The week before last in Ireland we were led through motions of Palestine solidarity actions once more, motions without practical effect, first by the Irish trade unions, followed the following day by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Seen on the IPSC National march (Photo by: Participant)
On Friday, the unions announced a ‘stand out for Palestine’ day – well, not a day exactly, more like a lunch break. It was not a strike, not even a work stoppage, rather some dedicated employees surrendering their lunch break to stand with Palestinian flags etc in front of their workplaces.
Not even a work stoppage of one day, half-day, or even an hour. The union leaderships, in most cases, organised nothing, leaving it up to their members to get together and to sacrifice their lunch breaks.
More of us went through the motions again on Saturday 29 November. From the Garden of Remembrance, down O’Connell Street, across the river, around by Trinity College, up Dawson Street and into Molesworth Street, facing Leinster House.
Seen on the IPSC National march (Photo by: Participant)
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign organised this ‘National Demonstration’ as it does roughly every month. It is supposed, presumably, to impress the Government with its numbers and pressure them to end their collusion with the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
It has not done so — nor did it in any month or any year in the life of the IPSC, the longest-active Palestine solidarity organisation in Ireland. Nor have the monthly marches brought about any change in Irish Government collusion since the genocide of Gaza began in October 2023.
That is not the fault of the IPSC. What they are to be blamed for is not recognising that and adjusting appropriately to actions of greater pressure. Or, perhaps they recognised it indeed but nevertheless refused to change towards any effective pressurising methods.
The IPSC was for a long time near the ‘middle of the road’ but it has moved further into that position as the genocidal actions of the Zionist colony became worse and as awareness of Israeli crimes spread and grew in Ireland (which it did in part thanks indeed to the work of the IPSC).
Section of the IPSC National march (Photo by: Participant)
Solidarity work however is not about education in the abstract, raising awareness without using that awareness to bring about change. I am sure the IPSC leadership is aware of that and would wish much change but they do not adapt their actions, rather continuing with the monthly motions.
Probably they do not increase the pressure out of fear of losing their influence with the political class. Which would perhaps be well and good if the political class were delivering on ending collusion with the genocidal state – but they are not, nor is there any indication that they will.
Ireland remains the biggest single importer of Israeli products next to the USA and the biggest in the EU. The Irish Government permits military consignments to fly to Israel through ‘neutral’ Irish airspace and USA aircraft and military personnel to stopover and refuel at Shannon Airport.
Seen on the IPSC National march as passing O’Connell monument (Photo by: Participant)
Occupying the ground near the middle is only a good thing if it can be used to support action for change; it is a hindrance if the act of being there comes to be more important than the end objective: an end to genocide and the Occupation, with freedom and independence for Palestine.
The IPSC could use its mass base to blockade Dublin Port, through which Israeli products come into the country. It could also blockade other major stocking and distribution points.
The IPSC could organise mass days of action against retail and tech outlets handling Israeli exports and mobilise pickets in support of retail workers refusing to handle Israeli products, such as a Tesco worker currently facing disciplinary procedures (i.e punishment) for that very ‘crime’.
The worker in question, employed by Tesco in Newcastle, Co. Down is a member of the IWW and also of USDAW, main union for retail workers in the UK (as in the colony) but while the word is that his union is defending them, it is not seeking to extend and widen the boycott.
Defending a worker’s right not to act against their conscience is an individual and personal issue.1 It is understood that the motivation of this worker is one of solidarity with the Palestinian people and against genocide, which is what the trade unions need to be promoting and mobilising.
Union leaderships become bureaucracies with buildings and paid officials, employing administrative staff, growing more and more cautious and afraid of State action (particularly against their funds), moving further away from the ethos that first led to the unions’ creation.
Organised workers in Italy have shown the potential in dock strikes and mass mobilisations but again it was not the mainstream unions that led the action. Canadian provincial trade union Federations have marked all ‘Israel’ goods and services as ‘hot’2 and not to be handled.
Union membership in Ireland has declined as union leadership collusion with management and government escalated from the 1980s and resistance actions decreased; an increase in militant action is likely to boost recruitment but in any case organising resistance is the supposed role of trade unions.
Questions around solidarity with Palestine bring many other underlying issues to the fore: media partiality, government collusion, imperialist and colonialist influence, effective means of applying pressure, appropriate leadership, resistance to oppression, solidarity with prisoners.
We have been taught lessons of great importance – but at a terrible cost; we owe it to the Palestinians and to ourselves to apply them.
End.
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From The Cradle news updates on Telegram 6 December 2025:
Ontario’s largest labor federation backs ‘hot cargo’ boycott of Israeli goods
The Ontario Federation of Labour has become the fourth provincial labor federation in Canada to adopt a “hot cargo” resolution against Israeli goods and services.
The move designates all trade ties with Israel as products and services workers will refuse to handle due to their connection to exploitation and oppression. The OFL’s decision follows growing momentum across the country as labor groups escalate solidarity actions.
The New Brunswick Federation of Labour first set the precedent in May when it voted to stop handling weapons destined for Israel. Similar resolutions soon followed in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, culminating in Ontario’s endorsement last week.
Together, these federations represent a significant portion of Canada’s organized labor movement.
The OFL’s stance signals a widening labor-led boycott effort, reinforcing a broader push within Canadian unions to apply economic pressure and support calls for accountability over Israel’s war crimes.
1Individual ‘conscience’ can object to many things we consider necessary, for example to give contraception methods information, or about pregnancy termination, to deal politely with migrants, to serving people in the national language, to sending children to integrated education or even to any school, etc. etc.
2‘Blacked’ was a common term for such cases in the recent past, as was ‘tainted’ further back still (á la Larkin and Connolly) – see Appendix.
PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MARCHERS PEPPER-SPRAYED AND BATONED WITHOUT WARNING.
An action on Saturday in an attempt to stop the genocide of Palestinians was brutally repressed by Gardaí pepper-spraying the marchers without warning before beating many with truncheons and threatening others, then issuing a lying statement.
On Saturday (4th October) the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign had organised another of their monthly National marches from the Garden of Remembrance through Dublin city centre to Leinster House1 but a much smaller section departed for Dublin Port.
View of a section of the Palestine solidarity march on Saturday proceeding along O’Connell Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In the context of port protest shut-downs in various parts of the world, Italy in particular, the intention seemingly was to blockade traffic into and out of Dublin Port; also in the context of the Irish state being a huge importer of Israeli products, second only to the USA.
The shut-down marchers left the main march at O’Connell Bridge and proceeded along the Liffey quays heading for the Port as IPSC stewards tried to discourage anyone from joining them, stooping as low as to accuse them over a loudspeaker of splitting the march and of betraying Gaza.
There had been a number of Port traffic blockade actions recently, all of which had ended without violence. No doubt the Irish ruling class were worried that they might escalate and spread and gave orders to the Gardaí to attack the marchers and to terrorise any others from emulating them.
As the marchers reached the Public Order Unit police line and stopped, some of the police began to push marchers, almost immediately some Gardai standing in a second row starting to pepper-spray marchers over the heads of their colleagues but the wind pushed some of it back in their faces.
POU Gardaí to the right of the crowd then drew their truncheons and started to strike viciously at the marchers, who were now pushing into the Garda line. Eventually the marchers broke, people staggering off to the side, eyes streaming, unsteady on their feet. Even then, they were pursued.2
At least two marchers were arrested at the event and another in a solidarity demonstration outside the Criminal Court building that evening. The charges include Public Order charges and resisting arrest. Once again, marchers complained they were forcibly strip-searched in the police cells.3
CAPITALIST MEDIA
RTÉ online’s report was clearly totally based on a Garda statement without any attempt to investigate, although video footage was soon circulating on social media. Try to contact participants for their side of the story? See whether there were photos or video clips available? Don’t be silly!
The Garda account is totally at variance with what can be seen on the video, as has often been the case. One recalls the assault with a length of wood by a fascist on an LGBT campaigner who was observing a National Party rally outside Leinster House and a Garda told her to leave the area.
The Garda statement to the media on that occasion was that there had been no incidents but unfortunately for them there was ample video recording of the event, the assault, the victim’s head streaming with blood, the senior Garda ordering her away … and they had to change their story.
A few weeks prior to that, unarmed antifascists counter-protesting an anti-masking protest organised by fascists on Custom House Quay were attacked by fascists wielding clubs and metal bars. As the antifascists fought back, the POU charged in and attacked the antifascists!
On that occasion too their statement to the press completely omitted that event.
The media is doing a good job of exposing themselves as not only keeping to the imperialist pro-Zionist discourse about events in Gaza and the rest of West Asia, but keeping also to the home front discourse that big business and cops are good and protesters a problem.
We appear in the Irish state to be entering a period of Garda repression backed up by media acquiescence, similar to what was passed through in the 1980s, with Garda repression on the street but also operations by the ‘Heavy Gang’, raiding and beating up detainees to obtain a ‘confession’.
The liberal civil rights sector was quite active then calling out Garda violence, framing of innocent people and judicial collusion. There is much less of that liberal resistance to be seen these days.
A rare enough sight – an Irish-language placard on Saturday’s march in Dublin. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE IPSC MARCH
The IPSC went ahead on Saturday with many thousands on their march, demonstrating once again, as over the past two years, that the Irish public is overwhelmingly in support of the Palestinians and totally against the genocide and ethnic cleansing by the Zionist state.
Over the years, the IPSC’s activities have contributed to that awareness and sympathy in Irish society but so too have the actions of the Israeli governments and their armed forces, captured in photos and videos by journalists and ordinary Palestinians and posted on social media.
But Israel has not ceased its genocide; not one Palestinian life has been saved by the marches. The Irish Government has not ceased any of its concrete collusive actions with Israel. The imports continue, the armaments fly through Irish airspace, Shannon airport continues militarised.4
The IPSC’s Chairperson admitted as much, speaking at their rally near Leinster House: “Simon Harris has called Israel’s actions ‘genocide’, ‘unconscionable’ and ‘unacceptable’ — yet the Irish Government is barely lifting a finger to end Ireland’s deep complicity in this genocide.”
A section of the Palestine solidarity main march in Dawson Street, while thousands more are already in Molesworth Street (out of sight to the right of photo). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Had the IPSC mobilised the thousands to march down to the docks, it would have been a very different story on Saturday. Something to make the Government really reconsider its collusion. The IPSC could still do that. But will it? We can hope but current practice tells us otherwise.
Then others will have to do the deed. Others like Mothers Against Genocide, Action for Palestine Ireland and Saoirse Don Phalaistín, for example. And they will continue to be assaulted and arrested, facing fines, restrictions on freedom of movement and … ultimately, no doubt … jail.
Apart from the baton and pepper-spraying injuries, one of the marchers is reported to have a broken arm. Two were arrested at the Port and one at the court solidarity protest Saturday evening. Today others attended court in solidarity with one of the arrested (who had abrasions on her cheek).
We should be part of these disruptive actions and if we are not, for whatever reason, the least we can do is to call out those who denounce them and to organise support for those who are, in and out of the courts.
End.
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Gathering outside the Dublin Court in solidarity with one of the assaulted and arrested Port marchers. Her case was postponed. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
2All of that is evident from the video footage shot from that side of the event. Violent shoving by Gardaí sent some people to the ground, including a disabled woman.
3There was outrage expressed when Gardaí compelled detainees at a Mothers Against Genocide protest outside Leinster House to strip in the police cells. The Minister for Justice claimed that Garda CCTV footage refuted those claims but strangely, it appears that no CCTV footage was available when lawyers asked to view it. https://www.instagram.com/mothersagainstgenocide/p/DJ_nOewxQAp/
4And the Irish Central Bank intends, after a pause, to offer Israeli war bonds once more.
Last Saturday’s IPSC “Hands Off Gaza” march, advertised as being to the US Embassy, reached a new low in compliance with the wishes of the Irish ruling class not to embarrass the USA, currently the world boss.
The IPSC led the march from Baggot Street through residential roads and streets to reach not the front of the US Embassy but near its side, far from the main road (where a small group of non-compliant people lifted Palestinian flags to the view and often beeps of support of passing traffic).
Section of the IPSC march – some of those carrying big printed placards joined a smaller group of protesters in front of the main entrance of the US Embassy. (Photo cred: IPSC)
The IPSC agree their march routes and rally locations with the Gardaí in advance, a different process than merely informing them in the interests of safe traffic management.1 The extent to which the IPSC leadership integrates with Gardaí wishes is not required by Irish State law.2
The understanding is that the Gardaí don’t want a large protest at the main entrance of the Embassy and beside the main road and those who did gather there were approached by Gardaí with the suggestion that they move down to the IPSC rally, which suggestion was declined.
No doubt the leadership of the IPSC considers that by compliance with the desires of the Gardaí, by not offending the authorities or frightening them, their organisation is regarded by the ruling circles as “responsible” and therefore placed in the best position to influence policy on Palestine.
Could they be right? Well, let’s check the actual concrete gains from their “responsible” leadership. Has the Irish Government barred Irish airspace to flights of US/Israeli munitions to fuel the Zionist genocide of Palestinians? Are US planes being checked at Shannon airport for military contents?
Has the Irish Government adopted a policy of Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions towards the genocidal state? Has the Occupied Territories Bill, a relatively mild piece of legislation entirely in line with international law and UN resolutions, though approved in 2018/ 2019 been enacted?3
The answer to all those questions is a resounding NO. Well then, what has this “responsible leadership” actually achieved in changing Government policy? The answer is simply Nothing. The IPSC however have brought thousands on to the streets to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine.
And that would be a great achievement if it were to employ those numbers in a way that exerted real pressure on the Government and the ruling class it represents. How far the IPSC leadership is from any such intention is demonstrated by their shameful capitulation around the US Embassy.
As most people in Ireland are aware, the USA is not only the biggest backer of the genocidal Zionist state but its essential backer, its very life-pump. Without the backing of the USA, the European colonist settler state of Israel could not have survived as long as it has.
Photo of the distant IPSC rally taken from in front of the US Embassy’s main entrance. (Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
The IOF could not sustain its level of genocidal bombing of Palestinians for more than a week without USA supplies of bombs, shells and missiles. The ‘Israeli’ economy would long ago have collapsed without US financial support.
Politically the USA has used its veto in the UN Security Council, that undemocratic supreme ruler of the United Nations,4 against motions calling for a halt in the genocide. The US also employs its considerable economic pressure on other states not to oppose the Zionist genocidal state.
In view of the crucial role of the USA in maintaining not only the source of Zionist genocide but in its essential weekly supplies, one would imagine that US institutions and businesses in Ireland would be subjected to strong pressure from the Palestine solidarity movement.
That has not largely been the case and its symbolic representation, the US Embassy in Dublin, has been the target of large demonstrations led by the IPSC only twice in over fifteen months of genocide. And on each occasion in a side street, away from the main road.5
Rear view of the IPSC rally stage facing the marchers, photo taken with the US Embassy main entrance some distance up the residential street behind the photographer. (Photo cred: IPSC)
All of the main Irish political parties, those in coalition government and those aspiring to government, maintain cordial relations with the ruling circles of the USA and even formally celebrate the Irish national day with them in the USA on US Government premises.
Do the thousands up and down the country who march every couple of weeks or demonstrate weekly do so in order merely to feel good about themselves? I would submit that the majority desperately want to give real assistance to the Palestinians – to make a difference.
Those people are not getting any leadership from the IPSC. And though even at this late stage the IPSC could supply that, the indications are that it won’t.
The general attitude of the public within the Irish state is in solidarity with Palestine to a huge extent bemoaned by a number of ‘Israeli’ Zionist Ambassadors and Government ministers but that Irish feeling of Palestine solidarity does not generally translate into practical measures.
There have been some practical results in Palestine solidarity in divestment and boycott but these have been achieved, for the most part, by direct actions in occupations of college and commercial buildings not led by the IPSC and in most cases not even supported by them,.
Meanwhile, the State employs its repression on those who do dare to step beyond the “responsible leadership” of the IPSC, for example arrested in demonstrations at Shannon Airport and in actions in Dublin. The compliance of the IPSC leadership makes that repression easier for the State.
End.
Section of small crowd that gathered in front of the US Embassy main gate and by the side of the main road (instead of at the IPSC rally); around four people at first and then more joined them. (Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
APPENDIX
Now Irishmen, forget the past! And think of the time that’s coming fast. When we shall all be civilized, Neat and clean and well-advised. And won’t Mother England be surprised? Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.6
In May 2021 the Gardaí rewarded IPSC’s consultative approach with a ban on a march to the Israeli Embassy, quoting Covid-19 legislation, with which the IPSC complied under protest. It fell to another organisation to announce the march and to ahead with it, in the event without arrests.7
In October 2003 the IPSC pulled back from calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland (which in fact they had called for years earlier) and at the same time the Sinn Féin leadership was also pulling back from similar calls of the past.
The party was abstaining from such motions in councils and voting along with the Irish Government in Leinster House.
A speaker at the IPSC rally in the side street to the US Embassy in October 2023 (the only other IPSC one there in the current genocide phase) was asked by the IPSC not to call for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador in order not to embarrass a SF speaker. She correctly declined.8
Some IPSC stewards on that march were positioned near people calling for that expulsion in order to drown them out with non-stop leading of the more ‘acceptable’ slogans.
Shortly thereafter a rebellion of SF’s rank-and-file obliged the SF leadership to restore their original position of calling for the expulsion and the IPSC leadership returned to endorsing it too.9
Footnotes
1Some of their arrangements can actually cause higher risk of mischance, as when they pack large numbers tightly on the central pedestrian reservation in O’Connell Street, with a Luas tram line on one side and passing traffic on both sides. On one occasion I and some others with banners and flags on the west side, with the GPO behind us, were informed by Gardaí that we should join the packed crowd on the pedestrian reservation as that was what “our leaders” had agreed with the Gardaí. We had to insist that we were breaking no law and within our rights before they reluctantly went away.
2The Constitution guarantees the right to demonstrate, picket etc and the role of the police is supposedly essentially to facilitate that. Giving the police the power to decide on routes and even a veto on a destination not required by law is to collude in undermining civil rights and even encouraging further undemocratic restrictions. See also Appendix.
4Only votes of the UN Security Council are binding. It has a revolving membership but only five permanent members, any one of which can veto a proposal even if supported by the majority. The five Permanent Members are UK, France, USA, Russia and China.
6Whack Fol the Diddle by Peader Kearney, published 1917 (according to NLI). I don’t think Mother England would be surprised, nor yet father Gombeen Ireland – for are not the likes of these their very creations?
Many who supported Saturday’s march of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign advertised as going to protest at the US Embassy found themselves led to a rally in a residential street bordering the Embassy and far from the main road.
The IPSC march had gathered at the Department of Foreign Affairs on Stephens Green and proceeded from there to Ballsbridge, the last section passing through quiet residential streets to hold the rally in Elgin Road, some distance from and hardly visible from the main road.
Section of the IPSC march on Saturday (Photo cred: IPSC)
Before the arrival of the IPSC march a handful of people gathered near the main road, displaying Palestine national colours to acclamation from passing motorists. As the IPSC march arrived nearby some others with flags, banner and placards joined them near the front entrance of the Embassy.
From that position one could see the IPSC rally taking place quite some distance down the quiet street, distant enough that speeches could not be heard, though chants from the crowd were audible.
Earlier in the day the Palestinian resistance had released three of their prisoners in good health while the Palestinian prisoners of ‘Israel’ were beaten and insulted as they were leaving and made to wear special demeaning clothes (which they burned). Four had to be rushed to hospital after release.
Long before Trump’s proposal of ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians, it is important to understand that Israel’s genocide could not have been sustained for more than a week without funding and munitions supply by the USA, which also supported them politically.
In the sixteen-plus months of the current phase of Israeli genocide, the IPSC has led a march to the ‘Israeli’ Embassy only a few times and to the US Embassy exactly twice, each time to the side road (though the stage of the first one was closer to the Embassy’s main entrance than was today’s).
The front of the IPSC march at its destination at the rally on Saturday. (Photo cred: IPSC).The IPSC rally in the distance, taken from in front of the US Embassy main entrance. (Credit photo: Rebel Breeze)
A police officer approached the early demonstrators near the Embassy main entrance to encourage them to move down to the location of the IPSC rally but they politely declined. One of the IPSC’s committee members also wandered by to see who these mavericks could be.
A Zionist passing by claimed the demonstrators should be ashamed but they told him it was he who should feel shame, supporting genocide. Anger soared when he called for killing more Palestinians – including children– until some began to suspect he was provoking an assault leading to arrest.
Certainly he felt safe enough with Gardaí close by.
As the group consolidated a woman began to lead call-and-answer chants which were taken up: Saoirse – don Phalaistín! Resistance is an obligation- in the face of occupation! 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state! Free, free – Palestine!
Section of those who chose to stand near the US Embassy main entrance (out of shot to the right of photo) and in full view of passing traffic on the main road (just out of view to left of photo). (Photo credit: Rebel Breeze)
Also From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Car horns of passing motorists joined in, beeping in solidarity.
It began to rain heavily and the protesters endured it for a while before heading for shelter.
A large Palestine solidarity march once again in Dublin included a Resistance Bloc, part of which also broke away to picket the Palestinian Authority’s Embassy, where collaboration and collusion were denounced in three languages.1
A section of the march has arrived in Molesworth Street in view of Leinster House but others are still arriving. (Photo: R.Breeze)
As Israel freed 200 of their Palestinian prisoners Saturday in exchange for four female Israeli Occupation Army soldiers, Dublin City Centre rang again to shouts of Palestinian solidarity and some banners of the Resistance Bloc saluted the Resistance and denounced the Palestine Authority.
The Resistance Bloc was organised by a broad front of organisations: Action on Palestine, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Queer Intifada and was also supported by independent activists.
(Photo: R.Breeze)(Photo: R.Breeze)
There had not been a major Palestine solidarity march in Dublinsince 7th December, though they had been held pretty regularly every two or three weeks throughout the previous year. On Saturday, as Netanyahu stopped blocking it, the ceasefire and prisoners transfer agreement finally went ahead.
The Agreement is in three phases, each including prisoners of each side to be exchanged but also the removal of the IOF from Gaza in matched stages and the return of Gaza residents to the South also including the delivery of food, fuel and medicine. But they return to a rubble wasteland.
(Photo: R.Breeze)(Photo: R.Breeze)
THE PA AND OSLO
The PA is a product of what was called the Palestinian Peace (more correctly called Pacification) Process and since it failed spectacularly to pacify the Palestinian people is more usually now called the Oslo Accords, from which the PA was established in 1994.
Reading a statement in Arabic outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The Oslo Accords is one of a wave of imperialist pacification processes or agreements of the last decade of the 20th Century and in particular one of interrelated processes in three distinct regions: in chronological order South Africa, Palestine and Ireland.
The ANC2 of South Africa recommended it to the Fatah3 of the Palestinians; then Fatah and the ANC recommended to the Provisionals4 in Ireland. In no case was what they had fought for achieved, with the exception of universal suffrage in South Africa.5
Banner Dublin Footballers for Gaza on the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze) (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
Later, the ANC and Sinn Féin would also recommend it to the liberation movements of the Basque Country, Colombia and the Kurds of Turkey, always with disastrous results for the movements in fragmentation, confusion, collusion with imperialism and disarming in the face of repression.
The Palestinian Embassies represent in fact the PA and this is the case in Ireland too. Despite th. PA’s long history of treachery to the Palestinian people and their struggle, including repression of the Resistance, it is being officially “recognised” as the representation of the Palestine people.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
Not only the traditional State Government parties of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil uphold the PA but so also does the major oppositional party, the former Republican party of Sinn Féin. This is also the case with the major political parties in the EU, UK and US.
These also support the ‘two-state solution’ (sic) which would see the indigenous Palestinian people get less than 20% of their country, with the least water resources under the eyes and guns of the Israeli State. In any case it is considered unworkable by most experts and serious commentators.
“Smash the chains of Zionism”banneron the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)Howth Stands With Palestine banneron the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
In a recent statement on the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterrez, also promoted the ‘solution’ of splitting Palestine into two states as a way towards peace. The PA too upholds that same plan.
Major Palestine solidarity organisations like the IPSC in Ireland have no formal position on the PA or the Two-State plan. Standing on the base of Palestine solidarity, ‘neutrality’ on the question is not excusable, even on a kind of basis of ‘it’s up to the Palestinians and not for us to intervene’.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
The PA is an imperialist creation against the Palestine struggle; for years it has been periodically attacking the Resistance and has now stepped up that aspect in its 6-week siege of Jenin in the West Bank and even military assaults on the Resistance groups in collusion with the IOF.
True solidarity with the struggle of a people also entails solidarity with their resistance, whether in non-violent or violent form and it also entails opposition to individuals and organisations that are colluding with the enemy; the PA should be publicly denounced by the solidarity movement.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
THE MARCH IN DUBLIN
In Dublin on Saturday any fears that much support would have dropped away6 disappeared as large numbers marched through the city centre, some having come from Kerry or Limerick. Not far from the front marched the Resistance Bloc which had assembled earlier outside the Rotunda.
Flying the national flag of Palestine, the Starry Plough and flags of Palestinian Resistance factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad, along with the national flag of Syria, the bloc marched behind banners upholding the Resistance and denouncing the PA.
Placard and flags outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)Banners, flags and statement reading outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The usual chants of Palestine solidarity marches could be heard from the Bloc in call-and-answer but also included From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! Saoirse don – Phalaistín! Resistance is an obligation – In the face of occupation!
Soon after the main march reached its destination, much of the Resistance Bloc marched away to Leeson Street Lower and soon after crossing the bridge over the Grand Canal into Leeson Street Upper, crossed the road to assemble in front of the “Palestine Embassy”.
One of the placards outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)Reading translation of the statement in English outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The breakaway march was closely followed by a number of Irish police patrol cars and a Public Order Unit Van which remained at the PA Embassy until the event concluded.
One of the organisers then presented a man to read a statement in Arabic, the translation of which she followed to read in English, which pointed to happiness at the freeing of Palestinian prisoners in the exchange with the Resistance – but sadness at the collusion of the PA with the Occupier.
A protester holds a placard denouncing the PA outside their Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)Section of the crowd outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
The speech declared that Palestinians have been striving for over a century to achieve their independence and freedom in their struggle against Israeli occupation. This has cost hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives and displaced nearly nine million Palestinians around the world.
Later: Given the current circumstances, Palestinians must resist the Israeli occupation and simultaneously confront the Palestinian Authority, which acts as an agent in killing and besieging Palestinians to defend Israel. The speech concluded in thanking the Irish people for their solidarity.
One of the banners outside the PA Embassybears a slogan but also the name of one of the organising groups (Photo: R.Breeze)Another view of the crowd outside the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
Another man spoke in part-Irish and part-English, congratulating people on having publicly confronted the PA with its collusion. This had only been done twice before in Ireland, once in Belfast when the “Palestinian Ambassador” had been addressing a Sinn Féin meeting.
There had been another outside the “Embassy” in Dublin some months earlier by a small gathering supporting a picket called by the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign. He drew parallels between the PA and the treason to the Irish resistance that had led to Partition and a subservient state.
Next to the PA Embassy (Photo: R.Breeze)
Underlining the parallel in song, he sang verses of the Take It7 Down From the Mast ballad (against the Irish State during the Civil War 1922-1923), adapting a verse to call on the PA to Take it down from the mast Palestinian traitors ….. for you’ve (they’ve) brought on it nothing but shame.”
The picket concluded with thanks to the attendance and after a period of shouting slogans including There is only one solution – Intifada Revolution! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! Shame on you PA – Shame, shame, shame!
End.
On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)On the main march to Leinster House (Photo: R.Breeze)
3The major secular Palestinian national liberation organisation at the time.
4Provisional IRA with its corresponding party, Sinn Féin, the major Irish national liberation organisation at the time.
5But no other social or economic progress; in addition, fragmentation of the movement and enlisting of the former liberation fighters as ‘enforcers’ of the imperialist agreement.
6Due to a possible but mistaken attitude of “the war’s over”.
7A reference to the Irish Tricolour: Take it down from the mast Irish traitors/ It’s the flag we Republicans claim/ It can never belong to Free Staters/ For you’ve brought on it nothing but shame. “The Free State” was the name adopted by those who agreed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, including Partition.
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.
The national demonstration called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign for 31st August began at the Garden of Remembrance and, traversing the city’s main boulevard, crossed the river to rally across from Leinster House, the Irish Parliament.
Having a weekly Saturday commitment until 1.30 and the IPSC march start advertised for 1pm, I had to run to catch it up as it marched away up O’Connell Street. I hurried alongside it to try to reach the front but failed to do so before I had to stop and fly the flag with comrades.
Having to run to catch up with the demonstration after an earlier weekly commitment. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Looking back southward from O’Connell Bridge I could see the march stretching back along part of O’Connell Street while ahead I could see the front of the march winding along the outside of the Trinity College entrance.
Since early October last year, the IPSC and others have organised Palestine solidarity marches at least every second week through different parts of the city, mostly to Government offices and the Parliament. Similar events have also taken place across the land.
There have also been pickets of Zionist-friendly businesses and motorway bridge flag and banner drops, weekly roadside pickets in addition to building occupations and university protest/solidarity encampments.
This community solidarity banner may be seen every Thursday evening in four different areas of North Dublin (but for some reason the IPSC does not include it in its weekly list of events). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Meanwhile, in Palestine the Zionist genocide grinds on unabated through bombing, ground attack, starvation and disease, along with torture of prisoners, destruction of infrastructure, including buildings, while the Resistance fights back with their missile launchers, guns and explosives.
While the fluid tactics of the Resistance are appropriate to the genocidal and well-armoured enemy, we must ask ourselves whether ours are too. Marches are important in showing numbers and in increasing the feeling of wider participation among individuals and small groups of friends.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
However the demonstrations are not moving the Government, much less the State, not even to bring forward the agreed Occupied Territories Bill, much less keeping Irish state airspace free of genocidal collusion.
Targeted direct action seems more likely to exert the necessary pressure, as was the case with Axa Insurance, where regular pickets and some occupations resulted in its divestment from ‘Israeli’ banks. University protest encampments also scored some successes.
But where are their trade unions? (Photo: D.Breatnach)But where are their trade unions? (Photo: D.Breatnach)
There are other possibly suitable targets of protest in terms of assistance to the Resistance. Is the Irish Red Cross fulfilling its duty in seeking access to Palestinian prisoners being tortured and starved? Are ‘Israeli’ imports being blocked?
Quite possibly other kinds of organisation are necessary to discuss, plan and lead these kinds of processes and indeed it was such sprung-up organisations that led those direct action events. Perhaps it is wrong to expect and organisation like the IPSC to lead them.
But is it wrong to think that the IPSC should advertise or at the very least tolerate such actions and not discourage them? Or even more, not warn people off from supporting such groups?
(Photo: D.Breatnach) (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Watching IPSC stewards shepherding people to clear the Molesworth Street from Dawson Street to the junction, even when they are packed solid from there to the rally across the road from Leinster House sometimes looks as though they see themselves as policing the march — and the movement.
Those who want that road cleared are the police but a) that is their concern and b) the demonstration is on the road which it has a right to be and traffic will just have to avoid it.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach)
We don’t have to work against one another. If the IPSC doesn’t want to lead some kinds of actions, they don’t have to. And if others want to do things the IPSC doesn’t, then they can. But no-one has the right to be the police within the movement, much less restrict development.
End.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)Aerial view of the march crossing O’Connell Bridge and the numbers all the way back to the Garden of Remembrance. (Photo sourced: IPSC Facebook)
Resistance to colonialism and imperialism takes many forms but there are those who try to downgrade, deny or even condemn its armed aspect and this has been happening recently in the case of the Palestinian struggle.
Historically, resistance has taken the form of strikes, sabotage, protest pickets, marches, rallies, placards, hunger strikes, songs, poetry, visual arts, arson, petitions, articles, books, leaflets, speeches, graffiti, clothing, language promotion, riots … and armed action up to and including revolution.
All have proved useful and the question of whether the prevailing circumstance favour some more than others is a tactical one, never one of principle. Those who seek to forbid some tactics to the movement in all circumstances are they who cannot be trusted in leadership of the struggle.
The facet of resistance that temporisers and outright opponents of the resistance movement most often seek to outlaw and remove from the struggle is the armed one, presumably because it is one of the least amenable to sidetracking into cosmetic reform.
Ruling classes of states regularly outlaw armed resistance activity including the organisations that espouse that, usually dubbing them “terrorists”, while of course ensuring they themselves have military forces which, even when aggressive invaders, they dub “defence forces”.
Indeed, those elites usually arm even their civil security forces, i.e their police. But arms and their use in the hands of working people or the invaded populations? No, that would be terrorism!
Joint press conference with representatives of different resistance organisations. (Photo sourced: Internet)
THREE-PRONGED ATTACK ON ARMED RESISTANCE
Recently a three-pronged ideological and propaganda attack was carried out on the Palestinian armed resistance from sources that are seen by some as friends of the Palestinian people: The Palestine BDS National Committee, the President of the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League.
The National Committee made their attack through a document advising on tactics and principles in presentation of BDS demands, in particular of the student campus encampments or occupations, advising activists that upholding the armed resistance was not advisable.1
Around the same time, the Arab League was having its summit meeting and, though not stupid enough to advocate giving up the armed struggle, long upheld by the Palestinian people, recommended the resistance to place themselves under the leadership of the PLO2 and the PA.
The PLO is controlled by the leadership of Fatah; their nominee, President of the PA Mahmoud Abbas, who was also at the Arab League summit, accused the October 7th attack by the Palestinian resistance of providing the Israelis the excuse for their genocidal war on Palestine.
In October 2023, during the genocidal war by “Israel”, Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State and envoy to the Middle East, shakes hands with Mahmoud Abbas, “President” of the Palestinian Authority, who remains in office despite his term having concluded in 2009. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The Arab League is composed of the current 22 Arab states, i.e those for which the dominant language is Arabic.3 But the elites of the majority of those states are clients of imperialism, chiefly of the United States. In the case of Yemen, it is the overthrown ‘government’ that is a member.4
Apart from their weakness against imperialism, one must wonder at their impertinence in telling the Palestinian armed resistance, which they do not at all assist, who should be their leadership5 and that the “two-state solution” (sic) is the only option available and recommended.6
The leadership of Fatah under Arafat betrayed the struggle for an independent Palestine and the right of return of the millions of Palestinian refugees when they agreed to the Oslo Accords in 1993/’95, for which they received limited autonomy through a “Palestine Authority”.
The corruption of Fatah in the PA and their betrayal of fundamental objectives of the Palestinian struggle led to their ousting in the elections of 2006, which were won instead by Hamas, who then had to fight Fatah who were refusing to hand over administration in Gaza.
Fatah refused to recognise the electorally-expressed wish of the people in the West Bank too but Hamas chose not to enter into a civil war with them there. From that point onwards, Gaza was besieged by the zionist authorities and periodically bombarded.
Meanwhile the PA continued in their corruption, Abbas continued to be unelected President, occupying the office and sharing the funds coming in among his clique but using their security force primarily to control and repress the Palestinians of the West Bank.
During this week alone, Resistance News Network reported that the PA’s forces dismantled explosives prepared by the resistance in the home of Tamer Fugaha which was planned for demolition by the Israeli occupation forces, where the explosives would target them.
The zionist forces regularly demolish the homes of Palestinian fighters and Tamer Fugaha was killed, along with another four Palestinian comrades, in an epic 15-hour battle with the IOF early this month in Tulkarem.
The PA has Palestinian political prisoners and also identifies these for the IOF to arrest later. Naturally (as even admitted by western mass media) the PA is hated by Palestinians, yet the Arab League wants the armed resistance to place themselves under its rule!
The armed resistance movement, which is composed of a number of distinct organisations7 fighting in unity, has of course rejected any such move and instead continued its calls for the support of the Arab people and to break the zionist blockade at the Rafah gate of desperately-needed aid convoys.
Palestinian fighters from different resistance organisations. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The Palestine BDS National Committee headquarters is also, like that of the PA, in Ramallah (West Bank). A recent statement of theirs also advised organisations working for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions with regard to the Israeli State to drop mention of armed resistance.
Furthermore, they did so in the name of a host of organisations that sponsor Palestine BDS but the Boycott and Anti-Normalization Campaign, condemning the advice given,8 established that those organisations had not been consulted at all and if they had, would not have given approval.
The BANC criticised the offending committee not only for the original statement but also for acting as though they commanded the BDS movement.9 The statement in question was quickly withdrawn and replaced with another with the offending section on armed struggle removed.
Among the Palestinian groups that criticised the statement was the PFLP’s Haitham Abdo, head of the organisation in Lebanon, at the Popular Women’s Committees festival in Beirut on the occasion of Nakba Day, celebrating also the memory of a group of women fighters:
“Holding the resistance responsible for what happened after October 7 serves the zionist narrative and harms our people’s struggle and national fight. This statement is rejected, regardless of who says it.”10
In Yemen, the weekly “million-men march”11 sent a solidarity message to the Palestinians12 but also rebuked the participants in the Arab League summit with a non-too subtle hint as to where lie their allegiances:
“to the rulers of the Arab regimes meeting in Manama, near the embassy of the enemy entity: We regret to inform you that the enemy has committed more than 3,000 massacres to date, and even one massacre should have stirred your consciences.”13
Scene from Palestine solidarity demonstration in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo sourced: Internet)
OPPOSITION TO ARMED RESISTANCE IN IRELAND
The dislike of or even hostility to promoting the armed Palestinian resistance can be seen in Ireland. A Garda confiscated a demonstrator’s a flag of one of the resistance groups, the secular Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while another was asked by IPSC stewards not to fly it.
In one of the student encampments, the PFLP flag was taken down too. The PFLP is a secular resistance organisation while others are Islamist but all are fighting in unity.
In some cases this opposition could be seen as a reluctance to have the solidarity movement associated with one specific liberation organisation which would be understandable but then a compromise would allow the flags of all groups — or one non-specific one of armed resistance.
To restrict the solidarity movement to the Palestinian national flag only is the imposition of an undemocratic “unity” and removes one of the most salient features of the Palestinian resistance – its armed aspect, fighting now amid the ruins and alleys of Gaza and in the West Bank.
Every week RNN posts photos of fighter martyrs of different resistance organisations, killed as they fought tanks, IOF bulldozers and, more rarely, IOF troops on the ground. The fighters too have been killed by aerial bombardment as of course there is no Palestinian air force or air defences.
Yet every week RNN also lists IOF tanks, bulldozers, troop carriers and IOF ground troops hit by the resistance at close quarters or at remove by mortars and rockets. The IOF dead and wounded are evacuated by helicopters which – unlike Palestinian ambulances – are never fired on.
The western mass media is not reporting these engagements and Al Jazeera reports only some of them.14
Our internationalist duty to support the Palestinians means also supporting their right to resist and that means in effect to support the armed resistance, whether we elevate one organisation or more, or just the broad principle of the right to armed resistance.
An Israeli tank hit by Palestinian fire. (Photo sourced: Internet)
THE IRISH EXPERIENCE
In the struggle for Irish liberation we have used – in different combinations – all the forms of resistance listed in the second paragraph at the beginning of this article ; indeed one of those forms during the Land War gave the word “boycott’ to the world!15
But the armed aspect has been a part of that struggle from the time of the clans right down through eight hundred centuries, against even internal opposition. In July 1846, John O’Connell’s proposal to have the Union Repeal Association renounce the use of armed force split the organisation.16
At the meeting, Thomas Meagher, said that “There are times when arms will alone suffice, and when political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But … force must be used against force.
“The soldier is proof against an argument, but he is not proof against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned with; but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone avail against battalioned despotism.”17
LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE – IN ALL ITS FORMS!
End.
Palestinian youth respond to an Israeli raid on Beita in the West Bank Aug 2023 (Photo cred: Nidal Esthayeh/ Xinhua)
FOOTNOTES
1 We reiterate our firm position and call for a just and comprehensive peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue, and we support the call of His Excellency President Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, to convene an international peace conference and to take irreversible steps to implement the two-state solution in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative and resolutions of international legitimacy to establish an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the lines of 4 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, and to accept its membership in the United Nations as an independent and fully sovereign state in common with other countries in the world, and to ensure the restoration of all legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, in particular, the right to return and self-determination, empowerment and support.
2At its first summit meeting in Cairo in 1964, the Arab League initiated the creation of an organization representing the Palestinian people. The Palestinian National Council convened in Jerusalem on 28 May 1964. After concluding the meeting, the PLO was founded on 2 June 1964. Its stated “complementary goals” were Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine. (Wikipedia) Under Fatah domination it banned Islamist groups from membership.
3 Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
4 Rather than those in power, the Ansar Allah (“Houthis”) government, preferred by the vast majority of Yemenis to the western-recognised exiled government.
5We call on all Palestinian factions to join together under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and to agree on a comprehensive national project and a unified strategic vision to focus efforts towards achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people to achieve their legitimate rights and establish their independent national State on their national soil, on the basis of the two state solution, and in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy and established references.
6 The 2-state option, supported by the imperialist powers, is of a much smaller Palestine state alongside an Israeli state at least the size of its current dimensions. However even this has arguably been made impossible by the spread of Israeli settlements and is rejected by most Palestinians and many Israelis. The 1-state option envisages the whole of historic Palestine under a democratic regime.
7 Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (QQB) – Hamas; Al-Quds Brigades (AQB) – Islamic Jihad; Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (PFLP) – People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine; National Resistance Brigades (DFLB) – Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade – Fatah (not under Fatah political control); Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades (PRC) – Popular Resistance Committees; Lion’s Den; Mujahideen Brigades.
8The Boycott Campaign – Palestine condemns the statement issued by the Boycott National Committee, in Ramallah, which asserts the danger of supporting the Palestinian resistance on their work and the necessity to distance themselves from any positions that support the resistance, especially armed resistance.
This disgraceful stance comes at a time when the zionist enemy is committing the crime of genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip for over seven months, resulting in the killing and injury of more than 120,000 innocent Palestinians and the destruction of 70% of Gaza’s buildings.
Such dangerous statements provide cover and legitimacy for the enemy to continue its aggression.
What is more dangerous is that the BNC claims it issued the statement in consultation with a large number of national entities and organizations.
However, through our communications with several entities mentioned in the statement, it is certain that they were not presented with this statement nor consulted about it, and they would certainly refuse to sign such statements that promote non-national positions.
All struggles for freedom around the world have seen various forms of struggle side by side, with armed resistance at their core. Therefore, our Palestinian struggle strategy should reinforce different forms towards the major goal of dismantling this zionist project on our land.
Accordingly, we call on the BNC to revise its position and align with the authentic national stance that glorifies resistance in all its forms.
We also urge it to stop this approach that attempts to monopolize the legitimacy of international work for Palestine and issue top-down orders to everyone. Palestine is greater than all, and the global revolution today to support our people is greater than something that can be monopolized by anyone.
Boycott Committee — Palestine / Boycott and Anti-Normalization Campaign
11 For the 31st week, the Yemeni people turned out in massive crowds across various cities in Yemen in support of Gaza under the slogan: “With Gaza: Holy Jihad and No Red Lines.” A million-man flood took place in the capital Sana’a, a massive rally occurred in the city of Ibb, and marches were reported across 23 locations in Rima, among other cities. (RNN)
12 “The statement at the weekly turn out reiterated the legendary steadfastness of the fighting Palestinian people and the perseverance of its fighters in this critical phase. The people assured the American and British enemies that they will not be deterred from maintaining a steadfast stance.” (RNN)
14Electronic Intifada updates reports a number with analysis and RNN posts the reports of the groups themselves.
15 The word comes from the National Land League successful campaign of withdrawal of labour along with isolation of services (or even social contact) with Captain Charles Boycott, the agent of an absentee settler landlord who was planning to evict some tenants in 1886. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott Boycott is a non-violent tactic but the fact of the use of violence during the Land War by the Occupation and in response by the peasantry is often overlooked. The Fenians supported the campaign and landlord’s agents were shot at, police and bailiffs stoned and scab labour attacked.
16 The Repeal organisation’s leadership became dominated by the rising Catholic Irish bourgeoisie of which John and his father Daniel were leading members. The “split” became known as the Young Irelanders and contributed nationalist culture and journalism, in particular through The Nation newspaper and some long-lasting songs such as A Nation Once Again. The Irish Tricolour was first presented to Meagher by French women during the revolution in Paris in 1848; the Young Irelanders also staged an ill-fated uprising that same year.
Anti-apartheid activist Nimrod Sejake with some of the Dunnes Stores striker.
Reference has been made on a number of occasions to the heroic actions of the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers in 1984 who spent nigh on three years on strike because they refused to handle South African merchandise.
It has been pointed to as a success story for boycotts and one to emulate. The real story of the strike points to the difficulties we now face in implementing a real boycott of Israel.
I used to go down to the picket line at the Dunnes branch in Henry Street every Wednesday, as we had a half day at school and on Saturdays when there was no school and then more regularly once I had sat my Leaving Cert exam and was, like many young people in 1980s Ireland, unemployed.
So, I recently bought a copy of Mary Manning’s autobiographical account of the strike, Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Anti-Apartheid Striker (Collins Press).
The book brought to mind many of the instances and difficulties that they faced and it raises many questions for those who wish to point to them as an example to follow.
The strikers were implementing a trade union resolution, and at first knew little of the reality of South Africa, something they corrected relatively quickly, thanks in no small part to a South African exile, Nimrod Sejake, who turned up to join them on the picket line.
Sejake was an activist who had been arrested as part of the infamous Treason Trial. Mary Manning is full of praise for Nimrod and rightly so.
Others do not come out so well and it is worth remembering the reality of that strike as it tells us some of the things that need to happen if we want to see similar action in relation to Israel.
The first thing that jumps out of the pages, early on, is that the trade bureaucracy did not give them any support and even their own trade union, IDATU (now called Mandate) was very reluctant to support them.
What support they got was down to their official Brendan Archbold who was a stalwart in supporting them and the then head of the union John Mitchell. At every twist and turn they had to fight the executive of IDATU, whilst the rest of the trade union movement ran for cover.
There will be no similar type of action around the Zionists unless it is put to the bureaucracy and they are challenged over their inaction in the midst of a genocide.
Karen Gearon, the shop steward at Dunnes Store made a call at the National March in Dublin on February 17th for the trade union movement to stop talking and take action. It is not something that has been seriously echoed by others.
Neither People Before Profit TDs or the IPSC have ever made a clear call for action from the trade union movement. It should be a central part of any boycott movement now.
It is all well and good picketing Starbucks, but stopping the importation of Israeli goods would be more important and will only happen if the bureaucracy is pushed to it. The history of PbP is one of cowering in the shadow of the bureaucrats and never putting it up to them on any issue.
They frequently share polite platforms with the bureaucrats and never challenge them. Their calls, when made are generic and are in passing. Their website and the IPSC site is limited to a consumer boycott with calls for the government, not workers, to take action.
I was also reminded by the book how the great and good in Irish society stood by whilst these workers were on strike. The Minister for Labour at the time was Ruairí Quinn, a member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and yet he did nothing.
He was not the only mealy-mouthed figure in Irish society, nor indeed in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.
The head of the Catholic Bishops Aid Agency, Trócaire, Bishop Eamon Casey privately wrote to IDATU early on describing the strike as ‘economically harmful to the already impoverished Black South Africans.’
The strikers’ request for support from the Catholic Church was described as impertinent and just in case anyone doubted how he saw himself, he was of the view that both he and Trócaire should have been consulted before the strike took place.
Their currency now is much devalued in Ireland but there are others like them who also think they have a veto on decisions.
He was later forced to publicly back the strike having been embarrassed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to present two strikers to the world at his London press conference en route to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.
Though that took a while and meantime nuns proudly scabbed and crossed the picket line. Casey’s attempts at sabotage and his later hypocrisy in belatedly supporting the strike, should not be forgotten.
At the time he was seen as a moral guardian, his plundering of church funds to keep his lover and his child comfortable was not known.
There are lots of other figures like him around now, who we might expect to support workers implementing a boycott, but might not when faced with the reality of it.
Another figure who comes out badly in it is Kader Asmal, the head of the IAAM. After three months of strike action, he met with John Mitchell and Brendan Archbold and told them to call off the strike, that it had served its purpose and that he was pulling his support.
When Desmond Tutu invited the strikers to South Africa he privately told them he would not support them going as it was a breach of the cultural boycott of South Africa.
Their trip to the country and the refusal of the Apartheid regime to let them in along with their detention at the airport was a pivotal moment in the strike.
Upon their return to Ireland, Asmal was one of the people to rush to the airport and give interviews and bask in the glory, as his position opposing the trip was never made public. He comes across very badly in the book.
I recall him asking me for information on South African goods coming through the port where I had begun working and Brendan Archbold telling me not to trust him, that he was a sleiveen and would hang me out to dry. He was, and like him there are others just like that on the issue of Gaza.
The contrast with Nimrod Sejake could not have been greater.
Sejake was a working class militant who suffered greatly and enjoyed none of the middle class trappings of Kader Asmal’s life in Ireland and unlike Asmal he had never crossed a picket line, something Asmal did in Trinity College where he worked, scabbing during a strike there.
There are Palestinian equivalents to Asmal and also to Sejake. The IPSC pretends otherwise.
So, what are the lessons of the Dunnes Stores strike?
One is that it wasn’t just a consumer boycott, it was a workers’ boycott and they were left high and dry by many of those who would have been expected to support them.
If we are going to call for workers action, various people and bodies need to be challenged and would have to commit themselves publicly to it. So far this is absent. PbP and the IPSC are not putting it up to any of the institutions.
View of the protest outside Axa Insurance 14 December 2023 while others inside carried out a protest sit-in. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In fact, the UNITE union complained about a sit-in at Axa Insurance company saying it was harmful to the workers. The sit-in was not organised by the IPSC but by CATU and Dublin for Gaza.
It turns out that UNITE is a bit like IDATU.
The union has also passed resolutions supporting the campaign of BDS and yet “according to union insiders, Axa is Unite’s insurer in Ireland – and Unite’s designated provider of hotel accommodation is the Leonardo hotel group, which is part-owned by the Israeli Fattal group.”(1)
UNITE members taking action would most likely be shunned by their own union. Just like the head of the IAAM, Kader Asmal had tried to undermine the Dunnes Stores strike, there are those in the IPSC who would run for the hills were workers to take action against Israel.
So, we do need to emulate the Dunnes Stores strikers, but we need to be clear about the challenges and the opposition we would face from the trade union movement itself, the Catholic Church (they never went away either) and sectors of the IPSC.
It is time for action, but it is also high time that both PbP and the IPSC made clear calls for action and workers are not left hung out to dry, should they take action.
There is no doubt that the genocidal bombing of Palestine has radically politicised people around the world, exposing the Zionist colonial state of ‘Israel’ and its US and other imperialist backers to a greater degree than ever before.
The effect has been hugely but not alone on the mass of people and especially the young, it has been felt also on democratic organisations, pushing them towards more revolutionary positions and actions. Even representatives of states have had to pay close attention to what they say and do.1
There probably has not been a situation of anti-imperialist radicalisation to a similar degree around the world since the USA’s war in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia – of which the death of Kissinger this month was a reminder, if one were needed).2
Section of the march to the US Embassy passing through Baggot Street on Saturday (Photo: D.Breatnach)(Photo: D.Breatnach) (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Dublin saw thousands on its streets again at the weekend in a march towards the US Embassy, while Axa Insurance was occupied and picketed during the week for its investment in genocide. It seemed that every town across the land also saw a demonstration or picket.
The US Ambassador to Ireland’s residence was also picketed on the occasion he had invited Irish politicians and “VIPs” to a meal.
On Tuesday the broad Saoirse Don Phalaistín group organised an occupation of the Israeli Embassy with a picket of about sixty people outside, of different groups and individual activists. Furthermore, it became clear that the State was reluctant to create ‘martyrs’ with arrests.
Picket outside the Zionist Embassy Tuesday with some protesters in occupation before those were removed by Public Order Unit Gardaí (Photo sourced: Anti-Imperialist Action)
THE “FREE PRESS”
The mass media is an integral part of the imperialist system and that too has come under huge criticism.
The western mass media, “the free press” of the western capitalist world, has undergone a huge exposure of its biased reporting (and censorship, particularly on social media). Every atrocity committed by Israel has been represented as ‘caused’ by the Palestinian attack of 7th October.
On the other hand, the attacks of the Palestinian resistance have never been presented as what they truly are and have always been: responses to occupation, genocide, banishment, racism, murder, torture, land-theft and massive bombings by Israel.
Every lie of the Zionist administration and of its imperialist allies, including such patently ridiculous horror stories as ‘beheading of Israeli babies’ and ‘rape and mutilation of Israeli women’ has been repeated while entirely likely accusations by Palestinians have been treated as dubious.
Conversely, within the settler colony itself, some parts of its mass media have exposed the panicky reaction of its military to the October 7th incursion, in killing hostages along with their Palestinian captors and the very recent killing of three escaped or released Israeli hostages.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE “DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS”
The allegedly democratic state institutions have fared no better. The European Union was exposed in its voting and by words of its Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, as a profoundly imperialist backer of Israeli Zionism (e.g fulsomely celebrating the anniversary of the state’s founding3).
According to reports, the EU last week failed even to call for a ceasefire, despite a large majority of states being in favour. The opposition of the minority was so strong that they decided to completely avoid formally discussing the matter at all!4
The United Nations was exposed as a profoundly undemocratic body in that the vast majority of its member states wished the Israeli bombing to stop but were unable to force the Zionist state to comply, even with formally registered votes.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Only decisions of the Security Council are compulsory on the 193 members and any Permanent Member of that Council can veto any resolution. There are only five of those: UK, France, USA, Russia and China — and the USA vetoed the call for unilateral Israeli ceasefire.
The USA has consistently opposed any resolution that went counter to what Israel intends and recently twice vetoed a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow food, medicine and water to reach the besieged and displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
This was countered last week by a massive majority of the General Assembly voting for such a motion, which however has no obligatory effect by UN rules, thereby exposing the inherent undemocratic nature of the institution but also isolating the USA from its clients and allies.5
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
In fact, the voting in the Security Council and in the General Assembly exposed fractures in European imperialist unity too, since the UK abstained and France voted for the ceasefire.
The allies of the USA fear that the actions of Israel are destabilising the Middle East and feel that the USA should be pressurising rather than backing the Zionist state.
When put under pressure reactionary alliances tend to strain and fracture and this too is a sign that events are developing along lines favourable to revolution.
The International Criminal Court, which a number of liberals and social democrats hope will try Israel for war crimes and genocide was also exposed, not only by its own record to date but by the biased actions of its Prosecutor Karim Khan on a recent visit to the Zionist state.6
Despite the overwhelmingly majority sympathy for and empathy with the Palestinians in many states, their rulers have not responded to anything like the degree wished for and demanded by their citizens, neither in states of the “western world” nor in those of the Arab or Muslim worlds.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The rulers of the German and French “democracies” have widened the gap by banning Palestine solidarity demonstrations and persecuting people wearing the keffiyeh (and in the case of France, previously outlawing wearing of traditional muslim dress in public places by women).
In Britain, the idea of banning the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!” as “antisemitic” was proposed by the Home Secretary7 and a number of direct activists and even posterers on social media have been arrested under criminal and even anti-terrorist legislation.
The British imperialist Labour Party has been exposed too by the words of its leader Keir Starmer; denunciations during his visit to his party’s organisation in Scotland exposed not only Starmer’s unpopularity but his party’s too, along with the massive support for Palestine there.
THEIR ACTIONS MAKE THINGS WORSE FOR THEM
When the enemy’s repressive actions make things worse, rather than better for them, it is a sign that revolutionary opportunities are on the rise.
Direct actions are an essential component of revolution and such have been on the rise too, from occupations of Government offices and buildings complicit with Zionism in Ireland, for example, to occupations and blockades of arms companies in Britain and of shipments in the USA.
Whether these actions are motivated in part by frustration at the lack of progress by other means or through revolutionary understanding, they put the system under greater pressure and tend to isolate the reformists while the activists gain deeper education about the nature of the system.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The world has witnessed unity in action too, with Hezbollah8 missiles launched from Lebanon against the Israelis causing casualties; but 60 martyrs of the resistance organisation have also fallen to Israeli bombs and missiles9 and Lebanese non-combatants have also, including journalists.
Houthi attacks on shipping off Yemen have caused disruption and financial cost to several major freight companies – including MSC and Maersk – which have begun to sail around Africa instead.
About 15% of shipping traffic regularly transited via the Suez Canal, the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. Combined, the companies that have diverted vessels “control around half of the global container shipping market,” ABN Amro analyst Albert Jan Swart told Reuters.10
Oil major extractor British Petroleum has also temporarily paused all transits through the Red Sea following the attacks over the weekend.11
Most impressive of all however has been the unity and coordination of the Palestinian armed resistance itself.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is Hamas’ armed wing and the party is a Muslim fundamentalist organisation, as are also Palestine Islamic Jihad. But the Lion’s Den, Jenin Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees are mixed.
The Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine12 and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine are secular, socialist organisations yet they and the Islamic organisations are fighting the Israeli state in unity coordinated through the Joint Operations Room.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
PRISONERS, HOSTAGES, CIVILIANS
The current struggle has also brought to light the huge numbers and treatment of Palestinian prisoners of the Zionist state, including women and children, when some of the latter were exchanged with prisoners taken by the Palestinian forces in their incursion on 7th October.
This issue also challenged the discourse about ‘rules of war’ regarding civilians about which politicians and media commentators made much in attacking the Palestinian incursion.
The question must be posed as to why the Zionist state can take “prisoners” while the Palestinians take “hostages”?13 Outside the US Embassy on Saturday, an IPSC speaker called Israel’s prisoners “freedom fighters” to loud applause, the first such public stance by the organisation.14
Here in Ireland it is a Republican tradition in December to focus on its members incarcerated in prisons within the Irish neo-colonial and British colonial states. The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign held its annual event in front of the GPO on Thursday 23rd including Palestinian flags.
Annual Prisoners’ picket for Christmas organised by the Ireland Anti-Internment Committee showing Palestinian and Irish flags (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sadly it was not only officials embedded in the system but also liberals and some of the Left who condemned the Palestinians for ‘attacks on civilians’, ignoring the fact that civilians and soldiers were being captured to exchange for the many Palestinian civilians behind Israeli prison bars.
Then too, rarely mentioned in the media is the fact that most Israeli men and women are military reservists. On the other hand, of over 20,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombing, at least a third are women and children, which shows who it is who really are attacking civilians.15
The draft requirement applies to any citizen or permanent resident, male or female fit to serve and who has reached the age of 18; many of the soldiers who complete their mandatory military service are later obligated to serve in a reserve unit in accordance with the military’s needs.16
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
IN CONCLUSION
The pain, loss and suffering inflicted upon the Palestinians is a horror almost too hard to grasp; it is intended to demoralise the Palestinians and destroy their resistance to colonisation and can create a feeling of helplessness in us, viewing it from afar.
But it is not destroying the resistance of the heroic Palestinian people who are teaching the world a lesson in resistance, an important attribute of humanity. We should not let our resolve be undermined either.
The oppressed people of the world are a step closer to revolution and liberation as a result of this struggle. Let us push forward together.
1This has been particularly the case with regard to the Irish State but not only there.
2Kissinger was a US imperialist strategist and chief advisor to US President Nixon but was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his steering the US out of their disaster in Indochina and thereby devaluing the Nobel Peace Prize forever hence.
3Without of course any mention of the 750,000 Palestinians expelled forever during the creation of the state.
7Suella Braverman; she has since been sacked but not for that, rather for suggesting that the London Metropolitan Police have been “soft” on Palestinian solidarity demonstrators in contrast to their policing of the far-Right. The latter took advantage of her comments to stage a number of actions including some attacks on police and Braverman’s comments were widely criticised by politicians as having helped set that up.
12According to Wikipedia, PFLP is the second-largest organisation in the PLO. However, the PLO has long been dominated by Al Fatah and, due to the latter’s collusion with Israel and imperialism, the PLO has come to lose much support. Hamas and the Islamic fighting organisations are not part of the PLO.
13There is a long Irish history of political prisoners of the English occupation which were often in the earlier centuries named “hostages” and a Republican prisoners’ newspaper
14Of course it may not be that but rather a personal position of the speaker.
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