Tag: Irish Left

ANTI-FASCISTS CONFRONT FAR-RIGHT & FASCISTS IN DUBLIN CITY CENTRE

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Event Report, Fascism, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Song, Song in Struggle, Spanish Civil War2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 minutes)

A far-right march containing known fascists and fascist organisations opposed to immigration or to providing housing for refugees confronted an antifascist counterprotest half its size in Dublin city centre’s main street on Monday.

The counter-protest was convened for 1pm by the United Against Racism organisation (a kind of liberal anti-racist and antifascist confederation set up by the People Before Profit party) in order to confront an advertised mobilisation of the far-Right on a broad racist platform.

The racists had been building for this ‘national’ march since early January.

A view of the west side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The antifascists gathered on the central pedestrian reservation while a group of less than 20 strutted in front of the GPO waving Tricolours,1 an Erin go Bragh flag2 and, most unusually, a Cumann na mBan3 flag. Did they know or care that one of the founders of that organisation was a migrant?4

Or that the Tricolour was presented to us in 1848 by women revolutionaries in Paris? The far-Right in Ireland is replete with ironies, whether ignorant of them or aware while manipulating their ignorant followers in neglected cross-generational families and communities.

Among the anti-racist gathering, at first there were red, rainbow and some Palestinian flags but not one specifically Irish one apart from a white Starry Plough on a red background, until a little later when a number of Irish Tricolours made their appearance among the anti-racists.

East side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

This gives the unfortunate appearance that it’s the far-Right that cares about the national struggle and not the antifascists, which is untrue since the fascists have never lifted a finger for Irish freedom and unity (as pointed out by one of the placards displayed by the anti-racists).

It seemed strange that the anti-racists had not occupied the space directly in front of the GPO, thereby not only denying it to the far-Right but also giving them a position with a safe rear and only exposed from the front and flanks, as distinct from the central reservation, open on all sides.

Many Garda Public Order Unit vehicles had been seen at the Garden of Remembrance where the far-Right were rallying along with two mounted Garda, with another two of those outside the GPO and many police in ordinary uniform, along with a few POU there also.5

A strong turnout of Gardaí lined up in front of the GPO with their backs to the fascists and facing the antifascists, a formation clearly anticipating antifascists moving against the far-Right. A number of shouts were traded between the opposing forces.

Early view of section of the anti-racist demonstrators showing in the background a section of the far-Right demonstrators outside the GPO before they left to join their rally at the Garden of Remembrance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A senior Garda officer approached an anti-fascist and obliged her to remove her mask, an action that exposed her not only to Garda photographers but also to media and far-Right snaps and video.

Unlike a number of other occasions prior to and during the Covid emergency, the police restrained the fascists from crossing the road or even engaging in sustained exchanges. After awhile, the latter departed to join the others at their rally at the Garden of Remembrance

The antifascist gathering listened to speeches (or ignored them and chatted among themselves) and a number of a cappella songs about Irish emigration and anti-racism, regularly joining in slogans of “Say it loud and say it clear – Refugees are welcome here!” and “Fáilte – roimh theifigh!”

Another slogan6 shouted was “When refugees are under attack – Stand up, fight back!”

THE FASCIST MARCH

Word reached the antifascists that the far-Right had finally got into their march and the whole anti-racist gathering moved to face the east side of O’Connell Street, where stewards packed them in tighter and tighter and Gardaí lined up facing them with arms linked.

Photo taken of section of anti-racist protesters on east side of central reservation shortly before arrival of anti-immigration marchers – note the Gardai linked arms against the anti-racists, possibly out of habit before they reversed their positions as the far-Right protesters approached. The flag centre photo is of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Antifascist War. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A little later, perhaps conscious of the size of the far-Right march, the Gardaí turned their backs to the anti-racists and faced the street upon which the racists were going to march. The POU also deployed around the area and both mounted police moved across on to the central reservation.

The far-Right began to proceed southward along the street a couple of feet only away from the anti-fascists, from which the slogans in support of refugees were chanted in unison but there were also individual comments flying back and forth, along with gestures, between both groups.

Their stewards were clearly keen to keep them moving, however. At one point a large group of the far-Right mounted the central reservation and approached the antifascists aggressively but between the Gardaí and their own stewards they soon resumed their march south.

The anti-immigration marchers pause in order to hurl abuse at the anti-racist counter-protesters, some of who respond in kind. (Photo sourced: Internet)

It became clear that the racist march outnumbered the counter-protest in the order of around two to one. When banners of the National Party and the Irish Freedom Movement were seen (and placards of Síol na hÉireann)7 a roar of “Nazi scum off our streets!” emerged from the anti-racists.

There were also some cries of “MI5!” at those. Some large placards bearing the legend “Ireland is full” drew the reply: “No it’s not – you don’t know your history or your geography!”8

A racist and a fascist trope side by side: The “Replacement” conspiracy theory originated in white European settler colonies in fear of being replaced by the indigenous people, while fascists regularly demand freedom of speech for racism and lies but shut down all freedoms when they get into power. (Photo sourced: Internet)

The march passed and according to information received made its way to Custom House Quay for a rally. The antifascists were then called on to the street to march to the Garden of Remembrance in a move that puzzled some (one suggestion was that it was to “disinfect” the site!).

Later and photos from Anti-Imperialist Ireland confirmed the sighting of a number of known fascists at the racist rally, including Derek Bligh (IF), Jim Ferguson, Herman Kelly (IFM) and Rowan Croft, all with connections to British Loyalism and British Intelligence.

Four prominent fascists from different groups who were present (some as speakers) at the anti-refugee and immigration rally on Monday. (Photo source: AIA)

EVALUATION

The question must be asked how a minority of far-right and fascist parties in Ireland can outnumber the vastly numerically superior anti-fascist mass in the country at a public (and publicised) event? Clearly the counter-protest organisers failed to mobilise the wide anti-fascist masses.

View of section of the anti-immigration march. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Or the wide anti-fascist movement failed to respond to the call. Where were the Irish Republican forces, the specifically antifascist organisations, the anti-fascist trade unionists – and the broad masses that they can mobilise?

Some of those may say that they don’t trust the UAR group, that they’re not serious about confronting fascists, etc. That may be but it would be a poor and shameful excuse for allowing a successful fascist attack on an antifascist gathering.

On the other hand, when the UAR was being founded, it deliberately excluded those forces – Republicans, antifascist activists, anarchists – who had already been confronting the far-right in Dublin and had been in a number of clashes with the fascists.

A placard displayed by a migrant solidarity demonstrator. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

This is a most serious situation in which the democratic masses to be as the racists and fascists mobilise their thugs and feel the wind behind their sails while simultaneously the State surreptitiously encourages them and the capitalist system seeks to make the workers pay for its crisis.

The racist march took place in the context of a recent fascist mobilisation in the city centre burning cars and public transport and ongoing burning of buildings across the country earmarked – or just believed to be earmarked – for housing of refugees.

Government Ministers can claim shock and anger at such fascist mobilisations but how is it that the wave of arson attacks is being permitted? And how is it that communications of the culprits are not being monitored by the State’s intelligence services?

How is that there is not one case of Garda or property security being on hand and apprehending the arsonists?

We need not believe any nonsense about insufficient personnel because the private security industry employs over 30,000 people across a broad range of sectors9 and the Gardaí can mobilise 100 with helicopter back-up to evict a handful of housing activists occupying an empty building.10

The State is clearly allowing the fascists a loose rein whilst at the same time permitting an atmosphere favouring repression to build up – repression which as is usually the case will be used not against the fascists but against the antifascists and against the Left resistance in general.

We are being given warnings and it is up to all of us whether we act upon them. If we don’t not only we but our children will pay the price.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1The green, white and orange flag that became the ‘national’ flag of the Irish State.

2Anglicisation for pronunciation of Éirinn go Brách (Ireland for ever!), the slogan in gold on a green background, usually also bearing the emblem of the harp in gold was a common flag seen among gatherings of the Fenians (Irish Republican Brotherhood) in Ireland, Britain and the USA during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

3Possibly the world’s first female republican military organisation, it was founded in 1914 as an auxiliary to the male Irish Volunteers founded the year before; around 40 of them participated in the 1916 Rising. Later the organisation developed more independence.

4Constance Markievicz: A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.

5And some in ordinary street clothes, clearly the political ‘undercover’ police (now officially the Special Detective Unit but still widely known among political activists (and some of its own officers) by their former name of “the Special Branch”).

6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan

7Three of the prominent fascist and racist organisations recently founded in Ireland, though not much of “Síol” has been seen for many months.

8Presumably a reference to the fact that in 1845 Ireland had a population of over 8 million and was not “full” even then while the population today is around 7 million.

9“and has an estimated annual turnover in excess of €960 million” https://www.cpsa.ie/en/organisation-information/8018a-the-private-security-authority

10On two occasions in Dublin alone, against the Revolutionary Housing League occupations of empty buildings on Eden Quay in June 2022 and on Berkeley Road in July last year. https://rebelbreeze.com/tag/revolutionary-housing-league/

SOURCES

March and counter-demonstration: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2024/02/05/anti-immigrant-march-and-counter-protest-in-dublin-see-300-gardai-deployed/

https://www.thejournal.ie/anti-immigration-protest-dublin-6291088-Feb2024

Fascist speakers at Monday’s rally: https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2024/02/06/dont-be-fooled-by-britains-far-right-in-ireland/

Far-Right arson of buildings and riots: https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/arsonists-burning-buildings-set-house-28568335

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/dublin-riots-taoiseach-receives-mixed-messages-on-far-right-thugs-and-uncontrolled-immigration-1583306.html

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/man-charged-in-connection-with-dublin-riots-1585211.html

Gardaí available in large numbers when evicting housing activists: https://rebelbreeze.com/tag/revolutionary-housing-league/

ISRAELI EMBASSY BLOCKADED AGAIN: “ZIONIST AMBASSADOR OUT!”

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Clive Sulish
(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Palestinian solidarity supporters demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin again this afternoon, calling for the expulsion of the legation and the Israeli Ambassador. The protest was maintained from around 3pm to after 6pm today.

Organised by Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Action for Palestine, supported by Anti-Imperialist Action and independent activists, the protest kept up an almost endless chorus of slogans in English, Irish and Arabic languages, calling for a free Palestine and an end to genocide.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

Slogans were shouted denouncing the genocide being committed by the USA, the EU, the “Western Powers” and the “western media”, along with the collusion of the Irish Government. As large numbers of Gardaí arrived their collusion with zionism was called out also.

The latest figures of the Zionist genocide have now passed 27,000 dead in four months, more than two-thirds of them women and children, 66,287 injured, with 70% of Gaza housing destroyed and over 85% of its population displaced, a quarter starving and without clean drinking water.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

17,000 children are without parents or separated, according to UNICEF. And now evidence is mounting of Israeli ‘field executions’ and random sniper killing of Palestinian civilians and an Israeli military murder squad shooting three young Palestinian men sleeping in a hospital.

Meanwhile, outside the Zionist Embassy in Dublin …

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

No less than three van-loads of the POU Gardaí (riot police) and many uniformed officers were there eventually. Later one of the latter threatened all those sitting in front of the entrance as a group with arrest under the Public Order Act, though no public disorder was taking place.

For the rest of their time there, the protesters separated to each side of the Embassy building entrance and the event concluded without any arrests.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

Every few minutes car horns could be heard as passing drivers indicated their support, often with a clenched fist or thumbs-up sign out the window. Only two objected: a man walking his dog who said he only cares about Ireland and a woman who shouted from across the road.

It has often been remarked by activists that those who “only care about Ireland” and object to Palestinian solidarity are not seen on the many demonstrations in Ireland protesting lack of housing, health service in tatters or British occupation of the Six Counties.

The Israeli Embassy is in an upper floor of a building rented to the zionist entity by a foreign property company with Irish directors, Quanta Capital at 15 Merrion Square North, a location which has also been the subject of protests.

Other tenants in the building say they have complained about the Embassy tenancy to the company but “they don’t care.”

No doubt protesters will return and the pressure on the Embassy (and on the Irish Government protecting it) will be maintained. Some TD should surely ask in Leinster House how much the taxpayers are being charged for maintaining an official zionist presence in Dublin.

End.

SOURCES

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/2/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-downplays-settler-violence-in-west-bank

6,000 March to Commemorate Derry’s Bloody Sunday and in Solidarity with Palestine

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History commemoration, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, National Liberation, Peace Process, Popular Resistance, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

Led by four Republican marching bands and containing a number of organisations, around 6,000 people supported the annual march in Derry on Sunday commemorating the 1972 massacre by the British Parachute Regiment in the city.

This year a special focus on solidarity with Palestine had been called for by the organisers of the Bloody Sunday massacre commemoration and Palestinian flags mixed with ones of Irish Republican organisations decorated the march route.

The march begins at the Creggan Heights, overlooking Derry, a steep walk up from the Bogside, the city’s centre near the river and winds its way down (with a great view of the Foyle river and surrounding area) but then up Westland Street again and along Marlborough Terrace.

Rear banner of the AIA contingent on the Bloody Sunday commemoration march Sunday. (Photo source: AIA)

For a number of years this commemoration has taken place in heavy rain and high winds, or snow, or sleet but it was dry this year – until the march started! However after a short period of strong gusts driving rain it stopped for the rest of the march.

Down Creggan Road to the Bogside once more and past the Bloody Sunday and H-Block memorials to the rally at Free Derry Corner where Kate Nash, one of the main organisers of the march for years and a sister of one of those murdered in the massacre, welcomed the marchers.

The Bloody Sunday 52nd commemoration march makes it way along Lone Moor Road towards the Brandywell on Sunday afternoon. (Photo: George Sweeney via Derry News.)

RALLY AND SPEAKERS

Nash condemned the punitive EU/ UK/ USA cutting of funds to the UNRWA organisation carrying out relief and educational work in Gaza following an Israeli State intelligence allegation1 and also called for no Irish politicians to attend the annual US Presidential St. Patrick’s Day event.2

Kate Nash’s brother Willie was murdered by the Parachute Regiment during the massacre and her father was wounded by fire while trying to reach his fallen son. Kate called for a minute’s silence for the dead and wounded that day but also for those in Gaza, in particular the children.

Kate Nash also mentioned the Noah Donohoe case as being close to everyone’s heart.

The names of the dead and wounded by the Parachute Regiment were read out by Damian Donaghy,3 son of Damian Donaghy one of the survivors on that day. Paddy Nash performed the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” which was popular among marchers of the time.

Section of the rally to the right as facing Free Derry Corner with a mural based on an iconic photograph from the massacre. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Kate Nash introduced Huda Ammori, a Manchester-based Palestinian activist and one of the Elbit Eight,4 who said she felt at home in Derry because of the people’s solidarity with Palestine.5 The State in Britain failed to convict all but one of any charges arising out of direct action against the arms company.

Ammori drew parallels between the Irish and Palestinian struggles against colonialism and stated that her grandfather had been assassinated for rising up against the British colonisation of Palestine in 1936, when it was a British “Mandate”.

Mural on a wall in the Bogside, Derry; the words “don Phalaistín” are obscured by a vehicle. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

AIA Short Video with Music Bloody Sunday Derry 2024 AIA Video.MP4 (viewable on FaceBook)

“The British signed away the land of Palestine in 1917,” Amori told the rally, “they colonised our lands and then they armed and trained the Zionist militia to commit a Nakba, to displace over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, over half the indigenous population.”

Huda Ammori said weapons were used on Palestinians in Gaza and then marketed as ‘battle-tested’. She also praised those who had taken direct action in Derry against arms firms (e.g Raytheon).

Section of crowd gathering in front of the stage for the rally. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Geraldine Doherty, niece of Gerard Donaghy, youngest of the Bloody Sunday victims, also spoke from the platform, saying it was ‘sad’ but ‘heartwarming’ to see so many people attending the march.

“More than half a century since British troops committed this massacre on these streets, innocent children like my murdered uncle Gerard and hundreds of others as well are still being denied justice”, she said and denounced the British State attempting to prevent the trial of legacy cases being tried.

Doherty spoke of the remaining “trauma for Derry and for Ireland” from which many families have never recovered, with long-term post-traumatic damage such as depression, addiction and divided families.

“But while the people of Derry were battered and imprisoned, we were never broken,” she said to cheers from the rally participants. “Derry has rediscovered its … voice and we are using that voice to oppose the murder of children and women and men, and we stand with the people of Palestine.”

Section of crowd to the left of the stage at the rally. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

ON THE MARCH

Over the years since I returned to Ireland, I have marched in that commemoration many times, either as an individual or as a member of a solidarity committee and this year was glad to be welcomed as part of the Socialist Republican contingent, with Anti-Imperialist Action.

The bloc carried two banners: the one at the front was a new one in which the AIA called for anti-imperialist revolution and socialism, while at the rear the banner celebrated the Palestinian resistance. In between the banners marchers carried flags and placards.

New banner of the AIA in the organisation’s contingent on the march on Sunday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

In the bloc men and women marched with a flags of the AIA, the Starry Plough, Palestine and Cumann na mBan. From the contingent on many occasions could be heard slogans of solidarity with Palestine and some equally applicable to that nation’s resistance or to Ireland’s.

“In the face of occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “No justice – No peace!” were in the latter category while “From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free!”, “Free, free – Palestine!” and “Saoirse don – Phalaistín!” were specifically supporting the Palestinian struggle.

Most Republican organisations and some Irish socialist organisations attend the annual event, along with campaign groups and on occasion solidarity groups from abroad or Irish ones in solidarity with struggles abroad. Sinn Féin no longer attends but some supporters would as individuals.

Giant Palestinian flag displayed below the Derry Walls above the rally below. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

THE MARCH ROUTE AND HISTORY

The Bloody Sunday march covers the same route as the anti-internment march in January 1972 when the British Paratroopers murdered 14 unarmed marchers and injured so many others. Preceded by the Ballymurphy Massacre in August 1971, it was followed by another in Springhill in July ‘72.

The British military claimed that the Derry victims had been armed and fired first and an inquiry tribunal headed by Lord Justice Widgery exonerated the Army and blamed the victims although the Derry Coroner, an ex-British Army officer had called it “sheer unadulterated murder”.

In 1998, presumably as part of the Good Friday Agreement deal, the British State began a new inquiry which however did not deliver a published verdict until 2010,6 stopping short of accusing the Army of murder but exonerating all the victims except one about which it was equivocal.

At that point, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness said that the march should not be continued; however not one British soldier had even been charged, to say nothing of the commanders and Government Ministers who had either given the orders or arranged the cover-up – or both.

Banner of the organisation combining representation of trade unions in Derry. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A small group of veterans of the original march and relatives, Kate Nash prominent among them, however decided to keep the march going and have done so every year, often in the face of accusations and disparaging remarks from supporters of Sinn Féin and others.

In 2022, the Massacre’s 50th anniversary, 20,000 marched in it while the Bloody Sunday Trust, an institution and museum supported by the colonial state and Sinn Féin, organised a small “memorial walk” and indoors event in the Guild Hall – the only one reported by the mass media.7

An independent group, badly needed since the Coiste na nIarchimí is controlled by the Provisionals. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Display below Derry Walls created by the Saoradh Irish Republican organisation, according to their social media. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Although veterans of the massacre and of the annual commemoration often meet one another only once a year at the commemoration, some having come from abroad, there are always new young people to be seen among them and hundreds come out to watch the march.

The march is an important commemoration of a massacre by British colonialism which still holds the colony of the Six Counties, a reminder no doubt inconvenient to unionists, neo-colonialists and those who have left the struggle, either through lack of will or for personal advancement.

In its championing and giving voice to other conflicts too, the commemoration march and other related events during the week are a strong expression of internationalist solidarity.

Wreath of the Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee among others at the Bloody Sunday Monument. (Photo source: Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1The Israeli state intelligence agency reported that 12 out of 13,000 employees of UNRWA in Gaza had been implicated in the 7th October Palestinian raid following which at least some, possibly all, were sacked by UNRWA, apparently without any hearing or appeal process. The US, UK, Germany, Italy followed this up by suspending all funding to the relief organisation catering for 2 million people in dire circumstances. 

2Traditionally, leading politicians of the main Irish political parties, both mainstream and Sinn Féin, have sent representatives to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with US Presidents, many of whom are of Irish descent. This year a campaign has arisen calling on them not to do so but spokespersons of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have insisted they will attend, which the SDLP has declared it will not. 

3Not to be confused with the family of Gerard V. Donaghy (20 February 1954 – 30 January 1972), sometimes transcribed as Gerald Donaghey, a native of the Bogside, Derry who was murdered by members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday.

4Eight activists of British-based Palestine Action, a direct action organisation, who as a result of their actions against the Israeli-based military technology company Elbit in Britain, were charged with a total of 12 charges which included criminal damage, burglary and encouraging criminal damage. The trial, which commenced on November 13th, related to a series of actions taken during the first 6 months of Palestine Action’s existence from July 2020 to January 2021. In December last year, one activist was convicted on one charge by 10-2 majority, two were completely cleared and jury failed to reach a majority verdict on the rest of the charges on six remaining activists.

5That would be true of the majority ‘nationalist’ population of the city but not so much of the unionist minority, where support for Israel is more dominant, due in part to susceptibility to British propaganda and also simply out of sectarian hostility to anything favoured by the ‘nationalist’ community.

6At a cost of nearly £200m (€227.7m), half of which went in legal fees, a lawyer’s bonanza, to arrive at a decision that just about everyone in Ireland knew and many abroad knew already and which established no safeguards against a similar massacre being carried out by British military in future.

7Browser searches throw up report after media report, including Al Jazeera’s, of “hundreds” attending the early event, without a mention of the many THOUSANDS who marched later in the day.

SOURCES

https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/when-im-in-derry-i-feel-like-i-am-home-palestinian-activist-tells-bloody-sunday-rally-4496030

Elbit Eight trial and verdict: https://www.palestineaction.org/elbit-eight-verdicts/

The Saville Bloody Sunday Inquiry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_Inquiry

Cost of: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30477561.html

THE PRINCIPLES AND PRICE OF UNITY

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Socialist RevolutionLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

We often hear people talk of the need for unity in progressive and revolutionary movements, which is understandable since the movements are often weakened by divisions – in other words, by disunity.

We may often hear the plaintive cry from someone that “we all want the same thing so why don’t we all just unite”? Clearly the issue is more complicated than it seems at first glance; there are factors working in favour of disunity also.

It is clear that calls for unity alone have not achieved it and much less often do we hear any serious attempt to define the conditions for unity, its principles and the obstacles to overcome, nor at times, the pitfalls in unity for the revolutionary movement, for there are those too. 1

And it does not necessarily mean that if our organisations call for the same thing that what all actually want is the same. We know from experience the widely different meanings that are routinely understood by “democracy”, for example – or even “republic”.

(Image sourced: Internet)

Starting with practice

It has long seemed to me that not only the real test of unity but also its best starting point is in action. That can be in a joint decision to take some specific action (such as a picket or an occupation) or a range of actions but also in joining in an action or actions organised by others.

Not only is action the real test of the expressed desire for action but in the course of action unexpected problems and opportunities arise, posing further questions at the time and for discussion and reflection afterwards.

Practice shines a light on both the conscious intentions and the unconscious reactions to events of activists and organisations.

It is sometimes suggested that what we need is a conference of all those who are in struggle for an objective (or range of objectives), where we can hammer out an agreed statement of aims. I believe that stage should arise after those interested have taken joint action, not before.

For one thing, those who are not really interested in action can attend such a conference and play a disruptive or distracting role in the proceedings. Secondly, those who make great statements of desire for commitment to unity can only be tested in practice, so why not begin with that?

(Image sourced: Internet)

Practical rules

There are certain rules in united action that hardly need discussion but should be understood.

Each component organisation should promote the action either publicly or within close circles as agreed and maintain the agreed confidentiality both before and after the agreed action.

  1. Arrival and departure should be at place and time as agreed.
  2. No distracting event should be planned by any of the component organisations to take place in the vicinity or near the date of the agreed joint action.
  3. The choice of speakers should be agreed beforehand and adhered to.
  4. It is good practice for the action to be reviewed afterwards not only internally but jointly by the participants also, as far as is practicable, to agree on the lessons to be drawn and to be applied.
  5. Publicity before and reports afterwards should list the participating organisations and also mention the presence of independent activists.
  6. Criticism of participating organisations or of individual comrades of such should be taken up with the responsible organisations concerned through private channels before any response is publicised and careful thought given to alternatives and possible consequences of criticism in public.
  7. Revolutionaries should remember and constantly remind themselves that no matter how militant and ideologically correct an organisation may be thought to be, it is not infallible. Furthermore, it does not come at a value above that of the revolutionary and progressive movement.
  8. Consequently, it is not necessarily or always true that what benefits the party or organisation benefits the movement, nor will the reverse always be the case.

Explanation of or expansion on the above:

  1. Late arrival may disrupt the action planned or leave those who arrive on time unnecessarily exposed. On the other hand arrival too early so as to appear in photos or video to be the only ones participating is disrespectful and harmful to unity.
  2. It is not unknown for an organisation to plan its own publicised activity to take place a day or two before that agreed jointly with another organisation, thereby weakening the joint action, a shortsighted promotion of an organisation above the cause of revolutionary unity.
  3. This is often a difficult area in planning joint events as each organisation often wants its own representative speaking or an organisation may want an independent speaker or indeed may have reasons against a nominated speaker. 2
  4. If we do not review the action afterwards we are removing the possibility of learning positive and negative lessons from it.3 On the other hand, if we do not review jointly, we may draw different and even contradictory lessons from the experience.
  5. Listing the participating organisations and the presence of independent activists shares credit, which is good for unity.
  6. Premature publication of criticism will be poison to a united front.
  7. When an organisation takes an incorrect position as is practically unavoidable at some point, or fails to take a correct position that the situation calls for, the existence of those who can criticise it internally and externally is essential for the progress of the revolutionary movement.
  8. However, taking the party or organisation’s health as a measure of that of the movement overall is more likely to benefit the organisation’s leaders than that of the movement, something demonstrated time and again in history.

Possible negative aspects of united fronts

We can take it as read that the courses considered have not only possible positive outcomes (which is why we take them) but also possible negative ones, of which we should be aware and take into consideration, for example with a “Plan B” or with flexibility to adapt to the emerging situation.

  1. A partner organisation may fail to uphold its agreed contribution
  2. Having to consult others outside after internal discussion may delay intended actions
  3. Our plans may be intentionally or unintentionally (through bad security measures) betrayed
  4. An action or statement of a partner organisation may cause us embarrassment
  5. We may be exposed to greater attack by actions not agreed upon taken by a partner organisation or by lack of those upon which we agreed
  6. A part of the united front may attack us publicly or even physically, as has occurred a number of times in history.4
The start of the Irish Civil War/ Counterrevolution: Free State soldiers bombarding Republican stronghold in the Four Courts with British cannon under the orders of Michael Collins, 1922. The Republicans refused unity with the Free State government of a divided country under British dominion. (Image source: Internet)

In Conclusion

The enemies of the people, capitalism, colonialism and imperialism being everywhere strong,5 we need united fronts in order to succeed in overthrowing them. It is important for us to be aware that broad fronts are temporary and that unity is relative, so that we are prepared for eventualities.

For the creation of a broad front there needs to be agreement not only on objectives but also on the practical components, the principles and rules of operation. There may be an overall revolutionary united front but also smaller united fronts on disparate issues.6

Participation in a broad front does not necessarily entail agreement with all the people who are part of that front. We may join in a broad front (for example anti-imperialism) with one organisation that we may not find in another broad front (for example in demand of public housing).

Each component organisation or independent activist of the broad front needs to be able and permitted to retain a certain independence as a matter of democracy but also of diversity of experience in struggle from which we can all learn.

End.

FOOTNOTE

1All trends of the radical and revolutionary Left and a number of Irish Republican sources have written on the question of the formation of the broad front but I have refrained from quoting or listing them since, apart from difficulties of selection, I do not think it appropriate to do so in an article aimed at all elements that may combine in broad fronts. I would advise the reader to do their own research and not to rely on one source or even one tendency.

2The latter was the case for example with Hunger Strike commemorations in London when some political trends wanted a speaker from the Provisionals, which refused to speak at the event if the IRSP also had a speaker scheduled. More than one big planned event collapsed or was not repeated on that issue. Also an independent speaker may outline a position publicly to which a participating organisation may take severe exception.

3This is one of the purposes of exercises, not just the familiarisation of personnel with the practice. In a team in which I worked, the introduction of unannounced fire drills, particularly with an observer following the staff and noting factors, revealed unforeseen serious problems which we were then able to plan to overcome.

4The Communist Party of China had an alliance with the Chinese national movement which broke down twice, the first time resulting in the Shanghai Massacre of between 5,000-10,000 communists and leftists on 12th April 1927. In 1921, after two years of the War of Independence, the alliance of various forces in the Irish national liberation movement fractured and the national bourgeoisie and Catholic Church hierarchy opted for neo-colonial government and partition of Ireland, which in turn in 1922 led to civil war between the new State, supported by the UK, and the Republican forces, which ended in defeat for the latter in 1923.

5Relatively speaking, of course and only so long as they do not face the mobilised masses, resolutely led.

6In Ireland for example these might be for public housing, national independence, against military blocs, for revolutionary history commemoration, promotion of the language, against LGBT discrimination, for trade union democracy and against State restrictions, for urban or rural community planning needs, internationalist solidarity (at the moment particularly with the Palestinians), etc.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Breakdown of broad fronts between the Chinese nationalists of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-1750/xcabef9ed3fc7da7b:unit-8-end-of-empire-and-cold-war/xcabef9ed3fc7da7b:8-2-end-of-empire/a/chinese-communist-revolution-beta:

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

.

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND POLITICAL PRISONER SOLIDARITY

On By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Among Christmas shopping crowds in Dublin’s city centre, the calls for freedom of political prisoners rang out, while the Irish, Palestinian and Basque flags fluttered in the wind among festive lights and projected light-show.

The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign was holding its annual political prisoner solidarity picket in the busy O’Connell street, supported by socialist Republican groups and independent activists.

View of picket line looking southward. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

December is a traditional month in Ireland for focus on Republican prisoners. However, the IAIC campaign has always made a point of remembering political prisoners elsewhere too, with Palestinian and Basque flags erected on its regular pickets.

This year the Campaign had especially requested Palestinian flags and these were present, both the national flag and that of the Peoples Front for the Liberation Palestine, fluttering alongside Basque flags and the green-and-gold Starry Plough.1

In addition, one of the IAIC’s banner displayed a large copy of an image depicting a Palestinian’s arm extended through prison bars to grasp the hand of an Irish Republican prisoner’s hand also from nearby bars, from the original by political cartoonist Carlos Latuf,.

A black banner had been rigged with lights to spell “Saoirse”, the Irish word for “freedom” and the picketers set up in a line with other banners and flags facing the GPO building.2

Political prisoners sometimes have their family visits cancelled as a punishment and during the Covid pandemic prevention period it was used as an excuse to prevent Republican prisoners’ family visits. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

SHOUTS

A speaker using a megaphone informed passers-by that internment without trial had not ceased in Ireland and that Republicans were being charged and then refused bail by non-jury courts on both sides of the British Border, spending two years in jail regardless of their trials’ outcomes.

All the Republican prisoners, the IAIC speaker said, had been convicted in non-jury special courts. Palestinians were also being convicted in special courts, he said, military courts and many were in jail – in “administrative detention”, i.e interned without ever having been convicted or tried.

Over 3,000 had been arrested in Israeli Army raids since October 7th,3 the speaker said through the megaphone, bringing the overall number of Palestinians in jail to over 7,000.4

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The recent exchange of prisoners between the Zionist state and the Palestinian resistance had resulted in liberty for 240 Palestinians, of which 1075 were children and 68 women.

There was regular chanting from the picket line including: “From Ireland to Palestine – Free all political prisoners!” “When there is occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “Free political prisoners – Free them now!”

At one point some kind of religious procession was briefly enacted in front of the GPO building and an elderly woman in apparent religious garb approached the picketers shouting something at them which they largely ignored, maintaining their solidarity slogans.

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

In addition to interested people taking photos or filming video of the protest on their devices, some approached the participants to ask questions and to receive a leaflet, after which a number actually joined the protest line for a while (some until the end).

Occasional passing traffic also sounded their horns in solidarity.

The pavement in front of the GPO showing shoppers and people queuing for food distribution. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

STATEMENT

As the end of the event’s allocated period approached, a representative of the IAIC asked the participants to gather around and spoke about how resistance brings repression and oppression brings resistance, resistance being the “crime” for which political activists are jailed.

The participants were thanked for their support, whether independents or activists of Ireland Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín organisations.

The event ended with the acapella singing of “The H-Block Song” by Diarmuid Breatnach, in an adaptation of the original air to the lyrics of what is “still a good song” he said, composed by a man who, along with his party, “no longer supported Republican prisoners”.6

(Photo: Rebel Breeze)

The lyrics recall the struggle of Republican prisoners in the late 1970s against the removal of their ‘Special Category’ political status, which began with refusal to wear prisoner uniform. The struggle escalated to the “no-wash protests” and to hunger strikes in 1980 with ten martyrs in 1981.

As the protesters collected their flags and wrapped up their banners, the nature of current Irish society was underlined by the queues forming up across the road for free food being distributed by charitable organisations.

Early view of picketers, looking northward. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

INDEPENDENT AND OPEN DEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION

The IAIC is “an independent organisation and open democratic organisation” of ten years’ existence and although it has held events for specific cases such as the framed Craigavon Two,7 its main activity has been regular public pickets in Dublin to highlight ongoing internment in Ireland.

The Campaign group encourages participation by democratic people in its regular pickets, regardless of political organisation affiliation or none and, according to one of the organisers, expects to hold its next one in Dublin in January or February.

The IAIC expects also to take part again in the annual Bloody Sunday Commemoration march in Derry on Sunday 29th January 2024.

end.

Unintentionally impressionistic image, photo taken from the east side of O’Connell Street (Photo: Rebel Breeze)

APPENDIX: ANNIVERSARY OF HANGING OF IRISH REPUBLICAN

Though not mentioned in the discourse, the above event took place within days of the anniversary of the British colonial execution of an Irishman in revenge for his killing of an ex-Republican who had turned informer.

James Carey, in the midst of a ‘witness protection program’ provided as a reward for his betrayal of his comrades in giving evidence in court to ensure the jailing of some and hanging of five others, was killed in a gunfight with Pat O’Donnell.

Carey had been a leading member of the National Invincibles’ (a split from the Fenians) cell in Dublin, and had given the signal for the fatal stabbing of British Under-Secretary Burke and Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park on 6th May 1882.

However, Carey turned “Queen’s Evidence” to testify ensuring the conviction of his former colleagues and even gloated in court at their fate. His reward, but for O’Donnell, would have been a new life with pension under an assumed name with wife and children in the South African colony.

O’Donnell was an independent Republican from the Irish-speaking Gweedore area in Donegal but had been to the USA, where he had cousins who were prominent in the “Molly Maguires”, an Irish-led resistance organisation among miners in the USA.

O’Donnell was hanged on 17th December 1883 but is commemorated in the satirical song “Monto” and also in the serious “Ballad of Pat O’Donnell”. His home town of Gweedore also holds a monument in his honour.

end.

FOOTNOTES

1Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, founded to protect workers from the police during the Dublin Lockout/ Strike of 1913.

2The General Post Office, iconic building on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, which was the HQ of the leadership of the 1916 Rising, left a shell by fire from British artillery bombardment but rebuilt later.

3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_detentions_in_the_2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war

4https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/29/why-does-israel-have-so-many-palestinians-detention-and-available-swap

575% had not been convicted of any crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_exchange_of_Israeli_hostages_for_Palestinian_prisoners

6Francis Brolly (1938-1920) of Provisional Sinn Féin, composed the song which was released in 1976. PSF abandoned the struggle in the imperialist-promoted pacification process towards the end of the last century and most of their prisoners were released under licence. However those who made public their disagreement with the colonial occupation and the pacification process were on occasion returned to jail while new “dissidents” were charged and refused bail in special no-jury courts, with tacit support of the PSF.

7Quoted from the FB page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063166633467

BRITISH NAVY CONFRONTATION IN DUBLIN – GOMBEEN STATE RAIDS ON ACTIVISTS’ HOMES

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine1 Comment

The following is a compilation by Rebel Breeze of recent short communiqués from Anti-Imperialist Action on the confrontation with a British warship in Dublin and the raids on activists’ homes and arrests under the Gombeen State’s “terrorist” legislation (Offences Against the State Act).

Armed British Terrorists Confronted in Dublin.

On Sunday afternoon, members of Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland along with members of Saoirse Don Phalaistín, carried out a direct action against a British warship in Dublin port.

The protest was called to highlight the ongoing British Occupation of Ireland and to make clear the complicity of British Imperialism in the ongoing Zionist Occupation and Genocide in Palestine. The protest made clear the links between the National Liberation Struggles in Ireland and Palestine.

British Military confronting protesters in Dublin (Image sourced: AIA)

In a militant protest, the activists, chanted ‘From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is crime’ and Britain Out of Ireland and Palestine.’

During the course of the protest, the Republican Activists present confronted Armed British soldiers who appeared on the deck of the ship and a stand off ensued on the gangway.

End the occupation! End the genocide!

Free Palestine!

Free Ireland!

Solidarity picket outside the Dublin courts (Image sourced: AIA)

In a series of coordinated raids in Dublin this morning, a number of Republican Activists have been arrested and detained under section 30 of the Free States “Offenses against the state act”.

These arrests come as the state is increasingly fearful of the growth in Revolutionary Irish Socialist Republicanism and of Anti Imperialist Action Ireland in particular.

The arrests are timed to coincide with the leading role AIA has been playing in support of the Palestinian People and Resistance across the 32 counties and at a time when our members continue to confront and resist Imperialism across Ireland.

(Image sourced: AIA)

AIA condemn the raids and arrests by the Drew Harassers on Republican Community Activists and we call for these activists to be released back to their families and communities immediately.

Harassment, Raids, or Arrests will not stop AIA and Republican Activists from our work to rebuild the struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution, resisting Imperialism or from taking a stand for Palestine.

The Republican Community Activists raided and arrested in Dublin yesterday have been released without charge.

The operation by the Drew Harassers, no doubt at significant cost, was designed to intimidate the growing membership and support base of AIA across Ireland, but it has failed, as all such operations will fail.

AIA welcome home these activists to their families and communities, where they belong. Republicans are not criminals. We will continue to promote the legitimate demand of rebuilding the Republic of 1916 at every opportunity. We will not be deterred and ultimately we will win.

Yesterday’s arrests are only further proof that the Free State fears the message of Revolutionary Socialist Republicanism, fears the growth and levels of support for AIA, fears our support for the Palestinian Resistance and fears our continued legitimate direct actions to confront and resist British, North American, European and Zionist Imperialism in Ireland.

We won’t be going away!

Free Ireland!

Free Palestine!

Also on Saturday, after the giant Palestine solidarity march in Dublin, according to another communiqué, members of AIA, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Palestinian Solidarity Activists picketed the Leonardo Hotel on Parnell St.

The Leonardo Hotels are owned by Fatell Hotels the largest hotel group in ‘Israel’ and strong supporters of Zionist terrorism and genocide.

In response to the picket, the hotel has decided to enter lockdown, refusing to open the doors for guests.

End items.

GOMBEENS TEACH SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALS A LESSON

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 8 mins.)

In their shameful votes last night, the Irish Government Coalition parties nevertheless taught people of social-democratic or liberal persuasion a valuable lesson. They won’t learn it of course, since it violates their world-view – but we should.

Social democrats in general, beyond the Irish political party of that name, essentially believe, despite all lessons of history, that capitalist society can be reformed through pressure of the organised labour movement and by appealing to the capitalists’ “better sense”.

Liberals believe something similar, without the trade union movement being essential. Their mantras echo through our political and philosophical culture: “Everything can be resolved through talking”, “Force solves nothing” and “The rule of law is paramount’.1

Despite the genocidal attacks continuing and even intensifying, despite the Gombeen class’ view that the ferocious bombing would have long-term adverse effects on the Middle East and perhaps on the world, the Government parties declined to break with the imperialist bloc.

Section of crowd, perhaps half-way, facing westward, away from Leinster House (Photo: D.Breatnach)

And why should we have expected anything different from them and the class they represent? This is not even an independent class but rather a native capitalist class that grew up under foreign occupation and never resolved to overthrow its masters.2

Rendering each Caesar his due, in turn and all together, this class has kissed the feet of British colonialism and imperialism, then US imperialism and finally EU imperialism. Whatever their own view of what the wise moves might be, they always obey their masters’ wishes.

And any party that enters government here as currently constituted will act likewise to get there and even more so after arriving there.

ROAR OF SOLIDARITY OUTSIDE LEINSTER HOUSE

Knowing that a vote was imminent on motions critical of Israel, including one for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador, thousands gathered last night in Molesworth Street, opposite the metal-barricaded Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish State.

Packed tightly together outside Leinster House, the crowd replied with a roar to slogans led by callers: From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands and our millions – We are all Palestinians! Free, free – Palestine! And, yes, Israeli Ambassador – Out, out, out!

The rally had been organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the main organisation for decades engaged in Ireland in Palestine solidarity campaigning. Yet, calling for the expulsion of the Zionist State’s representative had, until now, been strangely absent from its discourse.

Not always in the past, true but so it had been until now during these five weeks of genocidal bombing by the Zionist state. In fact, it seems they had previously even asked speakers not to make that call from their platform. They were however clearly making it now and rightly so.3

And clearly, so were the speakers lined up on the IPSC platform.

Independent Sen. Frances Black whose motion on the bill to ban products from the Israeli later settlements4 has been held up for two years by the Government, spoke also and challenged the Government TDs to make the right choice between party and principle, to “have the balls” to vote for justice.

Matt Carthy TD, Shadow Foreign Affairs spokesperson for the Sinn Féin party, was introduced from the IPSC platform to muted applause (perhaps because of the party leaders’ earlier refusal to call for the expulsion of the Ambassador.

Carthy addressed the crowd in Molesworth Street and apart from denouncing the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, concentrated on his party’s motion for Israel’s referral to the International Criminal Court and disputed the Government’s view that additional referrals5 were unnecessary.

While there may be some propaganda value in such a referral, a quick check will establish the following about this institution:

  1. The ICC has never tried a state, only individuals
  2. The ICC has never tried a main actor or close friend of western imperialism, regardless of obvious war crimes (e.g. the USA, UK in Iraq and Afghanistan)
  3. In its 11 years of existence, the ICC has had only 30 cases before it of which ten resulted in convictions and four in acquittals.6

However, the SF party spokesperson was now also calling for the expulsion of the Ambassador, since the recent turnaround of the party’s leaders on the question when Mary Lou MacDonald found her position untenable in the face of the party’s own voters and closer supporters.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD spoke as usual at such events for the People Before Profit party7 and excoriated the Government for their failure to apply sanctions against Israel, exclaiming: “My God, they were quick enough to do it against Russia, weren’t they?”8

Boyd Barrett said that if the Government won’t take the sanctions then the people must do so, the closest he came to listing how they might do so was in mentioning “occupations”, a number of which have taken place recently without any PBP involvement whatsoever.

The PBP speaker also denied that a state such as Israel, based on occupation, racism and genocide, has any right to self-defence but insisted that the targets of its attacks, the Palestinians, had every right to defence and resistance.

Holly Cairns TD, leader of the Social Democrats political party,9 proposer of the parliamentary motion to expel the Ambassador spoke clearly and convincingly, her speech more militant and direct than the that of the speaker from the former revolutionary Republican party.

I believe it was Cairns who asked the pointed questions with regard to taking strong sanctions against Israel with the current death toll and list of atrocities: If not now – when?

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

In reply to fears that the expulsion measure would make the Irish State an “outlier” in the EU, she commented to media that she would have no regrets at being “an outlier” of the current EU consensus.

Ruth Coppinger for the Socialist Party10 began by addressing the meaning of “the international community”, identifying not with the imperialist states but with solidarity demonstrations around the world including trade union blockades against shipments to Israel.

She called for such actions in Ireland today but also criticised the Palestinian assault through the apartheid Wall on October 7th. I think it was she who called for a national walkout on World Palestinian Solidarity Day, 29th of November.11

Given the supine state and collusion of the Irish trade union movement, which neither the SP nor the PBP party have made serious efforts to challenge, a union-led walkout is unlikely and, though people may do so anyway this is likely to be difficult without organisation and leadership.

All of the speakers congratulated those in attendance and asked them to continue their solidarity actions. Many (notably not the SF speaker) also criticised the USA in general and its President, Joe Biden, in particular. The USA is the chief and financial backer of the Israeli State.

One of the Irish language placards at the rally: “Joe of the Slaughter.” (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Although there were a number of Irish-language placards and one banner in evidence, I recall hearing not one word of Irish from the platform.

IN PALESTINE TODAY

The Israeli siege and genocidal bombing continues as the Zionist state tries to sap the resistance of the Palestinians people, destroying even their medical facilities and endeavouring to starve and terrorise them into submission.

By yesterday the death toll from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 had risen to 11,500, including 4,710 children and 3,160 women. Israel has also killed 22 civil defence and 200 medical personnel and 51 journalists.12

The number of injured people has reached 29,800, with about 70% of them children and women.13


Wednesday’s statement from the Gaza Health Ministry said that 95 government buildings and 255 schools have been destroyed. Some 74 mosques were completely destroyed and 162 were partially damaged, in addition to three churches.14

‘It said that the Israeli army targeted 52 health centers and 55 ambulances, while 25 hospitals have run out of service.15

‘ “Israeli soldiers attacked many patients, wounded individuals, and displaced people, as well as several medical and nursing staff inside Al-Shifa Medical Complex, forcing them to undress and subjecting them to insults,” the statement added.’16

The Palestinian guerrilla movement organisations have struck back in Gaza and the West Bank and Hizbollah has entered the struggle to an extent from Lebanon. The collaborationist Arab states have become worried about their own populations, a worry shared by their imperialist masters.

But the rabid dog is loose and refuses to be restrained. What to do? Call it to heel now, or let it have its head to glut itself on blood? Difficult for the imperialist classes of the world to be certain which way to go and the divisions among them are becoming clear.

Both France and Germany EU states have banned Palestinian solidarity marches but while Germany refuses to call for any end to the bombing, President of France Macron in exclusive interview this week has called on Israel to stop killing Palestinian women and children.17

View perhaps half-way in crowd facing Leinster House in the far distance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Across the world, the imperialist-aligned ruling classes are in disarray. Eight states in Latin America, Middle East and Africa have now fractured diplomatic ties with Israel.

The British Labour party saw four party shadow spokespersons resign and 56 of its MPs break party discipline to vote with the Scottish National Party motion calling for an immediate ceasefire.18

The other “international community”, the one to which Coppinger referred, has been on the streets in their millions in cities across the world, on every continent, including in those of the partner states of the genocidal Israeli state.

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE

Mícheál Martin had visited Palestine before in 201019 as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the then Fianna Fáil government and was visibly affected by what he had seen. But a Minister serves the Government which in turn serves the ruling class, which in the end calls the tune.

Today Mr. Martin, as Tánaiste20 of the gombeen Coalition Government, is in ‘Israel’ accompanied by the very Zionist Ambassador which last night his party and coalition party representatives had stoutly defended and who had attended by invitation his own party’s annual congress.21

Mícheál Martin in ‘Israel’ today with the zionist state’s Ambassador to Ireland (centre, partially obscured) (Photo sourced: Internet)

With no illusions in the parliamentary road or perhaps less of them now, we are thrown back on what was always our only realistic resources – our own mobilisations, our own actions.

Short of a revolution, to be effective we can only continue to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the Zionist state and for its collaborators, native and foreign.

Above all and indeed as some of the speakers last night emphasised, we must not be discouraged and have to continue; we owe it not only to the Palestinians but also to ourselves, to our history and our future. Beidh lá eile ag an bPaorach – there will be another day.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Of course the fact that laws are written (and changed) to suit the ruling class (or at least not threaten it) and backed up by a whole violent repressive state structure of police, courts, jails and armed forces is conveniently ignored.

2Indeed, it waged war on those who were determined to fight for independence.

3Nor did its FB page share occupation protets such as those carried out by the Anti-Imperialist Action or Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, though today they shared a post on the occupation of the Dept. of Foreign Affairs by the Ireland for Gaza group.

4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_Territories_Bill

5https://apnews.com/article/south-africa-israel-palestinians-icc-referral-6f1dd2b3af534d4d42d56a156968eae4

6https://accessaccountability.org/index.php/2019/09/26/criticisms-and-shortcomings-of-the-icc/

7Formerly the Socialist Worker’s Movement, an Irish iteration of the (Trotskyist) Socialist Workers’ Party in Britain, much diminished from it days of greater glory but currently the largest Left party in Britain.

8Yes and Boyd Barrett was part of the condemnation of Russia and support of the Ukrainian state at the time.

9The party centre-left social democratic party was launched on 15 July 2015 by three independent TDs (members of parliament) and promotes the Nordic model and pro-European views.

10An Irish iteration of the Socialist Party in Britain, a Trotskyist party once very large there, with the Militant Tendency its entryist organisation in the UK’s Labour Party, from which it was expelled. The Irish party has had a number of members of the Irish parliament but all those still in such roles have either left to become Independents or joined the PBP-Solidarity coalition group.

11https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people. Student walkouts seem more likely however.

12https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-from-israeli-attacks-rises-to-11-500-gaza-based-government/3055026

13Ibid

14Ibid.

15Ibid.

16Ibid.

17https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67356581

18https://www.breakingnews.ie/israel-hamas/starmer-suffers-major-frontbench-rebellion-in-gaza-ceasefire-vote-1552323.html

19https://www.irishtimes.com/news/martin-retains-view-of-israeli-offensive-after-visit-to-gaza-1.637021

20Equivalent to Deputy Prime Minister; he is also leader of the Fianna Fáil political party, the one with most elected members in the Coalition Government with Fine Gael and the Green Party.

21https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/17nt5a2/the_israeli_ambassador_at_the_ff_ard_fheis/?rdt=55045

SOURCES

UN International Day of Solidarity with Palestine: https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-people

THE NEW WAILING WALL

On By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

There’s a new Wailing Wall …
THERE’S A NEW WAILING WALL;
It’s in Gaza, and here mothers and fathers wail
at the bloody bodies of their children;
children wail at the bloody bodies of parents;
all wail over the bodies of friends and neighbours;
the wailing rises and the tears fall.

At this Wailing Wall …
AT THIS WAILING WALL,
we wail the mendacity of Israel and the West,
we wail the complicity of the media in the West;
while rockets, shells and bombs rained down upon us
the lies fell faster and thicker than rain,
a torrent of lies that never stopped.
To surge in flood over the bodies of our slain.

You come now with your flag of peace …
YOU COME NOW WITH YOUR FLAG OF PEACE
tramping along the bloodstained road
and up the mountain of our bones
and the rubble of our homes
and offer us business as before
or – bombardment once more.

Now that the bombs have stopped …
NOW THAT THE BOMBS HAVE STOPPED
we too stop and look around us:
our schools gutted and bloodstained,
mosques and hospitals in ruins,
so many of our buildings rubble,
or with gaping shell-holes,
in the hell-hole
you have made of Gaza.

We had so little and you destroyed so much.
WE HAD SO LITTLE AND YOU DESTROYED SO MUCH!

In the days to come, more will sicken and die,
of wounds on flesh and wounds on soul,
of lack of medicine, fuel or food
as even in pause you take your toll.

Many are numb, some try to forget …
MANY ARE NUMB, SOME TRY TO FORGET,
some try to live without forgetting,
but there is a begetting,
for in many hearts too,
your phosphorus flakes are snowing,
the embers of hate are glowing,
their machine guns and bombs are mowing
you and your children for generations to come.

Against your Goliath …
AGAINST YOUR GOLIATH,
our slingshots were of no use;
yes, God was with you –
he’s no longer Hebrew or English –
He’s American now;
you shot us down like fish
in the shooting barrel
you made of Gaza.

You wish us to recognise you?
YOU WISH US TO RECOGNISE YOU?
Of course we recognise you –
the imprint of your boots are upon our necks;
we carry them from cradle to the grave.

But we will never agree to accept
or agree that you should keep
what you have stolen and plundered
the land you have sundered
or that you can make us second-class
citizens in our own land.

While we struggle to endure …
WHILE WE STRUGGLE TO ENDURE
and to ensure
that you never defeat us
let it be that we do not learn to treat others
as you now treat us.

What did you learn from your oppressors?
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR OPPRESSORS?
If all you learned was how to also
do so much of what they did,
then truly have the six million died in vain
and you mock their memory by invoking them.

Diarmuid, Feabhra 2009

I began to write this just as the December 2008- January 2009 bombardment of Gaza by Israel was coming to an end and I rounded it off in February.  

That was the one they called “Operation Cast Lead”, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly non-combatants, including 400 children and injured over 5,300 — again, mostly non-combatants.  

I little thought that so few years later Israel would unleash an even worse bombardment upon the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza, as it did in July 2014, during which it killed over 2,300, again mostly non-combatants and that time nearly 500 children.  

The damage to infrastructure is colossal and the Israeli-Egyptian blockade makes significant repair impossible.

The commentary above was written in 2014. Apart from killing in raids, there were more massacres to come: March 2018, more than 700 Palestinian refugees killed at the borders of the Israeli state and in 2021, over 260 Palestinians killed after Zionist provocation at the Al Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem.

In August 2022, over 30 Palestinians, including women and children, killed in Israeli missile attacks and this year, by August, Israel had killed 172 Palestinians. Now, over October-November 2023, they have killed 133 Palestinians in the West Bank and over 9,000 in Gaza, including 3,760 children.

There is no question that this is genocide: “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

  1. Killing members of the group;
  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

(https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml)

Nor did that genocide begin in October this year, nor last year, nor the year before. It began in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel and has been continuing since.

end.

SECOND PALESTINE SOLIDARITY RALLY IN THREE DAYS IN DUBLIN

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Dublin city centre saw the second rally in one week in solidarity with Palestine on Wednesday evening. Unlike Monday’s outside Leinster House, this one was on the central pedestrian reservation on Dublin’s main O’Connell Street.

Thursday’s was organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign whereas Monday’s, outside the home of the Irish State’s parliament, had been organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement (more or less really the People Before Profit party).1

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

After Monday’s rally, a substantial number had spontaneously marched to the Israeli Embassy where an Anti-Imperialist Action supporter had painted their door in red to symbolise blood before Gardaí knocked him to the ground and kept him lying handcuffed before arresting him.

The crowd had objected to this treatment whereupon the Garda attacked and arrested more demonstrators. The AIA supporter was later charged with “criminal damage” which is ironic considering the criminal and murderous damage by Zionist bombs and missiles on Gaza.

A rather blurry view of section of the rally from the west side. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

BOMBING GAZA

For the sixth consecutive day Israeli air strikes are pounding the Gaza Strip, Israel on Thursday boasting it has dropped 6,000 bombs weighing 4,000 tonnes on Gaza during the period, according to Palestinian sources killing more than 1,400 people and destroying huge amounts of housing.

At least 140 of those Palestinians killed are children.

There’s nowhere safe in Gaza (Photo cred: Edel Hana/ AP)

This is the fifth siege and bombing of Gaza by Israel in the last 15years, each time destroying what the Palestinians rebuild or patch and repair, such as their sewage treatment plant. Palestinian casualties overall during the period have been 6,407 Palestinians as against 308 Israelis.2

One siege lasted 51 days! Factories and apartment blocks, flower and vegetable production glasshouses and sewage treatment plants have all been destroyed and the coastal waters are polluted, while the Israeli Navy attacks fishing boats that dare go further out to sea.

Gaza was already a severely-deprived area occupied by 2.2 millions with 59% below the poverty level, 46% unemployment but youth unemployment at 63%. Since Hamas won the elections the Israeli state permits no-one to leave or enter Gaza except by special arrangement.

One of the most advanced military states in the world is attacking a people that has no navy, no airforce, no anti-aircraft defences and no standing army. The Zionists say they will soon send in a ground attack also, tanks grinding over the rubble to kill and maim more Palestinians.

Imagine you went into Sousi Mosque to pray for your family and neighbours to be kept safe, or just because the Israelis wouldn’t bomb it, would they? This is what’s left of it now. (Photo cred: Mahmoud Hams/ AFP)

Meanwhile the Zionist state is permitting no water, electricity, fuel, food, medicine, building materials or equipment to enter Gaza through the gate they control and, shamefully, the Egyptian regime in step with the Zionists is doing the same at the other gate, which the Arab state controls.

War crimes? We hear a lot about them in the war in Ukraine, right? The Israeli state is committing them daily now and has been doing so yearly, often monthly since 1948. But the USA backs Israel and so the western states do so too, supporting the war criminals and complicit in their crimes.

https://www.euronews.com/video/2023/10/12/watch-aftermath-of-strikes-in-gaza-as-missiles-continue-to-fall

WEDNESDAY’S RALLY IN O’CONNELL STREET

The IPSC rally was advertised for 5.30pm but people had begun to gather a half hour earlier, with more continuing to arrive until after 6pm. From physical appearance it seemed that people from the Middle East, presumably Palestinian, at least equalled those Irish present.

Rally supporters very tightly packed and before Gardaí move patrol cars in keeping them hemmed in (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Gardaí beginning to move patrol cars in to keep rally packed in the central reservation (Palestine supporters also visible to left of photo, i.e on eastern pavement. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Gardaí place patrol car to keep the Palestine supporters (or this particular section?) off the road. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The chanting of solidarity slogans was almost continuous, with short breaks for speakers, most of whom were introduced as Palestinians. These were the usual chants but often led in non-Irish as well as native accents: From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free!

Also: In our hundreds, in our millions – we are all Palestinians! One, two, three, four – occupation no more! Five, six, seven, eight – Israel is a terrorist state! But there were also new ones from a section: Long live the Resistance! And: Only one solution – intifada revolution!

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

That was taken up by many whereas Saoirse don Phailistín! And: You’ve got tanks, we’ve got hang-gliders – glory to the freedom fighters! were chanted by a small section. Four Palestinians were briefly heard trying without success to get the Alah’ akbar!3 chant going.

From Irish backgrounds, Senator Frances Black, Richard Boyd Barret TD, Chris Andrews TD and Cnlr. Daithí Doolan spoke. Senator Black sponsored the Occupied Territories Bill4 which was approved by all sides of the Oireachtas but held back by the Government from becoming law.

Richard Boyd Barret of PBP spoke with passion as he usually does and was applauded. Some of his observations, though more liberal than socialist, unequivocally however put the blame on the Israeli state and castigated also the western states’ support of the Zionists.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Many of the Palestinian speakers were very complimentary to the Irish people present at the rally but also to the Irish population overall for their generally supportive attitude towards the Palestinians and their struggle.

Andrews and Doolan are both prominent members of the Sinn Féin party and, as a result of their President’s recent condemnation of Hamas (a change in position for the party), came in for some heckling.

They may be genuinely supportive of the Palestinian resistance as individuals but if they tolerate their party’s leader lining up with the Zionists and imperialists in condemnation of the resistance of the oppressed, they must accept the criticism thrown at them.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

THEY SAID

The leaders of Sinn Féin and of the DUP both separately and recently claimed that the pacification negotiations in Ireland can be used to assist in resolving the conflict in Palestine.5

Really? It was precisely following a similar road that led to the corruption and fall from position of Palestinian leadership of Al Fatah and Yasser Arafat, eruption of the Second Intifada and the generally secular-voting Palestinians electing Muslim fundamentalist Hamas in 2007.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

On Thursday the Prime Minister of the Irish State said that Israel was inflicting collective punishment on Gaza by cutting off water and electricity but no mention of the bombing, which he seemed to endorse.

Collective punishment is a war crime in international law so what is Varadkar saying the Irish Government will do? Demand action by the EU and UN? Expel the Israeli Ambassador? Demand sanctions against Israel? No – request a humanitarian corridor for food and medicine.

Photo taken from west side, with LUAS tram rails showing and northward bus stopped at traffic lights. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At the rally there was generally little denunciation of the Irish Government.

From Palestinians possibly because they felt they were guests in the country but one would have expected much harder criticism by the native speakers of the Government’s condemnation of the Palestinian resistance.

View of section from western side (Photo: D.Breatnach)

INTO THE STREET, ON TO THE BRIDGE

Over a thousand Palestine supporters were mostly crammed into a short section of the central pedestrian reservation on O’Connell Street, boxed in by police vehicles and the northward and southward traffic lanes on one side and the LUAS tram line on the other.

Rally participants have taken the initiative to relieve the crush in the central section by moving on to the road (Photo: D.Breatnach)

There was also an overspill on to the western and eastern pavements but at an initiative from within the crowd, demonstrators spilled from the east pavement and the central reservation on to the southward traffic lane, bringing traffic to a halt there.

After some time, one of the IPSC’s leaders approached the demonstrators in the road and asked them to allow the trapped cars and buses to continue southward, with which request the demonstrators complied – but the police had made this a dangerous exercise.

With the rally supporters now in the road, southbound traffic is unable to go forward and also unable to turn back. Senior IPSC activist (in green T-shirt) may be contemplating how he get the traffic through for awhile. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A Garda patrol car was parked in the road next to the central reservation, obliging buses moving southward to manoeuvre around it, bringing them very close to the thickly-crowded eastern pavement. Some shouts of “Move the cop car!” were ignored by the Gardaí.

When the trapped vehicles worked their way past the rally, the supporters returned to the road, remaining there until the conclusion of the rally. Clearly the road should have been closed earlier and traffic diverted but the authorities prefer to have people complain about protesters.

With the road temporarily cleared willingly by Palestine supporters, the trapped traffic can move forward. But the placing of the Garda patrol car obliges the driver to swing over to their left bringing the bus dangerously close to the crowded eastern pavement, instead of staying in the middle of the street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Subsequently that evening, by which time the rally had been continuing for getting near to three hours, many of the attendance followed a banner of the Anti-Imperialist Action group to occupy O’Connell Bridge for a period and light flares there, after which they dispersed.

This is the southbound lane, so no traffic will approaching the rally on the road from this side. So why all those Gardaí there? Perhaps intending to prevent an impromptu southward march, perhaps to the Israeli Embassy (as occurred on Monday). In any case, they did not managed a march to O’Connell Bridge to occupy that traffic junction for a while. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Rallies in solidarity with Palestine have been held and new ones are being organised across Ireland, including Belfast, Cork, Derry, Galway, Limerick, Naas, Sligo and the IPSC has called another one for this Saturday for Dublin 1pm in O’Connell Street.

The people in Ireland will continue to express their solidarity with Palestine but the main political parties and Government …!

End.

“The root of violence is oppression”. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

1See https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/10/10/collusion-delusion-in-repression-of-the-palestinians/

2https://thewire.in/world/chart-6407-palestinians-and-308-israelis-killed-in-violence-in-last-15-years

3“God is great” in Arabic.

4 The bill would ban any goods or services produced, even partially, in the territories occupied by Israel after 1967 and ruled ‘illegal’ by the UN —including the Golan Heights.

5Presumably she means the process that her party embraced which entailed colluding with a colonial occupying power, a sectarian armed colonial gendarmerie and aspiring to manage a neo-colonial, neo-liberal state.

SOURCES

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/israel-says-6000-bombs-dropped-on-gaza-as-war-with-hamas-nears-a-week

https://thewire.in/world/chart-6407-palestinians-and-308-israelis-killed-in-violence-in-last-15-years

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

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-hamas-war-dup-leader-urges-uk-to-use-experience-of-northern-ireland-to-secure-dialogue-in-middle-east-12983184

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/10/10/news/mary_lou_mcdonald_ireland_must_lead_a_decisive_international_intervention_for_peace_and_palestinian_freedom-3686850/

COLLUSION & DELUSION IN REPRESSION OF THE PALESTINIANS

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Middle East, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Song, Song in Struggle, US Imperialism3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

As smoke rose over the homes and shops of Gaza, an unseasonal October brought sunshine on to the streets of Dublin city centre and the crowds with Palestinian flags outside Leinster House, the home of the parliament of the Irish State.

As the sound of explosions, wailing of ambulances and of people rang around the streets of Gaza, the call-and-answer of solidarity rang out in Kildare Street: In our hundreds, in our millions – We are all Palestinians! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free!

The Dublin rally was one of a number of Palestine solidarity events organised in Ireland after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas’ military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades on Saturday and the Zionist State’s bombardment of civilian structures and people in Gaza.

Small section of the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Zionist State, which also controls Palestine’s water supply to Gaza, as well as exit from and entry to the enclave, has cut off water and electrical power as well as barred entry to everything including food, medicine and heating gas.

The Dublin rally was called at very short notice by the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM), a broad front organisation formed by the People Before Profit party around 2003 to oppose the imperialist war against Iraq waged by the Coalition of states led by the USA.1

Section of the solidarity rally earlier (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A branch of the Student’s Union of Ireland also supported the rally, which had a high percentage of Middle Eastern people present, presumably mostly Palestinians. The flags in evidence were mostly national Palestinian, some of the PFLP,2 a couple of Starry Ploughs and one Tricolour.3

Speakers from the Palestinian community, IAWM and PBP condemned the decades of attacks by the Israeli state on the Palestinians in general and on those in the Gaza enclave in particular, going back to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians4 as the Zionist state was founded in 1948.

Starry Plough flag can be seen centre distance next to some PLPF flags (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Richard Boyd-Barret TD (PBP) spoke as did also Ibrahim Halawa from Dublin, who was a prisoner of the Egyptian regime for four years without trial. Halawa said that awareness-raising and education served the ignorant but that action is required from those who know the real situation.

Some of the orators spoke about the right to resistance of the Palestinians, some about being against killing and war (but blaming the Zionist state for causing it), some about the plight of the Palestinian civilians, particularly in Gaza and one referred to the thousands of political prisoners.

Woman carries home-made giant placard spray-painted “Victory to the Palestinians!” (Photo: D.Breatnach)

MIND THE LANGUAGE!

A number of speakers referred to the “International Community” and when one listens to them in context it becomes clear that this imagined “community” is one of capitalism and imperialism.

It is not the community of workers, much less the community of people struggling for freedom. In Ireland, the overwhelming majority of people have over decades seen through the Zionist propaganda and switched from being pro-Israeli State to being pro-Palestinian.

We should take more care with the words we use lest we reinforce capitalist-imperialist dominance in the world of concepts in addition to their dominance over the physical world. Another trap is the term “illegal” and Boyd-Barret used it in reference to Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Banner seen at the rally (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Who makes the international laws by which something is ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’? It is of course the imperialists who do so on the international scale while the capitalists define legality within their states; by their standards the actions of Israeli Zionism are lawful but of Palestinians, illegal.

All the speeches and all the slogans chanted were in English, as were the words on banners. I participated in some Irish conversation near where I was standing but saw only one placard in Irish. The fact that this is normal is part of the problem in this neo-colonial state.

A lone placard in the Irish language seeks “Freedom for Gaza” (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, from an Irish speaking-family from Connemara and himself an Irish speaker, also spoke in English as he introduced the song he was about to sing, in the same language as the lyrics of Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly?

Eoghan is a PBP supporter and a fine singer, particularly in sean-nós5 style and has an amazing range. It was good to hear references to James Connolly at such a rally, something that all too rarely happens, nor is the flag of his Irish Citizen’s Army often seen at internationalist events either.6

CONDEMNATION IN COLLUSION, CONFUSION AND ILLUSION

The imperialist states that united in condemnation of the attack by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, were joined by leaders of neo-colonial states such as the Irish one. Naturally also by parties competing to lead the neo-colonial Executive, such as Sinn Féin.

Media reports noted Mary Lou Mac Donald’s condemnation of Hamas as a change in Sinn Féin policy7. Indeed it is such a change but is generally in line also with the party’s trajectory of presenting itself as a safe pair of hands for management of the neo-colonial state.

Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald and Micheál Martin, leader of Fianna Fáil and currently Tánaiste. (Images sourced: Internet)

Mícheál Martin, Tánaiste (Vice-Premier), who earlier had condemned Hamas, stated that the Government’s position is to support the “two state solution”, more correctly “the two-state illusion” and this, if not already SF’s position on Palestine will no doubt soon be so.

This is the position of all the imperialist and capitalist states, also of social-democratic and liberal groups. It is worth taking a minute to look at this “solution” which in the first place was totally undesirable and which since conceived has been undermined by the Zionists themselves by their colonial expansion.

If it could even be implemented now it would leave the Palestinians with in reality a colonial-type Bantustan-status client of the Israeli Zionist state8, owning less than 40% of their land area and most of their good land and water taken by Zionist settlers.

In addition, their territory would be fragmented, linked by “corridors” through areas of Israeli dominance. In any case, as of 2021, in a poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research most Palestinians were against the two-state solution.9

Since this is not in the least a practicable solution, why does Mícheál Martin and Joe Biden, among many others10 keep saying it’s their preferred solution?

Biden, because it allows US imperialism to pretend that it supports some kind of solution other than total Zionist appropriation and expansion. Mr. Martin? For the same reason or just because his Gombeen class follows the world imperialism leader’s lead.

The only real solution, i.e the only one both just and capable of bringing peace, is the one that we hardly ever see or hear even mentioned: a secular republic with equal citizenship for all, return of refugees and reparations to the dispossessed Palestinians.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Zionists will not accept the loss of their Zionist empire; US imperialism (and other imperialisms) won’t accept the loss of their only safe strategic foothold in the Middle East – free from the dangers of either Islamic fundamentalist or national liberationist revolution.

US imperialism, now sending an aircraft carrier against the Palestinian people who have neither air force nor navy, is the main financial and political prop supporting the Zionist state. But whatever they thought, I heard no speaker in Dublin call for the necessary defeat of US imperialism.

end.

Scene earlier of the rally as people keep arriving (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

1The IAWM seems to have no permanent existence but can be revived in order to organise events such as today’s from time to time. There is nothing wrong with a party creating a broad front on a specific issue but when it is a front of the Party rather than a people’s front, it will of course suffer when the party’s activists, limited in number, are organising on other issues and cannot keep the ‘broad front’ going, much less expand it.

2The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular socialist organisation fighting for Palestinian national liberation; it has consistently been the 2nd-largest of the groups comprising the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

3The Starry Plough was the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world and usually signifies socialist Irish republicanism. The Plough painted in gold follows the shape of the Ursa Mayor constellation on a green background, the seven stars in white or silver. Another version appeared in the 1930s, the Ursa Mayor shape in white stars on a light blue background.

Obviously people carry Palestinian flags to show solidarity with Palestine but would it not be useful to carry Irish flags at such an event to demonstrate the solidarity of the Irish movements for national liberation and social progress with the corresponding movements in Palestine?

4That figure represented over half the pre-WWII Arab population (Muslim and Christian) of Palestine.

5Literally “old-style”, a traditional style of singing with ornamentation having a number of regional variations, nearly always unaccompanied and solo-voiced.

6James Connolly was a Scottish-Irish socialist revolutionary, writer, journalist, trade union organiser and historian, one of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, Dublin Commandant in the 1916 Rising, one of the 16 executed by British firing squads. He was a co-founder of the Irish Citizen Army to defend the strikers and locked-out workers in 1913 from vicious police attacks, the first workers’ army in the world, which also recruited women, some of whom were officers. The ICA fought alongside other progressive organisations in the Rising.

7And one which cut across the quoted posts of a number of the party’s TDs, including those of Chris Andrews (see Irish Times report in Sources).

8A real irony since Israel is a kind of colony, a state founded by Zionist settlers with imperial support.

9See Wikipedia entry

10Including China – a sad disillusionment for those who somehow still believe it to be a socialist state.

SOURCES

https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-gaza-attack-10-09-23/index.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/10/09/sinn-fein-leader-mary-lou-mcdonald-condemns-hamas-attack-on-israel-as-truly-horrific/

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/eu-reverses-announcement-that-it-was-immediately-suspending-palestinian-aid-1537029.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-state_solution

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution