Tag: Anti-imperialism

ZIONIST DUBLIN EMBASSY CLOSES TO REGRETS AND CELEBRATIONS

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Prisoners, US Imperialism, Zionism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The Zionist state announced the closure of its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish Government of being anti-Israel.1 The broad Palestine solidarity movement celebrated the announcement while Harris for the Irish Government expressed regret.

The Zionist Embassy at 28 Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin has been without an Ambassador since she left Ireland last May in protest after the Irish Government, along with the Spanish and Norwegian governments, officially recognised the state of Palestine.2

D.B cartoon drawing of celebrations outside the block in which the Zionist Embassy was located (and under 24-hour Garda protection). Many of the other users of the building will be relieved at the departure also.

However the Irish State’s recent decision to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice3 seems to have prompted the closure of the Embassy and led once again to allegations of “anti-semitism” in Ireland which the President called a “gross slander”.4

Simon Harris, Taoiseach (prime minister equivalent) of the outgoing Irish Government5 expressed his regret at the ‘Israeli’ decision while at the same time rejecting vigorously the allegation that the Government is anti-Israel. He is absolutely correct in doing so.

Irish Governments have consistently been pro-Israel and colluding with Zionism, in contradiction to Irish popular opinion. The outgoing government6 has allowed military supplies for ‘Israel’ to fly through Irish airspace and the US military to land and depart from Shannon Airport.

One of the participants outside the Israeli Embassy yesterday celebrating its imminent departure. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Irish Government has also held up for years the relatively mild UN-compliant Occupied Territories Bill. These points were well made in an Al Jazeera Inside Story7 program by Mícheál Mac Donncha, Sinn Féin Dublin City Councillor and by Zoe Lawlor, IPSC8 Chairperson.

Both did well outlining the general attitude of the Irish people to which the government was – to an extent – responding and in refuting the slur of anti-semitism on the Irish people. Lawlor pointed to the Irish history of resistance as a motivator but appears unaware that we once supported Israel.

This is important (and I have written about it9) because it shows that we are capable of changing our position to a better one when presented with the evidence of the need to do so, which task the Zionist themselves carried out for us.

However both speakers failed to answer the interviewer’s question of why the Irish government did not go further.

This is an essential question for us and the answer makes sense of the current political landscape with crucial import beyond the issues of Palestine and Zionism. Mac Donncha seemed to avoid the question entirely and chose instead to talk about actions that the Government should take.

The interviewer however put it bluntly to Lawlor that the reason was a reluctance to offend the USA, though presenting it as a fear of putting off US corporations’ investments. Lawlor correctly replied that corporations make decisions based on profit but avoided giving the political answer.

The Irish ruling class is a neo-colonial one and responds to requirements of its masters. These have been firstly the UK, followed by the US and more recently the EU. All of these are imperialist states and bound up with the interests of the colonial fort in the Middle East which is the Zionist State.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

I am sure that Mac Donncha is aware of those facts and pretty sure that Lawlor is too but both declined to provide the explanation being asked for. One must suspect in Mac Donncha’s case the reason is that his party, Sinn Féin, is busily making itself acceptable to that very ruling class.

And Lawlor probably wants to keep the clean image for the ruling class which the IPSC leadership has been at pains to develop, particularly during this current genocidal offensive.

While the IPSC leadership has played an important role in mobilising national demonstrations much of the activism has been and continues to be by organisations on the ground. The Embassy itself was invaded some time back by such groups and has seen militant blockades.

Jimi Cullen yesterday performing his composition “We Are All Palestinians” during a modest celebration outside the Zionist Embassy. Cullen has been performing outside there for an hour every Wednesday afternoon for 41 weeks. (Photo D.Breatnach)

Axa Insurance has been picketed frequently and occupied at least once and the Foreign Affairs Department was splattered with red paint while the Department of Transport was occupied. The US Embassy was picketed for three days in a row by organisations from Galway without IPSC support.

Only one IPSC march since October last year had the US Embassy as destination and on that occasion the march was led up quiet suburban streets to the stage set up next to police barricades blocking access to the Embassy gates and the main road into Dublin.

Section of the crowd yesterday afternoon celebrating its imminent departure outside the Zionist Embassy. (Photo D.Breatnach)

The general Irish public and in particular of course the activists in solidarity with Palestine can justly celebrate the departure of the Zionist Embassy. It is their symbolic victory.

However, there is no doubt that the Irish ruling class needs to be put under much heavier pressure than has heretofore been the case, if we are to shut down the collusion of the Irish Gombeen state with the Zionist genocide of Palestinians.

Outside the Zionist Embassy yesterday, an Irish healthworker calls for more effective solidarity with the Palestinians, in particular with the healthworkers being targeted by the IOF in Gaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/15/israel-to-close-dublin-embassy-after-ireland-supports-icj-genocide-petition

2https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/71936-ireland-recognises-the-state-of-palestine. While the decision of those states has enraged the Zionist state, it is not as progressive as may seem at first glance. The ‘state’ that is being recognised is a) in addition to the state of Israel, i.e “the two-state solution” (sic); b) grants the Palestinians around 20% of Palestine which would be under the constant eyes and guns of the Zionists and c) is widely considered not realisable due to the proliferation of Zionist settlements and their special roads connecting them. Currently the only ‘government’ of such a state is the undemocratic, repressive and corrupt Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.

3Again this decision too has its deeply negative side since the Attorney General of the Irish State in his submission to the Preliminary Hearings on Genocide at the ICJ repeated the many times debunked Zionist propaganda of “mass rape by Hamas” during its breakout attack on October 7th.

4See Sources for link to the report,

5The elections of 29 November did not return any party with an absolute majority and discussions on forming a coalition government have been ongoing since the election results were confirmed.

6And many previous Irish governments too.

7See Sources for link to the program.

8Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

9https://villagemagazine.ie/opinion-ireland-and-palestine-a-late-love-affair/

SOURCES

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/15/israel-to-close-dublin-embassy-after-ireland-supports-icj-genocide-petition

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/12/16/why-is-israel-shutting-its-embassy-in-ireland

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41538359.html

AWARD-WINNING DOCU-DRAMA LIFTS THE LID ON IRISH STATE CENSORSHIP

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media CriticismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

FEW CAN SEE – Censoring the Conflict was screened last week (Wednesday 4th night) in the Irish Film Institute to a moderately-sized audience, followed by questions of film-maker Frank Sweeney and Betty Purcell by​​​​​​ Ruairí McCann from Belfast.

Sweeney took a look at state censorship during the three decades’ war in Ireland which was effected through the introduction of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, the sacking of the entire RTÉ Board of Directors and the jailing of a journalist.

Henceforth, self-censorship was the rule.

Specifically, the State ban applied during this period in refusals to interview any member of the IRA (Provisional or Official) and was later extended to Provisional Sinn Féin. It was enforced within RTÉ by management including members of the Workers’ Party1 who also led one of the unions.

Docudrama Few Can See focused on the application of the ban to spokespersons of people in the occupied Six Counties and of a number of campaigning groups: Gays Against the H-Blocks; Concerned Parents Against Drugs; the Gateaux bakery strike in Finglas (factory closed 1990).

Gay rights activists in Cork also campaigned against the H-Blocs and were subjected to censorship under Section 31. (Photo sourced: ICCL website)

Frank Sweeney said he had been intrigued by Betty Purcell’s memoir of her time producing programs for RTÉ and her battles with censorship there2. Conducting interviews with people about their experiences of being censored, he then worked the material into a script.

The format was of a 1980s studio with a program presenter in the style of the times and smoking, intercut with grunge-style footage, electronic interference noise and visuals, then narrowing to interviews with actors playing the parts of victims of the ban at the time.

If the intention was to show how ridiculous it could be to apply a political ban aimed at alleged terrorists instead to community struggles against oppression and the heroin epidemic, the struggle of gays around legality and health and a bakery strike, it succeeded.

The ‘RTE presenter’ in the docudrama screening (Photo: R.Breeze)

However, the issues of whose interests the State was representing in that period of heavy censorship and why it felt threatened were not teased out. Nor why it was able do what it did.

Had those issues been addressed we might have observed a vulnerable neo-colonial ruling class during a high point of struggle against the very colonial and neo-colonial nature of the state and the colony of its imperial neighbour, which also imposed censorship on broadcasting at home.

An aspect of such censorship which might not occur to one but which was discussed in the documentary is the effect of censorship not only on struggles of the time but also on the lack of available footage for archives in the future, leaving history the poorer in material.

Few Can See film has been screening around the world this year and has won some awards including the  Tiger Short Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam and is due in Barcelona next year, hopefully to be screened in Ireland again, followed by a fuller discussion.

Film maker Frank Sweeney (centre) speaking during post-screening discussion at the IFI with Ruairí McCann (left) and Purcell (almost out of shot, right). (Photo: R.Breeze)

In addition to exposing the State-led censorship of the past, Sinn Féin might benefit from the film as those who were being gagged were either members or were thought to be supporters of the party. However, SF has its own history of censoring critics both within the party and outside.

And as one member of the audience was heard to remark: “It’ll be the dissidents, not SF that will be getting censored now.” True, though no longer enforced by the State, rather voluntarily by program makers, editors and by the reporters themselves, as with the genocide in Palestine.

Indeed both Sweeney, Purcell and a member of the audience alluded to ongoing censorship around that subject. But it is not only suppression of the truth which is the problem but also the obligatory insertion of the false narrative that everything began on 7th October with the Palestinian raid.

BACKGROUND: THE BROADCASTING BAN MECHANISM

Section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act 1960 empowered the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to issue a ministerial order to the government-appointed RTÉ Authority not to broadcast any material specified in the written order.

The first order under the section was issued in 1971 by Fianna Fáil Minister for posts and Telegraphs Gerry Collins. It instructed RTÉ not to broadcast

any matter that could be calculated to promote the aims or activities of any organisation which engages in, promotes, encourages or advocates the attaining of any particular objectives by violent means.

Collins refused clarification when RTÉ asked for advice on what this legal instruction meant in practice and RTÉ interpreted the Order politically to mean that spokespersons for the Provisional and Official IRA could no longer appear on air.

The following year, the government sacked the RTÉ Authority for not sufficiently disciplining broadcasters the government accused of breaching the Order.

RTÉ’s reporter Kevin O’Kelly had referred to an interview that he conducted with the then Provisional IRA Chief of Staff, Seán Mac Stíofáin, on the Radio Éireann This Week programme. The recorded interview was not itself broadcast, nor was Mac Stiofáin’s voice heard.

Premiere balladeer Christy Moore (right) marching with Provisional Sinn Féins Joe Cahill (Photo sourced: Internet)

Mac Stiofáin was arrested after the O’Kelly interview and charged with membership of the IRA, an organisation listed as illegal by the State.

Soon afterwards O’Kelly was jailed for ‘contempt’ at the non-jury Special Criminal Court because he refused to identify a voice on a tape seized by the Gardaí as that of Mac Stiofáin. However Mac Stiofáin was convicted anyway in the “sentencing tribunal” of the SCC.

O’Kelly appealed to the Supreme Court and a fine was substituted as a means of purging O’Kelly’s alleged contempt. O’Kelly declined to pay the fine but it was said to have been paid anonymously and O’Kelly was released.

In 1976, when Conor Cruise O’Brien  (Labour) Minister for Posts and Telegraphs amended Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, he also issued a new Section 31 Order. This censored spokespersons for specific organisations, including the legal Sinn Féin political party, rather than specified content.

That prevented RTÉ from interviewing Sinn Féin spokespersons under any circumstances, even if the subject was unrelated to the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland conflict.

Visually impacting and clever punning in placard parade protest against Section 31. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Bizarrely even a call-in show on radio about gardening was interrupted once because a caller was a member of Sinn Féin. 

The changes undermined the relatively liberal interpretations by RTÉ of its censorship responsibilities under the original 1971 Order and encouraged a process of self-censorship and illiberal interpretation.

However in 1976 O’Brien attempted to extend the censorship to newspaper coverage of the conflict, targeting in particular The Irish Press, revealing his thinking in an interview with Washington Post reporter Bernard Nossiter, naming as a possible target Press Editor, Tim Pat Coogan.

Nossiter immediately alerted Coogan, who then published the Nossiter-O’Brien interview in the Irish Press (as did The Irish Times).

Due to public opposition the proposed provisions were amended to remove the perceived threat to newspapers.

But Fine Gael and Labour were not to be left out as the 1973-77 Fine Gael/ Labour Coalition Government also tried to prosecute the Irish Press for its coverage of the maltreatment (not to say torture) of republican prisoners by the Garda ‘Heavy Gang’, with the paper winning the case.

SOURCES

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

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34242057/

1The Workers’ Party grew out of Official Sinn Féin which was declining after the split which led to the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin in 1970 and later another split, resulting in the 1974 creation of the Irish Republican Socialist Party. The WP was extremely hostile to the IRSP and PSF, in particular the latter.

2Inside RTÉ – a memoir, Betty Purcell, New Island Books (2014).

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: COLLUSION, CORRUPTION, REPRESSION, MURDER

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Palestinian Authority repressive forces has just murdered its 11th Palestinian since the Al Aqsa Flood operation.

An occupation force cannot control the people by its own brutal force alone – it needs partners in collusion, to spy, to give an appearance of representation, of due process but ultimately it needs that partner to exercise brutal force on its behalf.

On Monday (9th) the PA forces in Jenin (West Bank) murdered Rahbi Shalabi, 19, also seriously injuring his cousin, leading to protests, Resistance gunfire and explosions as a result. Shalabi was the 11th fatal victim of the PA, though many other Palestinians have been injured and jailed.1

Section of protest in West Bank Palestine against the PA’s murder of Rahbi Shalabi (Photo sourced: The Cradle)

A statement by the PA’s police, General Anwar Rajab, appears to attribute Shalabi’s death to firing by the Resistance or even a crossfire.2 Last Thursday Resistance fighters in Jenin confiscated two vehicles of the PA police in protest at the latter’s injuring and arrest of one of their members.

The PA has been repressing resistance in the areas it controls since its inception but repression has stepped up during the current accelerated genocide campaign of the IOF. A month after the latter commenced, the PA shot dead 12-year-old Razan Nazrallah during solidarity with Gaza protests.3

Razan Nassrallah, shot dead by the Palestinian Authority during solidarity with Gaza protest in the West Bank October 2023 (Photo sourced: Mahran Nassrallah)

During this whole period the PA has pursued Resistance fighters on behalf of the ‘Israeli’ Occupation, even entering hospitals in force in attempts to detain injured fighters.4 On at least two occasions popular mobilisations have prevented the PA forces achieving their aim.

The PA has killed known Resistance fighters5 and also removed defensive obstruction and exploded bombs planted in defence against IOF invasions.

A HISTORY OF CORRUPTION, COLLUSION AND REPRESSION

The Palestinian Authority was created in May 1994 as a 5-year interim body as part of the ‘Palestinian peace process’ (sic) through the Oslo Accords (1993-’95), signed up for the Palestine Liberation Organisation by the Al Fatah party,which won the 1996 Palestinian elections.

The Oslo Accords were rejected in the popular uprising of the Second Intifada (2000-2005). So corrupt, repressive and collusive had the PA and Fatah become that Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

However it was only in Gaza that they forced the corrupt Fatah officials out when the latter refused to relinquish their posts in line with the elections.6 As a result, the PA central offices remained in the West Bank under Abbas, a Fatah nominee, continuing to receive EU and USA funding.

The PA under Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah control have continued in power (and funding) long past their allocated elected period and decline to hold new elections, for fear that Hamas would win once again.

President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank, October 24, 2023. (Photo cred: Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS)

The PA does not deploy its militarised police force of 80,000 complete with armoured cars against the ‘Israeli’ Occupation, needless to say perhaps but nor does it send them to defend Palestinian farmers and villages being attacked by Zionist settlers.

The PA feeds intelligence on the Palestinians to the Zionist Occupation authorities and arrests people sought by the latter or on the PA’s own account, for speaking or writing criticisms of the PA or for mobilising in support of the Resistance.

People jailed by the PA are, after release, often re-arrested by the IOF and vice versa. The PA is, as admitted by most western and pro-Israeli media, widely detested by Palestinians who consider it a proxy agency for the ‘Israeli’ occupation.

COLLUSIVE REGIMES IN EUROPE

The Nazi occupation of Western Europe established collusive client regimes to administer civilian affairs and the civilian population in every state it occupied. In the first place these regimes acted as buffers between the Occupation and the Occupied but also collected intelligence.

Many became active in repression, hunting down Jews and Resistance operatives. After the liberation of Europe, many of those collaborators were jailed and some were executed by the Allies or by the authorities of the liberated states.

In Ireland the Free State carried out repression against the Resistance forces which had forced the British occupation to withdraw their armed forces from 26 of the Irish counties. Armed, transported and even clothed by the British, the Free State Army fought a vicious Civil War against the IRA.

SUPPORTING THE PA, COLLUDING WITH ZIONISM

The PA is officially recognised by many governments including that of the Irish state, where it has an Embassy. “Recognition of the State of Palestine” in most cases entails accepting the unrepresentative and detested PA as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Such official recognition usually also entails acceptance of “the Two-State solution” (sic), agreeing to a fragmented Palestinian ‘state’ on less than 40% of Palestinian land, with the least fresh water, under the constant surveillance and guns of the Zionist Occupation.7

This is also what is entailed in ‘recognition of the Palestinian State’ by political parties and organisations who claim that they are doing so in solidarity with the Palestinian people or at least for the sake of ‘a just peace’.

It is absolutely necessary, both for their own integrity and out of solidarity with the Palestinian people, not only for revolutionary forces but also for all anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and basic democratic organisations to denounce the PA and its repression.

Those who feel they cannot support revolution should at least refrain from Zionist collusion. Remaining silent on the role and activities of the PA or, even worse, promoting the PA and its Embassies, is to become part of the repression and a tool of ‘Israeli’ Zionism.

End.

West Bank mass protest at death of activist Nizar Banat in PA custody Ramallah 24 June 2021 (Photo cred: Flash90)

FOOTNOTES

1https://uk.news.yahoo.com/one-dead-palestinian-security-militants-192248060.html

2Ibid. People familiar with other conflict spots, for example the occupied Six Counties of Ireland, will be familiar with this ploy by the authorities.

3And seriously injured a male youth https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/palestinian-authority-cracks-down-on-protests-over-israel-gaza-attacks

4https://www.newarab.com/news/palestinian-fighters-threaten-pa-forces-after-hospital-incident

5https://www.newarab.com/news/palestinian-fighters-security-forces-clash-west-bank

6Hence the frequent references in western mass media to when “Hamas seized power in Gaza”!

7Despite the continued support of the western imperialist states, every realistic assessment has judged the Two-State option to be no longer possible (if it ever was) due to the extent of Zionist settlements and private settler roads. The alternative then must be what many democratic anti-colonial people have been advocating for decades: one democratic secular state with equal rights and opportunities for people of all ethnic backgrounds.

SOURCES

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/one-dead-palestinian-security-militants-192248060.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority%E2%80%93West_Bank_militias_conflict

Murder by Fatah/PA of activist and critic Nizar Banat: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/nizar-banats-death-highlights-brutality-of-palestinian-authority

LEBANON CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS – BY WHOM? News & Views No. 14

On By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

“HEZBOLLAH FIRES AT ISRAEL IN FIRST STRIKE SINCE THE CEASEFIRE” reads the headline so it tells us all we need to know.

Of course those horrible Islamic terrorists are violating the ceasefire with those poor Israelis, which the good old democratic USA and France worked so hard to broker.

Ach ní mar a shíltear a bhítear, or at least not as the media headline would have us believing.

Further down, in the text, it actually gives a much fairer and accurate report and it turns out that this was the first

warning shot by Hezbollah after over 50 violations by the ‘Israeli’ Occupation Forces, which neither the ceasefire arrangers nor UNIFIL have done anything to stop.

But if you’ve only read the headline, as many do, it’s the message that remains in your head.

Even though the main text is fairly accurate, an important additional piece of information is missing. A Zionist source admitted that they are not acting in accordance with the actual text but rather in accordance with a “side document” of an agreement they have with the USA.

They still claim that they’re not violating the negotiated ceasefire agreement, however, even though the document upon which they’re relying was not part of the official ceasefire agreement, was not agreed with the Lebanese side or even disclosed to them at the time of signing!

You’d have to wonder whether Baron Munchausen, Charles Ponzi and Richard Nixon would be relied upon so uncritically by the western mass media today as are the ‘Israeli’ Zionist spokespersons who have been exposed time and time again in lying accusations and denials.

I suppose the answer is that a) it would depend on whether the lies in question suited their purposes or b) how long they thought they could get away with it.

After the some might say overdue missile response by Hezbollah, an official ‘Israeli’ source was quoted as saying that their artillery firing at Lebanon had come to an end. Well – for how long? And the airstrikes, drone flying, destruction of buildings and facilities?

By the way, this admission of “the side document” by ‘Israeli’ sources is not the first known reference to its existence; it was reported referred to in ‘Israeli’ media as soon as the ceasefire agreement was signed.

Over 54 IOF violations of the ceasefire agreement at time of writing, including:

○ Airstrikes on 11 different locations

○ Artillery shelling of four different locations

○ Raids from drones on five different locations.

Since the ceasefire agreement the IOF have injured and killed a number of civilians in shelling etc and drone-murdered a state employee on a motorbike, wrecked dwellings and a mosque, also a football pitch … and also advanced to occupy locations they were never able to during the war itself.

The agreement should have stipulated total Israeli withdrawal within a week – three months was unreasonable and asking for trouble.

End.

SOURCES:

The headline: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/hezbollah-fires-at-israeli-held-border-zone-in-first-strike-since-ceasefire-1703150.html

The ‘side document’admission: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel–operating-in-accordance-with–side-document–not-un

NEITHER ELECTING ONE DALY NOR FIFTY

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Environmental, Housing, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Zionism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Clare Daly stood for election in the 2024 elections of the Irish State, in the Dublin Central parliamentary constituency, one with a tradition of independent representation going back to Maureen O’Sullivan and Tony Gregory before her.

Daly was standing as one of the loose Left coalition of Independents for Change in a heavy competition for the four-seat constituency.

Clare Daly has a track record as elected public representative and socialist political activist, also as a prominent Socialist Party activist, with which organisation she partedcompany in August 2012.

She was elected MEP for the Dublin constituency from July 2019 to July 2024, TD1 for Fingal from Feb. 2016-July 1999 and TD Dublin North Feb. 2011-2019; in recent years Daly has been better known outside Ireland due to her public interventions in the European Parliament.

Daly and her partner Wallace were both vilified by pro-imperialist liberals and ‘Left’ for publicly opposing US/NATO/ EU imperialist campaigns against Islamic regimes and the Russian Federation, being subjected to a host of unfounded allegations contrary to their actual record.

Tik Tok clips of Daly’s biting attacks on the EU’s complicity in the US-backed ‘Israeli’ genocide provided relief for many around the world from the Zionist sycophancy and insincere and ineffective concern for the victims of that daily genocide prevalent in the EU Parliament.

And who can forget Daly’s calling German politician and EU Commission President Ursula Van Der Leyen out as ‘Frau Genocide’ in the European Parliament in December last year!2

While an MEP, Daly also intervened in the discussion around the Irish Gombeen3 class’ attempt to push us towards NATO, further undermining a quite tattered Irish neutrality. And while a TD, she and her partner Mick Wallace TD were arrested protesting the foreign militarisation of Shannon.

To their credit both risked jail by refusing to pay the fines imposed but the Gombeen ruling class decided to restrict the damage of its exposure of collusion with US imperialism by also reducing the punishment of both to a few hours in captivity.

Daly has been one of the few TDs prepared to speak in public against the repression of Irish Republicans and to visit some of the consequent victims in jail.

In the EU Parliament, Daly also denounced the Spanish State’s police invasion of Barcelona and violence against voters there on 1st October 2017 during the referendum on Catalunya’s independence.

2024 Dublin Central election poster for Clare Daly.

In Ireland today

In her election flyer here Daly highlighted representation independent of political party for her electoral area, housing, health service, cost of living, Palestine, the endangered climate and Irish neutrality without any indication of how these issues might be effectively addressed.

Daly’s election flyer did not mention capitalism or imperialism, nor did she campaign on a platform of overthrowing the current neo-colonial and neo-liberal capitalist system in force, instead indicating her wish to “hold to account the people who’ve got us into this mess.”

“Holding to account” is something to which Daly is accustomed doing and does it well, eloquently, with passion and fluently, scarcely having to refer to her notes while doing so. But like ‘speaking truth to power’, it has little effect on those who are in control of the political-social system.

It can indeed have an effect on the victims of the system but we are left with the question of what to do about the situation. Refreshing as it may be to hear her again in Leinster House, neither voting Daly in — nor fifty Dalys — is going to change any of the conditions under which we suffer.

BY THE WAY,

in case anyone’s interested, I gave my first preference vote to Daly and hope she does get elected.

End.

1Teachta Dála, the title of a public representative elected to the parliament of the Irish State.

2Imperialist politician and proven plagiarist in her doctoral thesis.

3Vernacular term in Ireland for huckster, carpet-bagger-type capitalists, derived from the Irish language gaimbíneachas, profiteering, nowadays used to describe the neo-colonial Irish capitalist class.

TO VOTE FOR WHOM OR NOT – AND DOES IT MATTER?

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Ireland, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

The elections for a government in the 26-County state are only days away now and, while many are advocating a vote for this or that party or candidate, some are opposed to voting at all.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST VOTING

An amusing take on abstention advises: Don’t vote – it only encourages them! Anarchists have long been opposed to voting in national elections and I recall a poster in Britain exhorting people to Vote for Guy Fawkes – the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions. 1

Revolutionary marxists have also often called for a boycott of elections.

The position that they hold in common is that changing this or that party in government does not change the system and that it is that which is in need of change; as Connolly2 famously declared capitalist governments to be “committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.”

However, it is possible to hold that opinion but yet to vote – and even to advocate voting – in some circumstances. However among some Irish Republican circles there has been a trend maintaining that voting in these elections is a recognition or acceptance of their alleged legitimacy.

A massive spoiling of ballot papers is often advocated by those who wish to ensure that the boycott may not be interpreted as apathy among the electorate. The number of spoiled ballot papers is supposed to be recorded and the papers available for inspection.

ARGUMENTS FOR

Those arguing in favour of voting in elections come at the question from a variety of points, including that voting is a democratic right for which our ancestors fought; that if we fail to vote we have no right to complain about government actions (or inaction).

They may maintain that not voting for some parties is equivalent to voting in favour of their opponents; or that voting a particular party into power can be used to overturn undesired legislation or conversely to promote desired legislation or to put them in power so that they may be exposed.3

The reformists and social democrats (often presenting themselves as revolutionaries) advocate for reforming or at least controlling capitalism under a Left Government. Despite the impracticability of the latter in many historical experiments, the hopeful and deluded keep advocating it.

Then of course, there is the ‘Lesser Evil’ argument, which is probably the most seductive; we witnessed that during the Harris-Trump USA Presidency competition. The Greens in Europe even appealed to Stein of the USA Greens, running against Harris on an anti-Genocide ticket, to desist.4

The claim that we might as well use our votes to elect a ‘lesser evil’ government is seductive precisely when we feel that no other option is available, combined with fear of worse economic and social conditions to be imposed upon us by the ‘worse evil’ party or candidate.

To follow the ‘lesser evil’ road is not only to perpetuate the system in one form or another but also fail to recognise our potential strength as the producers of all wealth; to fail to strengthen our energies to break firstly the mental chains, then the physical ones; to make fundamental choices.

THE TACTICAL VARIANT

Some argue that although in general national elections don’t change the system, they can be used at times to effect a tactical change: show rejection of a specific government position or individual.

They sometimes argue in favour of voting to put a specific individual or group of individuals into parliament for tactical reasons.

Can it be of use to have a few individuals in the Irish parliament who will attack the government and ruling class in speeches? Or to put specific issues forward on which to expose the ruling elite? Or to ask questions to gather government information? I am sure that it can and has been at times.

Can it be useful to have a handful of individuals elected to the Irish parliament who are prepared to seek entry to prisons to talk to political prisoners? Or who will head an investigation into some kinds of abuses and publish the results? Such can be and has been of use at times.

The important thing is to ensure that the message we give is that useful though such people and positions may be at times, they are not the solution, which can only be the overthrow of the system and the establishment of a socialist system with power in the hands of the working people.

ELECTIONS IN A CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY

What are known as ‘democracies’ are states concentrated across ‘Western’ regions, i.e western Europe and its former colonies of the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with varying degrees of effect upon states on the African and Asian continents, along with ‘Latin America’.5

These are without exception, regardless of variety, systems of governing their working people without having to resort to wide-scale constant repression and suppression. For that project, the illusion of choice is essential, hence the regular elections and different political parties.

But the illusion of any fundamental choice is failing. Increasingly, governments in many European ‘democracies’ are becoming coalitions between a number of political parties and in Ireland, the main Government-Opposition parties for decades have exposed the reality by governing together.6

The effect of such exposure of the lack of real choice is impacting upon the consciousness of the populations concerned so that progressively less of them are willing to participate in the charade. In Ireland now more than one-third of the population do not vote.

This situation is of great concern to the ruling classes and to their intellectuals who are busy trying to devise schemes to offset the drift such as advocating voting from home, spectacles such as televised confrontations between competitors and ‘Citizenship’ programs in schools.

Clearly revolutionaries should not assist in any attempt to justify the system or to perpetuate the illusion of elections in capitalist ‘democracy’ being anything else than a periodic choice for slaves between the overseers employed by their masters.

DOES IT MATTER ANYWAY?

The nub of the question as to whether to vote boils down to what we hope to achieve and its prospects. If there were a massive abstention from the polls then of course that would be seen as a huge vote of no confidence in the parties standing and perhaps in the system itself – but from what perspective?

From the Right? From the Left? From apathy? In any case at the moment that looks like a moot question since there’s a likelihood of a turnout of around 60% of the registered voters.7

Will abstention make people more politically aware or conversely will participation in the elections turn people away from the possibilities of organising on the ground and ultimately of revolution? Perhaps for some – but overall, I think not many in either case, not on a longer-term basis.

From a revolutionary point of view, does it matter whether people vote or not? Or even sometimes who they vote for? Surely what matters is organising and supporting the movement for fundamental progressive change? Can that be done by people who vote as well as by those who don’t?

I’d say that is at least as likely.

During capitalist state elections the best we can do, I think, is to point out the inadequacy of the choices presented to us and to advocate stronger and more militant organisation as an alternative to the calls to vote for one party or another.

Whatever party or individual gets elected to Leinster House, the principal struggles remain: for a free united independent Ireland, for a socialist system, against the imperialist world system, against environmental destruction. It is on that we need to concentrate.

The newly-elected management committee of the capitalist class should be savaged mercilessly for its inevitably broken promises and its continuing attacks upon the economic and social conditions of the working people, and on Irish national neutrality.

Most of all, we need to improve our organising, strengthen our ranks and find ways to strike blows against the system to win victories in our march towards the overthrow of the neo-liberal and neo-colonial Gombeen ruling class and its foreign masters.

End.

1While amusing as a caption, given that Guido Fawkes plotted to blow up the English Parliament on 5th November 1605, upholding Guido Fawkes as some kind of historical hero is problematic, as he was a militant Catholic and the date of capture, Guy Fawkes’ Day, was a regular occasion for the exhibition of anti-Catholic prejudice even into the 20th Century in Protestant Britain, which more often than not, manifested itself as anti-Irish racism.

2James Connolly (1868-1916), revolutionary socialist activist, theoretician, journalist, writer and trade unionist, leading participant in the 1916 Irish Rising for which he was sentenced to death and shot by British firing squad.

3Lenin famously advocated voting the British Labour Party into government for the first time to ensure their exposure, supporting them “as a rope supports a hanging man”, advice misused by social democrats and others on the electoral Left and about which revolutionaries have argued ever since.

4https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/european-greens-ask-jill-stein-to-stand-down-and-endorse-kamala-harris

5And of Eastern Europe.

6Throughout the existence of the Irish State, the Fianna Fáil party has been the longest in government, with Fine Gael second, both socially conservative parties with strong loyal electoral bases. However now they are governing in coalition, along with the Greens. It is worth noting that there has not been a government of absolute majority by any party in the Irish state since 1981, when Irish Republicans stood as H-Block (e.g. hunger strike) candidates and two were elected with another having a near miss.

7Despite a trend of dropping percentages of the potential voters actually participating, in 2020 the turnout was a little over 62%.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE RESISTANCE ON DUBLIN PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MARCH

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

While thousands marched once again in Palestine solidarity in Dublin, a section of the demonstration marched as a bloc in specific solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance with banners, flags and slogans declaring their position.

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign with a number of branches has been for many years the major organiser of Palestinian solidarity events and had once again called for a national march in Dublin, again to Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament.

Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday. In this photo may be seen the flags of three factions of the Palestinian Resistance and, left foreground, the flag of Irish revolutionary socialist Republicanism, the Starry Plough (Photo: R.Breeze)

This has become a pattern of the main IPSC street activity in Dublin, along with holding a rally on the central pedestrian reservation in Dublin’s O’Connell Street, with occasional marches to the Department of Foreign Affairs (though in the past it organised boycott pickets of ‘Israeli’ products).

The US Embassy seems to have become out of bounds for the IPSC. This is despite the clear responsibility of the USA for supplying most of the armament, political and financial backing for the genocide being carried out by the Zionist state against the Palestinians.

Some believe that the IPSC leadership is complying with the wishes of the Irish police, the Gardaí, not to have Palestine solidarity marches go to the US Embassy. The offices of the EU, Germany and the UK, major contributors to the genocide, have also been given in effect a waiver.

The national march called by the IPSC at its destination in Molesworth Street last Saturday. The photo is taken from the platform and PA lorry facing the crowd, with its back to Leinster House (of the Irish Parliament) which also has crowd barriers erected behind it. (Photo sourced: IPSC)

Neither the march last Saturday nor any organised before it by the IPSC was going to promote solidarity with the Resistance, despite their former chairperson having once said of them in public that they are ‘freedom fighters’. Of course, to the ‘Israelis’ and EU they are ‘terrorists’.

Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday (Photo: R.Breeze)

The IPSC has organised only one public meeting during this year’s genocide to highlight the terrible conditions of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in ‘Israeli’ jails and rarely mentions them, nor in solidarity with the Samidoun1 organisation being banned in USA and Canada.

In October last year, as this phase of the genocide began, the IPSC dithered over whether to call for the expulsion of the ‘Israeli’ Ambassador to Ireland, as did the Sinn Féin leadership until a near revolt of the party’s members forced them to return to their previous position. As did the IPSC.

Clearly the IPSC leadership is trying to keep itself somewhere around the ‘middle road’ in Palestinian solidarity, probably in order — as it sees it – to remain with influence among the ruling circles. However, the actual results among those circles do not bear testimony to their effectiveness.

NO CHANGE

The Irish state continues to permit US military planes and personnel to violate the State’s nominal independence through Shannon International Airport, to permit Zionist armament overflights of its air space (similarly with the RAF) and to permit British Navy docking in Irish ports.

The relatively mild Occupied Territories Bill, long approved through Leinster House, remains not brought into force, blocked by the Coalition Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. It could not be clearer that the ruling class in Ireland do not feel under enough pressure.

This is despite a clear popular feeling among the public in Ireland of solidarity with Palestine and revulsion at their genocidal attacks by the Zionist state.

There is a long-established train of thought that maintains that solidarity with the Palestinians is not just calling for the genocide to stop – that alone is charity and that actual solidarity means solidarity with the people’s resistance and the political prisoners.

If the IPSC were to adopt that position they might find it easier to support more radical action to pressure the Irish state to break with the western powers’ consensus of support for the ‘Israeli’ state and consequently for its genocide against the Palestinians.

Perhaps that is one of the very reasons that the IPSC leadership will not take that stand and that its stewards have at times even tried to convince people to remove their flags supporting various Resistance factions.

Section of the front of the Palestinian Resistance Solidarity Bloc in Dublin on Saturday (Photo: R.Breeze)

On Saturday independent activists joined those of Saoirse Don Phalaistín, Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Queers For Palestine in forming a sizeable bloc on the march with banners, flags and call-and-answer slogans advertising its solidarity with the Resistance.

This seems a welcome trend likely to grow.

End.

FOOTNOTE

1Palestinian political prisoner support and advocacy organisation.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED FROM SINWAR’S DEATH

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Popular Resistance, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian resistance organisation Hamas, was killed in action by an Israeli Occupation Force in what was for them a routine operation in Gaza on 16th October, his last moments captured on video and broadcast widely.

From that event alone there is much for us to learn about Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance in general as well as about Sinwar himself — but also about the IOF, the way it fights and the extent of its self-discipline.

For the bare details as publicly shared, Sinwar was in military outfit, in tac vest, armed with a pistol and automatic rifle and accompanied by two local Hamas commanders in the Tal as-Sultan, Rafah area of Gaza patrolled by the IOF, very close to the semi-permanent IOF front lines.1

One may assume Sinwar was on a reconnaissance operation.

Sinwar with Hamas comrades in 2021 (photo cred: John Michillo)

Something gave away their position to a passing patrol in an area where, as far as the IOF were concerned, nothing should be alive except themselves. Pursued, they split up, local commanders in one building and Sinwar into another so the patrol called a tank to fire into each.

The patrol attempted to enter the building into which the individual fighter had gone but two grenades beat them back, injuring one soldier,2 so they retreated and called for a tank to put another shell in the building.

Still wary in the aftermath, they sent a surveillance drone into the building and the image it captured was what was seen in the widely-circulated video: a Palestinian fighter, apparently unarmed, right hand mangled. As they watched, he threw a stick at the drone with his left hand but missed.

So the IOF patrol had another tank round fired into the building and they went on their way.3

The last image of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar alive. Right arm mangled he stares at the IOF drone videoing him in house ruined by IOF bombing in Tal Al-Sultan, Rafah, before throwing a stick at it. Moments later the IOF call a tank to put a shell in the building, collapsing it on top of him.

But unusually,4 they came back. Perhaps someone thought they recognised Sinwar in the camera video? It was then they discovered that one of the three fighters they had killed was Yaha Sinwar, confirmed by test results matching his DNA records they had from his years in captivity.

According to ‘Israeli’ postmortem, although he’d been hit by shrapnel and his right hand was mangled, what killed Sinwar was a bullet to the brain – which raises other questions.5

Whatever he was doing at that time, it was clear that he was there as a commander and Resistance fighter, armed and dressed for combat in a highly dangerous area, regularly patrolled by the IOF and only a short distance from their secured front lines.

That alone spoke of courage but also his and his comrades’ resistance in the face of superior numbers declared their courage and determination. But Sinwar’s continuing to resist while badly wounded and his comrades dead, spoke of heroism.

Although only weeks from his 62nd birthday and after 22 years in a Zionist jail, Sinwar seems to have been quite fit. However, according to the results of a postmortem examination carried out by the IOF, Yahya Sinwar had not eaten in 72 hours prior to his death – a period of three days.6

The event was revealing in outlining how the IOF infantry is accustomed to fighting. They are fine with killing civilians but when confronted with armed resistance fighters, they hold for a short while if at all before retreating and calling up artillery or air strikes.

Their dead and wounded are picked up by helicopter and rushed to undamaged ‘Israeli’ hospitals, well equipped and staffed less than an hour away, a journey that is never fired upon by the Palestinian Resistance.

The contrast could not be starker, as the IOF fire on Palestinian paramedics and their vehicles, blockade Palestinian hospitals from receiving fuel and other essential supplies, even bombing and occupying them, kidnapping and killing medical personnel.

What people saw in the video of Sinwar’s last moments exposed Israeli lying propaganda about Sinwar, accusing him of living safe and well inside the tunnels and never emerging or, if he does, going about in a burka, disguised as a woman, also of intending to flee to Egypt with ‘hostages’.7

Iconic photo of Yahya Sinwar in May 2021, sitting in an armchair outside his home in Gaza, ruined by IOF bombardment. He went there directly after concluding an interview with words to the effect that he did not fear assassination by the IOF, that they knew who he was and the route he would take and if they wanted to kill him “Be my guest … I won’t bat an eyelid.”

The quick circulation of the video by the IOF exposed also the renowned indiscipline of their military and their total lack of comprehension of the mental and emotional processes of the people they have been occupying and oppressing for seven decades.

Their indiscipline is attested to by the thousands of videos on social media posted by the IOF during their genocidal operations as, contrary to orders, they film themselves blowing up buildings including a university, humiliating and brutalising prisoners, even on occasion raping them.

The IOF are renowned too for leaving graffiti inside occupied houses and for prancing around houses they have destroyed, often wearing the intimate underclothing of Palestinian women, whom they have at least turned into refugees and may have killed.

In those circumstances their release of the video before discussing it with their intelligence and propaganda department is not surprising but doing so underlines their failure to understand their enemy. They thought that killing Sinwar would undermine Palestinian morale.

They, colonialists and other oppressors in general fail to take account of the human will to resist and the potency of the memory and example of martyrs. This is an aspect we understand well in Ireland.

The Zionist intelligence services would surely have preferred not to have Sinwar’s last moments shared publicly and possibly would have liked the opportunity to lie about them.

Yahya Sinwar gives the victory sign with both hands while speaking from a rally in Gaza.

Sinwar was clearly a remarkable individual, Palestinian Resistance fighter, thinker and leader but the IOF made him a martyr and in their arrogance showed his heroism not just to the Palestinians — nor to Arabs alone — but to the world.

End.

APPENDIX: HIGHLY ABBREVIATED BIOGRAPHY (Reading time: 2 mins.)

Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar (Arabic: يحيى إبراهيم حسن السنوار, romanized: Yaḥyá Ibrāhīm Ḥasan al-Sinwār; 29 October 1962 – 16 October 2024) was a Palestinian resistance fighter, former political prisoner and subsequently politician who was killed in action.

Sinwar served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from August 2024 and as the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from February 2017, until his death in October 2024, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh (assassinated by Israeli strike while on a fraternal visit to Iran) in both roles.

He was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Egypt-ruled Gaza in 1962 to a family who were refugees from Majdal (Hebrew: Ashkelon) during the 1948 Palestine War. He gained a bachelor’s degree in Arabic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza.8

Sinwar’s first arrest was in 1982 for ‘subversive activities’, serving several months in the Far’a prison where he met other Palestinian activists and dedicated himself to the Palestinian cause. Though arrested again in 1985, upon his release he continued his organising trajectory.

Israeli propaganda has claimed that during this period his work in internal security against Zionist agents and informers earned him the nickname “Butcher of Khan Younis” but no-one who knew him or seriously studied him even heard of that alleged nickname until after his death.9

Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas politburo, welcomes Sinwar with a kiss after the latter’s release from jail in the prisoner exchange of 21 October 2021 (Photo cred: Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash 90)

Sentenced to four life sentences in 1989, Sinwar spent 22 years in prison until his release among 1,026 others in a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. According to John Elmer10 Sinwar wanted others released before him but the prisoners insisted he be one of those leaving.

The prisoners had elected Sinwar as their leader in the prison11 and he was known for encouraging prisoners to use their time productively and to study – in particular to study the enemy. He certainly practised what he preached, becoming fluent in Hebrew and studying IOF tactics.

And also, incredibly, in writing a political novel, The Thorn and the Carnation.12

Sinwar (centre photo) photographed carrying the son of Mazen Faqha, a Hamas leader who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Gaza at martyrs’ memorial 27 March 2017. Another photo of Sinwar shows him carrying the child and an automatic rifle; yet another, carrying an automatic rifle and a child who might be a girl, perhaps the child of another martyred fighter. The child and the gun may be seen as symbolising the future through resistance.

On 21 November 2011, a month after his release, Sinwar married Samar Muhammad Abu Zamar and the couple had three children. Sinwar’s wife received a master’s degree in theology from the Islamic University of Gaza. His brother Mohamed remains active in the resistance and is being sought by the IOF.

Re-elected as Hamas leader in 2021, Sinwar survived an ‘Israeli’ assassination attempt that same year.

FOOTNOTES

1At their ‘Philadelphi Corridor’

2According to Jon Elmer, admittedly only days after the event, this is not mentioned in most reports or discussion on line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE

3All of this is according to the Israeli Occupation Force.

4 According to Jon Elmer, blogger and weekly podcast military analyst for the Electronic Intifada, also in discussion with Justin Podur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE (at 1.23.3), that was so unusual because the IOF don’t usually go back to carry out battle analyses for intelligence.

5https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-death-autopsy-report-idf-israel-13827027.html Not that carrying out field executions would be any stranger to the IOF

6https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-death-autopsy-report-idf-israel-13827027.html

7https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-aide-arrested-over-intel-leak-used-to-sabotage-gaza-ceasefire

8 Often attacked by the IOF and once by Fatah, its campus was bombed and its buildings destroyed on the night of 10 October 2023.

9This is admitted even in the hostile Wikipedia page about Sinwar.

10Discussion Justin Podur and Jon Elmer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj43mbQ3AiE

11This seems not unusual among political prisoners:Irish Republican prisoners also elected their OC in the British Occupation jails: Mairead Farrell had been O/C in Armagh Jail and, before he entered his fatal hunger strike, Bobby Sands had been O/Cof the H-Blocks.

12https://books.google.ie/books/about/The_Thorn_and_the_Carnation_Part_I.html

IRAN – WILL IT OR WON’T IT?­

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Opinions seem divided on whether ‘Israel’s’ recent attack on Iran did much damage and whether Iran will retaliate. On the first, the Zionist Government and its allies claim great success while Iran claimed most missiles shot down and minimal damage.

One takes it for granted that all sides in a war will have an eye to useful propaganda. During the attack, while Zionist and western mass media were claiming numerous ‘Israeli’ strikes on Iran, allegedly real time videos of a quiet Tehran were being posted on line.

It must be said that no satellite photos of any real damage to Iranian installations have been posted on the internet and one of a military facility seeming to show a huge crater appeared later intact on the Internet with a claim that the earlier photo had merely shown a shadow.1

The Iranian authorities did admit to the deaths of four soldiers and a little minor damage, the latter quickly repaired, according to their updates. They also claimed to have shot down all but a few of the incoming missiles.

It seems that none of the manned Zionist aircraft entered Iranian airspace but a few approached the border from Iraq in order to launch their missiles from there, which raises another issue regarding the violation of Iraqi sovereignty by the US military.

According to Alastair Crooke, commentator on Middle East affairs, former British diplomat (then probably MI6 asset) on Judge Napolitano’s Youtube site,2 the first of three planned ‘Israeli’ attack waves encountered something unexpected in the Iranian air defence and the rest of the attack was aborted.

Narratives from each side would be tailored to suit their own propaganda needs but even some of the ‘Israeli’ media and other commentators were critical of the effectiveness of the attack, some saying Iran was hardly damaged while others said economic targets should have been included.

It also does seem that the Zionist attack was unusually restrained in restricting its targeting to military installations.

The speculation has been that the reason for that restraint was the US being quite firm with Netanyahu that the oil etc. installations were not to be hit as Iran’s retaliation would have engulfed not only the Zionist colony but wider western interests in the region and the world economy.

Whichever side is correct in its damage estimation may be relevant or may not. Iran has reiterated its right to defend itself but seemed not to be saying that it would definitely retaliate.

But on Wednesday Admiral Ali Fadavi, Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran was quoted in some media stating that his country’s military will retaliate, stating that such “is inevitable”, today backed by the Director of the Supreme Leader’s Office.

Michael Jansen, a correspondent on the Middle East in the Irish Times wrote that because Iran was allegedly hard hit in the ‘Israeli’ attack, it will not retaliate and claims that Iran’s previous retaliation was a flop. If that is Jansen’s main basis for her opinion, it is to my mind an unsafe foundation.

In the past I’ve had respect for Jansen’s analysis of the war in Syria and the positions of different factions but this time I think she is very wide of the mark. The previous Iranian retaliations swamped the Zionist air defence system3 with cheap drones but hit many targets with missiles.

It seems to me that Iran WILL retaliate and the only thing that might hold that off or at least moderate the strength of its attack would be if the ‘Israeli’ Government ties up a peace deal with the Palestinian Resistance, led by Hamas. And that looks extremely unlikely, for a number of reasons.

The Resistance is sticking to the terms that were announced by Biden back in May, which he claimed were the ‘Israeli’ Government’s and to which the Resistance agreed, only to see the talks sabotaged again and again by Netanyahu in proposing additions and deletions.

The basics of the Resistance position are:

  • Immediate end to the ‘Israeli’ attacks now and in future
  • Total withdrawal of the IOF from Gaza (including the Nezarim Corridor and Rafah)
  • Total removal of all obstacles to arrival of humanitarian food, medicine etc. supplies
  • Return of all displaced from parts of Gaza as they wish
  • Exchange of prisoners (including bodies of dead Israelis and to include Palestinians nominated by the Resistance, without Israeli veto)
  • Reconstruction of infrastructures and buildings: housing, medical, educational, social, commercial

None of those terms except the exchange of prisoners has been agreed and even there, Netanyahu wanted to exclude some Palestinian prisoners from the exchange. Most fundamentally, he insists on the IOF staying in Gaza, in particular in the “Nezarim corridor”.

It is frequently commented that Netanyahu cannot afford personally to end the attacks in defeat as a postponed court case for alleged fraud and bribery awaits him and, without a victory in his belt, his political fascist friends would abandon him to be savaged by his enemies in the Zionist entity.

However, the continuing Zionist massacres of civilians and wide-scale urban destruction is intended in large part to force the Resistance to accept terms with which the Zionist state agrees, to gain in negotiations what it has been unable to win on the battlefield against the Resistance fighters.

No doubt there are some who think that the Resistance should abandon its demand about total IOF Gaza withdrawal, just to end the massacres. That kind of thinking results in a partial peace to which the enemy will return again and again with violence.

The Palestinian Resistance has clearly decided that they will tough this out in the sacrifice of their people, fighters and leaders in order to get a more stable position for the Palestinian nation, from which to go forward to self-determination – and peace, should that be obtainable.4

US Imperialism in the form of Bill Clinton supervises handshake between Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of US proxy’Israel’ and Yasser Arafat, then leader of Fatah in control of the PLO at the conclusion of the Oslo pacification process. The Agreement spawned the Zionist-colluding and repressive Palestinian Authority but never gained the Palestinians anything. (Image sourced: Internet)

The last time the Resistance caved in to Zionist and imperialist demands was with the Oslo Accords in 1993, signed for the Fatah leadership by Yasser Arafat. Since then not only did the Palestinians not make any advances but additional Zionist settlements have grown apace.

And every few years have seen new genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people.

The Axis of Resistance considers the Zionist State to be a constant threat to the Arab states and indigenous people of the Middle East, in addition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The history of the Zionist state’s wars with its neighbours and its backing by imperialism seems to bear that out.

Looked at soberly, the Palestinian Resistance has inflicted a huge defeat on the IOF and the Zionist military mystique on October 7th and, notwithstanding daily genocidal massacres, the Resistance has gone on for a year to deny the IOF a victory in Gaza or on the West Bank.

Hezbollah’s bombardments have cleared much of north Palestine of settlers in addition to hitting targets in central ‘Israel’ and they’ve also fought the IOF to a standstill on Lebanon’s borders. Missiles and drones of the Iraqi Resistance and the Yemeni State have also hit the Zionist State.

The balance of battlefield supremacy is tilting against Israel, thanks to the adaptability, courage and sacrifice of in particular the Palestinian people but now also the Lebanese — and world popular opinion is against the Zionist European settler project as never before.

Iranian drones, one launching, Iran 4 October 2023 (Photo cred: Reuters)

It is necessary to continue the process both to inflict an unmistakeable defeat on the Zionist State and to win substantial advances for the Palestinian people and, incidentally, for the people of the Middle East. These advances entail in addition setbacks for US and western imperialism.

It is important to hammer that nail home, lest it works itself loose before long. I think that at some point Iran will likely retaliate against the Zionist state for its own dignity and defence but also as part of the Axis of Resistance, striving to rid the area of an extremely dangerous infestation.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

1The imperialists have Iran constantly under satellite surveillance and it beggars belief they would not have posted photos of significant damage were such to exist.

2Crooke claims that the first wave was to destroy the air defences but failed and encountered something which put all the rest of the attack in danger so they called the attack off and then claimed a victory. Crooke is speculating up to a point about the reasons but claims the facts about the attack are from ‘Israeli’ sources. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkNk76E3SI

3Both ground-based, as with Iron Dome and David’s Sling but also airborne with US and European allied aircraft.

4A similar position was outlined with respect to Hezbollah by Sheikh Naim Qassem in his first speech on Wednesday since his election to the General Secretaryship of the organisation.

THERE WILL BE NO RED LINES

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Torture3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

In future, there will be no red lines in attacking your country.

Yes, I do mean YOUR country, wherever you are. In whatever war it’s in. And in this imperialist world, it’s a safe bet your country will be part of a war, directly or a little indirectly, sometime in your lifetime. Or in your kids’ lifetimes.

The Adversary will be able to carpet-bomb your residential areas, your hospitals and medical centres, schools and universities, places of religious worship, markets, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, bakeries, internet access sites, gyms, your infrastructures and municipal authorities.

There might be some condemnations at high levels abroad, even threats of court cases but nothing will be actually done in practice.

The Adversary will be able to attack your food stores, blockade you from food and fuel imports, bomb your farms and fishing fleets. It will be able to call down aerial strikes on people in their homes, in vehicles or shoot them by snipers or drones as they walk in the street.

Your cities’ food delivery trucks, construction and rubble-clearing and heavy lifting vehicles will be targeted, along with their drivers and operators. That is so that your people will have to dig with your hands to find victims under the rubble of bombed buildings.

Your ambulances and paramedics will be targeted so that picking up wounded or even corpses becomes a high-risk job and your hospitals will be bombed, shot at and invaded to reduce the life chances of any bombing victim found alive in the rubble or on the street.

Your country’s infrastructures of electricity generation and supply, water supply, sewage collection and treatment, waste collection and treatment, telecommunication and public transport will be bombed and bombed and bombed again.

Your reporters will be shot on the street and their homes bombed, as will your media networks offices. That hardly seems necessary anyway since no-one who sees any of the atrocities, no-one with power anyway, will even try to stop what is being done to you and your people.

That’s because there are no red lines anymore.

Your populations will be refugees in your own land and their tents and shacks will be bombed and fire-bombed. They will be bombed wherever they go and they will be bombed on the way there. They will be told some areas are safe and then they’ll be bombed and shot at there also.

Food, fuel, water and medicine supplies will be blocked, blockaded and even bombed. Many of you will be hungry, thirsty and cold. The weaker ones, also the very young and the elderly, will die prematurely of diseases and ailments or untreated wounds and sores.

People with special medical needs will die from lack of specialised medical treatment, procedures, equipment or medication.

Your children will be denied education, safety and even life. Your young and middle-aged men and women will be denied work, safety and even life. Your elders will be denied safety in retirement — and even life.

Some of you will resist, of course. Those the Adversary can catch will be put in prisons; mostly not even a trial will be required but when it does, it will be a mockery of standard judicial procedure. In jail they will be beaten, humiliated, tortured, degraded, half-starved, raped and die.

Some of your resistors will be shot after they’ve been captured. Random civilians will be shot by snipers or drones, thrown into graves and earth pushed over them, perhaps even while alive; other bodies will lie in the street to make you sick with terror and the smell of their decomposing bodies.

Other civilians – including children – will be used as human screens or shields for the Invader’s troops and even their armoured vehicles. They will be used to test mines, booby traps and IEDs.

You will be taught how little your lives matter and how easily they can be wiped out.

There is no longer humanitarian international law, no Geneva Convention; there are no longer any red lines.

It will happen because …

The Zionist state has committed all the crimes listed above and has done so while being photographed, filmed and even live-streamed by reporters, victims, witnesses and even by the Zionist soldiers themselves, in thousands of boastful videos and photographs.

Jabalia, North Gaza, IOF rounding up Palestinian civilians after destroying their neighbourhoods.

Their military leaders, politicians and media have proclaimed their intentions and followed them up in practice.

There have been some high-level international complaints and criticisms and even court cases but nothing in practice has been done by the relevant international bodies to physically stop the Zionist genocide or even to deprive them of the weapons and finance to carry out that genocide.

Yes, we know that there have been many human rights violations committed by Western powers in other wars: Dresden, Hiroshima/ Nagasaki, Korea, Algeria, Vietnam, Ireland, Lebanon, Iraq … And some of them were photographed too.

But never before has there been such blatant and daily violation of all principles of international law at so many levels to be seen live on our screens while Western powers leaders justified it and all international institutions were either complicit or helpless.1

So now that the unthinkable has been done there, it is no longer unthinkable anywhere. And if not unthinkable, then history shows us that it will indeed be thought of. History shows us too that what is thought of will also be done.

What hasn’t been done yet?

Poisoning your water supplies? Why not? So long as there be a water supply for the invading soldiers and good clean water for the occupiers, the settlers. Germ warfare? Why not? As long as the invaders and settlers are immune or the pathogens die out in time for occupation.

There are no red lines any longer and you can expect none when war comes to your country.

Anything goes.

End.

Footnotes

1And people who protested it in western states were maligned, hounded in work and academia, beaten on the street, arrested …