European Complicity with Zionist Genocide

On December 28, 2023December 30, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(28/12/2023) (Reading time: 6 mins.)

It has been said that with one phone call from Joe Biden to Netanyahu the genocide in Gaza could be halted.

Comparisons have been made to Reagan doing just that with the Irgun terrorist, Menachem Begin, who was the Israeli Prime Minister during the siege of Beirut in 1982 or Obama in later years.

Little has been said of the European Union’s equal capacity to make a similar call and bring an end to the slaughter. The EU is not a minor player in the region, and Israel is as much dependent on the EU as it is on the USA, though in a slightly different manner.

From the start the EU decided to support Israel, come hell or high water, and hell it was to be, for the Palestinians. Ursula von der Leyen stated that Israel had the right to defend itself against what she termed terrorism and that “Europe stands with Israel”.¹

*Ursula von der Leyen, taken at a time when EU staffers complained about her bias in favour of Israel* (Photo credit: *EPA-EFE/JULIEN WARNAND*)

A month later, as the gravity of Israeli plans were clear for all to see, she continued to talk about the Hamas attack on October 7^th, much of which has now been proven to be false (there were no decapitated babies, many of the dead were Israeli military not civilians and furthermore Israel itself killed many of the civilians).

She made no condemnation of Israeli bombings of civilians. She and the EU still stood by Israel.²

But on October 20^th 842 staffers at the EU signed a letter condemning her position and pointing out she was legitimising a war crime in Gaza, and pointed to her support for the blockade of food and water in Gaza.³

But Von der Leyen continued as before and still stands by Israel and its “right to self-defence”, despite the evidence that what Israel is engaged in, is genocide and multiple war crimes.

Some have made reference to the Nazi past of her family, and though interesting, it is not the reason for her support nor that of the EU, though it may affect the tone of her statements.

In evaluating her behaviour we should, of course, bear in mind her aristocratic and Nazi past, of which she is apparently very proud of and has made reference to.

But they are just anecdotes, others with a clean family tree have also supported Israel.

The reason why the EU supports Israel is one of naked self-interest. Like the USA, the EU has decided that Israel is also its very own Forward Operating Base to keep in check the Arab masses and ensure the flow of oil.

The EU was in a position to halt the genocide from the word go. Von der Leyen could have told Israel to back off and it would have. Without the EU, the Israeli economy collapses.

A ban on exporting to or importing from Israel would see the modern-day Babylon collapse overnight with little effect on Europe itself. Israel is the EU’s 25^th largest trading partner, way behind Turkiye which is the EU’s sixth largest trading partner.

However, the reverse does not hold. The EU is a significant trading partner for Israel.

According to the European Commission’s Office in Israel (Von der Leyen & Co.) 31.9% of Israeli imports come from the EU and 25.6% of Israel’s exports go to the EU with total trade amounting to €46.8 billion in 2022.

Israeli imports of services amounted to €16.7 billion in 2021 with exports representing €9.8 billion. Further the EU invested €60.5 billion in 2021. Israel depends on the EU.⁴ One phone call is all it would have taken to put Netanyahu in his place and stop the genocide.

European complicity in the genocide is not limited to its economic role. Between 2012 and 2022, Israel received just over 5.4 billion US dollars in arms transfers, from three sources. Unsurprisingly, the USA was the primary supplier.

But Germany supplied Israel with $1.475 billion and Italy supplied a further $261 million. In the same period, Israel exported $7.458 billion to a range of countries, including the UK, bastions of democracy such as Azerbaijan ($854 million), Turkiye ($60 million).

But by far the biggest recipient was India which received $2.879 billion.⁵

The type of weaponry received is important. Israel received $2.734 billion in aircraft, $609 million in armoured vehicles, $752 million in missiles, just the type of weaponry it has used to reduce Gaza to rubble and carry out its genocide.

Israeli Merkava 4 tank in exercise on occupied ground in the Golan Heights 2016; it and other armoured vehicles carry German engines, according to arms watch organisation SIPRI which believes them to be in operation in Gaza now. (Photo: *Ariel Schalit/AP*)

All of those regimes who supplied Israel with weaponry are as guilty as the Israelis. After Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 – January 2009) it was obvious what type of regime held sway in Tel Aviv.

They have repeated this type of operation on many occasions since then, with major interventions and also a number of smaller, though still deadly attacks.

The nature of the Zionist regime was laid bare to the world, and yet the EU continued to export the type of weapons needed to carry out a genocide.

Hopefully, some day in the future we can hold a Nuremberg-style tribunal to judge those responsible. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, places obligations on states and gives them the authority to try people for the crime of Genocide.6

To be clear about what genocide is, the convention to which most states are signatories defines it in Article II as:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.⁷

Israel was one of the first signatories to it and has made no reservations on any aspect of it, unlike the USA which has placed some caveats on its jurisdiction in relation to the USA.8

*Photo of Nuremberg defendants during the Nuremberg Trials. Will there one day be such a tribunal sitting on the Israeli war criminals and their international accomplices?* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Following WWII not only were the Nazis tried at Nuremberg, other Nazis were tried by individual states in the subsequent years. Countries such as France, Germany, Israel, Norway and others brought Nazis to trial after the Nuremberg Trials.

In Hungary alone, around 26,000 people were tried for treason, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In Czechoslovakia around 32,000 people met a similar fate. Some 100,000 Germans and Austrians were tried in Western Europe and in the Soviet Union another 26,000 were also tried.⁹

Any nation can place those accused of genocide on trial. To date it has been a question of power. The US won the war in the East and so were not charged for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nearly all those tried for crimes against humanity have been on the losing side of a conflict in which the US and Europe wished to punish one side.

It is entirely conceivable that the powers that make up the BRICS10 could detain war criminals and place them on trial in a national or supranational court convened by them. It is possible though unlikely.

It is however necessary. International law is dead, buried under the rubble of churches, mosques and hospitals in Gaza.

Netanyahu and the entire High Command of the IDF should stand trial like Göring and others did and should face the same consequences as Eichmann who the Israelis tried and executed by hanging.

Ten top ranking Nazis were executed, with Göring committing suicide the night before his scheduled execution. Others should meet another fate as did those lower ranking Nazis in subsequent trials. Various EU leaders should also be tried.

Von der Leyen is a key case and should meet the fate her Nazis family escaped from. Keir Starmer, Macron, Merkel, Rushi Sunak and others should all be put on trial and at the very least imprisoned. Europe is as much to blame for the current genocide as the USA and Israel itself.

NOTES:

1 Press communiqué (13/10/2023) Statement by President von der Leyen with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_23_4986

2 Von der Leyen, U. (09/11/2023) Speech by President von der Leyen at the International Humanitarian Conference for the Civilian Population in Gaza https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/speech-president-von-der-leyen-international-humanitarian-conference-civilian-population-gaza-2023-11-09_en

3 Irish Times (20/10/2023) EU staff members express fury over von der Leyen stance on Israel-Hamas conflict. Naomi O’Leary. https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/10/20/eu-staff-members-express-fury-over-von-der-leyen-stance-on-israel-hamas-conflict/

4 Figures taken from the European Commission’s page https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/israel_en

5 Figures taken from https://www.sipri.org

6 See Article IV Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
Article V
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.
Article VIII
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.

7 See Convention at https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/genocide-conv-1948?activeTab=undefined

8 See https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/genocide-conv-1948/state-parties?activeTab=default

9 See Postwar trials and denazification https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/survival-and-legacy/postwar-trials-and-denazification/

10 For information on BRICS see https://infobrics.org

The Martyrdom of Gaza: A Never Ending Saga

On December 2, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Trade unions, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

16 November 2023

Israel uses white phosphorus munitions in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.

Norman Finkelstein published a book a number of years ago entitled Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.

In it he looked at various major episodes in the long bloody onslaught on the people of Gaza, amongst them Operation Cast Lead and also the attack on the boat Mavi Marmara and the Goldstone Report, amongst other issues.

He could have written it yesterday about the current genocidal plans of the Israeli state.

The Israel Defense Forces fired at least three white phosphorus shells above this UN-run school in Beit Lahiya on January 17, 2009, killing two and wounding 14. The school was housing about 1,600 displaced persons at the time. *The IDF have used these munitions a number of times since.* © 2009 Getty Images

The current Israeli offensive is just one more in a long line of massacres. This is not a review of Finkelstein’s book, though any book by him is worth reading and should be read. Rather I just want to use the book to show that what is happening now is not new, it is just more intense.

Israel has murdered before, it has lied, it has committed war crimes and it has always received the support of western states.

Above all we should be clear that we are where we are partly due to the Oslo Accord and also the role played by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. They cannot wash their hands of the affair.

“One of the meanings of Oslo,” former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami observed, “was that the PLO was . . . Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the intifada and cutting short . . . an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence.”

Rabin (left) and Arafat shake hands on the Oslo Accords under the management of then US President Clinton. (Photo sourced: Internet)

In particular, Israel contrived to reassign to Palestinian surrogates the sordid tasks of occupation. “The idea of Oslo,” former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky acknowledged, “was to find a strong dictator to . . . keep the Palestinians under control.”

“The Palestinians will be better at establishing internal security than we were,” Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin told skeptics in his ranks, “because they will not allow appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent the Association for Civil Rights in Israel from criticizing the conditions there. . .

They will rule by their own methods, freeing, and this is most important, the Israeli soldiers from having to do what they will do.”(1)

In other words, Gaza has bled under the passive gaze of the bureaucrats of the Palestinian authorities and of course of the reactionary Arab regimes that have never lifted a finger to help their Palestinian brothers and sisters.

They have not even threatened to cut off the supply of oil to the West, something they could do right now, but won’t. It has also happened under the gaze of those on the Left who run around shouting Implement Oslo! Two State Solution!

They ignore the fact that Oslo represented an ideological, political and military defeat for the Palestinians. The PLO accepted its role as puppet, administrator of a small urban city-like council and as chief repressor of those who continued to fight for Palestinian freedom.

A look at the Oslo II Accord, signed in September 1995 and spelling out in detail the mutual rights and duties of the contracting parties to the 1993 agreement, suggests what loomed largest in the minds of Palestinian negotiators.

Whereas four full pages are devoted to “Passage of [Palestinian] VIPs” (the section is subdivided into “Category 1 VIPs,” “Category 2 VIPs,” “Category 3 VIPs,” and “Secondary VIPs”), less than one page—the very last—is devoted to “Release of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees,” who numbered in the many thousands…

The barely disguised purpose of Oslo’s protracted interim period was not confidence building to facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace but collaboration building to facilitate a burden-free Israeli occupation.(2)

However, Israel is now militarily weak. Finkelstein points to a number of attacks where it has shown its weakness. Its predilection is for attacks on the civilian population that can’t fight back.

In 2006, it opted to bomb civilians in Lebanon rather than engage in a proper fight with Hezbollah “terrorizing Lebanese civilians appeared to be a low-cost method of “education.”(3)

In Gaza in Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9, it followed a similar path of aerial bombardments of civilians rather than land invasions, that would see its troops face the wrath of Hamas and other armed organisations. So first they relentlessly bombed Gaza before any troops went in.

When the troops went in, the civilian population was their preferred target then as it is now. The murder of civilians is not new. It is part of an Israeli strategy of claiming easy victories.

An Israelicombatant remembered a meeting with his brigade commander and others where the “rules of engagement” were “essentially” conveyed as, “if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot.”

Other soldiers recalled, “If the deputyBattalionCommander thought a house looked suspect, we’d blow it away. If the infantrymen didn’t like the looks of that house—we’d shoot” (unidentified soldier); “If you face an area that is hidden by a building—you take down the building.”

Questions such as ‘who lives in that building[?]’ are not asked” (soldier recalling hisBrigadeCommander’s order);

“As for rules of engagement, the army’s working assumption was that the whole area would be devoid of civilians … Anyone there, as far as the army was concerned, was to be killed” (unidentified soldier);

“We were told: ‘any sign of danger, open up with massive fire” (member of a reconnaissance company); “We shot at anything that moved” (Golani Brigade fighter); “Despite the fact that no one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly” (gunner in a tank crew).

“Essentially, a person only need[ed] to be in a ‘problematic’ location,” a Haaretz reporter found, “in circumstances that can broadly be seen as suspicious, for him to be ‘incriminated’ and in effect sentenced to death.”(4)

In all around 1,400 Palestinians were murdered in Operation Cast Lead, with 80% of them being civilians including 350 children. Israeli casualties were risible in comparison, just 10 combatants were killed, four of whom were killed by friendly fire.(5)

Then as now, Israel wheeled out the old trope of “human shields”. Amnesty International found no evidence of that,(6) in fact, it found evidence of Israel using children as human shields.(7)

It also found that Israel used then, as it does now, white phosphorous against schools, hospitals and even the UNRWA.(8) Furthermore, 99% of the air attacks were accurate.(9) If they murdered civilians, it is because the civilians were the target.

Following the operation, the Goldstone Report was published. It surprised no-one when it found evidence of Israeli war crimes and to a lesser extent of Hamas. It is a salutary lesson for those who now place their confidence in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Goldstone made various recommendations.

Individual states in the international community were exhorted to “start criminal investigations in national courts, using universal jurisdiction, where there is sufficient evidence of the commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

“Where so warranted following investigation, alleged perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted in accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice.”(10)

We know that nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the western governments paid little heed to the report. Goldstone was forced to recant on the conclusions to his report.

Netanyahu for his part announced that he wanted to amend the rules of war leading to Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell asking “What is it that Israel wants … Permission to fearlessly attack defenseless population centers with planes, tanks and artillery?”(11)

Exactly.

And here we are today, with Israel unilaterally amending the rules of war, with the green light from the EU and the USA, amongst others. They murder civilians and no one proposes doing anything.

In Operation Cast Lead, the harshest sentence emitted by an Israeli court was seven and a half months to a soldier who had stolen a credit card!(12) Minor financial crimes are of greater concern than war crimes or crimes against humanity.

After this genocide in Gaza, we can’t expect much from the ICC.

Throughout its history the ICC has opened just 31 cases, including one for genocide. All of them against African leaders. This does not mean that those leaders did not deserve to be judged for their crimes, but that the ICC is just the legal arm of imperialism.

It has never attempted to put on trial the powerful in the West and despite everything even less so Israel. This year it issued a communiqué announcing that it would issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes and did so on its own initiative.(13)

In the case of Gaza, it will do nothing of the sort. Those who place their trust in the ICC or in the Palestinian Authority are fooling themselves. This situation is the result of turning a blind eye to Israel for many years whilst it commits all sorts of crimes.

It didn’t act before and it won’t do so now. Neither will the Arab regimes do much, unless their own populations force them. They fear the Palestinians and their own people as they know that the struggle against Zionism is also a struggle against them.

The more revolutionary Palestinian groups used to say that the path to Jerusalem went through Amman and Damascus. They were right, it does pass through those capital cities and also Beirut, Riyadh, Cairo and all the others and not through the ICC.

In fact, one day the judges and prosecutors of that body should be put on trial for their complicity in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity through their inaction and omission.

It is beyond the scope of this article to deal with the role of Amnesty International in its own reports on Palestine.

They are what Finkelstein refers “as far from being the exception that proved the rule, Amnesty actually constituted a variant of the rule: instead of falling silent on Israeli crimes during Protective Edge, Amnesty whitewashed them.”(14)

I will leave it to the reader to look at the book for more information on that particular betrayal. Suffice to say, we can expect little from such organisations. At best they gather data we can sometimes use.

Notes

(1) Finkelstein, N. G. (2018) Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. California. California University Press. pp 6 & 7

(2) Ibíd.p.10

(3) Ibíd. p.26

(4) Ibíd.p.45

(5) Ibíd. p.70

(7) Ibíd. p.71

(8) Ibíd., p. 75

(9) Ibíd., p. 204

(10) Ibíd., p. 91 & 92

(11) Ibíd., p.93

(12) Ibíd., p.101.

(13) See https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and

(14) Finkelstein, N.G. (2018) Op. Cit. p.238

ESTIMATED 20,000 IN PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MARCH IN DUBLIN

On November 20, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Many thousands wound their way in Palestine solidarity on Saturday through the streets of Dublin City centre, crossing from north to south of the river, filling the streets with solidarity slogans that have now become very familiar.

*Section of the march in O’Connell Street crossing the river, the rest behind not having left Garden of Remembrance/ Hugh Lane Gallery area*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The national march called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign took nearly an hour to pass through Dublin’s O’Connell Street, Palestinian colours mixing with those of political party or group and some education trade union flags and banners – and the green and gold Starry Plough.¹

*And still they are coming* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Graffiti on the Spire in O’Connell Street* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The weather was a welcome change from the heavy rain of the night before and, in contrast to recent cold days, was mild and autumnal. The trees by roadside and in parks, except for the berry-laden hollies, were losing their leaves but those remaining shone russet and gold.

Those political parties whose TDs² voted for sanctions against Israel on Wednesday³ were present: Social Democrats, that had sought the expulsion of the Israeli Embassy and Sinn Féin, who wanted the Government to refer the Israeli Government to the International Criminal Court.⁴

That included also the People Before Profit/ Solidarity, which for weeks had been calling for the Ambassador’s expulsion and the Labour Party.

Left-wing, feminist and animal liberation groups participated, along with local Palestine solidarity groups. In a change from recent marches, Irish Republican groups could be observed participating but were very few.⁵

An Ghaeilge, the Irish language, had a presence on the march in a small number of placards and a big banner proclaiming Saoirse don Phalaistín,⁶ the latter also shouted as a call-and-answer slogan, to merge with the now-familiar ones of Palestine solidarity, along with denunciation of genocide.

Other slogans included: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist⁷ state! Netanyahu, you can’t hide – We can see your genocide! There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! In our thousands and our millions⁸ – We are all Palestinians!

The “Ceasefire Now!” demand could be seen on some placards and heard on occasion but not as much as before. This slogan has come under some criticism as theoretically binding the Palestinians to cease resistance and leaving the Israeli army in possession wherever they are.

Despite the necessary problems caused to vehicular traffic, a horn blowing from a passing car or van called out often in solidarity to a cheer from the marchers in reply. In contrast to the early decades of the Irish state, the population has become overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.

*Some appropriate decoration of the Irish Dept. of Foreign Affairs* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

A LONG MARCH

The route of the march followed the same as the previous Saturday’s but instead of stopping at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs, continued on eastwards and then into Merrion Square south where the rally was to be held but significant numbers had left without waiting for the speeches.

Eastward of there, many Garda vehicles could be seen in Merrion Street lower, probably in case people decided to bring to the Fine Gael party HQ their disgust at State collusion with Zionist genocide. Of course nowadays, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party HQs might feel the need for the same protection.

As people turned towards various destinations in the City Centre, to pick up their vehicles or to connect with public transport, most entered to proceed through the Merrion Square Park and, finding gates locked on to Merrion Square West road, headed for the next exit – but in vain.

All gates were locked until one, several hundred metres along Merrion Square North, finally allowed weary marchers to exit the park and turn west again towards the city centre. There was much much muttering about this deliberate inconveniencing of people in a public park.

Passing the corner of Merrion Square West, with the former home of the Wilde family on the right, a large Garda prisoner transport was parked at the corner with other police vehicles around and some Public Order Unit police standing around.

This march had been the 5^th weekend one in Dublin since the Israeli offensive, with a rally in the middle of each week also. And still the Israeli death-toll rises not just daily but by the hour. And still neither the UN Security Council nor EU will call for an end to the bombing.

And still the Israeli Embassy sits in Dublin with its staff free to spy and report on the population of the Irish State, even to insult the national feeling of solidarity and the President of the State for his comparatively mild demands that international law statutes be followed.

Indeed, those same rules, often violated by the western superpowers, lie now exposed in shreds and tatters in Palestine. If there ever was reason to believe in imperialist states ruling the world in common humanity, that belief too lies in tatters that cannot be stitched together again.

End.

*Front of march in O’Connell Street* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Some trade union banners on the march* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

FOOTNOTES

1 The flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, formed to defend the workers from the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police during the 1913 Lockout, who later fought in the 1916 Rising too.

2 Teachta Dála, Irish State equivalent to MPs (plural Teachtaí Dála).

3 The motions in Leinster House (seat of the Irish parliament) were defeated through the Coalition Government’s TDs voting for an amendment that pulled all the teeth from the original motions.

4 The SF party flags were absent from earlier demonstrations after their leadership stated they would not be calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador but once the leadership, no doubt facing a revolt of their members changed that position, they were out in force, some of them even stewarding the march. One wonders whether those members understand that the ICC has in a decade only tried 30 cases and convicted only ten, not one a state or an individual close allied with the Western powers.

5 Undoubtedly, more Irish Republicans participated as individuals or as members of local solidarity groups.

6 “Freedom for Palestine.”

7 A version occasionally heard substituted “fascist state” for the words “terrorist state”.

8 A different version heard that day called In our millions and our billions …

TWO WORLDS … AND A THIRD

On October 16, 2023October 16, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Ireland, Personal Blog, social commentary2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 1 min.)

As I locked my bike up in Dublin City centre today, about to take a longish bus journey, two worlds connected around me.

Seeing a young woman collecting rubbish from the pavement to put in a litter bin, I became aware that she was the user of a nearby tent. I have to admit I was impressed with the focus on clearing of rubbish and noted an older van driver looking too.

Taking out my wallet I gave her some money with a brief word of encouragement and thought I heard the van driver giving out to me for doing so. Ignoring him, I got ready to cross the street to the bus stop. “Hey!” he shouted at me.

I turned back to him, ready for an argument.

“Did you just give that girl some money?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, (restraining myself from adding “and what of it?”). I was ready to meet aggression if it was coming but didn’t feel the need to start it.

He stretched out his hand to me, holding out a ten-euro note: “You dropped this.”

“Oh, thanks,” sez I, accepting the note, “I thought you were going to tell me off.”

He looked taken aback. “Not at all, sure I sometimes give her some money too.”

We shook hands and I crossed the road, reflecting that mine and the van driver’s world had briefly and in a small way intersected with the young woman’s world.

Outside, in yet another world, a state is carrying out genocide against a people in full view of the World, not just with western states’ compliance, as occurred with the genocide against the Jews in the 1930s and ‘40s, but this time with the actual encouragement and active collusion of the western states.

End.