Palestinian solidarity supporters demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin again this afternoon, calling for the expulsion of the legation and the Israeli Ambassador. The protest was maintained from around 3pm to after 6pm today.
Organised by Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Action for Palestine, supported by Anti-Imperialist Action and independent activists, the protest kept up an almost endless chorus of slogans in English, Irish and Arabic languages, calling for a free Palestine and an end to genocide.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Slogans were shouted denouncing the genocide being committed by the USA, the EU, the “Western Powers” and the “western media”, along with the collusion of the Irish Government. As large numbers of Gardaí arrived their collusion with zionism was called out also.
The latest figures of the Zionist genocide have now passed 27,000 dead in four months, more than two-thirds of them women and children, 66,287 injured, with 70% of Gaza housing destroyed and over 85% of its population displaced, a quarter starving and without clean drinking water.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
17,000 children are without parents or separated, according to UNICEF. And now evidence is mounting of Israeli ‘field executions’ and random sniper killing of Palestinian civilians and an Israeli military murder squad shooting three young Palestinian men sleeping in a hospital.
Meanwhile, outside the Zionist Embassy in Dublin …
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
No less than three van-loads of the POU Gardaí (riot police) and many uniformed officers were there eventually. Later one of the latter threatened all those sitting in front of the entrance as a group with arrest under the Public Order Act, though no public disorder was taking place.
For the rest of their time there, the protesters separated to each side of the Embassy building entrance and the event concluded without any arrests.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Every few minutes car horns could be heard as passing drivers indicated their support, often with a clenched fist or thumbs-up sign out the window. Only two objected: a man walking his dog who said he only cares about Ireland and a woman who shouted from across the road.
It has often been remarked by activists that those who “only care about Ireland” and object to Palestinian solidarity are not seen on the many demonstrations in Ireland protesting lack of housing, health service in tatters or British occupation of the Six Counties.
The Israeli Embassy is in an upper floor of a building rented to the zionist entity by a foreign property company with Irish directors, Quanta Capital at 15 Merrion Square North, a location which has also been the subject of protests.
Other tenants in the building say they have complained about the Embassy tenancy to the company but “they don’t care.”
No doubt protesters will return and the pressure on the Embassy (and on the Irish Government protecting it) will be maintained. Some TD should surely ask in Leinster House how much the taxpayers are being charged for maintaining an official zionist presence in Dublin.
A call has gone out for Irish politicians, as part of pressure on the USA to stop supporting Israeli genocidal attacks on the Palestinians, not to attend friendship ceremonies with the President of the USA on St. Patrick’s Day this year.1
With the US Presidential election scheduled for September, “Genocide Joe” Biden will still be in office on March 17th, a man who apart from representing the major imperialist power in the world, ordered his state’s veto in the UN against a call for a humanitarian ceasefire.
A man who repeated ridiculous Zionist propaganda against the Palestinians of beheading children and rapes, who said that if Israel had not existed the US would have had to invent it, who received more Zionist lobby for his campaigns as Congressman than any other in the whole USA.2
Even without his personal history, after a US-supported slaughter so far of 25,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children and displacement of 85% of Palestinians, you’d think that this would be what UStaters call “a slam dunk”, that Irish politicians would feel too disgusted to make the trip.
Placard carried by a Palestine solidarity marcher in Dublin on 28 October. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sadly this revulsion is not felt among most politicians in Ireland, who from from Varadkar in the Government to Mary Lou MacDonald of Sinn Féin in the Opposition have indicated that they have no intention of foregoing this annual pilgrimage to the Boss of the World
What is this strange Irish obsession with the United States of America anyway? Yes, of course, it is a (or the) major world power and yes, a number of people of Irish antecedence have become its Presidents – including the first Roman Catholic to reach that office.3
But really, what has the US concretely done for Ireland? Did it send us troops to help drive the English from our land? No, the Spanish Kingdom did that once and the French did it twice, once as Kingdom and again as Republic. But the US? Never.
It might be protested that the USA permitted Irish to emigrate there but a) it did so for many others too and b) only in order to populate its European colonisation of the Indigenous land and c) to compete against other European colonial powers – in particular the Spanish, French and Dutch.
It is true that it has on occasion served as a haven for Irish ‘on the run’ from British jurisdiction but so did France and in any event, those cases were nearly always when the USA was at war or in diplomatic conflict with the United Kingdom in the USA’s own interests.
WHEN THE USA COULD HAVE REALLY HELPED THE IRISH STRUGGLE
When the US-based Fenians raised an army to invade British colonial Canada in 18664, they had hopes that the government of the US would at least not impede them. The British had supported the Confederacy in the American Civil War which had cost 650,000-800,000 lives.5
That number represented the highest number of US dead in any military conflict before that (or since), fought to eliminate slavery, which the UK had abolished 50 years earlier6 – yet it supported the Confederacy7 in a number of ways including building warships for them.
The charge of the Fenians (wearing green uniforms) under Colonel John O’Neill at the Battle of Ridgeway, near Niagara, Canada West, on June 2, 1866. In reality, the Fenians had their own green flags but wore a very mixed bag of Union and Confederate uniforms (if they still had them, or parts of them left over from the Civil War), or civilian garb, with strips of green as arm or hat bands to distinguish themselves. (library and archives canada, c-18737)
The USA closed the border with Canada and arrested Fenian war veterans under arms8 waiting to cross but only after (perhaps to make a point with the British) an advance Fenian force had already entered British Canada, seized Fort Erie and defeated British soldiers of the line and militia.
The US President, Andrew Johnson issued the border closure and arrest of Fenians by Executive Order on June 5th 1866, which was enforced under orders from General Ulysses Grant9 and put an end to the operation, as the US did to subsequent attempts.
The British subsequently paid $15.5 million in 1872 for damage caused by the British-built Confederate warship, the Alabama, after which both states entered into friendly relations.10
The USA did not support the Irish insurrection of 1916 nor the War of Independence. After WWI, while the victorious imperialists held their “Peace Conference” to discuss the new world order and re-divide up the world, US President Wilson declined to meet the Irish Republican delegation.11
The USA did not support the Irish in the War of Independence (1919-1921) nor support the Republican side in the Civil War (1922-1923). Nor again during the Border Campaign, nor during the Civil Rights Campaign followed by armed struggle (1968-1998).
In 1992, after a long legal and political battle, IRA Volunteer Joe Doherty, in the US since 1983 was finally extradited to the Six Counties despite a) the political nature of his charge and b) the well-known low proof standards of the political courts in the British colony.12
It is true of course that, in deference to the feelings of its large Irish-American population and their representation in the US polity, that it has permitted certain Irish solidarity activities on US soil and, at times, issued statements of concern over British actions in Ireland – but nothing more.
The Irish-American political representation is for the most part US first and Irish second, i.e US Imperialist first and foremost. Ireland is also used by US monopolies as a side door into the markets of the EU and, through registering head offices in Ireland, for avoiding taxes in the USA.
NEO-COLONIAL ASPIRANTS TO THE GOMBEEN CLUB
So what is all this US homage in the Irish official polity about — and in particular among Sinn Féin? How can leaders of the party correctly criticise the genocidal actions of the Israeli State and yet speak no word against the main backer of the zionist state, i.e the USA?
It’s a new SF – two of the party’s leaders, Mary Lou MacDonald and Michelle O’Neill, smiling in joint photo with the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces occupying part of Ireland (and engaged in imperialist actions elsewhere) and a hereditary monarch. (Photo cred.: Irish Times)
The answer is simply that the new SF, which was never overall socialist nor even particularly anti-imperialist throughout the Provisionals phase, is now neo-colonialist and knocking on the doors of the established gombeens,13 asking for admittance, which they are sure to receive in time.
They are not the first to make the transition from revolutionary Irish Republicans to gombeen party. Fianna Fáil, representing some of the leadership of the losing IRA side in the Irish Civil War, was an Irish ‘constitutional’ party and became the preferred choice of the gombeen ruling class.
Fianna Fáil has been in government more often than any other party in the history of the Irish State and is there now, sharing government with their former binary opposition party, Fine Gael, along with the Greens. The FF party too considered the friendship of the USA to be important.
For the SF party leadership however the US is important also based on their perception of it being a guarantor in the Irish pacification process. In their twisted reality, US imperialism is forcing British imperialism and colonialism to do – what?
Remove the British colonialists? Remove the sectarian colonial government? Stop the penetration of the Irish economy by foreign multinationals, including those of the USA?
Of course not and in the unlikely event that thoughts of doing so ever crossed the minds of US imperialists, they would discard them instantly in favour of the continued alliance with the imperialist UK as their junior partner.
NO SOAKING THE SHAMROCK IN PALESTINIAN BLOOD
Although there are many other complicit states, the USA is the major supporter of the Israeli State, financially, militarily and politically, using its position as one of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council to veto resolutions proposed against the Zionist state.
The Israeli State represents a western imperialist foothold for the USA in the Middle East, the only one that is entirely safe from either internal national liberation or fundamentalist islamist uprising and it has continued to support Israel throughout the state’s genocidal history.
The role of the US in this conflict is to defend and supply the Zionist state but also to manage client states in the region and around the world get them to support ‘Israel’ (or at least to limit their opposition to the state), alongside preventing or hampering assistance reaching the Palestinians.
Placard produced in support of the demand, seen on recent Palestine solidarity march in Dublin. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sinn Féin called recently for the Zionist Ambassador to be expelled from Ireland but initially, Mary Lou had declined to do so, saying it would not be helpful. She came under strong pressure from within the party’s membership and had to join the call for the person’s expulsion.
However, that’s easy to explain to Biden as the necessity of staying on top of a troublesome horse in order to bring it eventually under control. After all, the Government wasn’t going to expel the Ambassador, no matter what anybody said, was it?
There is a statement applicable here from the Christian Bible which has since become a proverb (if it was not already one at the time of writing), that “one cannot serve two masters”. One of the ‘masters’ is usually understood to mean money but that’s not what I mean here.14
The SF leadership cannot serve both Palestinian solidarity and US imperialism but there’s no danger of their even trying to do so – they know who their real master is. The Palestinian solidarity posturing is for their supporters and to show they can play their required role in the world.
Their President, Mary Lou did so when she offered the Irish pacification process as an example for the Palestinians15 and the whole of the SF leadership does so in supporting the imperialist “two-state solution” (sic) in which a colonial Palestinian state is to be set up under Israeli guns.
And on 40% or less of their original land, with the least water.
Neither the SF leadership nor the other politicians have any intention of missing the event in the USA in March when they offer their allegiance along with the symbolic tribute, the bowl of leaders’ shamrock which now, however, is soaked in Palestinian blood.
We should at least make it difficult for them by signing the petition and in other opportunities as may arise between now and that date.
11Or even to reply to their correspondence although interestingly he did reply to that of a young Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam in ‘French’ Indo-China (according to research presented in Dublin some years ago and noted by me)
12He had been a member of a unit in Belfast that killed a captain of an SAS undercover unit attempting to surround them.
13From the Irish language “gaimbíneachas”, a pejorative term describing the practice of those Irish with capital who took advantage of the hardships of the Great Hunger to appropriate land holdings and businesses, something similar to the disdained “carpetbaggers” in the defeated states of the American Confederacy. The term is now applied to Irish politicians and business people who facilitate foreign exploitation of Irish natural resources, labour, infrastructure and housing need.
14Although in that sense too the saying is applicable to the SF leadership.
Members and management of the Dublin Ladies Senior Football Team (Gaelic Athletic sport) made a courageous public stand in solidarity with Palestine on Saturday and called for a ceasefire.1 However, the call is misguided.
Their motivation and courage is admirable and they are not to be blamed for the error. On an IPSC Palestinian solidarity protest through Dublin’s Henry Street yesterday which spent some time outside Axa Insurance protesting, the ceasefire call was also being chanted.
Destruction of entire neighbourhoods in Gaza in October 2023 (Photo cred: Wafa)
When those who have leadership positions in the solidarity movement make incorrect calls many will follow. I have heard activists of a number of Left political parties making the same call on Palestine solidarity demonstrations and, before I thought about it, joined in myself.
WHY IT’S WRONG
What most people making the call want is probably to save the lives of the remaining Palestinians being subjected to genocide by the Israeli state but a ceasefire, by definition, is a temporary measure only. Even without the usual Israeli violations during it, they return to the bombing afterwards.
That is not, I believe, what most people want. So why not call for what we do really want, such as “Stop the bombing! Stop it now!” Or better still: “End the bombing – end it now!” We could follow that up with a longer-term slogan like “End the occupation – end it now!”
The other thing about a “ceasefire” call is that it ties in to imperialist and colonialist propaganda that this is a war “between two sides”, in which “the legitimate State of Israel” is one side and the “Hamas terrorists” are the other, instead of between a Zionist colony and the Palestinian people.
Along with that, the ceasefire call conveys the impression of two equal sides. The Zionist state is one of the most advanced military states in the world whereas the Palestinian guerrilla resistance has no air force, no navy, no artillery and no armoured war machines.
And “a ceasefire” is imposed on both antagonists. Are we really calling for restrictions to be imposed on whether or when the Palestinian resistance can decide to strike at their racist occupiers?That’s what makes the call for a “permanent ceasefire” worst of all.
Palestine solidarity demonstration in the USA in October 2023 (Photo: Justin Sullivan via Getty Images)
The Palestinian resistance may indeed agree to a ceasefire, as it did previously, for the exchange of prisoners and/or the allowing of safe passage of humanitarian supplies (the reason humanitarian agencies are calling for it); that is a tactical decision, as indeed it is also for the zionist State.
While we would not ordinarily oppose that kind of ceasefire that is up to the Palestinians to call for. For our part we should be calling not for Ceasefire Now, much less for Permanent Ceasefire Now but instead for End the Bombing Now and for an end to the Occupation.
End.
Footnote:
1Before their match they displayed a placard or banner calling for “Sos comhraic sa Phalaistín”, literally ‘a break or rest during conflict’ or, in other words, a ceasefire (not ‘a truce’, as translated by one of the tabloids, which is a related but separate concept). Their full statement (see Balls report) is well worth reading and though non-political, certainly puts our Government and the EU to shame.
Amidst the horror of the daily zionist genocide of Palestinians, actively aided or condoned by the western states, it is easy to feel helpless (although there isalways somethingwe can do) and despondent. We offer this from the Electronic Intifada as an antidote.
On a day when the Israeli state killed more than 30 Palestinians, as usual including children,1 millions around the world gave physical expression to the slogan: “In our thousands, in our millions, we are ALL Palestinians!”
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, along with organisations in many countries,2 chose Saturday 13th to display Palestinian solidarity, calling a national demonstration to march in Dublin on Saturday afternoon.
“Galway stands with Palestine” banner in O’Connell Street on Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In Dublin, on a cold Saturday after periods of icy drizzle, the event commenced from the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square in the north city centre and set off marching to rally at the Irish Dept. of Foreign Affairs on Stephens Green in the south city centre.
In a tightly-packed mass, the end of the demonstration was just leaving the vicinity of the Garden of Remembrance when the head of the march had crossed O’Connell Bridge and reached the end of Westmoreland Street, a distance of one kilometre.
Women carrying a giant Palestine flag in O’Connell Street on Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
From Cork at the southern end of Ireland, from Tyrone and Belfast in the North, from Wicklow and Wexford in the South-east and from Galway in the West, groups and individuals had travelled to Dublin to participate in the nation’s statement of solidarity with the Palestinians.
One hundred thousand marched in Dublin. Despite this, other demonstrations took place in towns and cities across Ireland too, including large ones in Derry in Cork, with other smaller ones in Carrick-on Shannon, Clonakilty, Cashel, Ennis, Kilorglin, Longford and Tipperary.3
Seen in O’Connell Street Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Dublin march was striking in its cross-gender composition with women perhaps even in the majority. Accompanied children were in evidence and youth, the latter in particular female of ages ranging across the teens to young adulthood, vocal in condemnation of Israel.
Many participants were apparently migrant or of migrant background, both female and male, there too many were young, even to children and teens.
Seen in O’Connell Street Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The slogans shouted were for the most part the regularised call-and-answer chants of Palestinian solidarity: Free, free – Palestine! From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands, in our millions – we are ALL Palestinians!
Some regular slogans also targeted Zionism and its supporters: One, 2, 3, 4 – occupation no more! Five, 6,7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!Netanyahu, USA – how many kids have you killed today? Zionist Ambassador – out, out, out! Joe Biden, you can’t hide – you’re supporting genocide!
Another section of the crow in O’Connell Street Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Boycott – Israel! was of often heard and the common cry of Ceasefire now! was subtly altered in at least one location to End the bombing – end it now!4And End the Occupation – end it now!
Less widespread but supported here and there was: There is only one solution – intifada revolution! Also: Resistance is an obligation – in the face of occupation.
Seen in O’Connell Street on Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish language, an Ghaeilge, was visibly sprinkled throughout the march, with chants of Saoirse don Phalaistín! but much more often seen on placards, occasional Palestinian flags and T-shirts. That slogan is clearly taking some root among the indigenous Irish and migrant communities.
One group of solidarity marchers was evidently organised around expression of solidarity through Irish, with banners, placards and slogan-chanting in the national language.
Translation: (You are) the shame of the world, Netanyahu! Placard photographed at the rally along Stephens Green. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
When the march reached the rally outside the Department of Justice, the area in front of the speakers’ stage was soon packed and people still arriving or stopped further back had difficulty in following the speakers even with the PA full on.
There would seem scope for smaller meetings with speakers further away from the main stage and it seems curious that this has not been attempted, at least in Dublin, to date. Many participants began to drift away, whether for refreshments or to connect with their transport mode homewards.
“Put your Action where your Sympathy is” placard to extreme left of photo while centre right a partly-obscured “Seasann muid leis an Phalaistín” (We stand with Palestine) placard may be seen. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Naturally, many chose to walk through Stephen’s Green, where a person in a hi-viz jacket was observed locking one of the gates on the park’s southern side, to angry comments from some of the exiting marchers.5
In Grafton Street, people also chanted Boycott Starbucks! as they passed the Seattle-based café chain and a little further, passing a fast food chain business: MacDonald’s, you can’t hide – you’re supporting genocide! Both businesses have been documented supporting Israeli zionism.
Over the 24 hours, Israel had killed another 135 Palestinians in Gaza.
The march underway in O’Connell Street heading southward. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Meanwhile the end of the march is still making its way out of Parnell Square. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE COURT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The march took place at the end of a week in which the South African government at the International Court of Justice had accused the Israeli State of genocide against the Palestinians and millions watched the case presentation by a team of barristers including an Irishwoman.6
The case listed well-established genocidal acts and words of the Zionist polity against the Palestinians, in particular but not exclusively since October last year. In addition, relevant case history in which the ICJ had adjudicated on genocide was quoted.7
“Grandfathers against the slaughter of the innocents” banner in O’Connell Street on Saturday as the march gets underway. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
South Africa sought an early interim Court instruction for cessation of Israeli bombing of and ground assault on Palestinians. The Israeli team’s response was to state that ending their bombing would be to hand victory to Palestinian resistance8 and an existential threat to the Zionist state.
The Israeli team’s arrogance was clear in that they turned truth on its head, presenting themselves as the victims, repeating their propaganda lies and disdaining to quote case law or to explain how the appalling death toll of Palestinians and destruction constitutes necessary defence.
Placard seen at the rally along Stephens Green on Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Zionist Prime Minister, Netanyahu, seemed to indicate that the Government would not obey any restriction to the killing ordered by the ICJ and boasted that no-one could force compliance upon the Zionist state9 (which, as long as it is supported by the USA, is a disturbing fact).
The death toll now stands at 23,843 with another perhaps 9,000 missing (most of them believed buried under rubble of buildings collapsed by Israeli bombing).10 The number of injured is quoted as surpassing 60,000 while 85% of the Palestinian population are displaced refugees.11
“One child killed every 10 minutes in Gaza” placard seen on Saturday in this section of the rally along Stephens Green, outside the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
According to a new data set from the Israeli military on its operations in Gaza, it claims killing “about 9,000” Palestinian fighters in the enclave since its assault began. Even if true that would be about 37% of the total number of 23,968 people killed there since October 7.12
In other words, the Zionist state is de facto, based on its own numbers, admitting to the killing of nearly 15,000 civilians!
Part of a campaign asking Irish politicians not to do their usual junket this year of going to the USA to mix with politicians for St. Patrick’s Day. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Whatever the true figure of Palestinian fighters killed, it has not been without cost as the spokesman for Hamas’s Qassam Brigades says that since October 7, they’ve “destroyed or disabled 1,000 Israeli military vehicles, and carried out hundreds of operations against the occupation”.13
“All the weapons we use are ones Qassam has made itself,” he added and a video released earlier showed projectiles and weapons being constructed in what seems to be an underground workshop, using modern milling and drilling machinery.
“Resistance is not terrorism” placard seen in O’Connell Street on Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish parliamentary opposition parties of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit and the Labour Party last week publicly called on the Irish Government to support the South African case in the Hague, which Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has declined to do.
That the Irish Government coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens feels under pressure from the public response to the Israeli genocide in Palestine is indicated by the statement of Eamon Ryan that points in the “South African genocide case against Israel are irrefutable”.14
Social Democrats party flags in O’Connell Street on Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Meanwhile a huge portion of the population and nearly a generation of young people in Ireland have been exposed to horrific crimes abroad, to impressive internationalist solidarity and to the shameful collusion of the Irish ruling class and its political representation in Leinster House.15
end.
Seen in O’Connell Street Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
4Some argue that the call for a ceasefire a) suggests that this is a war between equally-armed antagonists and b) that a ceasefire is laid on all combatants whereas, they say, no-one has a right to limit Palestinian resistance against their genocidal occupiers.
5They were heard remarking that this had occurred also during a Palestinian demonstration in Merrion Square
7None before now have been against a Western or Western-allied power; terrible though they were, none approached the severity of the case in point.
8Throughout, in common with earlier statements in collusion with many heads of state and persistent misrepresentation in most mass media reporting, this was presented only as “Hamas”, which is only one of a number of Palestinian resistance organisations actively fighting the Zionist attack. In addition, the Palestinian death and injury statistics and visual evidence of the destruction visited upon Gaza (a city approximately the size of Dublin but twice as densely populated) illustrate that the Israeli state’s attack is largely on Palestinian non-combatants.
Despite the big talk and ‘revolutionary’ posturing of fascists and other far-Rightists, once confronted with painful consequence the tendency is for all their bravado to collapse without dignity, as evidenced in many trials of the Capitol invaders of 2021.
On 6th January fascists, far-Rightists and other misguided followers of Republican Party Trump, who had lost the US Presidential elections to Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, broke through police lines, many invading the USA’s Capitol building and strutting around inside.
The incident had been fueled by Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud to deny him victory, then repeated and disseminated by far-Right conspirationist ideologues, in particular along social media networks and the invasion was allegedly to prevent confirmation of Biden’s election.
The invasion of the Capitol surprised many around the world and seemed to shock the USA’s public, while most of the fascists and far-Rightists reveled in it. The Capitol building is the seat of the US Congress, the legislative branch of the US State, i.e of its parliament.
Of course, the attack on the Capitol, despite the undemocratic nature of the participants, does not actually represent an “attack on US democracy” as claimed by many supporters of the US State. This is because the democracy of that state is entirely a fallacy.
The US State is run by a military-industrial-financial oligarchy, resulting in most State decisions and laws directly or indirectly benefiting that ruling class. In addition, the supposed ultimate decision-making bodies are composed of mostly rich people,1 some of them billionaires.
Campaigns for the Presidency itself are enormously expensive and paid for by contributions, the ‘pipers’ of course later ‘calling the tunes’. Judges of the Supreme Court are political appointees.
FASCIST MOBILISATIONS
Although many were taken by surprise by the invasion, the social and political stage had been under construction for some time.
In January 2017 in a clash between Proud Boys and antifascists ostensibly around the issue of the covid epidemic and mandatory mask-wearing, an antifascist shot and wounded in the leg one of the ‘Boys, surrendered to the police and was charged.2
Nearly 3,000 miles away in Charlottesville in August the “Unite the Right” rally was held, ostensibly to protest the removal of the monument to Robert E Lee, Civil War Confederate Army commander but also an attempt to build fascist unity against antifascist, antiracist resistance.3
Fascists and other far-Rightists after their earlier “Unite the Right” march through the campus of Virginia University surrounding counter-protesters in Charlottesville shortly before they attacked the antifascists. (NurPhoto via Getty images).
There were numerous clashes in Charlottesville with the cops standing by until one of the fascists drove his car into the crowd, killing an antifascist. In Oregon, over 2,600 miles away in 2020, an antifascist killed a fascist and was hunted down by police and shot dead in disputed circumstances.4
Before, between and after those events there were many clashes across the USA and at one time Trump declared that “Antifa” were a terrorist group and would be made illegal! Antifascism is of course an ideological position shared by otherwise disparate forces and not an organisation.
There was at least one Nazi swastika among the Unite the Right marchers and a number of fascist salutes. (Photo sourced: Internet)
TRUMP’S FOLLOWERS
While Trump himself has been undergoing trials and legal manoeuvres with regard to a number of issues, including allegations of financial fraud and unauthorised removal of documents from the White House, he is currently running for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party.
As is usually the case with fascist leaders, it is their followers who carry the most severe consequences5 and a great many have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment in the huge number of trials following6 and, without any great evidence of protests in solidarity with them.7
On the two-year anniversary of the event, 978 had been arrested and charged with multiple crimes in relation to the attack, according to a Department of Justice database. According to research, the median age of the defendants is 39, with over 86% identifying as male.
A more recent report quoted more than 1,200 defendants having been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury.
Approximately 750 rioters have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds getting some term of imprisonment.8
Many of these racist, right-wing and fascist warriors have buckled under to their allegedly sworn enemy, the Federal and State police and informed against their erstwhile comrades or plea-bargained with their prosecutors.
How many? By January 2023, over half of the charged, according to the Department of Justice.
One of the most recent was Charles Donohoe, not-so-proud-now Proud Boys president of a chapter in North Carolina. He was a lieutenant of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest prison term so far in a Capitol riot case.
Last May, Tarrio and three other former Proud Boys leader, along with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges for plotting to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Biden.
Rhodes was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison.
A fine example of UStater manhood posing for a photo publicising their militia. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Donohoe agreed to co-operate with federal authorities and pleaded guilty in April 2020 to two felony counts: ‘conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding’ and ‘assaulting, resisting or impeding police’ but was not called to testify at the trial of Tarrio and other Proud Boys earlier this year.
Another who pleaded, Ray Epps, was sentenced recently but only to community service. Some of his former associates accused him being an undercover agent for the State and he is suing Fox News for feeding that view. True or not, his soft sentence is unlikely to dispel suspicions.9
It will hardly help either that Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the US Marines from 1979 to 1983.10 Of course, they’d tell us if he was.
The Prosecutor asked for six months jail and a non-custodial sentence certainly seems unusual considering the verbal and video evidence they had against him. On the other hand the State might have been painting a target on him to distract from real undercover agents.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of fascist and far-Right preparation for the riot and invasion some still believe that “Antifa” or the State started the whole thing in order to make the far-Right look bad (this kind of fantasy frequently features in aftermaths of fascist actions).
A more likely conspiracy is police tolerance and perhaps membership of fascist groups which, after all, are often on a similar ideological page to a lot of cops who, at the same time, tend to dislike the kind of political, ethnic or LGBT groups who most likely to be actively antifascist.
One can only imagine the response of the State if the Capitol invaders had been socialists, an ethnic minority or antifascists.
USA FAR-RIGHT & FASCIST ORGANISATIONS
Most people would be familiar with at least the name of Ku Klux Klan but there are a large number of other far-Right, fascist and racist organisations spread widely across the US State, such as the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys,11 who consider themselves USA “Patriots”.12
Their activity may be on line, spreading racist and fascist ideology, along with unsound conspiracy theories but they can also be active on the street, parading their beliefs and trying to recruit members, or in seeking to intimidate or attack Left or minority groups.
According to researchers, more than a dozen different such groups participated in the Capitol riots and among those who stormed the Capitol there were participants in the fascist 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a counter-protester.
One of those veterans was Tim Gionet, a fascist activist who goes by the online pseudonym of “Baked Alaska” and live-streamed a video of himself on DLive from inside the capitol.13Anti-Jewishness used to be a common trend then more often replaced today by anti-Muslim.
Racism is very much part of their ideology which is why they reacted with such hostility to the Black Live Matter protests. In addition they tend to be anti-feminist and against LGBT people, often enough being full of anti-immigration and imperialist rhetoric.
Remember the guy with the horned fur hat, glorifying in the riot and occupation?Jacob Chasely is his name — he pleaded guilty and for mercy too. He was sentenced to 41 months. (Photo sourced: Internet)
5 One of them, sadly misguided 35-year old Ashley Babbit, ex US Military of 14 years, was shot dead by police guard during the attack as she was boosted up to get through a window.
6 Though relatively short, it is true, when compared to what would befall Left revolutionaries under similar circumstances.
7 Which must seem like a sad reflection on one of their mottoes: “Where we go one we go all”, often abbreviated as “WWG1WGA!” being one of the most popular QAnon slogans.
10Quite a few of the rioters have past military records but it is difficult to decide whether these are disproportionate in for the militarised society which is the USA.
11These three are militias and usually turn up at events with assault rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests.
13 The fact that so many did so or posted on line of having been involved testifies to the psychological need for recognition and feeling of invulnerability of many of them.
The main political opposition parties in the Irish parliament have made a united call on the Irish Government, a Coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Greens, to join in the genocide case against the Israeli state at the International Court of Justice.
The original case was opened recently by the South African government and the Israeli Government, to some surprise, indicated it would attend and defend itself. It is due to begin public hearing 11-12 January.
The Irish Opposition parties represented in the call on the Irish Government represent a cross-section politically: Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, the Irish Labour Party and People Before Profit. Other smaller parties have one TD1 and there are many Independent TDs of varying hues.
Accompanying the party representatives at a press conference were Frances Black, independent Senator who moved the Occupied Territories Bill to ban products from those regions, also Fatin al Tamimi, from Palestine and Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Some of these parties have moved motions in Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament, for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland. The Irish government successfully opposed that motion and also opposes joining the South African motion.
The motivation of the concerned party representatives may well mirror their own personal or political feelings, some more than others but it is undeniable that it reflect the feeling across most of Ireland (with the notable exception of Loyalist areas in the British colony).
That has been the general case for decades but has grown enormously since the Zionist State’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza. Every week has seen large marches, rallies and smaller pickets in solidarity with Palestine in Irish cities and towns.
The Department of Foreign Affairs’ main office was paint-bombed in red, the company leasing the Israeli Ambassador’s offices was occupied, as was a hotel bought with a loan from an Israeli bank and also Axa Insurance, the Embassy was briefly occupied and is regularly picketed.
MacDonald’s and Starbucks have also been picketed in various areas and supermarkets have seen regular protests over their sale of goods from the Zionist State. Drivers regularly beep their horns in support as they pass Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.
Photographed at the press conference announcing their joint call, from left to right: Senator Frances Black (Independent), Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Fatin al Tamimi (Chair IPSC), Matt Carthy (Sinn Féin), Gary Gannon (Progressive Democrats), Ivana Bacik (Labour Party). (Photo from: Breaking News report)
THE PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES SUPPORTING THE CALL
The number and pitch of the protests and the numbers involved have definitely pushed some of the parties forward in parliamentary action, in particular Sinn Féin, widely expected to form the next Irish government coalition (though with whom remains to be seen).
Though the party was quick to ride the earlier anti-Russian publicity and call for the Russian Ambassador’s expulsion, it initially balked at doing the same with regard to the Israel one; however it had to support the call in answer to popular opinion and no doubt within its own membership.
The position of the Social Democrats on the question has been surprisingly strong and it was their leader who moved the Ambassador expulsion motion in Leinster House.2 The Labour Party3 has not been generally vocal on the issue though supported the expulsion call.
People Before Profit4 has always had a strong pro-Palestine stand but one of its leading members and TDs5 also attacked the Palestinian incursion on October 7th. Later the party developed the slogan for demonstrations that “In the face of occupation, resistance is an obligation!”
The South African case of genocide against the Israeli State seems to be gaining some support but few governments have so far joined it, despite the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and others advocating its support. The EU itself has hardly blinked in its support for the Israeli State.
THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
The ICJ is an organ of the United Nations and, like the International Criminal Court, with which it is often confused, is based in the Hague, Netherlands. There have been criticisms of its effectiveness and its likelihood of bias according to the state origin of each Judge.
At this moment, the main benefit of the legal charge against is the Zionist state is of public opinion against its genocidal bombing but the ICJ can also impose interim restrictions. Whether the Israeli State will obey those or indeed accept an eventual ruling against it is another matter entirely.
The Israeli state’s founding philosophy of Zionism is a genocidal one as is also its very nature of a white European settler occupation of a land already occupied by indigenous populations. It is difficult to imagine how it can tolerate condemnation of its very essence.
Nevertheless, for the moment the case and increased support for it has publicity value. However, the solidarity movement cannot afford to relax on iota and in fact needs to up the pressure on the Zionist entity and all its supporters, be they states or corporations.
End.
Footnotes
1TD = Teachta Dála, elected Parliamentary representative.
2Her speech to the rally outside Leinster House the evening of the debate was more militant than Sinn Féin’s representative.
3The party, though founded by militant syndicalist Jim Larkin and revolutionary James Connolly, has been in coalition government a few times, mostly with the right-wing Fine Gael and was noted for attacks on the working class, despite its trade union support base.
4Like its namesake in Britain, it is mainly a version of the Irish iteration of the Socialist Workers’ Party, founded in the UK.
We need to be careful when elevating people from our ranks to the status of heroes – especially if they are alive and can renounce or betray the principles they originally fought for.1
And we have the right to be suspicious when those heroes are also acclaimed by the capitalists and imperialists, those who are certainly not our friends. But most of all, it is by their fruits that we can best evaluate people, whatever their past actions.
The society bequeathed after years of heroic struggle to the South African masses is broken. Housing and homelessness crisis,2 unemployment, poverty,3 prostitution, lack of medical care, inadequate sanitation and soaring crime, including violent crime – is not what the people fought for.
And this is occurring in a country rich in natural resources4 which are being extracted daily by imperialism, while the few on top — the earlier white settler bosses now joined by the corrupt black bourgeoisie – live in luxury.
(Image sourced: Research Gate)
CRIME & POLICING
Anton Koen, a former police officer who now runs a private security firm that specialises in tracking and recovering hijacked and stolen vehicles believes that “It’s not getting better, it is getting worse”, with the murder rate the highest it’s been in 20 years.
(Photo cred: AP)
In crime-ridden societies, the poor suffer the most and are of course also recruited into crime.
There were 27,494 killings in South Africa in the year to February 2023, compared with 16,213 in 2012-2013. South Africa’s homicide rate in 2022-2023 was 45 per 100,000 people, compared with a rate of 6.3 in the US and around one in most European countries.
Those who can afford it, hire private security, which is a booming business with South Africa’s security industry — one of the largest in the world, with more than 2.7 million registered private security officers registered in the country, according to the regulating agency, the PSIRA.5
“People with money make up a very small percentage of South Africa, said Chad Thomas, an organised crime expert who has worked more than 30 years in police work and now in private security.6
“That means that the vast majority of South Africans don’t really benefit from this security industry … If you live in a traditional township environment, or if you live in an informal settlement …7 security patrols in those areas are few and far between because they don’t have paying customers.”
Thomas, like many, ties the high levels of violent crime in South Africa to anger over the country’s deep problems of poverty.8
Private security companies are paid a monthly fee to patrol neighbourhoods and for providing armed response to their clients’ alarm systems. Tracking and car recovery can be part of the service, often resulting in getting involved in high-speed chases of car thieves and hijackers.
According to the PSIRA, the number of security businesses in South Africa grew by 43 per cent in the past decade, while the number of registered security officers has increased by 44 per cent. Meanwhile there are 150,000 police officers for the country’s 62 million people.
It is hardly surprising that the SA police force has difficulty in recruiting numbers. It is a force used to violently repress people9 and culpable in the worst massacre of working people in South Africa’s modern history, killing 40 striking miners over a couple of days.
That slaughter occurred in 2012 at the British-owned Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, when miners wished create a new union and to leave the National Union of Mineworkers which, they said, was more in favour of their employers than the workers.10
Cyril Ramaphosa, the millionaire ex-President of the NUM was widely suspected of having organised the massacre and he’s now President of the ANC and of the South African Government. At the time, Jacob Zuma was President, now in the process of being tried for financial corruption.
But Mandela was still alive and at liberty when the massacre occurred and did not condemn the atrocity nor those responsible. Long-time anti-apartheid campaigner (and Mandela’s friend) Bishop Tutu once famously commented that “The ANC stopped the gravy train – long enough to get on it.”11
IMPORTANT
Is it important whether this person or that were truly the heroes they are reputed to have been? I think it is, not only because we tend to erect them as models for our behaviour but also because their lives and their choices present us with historical lessons.
The South African regime during the struggle was a white European settler state and like all of those, undemocratic and racist too. The masses rose up several times against it but people did not risk beatings, torture, imprisonment and death merely for the right to vote.
The struggles were so strong and the minority settler regime so emphatically opposed to reforms that its imperialist partners felt it vulnerable to revolution. They eventually convinced the regime to enfranchise the majority black population.
But what if the black masses went on kick out the imperialists?
The change had to be managed and the leadership of the ANC, the NUM and the Communist Party of South Africa proved willing to control their supporters. However, something else was needed, as in similar circumstances: a known face, a hero, to be the figurehead before the masses.
Representative of USA, chief imperialist country and Nelson Mandela after latter’s release.
Mandela proved to be that man, not only for his long imprisonment for guerrilla action but because he had been tested among the political prisoners on Roben Island and was judged the most suitable, so he had been separated from the other political prisoners to a new jail for grooming.
Mandela, after a huge publicity buildup around the world, was released in 1990 and began a series of negotiations with the settler minority’s leadership. In 1994, with universal suffrage, Mandela was easily elected head of the ANC and of the new government of South Africa.
Of the wave of pacification processes that swept around the world starting in the very early 90s with Al Fatah in Palestine, the South African process turned out to be the only one that delivered any of the objectives of what was promised12 — and that was the vote for everyone.
But it had the potential beyond that gain: of national liberation, the possession of all its natural resources and of a progressive social order, a beacon for the rest of Africa. It was important for imperialism to prevent all that and, with the help of the leaders of the ANC, NUM and CPSA, they did so.
The immediate result was a drop even further in the standard of living of the masses and an increase in the rapacious grip of imperialism on the natural resources, while municipal services declined further and crime at the bottom took off, matching corruption at the top.
The broken society there now is the cumulative result and should serve as a lesson about pacification processes, negotiations during struggle and our choices of heroes – or those chosen for us.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1As we in Ireland can testify, with the lionisation of Michael Collins, for example, for his role in the War of Independence (1919-1921) but who, a little later, acted on behalf of the Irish colonial bourgeoisie and their British masters to launch the Civil War (1922-1923) to prevent the establishment of a 32-County Republic.
3 As of 2023, around 18.2 million people in South Africa are living in extreme poverty, with the poverty threshold at1.90 U.S. dollars daily (see Statista in Sources & References).
10It was notable that those popular organisations deeply implicated in pacification processes either reported with great restraint on the massacre or failed, like the Left-Nationalist Basque trade union LAB, to comment on it at all (to say nothing of sending a solidarity message to the striking workers or denouncing the State).
Yes, you peace-loving liberals, we told you but you wouldn’t listen. Told you that Zionism means racism, colonial settler expansion and, ultimately, genocide. But you wouldn’t listen. And you’re not listening now.
There just had to be a way of resolving things so everyone got something and then there would be peace, you all said.
People like you think all that has to happen for peace is that both sides sit down and talk. But what if what one wants is irreconcilable with what the other wants? Well, then you say, they both have to give up something.
The problem with that is that it’s always the oppressed who have to give up the most – or even everything. However, that’s necessary, because that’s how we get peace, you say. But would you apply it to yourselves as easily?
If a thief got your wallets, would you suggest sitting down and talking it over with him or her? Maybe suggesting s/he only stole half the contents? Well, you might, I suppose. But what if they got your cars, your houses and emptied your bank accounts?
You’d very quickly resort to violence! Oh, not you personally, of course not! You’d get the police to use force for you and a judge to use force to put them in jail and prison officers to use force to keep them in jail for an allotted time, to try and ensure they didn’t steal from you again.
We told you that the only peace the Zionists could achieve would be the peace of the Palestinian cemetery; but as many graves as the Zionists dug for the Palestinians, more would rise up fighting and they would never give up their land or agree to be kept down.
Every time the Zionists carried out a massacre or another atrocity, we told you: the only solution to this conflict is a unitary democratic state of Palestine, “from the River to the Sea”. But you wouldn’t listen.
And even now, as you begin to talk about “peace again” “after Gaza”, it’s clear you haven’t learned. The massacre of 22,600, including over 9,000 children, the ruins of Gaza, refugee camps, hospitals, mosques, water and sewage treatment plants have taught you nothing.
Because here you are again, proposing something other than the rational solution, in this case re-marketing the two-state plan. All the imperialists agree and you’ll get Abbas and the corrupt Al Fatah to go along as before of course but the Palestinian people as a whole will never do so.
The irony is that by pushing your kind of ‘peace’ measure and avoiding real peace, you are effectively advocating the conditions for war without end – or wiping out/ expulsion of the Palestinians. Really, it would be better if you just shut up and stop trying to ‘help’.
Because the only ones you’re helping are the genocidal Zionists and their imperialist backers.
Frank Kitson, a leading terrorist and General in the British Army, died today at the age of 97.
As the national liberation struggle of the Occupied 6 Counties began, Kitson was appointed as commander of British forces in Belfast in 1970. He organised “countergang” death squads such as the Military Reaction Force and the Force Research Unit.
These units bombed and randomly targeted innocent nationalists, attempting to place the blame on the IRA. He promoted infiltration of and psyops against the Republican movement. He emboldened and directed Loyalist death squads and deployed the Paras to massacre nationalists.
Kitson was a leading figure in the British counterinsurgency campaigns in Malysia and Kenya. It was here he developed his theories on how to crush national liberation and communist struggles.
He advocated for massive population control and terror to deprive struggles of support. He advocated for forming paramilitary groups that were free to terrorise and assassinate at will, as well as spread doubt among natives. He drew from these campaigns and deployed them in occupied Ireland.
As an advocate of psyops, Kitson used the mainstream media to spread malicious lies about the Republican movement, including absurd propaganda such as claiming that the IRA were found to be worshipping Satan.
Under his command and through his recommendations prisoners were tortured, civilians brutalised and countless were interned.
While Kitson was removed from his position in 1972, his theories and the framework he established in Belfast came to be adopted by the British imperialists in Ireland for decades.
Many of the terror strategies he developed are used in Ireland and in imperialist occupations around the world today as part of “low intensity operations”.
Frank Kitson was a crusader for Empire and he was well rewarded for his campaign of murder and terrorism. He also lauded by the British press and given countless awards.
It is shameful that he never faced the People’s Justice for his crimes. That this man was allowed to retire and live out his life in peace is a symptom of the deep sickness in British society. That this man dies with full honours shows that collusion, terror and murder were official British state policy in Ireland.
As the imperialists have developed their tactics and strategies, so have the people. No matter what new innovations in subversion, terror and brutality the enemy comes up with they will be overcome. The struggle of the Palestinian Resistance today has taught the imperialists that lesson once again.
The struggle for the All Ireland Republic continues despite the best efforts of British imperialism. One day soon the British Empire will be buried along with Frank Kitson.
rebelbreeze 