Category: US Imperialism

THE MYSTERY OF THE NORD STREAM 2 EXPLOSION SOLVED?

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Environmental, Imperialism, NATO, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

On 26 September 2022, an explosion blew a section of the Nord Stream 2 gas supply pipeline from Russia to Germany, incidentally causing an environmental disaster for sea-life in the area. Investigations confirmed that it was an act of sabotage.1

Amidst accusations and theories,2 no perpetrator was conclusively identified.

But two years later, in September 2024, an important item of previously-suppressed information came to light in a Danish newspaper. It was not however picked up by the mainstream western media, despite its potentially crucial contribution to solving the mystery.

Alternative sources however alighted on it and it is now coming into the public light.

In any investigation of culpability for a human action, one of the first established principles to investigate is – and targets of investigation should be — cui bono? (in Latin, who benefits?). Next, Qui habet potestatem? — Who has the means? Finally, Who had the opportunity?

Map of route of the Nord Stream pipelines showing neighbouring state. (Source image: Financial Times)

Potentially, any in the anti-Russian coalition around NATO stood to benefit by harming not only a Russian installation but also a major source of financial benefit to Russia, i.e of sales of gas to Germany. Many eyes turned towards Russia’s opponent in the Ukraine, the Zelensky regime.

However, neither Russia nor any other serious commentators ever considered that NATO proxy to be the culprit. Russia and others stated that the operation required a major state, both in the depths concerned, in surface support needed and in the explosive type and detonation system.

A number of commentators pointed the finger at the USA, which denied any involvement. Well, the USA is a major state and certainly had the motive, as Russia was and remains its major target in the Ukraine war and it also had the potential technical and personnel means.

It would also of course, as an enemy of Russia, benefit from harm to its opponent. It would benefit the USA financially too, though that was yet to become clear.

From whom would Germany buy its power to warm its population and production through the winter as an alternative to Russian gas? That new source would turn out to be – yes, the USA.

OK, so suspicion should fall heavily on the USA, leader of NATO and chief among the enemies of Russia. But did it have the opportunity?

Since there was no record of a US naval presence in the area at the time of the explosion (even though they had been there previously in one of those major joint exercises they like to carry out to bring their allies closer and intimidate their opponents), the media investigation floundered.

Russia asked at the UN Security Council for an investigation, which was rejected. No decision of the Council can be made against a veto of even one of the five Permanent Members, of which three are part of the NATO coalition (USA, UK and France).

A number of alternative theories began to be put around, including mention of large yacht in the area and a Ukrainian oligarch financier. Official investigations were launched by two states in whose economic zone the operation must have taken place: Denmark and Sweden.3

Both regimes are part of the US/NATO/EU coalition and there may have been suspicions that their investigations might not be sufficiently thorough. In any case, in February this year both states closed their investigations without having identified the perpetrator.

Germany’s investigation is ongoing and it issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian oligarch who fled to NATO proxy Ukraine with assistance of NATO member Poland. However Russia and serious commentators have always said that a major state, something Ukraine is not, was culpable.

On 17 July 2024, the German government refused to publish the preliminary results of the investigation after the Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) party asked for it, or to comment about the possible involvement of American intelligence services or Ukraine in the pipeline attack.4

In October 2024, the Swiss newspaper Die Weltwoche wrote an article based on an interview given to Danish Politiken by John Anker Nielsen, the harbourmaster of Christianso in Denmark on the day of the two-year-anniversary of the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage.

Back in September 2023, the Christianso harbourmaster detected the presence of ships in the area with their transponders, equipment identifying the ship and its course, silent. Assuming some kind of accident, Nielsen sailed out to investigate, finding US Navy there.

With no evidence of disaster and a request that he leave, Nielsen turned for home. (Suppose that information had been included in the Danish investigation, would the fingers pointing at the USA not have multiplied?)

Nielsen says he was told to keep quiet about what he knew but decided to end his silence in September and his story was published in a local newspaper. Later alternative commentators such as Glen Greenwald and others on X picked up on it and now it’s finding its way into wider media.

The Swiss newspaper article went on to note that the USS Keararge three months earlier had participated in the BALTOPS 2022 exercise that included unmanned underwater vehicles suitable for demining and other underwater operations.5

Such vessels as those could transport explosive charges suitable for blowing the Nord Stream pipelines. The Swiss newspaper claimed this new information calls into question the assumption that a Ukrainian group was responsible for the sabotage and that investigations are continuing.6

OUTCOMES

The outcomes to date are that Russia has received heavy financial damage, both in the cost of the pipe and any repair costs but also through loss of a customer who might well have resumed its purchase of gas from Russia in preference to dearer fuel from elsewhere.

Carlos Latuff cartoon outlining the major suspicions at the time.

The USA has benefited financially because it is also an energy exporter, including to Germany, where Russia was its main competitor.

In 2022, Germany imported 44.65 million tonnes of hard coal. Its leading coal suppliers were Russia (29.2%), the United States (20.8%) and Colombia (16.3%).7 So in the event of any embargo on Russian hard coal, the US stands to benefit enormously.

But what about natural gas, formerly supplying 55% of Germany’s power supply, no longer possible from Russia through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline? About 45% …. comes from Norway through pipelines, 4% from the Netherlands, 5% domestic production … the rest from western neighbours.8

Norway and the United States were the top suppliers of gas to the EU in 2023. Norway provided almost 30% of all gas imports. But the actual origin of those supplies is not so easy to identify and reports even estimate that a small percentage of the EU’s supply is actually Russian.

Although additional suppliers include North African countries, the UK and Qatar, in 2023, the United States was the largest LNG supplier to the EU, representing almost 50% of total LNG imports. In 2023, comparing to 2021, imports from the US almost tripled.9

It seemed likely that some at least – and perhaps a lot – of Germany’s current LNG supply, though perhaps through another country, would actually be of US origin. And it turns out that the US has been the dominant LNG supplier to Germany since 2022 at 82% of total imports.10

IN CONCLUSION

While the USA has benefited significantly financially from the pipeline explosion and strategically through damaging an opponent, Germany has at the same time suffered a loss in having to buy more expensive fuel (from the USA).11 But Germany is an ally of the USA and a prominent one in NATO.

This episode demonstrates that 1) the USA, in advancing its own interests, is prepared to break the law and to see an ally suffer but also that 2) a major European capitalist power has surrendered a substantial portion of its own interests for the benefit of the USA, as a price of membership of the NATO club.

Germany, though an enthusiastic supporter of NATO, due to its dependence on natural Russian gas, had been reluctant to engage fully in the economic sanctions against Russia proposed by NATO. The blowing up of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline removed that dependence, transferring it to the USA.

The USA benefited, both politically/ militarily in hurting its opponent and in increasing the dependence of an ally. It also benefited subsequently financially, in gaining a major customer market share. The USA had more than enough Motive to carry out the sabotage.

It also had the Means (the capability) and now, as we know, the Opportunity also! Circumstantial? Sure but a mountain of evidence nevertheless.

End.

FOOTNOTES

MAIN SOURCES (see also Footnotes)

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-navy-was-at-scene-of-nord-stream-blasts–danish-media
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage

Unlikelihood of Ukraine culpability: https://ukraineworld.org/en/articles/analysis/wrong-allegations-against-ukraine

1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage

2Including an unbelievable one that Russia had done it themselves in order to blame the USA.

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

4Receiving the answer: “after careful consideration, the Federal Government has come to the conclusion that the question cannot be answered for reasons of public interest”.

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

5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage

6Ibid.

7https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-dependence-imported-fossil-fuels

8https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-have-two-more-floating-lng-import-terminals-operation-winter-operator

9https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply

10https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/013024-german-gas-industry-group-slams-us-pause-on-new-lng-export-permits

11https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nord-stream-insurers-say-policies-did-not-cover-war-risks-kommersant-reports-2024-04-18/

DUBLIN RALLY HONOURS THE MARTYRED PALESTINE RESISTANCE LEADER

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

People with Palestinian flags including one containing a slogan in Irish, flags of Palestinian resistance factions and holding portraits of Ismail Haniyeh and Nasrallah rallied on Sunday evening outside Dublin’s General Post Office.

(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)

The Action for Palestine organisation had advertised the solidarity and honouring event at short notice. Originally planned to take place on O’Connell Bridge, the storm conditions1 made that venue unsuitable and the GPO2 was chosen as an appropriate alternative.

Calling and replying to solidarity chants, the crowd of Irish people and others from the Middle East also listened to four speakers, two Irish and two Palestinian, while two plain-clothes Special Branch Gardaí photographed them from east side of the street.

(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)

One passing Zionist sympathiser insulted the gathering, giving rise to a wave of chants in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance. On the other hand, many pedestrian passers-by congratulated demonstrators and some stopped to join or pressed horns on their vehicles.

The speakers referred to the horrors of the genocide being inflicted upon the Palestinian people in particular in North Gaza3 at this time by the IOF, the armed forces of the Zionist state, backed up and supplied by the USA and a number of European states.

(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)

They spoke also to praise the resistance of all kinds of the Palestinian people, including armed resistance and at all levels up to leadership, who are assassinated and replaced, always under threat of death.

One speaker also spoke about the need to also support the resistance struggles and the prisoners as a result of resistance too. “It is not required of us that we agree with everything they say or do but it is required of us that we support the resistance”, he said.

Among the slogans chanted were Long live the Intifada! There is only one solution – intifada revolution! From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! Resistance is an obligation – in the face of occupation! Saoirse – don Phalaistín!

(Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)

From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! From the Sea to the River – Palestine will live forever! In our thousands, in our millions – we are all Palestinians! Free, free Palestine! Netanyahu you can’t hide – you’re committing genocide! (Repeated also for Joe Biden).

A speaker also reminded the crowd of the long resistance to occupation of the Irish people, against Vikings and English occupation and the need to support the resistance of people around the world. “Resistance is everything”, he said and referred to the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people.

To conclude an organiser thanked all for their attendance at short notice and promised other actions in future, then encouraged those who wished to gather for a photo in front of the statue to “our hero in Irish myth, Cú Chullainn”,4 which stands in the central front window of the GPO building.5

Some gathered for a photo in front of the representation of the Irish mythological hero Cú Chulainn statue in the display window of the GPO. (Photo sourced: Action For Palestine)

While they were doing so, another reminded them that in the epic legend, Cú Chulainn’s enemies dared not approach him while he was alive and only finally did so when they saw a carrion crow or raven alight on his shoulder to reassure them that he was dead.

“Yahya Sinwar’s enemies did not face him while he was alive either. They fired a tank shell into the building where they believed the fighters were, retreating when grenades were tossed at them, firing another shell into the building and even then only dared send a spy drone in.

“When they saw on their monitor the badly-injured Sinwar throw a stick at the drone, they fired yet another shell into the building, finally killing him.”

End.

View of the Cú Chullainn statue in the GPO window on a working day (Photo cred: Cambridge University)
Far distant from any kind of heroism or solidarity, two plainclothes members of the political police, the Special Branch of the Gardaí, surveilling the participants. (Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)

Footnotes

1Storm Yellow level https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41499104.html

2Also a central location, i.e on Dublin’s main city centre street but also the HQ of the 1916 Rising against British rule.

3Some Palestinian commentators have called this phase the worst of all in the intensified genocide since October last year. Constant aerial strikes on buildings and tent encampments, shooting at people, besieging hospitals and blocking food or fuel from entering and constantly insisting that the people move out in ethnically cleansing.

4The hero is a central figure in the epic of the Táin Bó Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), along with back and after-stories, in the Ulster Cycle of Irish myths and legends. The sculpture, cast in bronze, is by Oliver Sheppard.

5The sculpture by Oliver Sheppard was later dedicated to the martyrs of the 1916 Rising.

IOF INVASION FAILS TO PENETRATE HEZBOLLAH DEFENCE

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

After a terrorist attack through exploding hand-held communication devices1 and later, following the assassination of veteran Hezbollah leader Nasrallah,2 the IOF announced on 30th September their intention of a ground invasion of Lebanon.3

The reaction of the western imperialist allies to the terrorism was mostly silent but to the Zionist planned invasion was either positive or worried – not about the predictable ensuing carnage but about its impact on their assets in the region.

The current Zionist leadership was gung-ho albeit with worried comments from the sidelines, including from some high-ranking retired commanders. Those campaigning for a peace deal with the Resistance and the return of their captured relatives were naturally mostly hostile.

People who knew something about the situation, both those in solidarity with the Resistance and those supporting the Zionist state, wondered how the IOF imagined they were going to be successful, considering the calibre of Hezbollah combined with logistics.

Firstly, the IOF would have to prepare its staging or invasion launch areas in the reach of Hezbollah missiles, rockets and drones. Then they would have to cross at least 300 kilometres under bombardment in terrain well-zeroed already by Hezbollah.

If and when the invaders crossed that land, they would confront their old enemy Hezbollah, many battle-hardened veterans from fighting ISIS and NATO proxies in Syria. And strongly motivated ideologically also, in particular in defending their homeland.

The IOF infantry on the other hand has not faced any conventional fighting force in pitched battle since 1966, being mostly experienced in repression and genocidal operations against civilians already under close surveillance with air dominance and much intelligence support.

Despite their advantages, against the armed resistance of those areas, the IOF have not performed at all well, with a high rate of casualties in personnel and armoured vehicles. In invasion of Lebanon, their armour would be even more vulnerable.

True, the IOF has air advantage in air-to-ground strikes with their US-supplied fighters. But the resistance artillery4 batteries are situated far back from the Lebanon front line, yet able to strike targets with coordinates called in from Hezbollah facing the enemy.

The Zionist air force boasts of having eliminated those batteries in their bombardment were quickly proved false as missiles rose behind the returning IOF aircraft to fall on their regular targets in northern occupied Palestine. Most of those batteries and launchers are underground.

So the main IOF assault and penetration would have to be of their infantry, the issue decided by the calibre of contending fighting personnel, their weapons, along with defences of the defenders, remembering also that a 3-1 superiority is necessary for offensive breakthrough at any point.5

The situation would be bad enough for the IOF if they could at least prepare their staging areas in safety but of course Hezbollah is not letting them do that, pounding their bases and visible troop movements and assemblies again and again with missiles, drones and rockets.

IOF INVASION PROGRESS?

So how has the invasion force fared to date? Hezbollah chose not to fall back fighting the IOF on the way, sucking them further in and hitting their supply lines. Instead, they met the invasion on or around their front lines, with some flexibility and so far have remained there.

All outcomes into the second week so far have justified the pessimists in the Zionist and Western allies camp. Ground assault after assault has been beaten back by Hezbollah, at times in ambushing or other targeting of approaching infantry and some armour.

In one such ambush, Hezbollah forward fighters observed a special IOF force reconnoitring and decided to leave them under observation while they figured the route of advance. When the whole IOF special unit advanced they were hit with a pre-laid explosive and then by small-arms fire.

The IOF are widening their attack front and in the western sector, the IOF attempted to infiltrate again through Labouneh, despite the previous day’s qualitative ambush where according to reports, Zionist vehicles “burned live on air”; the resistance again forced their retreat.

This last was a reference to Ras Al-Naqoura where an entire IOF convoy was struck by the resistance. Al-Mayadeen reports that the convoy was made up of about 60 soldiers, 5 Merkava tanks, and a number of other vehicles and repeated IOF rescue services have been repulsed.

Al-Manar added that “The occupation army advanced along the western line near the sea and attempted to take control … to oversee the coastline stretching to Sour,”6 and “attempted six times in recent days to enter this area and was met with resistance missiles and fire.”

The Resistance reported numerous confrontations against enemy infantry forces in the forests of Al-Labouneh, south of Naqoura and engagements on the Blida, Muhaybib, and Maroun Al-Ras axis.

The Zionist forces have also attempted to use the UNIFIL station as cover and the Hezbollah decision to hold on targeting them for fear of hitting uninvolved forces, reported by Al Mayadeen, raised concerns for the safety of Irish state troops garrisoned there.7

In 10 days of repeated attempts, the IOF has not managed to enter and hold one southern Lebanese village or town and advances of even a 100 metres have been beaten back with casualties. The Zionists have been reduced to fantasy stories of advances and staged photos.8

And this IOF fighting here are considered by the Zionists the elite of their infantry, facing not even Hezbollah’s elite, the al-Hajj Radwan Regiment. Hezbollah is much more a medium-sized army than guerrilla force, though it grew from one, created against the ‘Israeli’ occupation of Lebanon.

On Wednesday the IOF, which maintains a strict censorship on casualties and battle-damage reporting and is well-known for vastly underplaying their battle casualties in Gaza, admitted that over the past 24 hours, 38 soldiers had been wounded in ground battles in southern Lebanon.

In what seems a departure from the Gaza norm, some reports seem to suggest that Hezbollah may not be granting the IOF the same freedom to recover their dead and wounded as has been the case until now from the Gaza resistance (despite IOF targeting of hospitals and medical personnel).9

As it was in Gaza, bombing the civilian population has been the response of the IOF, targeting multi-occupation housing blocks, medical services, emergency services, media service, gatherings of displaced people and refugee routes into Syria.

The only large-scale comprehensive defeats suffered by the IOF were against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in 2000 and in 2006, forcing the Zionist retreat from Lebanon on both occasions. Many Hezbollah are battle-hardened from Syria and of high morale, particularly in battle against the IOF.

REASON

Given the history and sober assessments, why is the Zionist state engaging in this attack and being backed by the western imperialists? Yoav Gallant, Minister for the armed forces, claimed it was in order to degrade Hezbollah and return the Zionist settlers to northern occupied Palestine.

This is a large area denuded of thousands of settlers now being housed in hotels or even camps deeper in occupied Palestine (‘Israel’) or who have left the state altogether, whether temporarily of permanently. Currently it is occupied mostly by the IOF, in bases and Settler houses.

The reason for the emptying of the region of Settler communities is its daily bombardment by Hezbollah since October 8th, the day the IOF began this latest and most intensive period of genocidal bombings. And they’ve been clear: Stop the genocide and we stop the bombardment.

Hezbollah artillery rocket batteries (Photo credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)

However, despite the wishes of a large section of ‘Israeli’ society, the dominant section of the Zionist ruling class is not prepared to stop its Gaza bombardment and do a deal which would result in admission of defeat and, for Netanyahu, appearance in court to face corruption charges.

Some of the western imperialist alliance are worried that ‘Israel’ will drag10 the US and with it the rest of the Western alliance, at a time also of a war in Ukraine, into a regional war with Hezbollah, Yemen, the Iraqi resistance, Syria and of course Iran, a long-intended NATO target.

Many voices from different positions regarding the Zionist state have warned that in a regional Middle Eastern war, all western military bases in the Middle East become targets, as do all oil and gas wells delivering to the West, with huge economic results across the world.

There are indications of other motivations, beyond loss of Zionist face, of extending ‘Israel’ ‘from the sea to the river’ (!),11 re-occupying Gaza with settlers and ‘remodelling of the Middle East’ in a Zionist messianic dream but combined with a gung-ho attitude in the White House.

In a recent interview on YouTube, Iranian professor Marandi commented that strategic and tactical decisions made by the imperialists are not logical but emotional. I would agree that emotion is involved however also logical calculation — but there are times when emotion overcomes logic.

Such was the situation for example in the ‘forever war’ of the US in ‘Indochina’ when it continued despite all the evidence that it was losing, year after year, could not possibly win and was alienating huge populations even at home.

One of the many jacket designs of the classic Sci-fi novel, based to large extent on the War of the USA in Viet Nam.

It took the logic of a section of the ruling class to overcome emotion and to subdue the Reagan section to sue for peace, under of course the heroic assault of the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But the arrogance and world ambition of the US ruling class never died.

Can this now extended war of the IOF endanger all of Western imperialism’s substantial assets in the Middle East? Most certainly. So stop it, pull back! says one section of the imperialists. But Bring it on, says the other section, because after this we’ll have only Russia and China to worry about.

For the next war.

End.

Footnotes

1On 17 and 18 September https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/18/more-devices-exploding-across-lebanon-whats-happening

227th September https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/israel-says-it-has-killed-hezbollah-leader-hassan-nasrallah

3https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/01/israel-lebanon-attack-hezbollah-ground-operation-war-latest

4Using the term here to encompass missiles, rockets such as the Katyusha-types, rather than cannon.

53-1 advantage in numbers needed for the attacker, other considerations being equal. (Seehttps://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/A0013.pdf)

6Perhaps with the additional intention of establishing a beachhead for IOF naval landings.

7https://www.thenational.scot/news/24636493.israel-endangering-irish-troops-lebanon-border/

and https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/ireland-calls-israeli-demand-to-move-un-troops–outrageous

8These included stories of paratroop landings, overrunning Hezbollah defences and a photo of IOF taken in a very forward but abandoned Settler village, which Hezbollah commented had cost the IOF 10 dead and wounded.

9In one notorious instance, they executed two wounded fighters in hospital. Both from the air and the ground the IOF has repeatedly targeted paramedics and civil defence crews and have continued doing so from the air in Lebanon. However commentators have noted how IOF helicopters landing to evacuate wounded and dead IOF, though clearly under observation, are never targeted by the Resistance in Gaza.

10,Assuming its unwilling to do so which may not at all be the case.

11https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2024-09-05/ty-article/.highlight/netanyahus-map-shows-israel-from-the-river-to-the-sea-its-no-accident/00000191-c2a8-d09f-ab91-debc90e60000

and https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/benjamin-netanyahu-maps-brief-history-enduring-love-affair

References
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/01/israel-lebanon-attack-hezbollah-ground-operation-war-latest

FUNERAL OF ZIONISM HELD IN DUBLIN – ITS COFFIN DUMPED IN THE RIVER

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Palestine, Song, Song in Struggle, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Scores of people participated in a symbolic ‘funeral of Zionism’ on Monday evening (7th October) in Dublin’s city centre. In front of the James Connolly monument1 and near a mock coffin of ‘Zionism’, they listened to a song and short speeches.

This was followed by a march carrying the ‘coffin’ through city centre streets to O’Connell Bridge, where it was dumped in the Liffey river.

The ethnic composition of the mostly young mixed-gender crowd, by appearance and accent, seemed to be a mixture of Irish and Middle Eastern origin.

The chairperson of the event recalled that a year had passed since the heroic action from Gaza of October 7th and the events that followed, all being gathered there at the James Connolly memorial to hold a funeral for Zionism, the ideology of settler colonialism and genocide.

The first contribution was from a man introduced as Seán Óg with a song of his own composition, three verses rendered acapella in fine voice to the air of two well-known Irish patriotic ballads, Men of the West/ Fir an Iarthair and The Boys of Killmichael.2

The audience began to pick up and join in the chorus lines:

So here’s to the boys of Gaza,
Jenin, Nablus and Hebron,
Who fought ‘neath the brave flag of Palestine
and sent the Settlers on.

Section of crowd at event listening to speeches, viewed facing north-eastwards. (Photo: R. Breeze)

Two speakers followed, pointing out the unanimity of imperialism nowadays in supporting Zionism as distinct from the 1950s and the importance of struggles such as that in Palestine to our own in Ireland, of internationalist solidarity and the need for that solidarity to be for the Resistance.

One speaker interspersed his words in English with some phrases in Irish and recalled the protest against the 1897 visit of the British Queen Victoria which saw James Connolly and Constance Markievicz leading a funeral cortège through the streets bearing a coffin for British Imperialism.

Though a ‘funeral’ for British Imperialism might’ve seemed only aspirational in 1897, the speaker said, signs of its decline were there to be seen for the educated, the intelligent and those who wished to see them — and before two decades elapsed it had received a major challenge.

(Photo: R. Breeze)

It survived that challenge of the First World War victorious but weakened and the embers of revolt were burning around its Empire. Before two decades after that funeral march, the torch of freedom had been lit in Dublin,3 the first uprising against world war of that century anywhere in the world.

The speaker went on to recall the subsequent War of Independence in Ireland three years later and remarked that had it not been for some Irish failures in unity and resolution that British Imperialism might have been given its mortal blow then in Ireland.

Subsequently British Imperialism survived by serving as a subject ally to US Imperialism. “Zionism is a rotten tree”, he said, “planted in Palestine by British Imperialism and nurtured by US Imperialism. Even so, Zionism is damaging its very fosterers and we welcome that.”

“Rotten trees don’t fall on their own,” the speaker continued. Trees that are rotten inside may seem healthy on the outside but when a strong storm comes along, they are knocked down. It is then we can easily see the rot inside them that we may not have noticed before.

Storms are now breaking out around the world, he said. We can and need to play our own part in those storms, “to knock down the rotten tree of Zionism and go on to demolish the whole rotten evil forest of imperialism.”

Section of crowd listening to speeches at the event, photo taken facing south-eastwards. (Photo: R. Breeze)

After applause some chants were led, among them: From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Saoirse don-Phalaistín! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! Resistance is an obligation – in the face of Occupation!

The attendance then took to the street, carrying the coffin and flying Irish and national flags of Palestine along with those of factions of the Resistance, also Hezbollah’s and Lebanon’s, continuing the chants as they marched up lower Abbey Street,4 then turning left along O’Connell Street.

Along the way, some bystanders cheered and a man leaned out of a delivery van to shout encouragement with clenched fist in the air.

On O’Connell Bridge, after a few words, the ‘coffin’ containing ‘Zionism’ was pushed over the parapet into the river Liffey, to cheers, which then changed to cycling through the accustomed solidarity chants.

The ‘coffin’ is on the Bridge parapet (left of photo) and about to be dumped into the river Liffey. (Photo: R. Breeze)

There were three external interventions.

A known Irish Zionist who regularly tries to harass Palestinian solidarity participants appeared at the outset in attempted intimidation of an activist but was quickly discouraged from doing so. At the Bridge, a person under the influence of alcohol and shouting confusedly was calmed by activists.

Break the Chains of Zionism banner next to James Connolly Monument (Photo: R. Breeze)

A Garda patrol car crew whose political undercover colleagues had clearly overlooked keeping informed drew up at the Bridge bemusedly during the chanting and, after attempting to gain some information as to events, left again – as did the participants soon afterwards.

The event was organised by Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Saoirse Don Phalaistín, the former’s Facebook page having been taken down by Meta while the event was being organised but the groups may be followed on Instagram and Twitter.

End.

Footnotes

1The location of this fine monument is in Beresford Place, across from the site of the original Liberty Hall, home of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union which Connolly led after Jim Larkin departed for the USA at the end of the 1913 Dublin Lockout. The site is now occupied a multi-storey building of SIPTU.

2The first is about the last major engagements of the 1798 Republican uprising, when a relatively small French force landed in Co. Mayo and was joined by Irish Republican insurgents; the second celebrates the IRA ambush of a column of the Auxiliary Regiment in West Cork, wiping it out almost to the last British terrorist.

3The 1916 Rising.

4Until they reached O’Connell Street they were following in the footsteps of the GPO Garrison on Easter Monday, 1916 and passed by a number of historical political and artistic locations of 1848 and of the early 20th Century.

IF YOU WANT PEACE, KENNEL YOUR DOG!

On By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

The whole western imperialist cabal is in full cry desperately seeking a 21-day ceasefire both sides of northern occupied-Palestine and the Lebanon ´border´, as the ´Israeli´ Occupation Forces allegedly prepare/ carry out a ground invasion.

The concern of the western imperialists is not about the slaughter of mostly civilians in Lebanon, climbing towards a thousand this month but rather about the strong possibility of all-out regional war which would endanger the various western military bases and economic interests in the region.

Projectiles above Jerusalem, on Oct. 1, 2024. Iran has launched a missile and drone attack on Israel’s military airports and some other targets. (Photo cred: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

And also, if the Zionist leadership is serious, about an IOF ground invasion of Lebanon which the western powers fear will end not only in the defeat of the IOF as before in 2000 and 2006, but also in the collapse of the Zionist settler state itself, their most dependable ally in the region.

Fighting on two fronts is rarely recommended and the Zionists are engaged in Palestine mostly in genocide, it is true but also against the Palestinian resistance: the allied factions, Islamist and secular fighting a heroic struggle of defence.

Since the by far most aggressive phase of the Zionist genocide of Palestinians from October 8th last year, Hezbollah has been bombarding mostly military sites and movements and, to a much lesser degree, Zionist settler sites. In particular ´Israeli´ air defence and spying sites have been hit.

As a result, wide areas of occupied Palestine have been abandoned by settlers who are being accommodated at substantial cost to the Zionist state in hotels and even camps. On the Lebanon side, due to IOF barrages, the people have also abandoned their homes.

Hezbollah is a long-standing enemy of the Zionist state which in turn can be ´credited´with the creation of the organisation through its invasions of Lebanon and massacres both directly and through its proxy, the South Lebanese Army, for example in the Tel Al Zataar refugee camp.1

The only complete defeats of the IOF to date, with its European allies and superior level of armament, have been by Hezbollah on Lebanese soil. However Hezbollah´s bombardment of occupied Palestine from October 8th has been in support of the Gaza population against genocide.

Herzi Halevi, top commander of the IOF and Ori Gordin commanding their northern sector recently told their troops that they might soon be employed in a ground invasion of Lebanon in order to crush Hezbollah and two reserve Brigades of the IOF have been called up also.2

However a White House spokesperson recently stated that they did not believe that a ground invasion was imminent. In fact, they are probably hoping it is not because before even reaching Lebanon the infantry and armour will need to cross a large area covered by Hezbollah missiles.

While the IOF air force and artillery might hope to knock out their enemy´s launch sites their bombardments have so far failed to prevent the launching of Hezbollah missiles which have not only continued as before but reached further, including to the Mossad HQ near Haifa.

Upon entering Lebanon, should they reach that far, the infantry would need to confront confident, highly-motivated soldiers fighting in defence of their homeland against a hated enemy. In addition some Hezbollah have been battled-hardened in actual combat against western proxies in Syria.

This is unlike the IOF, mostly accustomed to attacking civilians and their support infrastructure, rarely engaging the Palestinian resistance at close quarters and, when they do, calling in air strikes. In Lebanon in the past, their superior military resources did not prevent their defeat – twice.

The various commentaries from the western powers have not promised any ceasefire in Gaza, only a resumption of talks. However these can go nowhere unless the Zionist leadership and in particular Netanyahu agrees to the terms broadcast in July and to which Hezbollah agreed.

These are the minimum required by Hezbollah: removal of all IOF forces from Gaza, opening of the Rafah gate and safe conduct for delivery of food, medicine and fuel supplies; exchange of prisoners; to be followed by reconstruction of the enormous damage to housing and infrastructure.

So far Netanyahu has refused to agree to complete removal of IOF forces from Gaza and whatever else he or anybody else says, without that there will be no peace or truce agreement in Gaza. And without that, Hezbollah will not cease their bombardment and there will be no ceasefire.

It may be that the Western powers are obliquely trying to pressure the Zionist leadership to agree to the realistic Gaza peace terms but without the removal of Netanyahu and his fascist support coalition this may be a false hope.

As I finished writing the above, the IOF announced a “limited ground offensive” on Lebanon despite the advice (if genuine) of the USA and of its western allies.

However, the Western Powers are not helpless in this, despite their public pronouncements; the closure of the supply chain of armaments and finance would force the Zionist ruling class to come to terms within days, certainly inside of a week.

This step they have refused so far to take and it remains to be seen whether they will take that action to avoid regional war, continue to risk it or indeed, enter that war regardless of the great danger for them and their future plunder of the region and strategic control of much of it.

If they truly want peace around Lebanon, they will need to have peace in Gaza, which means agreeing to the minimum and entirely reasonable terms of the Palestinian resistance.

If the Western Powers want a cessation of conflict around Lebanon and in Gaza, they will need to call off their attack dog. However, the dog is reluctant to acknowledge defeat and also fears that its days, in the longer term, are numbered.

Meanwhile, the Axis of Resistance have taken their own measures, Hezbollah bombarding deep into Zionist-occupied territory and all gatherings of IOF forces preparing to advance towards Lebanon, so far preventing them stepping on Lebanese soil, despite the fabrications of the Zionists.

And the long-awaited retaliation of Iran has arrived also, its missiles and drones hitting in particular the Zionist entity´s military airports, apparently with great success, destroying many of the US-made jets with which the IOF have bombed so many civilians and their infrastructures.

And there it rests while we await how the IOF and their allies will respond. Iran´s leadership have more or less told the Zionists: “Accept that as a just punishment for your attacks on our personnel and on our allies in our land. If you don´t, the next response will be a lot worse for you!”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has promised, in the event of USA retaliation on Iran, to attack every USA base currently on their land (and long overdue to depart). And we add: “If it´s peace you want in Palestine, call off your dog and kennel it.”

end.

FOOTNOTES

1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_al-Zaatar_massacre

2https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/25/middleeast/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-ground-invasion-intl/index.html

SOURCES

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us–france-call-for-temporary-ceasefire-in-lebanon

Britain secretly helped Chile’s military intelligence after Pinochet coup

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, British imperialism, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Latin America, Political Prisoners, Popular Resistance, Torture, US ImperialismLeave a comment

John McEvoy 5 September2023

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

NB: Rebel Breeze shares this near the anniversary of the fascist military coup in Chile, the same date as the Twin Towers massacre years later.. The article is a year old but relevant as long as British imperialism exists.

As the Pinochet regime rounded up and murdered its political opponents after the 1973 coup, a UK Foreign Office propaganda unit passed material to Chile’s military intelligence and MI6 connived with a key orchestrator of the coup, newly declassified files show.

  • Foreign Office helped Pinochet regime to develop a counter-insurgency strategy based on British military campaigns in Southeast Asia
  • MI6 officer David Spedding was attached to British embassy in Santiago in 1972-4, and had relations with a key member of the military junta

The UK government assisted Chile’s military intelligence in the aftermath of the brutal 1973 coup against elected president Salvador Allende, newly declassified files show.

The assistance was authorised by the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret Foreign Office propaganda unit which worked closely with Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office building, Whitehall, London. Many a dark deed was planned here. (Photo accessed: Internet)

The IRD had long seen Allende as a political threat. As Declassified previously revealed, throughout the 1960s, the unit had sought to prevent Allende from ever becoming president through election interference and covert propaganda operations.

After Allende was elected in 1970, the IRD’s distribution of propaganda material became “strictly limited”, with the British embassy having fewer reliable contacts in the Chilean government. 

This all changed after the coup.

In January 1974, the IRD began to “extend the distribution” of its material, which was now passed “to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government information organisations” and, crucially, the dictatorship’s “military intelligence” services.

At this time, Chile’s security forces – including the country’s intelligence apparatus – were responsible for massive human rights violations, including the widespread use of torture as a political weapon.

The UK government was under no illusions about this. As Foreign Office official Christopher Crabbie noted three months after the coup in December 1973, “I do not think that anyone seriously doubts that torture is going on in Chile”. 

Reliable figures indicate that, between 1973 and 1988, Chilean state agents were responsible for over 3,000 deaths or disappearances and tens of thousands of cases of torture and political arrests. This was in a country which, in 1973, had a population of only 10 million people.

‘Our major interest is copper’: Britain backed Pinochet’s bloody coup…

Chile Army 1973 coup soldiers watch detainees – many were shot, many more tortured then shot, many more still ‘disappeared’, probably tortured and shot. Many, many more were jailed where they were also tortured; young children were also abducted and given to fascist childless couples. (Photo accessed: Internet)

‘Hearts and minds’

The nature of the information passed to Chile’s military intelligence remains unclear, though the files suggest it may have included material for use in propaganda, research reports on left-wing activity, and even manuals on domestic security operations.

For instance, newly declassified files show how the UK government secretly helped the Chilean authorities to develop a counter-insurgency strategy, using techniques refined during Britain’s colonial interventions in Southeast Asia.

The idea for such assistance was first raised during the visit of British navy chief Sir Michael Pollock to Chile in late November 1973, two months after the coup. 

The timing of Pollock’s visit was “politically tricky”, noted the British ambassador in Santiago, Reginald Secondé, since there was “much critical attention” being given “to the Chilean Government’s treatment of their political opponents”.

However, there were “two frigates and two submarines for the Chilean Navy under construction in British yards” – an arms deal worth around £50m – and “this was not a moment to prejudice the historic tradition of Anglo-Chilean naval friendship”. 

“This was not a moment to prejudice the historic tradition of Anglo-Chilean naval friendship”

In Santiago, Pollock and Secondé met with a number of regime officials, including navy chief José Toribio Merino Castro, defence minister Patricio Carvajal Prado, and foreign minister Ismael Huerta.

With Huerta, the British officials spoke about the UK government’s “hearts and minds” campaign in Northern Ireland, a counter-insurgency strategy inspired by Britain’s war in Malaya (1948-60).

Huerta “seemed impressed with the concept”, and Secondé “later twice heard him muttering to himself ‘hearts and minds’”.

Subsequent meetings were held between Secondé, British information officer Tony Walters, and Captain Carlos Ashton, the director of overseas information in Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Like Huerta, Ashton was “very receptive to the idea that this kind of approach to Chilean security problems might be the right answer”, and requested “details of what practical measures a ‘hearts and minds’ exercise would involve”.

Exclusive: Secret cables reveal Britain interfered with elections in Chile

Counter-insurgency advice

Ashton’s request for assistance was forwarded to Rosemary Allott, the head of the IRD’s Latin American desk.

In a letter dated 15 February 1974 and marked ‘secret’, Allott agreed to provide the Chilean regime with counter-insurgency advice, but limited this to material on Britain’s past colonial interventions.

“In view of the delicate political considerations involved”, Allott wrote, “it would be best to confine, at this stage at least, the material we send you of insurgencies of the past, rather than those currently preoccupying HMG” such as Northern Ireland.

The Pinochet regime was soon issued with three books on British counter-insurgency strategy, alongside a “Manual of Counter Insurgency Studies”. 

“Britain agreed to share its colonial policing methods with the Chilean junta”

Allott also tracked down “various official reports on Malaya” including “The Fight Against Communist Terrorism in Malaya”, the “Review of the Emergency in Malaya (1948-57)”, and “two booklets on the Philippines insurrection”. 

Britain’s military campaign in Malaya involved the “resettlement” of over 500,000 civilians, aerial bombardment, and an intensive propaganda operation. 

Embassy officials suggested that they were teaching Chilean officers “tactics of tolerance and magnanimity”. However, brutal repression often lay behind the UK government’s rhetoric about “winning hearts and minds”, and the Chilean authorities were only sharpening their repressive techniques.

None of the material given to the Pinochet regime was “for attribution to HMG”. This meant that the Chilean authorities could use the information but not source it to the UK government. 

The extent to which Britain’s advice was acted upon remains unclear; the Pinochet regime was certainly not lacking in support from the CIA. 

Nonetheless, it is clear that Britain agreed to share its colonial policing methods with the Chilean junta, with the goal of stabilising Pinochet’s regime against domestic opposition.

MI6 in Chile

Evidence of British assistance to Chile’s intelligence services raises further questions about what Britain’s own secret intelligence service, MI6, was doing in Chile. 

In 1972, MI6 officer David Spedding was attached to the British embassy in Santiago – his only foreign posting outside of the Middle East throughout his career. 

This was not Spedding’s first visit to Chile. As a postgraduate student at Oxford University during the mid-1960s, Spedding had spent his gap year in Santiago and found work as an assistant in the British embassy’s press office. 

Spedding’s first role in the diplomatic service was thus in the same British embassy that had been directing covert propaganda operations against Allende throughout the 1960s. The job gave him “an entrée into SIS [MI6]”, historian Nigel West noted.

Spedding remained in Chile until September 1974. He was subsequently made responsible for MI6 operations across the Middle East, and would go on to become MI6 chief between 1994 and 1999.

‘Our relationship with Admiral Merino’

Spedding’s name rarely appears in declassified Foreign Office files on Chile.

Yet in one file, dated 4 December 1973, Spedding informed the Foreign Office that 2,800 civilians and 700 armed forces personnel had been killed during and after the coup. 

“In order to protect our relationship with Admiral Merino”, Spedding noted, “we would not like these figures to be quoted, at least for the time being”. 

Admiral Merino was one of the key orchestrators of the 1973 coup. He was head of the Chilean navy in September 1973, and remained in post until the fall of the dictatorship in 1990. Merino claimed responsibility for convincing Pinochet to join the coup.

Some of the culprits saluting (Photo accessed: Internet)

One of Spedding’s roles, then, was to ensure close collaboration with the Chilean junta by covering up its responsibility for massive political repression and human rights violations. 

The MI6 station in Santiago was only closed down in 1974 amid the UK Labour Party’s return to government.

It would not be surprising if MI6 played a supporting role to the CIA’s covert operations against Allende during the early 1970s. It was recently revealed that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) had “opened a base in Santiago to assist in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s destabilisation of the Chilean government” in 1971.

Britain’s secret assistance to the Pinochet regime was consistent with the UK government’s position on the coup. 

The Conservative government under Edward Heath had welcomed the coup and rushed to give diplomatic recognition and arms to the Chilean junta, with the Foreign Office noting that it had “infinitely more to offer British interests than the one which preceded it”.

The coup against Allende inaugurated a 17-year dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet, who only left office in 1990.

end.

John McEvoy is co-directing a forthcoming documentary investigating Britain’s hidden role in the death of Chile’s democracy and rise of the Pinochet dictatorship. You can support the film’s production here.

THE REPRESENTATION OF REVOLUTIONARY ICONS

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, Writing, ZionismLeave a comment

The role of culture in revolution is of great importance – greater even than that of the armed struggle, certainly in the initial and later stages. We are created by evolution but we are born into and raised in culture.

The question of whether that culture is to be revolutionary or liberal is of crucial importance.

I have remarked on how Mandela, jailed for his revolutionary armed activities, was marketed as a peacemaker and later became a figurehead of pacification of the South African struggle. Bobby Sands, a revolutionary fighter to the last, has also been represented as a peaceful icon.1

And so also was Terence McSwiney who, like Bobby Sands, died on hunger strike.2

The following article from Resistance News Network, reflecting on the work of the revolutionary writer Ghassan Kanafani who was murdered by Israeli Zionism and his subsequent representation as an icon is I think of substantial interest. D.Breatnach

Translated by Resistance News Network
Originally by Nidal Khalaf, 16 July 2022

(Reading time: 6 mins.)


Ghassan the poet? Ghassan the Palestinian? No, Ghassan the revolutionary!

In colonial wars, the creation and dissemination of symbols to the public is a crucial battle in the war of consciousness building, even if its effects are not clearly visible in the present.

Perhaps the most prominent example of these battles was the image of Che Guevara in the wars of liberation in Latin America. Ernesto Guevara’s persona represented an individual model that encapsulated the revolutionary spirit of people fighting for their freedom from American hegemony.

As the American empire recognized its inability to destroy Guevara’s image, they transformed his image into a consumer commodity.

This was to divert his image from its original revolutionary meanings and repurpose it in the service of economic and cultural agendas that contradicted Guevara’s own principles and what he represents.

In the Arab context, the war to liberate Arab symbols from the captivity of history monopolists continues to intensify, as it involves obscuring forgotten heroes in favour of fabricating mythical legends designed to tamper with the boundaries of nationalism and betrayal in the Arab mind.

In this context, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the martyr Ghassan Kanafani is being observed, with pages and websites filled with commemorations of Ghassan’s life, his quotes, and his most significant works.

It is no longer surprising that Ghassan Kanafani is celebrated on both normalization platforms as well as liberal ones, when voices are raised to commemorate Ghassan even as they are in the heart of the hostile project under the umbrella of its military bases.

Thus, the question arises: which Ghassan Kanafani are we commemorating today? And how do we protect the Ghassan we know?

Ghassan Kanafani’s life provided rich material for readers, followers, and analysts after his martyrdom.

However, the perception of Ghassan was not independent of the political contexts of the recipient interpreting his word, resulting in multiple “versions” of Ghassan Kanafani, some of which we review below.

Ghassan Kanafani: The Writer (only?)

The most widespread version of Ghassan Kanafani is that of a “writer” who wrote stories, plays, and depicted the Palestinian reality.

The spread of this version may be justified since Ghassan’s literary works are the most popular among people and have played a significant role in spreading his name.

However, confining Ghassan Kanafani to the realm of “literature” is not always innocent, and in some respects, it is a deliberate reduction of Ghassan Kanafani’s political work.

Ghassan was responsible for mobilization, media, and was a part of the political decision-making circle in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine since it was part of the Arab Nationalist Movement. He remained in this role until his martyrdom.

Moreover, Ghassan’s literary output never compromised or was at the expense of his political positions or took precedence at any point in his career.

In terms of production, his political studies, research, articles, and editorial journalism are as abundant and important as his narrative and theatrical works.

Even the latter were never detached from the political context; instead, the narrative served as a framework through which Ghassan conveyed his political, social, and even philosophical ideas.

Consequently, the image of Ghassan as “the writer engaged in politics” falls away, replaced by the truth of Ghassan — the politician who harnessed literature in the service of a political cause.

The danger of this deliberate reduction lies in paving the way for a sanitized image of Ghassan Kanafani, presented to the public by liberal (and even normalization) pages and platforms to gain credibility in Ghassan’s name.

Kanafani tackles a fundamental dilemma that burdens our political reality to this day, which is the crisis of “the prioritization of internal change over liberation.”

Thus, reductionism turns into deliberate distortion, making Ghassan Kanafani’s name a “honey” slipped into the poison of isolationist, liberal, and anti-resistance ideas on our land under the guise of freedom and liberation.

Otherwise, how can we understand the celebration of Ghassan Kanafani by liberal platforms and influencers at Al-Udeid Air Base?

Ghassan Kanafani: the Palestinian (only?)

One of the unjust reductions of Ghassan Kanafani is the confining of his personality and his works to “Palestine,” as delineated by colonialism.

Again, one can find an excuse for this reduction because Palestine represents the primary aspect of Kanafani’s political and literary identity, and his experience is closely tied to the general Palestinian experience of war, forced displacement, diaspora, and the struggle for return.

Some people overly emphasize Ghassan’s Palestinian identity, overshadowing his Arab dimension, which he never concealed.

In reality, examining Ghassan Kanafani’s political studies unveils to us the truth of Ghassan as an Arab nationalist thinker who worked hard and struggled to develop practical frameworks for Arab revolutionary theory.

This is made clear in his in-depth study, “The Arab Cause in the Era of the United Arab Republic,” where he discusses the essence of the imposed war on our region, identifying enemy and friend camps, and ultimately defining the main goal of the war: liberation as a condition for unity and renaissance.

Ghassan further elaborates on this study’s conclusions in another study titled “The Revolutionary Applications of Arab Nationalism,” published in 1959, in which he masterfully details the concept of Arab unity and the tools for its practical implementation.

Ghassan Kanafani goes beyond this by considering the confrontation of isolationist (regionalist) thought a revolutionary necessity, describing “isolationism” as something that “contradicts the nature of the formation of societies.”

Isolationism or “regionalism” are anti-unity tendencies, based on defining society’s interests from colonial borders and treating each Arab state as “independent” in itself, as Sykes and Picot intended.

Kanafani tackles a fundamental dilemma that burdens our political reality to this day: the crisis of “the prioritization of internal change over liberation.”

No better formulation to this question can be found than Ghassan’s own words when he stated that “raising the concept [of focusing on internal development first] is a deliberate exclusion of the popular current directed towards unity with determination,

and diverting it to side and regional battles that are easily manipulated (as long as each Arab country is not -nationally- at a level of complete liberation worthy of proper social construction).”

Ghassan concludes his argument by asserting that “unity is a prerequisite of the renaissance… even its regional aspect.”

We mention these ideas as examples of Ghassan Kanafani’s Arab nationalist thought, which fundamentally opposed isolationism and the canned projections of Marxism and others, with strength and clarity.

Therefore, the celebration of Ghassan by the proponents of these ideas indicates their exploitation of Ghassan’s legacy (from their side) and a significant failure in protecting Ghassan (from the side of those who believe in his ideas).

How, then, do we protect Ghassan Kanafani?

The starting point lies in defining ourselves. Are we believers in Ghassan Kanafani’s approach and vision for the ongoing conflict on our land, which comes at the expense of our blood, lives, and destinies?

If so, our foremost duty is to reclaim Ghassan Kanafani from the chains of cheap consumerism and to present him to the public in his true and impeccable form: an Arab nationalist fighter who made among the most significant contributions to modern Arab revolutionary theory.

Additionally, our responsibilities also include reviving the spirit of party work, in which Ghassan was a pioneer, and correcting the Arab party frameworks to harness the wasted energies in the prisons of virtual activism,

within the halls of “non-governmental organizations” and the labyrinths of despair and discouragement.

Our obligation towards Ghassan Kanafani demands that we comprehend our reality and its conditions and that we clearly define our goals, grounded in a deep conviction in our civilizational role as a nation.

We must believe that the liberation of the land is a step towards unity, and that unity is a prerequisite for the renaissance that will elevate us to our rightful civilizational status among nations. Finally, here is a part from Ghassan Kanafani’s ongoing will:

“A human being who does not live the average of sixty years will not find enough space to live peacefully; instead, they will carry the crisis from the moment they are born… and pass it on to their children at the hour of their death.

“The results of this struggle will be for a generation we do not know when it will arrive, even though we are optimistic about witnessing its early days towards the end of our lives…

“Our only reward may be that the next generation, the happy generation that will enjoy our victories, will envy us for having earned the honour of living in the age of struggle for life. And that is enough for us temporarily.”

End.

Footnotes

1In particular by the constant reproduction of his statement that “our revenge will be the laughter of our children”, completely abstracted from his role as an armed freedom fighter and what he wrote in support of that.

2Similarly to Bobby Sands, his statement that is those who who endure, rather than inflict the most who will triumph. The statement taken in isolation seems to endorse passive resistance but McSwiney was an officer of the IRA in the War of Independence, a role skated over in the Wikipedia entry dedicated to him.

Colombia: The meaning of “Never Again”

On By rebelbreezeIn Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, Massacres, Popular Resistance, US Imperialism, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 3 June 2024

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

Gustavo Petro and Truth Commission President Francisco de Roux.

I recently read an article written by the former Colombian truth commissioner and academic at the Los Andes University, Alejandro Castillejo titled Teaching After Gaza?: Indifference Perpetuates Barbarism.(1) 

As its title indicates, it deals with Gaza, but also covers other conflicts, such as Ukraine and also the Colombian conflict itself.

In the text he puts forward a question “When we say ‘Never Again’, exactly what should never happen again?” 

It is a good question and one that is not often asked; he talks of the continuities, as Gaza is ongoing and will continue after the genocide, it won’t end in some precise reference point. 

I would like to deal with another aspect of that question. 

Once upon a time the social organisations in Colombia, the NGOs, the left groups, both legal and illegal ones, reformists (some illegal) and revolutionaries (some of which are legal), were very clear about what they meant when they gave voice to the slogan Never Again. 

It is a common phrase.  There are some reports from Colombian organisations that include it in their names.  I had the honour of contributing, through my field work to the first two reports on the 14th Zone.(2)

Outside of Colombia, there is more than one truth commission report that has that as its name, such as the REMHI Report of Guatemala,(3) or the report on the disappeared in Argentina.(4)  We were all clear, we did not want a repetition of the terrible night. 

We spoke of the bloodbath and many were equally clear that they did not want a repeat of the circumstances that made it all possible, necessary and justifiable in the eyes of the state and bourgeoisie (a term disgracefully fallen into disuse in current times.)

Nowadays, it would seem that nobody is clear about it.  The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) understands Never Again to be never again the FARC and some “rotten apple” in the state’s military forces. 

The Truth Commission hadn’t a clue as to what it understood Never Again to be, other than some generic, non-specific abhorrence of violence in and of itself, but not of the system and circumstances that gave rise to the bloodbath.

Less still to the rivers of blood that flow through the fields and furrows of the country.  The Commission absolved the state for the so-called False Positives for which the state acknowledges and accepts the figure of 6,402 victims. 

It was a state crime, acts of state terrorism, crimes as appalling as they were evident. 

As far as the Commission was concerned it was not a state policy to take youths to the countryside, dress them up as guerrillas and murder them to present them in dispatches as part of a media campaign that sought to show the state was winning the war. 

So, if it was not a state policy, when we say Never Again, are we saying that the state shouldnot commit such a crime in the future?

Or are we asking thousands of crazy soldiers not to think of putting boots on the wrong way round on the feet of young civilians that they just murdered and dressed up as a guerrillas?

In the first case, it would be something we could demand of the state, in the second case if they were really the demented actions of the soldiers, well even the state would be a victim in that case.

Even the paramilitaries sometimes say No More, rather than Never Again.  In zones where they displaced the entire population, they don’t have to continue killing anyone.  They can say No More.

With groups such as the Unión Patriótica that they decimated, or groups such as A Luchar that they finished off, they can say No More. 

There is no need to continue murdering as the dirty work has been done, or at least it got to a point in which it had achieved its aim.  If there is a need to repeat it, they will, which is why they say No More rather than Never Again. 

This juxtaposition of No More and Never Again shows the banality of the slogan now.  Is it really Never Again or do they speak of “until the next time there is a need to”?

We can see just how empty the refrain of Never Again is by looking at some examples of violence in Colombia. 

In the 90s, the levels of violence in the port of Buenaventura began, for various reasons, to dramatically rise.  The violence cannot be explained by reference to one single fact or motive. 

However, there are contributing factors and whilst I don’t wish to reduce the explanation to something simple, we can point to the privatization of the port as a key factor in the rise in violence.

In 1991, following recommendations from the World Bank, Colombia — in the context of the growing forward march of neoliberalism — privatized the ports of the country. 

In the case of Buenaventura this resulted in the loss of jobs in the port area, a reduction in salaries, both of which impacted the economies of the neighbourhoods where the workers spent their wages, generally increasing poverty in the city. 

The port workers used to be able to apply for grants for their children to study, but with the privatisation that was gone, thus reducing not only the labour market but also the possibility of escaping poverty through studying. 

Then came the plans to expand the port and the massacres such as Punta del Este, amongst others, to clear out those who lived where they were going to construct the new port zones.(5) 

So when we say Never Again, it is clear that they don’t want the youths of the city to be killed, if they see another alternative, but does Never Again include the plans to privatise and expand the port?

Or we could look at the violence in the mining areas of the country, such as Southern Bolívar (gold) or Cesar and La Guajira (coal). 

Once again, we see the hand of the grey men, the banal ones from the World Bank, the IMF or state bodies who like Eichmann never directly killed anyone but rather moved pieces of paper around knowing what the consequences were of those bureaucratic procedures in which they took part and knowing that the new realities they sought to impose required a high dosage of violence.

In the 1980s, the WB had been promoting the expansion of mining in Latin America, the abolition of restrictions on foreign investment, the exporting of capital etc. 

In the case of Colombia, it didn’t need to do that much, the national bourgeoisie did the dirty work, without even a nod and a wink from the grey men at the WB.  A key figure in all of this was Ernesto Samper, the head honcho in the country between 1994 and 1998. 

It is worth bearing in mind that this satrap likes to present himself as a human rights defender, when it was his government that legalised the paramilitaries and is now one of the fiercest defenders of the current government of Gustavo Petro. 

Not only was he the president of the country from 1994 to 1998, he was the owner of various mining companies. 

He tried to introduce a new mining code but it was overturned by the Constitutional Court.  In 1998, another satrap and mining businessman, Andrés Pastrana, took over as president and implemented a new mining code, which is currently in force.(6)

During this whole process, the massacres in Southern Bolivar and other mining regions of the country intensified, whilst the paramilitaries tried to take these zones for the multinationals.  In the case of Southern Bolivar they were very explicit about it. 

After the murder of the leader Juan Camacho Herrera they played football with this head, placing it on a stake facing the mines, declaring that they had come to hand over the mineral resources to other people, who would, according to them, make a more rational use of them. 

So, when we say Never Again, does it mean Never Again to the national and international plans to take control of mineral resources? Or do they just mean that they are not going to play football with the heads of those who oppose these plans?

Nowadays the discussion in Colombia centres round the question of violence as something alien to the economic projects and they talk about the individuals. 

The slogan is to stop the war, but only a few say stop the plans of the WB, the IMF, the imperialist powers such as the USA and Europe.  When the president of the Truth Commission spoke to the UN he stated:

We have come to understand that the solution to the armed conflict is through respecting each person as an equal and we should respect each indigenous and afrocolombian child with the same commitment that we show to presidents, the wealthy, the powerful, and personalities, military generals. 

That all personality cults end and we love and respect each other as people entitled to the same dignity.  And that in Colombia and the world over all of us contribute to promoting a new sense of ethics based on human dignity and that all the spiritual traditions lend their support to this.(7)

Pass the joint round, take out the guitar, sing Kumbaya and kiss each other. In his speeches and the Commission’s report, the economic model is not questioned, in fact through the terms of reference they restricted the researchers and even banned them from dealing with certain issues.

Issues such as the role of the banks, the institutions and even the role of the USA in the conflict, which was reduced to isolated comments lacking in depth.  So Never Again means never again showing disrespect to someone and that we not seek recourse in violence to solve differences.

But that violence is not fortuitous and the bullets, the machetes, the chainsaws [common weapons in massacres] are used when the first victim of the economic plans refuses to submit.  So, Never Again has become: accept the established order and its plans! 

A Never Again to violence that says little about structural violence is an exhortation to surrender and is a Never Again until such time as it is necessary to resort to violence to impose the will the of the capitalist class.  Never Again for the moment, just like in Gaza.

End.

Notes

(1)  Castillejo, A. (2024) Enseñar después de Gaza?: La indiferencia perpetua la barbarie. Revisa Raya Mayo 16, 2024. https://revistaraya.com/ensenar-despues-de-gaza-la-indiferencia-perpetua-la-barbarie

(2)  Although the Never Again project changed since its foundation in 1995 in terms of participants and leadership, some of the reports are available on the site https://nuncamas.movimientodevictimas.org

(3)  See Guatemala Nunca Más https://www.odhag.org.gt/publicaciones/remhi-guatemala-nunca-mas/

(4)  See Informe “Nunca Más” http://www.derechoshumanos.net/lesahumanidad/informes/argentina/informe-de-la-CONADEP-Nunca-mas.htm

(5)  See chapter Los Puertos: Importando el Terror, Ó Loingsigh, G. (2013) La Reconquista del Pacífico: Invasión, Inversión, Impunidad. PCN. Bogotá. https://www.academia.edu/23970346/La_reconquista_del_Pacífico

(6)  Ó Loingsigh, G. (2003) La Estrategia Integral del Paramilitarismo en el Magdalena Medio. Organizaciones Sociales. España. https://www.academia.edu/96631813/LA_ESTRATEGIA_INTEGRAL_DEL_PARAMILITARISMO_EN_EL_MAGDALENA_MEDIO_DE_COLOMBIA

(7)  Speech by Francisco de Roux to the UN
https://www.comisiondelaverdad.co/palabras-de-francisco-de-roux-ante-el-consejo-de-seguridad-de-la-onu

A PEACE DEAL IN PALESTINE?

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Massacres, National Liberation, Palestine, US Imperialism, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

The fundamental thing to grasp here is that there can be no peace deal as such. Although there can – and needs to be – an end to Israeli massacres of Palestinians, no arrangement that leaves the zionist settler state in situ can possibly deliver peace.

Even if the zionists could go against their settler nature and therefore abandoned expansion, the Palestinians will never reconcile themselves to their dispossession of most of their country, including their best land and water.

TALK OF A CEASEFIRE DEAL

Very recently Biden put forward a ceasefire plan which he claimed to be an ‘Israeli’ one; Netanyahu seemed to reject it but one of his ministers accepted it was their position.

News footage of Biden’s announcement of the ceasefire proposal “by Israel”. The Palestinian resistance states that the offer received from ‘Israel’ does not at all match the content or process laid out by Biden. (Source video clip: Internet)

Since it contains the main items in the deal brokered by the Arab state intermediaries and approved by the CIA’s man some weeks ago, naturally the Palestinian Resistance1 has welcomed the proposals.

But with caution – they have seen Netanyahu torpedo ceasefire deals before, including the earlier one. And Netanyahu has said repeatedly that eliminating Hamas (by which he means Palestinian Resistance capability) and recovery of the detained Israelis2 is a necessity for any ceasefire.

Of course, the actions of the IOF under his orders don’t suggest that he is serious about recovering the detainees – not alive, anyway. On the other hand, he dearly would like to eliminate the Resistance capability and was happy to wipe out more than the 36,000+ civilians he has already.

But it may be that he has come to believe – or has been pressured into believing – that that project may have to be put off for awhile. The settler society is deeply divided over the question of the Israeli detainees and in a recent poll only 10% believed that the IOF was winning the war.3

Netanyahu’s position is rational from the settler perspective which is that the Indigenous have to be dispossessed and, because they naturally resist, have to be also heavily repressed. But he would like to keep the war going for another reason, which is that he is due to face trial for corruption.

However, he doesn’t get to be where he is or do what he does as an individual but rather with the backing of, in the first place the Israeli ruling class and secondly, of course, of the US Government, which really means by the rulers of the US financial-industrial-military complex.

Supporting ‘Israel’ has been basic US imperialist policy since 1948, when the zionist lobby in the US was not anywhere near as strong as it is today. Biden now, Trump before (and possibly again), Obama, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Reagan – all of them have supported the zionist colony.

Contrary to what many people think, the main reason for the US supporting ‘Israel’ is that it is the only state in the Middle East totally safe from national liberation revolution (because it’s a settler state fighting the Indigenous) or Islamic fundamentalist revolution (because it’s zionist).

In other words, it’s the only safe long-term USA foothold in the Middle East. Or at least it was.

Current map of the Middle East states. The US has overthrown the Iraq ruling regime and made clients of the regimes of all the others with the exception of Yemen and Iran, both of which overthrew their western-aligned ruling elites. (Source map: Internet)

So if Biden is really pressuring Netanyahu– which is not clear yet, given that money and weapons are still being supplied and massacres of Palestinians continue daily — that means that the US ruling class (or at least its dominant section) is pressuring the Israeli ruling class.

Perhaps that’s why John Kirby, Biden’s Middle East envoy is now heading back to the Middle East, in the first place to the zionist state then possibly to Egypt afterwards, where some Resistance leaders have gone already (at least of Islamic Jihad and of the PFLP, according to Arab media).

But every passing day, the IOF massacres between 50-100 Palestinians on average, the population of Gaza suffers from malnutrition, their housing and shelters are bombed, rescue workers are targeted and the only functioning hospital4 is low on fuel and out of many medicines and drugs.

Since the talk of a deal began, the known death toll in Gaza (not to mention the West Bank) passed 5,000 and is now half way through its sixth thousand.

The cold hard fact is that if the US shut off finance and munitions delivery to Israel, the massacres would stop within a day or two and, because the IOF can’t fight without air cover, it would have to withdraw from its blockade of the Rafah crossing, instantly allowing in food, fuel and medicine.

But also as the Medical Director of GLIA5 Tarek Loubani stated in a recent very informative interview,6 the Palestinian bordering states of Egypt and of Jordan, which also have gates, could break the siege tomorrow. Of course these are ruled by elites that are clients of the imperialists.

“THE TWO-STATE” OPTION

But what’s the long-term plan for Palestine?

For some Zionists, including a couple of members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, it’s the expulsion (sorry, “voluntary resettlement”) of Palestinians from Gaza to be run by ‘Israel’ and resettled by zionists. Not many outside the state would openly espouse that objective.

Although liberal ‘Israeli’ journalist Gideon Lev, who no longer supports the “2-State solution” (sic) commented that Biden dropped that objective from his outline of the alleged deal,7 it has been for decades the only long-term plan of the US, UK and EU and of their main political parties.

This plan is to get some kind of collaborator management to run less than 20% of historic Palestine next to the robbers of most and the best of its land and most of its water, in a “state” dominated by the robbers and under their constant eyes, genocidal guns and air force.

Who gets the Quisling management job? The USA suggested months ago a “revamped Palestinian Authority” which is despised by most Palestinians, corrupt and authoritarian (hence to be “revamped”). Others have suggested some kind of Arab state partnership to manage at least Gaza.

The most recent map of the imagined two-state “solution”, drawn up during Trump’s earlier presidency – areas in green allocated to Palestine, beige to the zionist state. (Source: Wikipedia)

But Netanyahu says the PA will not run Gaza. Of course, if he’s on the way out, he may be ignored but the Resistance is on record saying that what they have, whether part of 2-State setup or not, must be run by Palestinians and that they will not accept any other states doing so.

And that for Palestinian unity, the PLO8 must be opened to Islamist organisations such as Hamas.9

If legislative elections (overdue by almost two decades) are run now, the likelihood is that Hamas will win again10as it did in Gaza and the West Bank in 2006.11

MEANWHILE, THE DEAL …

“The first stage proposes to involve a six-week ceasefire during which the Israeli army will withdraw from the populated areas of Gaza. Hostages, including the elderly and women, would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

“Civilians would also return to all of Gaza, with 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid flooding the enclave daily, Biden said.

“The second phase would see Hamas and Israel negotiate terms for a permanent end to hostilities. “The ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue,” the president said.

“In the third phase, a permanent ceasefire would follow, facilitating the reconstruction of the enclave, including 60 percent of clinics, schools, universities and religious buildings damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces.”12

The Resistance leadership, while welcoming what Biden said, declare they want to see all the provisions spelled out – and quite rightly so – before they commit to the pacification plan. They also want to see that Netanyahu himself commits to it, which is far from what he’s currently saying.

They want to stop the genocidal murder of their people through bombing, starvation and destruction of medical care facilities. No doubt they also welcome the opportunity for a respite for their surviving veterans and for training new recruits, perhaps also stocking up on war materiel.

But what game are the USA and the Zionists playing? Could this just be electioneering for Biden? Is there a serious split in the Zionist war-cabinet? Or could it be a playing for time and divide-and-rule game by the US, the Zionists and allies?

A statement given by “a senior leader in the Palestine resistance” to Al-Akhbar and published in Resistance News Network suggests that the latter might be the imperialist game.13

The latest attempts will occur in the coming days, following an invitation issued in the name of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi through his intelligence chief Major General Abbas Kamel to senior leaders of the Popular Front and Islamic Jihad

to visit Cairo for consultations on the situation and the possibility of “creating a breakthrough which would lead to a deal the United States wants to happen now.”

The factions will visit Egypt, and there will be separate or joint meetings.

It is expected that a Hamas leadership delegation will also arrive in Egypt, where representatives from the United States and Qatar will be present, while the “israelis” will be sitting in a private hotel waiting for the results of the meetings.

However, it is clear and decided by the resistance factions that the message that will be conveyed to the Egyptians or any other party present will be much higher than the position announced by Hamas.14

However all this pans out, despite the huge toll of its genocidal campaign, the Zionist state gained nothing militarily, while it has lost hugely on the international political stage. Which means its primary sponsor, the US has lost influence too.

The world is not the same place it was up to the first week in October last year. Nor is it likely to be ever so again. Not just in the Middle East but also in the global South and even in the global West, especially in the latter for thousands of young people.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Spokesmen of a number of different Palestinian resistance organisations have made it clear that the negotiators of Hamas represent them in the talks and that they are kept informed.

2I use this term to describe what are normally called “hostages”, given that the hostages of the zionists are usually called “prisoners”.

3Quoted by Jon Elmer in last week’s Intifada Update. This is in a society with military censorship of the press and, as Jon Elmer remarked on an Electronic Intifada update, “10% is an error margin for zero.” Elmer also quoted the result of 40% who believed “Hamas” was winning.

4For a million people, according to a recent of the almost daily appeals from the Health Authority.

5https://glia.org/products/gaza-medical-support-initiative

6https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-16-gaza-physicians-brace-impact

7Interview today on line (can’t recall which agency).

8The Palestine Liberation Organisation, dominated by Fatah, which has largely been sidelined in the Resistance struggle, in particular since October last year.

9And Islamic Jihad – and there are others. Secular organisations like the PFLP are in the minority. The latter have been in the Fatah-dominated PLO, which excluded Islamist resistance organisations and which has been seen as betraying Palestinian objectives and colluding with the zionist occupation while indulging in substantial corruption until the Palestinian electorate voted them out and Hamas in in 2006.

10Probably with gains too for any Resistance group standing and even less votes than before for Fatah, from which the PA leadership comes.

11In Gaza Fatah refused to accept the electoral verdict and to give up their control; in a short battle they were removed by Hamas which chose not to do the same in the West Bank, where civil war would have been much more intense. From the moment Gaza came under Hamas management it was blockaded physically by the zionist state with Egyptian and Lebanese regimes collusion and politically and financially with full backing of the US and the imperialist states of the EU and the UK (and again, collusion of the Palestinian Authority). The intention was to make life in Gaza so unbearable that it would be abandoned or otherwise ripe for ‘Israeli’ control.

12https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/2/how-significant-is-bidens-gaza-peace-plan-will-hamas-and-israel-agre

13The context about attempts to split the Resistance: “They attempted to open communication channels with local leaders in Gaza but were met with the shocking response to go to Hamas. They then tried to open side channels with the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] and factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization that have military wings in the Strip, and they led an initiative they believed would be tempting to the leadership of [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, only to hear the same response. Nevertheless, the enemy continues to try to break the unity behind Hamas.”

14I interpret that as meaning that the factions will exceed the demands of Hamas, forcing the negotiators to abandon their splitting plans and deal with the actual issue of a ceasefire deal and present the detailed written terms as presented by Biden (and previously agreed by the Resistance but refused by Netanyahu) with the ‘Israeli’ Government’s acceptance, which the Resistance will accept.

SOURCES

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/2/how-significant-is-bidens-gaza-peace-plan-will-hamas-and-israel-agree

STEP FORWARD, YOUTH!

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, France, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, US Imperialism, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8mins.)

University students in the USA protesting, setting up encampments, occupying university buildings; threats from administrators; police invasions, assaults on students, resistance, arrests …

Step forward, Youth and shake the towers

Those ivory towers stand on sweat and blood

Make those lies fall in showers —

Become the earthquake and the rushing flood.

Step forward youth

For solidarity and truth!

Academic freedom and investigation

and principles too of democracy

Have taken now academic vacation

Revealing true base in hypocrisy.

Step forward youth

For solidarity and truth!

Look down below your feet

Reach out to workplace and street

Stretch out solidarity’s hand

to the struggling in another land.

Step forward youth

For solidarity and truth!

only thus can you also be

in a better world, at peace and free.

(Dublin, May 2023)

It seems as though we’ve been here before, a sense of dejá vu … Ah, yes! During the Vietnam War (1955-1975). University students in the US were in conflict with the authorities about lifestyle, content and style of the curriculum, racism, sexism, sexuality and .. yes, the US’s war in Indochina.

Students lost their study and work plans, got hit by truncheons, were sickened by teargas and some were shot dead, as in Kent State University, Ohio by the National Guard and in Jackson, Mississippi 11 days later.1

Which is why the suggestion of House Speaker Mike Johnson to send that same body in against the students last week was a vicious act of intimidation.

In the 1960s Trinity College Dublin, the academic bastion of the British-unionist Ascendancy, was a hotbed of protest and even revolutionary organisation along many fronts – including gay rights, contraception rights, Irish socialism and national liberation.2

The Ulster University in Belfast, in the British Six-County colony saw protests for Catholic civil equality, a struggle that faced armed repression and developed into a responding armed struggle of three decades.

In the USA those years coincided too with marches for black civil rights and also the rise of militant revolutionary groups such as the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, Weathermen, SLA and later the American Indian Movement.

Women’s liberation and Gay & Lesbian liberation movements3 also moved more to the fore.

The responses of the US State to many of those movements were even more vicious than they had been against the students, with trials, jailings,4 shootings5 and downright unofficial executions.6 As the campus protests now draw in wider communities, are we heading for something similar?

In the USA, the authorities seem terrified of that conjunction — or how else can we understand the violence of their reaction which has even horrified some university senates?

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEN AND NOW

When the students in the USA fought the institutional authorities, it was partly in solidarity with the people of Vietnam (and later of Laos and Cambodia). Yes, but many also feared being sent to the Vietnamese War meat grinder and being airlifted home from there in body bags.

The draft had been introduced in 19647 and though middle-class students had a better chance of avoiding conscription, they were far from immune.8 Being an officer might make one safer from the enemy than being a grunt but not from the grunts themselves as “fragging” incidents soared.9

The students now protesting in US Universities are doing so in solidarity with Palestinians, in horror at their state’s support of Israeli genocide. They may have other issues with their universities’ management and society at large but in general we can rule out the motive of self-preservation.

Encampment Palestine solidarity Vera Cruz University California Thursday (Photo cred: Aric Sleeper Santa Cruz Sentinel)

The drug culture was very much seen as part of the protest movement back then, though opposed by some such as Panthers and viewed with suspicion by other revolutionaries. Pacifist trends were strong and Timothy Leary’s “turn on, tune in and drop out” mantra attracted many.

Much of the revolutionary potential of the movement was lost under that influence, nowhere near as powerful now and revolutionaries who know their history will be aware that such arch-opponents of the system as Leary became an FBI informant to get out of jail.10

Many may argue as to degree but the power of patriarchy and oppression of LBG sexuality, though certainly present, are nowhere near as strong today in the “western world” as they were in the 1960s.

The power of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Irish society has been greatly weakened by struggles, Church scandals and society’s evolution. Discrimination against Catholics in the Six Counties is also less than it was in the previous era.

The armed struggle is not currently being waged.

However, Ireland remains divided between a 26-County neo-colony and a Six-County colonial statelet. The economies are hugely penetrated by foreign multinationals, the health services tottering and a huge housing crisis due to turning housing over to big landlords and property speculators.

The main parties of the ruling classes have been exposed to such degree that they no longer act in the charade of opposition: Sinn Féin and the DUP share political administration of the British colony while Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil share it for the neo-colony, prepared to admit SF there too.

Fascists gather some of the disenchanted, marginalised and disinherited to try to mould them into a fascist movement against migrants and refugees, against LGBT rights, against socialism. The State facilitates that development while it grows more repressive in both the administrations.

The ruling class will be aware of the potential of a rise in student protest coinciding with a feeling of Palestine solidarity and frustration at Irish state complicity very widely spread throughout Ireland. But then the Irish state is not imperialist, it’s just complicit in imperialism.

UNIVERSITY PROTESTS NOW

Students in universities across the USA have staged occupations or built encampments in explicit solidarity with Palestine against their own government and against the collusion of their academic institutions with zionist genocide of Palestinians and the destruction of every university in Gaza.

The response of the academic authorities has been denunciation, threat, eviction and false characterisation of the high motives of the students as “anti-semitism”.11

Municipal, county and state police forces have responded violently to peaceful protest, including bodily assault, pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests. The Government has drafted a change of the legal meaning of anti-semitism to include opposition to the Israeli zionist State.12

Rutgers students tents 29 April 2024 (Photo cred: Sophie Nieto-Munoz/ New Jersey Monitor)

The violence of the authorities has not been confined to the protesting youth but has been extended to staff who stood with them. During the week Dr. Steve Tamari, professor at the University of Southern Illinois got nine ribs fractured by cops – for filming what was going on.

Chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth University, New Hampshire, Annelise Orleck (senior citizen) was violently arrested and banned from campus for six months.

In some cases not only have the protesters resisted valiantly but actually drove the cops into retreat and in Portland, Oregon, police cars were set alight. Also a fascist who drove at protestors and pepper-sprayed them was, according to reports, identified and his car destroyed.

On the other hand, Zionists (and suspected fascists) have mobilised against the students in many universities, with the tired old propaganda of “anti-semitism” and in one case attacked an encampment with sticks and fireworks, also playing a “crying child” Israeli drone recording.13

Irish Republicans and other anti-fascists will not be surprised to learn that a) the police disappeared shortly before the violent attack and b) none of the attackers were arrested when the cops returned.

More than 2,100 people have been arrested at US campuses since April 1814 and students have been barred from their own campuses which, for many, means also their own accommodation.

Police Attack Palestine solidarity UCLA campus Thursday 2 May 2024 LA (Photo cred: Ethan Swope/ AP)

The university protests have spread beyond the USA and have broken out in Canada (McGill), Australia (Brisbane and Sydney) and even Humbold in Germany, main Israel arms supplying country after the US, where state repression of Palestine solidarity has been particularly heavy.15

In France, where there has also been much repression of Palestinian solidarity activity, there have been occupations at the Sorbonne and Sciences Po in Paris) and in England, Newcastle and London, while an encampment was set up in Edinburgh in front of the Scottish Parliament.16

“SHAMEFUL SILENCE”

In Ireland, the universities have been relatively quiet until now but the Trinity College Dublin administration fined their Students Union €214k for a one-day Palestine solidarity picket outside the building housing the Book of Kells exhibition, citing loss of visitor revenue in justification.

“The People’s University” banner hanging from windows in Trinity College Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)

But repression leads to resistance; now there is a Palestine solidarity encampment on the green in front of the Kells exhibition. People are mobilising to support the student resistance in Trinity and today saw a march there from the Spire with the administration locking the gates shut.

“We plan on staying here indefinitely, our message is there is no ‘business as usual’ during a genocide,” outgoing students’ union president Laszlo Molnarfi said.17

(Photo: Social Rights Ireland)

“When our academic institution, Trinity College Dublin, has ties to Israeli companies, entities and universities that are complicit in the war industry, we must speak up. That is why we are doing this.

“And we must speak up in this disruptive, powerful way. Because when we tried to engage with the authorities, with petitions and letters and meetings, we were met with shameful silence.”18

Inside Trinity College grounds Friday night/ Saturday morning (Photo: Social Rights Ireland)

In the wider ‘global South’, Palestine solidarity protests have been seen in India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi against a visit from the US Ambassador to the country, Eric Garcett, which had to be cancelled.

More dangerous by far to the US ruling class and Israeli-colluding King of Lebanon, so geographically close to Palestine and with a strong Hizbollah guerrilla presence, are the student demonstrations at the university of Beirut.

Students at American University in Cairo (AUC) Demonstrating Monday in Solidarity Palestinians (Photo source: X Twitter)

Whether overall these actions of students, who comprise a large and influential section of youth, will significantly deepen, widen and energise the growing Palestine solidarity movement, and simultaneously the wider anti-imperialist movement, remains to be seen.

End.

“Victory to the Palestinian Resistance” banner on Trinity College railings Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

14th May 1970, killed by the Ohio Kent National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War. The Jackson killings occurred 11 days later on Friday, May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, city and state police confronted a group of students outside a campus dormitory. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.

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

2Ironically, precisely because it was free of the major socially controlling agency in Ireland at the time, the Catholic Church hierarchy.

3See the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in the US against homophobic police harassment.

4Including many frame-ups, some of which were only exposed decades later. Leonard Peltier was jailed on dubious evidence in 1977 which had already collapsed against a co-accused but is still in jail, 79 years of age with diabetes and other health problems.

5See MOVE organisation in the late 1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE_(Philadelphia_organization)#1978_shoot-out

6Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke were assassinated by police and other Black Panthers wounded in 1969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_HamptonS and Black Panther George Jackson, shot dead by prison guards in 1971 allegedly while participating in a prison escape. https://www.freedomarchives.org/George%20Jackson.html

7Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million American men out of an eligible pool of 27 million https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/the-military-draft-during-the-

855% working class, 25% poor and 20% middle class, according to one study https://www.studentsofhistory.com/vietnam-war-draft

9Attack from lower ranks by fragmentation grenade rolled into a toilet being used by an officer or his tent. Between 800 to 1,000 such incidents are thought to have occurred among US Marines during the Vietnam War https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/geier/1999/xx/vietnam.htm

10https://www.independent.co.uk/news/timothy-leary-was-an-fbi-informer-1103070.html

11Thereby also devaluing the meaning of that particular form of racism which was a basic ideological aspect of Nazism and Fascism and continues to be a strong trend in European fascism today.

12Ditto.

13One of the latest horrors from the Israeli Zionist cabinet, killer drones playing sounds of a crying baby or a woman needing help in order to bring would-be helpers out where they can then be shot dead, being played in this case mockingly.

14https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/03/world/pro-palestinian-university-protests-worldwide-intl-hnk/index.html

15https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-police-break-up-pro-palestinian-protest-at-humboldt-university/

16A semi-autonomous legislative assembly but part of the United Kingdom.

17https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-04/students-at-protest-camp-inside-trinity-college-vow-to-stay-indefinitely

18Ibid.

SOURCES

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

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/03/world/pro-palestinian-university-protests-worldwide-intl-hnk/index.html

Trinity College protest: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0wzgp7q0do?

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-04/students-at-protest-camp-inside-trinity-college-vow-to-stay-indefinitely

The Trinity occupation: https://www.instagram.com/tcd_bds