

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

Referencing the Irish pacification process in Gaza context: https://apnews.com/article/gaza-northern-ireland-peace-process

The Palestinian Authority: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-the-palestinian-authority-and-how-is-it-viewed-by-palestinians

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-palestinian-authority-failed-its-people

1 https://apnews.com/article/gaza-northern-ireland-peace-process

2Trump 20-point plan: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles

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

4“This mirrors Israel’s post-Oslo approach to the occupied West Bank in pacifying the population through economic incentives, avoiding political concessions, and entrenching structural dependence. This model, often dubbed “economic peace,” has transformed the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a subcontractor of occupation – flush with foreign funds, but powerless to deliver sovereignty.” https://thecradle.co/articles-id/34757

5 https://ejil.org/pdfs/1/1/1136.pdf

6Which is why the imperialists and their servants keep alluding to the need for a “reformed Palestinian Authority” e.g. https://israelpolicyforum.org/blueprint-for-reforming-the-palestinian-authority

7Those released under licence could be returned to jail (and a number were) at the decision of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland without trial, hearing or details of why the individual was considered to be ‘a threat to public safety.’

8Its representative, Michelle O’Neill, is currently First Minister of the colony’s government. In the Irish State, the party has 33 TDs (MPs), only two behind the party with next largest representation, Fianna Fáil. They Party has abandoned its opposition to the repressive legislation of the State, welcomed British Royal visits to both parts of Ireland, supports recruitment to the colonial gendarmerie and its leader refused to rule out coalition with the neo-colonial political parties of membership of the British Commonwealth. https://www.thejournal.ie/mar-lou-mcdonald-commonwealth-4561600-Mar2019/

9The Basque leadership abandoned armed struggle unilaterally at the time without gaining even the end of dispersal of their jailed fighters throughout the state. The Turkish Kurdish PKK tried to make progress through political electoral means only under continuing repression. But their Syrian version of armed Kurdish forces got a new lease of life with the vulnerability of the Assad regime in Syria but ended up as a NATO proxy in the latter’s war for regime change. The PKK in Turkey very recently agreed to disarm while their Syrian part remains in difficult relationship with the new (formerly ISIS) regime in Syria and some other ISIS elements under Turkish influence.

10 https://www.vice.com/en/article/death-of-a-tiger-0000710-v22n8/

11See The Marikana Massacre of striking miners by the ANC Government’s police.

12Both parties support the Two-State proposal for Palestine.

13Some liberal and social-democratic sections seem to have fixed on Marwan Marghouti in this role, which of course is no reason not to support his release on human rights grounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6IgjlHaaIs

GOING THROUGH THE SOLIDARITY MOTIONS

On December 9, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, Trade unions, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The week before last in Ireland we were led through motions of Palestine solidarity actions once more, motions without practical effect, first by the Irish trade unions, followed the following day by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

*Seen on the IPSC National march* (Photo by: *Participant*)

On Friday, the unions announced a ‘stand out for Palestine’ day – well, not a day exactly, more like a lunch break. It was not a strike, not even a work stoppage, rather some dedicated employees surrendering their lunch break to stand with Palestinian flags etc in front of their workplaces.

Not even a work stoppage of one day, half-day, or even an hour. The union leaderships, in most cases, organised nothing, leaving it up to their members to get together and to sacrifice their lunch breaks.

More of us went through the motions again on Saturday 29 November. From the Garden of Remembrance, down O’Connell Street, across the river, around by Trinity College, up Dawson Street and into Molesworth Street, facing Leinster House.

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign organised this ‘National Demonstration’ as it does roughly every month. It is supposed, presumably, to impress the Government with its numbers and pressure them to end their collusion with the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

It has not done so — nor did it in any month or any year in the life of the IPSC, the longest-active Palestine solidarity organisation in Ireland. Nor have the monthly marches brought about any change in Irish Government collusion since the genocide of Gaza began in October 2023.

That is not the fault of the IPSC. What they are to be blamed for is not recognising that and adjusting appropriately to actions of greater pressure. Or, perhaps they recognised it indeed but nevertheless refused to change towards any effective pressurising methods.

The IPSC was for a long time near the ‘middle of the road’ but it has moved further into that position as the genocidal actions of the Zionist colony became worse and as awareness of Israeli crimes spread and grew in Ireland (which it did in part thanks indeed to the work of the IPSC).

*Section of the IPSC National march* (Photo by: *Participant*)

Solidarity work however is not about education in the abstract, raising awareness without using that awareness to bring about change. I am sure the IPSC leadership is aware of that and would wish much change but they do not adapt their actions, rather continuing with the monthly motions.

Probably they do not increase the pressure out of fear of losing their influence with the political class. Which would perhaps be well and good if the political class were delivering on ending collusion with the genocidal state – but they are not, nor is there any indication that they will.

Ireland remains the biggest single importer of Israeli products next to the USA and the biggest in the EU. The Irish Government permits military consignments to fly to Israel through ‘neutral’ Irish airspace and USA aircraft and military personnel to stopover and refuel at Shannon Airport.

*Seen on the IPSC National march as passing O’Connell monument* (Photo by: *Participant*)

Occupying the ground near the middle is only a good thing if it can be used to support action for change; it is a hindrance if the act of being there comes to be more important than the end objective: an end to genocide and the Occupation, with freedom and independence for Palestine.

The IPSC could use its mass base to blockade Dublin Port, through which Israeli products come into the country. It could also blockade other major stocking and distribution points.

The IPSC could organise mass days of action against retail and tech outlets handling Israeli exports and mobilise pickets in support of retail workers refusing to handle Israeli products, such as a Tesco worker currently facing disciplinary procedures (i.e punishment) for that very ‘crime’.

The worker in question, employed by Tesco in Newcastle, Co. Down is a member of the IWW and also of USDAW, main union for retail workers in the UK (as in the colony) but while the word is that his union is defending them, it is not seeking to extend and widen the boycott.

Defending a worker’s right not to act against their conscience is an individual and personal issue.¹ It is understood that the motivation of this worker is one of solidarity with the Palestinian people and against genocide, which is what the trade unions need to be promoting and mobilising.

Union leaderships become bureaucracies with buildings and paid officials, employing administrative staff, growing more and more cautious and afraid of State action (particularly against their funds), moving further away from the ethos that first led to the unions’ creation.

Organised workers in Italy have shown the potential in dock strikes and mass mobilisations but again it was not the mainstream unions that led the action. Canadian provincial trade union Federations have marked all ‘Israel’ goods and services as ‘hot’² and not to be handled.

Union membership in Ireland has declined as union leadership collusion with management and government escalated from the 1980s and resistance actions decreased; an increase in militant action is likely to boost recruitment but in any case organising resistance is the supposed role of trade unions.

Questions around solidarity with Palestine bring many other underlying issues to the fore: media partiality, government collusion, imperialist and colonialist influence, effective means of applying pressure, appropriate leadership, resistance to oppression, solidarity with prisoners.

We have been taught lessons of great importance – but at a terrible cost; we owe it to the Palestinians and to ourselves to apply them.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

Tesco worker facing hearing for refusing to sell ‘Israeli’ products

APPENDIX

From The Cradle news updates on Telegram 6 December 2025:

Ontario’s largest labor federation backs ‘hot cargo’ boycott of Israeli goods

The Ontario Federation of Labour has become the fourth provincial labor federation in Canada to adopt a “hot cargo” resolution against Israeli goods and services.

The move designates all trade ties with Israel as products and services workers will refuse to handle due to their connection to exploitation and oppression. The OFL’s decision follows growing momentum across the country as labor groups escalate solidarity actions.

The New Brunswick Federation of Labour first set the precedent in May when it voted to stop handling weapons destined for Israel. Similar resolutions soon followed in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, culminating in Ontario’s endorsement last week.

Together, these federations represent a significant portion of Canada’s organized labor movement.

The OFL’s stance signals a widening labor-led boycott effort, reinforcing a broader push within Canadian unions to apply economic pressure and support calls for accountability over Israel’s war crimes.

1Individual ‘conscience’ can object to many things we consider necessary, for example to give contraception methods information, or about pregnancy termination, to deal politely with migrants, to serving people in the national language, to sending children to integrated education or even to any school, etc. etc.

2‘Blacked’ was a common term for such cases in the recent past, as was ‘tainted’ further back still (á la Larkin and Connolly) – see Appendix.