Category: US Imperialism

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

IRANIAN STRIKE-BACK AT ISRAEL – MISTAKE OR SUCCESS?

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

On 13th April Iran struck back at Israel with a massive drone attack leading two missile attacks following behind. The targets were three Israeli military bases which some of the Iranian missiles hit.

The Iranian attack was in reprisal for an Israeli strike on Iran’s Embassy in Syria on 1st April killing 16 people, including a senior Iranian military officer, Hamas military and at least six civilians.1 Under the Vienna Convention,2 the embassy of a state is considered its sovereign territory.

This was not the first Israeli attack on Iran; for example on 27 November 2020, Israeli secret services assassinated a leading Iranian nuclear scientist, an action about which The Times of Israel boasted.3

Commentators have differed substantially in their evaluation of the Iranian reprisal. The USA and its imperialist allies have condemned the action and accused Iran of endangering the region with war, while not similarly condemning the attack on the Iranian Embassy.

Some commentators on the other hand have accused the Zionist state of trying to drag the USA on its side into a war with Iran.

A MISTAKE FOR IRAN?

Friends of the Western Powers have judged the Iranian strike to have been largely ineffectual, quoting Israeli military claims that 99% of the offensive munitions were shot down.4

Some also alleged the action to have damaged Palestinian interests by causing attention and concern to switch away from the Israeli state’s genocide in Palestine whilst also creating sympathy for the zionist state.

According to a number of sources the Iranian military’s attack on Israel included 185 Shahed drones which were extremely slow in terms of airborne attack, following these with the faster 36 cruise missiles and finally the much faster 110 ballistic (but not their supersonic5) missiles.

Although most of the projectiles were shot down at least five missiles did get through as the Israeli military conceded while claiming the damage was not substantial. Certainly according to recent photos of the damage released by Israeli military they at least hit an airbase runaway requiring repair.

Israeli airbase hit by Iranian ballistic missile (Photo source: photo released by Israeli military)

The salient fact here however is that Iranian missiles did hit the actual targets at which they were aimed, two Negev desert airbases and a signals spying base in the Golan heights, all significant and well-defended Israeli military bases (note, not civilian living structures or medical facilities).

This was despite prior warning, the US-Israeli “Iron Dome” air defence system and fighters mobilised by the Israelis, USA, UK, France and Jordan (or at least from a Jordanian base) and refuelling of jet fighters by Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, according to military munitions analysts, the drones were comparatively very cheap6 and even the cruise missiles were too, the total cost of the attack estimated at $80-100 million.

On the other hand, the Israeli and allies defence operation is believed to have cost in the area of a billion dollars7 which raises questions about how long such an operation or operations could be sustained.

Nor was the attack a surprise one but was announced hours in advance in statements and messages for example to the USA — and the drones and cruise missiles could be tracked from launch, taking hours to arrive8. Ballistic missiles on the other hand would arrive within minutes.9

A view of USA assets in the region though the diamond icon representing ships seems to be also used for US bases on land, contrary to the legend guide. (Source: Ian Ellis Jones on X)

What seems to be the case when all propaganda by either side is set aside is that Iran showed that it can put missiles wherever it wants to in the territory claimed by the Israeli State and that neither the latter’s military nor its allies can prevent at least a significant number of those impacts.

Furthermore, Iran followed this up with a warning that Israel’s heretofore impunity is at an end, at least in so far as attacks on Iran or Iranian personnel and property is concerned.

Beyond the Iran/ Israel hostile relationship, this has enormous psychological and political consequences in the region with the apparent invincibility of Israel severely punctured again after its military and intelligence agencies were caught napping on October 7th last year.

Israeli political leaders promised to respond against Iran at a time and in a way of their choosing and did so on 19th April with three drones attacking the airport at the Iranian city of Isfahan. However according to reports these were shot down without causing any damage.

It appears that Israel’s rulers felt something was needed to assuage injured pride but were also careful not to touch off another Iranian attack in response. But this also exposed divisions within the establishment with National Security Minister Ben Gvir tweeting “Feeble” on X in response.

Ben Gvir, Israeli Minister of “Defence”, promoting scheme to arm Zionist settlers (most already armed) on 10th October 2023. (Photo sourced: TRT from AP archive)

The Israeli state cannot afford to go to war with Iran without the western powers, particularly the USA, fighting on its side and behalf. Iran has a huge number of missiles which, according to analysts, are located within deep silos and are now receiving a Russian air-defence system.

The Israeli state under Netanyahu hoped to drag the USA into a war with Iran but seems to have miscalculated badly; the US leadership has made it publicly clear that they do not want their zionist client to strike back at Iran, the implication being that they won’t support it if it should do so.

This has been too the position of the western power allies of the zionist entity. The reason seems to be that they all fear the huge disruption to oil and gas supplies that would result from a war in the region (and perhaps too, revolution by the masses of the western client Arab states).

The only retribution which the western powers have spoken about are economic sanctions and they have imposed these on Iran for many years in the past. In such a situation Iran would be sure to receive assistance from China, with which they have developed friendly relations.

Also China is contending with the US on the big world power stage so it would be in its interests also to assist Iran.

Radar view April 14th of air traffic cleared from the airspace between Iran and Israel prior to Iran’s launch of drone and missile attack on the Israeli state. (Image sourced: Flightradar24)

If the analysis that Iran has taken a successful calculated step in retribution to Israeli attack – and that the western powers will not intervene militarily — is correct, the Israeli state has suffered a huge blow to its image of invincibility and impunity within the region.

Arab Western power client states such as those the USA gathered under the Abraham Accords10 will at the very least be cautious about aligning themselves too closely with the area bully who no longer seems invulnerable and whose bigger bully boss didn’t back it up on this occasion.

If the analysis that Iran played its cards well holds true then 1st April 2024 will be remembered in days to come as a significant date in world history and perhaps even as the beginning of the end of the zionist colonial state.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/middleeast/iran-response-israel-damascus-consulate-attack-intl-hnk/index.html

2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations

3https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-killed-irans-top-nuke-scientist-with-remote-operated-machine-gun-nyt/

4https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/14/why-iran-attacked-israel/

5i.e faster than the speed at which sound travels.

6Traveling “at the speed of a car and about the cost of a car” according to analyst Jon Elmer on Electronic Intifada Updates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB_zjqeTlsw&t=11s

7https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/any-air-war-israels-defences-would-trump-irans-high-cost-2024-04-18/

86-7 hours for the drones and 2-3 hours for the cruise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB_zjqeTlsw&t=11s

9And according to reports last year these have glide capacity and manoeuvrability, so can respond to active defences and also change their apparent target. At the time the Israeli Minister for the armed forces, Yoav Gallant, claimed that Israel could counter any attack by such missiles and also strike back harder.

10US-brokered agreements with Arab states to make the region safe for the zionist colonial state which have been severely damaged by the Israeli military attack on Gaza.

SOURCES

Electronic Intifada analysis of Iran’s operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB_zjqeTlsw&t=11s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/14/why-iran-attacked-israel

National status of a state’s embassy abroad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations

Previous attack by the Israeli State on Iran: https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-killed-irans-top-nuke-scientist-with-remote-operated-machine-gun-nyt/

LESSONS THE PALESTINIANS AND THE ISRAELI ZIONISTS HAVE TAUGHT US (Part 2)

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, US Imperialism, Zionism1 Comment

The past six months of an almost incredible level of Israeli genocide and Palestinian resistance have taught the world some valuable lessons but particularly perhaps those of us living among the Western powers.

PART TWO: LESSONS FROM THE ISRAELI ZIONISTS

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

  • The Nature of Zionism

The Zionists have taught us the nature of Zionism as an ideology upholding a people allegedly chosen by religion to occupy a land and to repress or expel the indigenous occupants of that land.

  • Nature of settler states

As Zionism is a variant of occupier-settler ideology we have, by extension, learned to recognise the nature of all settler states. To be fair, the evidence of that nature was clearly before us but we had perhaps learned to push it to the backs of our minds.

The European settler states of USA and Canada practiced genocide against their native indigenous peoples, of which only discriminated fractions remain from “California” to “Newfoundland”, from Pacific to Atlantic coasts. Both those states have diligently supported the Zionist settler project.

Lithograph image of aftermath of the Wounded Knee massacre of Indigenous people, USA, 29 December 1890 (Image sourced: Internet)

Those Northern American territories were primarily English colonies1 as were Australia and New Zealand, both also practicing genocide and discrimination against their indigenous populations and both those states too have supported the Zionist settler project.

European coloniser collection of New Zealand Indigenous heads 1895 (Photo source: Khamen.ir)

Less unanimous have been the mainly Spanish and Portuguese settler colonies of what is now called “Latin America”, from Brazil to Argentina to Mexico. Their indigenous populations too were ethnically cleansed and subjected to genocide, although to varying degrees of intensity.2

The Caribbean islands have all been settler and imported slave colonies of the states of England, Spain and France3, all now having nominal independence but, with the exception of Cuba,4 remaining within the imperial ambit of the USA (mostly) and France and have responded accordingly.

  • Nature of the zionist state

The Zionist State has demonstrated to us the true outcome of the Israeli zionist ideology, expansionist and prepared to inflict any horror upon the indigenous people in order to achieve its aims, descending to depths of inhumanity unimaginable only if Nazism were forgotten history.

An early mass grave of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in Gaza back in November 2023 as the cemeteries were already full (Photo cred: Mohammed Salem/ Reuters)

Currently the Israelis’ toll of Palestinians is at least 34,049 dead and 76,901 wounded, with an estimated further 8,000 under rubble in Gaza, nearly 2 million displaced (many several times), all medical, educational and social facilities and infrastructure degraded if not totally destroyed.5

And with at least 9,500 prisoners (i.e hostages) reportedly ill-treated, humiliated and even tortured, of which an Israeli-admitted 27 have died during these six months alone and 3,660 are held without trial or release date in “administrative detention”.6

  • Brazen Truth and Lies

We have also learned from the Zionist state its brazen genocidal intentions towards the Palestinians, expressed for internal Israeli consumption, alongside its outlandish lies for the international public about October 7th: beheaded babies, mass rapes, disfigurements, burning alive, etc.

All of those have been debunked and the recorded statistics alone (but also backed by evidence of other agencies) expose the lies that the Israeli army is attacking only7 the Palestinian resistance, that it is not applying collective punishment and using starvation as a weapon.

False Israeli Zionist propaganda about the Palestinian resistance “beheading babies” repeated by US President Joe Biden in press statement, claiming he had seen photos. His aides later ‘clarified’ that he was relying on reports from the Israeli state and had not seen actual photos. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Not bothering to give excuses for its demolition of universities and museums, schools and places of Muslim and Christian worship, ‘Israel’ has claimed the existence of tunnel entrances in them as excuses for the total elimination of Palestine’s main hospitals and degradation of all others.

It has done this despite its lack of evidence of such use of the hospitals, despite denials of hospital staff and organisations and without having to explain how such claims, even if they were true, could justify siege of hospitals, killing patients and staff and their destruction as functioning hospitals.

(Three before-and-after images of Israeli military destruction of Al Shifa Hospital, internally and externally)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5XQ2YQIQwP/
  • Impunity from world legal order

What Israel and the western imperialist states have shown us to date is that Israel has impunity to carry on its genocide. Not only will it not be boycotted, much less blockaded, not to even mention invaded, it will continue to be supplied with weapons, money and political support.

Even after the ICJ judgement in favour of S. Africa that Israel was “plausibly committing genocide” and restrictions imposed on Israel by the court, the genocide continued without pause and without any serious international repercussions by any western state.

Israel has given us a clear demonstration in practice of the hollowness of western institutional democracy and liberalism, not only in its continued support for the genocidal state but in the repression by western states of those who have supported the Palestinians in word or deed.

Demonstrations and pickets have been forbidden8, protesters threatened and arrested9, academics hounded and sacked,10 artists and public speakers cancelled, social media profiles hampered or blocked. In fact, all the kinds of undemocratic actions of which some other states are often accused.

  • Exposure of the world order of legal democratic institutions

The exposure of these institutions was almost complete. The United Nations of 193 states was shown powerless to act without the authorisation of the five Permanent Members11 of the Security Council — which itself was shown nullified by a veto of even one Member.12

United nations

United Nations building with approach flanked by national flags of member states(Photo sourced: Internet)

The International Court of Justice, a sub-institution of the UN itself, with a history of never even trying a western power, though judging Israel plausibly guilty of genocide,13 failed in its judgement on 26th January to order an immediate cease to the state’s attacks on the Gaza population.

The ICJ failed even to take action on Israel’s non-compliance with the interim measures it ordered, viz: “to take all measures to prevent any acts that could be considered genocidal according to the 1948 Genocide Convention”, other than to issue another non-complied order on 28th March.14

The United Nations failed to defend its own aid organisation for the relief of Palestinians (both in Palestine and as refugees in other parts) from unsupported Israeli allegations of the participation of 0.04% of its staff in the Palestinian resistance operation of October 7th 2023.

The UNWRA chiefs responded by failing to stand up to Israeli bullying and by sacking nine of their own workers without any evidence presented against them and without a right to a hearing or appeal. It also for a time failed to denounce Israel for reported torture of the agency’s employees.15

The UN failed to defend the staff of UNWRA from unproven allegations, unfair internal treatment and Israeli intimidation and murder or to maintain the essential funding of UNWRA essential for the Palestinians, or to insist on the regular and protected entry of aid trucks safe from Israeli attack.

The European Union refused to even call for a ceasefire; continued to act as Israel’s biggest export market; some of its members withdrew UNRWA funding and continued to supply the genocidal state with arms, while many states repressed their own citizens acting in solidarity with Palestine.

  • The need for revolutionary resistance

The Zionist state and its imperialist backers and, to be fair to it, our own Irish state too, have demonstrated to us the fragile and temporary nature of western liberalism and democracy on the one hand and the need, by implication, of revolutionary resistance and organisation on the other.

IN CONCLUSION

It remains to us to learn those hard-earned lessons, to internalise them and to apply them externally. We owe that to the Palestinians and to ourselves.

End.

Part of Gaza after Israeli bombardment back July 2014; now of course it is much, much worse. (Image sourced: Internet)

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.voanews.com/a/7577969.html

https://www.addameer.org/statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

https://www.unrwa.org

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

1The Dutch also colonised the north-east of what is now the USA and the French particularly Louisiana, in what is now the USA and Quebec in what is now Canada. What is now SW USA was part of the Spanish colonial empire, subsequently part of the Mexican Empire and gained by the USA in two wars with Mexico.

2The disparity in approach of these states is underlined by for example on the one hand El Salvador unreservedly supporting the zionist state and by Nicaragua on the other hand taking Germany to the International Court of Justice in accusation of being complicit in the Israeli genocide by supporting the state with weapons and finance.

3Without overlooking the fact that each of those states (England now as the United Kingdom) contains other dominated nations within it.

4During the existence of the USSR Cuba was often described as being under Soviet colonial influence but remains today the only truly independent (though part-occupied) state in the whole of the Caribbean.

5https://www.voanews.com/a/7577969.html, a pro-Israeli source.

6 At the time of writing Adameer, the Palestinian prisoner and human rights organisation reports 9,500 Palestinian prisoners of which 3,660 are “administrative detainees”, 200 children and 80 women. Seventeen of the prisoners are elected Legislative Council members (similar to MPs or TDs) https://www.addameer.org/statistics. These figures have changed regularly during the 6 months of zionist genocide and the trend is always upward except for a brief period during the truce and exchange of hostages.

7In fact, not even mainly.

8Particularly in Germany and France

9Particularly in Britain

10Particularly in the USA

11UK, France, USA, Russia, China

12Most often and recently in the case of Israel/ Palestine several time by the USA but at times also by the UK and France.

13In a case taken by South Africa lodged at the end of December 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

14In response to application of South Africa again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

15https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_allegations_against_UNRWA

LESSONS THE PALESTINIANS AND THE ISRAELI ZIONISTS HAVE TAUGHT US

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

The past six months of an almost incredible level of Israeli genocide and Palestinian resistance have taught the world some valuable lessons but particularly perhaps to those of us living among the Western powers.

PART ONE: LESSONS FROM THE PALESTINIANS

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 11 mins.)

  • Resistance – ongoing, preparation, striking, unity

The Palestinians have taught us the strength and value to an occupied and oppressed people of resistance, from generation to generation, maintaining and developing culture and nurturing historical memory while the occupier tried to erase it all and make the endeavour seem hopeless.

Palestinian woman in Gaza defiant, January 8, 2009 (Photo cred: Eric Gaillard/Reuters)

Without a navy, air force, tanks, armoured vehicles or standard artillery (apart from home-made rockets and missiles), they faced what is often called the “strongest military power in the Middle east”. Despite periodic massacres they have regularly risen against the oppressor.

In truth, it was a lesson that at one time we hardly needed in Ireland, learned even earlier than the Palestinians. But we needed reminding of it.

It is also important for the morale and dignity of the resistance that it shows itself capable of striking at the enemy.

We’ve been reminded of the importance of long-term preparation. The Palestinian resistance built kilometres of tunnels underground in which they also set weapon production factories, developing their own weapons and repurposing existing weapons, including unexploded Israeli Army bombs.

In their Al Aqsa Flood attack on October 7th and fighting since, the Palestinians taught us the value of not only of daring and prior preparation but of coordination and unity, as a number of resistance organisations cooperated in struggle, some secular and some Islamic fundamentalist.1

Palestinian resistance fighters from different organisations displaying their unity in struggle in this photo (Photo sourced: Internet)

In meeting the subsequent genocidal rage of the occupier, the Palestinian resistance have taught us that all the technological might and expertise of the enemy was incapable of crushing a prepared, courageous, united and determined resistance.

The Israeli domination of the air from which it rained down genocidal bombing on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or targeted assassinations of the families of resistance fighters, was not sufficient to defend its ground troops from attack and is itself under attack from GTA missiles.2

The occupier was effective only in genocidal actions against the civilian population and civilian infrastructure for which it will forever be reviled in historical memory. It achieved neither of the objectives it declared as it unleashed its war against Gaza: the wiping out of the resistance and release of captives.

  • Imperialism

We been shown – if we were willing to see it – the unity of western imperialism in supporting the ‘right ‘of a European settler group to establish itself on the land of the indigenous, creating an ethnocentric and theocratic state founded with an act of ‘ethnic cleansing’.3

We have been taught the willingness of the western imperialist states to tolerate the proliferation of acts and policies which it claims go against its fundamental liberal values: oppression, apartheid, discrimination and repression, while lauding the ‘European liberal values’ of the occupier state.

  • Betrayal

Another lesson which we should have learned too within the necessity of unity in a broad front is that it needs to be on a principled basis and the dangers in unity without such safeguards, leading to treachery, betrayal and collusion with the occupier.

The secular left-wing Fatah4 organisation may have seemed at one time the ideal one to follow though some would have favoured the further-left People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine.5 But it was Fatah, as leading element in the PLO alliance, that signed up to the Oslo accords.6

In return for limited autonomy in a fraction of Palestinian land and without consideration of the right of return to the expelled Palestinians, the Fatah leadership with Yasser Arafat at its head agreed to this “peace process” while its officials scrambled for the gains of official corruption.

Hence the Palestinian Authority, corrupt, unrepresentative, undemocratic and repressive, working in collusion with the occupying authority. Again, our own history should have taught us that lesson but again, it is good to be reminded.

The Palestinians taught us how to deal with such a poisonous fungal growth with the Second Intifada and their last elections, those of 20067 and the carrying through of the electorate’s wishes in 2007, along with the ongoing resistance since.

  • Western Mass Media and alternatives

In reporting the events in Palestine over the decades but in particular over the last six months, we have learned the heavy anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli bias of the WMM, that accepted without question the transparent lies of the Israeli regime and even questioned the massacre statistics.

Never once has the unjust claim of the occupiers to their stolen gains been questioned, never once the fundamentally just claim of the indigenous even mentioned. The Palestinian resistance has been reduced to one organisation in reporting, to be held up as a bogeyman monster.

(Image sourced: Internet)

If atrocities from across the Palestinian people were reported in the media, they were framed as of dubious provenance, while the most outlandish and illogical claims of the occupier were reported as reasonable fact.

We have, in fact, been taught not to trust the western mass media when reporting on international events and, by extension, not to trust it on domestic issues either. Conversely we have learned to rely more on alternative Internet media but also on the need to navigate those with some caution.

We have also learned that some of the most prominent alternative sources on the war between NATO/Ukraine and Russia, attacked by liberals and sections of the Left as “Russian-controlled” or “Putinistas” turned out to be the most reliable in reporting the realities of the Israeli genocide.

  • Internationalist solidarity

We have relearned the importance of international solidarity, both as we expressed it ourselves and saw its outpouring across the globe. We have been taught the existence of an alternative world of human solidarity in opposition to one based on expropriation, exploitation and competition.

We saw Hizbolah in Jordan and Syria come to the assistance of the Palestinians and pay the price for doing so, as did Ansar Allah (“Houthis”) in Yemen and as has also Iran — what the Electronic Intifada has called “the Axis of Resistance”.

Chilean football team players May 2021 (Photo sourced: Internet)
London, January 2024 (Photo cred: PA)

And we have learned to use internationalism as a measuring stick also in evaluating institutions, political parties and politicians in our own countries. We have seen the meaning of anti-semitism twisted and employed in repression with a stifling censorship across public life – academic, political and social.

Downing Street (containing home of the UK Prime Minister) 29 December 2023 (Photo sourced: Internet)

Political parties and politicians have revealed either their complicity in and collusion with the criminal Israeli genocide or alternatively their inability to resist and effectively oppose it. That has exposed their lack of fitness to lead us in our domestic struggles too.

Teachers and others in Palestine solidarity demonstration in Dublin, March 2024 symbolically carrying infant school chairs in protest against the Palestinian children murdered by the Israeli armed forces. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

IN CONCLUSION

  • The need for revolutionary resistance

The Palestinian resistance has taught us important lessons, including the need of revolutionary resistance in addition to revolutionary organisation and preparation.

It remains to us to learn those hard-earned lessons, to internalise them and to apply them externally. We owe that to the Palestinians and to ourselves.

End.
(Read also Part B – What the Israeli Zionists have taught us follows.)

FOOTNOTES

1Hamas – Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades; Palestinian Islamic Jihad – Al-Quds Brigades; Popular Resistance Committees Al-Nasser Salah ad-Din Brigades; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command Jihad Jibril Brigades; Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) – National Resistance Brigades, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades; Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and its Mujahideen Brigades.

https://www.newsweek.com/not-only-hamas-eight-factions-war-israel-gaza-1841292

2Ground To Air missiles.

3The expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians and massacres such as the one in the village of Dir Yassin.

4Fatah wasfounded in 1957 and was the majority party in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

5The PLO was founded in 1964 and the PFLP in 1967, next in size of organisation in the PLO to Fatah (Islamic organisations were excluded from the PLO; Hamas recently proposed the reconstruction of the PLO open to all resistance organisations).

6The Oslo Accords were the result of a number of conferences, overseen by the USA and was part of the second of the current“peace processes” which include Ireland, the Basque Country and Colombia.

7Hamas won the elections throughout the accepted Palestinian territories but Fatah tried to continue to keep control, being dislodged from Gaza in 2007 by Hamas, which held back from doing the same thing in the West Bank which has remained under the undemocratic, repressive and colluder control of the Palestine Authority.

SOURCES

https://www.addameer.org/statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

https://www.unrwa.org

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

ANTI-IMPERIALIST ACTION HOLDS DUBLIN 1916 RISING COMMEMORATION

On By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Dublin Lockout 1913, History commemoration, Housing, Housing Struggle, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, Song, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Easter is the time of year in Ireland for Easter Egg hunts and/or for attendance at religious services but for the Republican movement it is one of commemoration of the Easter Rising and its martyrs, with parades and speeches.

The commemoration parade proceeding along Phibsboro and approaching the Cross Guns canal bridge. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

Easter Monday in Dublin saw one of those commemorations organised by the Socialist Republican organisation Anti-Imperialist Action at the Citizen Army plot in the St. Paul’s section of the famous Glasnevin Cemetery at the Republican Struggle Monument1.

Participants rallied near the Phibsboro Shopping Centre to march from there to the Cemetery, a distance of around two kilometres, over the “Cross Guns” bridge over the Royal Canal, then passing the main entrance to the Glasnevin Cemetery on the right before turning left for St. Paul’s.

Garda POU van parked extremely dangerously, hiding left turn from view of eastbound traffic, as they chat with other Gardaí and a ‘Branch man. As is said, “one rule for the people …!”
In the laneway between houses visible in the background, a cameraman lurked taking photos. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

In a marked departure from the previous year, the State’s political police, plainclothes Gardaí of the “Special Branch”2 did not approach the participants to attempt to intimidate them and gather intelligence, demanding their names and addresses under the Offences Against the State Act.3

That had been followed up by a raid on the home of one of the leading activists. Sunday’s police behaviour was an even greater difference from Saturday’s, when a different Republican group, Saoradh, had their Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin’s city centre.

Around 300 police, including many in riot cop uniform (Public Order Unit) had harassed the participants demanding names, addresses and other information, attempting to intimidate them. At least seven police vans had been in attendance also to the bemusement of onlookers.4

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

LOCAL 1916 HISTORY

The Phibsboro/ Glasnevin area also figured in the 1916 Rising, with an insurgent barricade in Phibsboro and a Fianna youth, Sean Healy, mortally wounded at the crossroads by a British artillery shell fragment (a plaque on the ground at the SW corner commemorates his death.

Earlier, Irish Volunteers had guarded the canal bridge briefly; these were seen by the dozen Volunteers that marched along the canal from Maynooth, slept in Glasnevin Cemetery and got into the headquarters garrison at the General Post Office on Tuesday.

Later British soldiers set up a barricade on the Bridge preventing even foot traffic across and shooting dead a deaf and dumb man who could not hear their challenge.

EYE IN THE SKY? (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

PARADE THROUGH STREETS TO CEMETERY

The parade from Phibsboro on Sunday was led by the Glasgow Republican Flute band (formerly the Garngad RFB, which is where most of them are based) playing the airs of known Republican ballads, muted to regular tocks on their drums as they entered the housing estate.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

Also leading was the colour party dressed in white shirts, black trousers, jackets, berets and sunglasses, carrying the traditional flags for Republican colour parties: the Tricolour, Starry Plough, Sunburst, followed by the flags of the four provinces of Ireland: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster.

Over the marchers the flags of the Tricolour and the Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army flew in the breeze while those of the Basque nation, Palestine and of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine lent an international flavour to the commemoration of the Irish Rising.

There was some beeping of passing traffic and cheering from bystanders at the entrance to the laneway that leads to the bridge across the railway tracks to the St. Paul’s section of the graveyard. The marchers filed in and proceeded to the monument.

The Chair of the proceedings welcomed the attendance before reading from the 1916 Proclamation of Independence and calling a singer to step forward. Revolutionary activist Diarmuid Breatnach introduced the two songs he was going to sing as emphasising the role of the working class in the Rising.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

“The decision to go ahead with the Rising on Easter Monday was taken in Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the working class at the time,” he reminded the gathering, “which is also where the Proclamation of Independence was printed.”

He sang the “Jim Larkin Ballad”:
In Dublin City in 1913,
the boss was rich and the poor were slaves;
The women working, the children hungry,
till on came Larkin like a might wave …

Diarmuid Breatnach singing (Photo: Donated by participant)

Pausing to focus on a different key, the singer followed the ballad with Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly?

After applause, floral tributes were laid on behalf of Anti-Imperialism Action Ireland and of Dublin Republicans Against Fascism.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
(Photo: Donated by participant)

The chairperson asked for a minute’s silence in honour of those men and women who had given their lives in the struggle for freedom in Ireland. The colour party lowered their flags slowly in homage to the fallen, raising them again slowly to signify the continuation of the struggle.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

John Heaney, Republican ex-prisoner from Armagh was called to give the oration for the event, which he dedicated to all those men and women who had opened their doors and their homes to fighters in the struggle, whether the latter were in hiding or just resting – his audience applauded.

The speaker also congratulated on those who came forward to carry on the struggle, youth, women and stated he was proud to see the traditions of struggle being upheld in the process to achieve the Republic for which so many gave their lives.

The speaker, John Heaney delivering his oration. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The marching band then played the air of Amhrán na bhFiann/ The Soldiers’ Song, verse and chorus and the formal part of the event came to an end. Band members lined up in front of the Monument for photos and a little later played the air of “Black Is the Colour” on whistles, to general applause.

SECOND 1916 COMMEMORATION FOR AIA THIS EASTER

This was the second 1916 Rising Commemoration to be attended by Anti-Imperialist Action as they had also participated in another organised by the Seamus Costello Memorial Committee in Bray on the previous day.

AIA is a young organisation, founded by socialist Republicans unhappy with the direction of the Republican organisation of which they had been members but now containing many young people.

AIA gave rise to the Revolutionary Housing League that occupied empty buildings in a campaign against homelessness and called for a general occupation campaign across the state. A number of court cases against them followed but sadly their lead was not followed.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

AIA have also been very active against NATO, picketing promotional meetings and a number have been charged following a demonstration against a visiting British Navy ship in Dublin last November.5 They have also been active as part of the Saoirse don Phalaistín activist group.

Following the event in Glasnevin, many of the participants relaxed at a social evening in a different part of the city where many songs of struggle were sung.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

OTHER EASTER COMMEMORATIONS

Other Easter Rising commemorations have been held around this time, for example: Lasair Dhearg held one in Belfast on Easter Monday, while Independent Dublin Republicans held theirs in the capital, marching from Liberty Hall to the GPO, then to Moore Street to lay a floral tribute.

On Monday too the Derry 1916 Memorial Committee held an event in its city.6

Former revolutionary Republican party Sinn Féin held theirs in Arbour Hill7 cemetery on Sunday; a large part of their President’s address was devoted to justification of support for the EU and a plea to support the party whenever the state’s general elections are held (this year or next)8.

End.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Anti-Imperialist Action: https://t.me/aiaireland

Lasair Dhearg commemoration: https://www.facebook.com/LasairDhearg/

Derry commemoration: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/petrol-bombs-thrown-at-media-during-dissident-parade-in-derry/a1835461558.html?

Sinn Féin commemoration: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mary-lou-mcdonald-makes-election-plea-at-1916-event-1608211.html

1My name for the Monument in the St. Paul’s part of Glasnevin Cemetery which stands in recognition of six periods of Irish Republican-led insurrectionary activity in Ireland: 1798-1916.

2Now officially the Special Detective Unit, they were previously known as the “Special Branch”, a name they inherited from the British occupation which had set up a political intelligence unit, the Irish Special Branch, to spy on and disrupt the Fenian movement among the Irish diaspora in British cities. Most political activists in Ireland continue to call them “the Special Branch” or simply “the Branch”. Their equivalent in Britain today and in a number of its colonies and former colonies continues to officially bear the name “Special Branch”.

3As amended in 1972 after a British Intelligence bombing killing two public transport workers in Dublin but blamed on the IRA; the amendment also permitted the setting up of no-jury Special Courts which are in existence to this day.

4In the context of assaults on persons in the city centre there have been regular complaints in the media and in the Parliament about the lack of Gardaí visibly patrolling the area.

5 https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/irish-activists-shout-at-british-naval-vessel-in-dublin

6https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/petrol-bombs-thrown-at-media-during-dissident-parade-in-derry/a1835461558.html?

7Where the 14 Dublin 1916 executed were buried, now a national monument in a former prison and church graveyard around the back of the former military barracks and now National Museum of Collins Barracks

8https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mary-lou-mcdonald-makes-election-plea-at-1916-event-1608211.html

Erasing Murals and Erasing Gaza

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 13 March 2024

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

       
         Original Latuff cartoon.                              West Belfast mural.                                  Mural blacked out.

Once upon a time, Belfast was famed for its murals, so much so that even now a part of the tourist industry depends on a plastic paddy tour of the current murals on display in nationalist areas of Belfast.

It was the 1981 hunger strike and its aftermath that saw an explosion in political murals in nationalist areas.  As the 1980s went on, the technical and artistic quality of them improved dramatically and the politics they sought to represent expanded. 

Some of them were very militaristic, others much more political in content.  On international issues, murals sprang up on South Africa, Palestine and figures from revolutionary struggles around the world were to be found on gable ends all over the city and indeed in other cities throughout the North. 

Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Camilo Torres, Che amongst others looked down at the wandering revolutionary tourists who would come over in August.  The message was clear: Ireland was part of an international struggle against imperialism.(1)

After the peace process the quality continued to improve, but the politics went for a walk.  Twee Celtic murals abounded, young girls dancing a jig displaced images of women holding an armalite aloft for International Women’s Day. 

about Imperialism were softened, when not blunted entirely or removed.  So, it comes as no surprise to see what has happened to recent murals.

Sinn Féin supporters recently unveiled murals in solidarity with Palestine.  They are of good quality and try to capture the suffering of the Palestinians through the images and poignant quotes. 

However, they say nothing about who is causing the suffering: the US and Israel, though there are silhouette ghostly like images of soldiers standing over dead children. 

There was once a mural on the White Rock Road which pictured a US Indian superimposed over a US flag saying Your struggle, Our struggle.  No references are to be made now to the US role in exterminating a people.  That is strictly Verboten.

However, someone decided to reproduce a cartoon from the artist Carlos Latuff in mural form in Belfast.  It depicts Joe Biden, standing with bloodied hands in front of Mary Lou, who is clearly identifiable in the image, and the leaders of FG and FF, who can be identified from the initials FG and FF on their backs.

The British Army and the RUC used to deface republican murals, not any more.  Very quickly, Sinn Féin, officially or unofficially (no pun intended, though it is apt) painted over the mural.  It was quickly restored by others, who the artist Latuff described as real republicans.(2)

Sinn Féin are clearly uncomfortable about the issue in the run up their fest in Washington with Biden and not only are they content to throw Palestinians out of public meetings, they will now supress any public artistic attempts to draw people’s attention to the Slaughter Soirée they will have in the White House.

Many Palestinian voices such as the Electronic Intifada have called on Sinn Féin not to go to Washington, the calls in Ireland have been much more muted and tamer on the issue.  However, it is a clear issue, what is colloquially called a no-brainer. 

You don’t have to think very deeply to understand that Sinn Féin shouldn’t go to Washington DC, that they should tell Genocide Joe they don’t want to meet him.  They will go and they will say nothing about Palestine. 

Their erasure of a mural criticising them, tells you everything you need to know about their real attitude to Palestine.

Whatever you say, say nothing used to be a catchphrase about loose talk and informers, now it means never to mention Joe Biden and the Palestinians in the same breath, unless you are green washing genocide. 

Meanwhile Sinn Féin does its part, emulating the British army and vandalising political murals.

Notes

(1)  A selection of images can be seen on Bill Rolston’s website.  Rolston has chronicled and photographed murals going right back to the 1970s.  See https://billrolston.weebly.com

(2) See https://x.com/LatuffCartoons/status/1767239594083324017?s=20
 

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DUBLIN PROTEST AGAINST NATO’S ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Event Report, Environmental, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

I learned that the Truth and Neutrality Alliance would be organising a protest on Sunday afternoon (18th) in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and attended in order to take some photos, talk to some people and report on it.

The small gathering with a banner and placards on the central pedestrian reservation in Dublin’ main street opposite the iconic General Post Office building1 included apparently Irish and East European people. They were addressed by a number of speakers.

Separately nearby was a small number of floral tributes dedicated to Alexei Navalny, right-wing anti- immigration Russian political activist and opponent of the Putin regime about whose recent death in Russian jail the Biden regime had made critical statements.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

SPEAKERS

The first speaker, who appeared to be one of the organisers, denounced the “massive censorship” about the conflict in Ukraine and said we live “in a world of lies” and that “anyone who tells the truth is accused of being a Russian agent”.

He went on to draw parallels between anti-Russian propaganda and that which had been against Syria also. “The end of the war in Ukraine is now in sight”, he said and looked forward to a democracy with full rights for all including Russian-speakers.

The speaker said that one cannot (legally, publicly) be a communist in the Ukrainian state and talked about radio stations being closed down by the Kiyv regime.

In preparation for the end of the war he said that the regime is planning sabotage groups, training terrorists to act in the post-war Donbas as they are doing currently in Russia.

He ended with a reference to “the Banderites” (a reference to followers of the memory of WWII Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera) and the antifascist slogan from the defence of Madrid during the Spanish Antifascist/ Civil War: “No pasaran!”

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Bill O’Brien spoke on behalf the Truth and Neutrality Alliance which, he said, had been founded two years previously. “The Russian intervention was necessary”, he said, to act against the carrying out “of atrocities like some in Gaza.”

He went on to refer to “proxy wars such as those in Gaza, Ukraine and Yemen which are financed by NATO” and referred to the Minsk Agreements to which the Ukrainian Government had signed but “had been told by Britain not to honour”, he said.

The Minsk Agreement had been signed twice, O’Brien said and if adhered to, “the war would be over.” He said that “we need to push for the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.”

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The speaker felt that despite the use of Cold War propaganda, the war would soon be over since the Ukrainian Army was “mainly mercenaries” and currently recruiting women and 60-year-old men.

A third speaker with an Irish accent said that he had been in the Crimea until two weeks previously and that “no-one wants to return to Ukrainian rule. NATO will never get their hands on any of it”, he said.

The Crimea was invaded by Russia in February 2014 and later annexed after a referendum in which the vast majority voted for inclusion into the Russian Federation. Though condemned by NATO allies, the result was no surprise, partly because 60% of the residents were of Russian ethnicity.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The official result from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was a 97% percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation, with an 83% voter turnout and from Sevastopol where there was also a 97% vote for integration with Russia, with an 89% voter turnout.

Crimea and the Donbas region had been under threat or actual attack since the 2006 overthrow of the Ukrainian Government of Yanukovych in what many have described as a US proxy coup. As the war continued, Russia returned to invasion of other parts of Ukraine in February 2012.

The war continues in the Donbas and the Zelensky regime has sworn to retake the Crimea which does not look possible.

One of the people in attendance displays a satirical poster of Zelensky. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

CONVERSATIONS

I interviewed one person from the Ukraine/Russian region who was willing to talk and who asked me first whether I would report truthfully, to which I replied that I would. (But wouldn’t most reporters claim that they were being truthful?).

Larisa Keller told me that although born in Georgia she has lived in other countries during her life and now in Ireland for 14 years. Ms. Keller has grandchildren and wants an environmentally-sound and peaceful world for them in which to grow.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

“Dismantle NATO is the solution”, she said and “Weapons kill everything in nature” and “new types of weapons” are worse, she indicated, arguing for a ban on the development of weapons. But isn’t Russia also a state with a military, I asked – how does she feel about that?

“At this moment Russia is defending itself,” Ms. Keller said and she herself is supportive of “activities against the pressure of fascism”.

In conclusion, she had this to say: “Tell the world that they should recognise that we live in one world and we should appreciate our ability to stay there; it’s important that we support one another”.

One of the placards displayed at the event (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A young man with an Irish accent in attendance approached and told me that he had an East European girlfriend. He told me also that priests from his Russian Orthodox Church have been killed while pastoring with troops in the Donbas,2 that they are targeted “because they are morale-boosters”.

The young man told me he had friends among the Chechens also.

End.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Truth and Neutrality Alliance: https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/02/25/thinking-of-sinn-fein-trying-not-to-think-of-palestine/

1Many protests and other events take place in this vicinity, not only due to its central location but also because the building was occupied by the leadership of the 1916 Rising against British occupation for five days.

2The area in the east of Ukraine that is predominantly Russian-speaking where the war is taking place and was besieged by Ukrainian troops, often fascist-led, from 2014 onwards (i.e 8 years before the Russian invasion).

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

(1. Letter in reply to claims that Sinn Fein has betrayed the Palestinians; 2) Reply by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)

Greetings Comrades,

I am a former member of Sinn Féin who still lives in a Republican and working-class community. I see a lot of point to your views on Sinn Féin and the peace process. But I think you hit the wrong note in your article: Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh.

The idea that: “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

Is not true, is offensive and will put off the people who might otherwise listen to you. The leaders put forward a political analysis and the members accept it. If you want to oppose this, kick the ball and not the player.

Yours, Owen

Reply

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

22 February 2024

Biden poses for a selfie with Gerry Adams.

To my surprise I have received some feedback from a Republican on my article Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians, published on the Socialist Democracy site and elsewhere in which I took issue with Sinn Féin’s abominable decision.

Which was to fly to Washington to meet and greet Joe Biden, a man whose hands drip with Palestinian blood. Though given the scale of the genocide, dripping with blood is an understatement as Palestinian blood gushes off his hands, like a burst oil well.

There were a number of points made, some of them more important than the others. One, was my insinuation that corruption was at the heart of the decision, that Sinn Féin were not going to give up on a hooley and a lavish shindig paid for by others.

My comment on the matter was a bit facetious in part. I did describe the event as a hooley, and it is fair to say that it is a lot more than that, though the drunken shenanigans are a part of the festivities and the informal deals to be struck.

Colum Eastwood from the SDLP stated that “I could not rub shoulders, drink Guinness and have the craic while the horrifying impacts of the brutal war in Gaza continue”(1).

I had stated that “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

There is a part of those sentences that is obviously tongue in cheek. I don’t actually believe that Mary Lou will be trying to get her leg over anyone at the White House, though I wouldn’t discount any of the lower ranking minions on the junket trying their hand.

The furtive political romance was a more serious comment.

St Patrick’s Day at the White House is one for showcasing Ireland, not just in the paddywhackery sense of the word, but it is where informal and formal discussions can take place on economic policy, foreign policy and other matters.

Not for nothing that Varadkar used last year’s event to shore up his support for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a false historical narrative about US government support for Irish freedom.(2) The Government’s own propaganda about its importance actually says as much.

Sinn Féin have various corrupt reasons for going. I should point that there are various forms of corruption, there is the type of corruption of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians seeking or giving favours.

There is another type of corruption, which is that where politicians go along with policies they know to be wrong, immoral, damaging or dangerous for reasons of political expediency, as part of an overall strategy.

Or because money will be legally made by the chosen few as a result of these decisions.  Current government policies around vulture funds, the bank bailout (for which Sinn Féin also voted), privatization of the health industry etc., are examples of this type of corruption.

I have no doubt that Sinn Féin members are involved in the brown paper envelope type of corruption, the building industry still reeks of Republican involvement, though they have a long way to go yet to outdo Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

But it is more the latter type of corruption that is important.

Two and a half years ago, Pearse Doherty stated that “big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”(3). The issue has come up again recently with Sinn Féin seeking to assure US companies that the corporate tax rate is safe with them.

The new head of the Industrial Development Authority Fergal O’ Rourke, in January this year described Sinn Féin as being on an outreach programme to reassure US companies.(4) He was fulsome in his praise for Sinn Féin and he wasn’t the only one.

Henry Goddard from Deloitte Ireland claimed that Sinn Féin had done a good job in calming down international investors by reaching out to them, by meeting with them and even Mary Lou McDonald visiting Silicon Valley was cited as an example.

He stated “Fair play to Sinn Féin, they went out to the US, they engaged, said all the right things and provided a lot of confidence. They now need to follow through on that.”(5)

They are going to Washington to follow through, to reassure not only US businesses but the Irish capitalist class that the economy will be in safe hands with them and those business leaders from IBEC, various companies like PwC and others who have praised Sinn Féin are not mistaken.

Sinn Féin has stated that it is worried that it might not win the next election and has repeatedly spoken about reassuring the so-called business community.

The other aspect of the visit is that were they not to go, it would send a message to their reactionary base in the US that they are on the side of “Islamic terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how true this is, their base in the US has never been very discerning about these issues.

It would also give the government parties something to beat them with and allow them to claim that Sinn Féin are a party unfit for bourgeois government.

Implicit in the feedback is the idea that my criticisms of the provos would annoy or offend Republicans who would otherwise be open to the general message i.e. ‘kick the ball not the player’. But the player and the ball cannot be separated in politics.

If someone is upset at facetious comments about romances and would otherwise be won around, then they clearly haven’t appreciated the scale of the slaughter in Gaza, nor Biden’s role in it and Sinn Féin’s ditching of what would, once upon a time, have been a no-brainer for their base.

Proof is in the pudding and the fact that some Sinn Féin supporters see through the party’s position shows that those who can be won round have been won round already. Those in attendance at the meeting from which three Palestinians were ejected are all lost causes, political degenerates.

This brings us to the last item which is how Sinn Féin is selling this to their base. Part of the criticism of ‘kicking the player’ is that Sinn Féin has taken a position, spelt it out publicly and its members have accepted this. This is not how democracy works in that organisation.

But the position was best spelt out by Gerry Adams. He stated that Palestinians would understand why they had to go. Would they really?

Apart from the corrupt and contemptible Palestinian Authority that spends a full third of its budget on security and repressing other Palestinians, who in Palestine would understand? The parents who saw their children shot and bombed? The prisoners? The families of prisoners?

The thousands of people who pulled others from the rubble with their bare hands? Or just Abbas who while busy stifling Palestinian dissent has had little to say or do on the genocide.

Adams made one further point. He claimed there was a lack of coherence amongst Sinn Féin critics.

“Some folks are saying the Sinn Féin leadership shouldn’t meet with the American political system… They are not saying we shouldn’t meet with the British political system. The Brits are up to their neck in this.”(6)

He is right about the contradiction, but it doesn’t absolve him, rather it condemns those who are ambivalent about it.

All Adams is pointing out, indeed boasting about, is that they are in cahoots with British imperialism and treasure that relationship as much as they do their “special relationship” with the US. He went on to underline this point.

Serious people involved in struggle, particularly people who are involved in national liberation struggles, understand that your own struggle whether it be internationalist has to be your primary focus.

So, they will expect you to raise their issues and we should. They would expect you to stand with them, and so we should. But they would not expect us to do anything – any more than we would expect them to do anything – which would set back our own struggle.

So, I think it’s Irish-America’s day, it may be dominated by what’s happening in Washington.(7)

Adams clearly hasn’t a clue about what an internationalist struggle is. How could boycotting Biden harm the Irish struggle?

Adams’ question goes to the heart of the matter, he and Sinn Féin not only cling to the illusion that the Irish peace process is bringing unity closer but also that US imperialism plays a progressive role in Ireland.

And that upsetting Biden would be a setback and annoy a regime that is committed to some progressive outcome in Ireland.

Adams is not the only one to believe in this progressive role of US imperialism, Yasser Arafat also believed in it and thus we got the Oslo Accords and 30,000 people in Gaza have been murdered by this progressive imperialism of Adams and Arafat.

Courting reactionary elites in the US is not putting the Irish struggle first, it is continuing with Sinn Féin’s gallop to the right. It is to paraphrase the expression about the struggle for socialism in Ireland that Labour Must Wait!

Now Palestine must wait, indeed everything and everyone must wait. What must never happen is that US imperialisms and Sinn Féin’s reactionary base in the US be upset.

Whilst the Republican who gave the feedback is clearly aware of Sinn Féin’s limitations on the issue of Palestine, there is no republican milieu waiting to be won round on this issue that may be put off by the tone of my last piece or other such pieces by other writers elsewhere.

There is no world in which the player and the ball do not both get a well-deserved kicking, indeed, were I in a position to do so, I would give them the hiding of their lives. Alas my efforts are unfortunately more modest than that.

Anyone who is Republican and thinks Sinn Féin is right to go to Washington is thinking only of Sinn Féin and not of Palestine. They are, like Adams and co, looking the other way in the midst of a genocide, something you would have thought was an easy issue to take a position on.

But when you drink of the Peace Process Kool Aid, you don’t drink half the glass, but chug the whole glass down in one go, like Mean Joe Greene in the famous Coca Cola ad of the 1970s. Like Greene, Sinn Féin has been asked to reshoot the scene time and again.

Greene vomited after his sixth coke, though he had to swallow eighteen, 16-ounce bottles on the final day of shooting.(8)

There is no end to what peace process supporters are asked to swallow and unlike Greene, no sign anyone in Sinn Féin is about to puke at the nauseous spectacle of being asked to sideline a genocide for the meet and greet in Washington DC.

End.

Notes

(1)  The Derry Journal (29/01/2024) SDLP Leader, Derry MP Colum Eastwood ‘cannot in good conscience’ go to US for St Patrick’s Day.  Brendan McDaid. https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/sdlp-leader-derry-mp-colum-eastwood-cannot-in-good-conscience-go-to-us-for-st-patricks-day-4495907

(2)  Remarks by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the White House Shamrock Ceremony and St. Patrick’s Day Reception https://www.gov.ie/en/speech/5b46b-remarks-by-taoiseach-leo-varadkar-td-at-the-white-house-shamrock-ceremony-st-patricks-day-reception/

(3)  Irish Independent (10/10/2021) Pearse Doherty Interview: ‘Big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them’ Hugh O’ Connell.  https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pearse-doherty-interview-big-business-and-investors-know-sinn-fein-wont-go-after-them/40933992.html?

(4)  Business Post (14/01/2024) IDA boss reveals Sinn Féin plans to woo US firms on corporate tax. Donal MacNamee and Lorcan Allen. https://www.businesspost.ie/news/ida-boss-reveals-sinn-fein-plans-to-woo-us-firms-on-corporate-tax/

(5)  Ibíd.,

(6) Irish Independent (27/01/2024) Gerry Adams says calls for Sinn Féin to boycott St Patrick’s Day visit to US are ‘inconsistent’. Maeve McTaggart and Hugh O’Connell. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gerry-adams-says-calls-for-sinn-fein-to-boycott-st-patricks-day-visit-to-us-are-inconsistent/a410016838.html

(7) Ibíd.,

(8)  See Pendergrast, M – For God, Country and Coca Cola.  New York. Basic Books. paragraph 34.99 and footnote 34.117