Covert Crusade: Washington’s $600m digital war on Iran

On February 21, 2025February 21, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialismo, US ImperialismLeave a comment

For over a decade, the US State Department’s NERD fund has covertly funnelled hundreds of millions into regime-change efforts in Iran, disguising digital warfare and opposition funding as ‘democracy promotion’ – but a sudden funding freeze has thrown these operations into chaos.

Kit Klarenberg FEB 21, 2025
(Reprinted with kind permission of author from https://thecradle.co/articles/covert-crusade-washingtons-600m-digital-war-on-iran)

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Earlier this month, The Cradle exposed how in 2023, the US State Department’s shadowy Near East Regional Democracy (NERD) fund earmarked $55 million to stoke unrest in Iran during the following year’s elections.

This was part of a wider US campaign of interference designed to disrupt and destabilize the Islamic Republic.

As that investigation noted, details on where this money goes – and who benefits – are strictly confidential as a matter of policy. Still, there are clues in the public domain pointing to at least some recipients.

Regime change by another name

As a US Congressional Research Service report records, due to hostile US–Iran relations, and Tehran’s well-founded view of NERD “as a means of financing regime change,” its programs rely on “third-country training” as well as “online training and media content.”

The report further confirms that despite NERD being Washington’s primary “foreign assistance channel” for projects targeting Iran, “activities, grantees, [and] beneficiaries” are not advertised “due to the security risks posed by the Iranian government.”

It continues:

“NERD was created in 2009 as a ‘line item for Iran democracy’ but was not (and is still not) technically Iran-specific … For 2024, the Biden Administration requested $65 million for NERD … to ‘foster a vibrant civil society, increase the free flow of information, and promote the exercise of human rights,’ including at least $16.75 million for internet freedom.”

What was unstated in the report is that NERD represents a simple rebranding of the Iran Democracy Fund, created by former president George W. Bush in 2006 with the explicit goal of toppling the Islamic Republic.

The initiative was ostensibly shut down under Barack Obama three years later, eliciting bitter condemnation from much of the western media, neoconservative pundits, and lawmakers.

However, as the BBC acknowledged at the time, the move was in fact “welcomed by Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists”:

“These US funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds,” a Tehran-based human rights lawyer told the British state broadcaster.

“The end to this program will have no impact on our activities whatsoever.”

Internet interference

In reality, the program never ended – it was merely repackaged. White House officials maintained the fiction that NERD was focused on democratization rather than regime change, a claim undermined by a June 2011 New York Times exposé.

That investigation revealed the Obama administration’s so-called “Internet Freedom” initiative aimed to “deploy ‘shadow’ internet and mobile phone systems dissidents can use to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria, and Libya.”

In other words, Washington sought to build a covert legion of regime change operatives in Tehran, and provide them with the technology to coordinate in secret. It is clear from the Congressional report’s marked reference to “internet freedom” that these machinations continue today.

Moreover, as a 2020 report by the DC-based Project on Middle East Democracy noted, organizations genuinely committed to advancing Iranian rights still steer well clear of NERD. An anonymous NGO worker described its “style” as “aggressive.”

Another implied NERD is engaged in deeply dirty work:

“We choose not to apply for NERD grants because we do not want to get pulled into [anything] crazy.”

‘Non-Iranian’

The same year, the Financial Times (FT) reported how NERD efforts had become turbocharged under US President Donald Trump’s administration, explicitly to facilitate and encourage “anti-Tehran protests.”

This included “providing apps, servers, and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned websites, install anti-tracking software,” and more in the Islamic Republic, in order to offer “Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other and the outside world.”

Curiously, while portraying Iran as a digital prison, the FT admitted that major western social networks remain accessible in the country, and Iranians can easily view western media.

As usual, recipients of NERD funds remained unnamed – except for Psiphon, a VPN provider long-associated with discredited exiled Iranian opposition figures and, by then, controlled by the Open Technology Fund (OTF).

The FT estimated that just three million Iranians used Psiphon, less than four percent of the population.

OTF was an “Internet Freedom” product – one of its board members has openly admitted the Fund’s agenda is “regime change.”

Fast forward to September 2024; as former US president Joe Biden’s administration was seeking increased funds for NERD – mere months after the $55 million invested the previous year failed to produce desired mass unrest and upheaval around that year’s elections in Iran – a White House meeting was convened with major tech giants, encouraging them to offer more “digital bandwidth” for OTF-bankrolled apps and tools.

As fund chief Laura Cunningham explained, a “sizeable chunk” of OTF’s budget was taken up by the cost of hosting all the network traffic generated by its vast array of digital destabilization apps, which included Signal and Tor.

While OTF sought to support “additional users” of these products, it lacked resources to keep up with “surging demand.” What came of this meeting, which was attended by representatives of Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, and Microsoft, is not clear.

Yet, if further “digital bandwidth” was granted to OTF, it is clear the Trump administration’s “pause” in overseas aid funding has thrown all NERD’s meddling efforts in Iran into total – and potentially permanent – disarray.

A 27 January report in the Saudi-funded, anti-Islamic Republic Iran International quoted numerous anonymous beneficiaries of US financing bemoaning how grantees, including foreign-run Persian-language media outlets and organizations documenting purported “abuses” to keep the Islamic Republic “accountable,” had been abruptly shuttered.

An anonymous “human rights activist” told the outlet Washington’s freeze on aid spending “(will) impose restrictions on projects that address human rights violations or investigate governmental and military corruption which have impacted Iran’s economy and social conditions in favor of foreign terrorist activities and money laundering.”

They said “several non-Iranian American institutions [emphasis added] have been using these funds to investigate corruption and money laundering.” Now though, “these organizations will be forced to halt their activities.”

‘Severe implications’

US-supplied Virtual Private Network (VPN) services also loomed large among the malign resources impacted by the aid “pause.” A nameless “activist” told Iran International that 20 million Iranians used such tools “to bypass Tehran’s internet curbs.”

The outlet further quoted an article published by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a US-funded NGO not based in the Islamic Republic, but Virginia, near the CIA’s Langley headquarters: “In today’s Iran, the internet has no meaning without VPNs.”

Such dire warnings were echoed by Ahmad Ahmadian, head of California-based tech firm Holistic Resilience, which “aims to advance internet freedom and privacy by developing and researching censorship circumvention.”

An Iranian expat and alumni of Tehran University, Ahmadian warned major US tech firms “may not be willing or able to continue their support for providing anti-censorship tools” without government support.

Such remarks highlight how these supposedly popular resources lack grassroots backing or financing, being wholly dependent on Washington’s sponsorship to operate:

“The leadership of the US government has been crucial in urging big tech companies to provide public services. Without the encouragement of the US government, these companies wouldn’t take the initiative on their own.”

Other unnamed activists further warned Iran International, “the consequences of Trump’s executive order will not remain limited to internet censorship circumvention tools.”

They believe that if NERD’s activities “do not receive an exemption within the next month” – by the end of February – “they will either collapse entirely or be deeply curtailed.”

One declared, “the impact of this freeze might not be immediately noticeable, but its severe implications will become evident over time.”

Meanwhile, “internet experts” cautioned that “even if US aid starts again” after the 90-day pause, “the damage is irreversible since many people … might never fully return to using US-backed secure services.”

As The Cradle noted on 11 February, Washington’s forced withdrawal from meddling in Iran could create fresh opportunities for genuine diplomatic engagement between the two long-time adversaries.

But another possibility looms: after spending $600 million over a decade with little success, the US may simply be preparing to test out new, potentially more malign regime-change strategies.

End.

PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: NO PRESSURE ON AUTHORITIES FROM IPSC

On February 18, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

Last Saturday’s IPSC “Hands Off Gaza” march, advertised as being to the US Embassy, reached a new low in compliance with the wishes of the Irish ruling class not to embarrass the USA, currently the world boss.

The IPSC led the march from Baggot Street through residential roads and streets to reach not the front of the US Embassy but near its side, far from the main road (where a small group of non-compliant people lifted Palestinian flags to the view and often beeps of support of passing traffic).

*Section of the IPSC march – some of those carrying big printed placards joined a smaller group of protesters in front of the main entrance of the US Embassy.* (Photo cred: *IPSC*)

The IPSC agree their march routes and rally locations with the Gardaí in advance, a different process than merely informing them in the interests of safe traffic management.¹ The extent to which the IPSC leadership integrates with Gardaí wishes is not required by Irish State law.²

The understanding is that the Gardaí don’t want a large protest at the main entrance of the Embassy and beside the main road and those who did gather there were approached by Gardaí with the suggestion that they move down to the IPSC rally, which suggestion was declined.

No doubt the leadership of the IPSC considers that by compliance with the desires of the Gardaí, by not offending the authorities or frightening them, their organisation is regarded by the ruling circles as “responsible” and therefore placed in the best position to influence policy on Palestine.

Could they be right? Well, let’s check the actual concrete gains from their “responsible” leadership. Has the Irish Government barred Irish airspace to flights of US/Israeli munitions to fuel the Zionist genocide of Palestinians? Are US planes being checked at Shannon airport for military contents?

Has the Irish Government adopted a policy of Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions towards the genocidal state? Has the Occupied Territories Bill, a relatively mild piece of legislation entirely in line with international law and UN resolutions, though approved in 2018/ 2019 been enacted?³

The answer to all those questions is a resounding NO. Well then, what has this “responsible leadership” actually achieved in changing Government policy? The answer is simply Nothing. The IPSC however have brought thousands on to the streets to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine.

And that would be a great achievement if it were to employ those numbers in a way that exerted real pressure on the Government and the ruling class it represents. How far the IPSC leadership is from any such intention is demonstrated by their shameful capitulation around the US Embassy.

As most people in Ireland are aware, the USA is not only the biggest backer of the genocidal Zionist state but its essential backer, its very life-pump. Without the backing of the USA, the European colonist settler state of Israel could not have survived as long as it has.

*Photo of the distant IPSC rally taken from in front of the US Embassy’s main entrance.* (Photo cred: *Rebel Breeze*)

The IOF could not sustain its level of genocidal bombing of Palestinians for more than a week without USA supplies of bombs, shells and missiles. The ‘Israeli’ economy would long ago have collapsed without US financial support.

Politically the USA has used its veto in the UN Security Council, that undemocratic supreme ruler of the United Nations,⁴ against motions calling for a halt in the genocide. The US also employs its considerable economic pressure on other states not to oppose the Zionist genocidal state.

In view of the crucial role of the USA in maintaining not only the source of Zionist genocide but in its essential weekly supplies, one would imagine that US institutions and businesses in Ireland would be subjected to strong pressure from the Palestine solidarity movement.

That has not largely been the case and its symbolic representation, the US Embassy in Dublin, has been the target of large demonstrations led by the IPSC only twice in over fifteen months of genocide. And on each occasion in a side street, away from the main road.⁵

*Rear view of the IPSC rally stage facing the marchers, photo taken with the US Embassy main entrance some distance up the residential street behind the photographer.* (Photo cred: *IPSC*)

All of the main Irish political parties, those in coalition government and those aspiring to government, maintain cordial relations with the ruling circles of the USA and even formally celebrate the Irish national day with them in the USA on US Government premises.

Do the thousands up and down the country who march every couple of weeks or demonstrate weekly do so in order merely to feel good about themselves? I would submit that the majority desperately want to give real assistance to the Palestinians – to make a difference.

Those people are not getting any leadership from the IPSC. And though even at this late stage the IPSC could supply that, the indications are that it won’t.

The general attitude of the public within the Irish state is in solidarity with Palestine to a huge extent bemoaned by a number of ‘Israeli’ Zionist Ambassadors and Government ministers but that Irish feeling of Palestine solidarity does not generally translate into practical measures.

There have been some practical results in Palestine solidarity in divestment and boycott but these have been achieved, for the most part, by direct actions in occupations of college and commercial buildings not led by the IPSC and in most cases not even supported by them,.

Meanwhile, the State employs its repression on those who do dare to step beyond the “responsible leadership” of the IPSC, for example arrested in demonstrations at Shannon Airport and in actions in Dublin. The compliance of the IPSC leadership makes that repression easier for the State.

End.

*Section of small crowd that gathered in front of the US Embassy main gate and by the side of the main road (instead of at the IPSC rally); around four people at first and then more joined them.* (Photo cred: *Rebel Breeze*)

APPENDIX

Now Irishmen, forget the past!
And think of the time that’s coming fast.
When we shall all be civilized,
Neat and clean and well-advised.
And won’t Mother England be surprised?
Whack fol the diddle all the di do day. ⁶

In May 2021 the Gardaí rewarded IPSC’s consultative approach with a ban on a march to the Israeli Embassy, quoting Covid-19 legislation, with which the IPSC complied under protest. It fell to another organisation to announce the march and to ahead with it, in the event without arrests.⁷

In October 2003 the IPSC pulled back from calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland (which in fact they had called for years earlier) and at the same time the Sinn Féin leadership was also pulling back from similar calls of the past.

The party was abstaining from such motions in councils and voting along with the Irish Government in Leinster House.

A speaker at the IPSC rally in the side street to the US Embassy in October 2023 (the only other IPSC one there in the current genocide phase) was asked by the IPSC not to call for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador in order not to embarrass a SF speaker. She correctly declined.⁸

Some IPSC stewards on that march were positioned near people calling for that expulsion in order to drown them out with non-stop leading of the more ‘acceptable’ slogans.

Shortly thereafter a rebellion of SF’s rank-and-file obliged the SF leadership to restore their original position of calling for the expulsion and the IPSC leadership returned to endorsing it too.⁹

Footnotes

1Some of their arrangements can actually cause higher risk of mischance, as when they pack large numbers tightly on the central pedestrian reservation in O’Connell Street, with a Luas tram line on one side and passing traffic on both sides. On one occasion I and some others with banners and flags on the west side, with the GPO behind us, were informed by Gardaí that we should join the packed crowd on the pedestrian reservation as that was what “our leaders” had agreed with the Gardaí. We had to insist that we were breaking no law and within our rights before they reluctantly went away.

2The Constitution guarantees the right to demonstrate, picket etc and the role of the police is supposedly essentially to facilitate that. Giving the police the power to decide on routes and even a veto on a destination not required by law is to collude in undermining civil rights and even encouraging further undemocratic restrictions. See also Appendix.

3An effort coordinated by Sadaka, passed by the Seanad in 2018 and voted with large majority in the lower house in 2019 https://www.sadaka.ie/the-occupied-territories-bill/

4Only votes of the UN Security Council are binding. It has a revolving membership but only five permanent members, any one of which can veto a proposal even if supported by the majority. The five Permanent Members are UK, France, USA, Russia and China.

5 https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/10/29/as-dublin-marches-again-for-palestine-where-are-the-protests-going/

6Whack Fol the Diddle by Peader Kearney, published 1917 (according to NLI). I don’t think Mother England would be surprised, nor yet father Gombeen Ireland – for are not the likes of these their very creations?

7 https://www.thejournal.ie/rally-palestine-dublin-5435406-May2021/

8 https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/10/29/as-dublin-marches-again-for-palestine-where-are-the-protests-going/

9Ibid.

Sources & Further Reading

The Occupied Territories Bill

What you need to know about the Occupied Territories Bill

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

USAID, Friend or Foe?

On February 18, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Feb 7 (Reading time: 7 mins.)

NB: Edited by RB from original article for formatting purposes

Trump’s decision to suspend funding of USAID (United States Agency for International Development) provoked the ire of many liberals.

Trump took the decision for all the wrong reasons; he is not very intelligent nor is he analytical and is incapable of understanding the big picture — and the liberals who were horrified and criticised his actions also did so for all the wrong reasons.

They came out in defence of the agency stating that all the dictators in the world will be happy,[1] ignoring that USAID has throughout its history financed projects for dictatorial or authoritarian regimes.

They even went as far as the stupidity of saying that Elon Musk wanted this as vengeance against USAID for its role in defeating Apartheid.[2] Nothing could be further from the truth.

What little role it played in the country was to ensure that capitalism would be safe, but it did not bring an end to Apartheid.

The US government and all its agencies supported the racist regime, just like they supported the new “black” capitalism as an integral part of the usual “white” capitalism, as capitalism really doesn’t have a colour.

So, what is the agency? And what role does it play in the world? These are questions that have prefabricated answers from those who have remained silent in the face of many of the US’ barbarities. There are exceptions of course.

Mehdi Hasan is a journalist who is now famous worldwide for his positions on the genocide in Gaza, but in general, all those who answer those two questions positively, answer questions on the role of the US positively, even in the case of Palestine.

Firstly, we should be clear about how the agency defines itself and how it has been seen by successive US governments. In 2002, George Bush described foreign aid as the third pillar of US national security, along with defence and diplomacy.[3]

The same document Foreign Aid in the National Interest explains various lines of work of the agency such as financing the “development” of agriculture etc. They demand changes and reforms in the countries they “help”, just as does the World Bank.

When they clash with governments that are not given to implement the reforms they seek, they bluntly state that they will give funds to functionaries, ministers and others in the country to promote their agenda for change.

That is even if at that precise moment the beneficiaries of the programmes have no political power to implement such changes.[4] They play the long game. They openly state that they have to finance NGOs that promote “democracy”.[5]

This is what is nowadays called Colour Revolutions i.e. where through an NGO a situation of instability is generated in a country against a government or regime, whether it be democratic or authoritarian.

What is important is whether its economic and foreign policy coincide with Washington’s interests or not.

Colombia, for example, has always been a recipient of USAID’s programmes despite the murders of journalists, social leaders, opposition politicians, such as the Patriotic Union, trade unionists etc.

Not in the worst years of the bloodbath was it proposed to limit the aid or even pressure the government to introduce democratic reforms. Colombia has always served US interests.

In the case of Colombia, the negative impacts of the supposed North American aid can be clearly seen. In 1961, Kennedy announced a new programme for Latin America, the Alliance for Progress and he also set up USAID.

As part of that programme wheat was donated to certain countries, amongst them Colombia, but it was no favour. In 1961 there were 160,000 hectares of wheat in the country with a crop of 142,100 tonnes.

The following year the area sown fell to 150,000 hectares and so it went every year until in 2023 there were barely 3,000 hectares of wheat with a crop of 9,354 tonnes. They collapsed the production of a basic crop in the Colombian diet.

In reality, USAID is prohibited by law from financing crops and other economic activities that compete with US companies. They were always going to collapse wheat production.

They did similar things in other parts of the world, collapsing local markets, though they always say that it is not their intention.

Biden and Harris announced a new USAID pilot programme to supply emergency food and it consisted of sending one billion in food to 18 countries, all of them in Africa with the exceptions of Haiti, Yemen and Bangladesh.

Amongst the products to be exported were “wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans – commodities that align with traditional USAID international food assistance programming.” [6]

It is nothing more than a subsidy to the cereal sector in the US dominated by just four large companies (Cargill, Cenex Harvest States, Archer Daniels Midland ([ADM] and General Mills), who get rid of their surpluses this way.

Looking at the list one sees that it includes countries with high levels of food insecurity, but they are not the worst in the world. Five of them are amongst the top ten countries with people suffering food insecurity in terms of absolute numbers of people suffering food insecurity.

In terms of percentages, just three of them are in the top ten countries with a percentage in excess of 30%. Afghanistan was not selected by the USA as they are no longer interested in the country, despite 46% of the population suffering from food insecurity, i.e. 19.9 million people.

Neither did they select Syria with 55% where they were only interested in replacing the Ba’athist regime with ISIS, which they achieved this year.

The causes of this insecurity are varied. In twelve countries it was due to weather extremes, affecting 56.8 million people and in another 27 countries economic shocks affecting 83.9 million people. And lastly 117.1 million people affected by conflicts in 19 countries.

It is worth pointing out that two of those countries were Syria and Ukraine, both of them conflicts in which the USA and Europe play a deciding role, not just in the start of the conflict but also in its course and duration.[7]

In the case of Ukraine the war had a dramatic effect on the price and supply of cereals in many parts.

USAID’s initial work consisted of economic aid programmes that included promoting US companies and so-called free enterprise. Later in the 2000s it allied itself more closely with US companies, giving them contracts to benefit themselves and not the countries.

Dupont, one of the companies that most pollutes water in the US, won a contract to supply drinking water to Ethiopia! The jokes write themselves.

An opportunity is never lost for multinational capital. Before the war with Iraq had even begun, USAID was signing contracts for the reconstruction of the country once the war was over.

One of the beneficiaries was Bechtel, a company that drummed up public support for the war and obtained one billion in contracts after the war.[8] USAID is an arm of the US government and its policies and contacts always favour their interests and never anyone else’s.

As for the threat that this represents to freedom of the press and expression etc. the mainstream press has raised an outcry.

It is true that for the moment the USA will have to look to another agency to help foment discontent and carry out the so-called Colour Revolutions and other coups d’etat. The CIA will have to finance those organisations directly and not through USAID as they have done up till now.

It has to be said that many of the regimes overthrown were not a bit progressive but neither were those who replaced them. The US supported them because they were useful to their interests, and nothing more.

Assad in Syria was replaced by Jolani from ISIS and in the ex-soviet republics, all of those governments have dubious human rights records. USAID never financed opposition groups, nor alternative press in Colombia despite its human rights record.

It never financed those that sought to overthrow the dictator Pinochet in Chile, nor in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, nor currently in Milei’s Argentina.

Now, various NGOs around the world, including Colombia, weep. They are organisations that are only interested in their own slice of the cake. We lose nothing with them. The sooner they go bankrupt the better.

They will say that there are good projects that USAID finances and they are right. Of course there are.

The soft power of a country cannot be 100% Machiavellian, not everything is absolute greed and power. In order for the US soft power to work there must be modicum of projects that are good in and of themselves or at least not as evidently open to criticism. That is what it is about.

These projects serve to generate an atmosphere conducive to US activities and give it the right to opine on internal policies and present itself as a friend of the government — or the people when it wants to carry out a coup d’etat.

Neither Trump nor Musk understand this. They are not intelligent people; their abilities have always been to take advantage of what others build.

Thus, they have no ability to think about what soft power means as a tool of real domination in other countries, nor as a means to justify the hard power of a coup or colour revolution. The closure of USAID is an own goal of imperialism.

Elon Musk stated in Twitter that the agency was a nest of anti-American Marxist vipers. The Indian Marxist Vijay Prashad replied that Marxists such as him detested USAID as it was a nest of liberal imperialists. Prashad is right, so the answer to the headline question of this article is clear.

USAID is the foe, and no one on the left should mourn its passing. Good riddance. And those who mourn it, run to get your thirty pieces of silver whilst they are still signing cheques.

End.

NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

NOTES

[1] The Guardian (06/02/2025) Authoritarian regimes around the world cheer dismantling of USAid. Joseph Gedeon. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk
[2] The Ink (03/02/2025) USAID fought Apartheid. Musk is killing it.
The.Ink
USAID fought apartheid. Musk is killing it
As we speak, an unelected billionaire, born in South Africa, is staging an unconstitutional coup in the United States, shutting down an agency that happened to fight the apartheid regime he and his family thrived under as rich whites…
Read more
14 days ago · 222 likes · 29 comments · The Ink

[3] USAID (2002) Foreign Aid in the National Interest. USAID. Washington D.C. pIV https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-S18-PURL-LPS46120/pdf/GOVPUB-S18-PURL-LPS46120.pdf
[4] Ibíd., P.51
[5] Ibíd., P.44
[6] USDA (18/04/2024) USDA, USAID Deploy $1 Billion for Emergency Food Assistance. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2024/04/18/usda-usaid-deploy-1-billion-emergency-food-assistance
[7] Statistics taken from Global Report on Food Crises 2023, https://www.fsinplatform.org/report/global-report-food-crises-2023/
[8] Current Affairs (10/03/2021) Aid for Profit: The Dark History of USAID. Saheli Khastagir. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/03/aid-for-profit-the-dark-history-of-usaid

PALESTINE SUPPORTERS SCORN SIDE STREET TO DENOUNCE US EMBASSY AT ITS FRONT

On February 17, 2025February 18, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Many who supported Saturday’s march of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign advertised as going to protest at the US Embassy found themselves led to a rally in a residential street bordering the Embassy and far from the main road.

The IPSC march had gathered at the Department of Foreign Affairs on Stephens Green and proceeded from there to Ballsbridge, the last section passing through quiet residential streets to hold the rally in Elgin Road, some distance from and hardly visible from the main road.

*Section of the IPSC march on Saturday* (Photo cred: *IPSC*)

Before the arrival of the IPSC march a handful of people gathered near the main road, displaying Palestine national colours to acclamation from passing motorists. As the IPSC march arrived nearby some others with flags, banner and placards joined them near the front entrance of the Embassy.

From that position one could see the IPSC rally taking place quite some distance down the quiet street, distant enough that speeches could not be heard, though chants from the crowd were audible.

Earlier in the day the Palestinian resistance had released three of their prisoners in good health while the Palestinian prisoners of ‘Israel’ were beaten and insulted as they were leaving and made to wear special demeaning clothes (which they burned). Four had to be rushed to hospital after release.

Long before Trump’s proposal of ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians, it is important to understand that Israel’s genocide could not have been sustained for more than a week without funding and munitions supply by the USA, which also supported them politically.

In the sixteen-plus months of the current phase of Israeli genocide, the IPSC has led a march to the ‘Israeli’ Embassy only a few times and to the US Embassy exactly twice, each time to the side road (though the stage of the first one was closer to the Embassy’s main entrance than was today’s).

*The front of the IPSC march at its destination at the rally on Saturday*. (Photo cred: *IPSC*).

*The IPSC rally in the distance, taken from in front of the US Embassy main entrance.* (Credit photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

A police officer approached the early demonstrators near the Embassy main entrance to encourage them to move down to the location of the IPSC rally but they politely declined. One of the IPSC’s committee members also wandered by to see who these mavericks could be.

A Zionist passing by claimed the demonstrators should be ashamed but they told him it was he who should feel shame, supporting genocide. Anger soared when he called for killing more Palestinians – including children– until some began to suspect he was provoking an assault leading to arrest.

Certainly he felt safe enough with Gardaí close by.

As the group consolidated a woman began to lead call-and-answer chants which were taken up: Saoirse – don Phalaistín! Resistance is an obligation- in the face of occupation! 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state! Free, free – Palestine!

*Section of those who chose to stand near the US Embassy main entrance (out of shot to the right of photo) and in full view of passing traffic on the main road (just out of view to left of photo).* (Photo credit: *Rebel Breeze*)

Also From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Car horns of passing motorists joined in, beeping in solidarity.

It began to rain heavily and the protesters endured it for a while before heading for shelter.

End.

NO NATIONS, NO BORDERS?

On February 12, 2025February 17, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, History, Imperialism, Ireland, National Liberation, Popular Resistance, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

No Nations No Borders was the title of a meeting I saw advertised recently and also a slogan I had heard chanted some years ago¹ on a counter protest to fascists and other racists. I wondered then and wonder now: Have they thought this through?

Clearly the utterers and followers of such a slogan see many negative things emanating from nations, probably war, oppression, repression, racism, even genocide. But are those things fundamentally attributes of nations – or even of states that are founded upon nations?

The definition of a nation is not universally shared among historians, philosophers and sociologists but they are generally agreed that it is applied to a people who share a territory and common history, along with a language and culture, incorporating customs and law.

Some argue that nations only came into existence historically in the 18^th century, others maintain that they existed long before that, in the Middle Ages and even further back. In Ireland, Thomas Davis published the lyrics of A Nation Once Again in 1844, nearly half-way into the 19^th Century.²

Davis, whose father was Welsh, drew on the classical Romano-Greek education of the British ruling class as inspiring his awakening nationalism:

When boyhood’s fire was in my blood/ I read of ancient freemen/ Of Greece and Rome who bravely stood/ Three hundred men and three men³/ And then I hoped I yet might see/ Her fetters rent in twain/ And Ireland long a province be/ A nation once again!

*Plaque in Middle Abbey Street to mark the site of The Nation, a patriotic newspaper founded in Dublin in 1842 by leaders of a group that became known as The Young Irelanders*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

However, the United Irishmen who rose in revolt in 1798,⁴ the first Republican uprising in Ireland, certainly conceived of their nation, the French too in their 1789⁵ revolution and the 13 Colonies, the precursor of the United States of America, in the American Revolution 1765–1783.⁶

The leaders of the United Irishmen were mostly English-speaking while the majority of the population, indigenous clans and Gaelicised descendants of Normans and Vikings, were all Irish-speaking and they had earlier appealed to Rome in terms of an oppressed nation.⁷

It can be argued that in passing the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366⁸ the English occupation recognised Irish nationhood, albeit in the form of a malignant influence upon the Norman invaders who were ‘going native’, “the degenerate English” having become “more Irish than the Irish themselves”.

An Irish nation-building process may be perceived over three centuries earlier, with Brian Boróimhe trying to unify Ireland under his kingship and defeat the Dublin Viking colony. As Brian was killed⁹ at the Battle of Clontarf (sic),¹⁰ this remains unproven.

All the attempts to achieve national independence starting with the United Irishmen until at least 1923 were built upon democratic formulations according to their time and – in the case of the 1916 Proclamation – in actual advance of it in terms equality of women and of civil and religious liberty.

*Monument to Thomas Davis (1814-1845), writer, publisher (founder of The Nation newspaper) and composer, erected in Dublin’s Dame Street 1966.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

NO NATIONS?

If nations are to be abolished, how might this be achieved? Presumably their languages, cultures and customs would need to be eradicated … and replaced with what? Actually, there have been ongoing attempts at that eradication for centuries – by colonialism and imperialism!

In those cases, the conquering power would seek to replace the language, culture and history of the conquered with their own – or with an allegedly ‘cosmopolitan’ culture (i.e allegedly independent of any national culture). It might be unpleasant for the “no nations” people to reflect upon that.

It was fashionable in the 1980s among certain intellectuals to claim that nationalism was moribund (and history too), quickly refuted even in Europe by the Balkan wars, not to mention by the Irish and Basque anti-colonial struggles.

A German movement among the Left known as anti-nationalismus in opposition to the nationalism of the German State, because of fears of return to nazism, extended its application of that to opposing national liberation struggles (e.g in Ireland, Basque, Palestine) and to support for Zionism.

I have heard John Hume quoted as saying that “We are all Europeans now”, understood to indicate the end of the various national entities in Europe – or at least their importance as nations.

I failed to find that quotation but he said something similar in his acceptance speech for the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize (shared with Loyalist leader Trimble)¹¹ — a speech either hugely naive or reflective of imperialism at a time of its rampant reign and proxy wars across the world.

The eradication of nationalism, even were it possible, would entail the elimination of a huge reservoir of different languages and cultures around the world, the different ways of expressing being human as we understand that concept.

The replacement, if achievable, would be a sterile mono-culture. Or possibly even that culture might fragment over time into different forms of expression in parts of the world.

NO BORDERS?

Let us suppose that the people of a nation are not to be removed nor their culture eliminated but that it’s merely proposed that its borders be removed. If we do not agree – or it should prove impossible to – eliminate the nation as a political-cultural construct, what about just removing borders?

It would be wonderful to be able to travel around the world without ever encountering customs posts or border guards – wouldn’t it?

The monument to Charles Stewart Parnell (184 -1891), political party and Land League campaign leader, erected in Dublin at the junction of Sackville (now O’Connell) and Parnell Street in 1911. An inscription on the monument opposes borders or boundaries but in another sense, as a limit to the nation’s independence: “No man has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country thus far shalt thou go and no further.” (Source photo: *Wikipedia*)

Of course it would and hopefully one day that will be a reality, without having eliminated nations. But in the era of imperialism and colonialism, nations that free themselves will need to maintain borders as part of the defences against their invasion by their former masters or prospective ones.

During that period, those borders will need to be defended and monitored in terms of financial, scientific and commercial exchanges, imports and exports and – yes — passport control. Not very libertarian, for sure but some idea of entrances and exits will be needed for a number of reasons.

This is the era of imperialism and colonialism on the one hand and national liberation on the other. To attack the idea of the nation at this time is to objectively side with the projects of those reactionary forces and progressive forces need to oppose projects against nationalism.

However, inside the nations, there are also necessary struggles to be fought: of class, of democratic rights and freedoms and these can and should be fought, while at the same time defending the rights of nations to exist and develop.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1This was by a small politically sectarian group which seems to have left the active stage for some years now.

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

3The ‘three hundred men’ men refers to the Spartans (who actually had other allies there too) led by Leonidas I at the battle at the Pass of Thermopylae to delay the Persian army’s invasion of Greece led by Xerxes I in 480 BCE; the “three men” is a reference to Horatio’s stand with two comrades on the bridge in 509 BCE in an attempt to deny an invading Etruscan army access to the city of Rome. Coincidentally or not, the story was published in McCauley Lays of Ancient Rome in1842, two years before the publication of Davis’ A Nation Once Again.

4Although the leadership was nearly all descended from settlers, they did seek a democracy enfranchising the indigenous Irish.

5The French Republic could justifiably claim to represent the French nation but what of the Breton and Corsican nations, along with parts of the Basque and Catalan nations over which La Republique claimed domination? Or the French colonies in Africa, Asia, America and the Caribbean?

6This is a most problematic concept of a nation, being entirely constructed of a minority of settlers imposed on the Indigenous population and the imported slave population, both of which were totally excluded from the polity.

7I have seen a copy of the appeal but now cannot find it, however at the time of post-WWI Paris Peace Conference Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh seeking Vatican support for Irish independence declared: Ireland’s righteous and time-honoured claims have been frequently recognised by Your Holiness’s Predecessors and even actively assisted by them as far back as the sixteenth century. https://www.difp.ie/volume-1/1920/appeal-to-vatican/35/#section-document page.

8Quotations from the preamble to The Statutes of Kilkenny 1366 legislation: “In essence its purpose was to codify laws passed over the previous decades which had sought to halt and reverse the Gaelicisation of English settlers in Ireland. For instance the use of Irish language, dress, and customs by all English and Irish subjects who had sworn loyalty to the king was forbidden.” https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch1169-1799.htm

9Along with all commanders of both sides.

101014, the Battle lasting around 12 hours could not have been fought at present-day Clontarf, which did not exist then and that site is not mentioned in any of the early accounts of the Battle. The site has never been indentified but was likely around the Glasnevin/Drumcondra area.

11Awarded for his work in helping to create the imperialist pacification process in Britain’s colonial conflict in Ireland: If I had stood on this bridge 30 years ago after the end of the second world war when 25 million people lay dead across our continent for the second time in this century and if I had said: “Don’t worry. In 30 years’ time we will all be together in a new Europe, our conflicts and wars will be ended and we will be working together in our common interests”, I would have been sent to a psychiatrist. But it has happened and it is now clear that European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution and it is the duty of everyone, particularly those who live in areas of conflict to study how it was done and to apply its principles to their own conflict resolution. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1998/hume/lecture/

FURTHER READING

A discussion on the composition of nations and nationalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

THE REBEL WOMEN’S TOUR

On February 12, 2025February 12, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Current Event Report, History, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Civil War, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-1921, National Liberation, Political Prisoners3 Comments

Orla Dunne

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Myself and my sister, Brenda went on the Rebel Women’s Tour in the General Post Office on Saturday, 1st February 2025. Our Guide was Kim.

Two women’s groups were highlighted: Inghinidhe na hÉireann which was founded by Maud Gonne in 1900 and inspired Cumann na mBan. Inghinide na hÉireann is Irish for “Daughters of Ireland”. It was founded solely for women and adopted Saint Brigid as their patron saint.

Cumann na mBan:

In 1914, Inghinide (modern spelling ‘Iníní’) na hÉireann was merged with Cumann na mBan (abbreviated C na mBan, translated in English as the “Women’s League”). It was formed in Wynn’s Hotel on Lower Abbey Street on the 2nd of April 1914.

Brenda’s husband’s grandmother, Christina Caffrey, was a member. Our Grand Aunt, Theresa Rudkins nee Byrne was also a member as was also an old neighbour of our sister Eileen, Mary Breslin. Cumann na mBan was then led by Kathleen Lane O’Kelley.

One key member whom we are all familiar with is Countess Constance Markiewicz who took an active role in the 1916 Easter Rising which I will come to later.

*Cumann na mBan uniform on display in the GPO Museum* (Photo: *O. Dunne)*

1913 Lockout:

During the 1913 Lockout by an employers’ consortium, women including Dr Kathleen Lynn, Helena Moloney, Delia Larkin (sister of Jim Larkin) and Rosie Hackett opened soup kitchens at Liberty Hall to assist struggling workers and families.

The 1916 Easter Rising:

It is estimated that approximately 200 women took part in the Rising and 77 were imprisoned.
The only woman sentenced to death was Countess Markiewicz who was second-in-command to Commandant Michael Mallin in St. Stephen’s Green.

*Constance Markievicz (colourised) in ICA uniform* (Source photo: *Internet*)

However due to her being female, it was then changed to life imprisonment. She subsequently served 13 months in prison in both Ireland and England. She was outraged that she would not be executed.

Winifred Carney:

Winifred Carney was named as the first woman to enter the GPO on Easter Monday 1916. It is thought that she entered the building wielding a typewriter and revolver.

Elizabeth O’Farrell:

Elizabeth O’Farrell was one of the last three women to remain with the GPO garrison along with Julia Grennan and Winifred Carney and all three spent their last days of freedom in Moore Street. Ms O’Farrell accompanied Patrick Pearse on his journey of surrender to the British forces.

There is a photograph of this and all that can be seen of her are her feet and the end of her dress, as she stood at the far end of Pearse from the photographer.

*Julia Grennan* (Source photo: *Internet*)

WOMEN DURING THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE:

Women also played a significant part during the War of Independence. Over 300 women are believed to have assisted by smuggling weapons and ammunition into Ireland and relaying messages from area to area.

WOMEN DURING THE IRISH CIVIL WAR:

The Irish Civil War lasted for almost one year from June 1922 to May 1923 and again women participated in the struggle, believed to have been mainly on the Anti-Treaty side. Female members of the Irish Citizen Army were armed.

*Grace Gifford (colourised) with paintbrush and easel* (Source photo: *Internet*)

One such example is Grace Gifford Plunkett who married her beloved fiance, Joseph Mary Plunkett in May 1916 just hours before his execution. She herself was incarcerated in February 1923 in Kilmainham Gaol for her part in the Civil War.

While there she painted a copy of Mary and Child on the wall of the cell.

End.

“A March Travelling into the Future … a Beacon of Resistance”

On February 7, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Censorship & Witch-hunting, Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Genocide, History commemoration, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Peace Process, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Resistance ArtLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

Thousands of marchers with flags, banners and three marching bands retraced the route of the anti-internment march in 1972 that ended in the infamous Derry Bloody Sunday¹, a massacre of unarmed civilians by the British Parachute Regiment.

The nearest Sunday to the date of the original march, which this year fell on February 2^nd has been chosen annually for the commemorative march over the 53 years since the massacre. People travel from different parts of Ireland and indeed from beyond in order to attend.

*Section of the march coming down from the Creggan.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The colour party (bearing the flags) traditionally precedes the marching band. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Derry is not well served by public transport from other parts of Ireland and there is no train station there.

There is a bus service from Dublin from the Translink company of the occupied colony but one would need to catch it at seven in the morning and then hang around in Derry for 3.5 hours waiting for the march to start. For this reason, many travel to Derry by car.

Equally, many others who would attend were the public transport available, stay home but an estimated over 7,000 participated in this year’s march. The theme this year was Palestine, once again as was last year’s too.

The day of the massacre

The original march was a protest against the introduction in August 1971 of internment without trial in the occupied colony. Almost immediately afterward the Parachute Regiment had massacred 11 people protesting against it in Ballymurphy, Belfast.²

*Ballymurphy campaign banner in the Creggan awaiting start of march with Kate Nash centre*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The 1972 march, along with many others, had been banned by the sectarian colonial administration. The Civil Rights campaigners knew that their legitimate demands³ were being obstructed by use of the Special Powers⁴ of the statelet and that they could win nothing if they were to acquiesce.

After the previous massacres it took considerable courage to march that day but perhaps they thought that with an advertised march, in daylight, with many film cameras covering, the Paras were unlikely to open fire. In any case, they decided to risk it.

At 4.10pm the first shots were fired by the Paras⁵ without warning and by around 20 minutes later they had killed 13 men and youths and wounded another 13, one of whom would die weeks later. According to the Saville Inquiry in 2010, they had fired over 100 rounds.

Not one of their targets was armed.

To justify the slaughter, the British Army claimed that they were fired upon and returned fire, killing IRA fighters. The British Government, in particular through Home Affairs Minister Reginald Maudling, repeated the lies as did the British media.

Bernadette (then) Devlin⁶ MP, a survivor, was prevented from speaking in the Westminster Parliament and she walked up to Maudling and slapped his face. In Dublin a general strike took place with schools closing and a huge crowd burned the British Embassy down.

In London, a giant march reached Trafalgar Square as its end was still leaving Hyde Park. In Whitehall the police prevented them from laying the symbolic coffins outside No.10 and in the scuffles the ‘coffins’ were eventually thrown at the police or knocked to the ground.

And a number of construction sites in Britain went on strike also.

The judicial response varied wildly. Coroner Hubert O’Neill, an ex-British Army major, presiding on the inquests in 1973, called it “Sheer unadulterated murder” whereas Lord Chief Justice Widgery in the ‘inquiry’ he led ignored all the local evidence and accepted the British Army’s lies.⁷

“The last Bloody Sunday march”

Provisional Sinn Féin organised and managed the annual march for many years but in January 2011 Martin McGuinness announced that year’s march would be the last, because of the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron’s public apology to the relatives of the 14 killed in Derry.

The apology followed quickly on the verdict of the Saville Inquiry⁸ which totally refuted the statements at the time by representatives of the Army and of the Political and Judicial establishments: the victims had been unarmed and the Army had not been “returning fire”.

*One side of one of the marching band drums* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Section of the march about half-way along its length*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Despite the UK State’s acknowledgement that they had no excuse for the massacre, not one of those who planned, organised or carried out the atrocity had been charged, never mind convicted, nor had those who conspired to cover up the facts. To this day, only a low-level soldier has faced charges.

Nor had there been government admissions of wrongdoing in the other massacres by the Paras intended to crush the resistance to the repressive internment measure, at Ballymurphy and Springhill.

A number of relatives and survivors of the original march declined to have the annual march cancelled, among them Kate Nash and Bernadette McAlliskey. Kate Nash’s brother William was shot dead on Bloody Sunday and her father, William, was wounded trying to save his son.

Bernadette McAlliskey was a survivor of the massacre and also survived nearly a decade later an assassination attempt in her home, being struck by nine bullets of a Loyalist murder gang. Despite opposition by and denunciation from SF, volunteers have kept the march going every year.

Each year different themes have also been incorporated into the Bloody Sunday March for Justice, including ones in Ireland, such as the framed Craigavon Two prisoners but also ones from beyond, e.g. the resistance of the Broadwater Farm housing estate in London to Metropolitan Police attack.

*Section of the march in Creggan waiting to start, showing the Palestinian national flag and the Irish Tricolour in close proximity.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Big drums of one of the marching bands getting a workout in the Creggan while waiting for the march to start*. *‘Saoirse go deo’ = Freedom for ever*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Since 2011 Sinn Féin have boycotted the march but also sought to mobilise public opinion against it, claiming that relatives of the victims didn’t want the march to continue. The truth is that some hadn’t wanted it even when SF were running it, some didn’t afterwards but some did.

Such an atrocity has of course huge personal impact on relatives of victims but its impact is also much wider on a society and beyond, historically and politically. That historical memory ‘belongs’ to the people of Derry but also to the people of the world (as do others such as Sharpeville SA).

Those in power in society are aware of that and the media outside of Derry gives little or no coverage to the annual march while promoting other events there of lesser numbers and significance.

The ‘Derry Peoples Museum’ ignores the march in its Bloody Sunday commemorative program.

This year’s march

Sunday just past was one of sunshine and little wind, as it was on the day of the Derry massacre. But regular marchers remember other Bloody Sunday commemoration days of pouring non-stop rain, of squalls, of snow and sleet, of wet clothes, socks and freezing fingers and toes.

The march starts in the afternoon at the Creggan (An Chreagáin) and winds down to just below the Derry Walls, then up a long slope again before eventually ending down at Free Derry Corner⁹, the destination of the original march, where speakers address the crowd from a sheltered stage.

*Marchers underway, led by people carrying 14 crosses to represent the unarmed civilians murdered by the Paras on that day 53 years before.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*The band members are itching to go up in the Creggan.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The sides of residential blocks in this area are also painted in giant murals to represent scenes from the civil rights and armed resistance period while nearby stands a monument to the martyrs of Bloody Sunday 1972 but also another to the 10 H-Blocks’ martyrs of the Hungers Strikes of 1981.

In this area, one needs to be blind not to be at least peripherally aware of the icons of proud struggle and of loss, of sacrifice.

Eamon McCann and Farah Koutteineh addressed the rally at the end of the march. McCann, a journalist and member of the People Before Profit political party is a survivor of the massacre. He is an early supporter of the Bloody Sunday March for Justice at which he has spoken on occasion.

Farah Koutteineh is a Palestinian journalist who was herself the news when in December 2023 she and a few other Palestinians were ejected from a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast being addressed by the Palestinian Ambassador as a representative of the Palestinian Authority.

Koutteineh had been denouncing the Palestine Authority’s collusion with Israel when she and the other Palestinians were hustled out to applause from many of the attendance. Not surprisingly from the Derry platform on Sunday she too drew applause in criticising SF’s position on Palestine.¹⁰

Speaking to this reporter after the march, Kate Nash said: “There is no chance the march will be ended. It will go forward into the future, a beacon of resistance against the injustices and crimes of states around the world.

“There are millions of us … people come from around the world to commemorate this massacre with us.”

end.

Series of images from the march (Photoa by D.Breatnach)

Footnotes:

1There have been a number of Bloody Sundays in the history of Ireland under colonialism and therefore the location and year are often incorporated into the name for clarity as to which is being discussed.

2There was substantial State interference with inquests during the period of the 30-years’ war in the Six Counties (and in some cases in the Irish state also), in order to avoid inquest juries finding the state armed forces culpable of homicide unjustified in law. The original inquest in 1972 on the Ballymurphy massacre recorded an ‘open verdict’ but a 2021 reopened inquest found the British Army killings “unjustifiable”. Even after the Derry massacre, in July of that year, the Paras again killed five unarmed people and injured two in the Springhill area of Belfast and again an ‘open verdict’ was recorded into the fatalities which included three teenagers and a priest.

3The demands were all of rights that were in existence in the rest of the UK, including an ending to discrimination in allocation of housing and employment and general enfranchisement.

4The Special Powers (Northern Ireland) Act 1922 gave legal powers to the authorities similar to martial law. Allegedly temporary, as is often the case the Act kept getting renewed until made permanent and its repeal was one of the demands of the Civil Rights campaign. The Act was finally repealed in 1973.

5There was a unit of other British Army soldiers stationed on the Derry Walls with special rifles and there has been speculation that some of the shots might have been fired by them but this has never been confirmed to date.

6Now McAlliskey then Devlin, she had been a candidate for the People’s Democracy party of the time, the youngest MP elected.

7And that was the ‘official record’ until the Saville verdict 38 years later. A clever contemporary lampooning of Widgery and playing on a soap powder advert, with excellent alliteration, had it that “Nothing washes whiter than Widgery White!”

8Although the Saville Inquiry delivered its verdict in June 2010, it had been set up in 1998, taking an inordinately long time (and a bonanza in legal fees for judge, barristers, lawyers and clerks) to reach a verdict already obvious to all the nationalist people of the Six Counties, most of the Irish people and probably millions around the world. The date of its setting up so near to that of the Good Friday Agreement suggests that its creation (and eventual verdict) was part of the ‘sweeteners’ of the Pacification Process and the Good Friday Agreement.

9A reconstruction of the iconic gable end of a small local authority house in the Bogside area of Derry which had been painted in 1967, during the Civil Rights resistance period, with giant letters proclaiming: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE DERRY. The house was demolished during redevelopment of the area but the gable end was reconstructed as a monument to the resistance of the people of the city.

10Sinn Féin support the corrupt and collaborationist Palestine Authority and its backing political party Fatah and also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with (then) President Joe Biden while the US was supplying the Zionist genocide with weapons, money and political backing.

3The demands were all of rights that were in existence in the rest of the UK, including an ending to discrimination in allocation of housing and employment and general enfranchisement.

6Now McAlliskey then Devlin, she had been a candidate for the People’s Democracy party of the time, the youngest MP elected.

Useful links:

“THIS TIME WE WON’T SURRENDER”

On January 31, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Save Moore Street From Demolition
(Reading time: 2 mins.)

“This time we won’t surrender” were the words that appeared in January 2016 on a meme featuring Banksy-style graffiti artwork painted on hoardings in Moore Street, surrounding the planned demolition site of at least two buildings.

In the first weeks of January 2016 the Save Moore Street From Demolition team on their weekly Saturday stall had noted the erection of hoardings around a number of buildings and, learning of the planned demolition of Nos.13 and 18, called emergency demonstrations on to the street.

The first of these resulted in a number of people occupying the buildings to prevent demolition and the occupation grew until by majority decision they were evacuated after a High Court injunction had been issued against any damage by contractors pending a Court decision on the buildings.

On the last day of the occupation, signed SMSFD petition sheets were taped end to end and a chain organised stretching them from one end of Moore Street to the other. The Save Moore Street 2016 group was founded to unite the various street-active components of the conservation campaign.

One day in January, the Banksy-style graffiti appeared on part of the hoarding in the street. Part of the artwork reproduces the scene of the 1916 Rising surrender of the forces in Moore Street and of the entire Rising, captured by a photographer in Parnell Street on April 30^th.

That staged photograph shows General Lowe and his son John, also a British officer, taking the surrender from Commander-in-Chief Patrick Pearse with Vol. Elizabeth O’Farrell by his side but out of view (by her choice, she later related) though her feet may be seen beside Pearse’s.

The artist transposed the scene to the present, with the two figures of the British Army now wearing construction safety helmets, representing those who planned to demolish the historic buildings in the 1916 Terrace that had been occupied by up to 300 men and women fighters in 1916.

The artwork was one feature of the many aspects of the resistance in 2016 which helped to ensure a High Court decision that the whole area is a “1916 History Monument” but the Minister of Heritage appealed on the basis that a High Court Judge could not make that decision.

Other aspects included a 6.30am-4pm blockade of the site Mon-Fri for six weeks, pickets of Heritage Dept. Offices, including re-enactments and mock history funerals, protesting the Heritage Minister’s 1916 event in Moore Street and weekly collection of petition signatures on the street.

In February 2017 the Minister’s appeal succeeded and the earlier Planning Permission was once again in force. However, no buildings in the terrace had been demolished nor have been since, with many twists and turns in the struggle yet – and still – to come.

If you support the struggle, spread the word and please sign our on-line petition and ask your contacts to do likewise. Ní neart go cur le chéile. https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/save-moore-street

End.

COURT LIFTS CURFEW ON PALESTINE SUPPORTER

On January 31, 2025January 31, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, PalestineLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

One of a number of Palestine struggle supporters appeared in court again on Wednesday and, though the case was postponed for hearing until 26 February, was successful in having one of the conditions of his bail, his daily curfew, removed.

*Jack Brasil raises a clenched fist outside the Dublin Court on Wednesday.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Palestine struggle supporters sat in Dublin’s Central Criminal Court with Jack Brasil, New Zealander of Irish descent, through many other case applications until his own was dealt with, before accompanying him out of the intimidating building.

Another of the bail-related restrictions, that Brasil not present stationary in the Dublin 1 or 2 areas (i.e in the Dublin City centre) remains, at least for the moment. This restriction has also been imposed on a number of other Palestine solidarity activists in a clear restriction of their civil rights.

As in many other Western states, Palestine solidarity activists have been charged with offences under Ireland’s criminal code but, when released on bail, remain under restrictions for months at a time after their arrest, interfering with their normal routines.

It also hampers or even prevents their participation in solidarity activities.

*Palestine struggle supporters outside the Dublin court on Wednesday after Jack Brasil had the curfew removed from the conditions of bail.* (Photo: D.Breatnach)

To date it seems that none of the Irish civil rights NGOs have challenged the State on the wide-scale use of those undemocratic bail restrictions from participation in lawful solidarity protests on people who are, even according to the criminal code, innocent, unless convicted in a court of law.

During the 2014-2015 mass-popular protests against the imposition of a third water tax in preparation for the privatisation of water supply in the Irish state, similar restrictions were imposed on protesters. Two however refused to accept the conditions and were jailed.

Protests outside Mountjoy Jail followed and, under the threat of hunger strike by the detained, they were released and the restrictions removed. It may be that this option will need to be explored by Palestine supporters if charged in Ireland in the future.

end.

“SOLIDARITY WITH THE RESISTANCE” AND “DOWN WITH COLLABORATION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY!”

On January 29, 2025January 30, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

A large Palestine solidarity march once again in Dublin included a Resistance Bloc, part of which also broke away to picket the Palestinian Authority’s Embassy, where collaboration and collusion were denounced in three languages.¹

*A section of the march has arrived in Molesworth Street in view of Leinster House but others are still arriving.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

As Israel freed 200 of their Palestinian prisoners Saturday in exchange for four female Israeli Occupation Army soldiers, Dublin City Centre rang again to shouts of Palestinian solidarity and some banners of the Resistance Bloc saluted the Resistance and denounced the Palestine Authority.

The Resistance Bloc was organised by a broad front of organisations: Action on Palestine, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Queer Intifada and was also supported by independent activists.

There had not been a major Palestine solidarity march in Dublin since 7th December, though they had been held pretty regularly every two or three weeks throughout the previous year. On Saturday, as Netanyahu stopped blocking it, the ceasefire and prisoners transfer agreement finally went ahead.

The Agreement is in three phases, each including prisoners of each side to be exchanged but also the removal of the IOF from Gaza in matched stages and the return of Gaza residents to the South also including the delivery of food, fuel and medicine. But they return to a rubble wasteland.

THE PA AND OSLO

The PA is a product of what was called the Palestinian Peace (more correctly called Pacification) Process and since it failed spectacularly to pacify the Palestinian people is more usually now called the Oslo Accords, from which the PA was established in 1994.

*Reading a statement in Arabic outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The Oslo Accords is one of a wave of imperialist pacification processes or agreements of the last decade of the 20^th Century and in particular one of interrelated processes in three distinct regions: in chronological order South Africa, Palestine and Ireland.

The ANC² of South Africa recommended it to the Fatah³ of the Palestinians; then Fatah and the ANC recommended to the Provisionals⁴ in Ireland. In no case was what they had fought for achieved, with the exception of universal suffrage in South Africa.⁵

*Banner Dublin Footballers for Gaza on the main march to Leinster House* (Photo: *R.Breeze*) (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

*On the main march to Leinster House* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Later, the ANC and Sinn Féin would also recommend it to the liberation movements of the Basque Country, Colombia and the Kurds of Turkey, always with disastrous results for the movements in fragmentation, confusion, collusion with imperialism and disarming in the face of repression.

The Palestinian Embassies represent in fact the PA and this is the case in Ireland too. Despite th. PA’s long history of treachery to the Palestinian people and their struggle, including repression of the Resistance, it is being officially “recognised” as the representation of the Palestine people.

Not only the traditional State Government parties of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil uphold the PA but so also does the major oppositional party, the former Republican party of Sinn Féin. This is also the case with the major political parties in the EU, UK and US.

These also support the ‘two-state solution’ (sic) which would see the indigenous Palestinian people get less than 20% of their country, with the least water resources under the eyes and guns of the Israeli State. In any case it is considered unworkable by most experts and serious commentators.

*“Smash the chains of Zionism”* *banner* *on the main march to Leinster House* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

*Howth Stands With Palestine banner* *on the main march to Leinster House* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

In a recent statement on the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterrez, also promoted the ‘solution’ of splitting Palestine into two states as a way towards peace. The PA too upholds that same plan.

Major Palestine solidarity organisations like the IPSC in Ireland have no formal position on the PA or the Two-State plan. Standing on the base of Palestine solidarity, ‘neutrality’ on the question is not excusable, even on a kind of basis of ‘it’s up to the Palestinians and not for us to intervene’.

The PA is an imperialist creation against the Palestine struggle; for years it has been periodically attacking the Resistance and has now stepped up that aspect in its 6-week siege of Jenin in the West Bank and even military assaults on the Resistance groups in collusion with the IOF.

True solidarity with the struggle of a people also entails solidarity with their resistance, whether in non-violent or violent form and it also entails opposition to individuals and organisations that are colluding with the enemy; the PA should be publicly denounced by the solidarity movement.

THE MARCH IN DUBLIN

In Dublin on Saturday any fears that much support would have dropped away⁶ disappeared as large numbers marched through the city centre, some having come from Kerry or Limerick. Not far from the front marched the Resistance Bloc which had assembled earlier outside the Rotunda.

Flying the national flag of Palestine, the Starry Plough and flags of Palestinian Resistance factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad, along with the national flag of Syria, the bloc marched behind banners upholding the Resistance and denouncing the PA.

*Placard and flags outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

*Banners, flags and statement reading outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The usual chants of Palestine solidarity marches could be heard from the Bloc in call-and-answer but also included From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Saoirse don – Phalaistín! Resistance is an obligation – In the face of occupation!

Soon after the main march reached its destination, much of the Resistance Bloc marched away to Leeson Street Lower and soon after crossing the bridge over the Grand Canal into Leeson Street Upper, crossed the road to assemble in front of the “Palestine Embassy”.

*One of the placards outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

*Reading translation of the statement in English outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The breakaway march was closely followed by a number of Irish police patrol cars and a Public Order Unit Van which remained at the PA Embassy until the event concluded.

One of the organisers then presented a man to read a statement in Arabic, the translation of which she followed to read in English, which pointed to happiness at the freeing of Palestinian prisoners in the exchange with the Resistance – but sadness at the collusion of the PA with the Occupier.

*A protester holds a placard denouncing the PA outside their Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

*Section of the crowd outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The speech declared that Palestinians have been striving for over a century to achieve their independence and freedom in their struggle against Israeli occupation. This has cost hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives and displaced nearly nine million Palestinians around the world.

Later: Given the current circumstances, Palestinians must resist the Israeli occupation and simultaneously confront the Palestinian Authority, which acts as an agent in killing and besieging Palestinians to defend Israel. The speech concluded in thanking the Irish people for their solidarity.

*One of the banners outside the PA Embassy* *bears a slogan but also the name of one of the organising groups* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

*Another view of the crowd outside the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Another man spoke in part-Irish and part-English, congratulating people on having publicly confronted the PA with its collusion. This had only been done twice before in Ireland, once in Belfast when the “Palestinian Ambassador” had been addressing a Sinn Féin meeting.

There had been another outside the “Embassy” in Dublin some months earlier by a small gathering supporting a picket called by the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign. He drew parallels between the PA and the treason to the Irish resistance that had led to Partition and a subservient state.

*Next to the PA Embassy* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Underlining the parallel in song, he sang verses of the Take It⁷ Down From the Mast ballad (against the Irish State during the Civil War 1922-1923), adapting a verse to call on the PA to Take it down from the mast Palestinian traitors ….. for you’ve (they’ve) brought on it nothing but shame.”

The picket concluded with thanks to the attendance and after a period of shouting slogans including There is only one solution – Intifada Revolution! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! Shame on you PA – Shame, shame, shame!

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Arabic, English and Irish.

2African National Congress

3The major secular Palestinian national liberation organisation at the time.

4Provisional IRA with its corresponding party, Sinn Féin, the major Irish national liberation organisation at the time.

5But no other social or economic progress; in addition, fragmentation of the movement and enlisting of the former liberation fighters as ‘enforcers’ of the imperialist agreement.

6Due to a possible but mistaken attitude of “the war’s over”.

7A reference to the Irish Tricolour: Take it down from the mast Irish traitors/ It’s the flag we Republicans claim/ It can never belong to Free Staters/ For you’ve brought on it nothing but shame. “The Free State” was the name adopted by those who agreed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, including Partition.

USEFUL LINKS

@actionforpalireland

@saoirsephalastin

@queerintifada.ireland