GOMBEENS TEACH SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALS A LESSON

On November 16, 2023December 26, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 8 mins.)

In their shameful votes last night, the Irish Government Coalition parties nevertheless taught people of social-democratic or liberal persuasion a valuable lesson. They won’t learn it of course, since it violates their world-view – but we should.

Social democrats in general, beyond the Irish political party of that name, essentially believe, despite all lessons of history, that capitalist society can be reformed through pressure of the organised labour movement and by appealing to the capitalists’ “better sense”.

Liberals believe something similar, without the trade union movement being essential. Their mantras echo through our political and philosophical culture: “Everything can be resolved through talking”, “Force solves nothing” and “The rule of law is paramount’.¹

Despite the genocidal attacks continuing and even intensifying, despite the Gombeen class’ view that the ferocious bombing would have long-term adverse effects on the Middle East and perhaps on the world, the Government parties declined to break with the imperialist bloc.

*Section of crowd, perhaps half-way, facing westward*, *away from Leinster House* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

And why should we have expected anything different from them and the class they represent? This is not even an independent class but rather a native capitalist class that grew up under foreign occupation and never resolved to overthrow its masters.²

Rendering each Caesar his due, in turn and all together, this class has kissed the feet of British colonialism and imperialism, then US imperialism and finally EU imperialism. Whatever their own view of what the wise moves might be, they always obey their masters’ wishes.

And any party that enters government here as currently constituted will act likewise to get there and even more so after arriving there.

ROAR OF SOLIDARITY OUTSIDE LEINSTER HOUSE

Knowing that a vote was imminent on motions critical of Israel, including one for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador, thousands gathered last night in Molesworth Street, opposite the metal-barricaded Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish State.

Packed tightly together outside Leinster House, the crowd replied with a roar to slogans led by callers: From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands and our millions – We are all Palestinians! Free, free – Palestine! And, yes, Israeli Ambassador – Out, out, out!

The rally had been organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the main organisation for decades engaged in Ireland in Palestine solidarity campaigning. Yet, calling for the expulsion of the Zionist State’s representative had, until now, been strangely absent from its discourse.

Not always in the past, true but so it had been until now during these five weeks of genocidal bombing by the Zionist state. In fact, it seems they had previously even asked speakers not to make that call from their platform. They were however clearly making it now and rightly so.³

And clearly, so were the speakers lined up on the IPSC platform.

Independent Sen. Frances Black whose motion on the bill to ban products from the Israeli later settlements⁴ has been held up for two years by the Government, spoke also and challenged the Government TDs to make the right choice between party and principle, to “have the balls” to vote for justice.

Matt Carthy TD, Shadow Foreign Affairs spokesperson for the Sinn Féin party, was introduced from the IPSC platform to muted applause (perhaps because of the party leaders’ earlier refusal to call for the expulsion of the Ambassador.

Carthy addressed the crowd in Molesworth Street and apart from denouncing the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, concentrated on his party’s motion for Israel’s referral to the International Criminal Court and disputed the Government’s view that additional referrals⁵ were unnecessary.

While there may be some propaganda value in such a referral, a quick check will establish the following about this institution:

The ICC has never tried a state, only individuals
The ICC has never tried a main actor or close friend of western imperialism, regardless of obvious war crimes (e.g. the USA, UK in Iraq and Afghanistan)
In its 11 years of existence, the ICC has had only 30 cases before it of which ten resulted in convictions and four in acquittals.⁶

However, the SF party spokesperson was now also calling for the expulsion of the Ambassador, since the recent turnaround of the party’s leaders on the question when Mary Lou MacDonald found her position untenable in the face of the party’s own voters and closer supporters.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD spoke as usual at such events for the People Before Profit party⁷ and excoriated the Government for their failure to apply sanctions against Israel, exclaiming: “My God, they were quick enough to do it against Russia, weren’t they?”⁸

Boyd Barrett said that if the Government won’t take the sanctions then the people must do so, the closest he came to listing how they might do so was in mentioning “occupations”, a number of which have taken place recently without any PBP involvement whatsoever.

The PBP speaker also denied that a state such as Israel, based on occupation, racism and genocide, has any right to self-defence but insisted that the targets of its attacks, the Palestinians, had every right to defence and resistance.

Holly Cairns TD, leader of the Social Democrats political party,⁹ proposer of the parliamentary motion to expel the Ambassador spoke clearly and convincingly, her speech more militant and direct than the that of the speaker from the former revolutionary Republican party.

I believe it was Cairns who asked the pointed questions with regard to taking strong sanctions against Israel with the current death toll and list of atrocities: If not now – when?

In reply to fears that the expulsion measure would make the Irish State an “outlier” in the EU, she commented to media that she would have no regrets at being “an outlier” of the current EU consensus.

Ruth Coppinger for the Socialist Party¹⁰ began by addressing the meaning of “the international community”, identifying not with the imperialist states but with solidarity demonstrations around the world including trade union blockades against shipments to Israel.

She called for such actions in Ireland today but also criticised the Palestinian assault through the apartheid Wall on October 7^th. I think it was she who called for a national walkout on World Palestinian Solidarity Day, 29^th of November.¹¹

Given the supine state and collusion of the Irish trade union movement, which neither the SP nor the PBP party have made serious efforts to challenge, a union-led walkout is unlikely and, though people may do so anyway this is likely to be difficult without organisation and leadership.

All of the speakers congratulated those in attendance and asked them to continue their solidarity actions. Many (notably not the SF speaker) also criticised the USA in general and its President, Joe Biden, in particular. The USA is the chief and financial backer of the Israeli State.

*One of the Irish language placards at the rally: “Joe of the Slaughter.”* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Although there were a number of Irish-language placards and one banner in evidence, I recall hearing not one word of Irish from the platform.

IN PALESTINE TODAY

The Israeli siege and genocidal bombing continues as the Zionist state tries to sap the resistance of the Palestinians people, destroying even their medical facilities and endeavouring to starve and terrorise them into submission.

By yesterday the death toll from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 had risen to 11,500, including 4,710 children and 3,160 women. Israel has also killed 22 civil defence and 200 medical personnel and 51 journalists.¹²

The number of injured people has reached 29,800, with about 70% of them children and women.¹³

 Wednesday’s statement from the Gaza Health Ministry said that 95 government buildings and 255 schools have been destroyed. Some 74 mosques were completely destroyed and 162 were partially damaged, in addition to three churches.¹⁴

‘It said that the Israeli army targeted 52 health centers and 55 ambulances, while 25 hospitals have run out of service.¹⁵

‘ “Israeli soldiers attacked many patients, wounded individuals, and displaced people, as well as several medical and nursing staff inside Al-Shifa Medical Complex, forcing them to undress and subjecting them to insults,” the statement added.’¹⁶

The Palestinian guerrilla movement organisations have struck back in Gaza and the West Bank and Hizbollah has entered the struggle to an extent from Lebanon. The collaborationist Arab states have become worried about their own populations, a worry shared by their imperialist masters.

But the rabid dog is loose and refuses to be restrained. What to do? Call it to heel now, or let it have its head to glut itself on blood? Difficult for the imperialist classes of the world to be certain which way to go and the divisions among them are becoming clear.

Both France and Germany EU states have banned Palestinian solidarity marches but while Germany refuses to call for any end to the bombing, President of France Macron in exclusive interview this week has called on Israel to stop killing Palestinian women and children.¹⁷

*View perhaps half-way in crowd facing Leinster House in the far distance*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Across the world, the imperialist-aligned ruling classes are in disarray. Eight states in Latin America, Middle East and Africa have now fractured diplomatic ties with Israel.

The British Labour party saw four party shadow spokespersons resign and 56 of its MPs break party discipline to vote with the Scottish National Party motion calling for an immediate ceasefire.¹⁸

The other “international community”, the one to which Coppinger referred, has been on the streets in their millions in cities across the world, on every continent, including in those of the partner states of the genocidal Israeli state.

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE

Mícheál Martin had visited Palestine before in 2010¹⁹ as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the then Fianna Fáil government and was visibly affected by what he had seen. But a Minister serves the Government which in turn serves the ruling class, which in the end calls the tune.

Today Mr. Martin, as Tánaiste²⁰ of the gombeen Coalition Government, is in ‘Israel’ accompanied by the very Zionist Ambassador which last night his party and coalition party representatives had stoutly defended and who had attended by invitation his own party’s annual congress.²¹

*Mícheál Martin in ‘Israel’ today with the zionist state’s Ambassador to Ireland (centre, partially obscured)* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

With no illusions in the parliamentary road or perhaps less of them now, we are thrown back on what was always our only realistic resources – our own mobilisations, our own actions.

Short of a revolution, to be effective we can only continue to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the Zionist state and for its collaborators, native and foreign.

Above all and indeed as some of the speakers last night emphasised, we must not be discouraged and have to continue; we owe it not only to the Palestinians but also to ourselves, to our history and our future. Beidh lá eile ag an bPaorach – there will be another day.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Of course the fact that laws are written (and changed) to suit the ruling class (or at least not threaten it) and backed up by a whole violent repressive state structure of police, courts, jails and armed forces is conveniently ignored.

2Indeed, it waged war on those who were determined to fight for independence.

3Nor did its FB page share occupation protets such as those carried out by the Anti-Imperialist Action or Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, though today they shared a post on the occupation of the Dept. of Foreign Affairs by the Ireland for Gaza group.

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

5 https://apnews.com/article/south-africa-israel-palestinians-icc-referral-6f1dd2b3af534d4d42d56a156968eae4

6 https://accessaccountability.org/index.php/2019/09/26/criticisms-and-shortcomings-of-the-icc/

7Formerly the Socialist Worker’s Movement, an Irish iteration of the (Trotskyist) Socialist Workers’ Party in Britain, much diminished from it days of greater glory but currently the largest Left party in Britain.

8Yes and Boyd Barrett was part of the condemnation of Russia and support of the Ukrainian state at the time.

9The party centre-left social democratic party was launched on 15 July 2015 by three independent TDs (members of parliament) and promotes the Nordic model and pro-European views.

10An Irish iteration of the Socialist Party in Britain, a Trotskyist party once very large there, with the Militant Tendency its entryist organisation in the UK’s Labour Party, from which it was expelled. The Irish party has had a number of members of the Irish parliament but all those still in such roles have either left to become Independents or joined the PBP-Solidarity coalition group.

11 https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people. Student walkouts seem more likely however.

12 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-from-israeli-attacks-rises-to-11-500-gaza-based-government/3055026

13Ibid

14Ibid.

15Ibid.

16Ibid.

17 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67356581

18 https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/starmer-suffers-major-frontbench-rebellion-in-gaza-ceasefire-vote-1552323.html

19 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/martin-retains-view-of-israeli-offensive-after-visit-to-gaza-1.637021

20Equivalent to Deputy Prime Minister; he is also leader of the Fianna Fáil political party, the one with most elected members in the Coalition Government with Fine Gael and the Green Party.

21 https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/17nt5a2/the_israeli_ambassador_at_the_ff_ard_fheis/?rdt=55045

SOURCES

UN International Day of Solidarity with Palestine: https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people

“SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTÍN” ON GIANT SOLIDARITY MARCH IN DUBLIN

On November 14, 2023November 15, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Gaeilge, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Language, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

A Palestine solidarity demonstration of around 10,000 in Dublin on Saturday the 11^th included a bloc marching behind a banner bearing the legend Saoirse Don Phalaistín and another demanding the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador.

Since the beginning of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Dublin has seen at least two large solidarity events every week, one mid-week and another on Saturdays, marching to the Israeli and USA Embassies or, like this one, to the Irish State’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

In addition, there have been smaller more radical events, such as the 2-hour occupation of the offices of Qanta Capital, the landlord of the Israeli Embassy, also another of the Clarence Hotel, recently bought by an Irish company with a loan from an Israeli bank.¹

Also the occupations of offices of the Irish Dept. of Transport and of the European Commission² and a weekday evening rush-hour protest on the forecourt of Dublin’s Connolly Train Station, which hosts major east coast commuting and northern city destination lines.

*Section of the march in Cuffe Street, many still behind in Aungier Street* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

On Saturday the march began as usual with a 1.00pm gathering in the city centre, the rear of the densely-packed marchers still in O’Connell Street as the rest had crossed the river into Westmoreland Street, swung into College Green and Dame Street underway to George’s Street.

At one point the march called by the IPSC³ stretched from George’s Street all along Aungier Street, the front had turned into Cuffe Street and was already marching towards Stephen’s Green. The Department of Foreign Affairs is located on the east side of the famous inner-city park.⁴

*The front of the march marching along Stephen’s Green East while the rest is still in Cuffe Street and Aungier Street* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The bloc marched along gathering people behind as it did so, shouting among others the slogan “Saoirse – don Phalaistín!” and “Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out!” which was taken up by many, including those who seemed to be Palestinian or at least from the Middle East.

At a separate point, a few professionally-printed placards in Irish could be seen too, e.g “Stad an Slad” and a flag in Palestinian colours with “Saoirse don Phalaistín” printed upon it.

The other slogans that have become standard were shouted also, including the one claimed to be ‘anti-semitic’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘against the law’ by the recently sacked UK Minister of Home Affairs, claimed to be “anti-semitic” and ‘against the law’: “From the river to sea, Palestine will be free!”

Mobbing and threats by British fascists to Palestine supporters⁵ on the gigantic solidarity march in London on Saturday⁶ that ended in scuffles with the police were linked by a number of senior politicians to Braverman’s extraordinary claims of police partiality to the demonstrators.

Braverman alleged that London Met police went softly on Palestinian solidarity demonstrations in allowing them to take place while some extreme right-wing mobilisations in the past had been sternly treated – a fantastic claim as any antifascist activist in London knows well.

*Section of the crowd standing behind the Saoirse don Phalaistín banner* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

In Dublin on Saturday, upon reaching Stephens Green, the bloc stopped short of the rally outside the Dept. of Foreign Affairs where in any case the crowd was so large that the PA system of the organisers was of insufficient strength to convey to all the words of the scheduled speakers.

A large section of the march stopped behind them and a space cleared in front, at the fringes of which the people turned and joined in the bloc’s almost incessant slogans, at times applauding them. To the solidarity slogans that have become universal, those in the bloc added another two.

*Section of the crowd who have turned to face the Saoirse don Phalaistín banner*, *many joining in the slogans*. The speakers’ platform is further beyond outside the Dept. of Foreign Affairs building. (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

These were “There is only one solution – Intifada revolution!” and “Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out!” Those slogans draw a line away from the liberal demands of “peace” and “negotiations” since the only “peace” that can exist in Israel is a pause before the next bombings.

“Saoirse – Don Phalaistín” was repeated and “Stop the bombing – Now!” seemed at one point to be offered as an alternative to “Ceasefire Now!”⁷

They also called for serious political repercussions for Israel in the expulsion of its representative in the Irish state, its Ambassador. Currently seven states have expelled Israel’s ambassadors or recalled their own – but none of them are members of the European Union.

*Section of the crowd outside the Department of Foreign Affairs* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The Irish State IS a member of the EU and a symbolic act such as the expulsion of the representative of the Zionist state would have huge reverberations. On Wednesday motions on expulsion of the Ambassador will be debated in the parliament of the Irish State.⁸

Also, the Sinn Féin party, whose leadership recently reversed their opposition to the expulsion of the Zionist representative, will be calling on the Government to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for investigation of war crimes.

While this might be of some use as a propaganda move, that Institution has never judged a state nor indeed anyone for war crimes who is part of the western imperialist coalition – which Israel most evidently is.⁹ The proceedings also tend to be very slow.

All in all, not only will such an action not be effective even if agreed, it will likely serve as a distraction from actions much more likely to be effective, such as expulsion of the Zionist Ambassador, along with arms and other trade sanctions.

A rally has been called to take place outside the home of the Irish parliament, Leinster House, Kildare Street at 6pm on Wednesday¹⁰ and a national demonstration on Saturday, starting at 1pm from the Garden of Remembrance.

End.

*Some demonstrators walk through Stephens Green after the march.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

FOOTNOTES

1By activists of the Irish Anti-Imperialist Action group.

2 https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pro-palestine-activists-occupy-department-of-transport-in-dublin-demanding-no-weapons-for-israel-pass-through-shannon-airport/a497906746.html

3The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, for decades the main Palestine solidarity organisation in Ireland.

4Which is coincidentally, a 1916 Rising battleground.

5One of the irritants to British fascist mentality was that the Palestine solidarity march was taking place on Armistice Weekend, an annual event including ceremonies commemorating the dead in battles of the UK’s armed forces, one major period which was ironically as part of the Allied forces in the War Against Fascism 1939-’45.

6Those same police seriously under-estimated the numbers participating at around 300,000 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/11/thousands-join-pro-palestine-march-in-london

7A ceasefire usually means everyone stops firing where they are, which could be interpreted as binding the Palestinian resistance to leave the Israeli military in occupation of Gaza without retaliation, which some have criticised as favouring the Israeli Zionists.

8The Social Democrats party have tabled the motion, which will be supported by the Sinn Féin party and by People Before Profit party, along with a number of Independents. The Coalition Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party have stated they will oppose it. At this moment the leadership of the IPSC continues to abstain from making such a call

9See References

10 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/suella-braverman-sacked-as-british-home-secretary-1551072.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67364745

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/11/12/mcdonald-sf-call-forh the -israeli-ambassador-expulsion-not-due-to-fears-of-being-outflanked/

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?

Problems with the ICC:https://accessaccountability.org/index.php/2019/09/26/criticisms-and-shortcomings-of-the-icc/

THE NEW WAILING WALL

On November 3, 2023December 1, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

There’s a new Wailing Wall …
THERE’S A NEW WAILING WALL;
It’s in Gaza, and here mothers and fathers wail
at the bloody bodies of their children;
children wail at the bloody bodies of parents;
all wail over the bodies of friends and neighbours;
the wailing rises and the tears fall.

At this Wailing Wall …
AT THIS WAILING WALL,
we wail the mendacity of Israel and the West,
we wail the complicity of the media in the West;
while rockets, shells and bombs rained down upon us
the lies fell faster and thicker than rain,
a torrent of lies that never stopped.
To surge in flood over the bodies of our slain.

You come now with your flag of peace …
YOU COME NOW WITH YOUR FLAG OF PEACE
tramping along the bloodstained road
and up the mountain of our bones
and the rubble of our homes
and offer us business as before
or – bombardment once more.

Now that the bombs have stopped …
NOW THAT THE BOMBS HAVE STOPPED
we too stop and look around us:
our schools gutted and bloodstained,
mosques and hospitals in ruins,
so many of our buildings rubble,
or with gaping shell-holes,
in the hell-hole
you have made of Gaza.

We had so little and you destroyed so much.
WE HAD SO LITTLE AND YOU DESTROYED SO MUCH!

In the days to come, more will sicken and die,
of wounds on flesh and wounds on soul,
of lack of medicine, fuel or food
as even in pause you take your toll.

Many are numb, some try to forget …
MANY ARE NUMB, SOME TRY TO FORGET,
some try to live without forgetting,
but there is a begetting,
for in many hearts too,
your phosphorus flakes are snowing,
the embers of hate are glowing,
their machine guns and bombs are mowing
you and your children for generations to come.

Against your Goliath …
AGAINST YOUR GOLIATH,
our slingshots were of no use;
yes, God was with you –
he’s no longer Hebrew or English –
He’s American now;
you shot us down like fish
in the shooting barrel
you made of Gaza.

You wish us to recognise you?
YOU WISH US TO RECOGNISE YOU?
Of course we recognise you –
the imprint of your boots are upon our necks;
we carry them from cradle to the grave.

But we will never agree to accept
or agree that you should keep
what you have stolen and plundered
the land you have sundered
or that you can make us second-class
citizens in our own land.

While we struggle to endure …
WHILE WE STRUGGLE TO ENDURE
and to ensure
that you never defeat us
let it be that we do not learn to treat others
as you now treat us.

What did you learn from your oppressors?
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR OPPRESSORS?
If all you learned was how to also
do so much of what they did,
then truly have the six million died in vain
and you mock their memory by invoking them.

Diarmuid, Feabhra 2009

I began to write this just as the December 2008- January 2009 bombardment of Gaza by Israel was coming to an end and I rounded it off in February.

That was the one they called “Operation Cast Lead”, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly non-combatants, including 400 children and injured over 5,300 — again, mostly non-combatants.

I little thought that so few years later Israel would unleash an even worse bombardment upon the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza, as it did in July 2014, during which it killed over 2,300, again mostly non-combatants and that time nearly 500 children.

The damage to infrastructure is colossal and the Israeli-Egyptian blockade makes significant repair impossible.

The commentary above was written in 2014. Apart from killing in raids, there were more massacres to come: March 2018, more than 700 Palestinian refugees killed at the borders of the Israeli state and in 2021, over 260 Palestinians killed after Zionist provocation at the Al Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem.

In August 2022, over 30 Palestinians, including women and children, killed in Israeli missile attacks and this year, by August, Israel had killed 172 Palestinians. Now, over October-November 2023, they have killed 133 Palestinians in the West Bank and over 9,000 in Gaza, including 3,760 children.

There is no question that this is genocide: “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

(https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml)

Nor did that genocide begin in October this year, nor last year, nor the year before. It began in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel and has been continuing since.

end.

JOURNALISTIC & EDITORIAL GUIDANCE: REPORTING CONFLICT IN PALESTINE

On November 3, 2023November 3, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Israeli Zionism, Journalism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

We understand the pressure under which news media organisations are under and how easy it is to lapse into descriptions that have become common usage in the profession and so have issued this guide to greater accuracy.

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Israel-Hamas war

OUR CORRECTION

Israel-Palestinian war¹

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Hamas-controlled/ Hamas takeover

OUR CORRECTION

Palestinian elected government²

*Gaza Hell by Israeli bombing* (Photo cred: *Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/Sipa USA*)

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Palestinian militant

OUR CORRECTION

Palestinian

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Hamas/ Palestinian terrorist

OUR CORRECTION

Hamas/ Palestinian freedom fighter

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Hamas rampage into Israel

OUR CORRECTION

Hamas breakthrough into Israeli-controlled territory

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Israel bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas attack on October 7^th

OUR CORRECTION

Israeli attack on Gaza in response to Palestinian response to 75 years of oppression, murders and massacres, including well over 200 Palestinians killed by August this year.³

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Palestinian attack on Israel

OUR CORRECTION

see above

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Israeli civilians

OUR CORRECTION

Israeli armed settlers, military reservists – and civilians

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Hamas hostages

OUR CORRECTION

prisoners of Hamas

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Palestinian prisoners

OUR CORRECTION

Hostages of Israel⁴

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

two-state solution

OUR CORRECTION

ridiculous Palestinian ‘Bantustan’ proposal

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

IDF (Israeli Defence Force)

OUR CORRECTION

IOF (Israeli Occupation Force)

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Israeli security forces

OUR CORRECTION

Israeli repression forces

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

“International community”

OUR CORRECTION

Most capitalist imperialist states around the world

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Israel’s right to defence

OUR CORRECTION

Right of the Zionists to occupy land, massacre and terrorise the inhabitants, treat them as third-class citizens and massacre and terrorise again if they resist.

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Palestinians were killed/ Hamas killed Israelis

OUR CORRECTION

Israel killed Palestinians/ Hamas killed Israelis

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Jewish state

OUR CORRECTION

Zionist state

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Illegally-occupied lands outside Israel

OUR CORRECTION

Part of unjustly-occupied whole of Palestine

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Contested attribution of bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza

OUR CORRECTION

Israeli bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza⁵ after telling hospitals to evacuate

TERM IN COMMON MEDIA USE

Uncertainty around accuracy of Palestinian casualty figures

OUR CORRECTION

Absolute accuracy of Palestinian casualty figures, accepted by a wide section of international organisations including bodies of the United Nations.

FOOTNOTES

1We’re aware that the term “war” often brings to mind the air forces, armies and navies of two states in conflict and that the Palestinians have neither air force nor navy and that their army is collectively composed of guerrilla groups. Nevertheless, for convenience and in the tradition of naming armed long conflicts of liberation “wars” we consider the term useable in this context.

2Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Elections throughout the territory – not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank. Al Fatah did not accept the results and tried to stage an armed coup in Gaza and in a short and brutal struggle were defeated by Hamas which, however left the West Bank in more-or-less Fatah hands. The then-Fatah choice for President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, remained in power and has not authorised elections since. The PA has a huge number of security personnel (over 80,000) widely regarded as brutal, repressive and colluding with the Israeli regime against Palestinians.

3The massacres by Zionist militias forced 700,000 Palestinians out of Palestine in 1948 as the State of Israel was being founded. Since then, in regular raids, massacres and bombardments, Israel had killed an estimated 65,000 Palestinians just up to 2021, after which there have been a number of bombardments of Gaza and raids into the West Bank at intervals with thousands more deaths in total. The vast majority of those `Palestinian deaths have been and continue to be those of civilians, over half of women and children, the latter over one-third.

4At the end of June 2023, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 4,499 Palestinians in detention or in prison on what it defined “security” grounds. According to recent reports, since the attack on Gaza, that number has doubled.

5For a detailed analysis both of type of Palestinian rockets and Israeli bombs re. explosion and past history https://youtu.be/7DhDKy7vARM?si=C6MWmywbFF-oNxaR

SOURCES

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

https://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/21/number-of-palestinian-prisoners-in-israel-doubles-to-10000-in-two-weeks

Should Israel be wiped off the face of the earth?

On November 1, 2023December 1, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis2 Comments

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
(Reading time: 6 mins.)

28 October 2023

Changes in the Palestinian territories and Israel.

Occasionally in the “debates” on the Arab world and Palestine in particular statements are made that “they want to destroy Israel” as a criticism or “Israel has the right to exist” as if it were a human being.

The Left abandoned any discussion on the issue following the Oslo Accord where the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) surrendered and agreed to govern some Bantustans(1) in the name of peace.

The Palestinian “problem” was resolved through the half-measure of autonomy where the Palestinian Authority has less power than a small municipality anywhere in the world and the left replicated and took on as its own the right-liberal demand for Two States.

It is worth looking at the question of destroying Israel and its supposed right to exist. We should be clear though that no state has a right to exist. States exist because they exist, through force, popular support, or cunning and guile. States come and go.

In the 19th Century two states came into being, ten years apart, one being Italy through the struggles of Garibaldi and others and Germany, unified under Bismarck. These two states underwent various important changes in their nature, borders and ideological discourse on unity.

In the case of Italy (1861), the Papal States were reduced in size and a significant part of what we now call Italy belonged to Austria. It wasn’t until after the First World War that Italy came to have borders similar to what it now has and changed from a monarchy to a republic.

In the case of Germany, its borders waxed and waned throughout the 19th Century until unification under Bismarck in 1871. Later Hitler would expand them once again under the Third Reich or as it was officially called since 1871, the German Reich.

Following the Second World War, nobody argued that the Nazi state had a right to exist. It was partially dismantled. Poland recovered a part of its land, the Sudetenland, once again, became part of Checoslovakia, Austria recovered its independence.

The great racial nation of Germans was wiped off the face of the earth. The Allies divided the rest into four parts, with three of them becoming the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and the other the German Democratic Republic, until 1991 when they were united.

Other states such as the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires also disappeared after the First World War.

These were not the only states to undergo dramatic change. There are more interesting examples from the anti-imperialist struggles. The Vietnamese guerrillas wiped off the face of the earth the reactionary (North American) state of South Vietnam.

The Algerian revolutionaries wiped off the face of the earth the French colonial department of Algeria and erected in its place the Republic of Algeria.

So, is the state of Israel immutable? Does it have a right to exist? Should that right be defended? It is easier to answer that question if we ask ourselves what defending that right means.

Israel’s existence is the theft of land, it is the Nakba, the displacement of 750,000 people in 1948. It is the invasion of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. It is also the current genocide the modern-day Nazis are trying to carry out in Gaza.

*Israeli destruction 31 October 2023 of Jabalia Refugee Camp, which was Gaza Strip’s largest of 8 camps. 150 were injured in this attack and 50 killed.* (Photo cred: *Anas al-Shareef/Reuter*s)

On that point, there are those who don’t propose to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, but rather to set up two states.

Amongst those who sometimes wave that flag is the USA and others who are more serious about it, such as Al Fatah, the dominant faction in what was the PLO, European liberals and the press.

There are also those who believe it is a pragmatic solution, but they are usually people who ignore the question of class as a factor in the Arab world.

Two states means acknowledging and accepting the invasion of 1948, the Nakba, the systematic theft, murder and torture. It also means not accepting the right of return of those displaced in 1948 i.e. to accept and reward the mass violation of the human rights of the Palestinian people.

It was worth recalling that the PLO and the various organisations that formed part of it were founded before the 1967 war, so propose two states is to propose the Zionist victory over the territory stolen in 1948.

It is to accept that if you commit mass human rights violations and crimes against humanity, the solution is to commit even more, so that some liberal or former leftist can come along and say we have to accept some degree of crime and blood.

So, what is the solution? It is not easy, though it is simple, at least conceptually. It is the historic Palestinian demand of One State. The Palestinians themselves proposed this from the word go, knowing that it brought up the problem of what to do with the Jews who had arrived.

One of the old factions of the PLO stated:

However, the DFLP had come to a premature recognition that as well as the Palestinian national question there was also a “Jewish question” which inevitably has to be resolved if one aims to reach a democratic solution to the conflict, emphasising that the resolution of the Jewish question was conditional on freeing itself from the zionist project and the necessary coexistence with the Palestinian Arabs on an equal footing under the slogan of a “Popular Democratic State” which would be built on the ruins of the State of Israel; but, how would this aim be achieved in the light of the overwhelming superiority of Israel and its firm commitment to North American Imperialism?

The answer is to be found in the “prolonged people’s war throughout the all Palestinian and Arab territories”.(2)

Such voices were, back then and continue to be, a minority, but what they say is true. Those millions of Arabs that have come out on to the streets to protest against the Zionist regime face various enemies, one of them being their own bourgeoisies, the Arab states that have betrayed the Palestinian people time and again.

However, a Pan-Arabist revolution is a far way off but not impossible. None of the Arab regimes are progressive and they exist because they repress their own people, their own working class. But what would happen to the Jews who lived in the new state?

Well, many of them, Netanyahu style Nazis would flee to the USA alongside the Yanks that have arrived in recent decades, those from Western Europe, and the Ukrainians, amongst others. Something similar happened with whites when the racist apartheid regime in Rhodesia was overthrown in 1979.

The white population fell from 240,000 to 28,000 now. In Algeria a million Pieds-Noirs fled. Others, those that descend from families that have been in the region for centuries will stay, others will have to negotiate their future in the new state.

But not an inch can be given on the right of return of ALL the Palestinians, not only to the country, but also to their farms, olive and lemon fields, their rural and urban houses in the whole country.

So, should Israel be wiped off the face of the earth? Of course it should, and a new Palestinian secular democratic state should be built on the ruins of Zionism and Apartheid. The Arab states and elites should also be wiped off the face of the earth.

Later the war criminals and those responsible for crimes against humanity will have to be tried. The Zionists rightly put the German Nazi Adolf Eichmann in the dock. It was an act of justice.

Now the Palestinians and the rest of us have to put Nethanyahu and the other criminals in the dock, perhaps with the same consequences.

Though whether they spend the rest of their miserable lives in prison or they go to the gallows may be up for discussion, what is beyond debate is whether they should be tried for crimes against humanity. They should be tried as such.

Long live Palestine Free and United!

Notes

(1) The Bantustans were segregated zones set aside for blacks in South Africa under Apartheid. They were supposedly independent from the regime but in reality had no autonomy. They were governed by black “leaders” that supported the regime, or at least were not very critical in the same way as the Palestinian Authority.

(2) F. Suleiman, (n/d), La Izquierda Palestina Revolucionaria: Tres décadas de exp eriencia de lucha (1969-1999), FDLP http://www.fdlpalestina.org/index.htm

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AS DUBLIN MARCHES AGAIN FOR PALESTINE – WHERE ARE THE PROTESTS GOING?

On October 29, 2023October 29, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

As the sixth march or rally in Dublin in three weeks concludes, with a large one also in Armagh and others take place around the world but Israel’s genocide intensifies, we need to reflect on what is our impact with these.

We are not stopping the genocide or even slowing it down, nor are we really hurting the Israeli state, nor even stopping their Dublin Embassy churning out lies, twice criticising the President of the state for relatively mild statements and accusing Ireland of helping Hamas build tunnels.¹

*Long view section of Saturday’s march ahead along Nassau Street, Dublin* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*View of tail end section of Saturday’s march as the rest stretched along Nassau Street, Dublin* *and further* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

This failure is not the fault of the people in what is probably the most pro-Palestinian state in Europe or indeed in the Western world. There are limited options here – but are we exploring them all?

The Irish Government, given its limitations as a neo-colonial Gombeen administration, cannot be expected to do more than flog the false and failed two-state solution and push for an immediate ceasefire, in which – though ineffective — it is going further than many another EU state.

It could send a clear message, if not of Palestinian solidarity, at least of condemnation of the genocide being carried out during these last three weeks. That might start something going around the world but this Government would have to answer for it to the British, the USA and the EU.

No, not going to happen, not from a neo-colonial ruling class. But what if the pressure to expel the Israeli Ambassador were huge? Then they could at least whine to their masters about how difficult it had become for them to hold the line – so maybe Israel should ease off the genocide?

But no, they are not under so great a pressure there either. And why is that?

On the march on Saturday, whenever the call went out to expel the Israeli Ambassador, it was enthusiastically supported. But in most places along the march, that call could not be heard, nor was it given any space in many sections.

And a major reason is that the organisation which called that demonstration and most of the demonstrations and rallies over these three weeks, not only in Dublin but in a number of other towns and cities across Ireland, is refraining from calling for the Ambassador’s expulsion.

*Giant banner carried alternately by two young women bearing the legend: “The root of violence is oppression”.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

That organisation is the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) which has been the main organisation for many years organising Palestine solidarity marches, rallies, pickets, public meetings, leafleting, information tables, film showings, quizzes, postering and lobbying.

Why is the IPSC not calling for the expulsion of the Zionist Ambassador? It can hardly be for any reason of liking her or what she stands for! Nor can it be for anything like bribery or fear. And in fact we know that at least some of the leadership do want the Ambassador expelled.

*Collection of placards and a banner seen near the back of the rally near the US Embassy on Saturday.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The reason for holding back on that demand is, sad to say, political opportunism of the social-democratic, reformist kind. To maintain a broad front and not scare off the allies. And what allies might they be so worried about losing or scaring off? Sinn Féin, it seems.

What — Sinn Féin? — one may ask with disbelief. Sure didn’t they themselves call for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador? Yes, 10 years ago, Gerry Adams called for that and probably since then a couple of times party spokespersons have done so. But that was then and this is now.

The “now” that is relevant to this is that the party has been remodelling itself to fit into the governing circles of this Gombeen neo-colony and demonstrating again and again that Sinn Féin is a safe pair of hands in which to leave the management of the Irish State.

In two municipal meetings very recently, Sinn Féin councillors abstained from voting on a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire and the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador.

In Derry, the motion was passed despite that abstention but according to reports SF councillors abstained also on a similar motion in Mid Ulster District Council on Thursday which failed to pass.²

In the Leinster House debate this week, SF put some amendments forward but none called for the expulsion of the Ambassador and they didn’t support the PBP amendment that did; in the end SF voted for the Government motion (not even abstaining).³

The IPSC leaders probably expect, as seems very likely, that Sinn Féin will be part of the next government and don’t want to embarrass them before that, in the mistaken belief that the party will then deliver all – or at least much – of what is needed when they are in that government.

But the leaders of the IPSC should be doing the exact opposite – they should be putting SF and its presence in the next government under pressure now and afterwards, calling all the time for the expulsion of that representative of genocide, racism, apartheid and colonisation.

But not only is the leadership of the IPSC (despite their own feelings no doubt) not calling publicly for the expulsion of the Ambassador, it seems that they are actually now also asking featured speakers not to voice that call!

It is bad enough that SF has changed from being an anti-imperialist revolutionary organisation to being a party of colonial collusion (in the 6 Counties) and neo-colonial (in the Irish state) – but now other organisations feel the need to reduce their own demands in concert!

The intelligent tactic, contrary to watering down the demands is to put those in power under greater pressure to deliver gains. That happens to be the revolutionary path also.

Solidarity demonstrator carries a giant key mock-up, signifying the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland. Somewhat ironically, Sephardic Jews also have this symbolism in respect of their expulsion, along with Moorish Muslims, from the Spanish Kingdom at the end of the 15th Century. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Speaking at Saturday’s rally near the US Embassy, Bríd Smith⁴ of the People Before Profit party did indeed call for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador and also denounced the ruling class and government drift towards NATO and PESCO (the EU’s military intervention force).

Smith said, in reference to Ireland’s struggle for independence – and well might she speak of it, coming as she does from a Republican family – that “we are standing on the shoulders of giants … who fought for our independence.”

A long and wide Palestinian flag carried by solidarity marchers (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Sadly she spoiled that by also claiming that they won independence for us.⁵ Hopefully that was an unfortunate slip of the tongue but one could not be certain of that. Over the years it has been far from clear that the PBP (SWM previously) and the SP support Irish national liberation.

At least Bríd Smith and other PBP speakers have publicly stated that Palestinians have the right to resist and this presumably means armed resistance, as explicitly stated by the Socialist Party in their leaflet distributed on the march⁶ and that is the position of the electoral left.

As for the rest of the Left, the International Marxist Tendency was also calling for “intifada revolution” on the march, as were the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation (AIA) on last week’s demonstration.

Presumably that is the position also of other Republican organisations⁷ but difficult to confirm as their participation as groups in these demonstrations is minimal, despite their long traditions of Palestinian solidarity.

The question of the right to resist and to do so in arms is a sharp dividing line between revolutionary internationalist solidarity on the one hand and liberal/ social-democratic solidarity, on the other, which seeks ‘peace’ (i.e return to status quo) rather than victory for the oppressed.

However, stating the right to resist in arms is not always what it seems; for example the SP’s leaflet condemns Hamas but does not propose any alternative armed resistance group to support, unlike the AIA for example, which clearly promotes the PFLP⁸ and without condemning any other group.

THE MARCH

On Saturday’s demonstration, thousands marched from the Spire in O’Connell Street across O’Connell Bridge and around Trinity College, along Nassau Street and then South Merrion Square. The march was heading for the US Embassy but along as many minor roads as possible.

The usual Palestinian solidarity slogans were being shouted but less of the Irish language was to be heard than was the case last week and certainly many less placards in Irish were to be seen.

“Israeli Ambassador – Out, out, out!” was audible in some sections and got good support in those but it was missing from most of the march (and no room given for it some sections), although when the demand was voiced by Bríd Smith speaking at the rally, it gathered a roar of approval.

Throughout these weeks the horrific genocidal bombing of Gaza by Israel has continued, along with a blockade of food, water, electric power and medicine.

Three days ago the number of Palestinian dead to the Israeli bombing since October 7^th passed 7,000 of which nearly half were children. That does not included those killed since then, nor Palestinians killed in the West Bank, nor bodies still to be found under rubble.⁹

The latest attack has been the imposed social media, news and electronic communication blackout as Israeli troops tested the ground for their attempt to wipe out Gazan resistance.

This is not just a blanket drawn over the abattoir which Netanyahu’s butchers have made of Gaza but also a massive interference with calls to emergency services – yet another war crime — and also for people to speak with their distraught relatives outside Gaza.

In our weak position with limited capabilities, putting pressure on all concerned to demand the expulsion of the Zionist Ambassador is one of the most effective things we can do and we should insist on support for that demand from all who claim to support the Palestinians.

End.

The crowd at the rally at end of the march. The stage is in the distance near the US Embassy, which is cordoned off by the Gardaí from demonstrators (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41253880.html Also since the Zionist Ambassador’s initial criticism of the President’s description of what her state was doing as war crimes, she returned to criticise him on public media yet again. In a number of countries around the world, recently for example in Spain and in Colombia, this has been the arrogant behaviour of Israeli Ambassadors, unused to having their dominant discourse challenged.

2I heard about this from two different sources but failed to get any information by a news search or by using Mid-Ulster District Council’s own website.

3See Sources.

4Bríd Smith is a TD (member of the Irish parliament) but reportedly not going to stand in the next general elections.

5Apart from the Irish state being a neo-colonial one, i.e nominally independent but actually a client of foreign imperialism, one-sixth of Ireland’s territory is under armed occupation by the EU.

6I did not see a PBP leaflet distributed on the march.

7In which, as a result of fundamental changes from Republican positions of the party in recent years, I am clearly not including Sinn Féin.

8Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular revolutionary Palestinian Marxist-Leninist organization founded in 1967

9 https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/27/middleeast/gaza-death-toll-report-intl/index.html

SOURCES

Israeli Embassy:https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41253880.html

SF recent position on Palestine and Israel:

https://www.derrynow.com/news/home/1332621/derry-sinn-fein-councillors-join-unionists-in-refusing-to-support-gaza-motion.html

Disappointing: Sinn Féin Backs Government & Fails Palestinians

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2023-10-18/18/

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2023/1015/1410920-sinn-fein-hamas/

THE RIGHT TO DEFENCE

On October 27, 2023October 28, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Zionism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Israel is justifying its bombardment of Gaza as the right to defend the state, effectively in the right to take revenge, with which the western states are in agreement.

Leaving aside the question of whether bombing homes, bakeries, markets and hospitals constitutes ‘defence’, what should we think about the right of a state to defend itself as a principle?

It seems natural that every state should have the right to defend itself; perhaps that right is extrapolated from the generally-agreed right of the individual to self-defence. In bourgeois law, the need to defend oneself can be a valid legal defence even against a murder charge.

The individual is generally understood to have the right of self-defence particularly in their home but also in public places. However, it is important to note that this right, even in bourgeois law, is not considered valid in every conceivable case.

For example, the right of one individual to use violence in their defence can be cancelled by the right of their victim to self-defence if the latter is being seriously harmed by the former, so that violence by the victim might be considered a reasonable response in their own self-defence.

People carrying out a robbery or kidnapping, to take another instance, are not considered to have the right to use violence if attacked in the course of the robbery by the victim or by security forces or even a passer-by.

Proceeding to the question of the rights of states to defence, we might say that the UK had the right to defend itself from Nazi attack during WWII and certainly so did the USSR, so too later with the rights of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from the USA’s invasions and bombings in the 1970s.

But did the Cambodian state have the right to defend itself from Vietnamese invasion when the Pol Pot regime was carrying out mass exterminations of sections of its population? Or the did the states of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy have the right to defence against the Allied forces?

Continuing in consideration of the right of a state to defence, how does that go when the attack comes from within the territory of the state itself?

Most Irish and democratic people outside would probably deny that the English Crown had the right to defend itself against the Irish rebellions of the clans (1167-1690s) or of the United Irish republicans, or against the Fenian insurrections, the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence (1919-1921).

Similarly, most would deny the right of the English or French monarchies to defend themselves against the internal republican uprisings of 1649 and 1789, respectively.

When the “internal” force attacking is a nation, then national rights of self-determination counter and supersede the rights of the state to self-defence. The case of the United Irishmen has already been noted but slave colony Haiti and colonial Algeria against France could be listed there too.

ISRAEL

The Israeli State is a colonial regime sitting on the Palestinian people’s land. It is in addition a state which is deeply religiously sectarian on the basis of Judaeism, in a sense which is far more racial than it is religious and, in many cases, may have no religious aspect at all.

Being able to claim Jewish descent is the qualification for Israeli citizenship, not religious practice or even belief. As for the Palestinians, whether Muslim or Christian, Arab or Berber, they are ‘other’, second-class or even third-class at best.

Third-class because the Ashkenazi Jewish colonists discriminate against other Jews too, for example the Ethiopian (because many are black), the Sephardic and Mizrahi (because they are not Ashkenazi). They will all speak Hebrew now but many additional languages are spoken too.

The Zionist trend in the Jewish world insisting that Jews had a right to a state of their own on a land of their own, even if some other people already lived there, was a minority trend among Jews until fairly recently, though it gained dominance in the West over years after the establishment of Israel.

Indeed there are sections of Jewish society that consider the creation of a Jewish state to be contrary to the teachings of the Torah. But as observed earlier, Zionism is not really about religion.

The establishment of the Zionist state was achieved at the price of the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians, the imposition of racist and sectarian laws, apartheid, massacres,¹ oppression of the Palestinians and repression of their resistance.

The story of the state of Israel in the land of Palestine until now can be characterised by two images: the murder of Palestinian people along with the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 as the Zionist state came into being – and the genocidal bombing of Gaza these three weeks.

As of some hours ago, over 7,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past three weeks – including nearly 3,000 children.

*Medical staff in Gaza treating children and woman injured by Israeli bombing, uploaded 26 October.* (Source image: *Al Jazeera*)

There are many ways to kill, including despair, lack of or obstruction to medical treatment or access to good water and food. But from 1948 to 2021 (i.e excluding the killings since then and this year’s), well over 20,000 Palestinian civilians have been directly killed by the Israeli state’s military and settlers.

To claim that “Israel has the right to defence” is to say that all those things are justified and must be defended, must be perpetuated, that we must be complicit in it and that the best we can do is to ask Israel to practice its racism, colonialism, oppression and repression somewhat more gently.

*Israeli bombing wide-scale destruction of Gaza, October 2023* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Israel – which is to say the Zionist project — has absolutely no right to defence.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1When hostilities erupted in 1948, the villagers of Deir Yassin and those of the nearby Jewish village of Giv’at Shaul signed a pact, later approved at Haganah headquarters, to maintain their good relations, exchange information on movement of outsiders through village territory, and ensure the safety of vehicles from the village. The inhabitants of Deir Yassin upheld the agreement scrupulously, resisting infiltration by Arab irregulars. Though this was known to the Irgun and Lehi forces, they attacked the village on April 9, 1948. The assault was beaten off initially, with the attackers suffering 40 wounded. Only the intervention of a Palmach unit, using mortars,[20] allowed them to occupy the village. Houses were blown up with people inside and people shot: 107 villagers, including women and children, were killed. The survivors were loaded on trucks that were driven through Jerusalem in a victory parade,[19][21] with some sources describing further violence by Lehi soldiers.[22] Four Irgun or Lehi men were killed.[23] The incident became known as the Deir Yassin massacre.

On April 10, 1948, one day after the Deir Yassin massacre, Albert Einstein wrote a critical letter to the American Friends of Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (the U.S chapter of Lehi) refusing to assist them with aid or support to raise money for their cause in Palestine.[24][25] On December 2, 1948, many prominent American Jews signed and published an op-ed article in The New York Times critical of Menachem Begin and the massacre at Deir Yassin. (Wikipedia)

SOURCES

Click to access JVP-Jews-of-the-middle-east-fact-sheet.pdf

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

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/27/israeli-air-strikes-kill-dozens-in-gaza-overnight-palestinian-sources-say

THOUSANDS IN BARCELONA IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE AND DENOUNCING EU AND USA

On October 24, 2023October 25, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Catalonia, Catalunya, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Euskal Herria, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, USA, ZionismLeave a comment

BARCELONA10/21/2023 21:18 UPDATED: 10/22/2023 11:17ONA FALCÓ@ONA_FALCO

(Reading time: 3 mins. Translated by D.Breatnach)

Thousands of people gathered this Saturday in Barcelona to defend the rights of the Palestinian people and to condemn the bombings and attacks by the State of Israel in the Gaza Strip.

The demonstration was sponsored by the Palestinian Community of Catalonia and the Prou Complicitat amb Israel (Enough of Complicity with Israel – trans.) coalition and supported by more than 100 entities and social movements in Catalonia.

The event began at six in the afternoon at the crossroads between Avinguda Diagonal and Passeig de Gràcia of the Catalan capital.

*Demonstration in support of Palestine in Barcelona, October 21, 2023. — Lorena Sopêna / EUROPA PRESS*

All organisations signed the manifesto “Let’s stop the genocide in Palestine. Stop the arms trade with Israel” with a clear desire to condemn the historical repression of the Palestinian people and calling on governments “to stop being complicit in this televised massacre.”

The participating entities declare what is being done is “not in our name.”

The call brought together a cross-section in attendance, from young people to seniors and entire families.

Shouting “Long live the Palestinian struggle” or “Israel murders, Europe sponsors”, the protesters proceeded to Plaça de Catalunya, waving Palestinian flags and posters with slogans in Catalan, Spanish, English and Arabic and images of the crimes committed in Gaza by the Israeli army.

Explanatory leaflets were also distributed directing use of correct terminology when talking about Palestine, encouraging protesters to change expressions such as “conflict between Israel and Palestine” to “Israeli colonisation of Palestine” or “IDF (Israel Defense Forces)” by “FOI (Israel Occupation Forces).

In this same vein, banners could be read expressing “if you are the occupying force, you are not defending yourself”, “Collective punishment is a war crime. Stop the genocide in Palestine” or “Apartheid was wrong in South Africa and is wrong in Palestine.”

EUROPE AND USA DENOUNCED

Given the latest visits by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, the protesters also accused the European and American institutions of “complicity” and ” sponsorship of genocide.”

The manifesto signed by the more than 100 entities stated: “The EU continues to consider Israel, despite being an extremely racist and far-right government, as a strategic partner, and the United States provides $1 billion in military aid.”

The Spanish Government is not free from reproach either, since, as the manifesto describes, “they have authorised the export of weapons to Israel worth 137 million euros since 2000.”

Faced with the recent Israeli forces’ attacks on Gaza, protesters demanded that the Spanish Government and the EU force Israel to declare an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of humanitarian corridors.

They also called for the suspension of the arms trade and the sanctioning of Israel to end the “occupation, colonialism and apartheid of the Palestinian people” and to “allow the return of the eight million Palestinian refugees.”

(Photo sourced: *Prou Complicitat amb Israel*)

Finally, they also demanded that the Generalitat of Catalonia “stop considering Israel as a strategic region in the Agency for Business Competitiveness” and have required the breaking of the friendship association between Barcelona and Tel Aviv.

The current Mayor, Jaume Collboni, reinstated that relationship after taking office, overturning its suspension by the former mayor Ada Colau.

COMMENT by D.Breatnach

Despite the overall majority for Catalan independence in Catalonia, there are sharp divisions within the movement on how to proceed and respond to Spanish State repression and these differences find expression also in attitudes to the Israeli State.

In the Basque Country too there have been demonstrations in towns across the southern country (i.e in the Spanish state) by different organisations which have been very clear in their condemnation of the current Israeli bombing but also of the entire Zionist project and Israel’s history.

On the other hand, the only demonstration organised by the “officialistas” of EH Bildu and social democratic allies, which took place in Donosti/ San Sebastian on 20^th September confined itself to calls for “peace”, “negotiation” and equal treatment by the Israeli state.

*Publicity poster for Palestine solidarity and defending the right to resistance demonstration scheduled for Saturday 28th in Bilbao.*

This sharp divergence in what might be called “the Palestinian solidarity movement” has been observed in other parts of Europe too, including Ireland as some elements seek not to stray too far from their state’s consensus while others are determined to break from it.

End.

SOURCE

https://www.publico.es/sociedad/barcelona-congrega-manifestacion-mas-multitudinaria-defensa-palestina-inicio-bombardeos-israelies.html?

CROWD PACKS FOURTH DUBLIN PALESTINE SOLIDARITY RALLY DESPITE CONSTANT RAIN

On October 20, 2023October 21, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Ireland, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Song, Song in Struggle, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 5 mins.)

The roar of Palestinian solidarity slogans outside the Irish Parliament, Leinster House on Wednesday night must surely have reached the ears of the elected representatives as they debated a motion that “Israel has a right to defend itself”.

The motion is widely seen as part of a narrative, under the cover of self-defence, endorsing the Israeli State in its decades of racism, apartheid, genocide and war crimes and takes place during the Zionist state’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza.

*Solidarity colours in the rain* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The rally, the third since last Saturday week¹ organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, attracted many hundreds willing to stand in persistent rain, listen to contributions from speakers and chant slogans, these led by voices in both Irish and Middle Eastern accents.

In fact, a strong trend increasing over recent years has been the presence of Palestinian voices at such rallies, both in speaking and in leading slogan chants, which the rally organisers have not hesitated to facilitate.

*View late in the rally* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

SLOGANS, SONG AND POEM

On Wednesday evening, some slogans were in Arabic also, such as I think “Tahya Filistina!” (long live Palestine) but sadly not the equivalent in Irish, such as “An Phalaistín abú!” or an alternative, for example: “Saoirse don Phalaistín!” However, one placard in Irish was present (see photos).

The slogans in English ran the usual range of call and answer: “Free, free – Palestine! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! One, two, three, four – occupation no more; five, six, seven, eight – Israel is a terrorist state! (I prefer “Israel is a fascist state!” myself).

In our thousands, in our millions – we are ALL Palestinians! Boycott — Israel! Irish Government – shame on you!

In 2009, as yet another Gaza bombardment came to an end, I had composed a poem I called The New Wailing Wall. On Wednesday I got it printed in a photocopying shop on my way to the event, by which time it was raining fairly heavily but I was glad to be permitted to read it out at the rally.²

A Palestinian woman sang in Arabic a “song of sadness”, i.e a lament the rhythm of which a lot of people got into, clapping in time. In Irish singing we often don’t like this, as it tends to drown out the words and the musical detail but it seemed to work well enough there.

Later she told me that she very rarely sings but felt she had to give voice to her feelings – and I know some of what she means.

*Seen from behind, Palestinian woman singing a lament in Arabic at the rall*y (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

MOTION DEBATED

Inside the home of the Irish Parliament,“the Dáil”³ a motion of support for the Zionist state proposed by the Government had run into problems even before Israel’s bombing of the hospital in Gaza, after which they intensified; the Government insists it will not condemn Israel to any degree.

It is likely that a majority-agreed motion amendment will pass but however will neither assert the right of the Palestinians to their land nor to resistance, nor to the return of refugees, much less condemn Zionism; it should be a cause of shame to all parties and individuals who support it.⁴

*Section of the rally crowed after an hour (some had gone home) in front of the gates of Leinster House* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

“Expel the Israeli Ambassador!”

In the street outside Leinster House, there were many calls for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador (Out! Out! Out!)

Truly that seems the most effective solidarity move of which we are capable currently.⁵ Sadly there seems no chance that the Government would even consider doing so.

Even among the Opposition, Sinn Féin these days looks unlikely to support such a move. This is so even though the party’s President, Mary Lou called for the expulsion of the Russian Ambassador in April last year⁶ and a decade ago, Gerry Adams, for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador.⁷

*Some solidarity demonstrators as far back as Molesworth Street while most are in front of Leinster House* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Rally supporters refuse to be squashed up on the pavements and spill over into the road. Once again the Gardaí have failed to close a road to avoid accidents and Dublin Bus has failed to instruct drivers to take alternate routes; the roof of a trapped bus may be seen in the far background. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Colombia threatened to expel⁸ the Israeli Ambassador but the leaderships of the EU and the UK are securely tied to the war-chariot of the USA and there’s never any doubt about what the US wants, which is total support for its safe⁹ Middle Eastern foothold – Israel.

Colombia told the ambassador to behave himself or leave, after the Zionist publicly criticised Colombia’s President comparing the Israeli state’s discourse about and treatment of the Palestinians to that of the Nazis towards the Jews¹⁰ (but Israel is Colombia’s main weapons supplier).

*A sentiment increasingly finding favour* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE

In the immediate future, the Zionist authorities have said they intend to invade Gaza to clear out “Hamas”, in which they will of course include all Palestinian armed resistance. Of course, solidarity demonstrations will continue or even intensify.

If Israel invades, it is difficult to imagine that the Palestinian guerrilla resistance movement, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PFLP¹¹, will allow that without putting up a fierce struggle.

Israel has the tanks and planes but fighting on the ground in ruined urban landscapes, when every pile of rubble may hide a tunnel, a bomb or a rocket-launcher, is a different game.The 5-months-long Battle of Stalingrad comes to mind and an Al Jazeera contributor came to the same conclusion.¹²

Also, other elements such a Hizbollah may open up new fronts, in particular in the Golan Heights and Lebannon, as the PFLP has urged. Imperialism and complicit Arab regimes are extremely worried about a flame reaching their combustible possessions in the region.

Massive solidarity demonstrations marched through Yemen, Lebanon and Jordan and even the collaborator military regime in Egypt was obliged to open the Rafah crossing gates for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza (with which the Zionists and the US had to reluctantly agree).

Huge solidarity and protest demonstrations have also taken place in Athens, London and other European cities, while the French government banned any such demonstrations. Texas in the USA also saw a huge demonstration and 500 Israeli protesters were arrested demonstrating in Israel.

However the regimes have weathered such storms before and may do so this time again.

Possibly the West Bank will rise up too, although Al Fatah still has a lot of influence there, despite its discrediting by corruption, nepotism and signing the Oslo Accords and with its leadership deeply compromised as a result.¹³

The Palestinian Authority goons (there are 80,000 of them) fired on demonstrations demanding action in solidarity with Gaza, and in Jenin killed a 12-year-old girl and seriously wounded a first-year university student. ¹⁴

The military command of Al Fatah told collaborator Abbas to step down¹⁵ but their objective is still the discredited and impossible two-state “solution”.

*The 2-State idea was bad in 1993 but …*

*… even worse in 2019* (Source image: *Carnegie Council*)

This “solution”, which the US and the rest of the Western states support, proposed to give the Palestinians less than 40% of their territory, the worst and least-watered, chopped into sections with narrow corridors through the Israeli lands and always under the guns of Israel.¹⁶

A Palestinian state would have neither true environmental, population, political nor civil control. Never a good choice instead of a secular state of Palestine for all, even this colonial option is clearly unworkable, sabotaged by the Zionists themselves with their settlements dotted all over it.

It is shameful to even propose it as any kind of solution.¹⁷

In the longer term, Israel’s consolidation of partnerships with a number of Arab states may have been harmed by the Zionists’ savagery and racist discourse towards the Palestinians but how deeply is difficult to predict.

Whether the Palestinian resistance and particularly Hamas is strengthened or weakened in the eyes of the Palestinian mass likewise remains to be seen.

The mostly imperialist western states of Europe and America show no sign of weakening their allegiance to the world imperialist leader, the USA and therefore, once they get over their weak criticisms of Israel’s genocide, will continue to support the Zionist state into the future.

Like many other problems on this Earth, workable solutions depend on changing some fundamental features in the world order.

end.

A historical reference to the Balfour Declaration of the Imperial Conference of British Empire leaders in 1926 giving European Jews rights to the British Mandate territory of Palestine, where approximately 10% of the population were Middle Eastern Jews at the time, the rest being Palestinian Muslims and Christians. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The rally, though thinning, is still ongoing behind photographer after perhaps two hours. Gardaí have FINALLY closed Kildare Street and a Dublin Bus has managed to turn around and exit. This has been the pattern in a number of Palestine solidarity rallies so far, when the Gardaí must have known the attendance would be large and the street should be closed for safety and traveler convenience sake. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

FOOTNOTES

1Another, last Monday week, had been organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement (effectively the People Before Profit political party).

2 https://rebelbreeze.com/2015/03/03/poem-the-new-wailing-wall/

3That is its name but there are those who refuse to call it that, saying that only an all-Ireland parliament deserves that title, such as the one founded during the War of Independence 1919-1921.

4 https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2023/10/18/government-and-opposition-parties-fail-to-agree-wording-of-dail-motion-on-gaza/

5An on-line petition recently launched calls for the Zionist Ambassador’s expulsion: https://www.change.org/p/expel-the-zionist-ambassador-from-ireland?

6 https://vote.sinnfein.ie/mary-lou-mcdonald-td-reiterates-call-for-expulsion-of-russian-ambassador/

7 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30636814.html

8It was reported that Colombia HAD expelled him and that was repeated at the rally but according to reports from there reaching now, he was only threatened with expulsion if he didn’t shut up.

9Probably the only state in the Middle East, because of its colonialist nature, that is safe from either national liberation uprising or Muslim fundamentalist revolution.

10This is a parallel so obvious that it occurs to a great many people across the globe but it is one that the Israeli authorities rejects and which it condemns as “anti-semitic” with the backing of many different authorities in the West.

11Peoples’ Front for the Liberation of Palestine

12 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/analysis-will-gaza-be-israels-stalingrad

13One of the initiatives of the waves of “Peace (sic) Processes” around the world in the 1990s and early 2000s.

14 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/palestinian-authority-cracks-down-on-protests-over-israel-gaza-attacks

15Ibid.

16 https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/series/ethics-online/the-failure-of-the-two-state-solution-hope-for-palestinian-youth

17And the history of the Zionist colonisers shows that even with that, they would be forever pushing further, grabbing more land, killing more Palestinians in flare-ups (think the history of the European colonisation of the indigenous Americans in what is now the USA).

SOURCES

https://www.change.org/p/expel-the-zionist-ambassador-from-ireland?

https://vote.sinnfein.ie/mary-lou-mcdonald-td-reiterates-call-for-expulsion-of-russian-ambassador/

Gerry Adams’ call for expulsion of Israeli Ambassador in 2014: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30636814.html

Motion discussions: https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2023/10/18/government-and-opposition-parties-fail-to-agree-wording-of-dail-motion-on-gaza/

Possible changes in the West Bank polity: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/palestinian-authority-cracks-down-on-protests-over-israel-gaza-attacks

Two-state ‘solution’: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/series/ethics-online/the-failure-of-the-two-state-solution-hope-for-palestinian-youth