When so many people and even states around the world are calling for a ceasefire, it may seem perverse to oppose the call, doing so not from a genocidal Zionist position but on the contrary from one of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
A search for definitions1of the word ‘ceasefire’ make it clear that it is a temporary status in conflict and that is exactly how the Zionist state intended it and practiced it, returning to bombing again this weekend (and shifting its main target to the very area to where it advised people to flee).
Poster from JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) a very active Jewish anti-Zionist organisation in the USA (Image sourced: Internet)
Is this truly what the Palestinians and billions of people around the globe want? No, we all want a permanent end to the bombing of Palestinians – nothing less!
The argument might run that “Surely even a temporary ceasefire brings some relief to the Palestinians, allows emergency supplies to reach them, release of hostages from both sides?” Well sure but can we not call for something better?
There is another problem with the calls for a ‘ceasefire’, which is that it seeks to impose a restriction on both sides and makes both appear as equally — or at least to some degree – the source of the problem. But the Zionists are guilty of occupation, Palestinians of nothing except resistance.
Nor are the two equally-balanced sides: the 4th larges military power against guerrillas and civilians. And do we have the right to call on the Palestinians to cease military resistance operations? Do we even want to? Do we want the IOF to remain in control of even their limited military gains?
(Image sourced: Internet)
This not a question of semantics alone but goes deep towards the heart of the matter. Resistance is the life-blood for a people, even as it costs the blood of many, many of its individuals. Without resistance, a people ceases to exist, its culture and history blown to the winds of time.
So how to give voice to the feelings of outrage and pain while viewing the atrocities of the Zionist State? How to express our solidarity with its victims?
Recent protest in Tokyo, Japan (Photo sourced: Internet)
We can simply call to STOP THE BOMBING – STOP IT NOW!
Beyond that, we must not support anything less than the departure of the colonisers – freedom, from the river to the sea! Not a two-state “solution” which, apart from being profoundly unjust to the Palestinians, would be only a stage in Israel’s program of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
That ‘two-state solution’ seeks to allow the occupiers to maintain what they have stolen and to condemn the indigenous Palestinians to less than 40% of their territory, with the most arid land and least water, permanently under the guns of the Zionist State.
Change.org petition poster and promotional photo (Photo sourced: Change.org)
It is the option favoured by all the imperialist states and their allies,2 also by the minority colluding Palestinian leadership and their political allies abroad3but scorned by the vast majority of Palestinians in Palestine and, one would assume, by all the exiled refugees.
The only long-term solution is an independent democratic unitary Palestinian state – preferably a socialist one but that is up to the people of that state. In the meantime and in order to achieve that: THE ONLY SOLUTION IS INTIFADA4 REVOLUTION.
FOOTNOTES
1 One definition: A cease-fire is an agreement that regulates the cessation of all military activity for a given length of time in a given area. It may be declared unilaterally, or it may be negotiated between parties to a conflict. (The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law.
3The Al Fatah political party leadership that controls the PLO and the PA (though they lost the elections to Hamas) in Palestine and for example in Ireland, the Sinn Féin party.
Israel uses white phosphorus munitions in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
Norman Finkelstein published a book a number of years ago entitled Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.
In it he looked at various major episodes in the long bloody onslaught on the people of Gaza, amongst them Operation Cast Lead and also the attack on the boat Mavi Marmara and the Goldstone Report, amongst other issues.
He could have written it yesterday about the current genocidal plans of the Israeli state.
The current Israeli offensive is just one more in a long line of massacres. This is not a review of Finkelstein’s book, though any book by him is worth reading and should be read. Rather I just want to use the book to show that what is happening now is not new, it is just more intense.
Israel has murdered before, it has lied, it has committed war crimes and it has always received the support of western states.
Above all we should be clear that we are where we are partly due to the Oslo Accord and also the role played by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. They cannot wash their hands of the affair.
“One of the meanings of Oslo,” former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami observed, “was that the PLO was . . . Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the intifada and cutting short . . . an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence.”
Rabin (left) and Arafat shake hands on the Oslo Accords under the management of then US President Clinton. (Photo sourced: Internet)
In particular, Israel contrived to reassign to Palestinian surrogates the sordid tasks of occupation. “The idea of Oslo,” former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky acknowledged, “was to find a strong dictator to . . . keep the Palestinians under control.”
“The Palestinians will be better at establishing internal security than we were,” Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin told skeptics in his ranks, “because they will not allow appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent the Association for Civil Rights in Israel from criticizing the conditions there. . .
They will rule by their own methods, freeing, and this is most important, the Israeli soldiers from having to do what they will do.”(1)
In other words, Gaza has bled under the passive gaze of the bureaucrats of the Palestinian authorities and of course of the reactionary Arab regimes that have never lifted a finger to help their Palestinian brothers and sisters.
They have not even threatened to cut off the supply of oil to the West, something they could do right now, but won’t. It has also happened under the gaze of those on the Left who run around shouting Implement Oslo! Two State Solution!
They ignore the fact that Oslo represented an ideological, political and military defeat for the Palestinians. The PLO accepted its role as puppet, administrator of a small urban city-like council and as chief repressor of those who continued to fight for Palestinian freedom.
A look at the Oslo II Accord, signed in September 1995 and spelling out in detail the mutual rights and duties of the contracting parties to the 1993 agreement, suggests what loomed largest in the minds of Palestinian negotiators.
Whereas four full pages are devoted to “Passage of [Palestinian] VIPs” (the section is subdivided into “Category 1 VIPs,” “Category 2 VIPs,” “Category 3 VIPs,” and “Secondary VIPs”), less than one page—the very last—is devoted to “Release of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees,” who numbered in the many thousands…
The barely disguised purpose of Oslo’s protracted interim period was not confidence building to facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace but collaboration building to facilitate a burden-free Israeli occupation.(2)
However, Israel is now militarily weak. Finkelstein points to a number of attacks where it has shown its weakness. Its predilection is for attacks on the civilian population that can’t fight back.
In 2006, it opted to bomb civilians in Lebanon rather than engage in a proper fight with Hezbollah “terrorizing Lebanese civilians appeared to be a low-cost method of “education.”(3)
In Gaza in Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9, it followed a similar path of aerial bombardments of civilians rather than land invasions, that would see its troops face the wrath of Hamas and other armed organisations. So first they relentlessly bombed Gaza before any troops went in.
When the troops went in, the civilian population was their preferred target then as it is now. The murder of civilians is not new. It is part of an Israeli strategy of claiming easy victories.
An Israelicombatant remembered a meeting with his brigade commander and others where the “rules of engagement” were “essentially” conveyed as, “if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot.”
Other soldiers recalled, “If the deputyBattalionCommander thought a house looked suspect, we’d blow it away. If the infantrymen didn’t like the looks of that house—we’d shoot” (unidentified soldier); “If you face an area that is hidden by a building—you take down the building.”
Questions such as ‘who lives in that building[?]’ are not asked” (soldier recalling hisBrigadeCommander’s order);
“As for rules of engagement, the army’s working assumption was that the whole area would be devoid of civilians … Anyone there, as far as the army was concerned, was to be killed” (unidentified soldier);
“We were told: ‘any sign of danger, open up with massive fire” (member of a reconnaissance company); “We shot at anything that moved” (Golani Brigade fighter); “Despite the fact that no one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly” (gunner in a tank crew).
“Essentially, a person only need[ed] to be in a ‘problematic’ location,” a Haaretz reporter found, “in circumstances that can broadly be seen as suspicious, for him to be ‘incriminated’ and in effect sentenced to death.”(4)
In all around 1,400 Palestinians were murdered in Operation Cast Lead, with 80% of them being civilians including 350 children. Israeli casualties were risible in comparison, just 10 combatants were killed, four of whom were killed by friendly fire.(5)
Then as now, Israel wheeled out the old trope of “human shields”. Amnesty International found no evidence of that,(6) in fact, it found evidence of Israel using children as human shields.(7)
It also found that Israel used then, as it does now, white phosphorous against schools, hospitals and even the UNRWA.(8) Furthermore, 99% of the air attacks were accurate.(9) If they murdered civilians, it is because the civilians were the target.
Following the operation, the Goldstone Report was published. It surprised no-one when it found evidence of Israeli war crimes and to a lesser extent of Hamas. It is a salutary lesson for those who now place their confidence in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Goldstone made various recommendations.
Individual states in the international community were exhorted to “start criminal investigations in national courts, using universal jurisdiction, where there is sufficient evidence of the commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
“Where so warranted following investigation, alleged perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice.”(10)
We know that nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the western governments paid little heed to the report. Goldstone was forced to recant on the conclusions to his report.
Netanyahu for his part announced that he wanted to amend the rules of war leading to Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell asking “What is it that Israel wants … Permission to fearlessly attack defenseless population centers with planes, tanks and artillery?”(11)
Exactly.
And here we are today, with Israel unilaterally amending the rules of war, with the green light from the EU and the USA, amongst others. They murder civilians and no one proposes doing anything.
In Operation Cast Lead, the harshest sentence emitted by an Israeli court was seven and a half months to a soldier who had stolen a credit card!(12) Minor financial crimes are of greater concern than war crimes or crimes against humanity.
After this genocide in Gaza, we can’t expect much from the ICC.
Throughout its history the ICC has opened just 31 cases, including one for genocide. All of them against African leaders. This does not mean that those leaders did not deserve to be judged for their crimes, but that the ICC is just the legal arm of imperialism.
It has never attempted to put on trial the powerful in the West and despite everything even less so Israel. This year it issued a communiqué announcing that it would issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes and did so on its own initiative.(13)
In the case of Gaza, it will do nothing of the sort. Those who place their trust in the ICC or in the Palestinian Authority are fooling themselves. This situation is the result of turning a blind eye to Israel for many years whilst it commits all sorts of crimes.
It didn’t act before and it won’t do so now. Neither will the Arab regimes do much, unless their own populations force them. They fear the Palestinians and their own people as they know that the struggle against Zionism is also a struggle against them.
The more revolutionary Palestinian groups used to say that the path to Jerusalem went through Amman and Damascus. They were right, it does pass through those capital cities and also Beirut, Riyadh, Cairo and all the others and not through the ICC.
In fact, one day the judges and prosecutors of that body should be put on trial for their complicity in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity through their inaction and omission.
It is beyond the scope of this article to deal with the role of Amnesty International in its own reports on Palestine.
They are what Finkelstein refers “as far from being the exception that proved the rule, Amnesty actually constituted a variant of the rule: instead of falling silent on Israeli crimes during Protective Edge, Amnesty whitewashed them.”(14)
I will leave it to the reader to look at the book for more information on that particular betrayal. Suffice to say, we can expect little from such organisations. At best they gather data we can sometimes use.
Notes
(1) Finkelstein, N. G. (2018) Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. California. California University Press. pp 6 & 7
Ambassadors generally don’t represent people but rather states. They report to their home state on attitudes at different levels in the country where they are based and on friendly and not-so-friendly contacts also.
Two ambassadors have been in the news recently and they are both from the same part of the world – one is Israeli and the other is Palestinian.
Individually ambassadors may be nice and friendly or, like the Israeli one, arrogant and aggressive but all that is really not the main thing to remember about them, which is that they represent the state that sent them. What you do or say to them, you do or say to their state.
The Israeli Dana Erlich is in the news because a number of political parties have tabled motions in the Irish Parliament for her expulsion.1 She is representing the Israeli State, a racist, Zionist colonial state which is at present carrying out a genocidal bombardment on the Palestinian people.
Dana Erlich, Israeli Ambassador to the Irish state (Photo sourced: Internet)
Wahba Abdalmajid is the Palestinian Ambassador in Ireland and, in the news mostly because she was warmly received at the recent Ard-Fheis (annual congress) of the Sinn Féin political party. A look at her “Embassy’s” website gives little indication of a people struggling for freedom.2
WHOM DOES THE PALESTINIAN AMBASSADOR REPRESENT?
Despite there existing formally a Palestinian state, in reality its people have been actively prevented from creating one. Wahba Abdalmajid’s real employer may be said to be the Palestinian Authority which functions somewhat like a state – but under the control of the Israelis.
In a recent interview, Norman Finkelstein commented that Israel had a great many spies in Gaza, most of them former employees of the Palestine National Authority, i.e the administration of which Al Fatah lost control when beaten in the 2006 legislative elections by Hamas.3
In the wave of imperialist pacification processes (incorrectly called “peace processes”4) that swept through anti-imperialist conflicts around the world, the Palestinian variant in 1993 seems to have been the first, which then spread like a virus to South Africa, Ireland, the Basque Country5 …
In the Oslo Accords of 1983, the leadership of the PLO recognised the ‘legitimacy’ of the Zionist colonial state of Israel and agreed to the idea of a Palestinian state on a part of Palestine, with the worst land and least water, forever to be under the guns of Israel.
No arrangement was made for the descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians expelled by Israel when the Zionist State was created in 1948, forbidden by Israel to return.
The attraction for the PLO’s leadership was getting to run their own administration and with that went a spiraling of the already-existing corruption and nepotism. And accompanying that, repression of dissent through the use of their ‘security force’ where they were in control.
Financial aid comes from the European Union and USA to the PNA (to the total of US$1 billion in 2005) and, despite 2006 elections won by Hamas, the funds are paid to the West Bank HQ, i.e to Mahmoud Abbas’ offices.
Mahmoud Abbas, imperialist and zionist stooge, glued to the presidential seat of the Palestinian National Authority. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The dissatisfaction of Palestinian youth and of much of society with Al Fatah and their agreement to the Oslo Accords broke out into the Second Intifada 2000-2005 and since then Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation has been led by other organisations.
At a Tokyo meeting of foreign affairs ministers,6 USA’s envoy Blinken indicated that after Israel’s hoped-for defeat of Hamas (and cowing of Palestinians) they would favour the Palestine Authority administering Gaza again, to which PNA President Mahmoud Abbas indicated agreement.
Meanwhile, elections have not been held for the PNA since 2008, despite promises a couple of years ago. The reason is obvious: Al Fatah would again lose. Nevertheless, the western imperialist bloc recognises the PA as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people!
The same bloc and the Irish State also supports the “2-state solution” which was no solution even when being mooted back in the 1970s and is visibly risible now7; furthermore surveys show that most Palestinians do not want that option.8
So who does represent the Palestinian people? Difficult to see how that question can be answered at the moment. There are a number of resistance organisations that can legitimately claim to represent sections of the Palestinian people while the PA can only represent collusion and repression.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Unsuccessfully, so far, with the Government and its allies in opposition.
2And the most recent entry in the Embassy’s news section is dated 14 August of this year!
3That was the last election held for the PA, which remains under the control of Al Fatah, which did not accept the election results. In Gaza in 2007, Hamas had a short fierce conflict with Al Fatah and took the administration to which they had been elected but refrained from doing so in the West Bank.
4Inaccurate because they do not address the central issues and therefore do not at all bring peace.
5Also Turkish Kurdistan, Colombia … The only one where the people gained anything was South Africa, which got universal suffrage but under a neo-colonial corrupt and repressive regime whose police in 2012 murdered two score striking miners.
7Also supported by Sinn Féin in Ireland and by the Chinese Government.
8Gallup poll found “24% of Palestinians support a two-state solution, down from 59% in 2012.” Also, a Pew Research poll showed only 35% of Israelis think “a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully.”
A common Zionist fabrication is that Palestine was uncultivated until they arrived. Whatever cultivation their settlers added was more than compensated by the Palestinian cultivated lands settlers stole and the destruction they have visited upon the Palestinian people.
The following is a compilation by Rebel Breeze of recent short communiqués from Anti-Imperialist Action on the confrontation with a British warship in Dublin and the raids on activists’ homes and arrests under the Gombeen State’s “terrorist” legislation (Offences Against the State Act).
Armed British Terrorists Confronted in Dublin.
On Sunday afternoon, members of Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland along with members of Saoirse Don Phalaistín, carried out a direct action against a British warship in Dublin port.
The protest was called to highlight the ongoing British Occupation of Ireland and to make clear the complicity of British Imperialism in the ongoing Zionist Occupation and Genocide in Palestine. The protest made clear the links between the National Liberation Struggles in Ireland and Palestine.
British Military confronting protesters in Dublin (Image sourced: AIA)
In a militant protest, the activists, chanted ‘From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is crime’ and Britain Out of Ireland and Palestine.’
During the course of the protest, the Republican Activists present confronted Armed British soldiers who appeared on the deck of the ship and a stand off ensued on the gangway.
End the occupation! End the genocide!
Free Palestine!
Free Ireland!
Solidarity picket outside the Dublin courts (Image sourced: AIA)
In a series of coordinated raids in Dublin this morning, a number of Republican Activists have been arrested and detained under section 30 of the Free States “Offenses against the state act”.
These arrests come as the state is increasingly fearful of the growth in Revolutionary Irish Socialist Republicanism and of Anti Imperialist Action Ireland in particular.
The arrests are timed to coincide with the leading role AIA has been playing in support of the Palestinian People and Resistance across the 32 counties and at a time when our members continue to confront and resist Imperialism across Ireland.
(Image sourced: AIA)
AIA condemn the raids and arrests by the Drew Harassers on Republican Community Activists and we call for these activists to be released back to their families and communities immediately.
Harassment, Raids, or Arrests will not stop AIA and Republican Activists from our work to rebuild the struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution, resisting Imperialism or from taking a stand for Palestine.
The Republican Community Activists raided and arrested in Dublin yesterday have been released without charge.
The operation by the Drew Harassers, no doubt at significant cost, was designed to intimidate the growing membership and support base of AIA across Ireland, but it has failed, as all such operations will fail.
AIA welcome home these activists to their families and communities, where they belong. Republicans are not criminals. We will continue to promote the legitimate demand of rebuilding the Republic of 1916 at every opportunity. We will not be deterred and ultimately we will win.
Yesterday’s arrests are only further proof that the Free State fears the message of Revolutionary Socialist Republicanism, fears the growth and levels of support for AIA, fears our support for the Palestinian Resistance and fears our continued legitimate direct actions to confront and resist British, North American, European and Zionist Imperialism in Ireland.
We won’t be going away!
Free Ireland!
Free Palestine!
Also on Saturday, after the giant Palestine solidarity march in Dublin, according to another communiqué, members of AIA, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Palestinian Solidarity Activists picketed the Leonardo Hotel on Parnell St.
The Leonardo Hotels are owned by Fatell Hotels the largest hotel group in ‘Israel’ and strong supporters of Zionist terrorism and genocide.
In response to the picket, the hotel has decided to enter lockdown, refusing to open the doors for guests.
Many thousands wound their way in Palestine solidarity on Saturday through the streets of Dublin City centre, crossing from north to south of the river, filling the streets with solidarity slogans that have now become very familiar.
Section of the march in O’Connell Street crossing the river, the rest behind not having left Garden of Remembrance/ Hugh Lane Gallery area. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The national march called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign took nearly an hour to pass through Dublin’s O’Connell Street, Palestinian colours mixing with those of political party or group and some education trade union flags and banners – and the green and gold Starry Plough.1
And still they are coming (Photo: D.Breatnach)Graffiti on the Spire in O’Connell Street (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The weather was a welcome change from the heavy rain of the night before and, in contrast to recent cold days, was mild and autumnal. The trees by roadside and in parks, except for the berry-laden hollies, were losing their leaves but those remaining shone russet and gold.
Those political parties whose TDs2 voted for sanctions against Israel on Wednesday3 were present: Social Democrats, that had sought the expulsion of the Israeli Embassy and Sinn Féin, who wanted the Government to refer the Israeli Government to the International Criminal Court.4
That included also the People Before Profit/ Solidarity, which for weeks had been calling for the Ambassador’s expulsion and the Labour Party.
Left-wing, feminist and animal liberation groups participated, along with local Palestine solidarity groups. In a change from recent marches, Irish Republican groups could be observed participating but were very few.5
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
An Ghaeilge, the Irish language, had a presence on the march in a small number of placards and a big banner proclaiming Saoirse don Phalaistín,6 the latter also shouted as a call-and-answer slogan, to merge with the now-familiar ones of Palestine solidarity, along with denunciation of genocide.
Other slogans included: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist7 state! Netanyahu, you can’t hide – We can see your genocide! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution!In our thousands and our millions8 – We are all Palestinians!
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The “Ceasefire Now!” demand could be seen on some placards and heard on occasion but not as much as before. This slogan has come under some criticism as theoretically binding the Palestinians to cease resistance and leaving the Israeli army in possession wherever they are.
Despite the necessary problems caused to vehicular traffic, a horn blowing from a passing car or van called out often in solidarity to a cheer from the marchers in reply. In contrast to the early decades of the Irish state, the population has become overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.
Some appropriate decoration of the Irish Dept. of Foreign Affairs (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A LONG MARCH
The route of the march followed the same as the previous Saturday’s but instead of stopping at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs, continued on eastwards and then into Merrion Square south where the rally was to be held but significant numbers had left without waiting for the speeches.
Eastward of there, many Garda vehicles could be seen in Merrion Street lower, probablyin case people decided to bring to the Fine Gael party HQ their disgust at State collusion with Zionist genocide. Of course nowadays, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party HQs might feel the need for the same protection.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
As people turned towards various destinations in the City Centre, to pick up their vehicles or to connect with public transport, most entered to proceed through the Merrion Square Park and, finding gates locked on to Merrion Square West road, headed for the next exit – but in vain.
All gates were locked until one, several hundred metres along Merrion Square North, finally allowed weary marchers to exit the park and turn west again towards the city centre. There was much much muttering about this deliberate inconveniencing of people in a public park.
Passing the corner of Merrion Square West, with the former home of the Wilde family on the right, a large Garda prisoner transport was parked at the corner with other police vehicles around and some Public Order Unit police standing around.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
This march had been the 5thweekend one in Dublin since the Israeli offensive, with a rally in the middle of each week also. And still the Israeli death-toll rises not just daily but by the hour. And still neither the UN Security Council nor EU will call for an end to the bombing.
And still the Israeli Embassy sits in Dublin with its staff free to spy and report on the population of the Irish State, even to insult the national feeling of solidarity and the President of the State for his comparatively mild demands thatinternational lawstatutes be followed.
Indeed, those same rules, often violated by the western superpowers, lie now exposed in shreds and tatters in Palestine. If there ever was reason to believe in imperialist states ruling the world in common humanity, that belief too lies in tatters that cannot be stitched together again.
End.
Front of march in O’Connell Street (Photo: D.Breatnach)Some trade union banners on the march (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
FOOTNOTES
1 The flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, formed to defend the workers from the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police during the 1913 Lockout, who later fought in the 1916 Rising too.
2Teachta Dála, Irish State equivalent to MPs (plural Teachtaí Dála).
3 The motions in Leinster House (seat of the Irish parliament) were defeated through the Coalition Government’s TDs voting for an amendment that pulled all the teeth from the original motions.
4 The SF party flags were absent from earlier demonstrations after their leadership stated they would not be calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador but once the leadership, no doubt facing a revolt of their members changed that position, they were out in force, some of them even stewarding the march. One wonders whether those members understand that the ICC has in a decade only tried 30 cases and convicted onlyten, not one a state or an individual close allied with the Western powers.
5 Undoubtedly, more Irish Republicans participated as individuals or as members of local solidarity groups.
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?
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
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 7th. I think it was she who called for a national walkout on World Palestinian Solidarity Day, 29th 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.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
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.
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.
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.
A Palestine solidarity demonstration of around 10,000 in Dublin on Saturday the 11th 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.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
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.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
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.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
“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.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
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.
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.
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
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.”
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.
rebelbreeze 