IRISH STATE RAMPS UP REPRESSION

On April 6, 2025April 7, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In the space of four days, Dublin has seen 23 activists in peaceful protests arrested and assaulted by Gardaí as the activists protested the slide of the Irish Gombeen¹ ruling class towards NATO and their complicity in the Genocide in Palestine.

Mothers’ Day protest against genocide – 14 arrests

The Mothers Against Genocide group organised a vigil for Sunday night of Mothers’ Day outside Leinster House, seat of the Irish parliament and Government. The intention was to hold the event that evening but for some to remain there overnight, leaving at 7.30am.

*At the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street entrance.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Plasticised printed photos of murdered Palestinian children were laid out on the ground with children’s shoes, toys etc spread around symbolically against the main gates with battery-powered ‘candles’ lit among them. Nearby a refreshment stall was set up.

By the advertised starting time of 7pm many had arrived and more kept coming, a very large crowd by nearly 8pm when there were some speeches, a few songs and a poem performed by different people, then a projection was being arranged after 9pm at which point I left.

*Crowd at the event as dusk falls, approximately 8pm.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The event was dignified, without even chanting. Policing was very sparse and low-key.

Despite the organisers’ commitment to leave at 7.30am and apparent agreement from the Gardaí present not to interfere with that arrangement, at around 6.00am more Gardaí² arrived and demanded the clearing of the gates by removal of the icons to the murdered children.

In protest, some of the participants lined themselves up in front of the gates. The Gardaí approached the women, trampling over the photos and symbolic children’s items and began to remove the women, some of them quite violently, resulting in their arrests and those of three men also.

*Banner of the organisers at Leinster House wall, Kildare Street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The 14 arrested were taken to different Garda stations where some women were strip-searched, an invasive psychological weapon used extensively by the British Occupation against Irish Republican women during the 30 Years War and still used by them against male Irish Republican prisoners.

All the women were obliged to choose right there and then between accepting a caution under the Public Order Act or to be charged and, under pressure, the women all seem to have been cautioned.

The three men were charged under the Public Order Act and will be obliged to attend the court to be processed. On Tuesday in Leinster House a number of TDs (elected parliamentary representatives) protested the treatment of the arrested. The Gardaí denied having carried out strip-searching.³

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties issued a brief statement to their network in response to the events, outlining the right to protest according to the Irish State’s Constitution:

We’ve heard from a lot of people who are worried by the Garda response this week to a peaceful vigil by Mothers Against Genocide. The fallout from this response along with potential new policing and public order laws and with the prospect of increased surveillance through facial recognition technology, risk undermining this fundamental democratic freedom. Today, as threats grow to restrict protest rights, defending this fundamental democratic freedom is crucial.

Protest isn’t the problem – it’s the solution:

You can protest – The Irish Constitution and European law protect peaceful assembly
You can film – Documenting interactions with Gardaí is allowed
You can’t be moved on without reason – Gardaí must give you a reason when asking you to move

The Irish Constitution guarantees your right to freedom of assembly, subject to public order. However, recent commitments in the Programme for Government have raised alarm.We continue to highlight how measures – including the expansion of police powers, banning face coverings at protest and the introduction of facial recognition technology into Irish policing – endanger our rights and freedoms.

*The display outside the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street entrance.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

On Wednesday morning a protest, composed mostly but not completely of women, at the treatment of people on Monday morning blocked the street outside Leinster House for a period of at least an hour⁴ without action by the Gardaí.

Protest at complicity of Irish Government in Dublin City University – another arrest

On Thursday evening Tánaiste (equiv. ‘Prime Minister’) Mícheál Martin’s visit to publicly open a building at the Dublin University Campus, accompanied by a heavy Garda presence was met with a protest organised by the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign branch of the University.

One of the students in the protest was arrested apparently for knocking on the window to convey the anger outside to those inside, Gardaí claiming at the time that he was damaging the window. The activist was released on bail amidst a crowd gathering in his support at the Garda station.⁵

Protest against NATO in the Irish State – 8 arrests

On Friday, a protest against attempts to push Ireland into joining the NATO military alliance was held at the latter’s representative facility in Dublin, the Belgian Embassy. Gardaí were very quick to respond and indeed had accosted and assaulted two of the participants a little earlier.

*Protesters and Gardai in doorway of Belgian Embassy just before the attack of the latter on the former.* (Photo source: *Anti-Imperialist Action*)

Six protesters lined up against the Embassy entrance at the Anti-Imperialist Action event were pepper-sprayed into their eyes and brutally assaulted, as were another two outside. As with those arrested on Monday morning, they were held in three different police stations in the city.

One of protesters, face down on the ground with his arms handcuffed behind his back, had his legs forced up behind, breaking his ankle.

(Photo source: *Anti-Imperialist Action*)

Supporters arrived to picket the police stations. After a few hours the arrested were taken to court, where supporters congregated also as the detained were processed for a late sitting of a judge. The charges were of criminal trespass or Public Order Act violation, both together for some.

In court they had legal representation and all were bailed in their own recognisance of 500 euro, which seemed fairly routine but the bail conditions were anything but. They were required to give 12 or 24 hours’ notice to the Gardaí of attending an embassy protest, supplying the details of the event!

The conditions for some included a ban on attending any state’s embassy in Dublin or demonstrating at any Irish Government building, while another is required to give notice – also of 12 hours — if crossing into the State from the Six Counties.

Facing a prospect of being locked up for the weekend otherwise, they did not decline the conditions for the moment and were released to meet a crowd of supporters outside the court in the early evening. As they lined up for a photo, all sang part of the Irish language Gráinne Mhaol song by Patrick Pearse.

*The arrested and supporters outside the court after the former were released on bail.* (Photo: *D. Breatnach*)

Repression of Palestine solidarity throughout the Western World

Throughout the Western world the response to the genocide being carried out in Gaza has had similar features: The complicity of the ruling classes, solidarity with the Palestinians of sections of the masses and the consequent repression by the ruling elites.

Within the territory of the Irish State the response of the masses has been marked in active solidarity with and public sympathy for the Palestinians, with little repressive action by the Irish State despite the proven collusion of the Irish ruling class.

The indications from this week are that the latter situation is changing and repression is being ramped up. This in turn indicates that the neo-colonial Irish ruling class feels threatened by action in Palestinian solidarity, other than routine marches through Dublin every month or so.

It is removing the liberal gloves and revealing the underlying sharp claws of a class that gained a state created in collusion with the British occupation to divide the country and to repress and control the insurrectionary forces upon the backs of which that neo-colonial class rode to power.

During the Civil War,⁶ the Irish state executed many more revolutionary fighters than had the British during the War of Independence⁷ and has executed a number since. Huge numbers have been imprisoned over years and it has colluded in covering for the bombers of its own capital city.

Where there is oppression, history teaches us, there will also arise resistance but that in turn usually results in more repression. Resistance rises to meet that repression and the movement must organise to educate, organise and unite that resistance, going forward until the masses achieve victory.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

Press: https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2025/04/01/women-protesting-outside-leinster-house-strip-searched-one-subjected-to-cavity-search/

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-deny-woman-was-cavity-searched-after-leinster-house-gaza-protest/a711142261.html

DCU University Times: https://universitytimes.ie/2025/04/dcu-student-arrested-during-campus-protest-against-taoiseach-micheal-martin/

Mothers Against Genocide: https://www.instagram.com/mothersagainstgenocide

AIA https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2025/04/06/republican-anti-nato-protest-violently-attacked-by-free-state-in-dublin/

1A term somewhat equivalent to ‘carpetbagger’ describing opportunists amassing wealth through taking advantage of people’s misfortunes. Its origins are in the Irish language Gaimbín, applied to such Irish capitalist financiers during and in the wake of the Great Hunger of the mid-19th Century, now used to describe the neo-colonial capitalist Irish bourgeoisie.

2 The (mostly) unarmed police force of the Gombeen Irish ruling class.

3 https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2025/04/01/women-protesting-outside-leinster-house-strip-searched-one-subjected-to-cavity-search/

4Though underplayed in the report by the Irish Independent, which also sought to bolster Gardaí denial of strip-searching: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-deny-woman-was-cavity-searched-after-leinster-house-gaza-protest/a711142261.html

5 https://universitytimes.ie/2025/04/dcu-student-arrested-during-campus-protest-against-taoiseach-micheal-martin/

61922-1923

71919-1921

A LOAD OF ROWLOCKS ABOUT NO SHAMROCKS

On March 3, 2025March 5, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, irish history, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, USA, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Both Sinn Féin party leaders, Michelle O’Neill (First Minister of the British colony) and Mary-Lou Mac Donald, TD and party President, have publicly declared that they will not attend the White House on St. Patrick’s Day this year.

What made Michelle O’Neill decide not to to go to the White House shamrock fest, she tells us, were President Trump’s words about turning Gaza into a desirable beach-front property development once the Palestinians had been removed. This, she told us, was a question of principle.

“The decision not to travel to the White House has not been taken lightly, but it is taken conscious of the responsibility each of us as individuals have to call out injustice. We are all heartbroken as we witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the recent comments of the US President around the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza, something I cannot ignore.^¹

“… At moments like this, whenever our grandchildren ask us what do we do, whenever the Palestinian people were suffering in the way in which they are, I want to be able to say that I stood on the side of humanity so this decision for me is very much the position of principle and I think it’s the right thing to do.”^²

In January, Trump made those statements about the intention of ethnically cleansing Gaza of its population and the relocation of Gazans to Jordan and Egypt (the regimes of both have clearly stated their opposition to such plans) for the creation of “a Middle Eastern Riviera”.^³

Prior to that, Joe Biden’s US Presidency was not only backing Israel’s accelerated genocide for 15 months financially and politically but supplying the IOF with the very weapons to carry out that genocide. Without SF feeling the need to break with him. But a few words from Trump …!

According to Brown University’s “Costs of War” project, the U.S. has spent at least 17.9 billion dollars in military assistance to Israel since October 7 2023, which is more than U.S. military assistance to Israel in any year since the U.S. began to assist Israel militarily. ^⁴

And it vetoed a ceasefire resolution three times at the UN Security Council, against the will of a majority of member states. ^⁵

In mid-March 2023 when O’Neill and MacDonald attended the White House shamrock fest, in spite of many calls not to go, including that of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Biden had been feeding the IOF’s accelerated genocide for over five months.

O’Neill’s reason for her intention not to attend this year (if indeed she were invited)^⁶ clearly had nothing to do with opposition to genocide, solidarity with the Palestinian people, common humanity nor anything of the sort and we must look elsewhere to explore her possible motivation.

Mary-Lou Mac Donald also indicated she wouldn’t be going to browse the blood-soaked shamrock, including an acknowledgement of the degree of US imperialist penetration of the Irish state’s economy:

“I have followed with growing concern what is happening on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank and like many other Irish people have listened in horror to calls from the President of the United States for the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and the permanent seizure of Palestinian land. Such an approach is a fundamental breach of international law, is deeply destabilising in the Middle East and a dangerous departure from the UN position of peace and security for Palestine and Israel and the right of Palestinians to self determination.

“… The US is a valued friend to Ireland. Their work in helping to achieve the Good Friday Agreement stands as a clear example of successful U.S. foreign policy. They are an important partner for peace and play a strong role in Ireland’s economy.^⁷

For genuine anti-imperialists, Irish Republicans and socialists, the correct attitude is clear. Indeed it should be so for any democratic people or even for people just opposed to genocide.

‘Israel’ is only able to commit genocide through the assistance of US Imperialism and therefore we should endeavour to isolate any of its governmental expressions and most of all any that lay claim to our special support, on one of our national days and with one of our national symbols.

The kind of action in the USA real Palestine supporters should be backing instead of backing the ruling class support for the Zionist genocide: Palestine Action activists taking action against Elbit arms manufacturer in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

“CAN’T WIN”?

There may well be a ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’ response from the SF faithful to the type of criticism in this article. They won’t actually analyse the reasons upon which the criticisms are based – no, of course not.

This party likes to claim credit for events that seem favourable, dodge criticism over errors or just nasty actions while at the same time whingeing that they can never win, that they will be criticised whatever they do, an eternal victim attitude from a party aspiring to government rule.

So, could SF have done anything in this regard of which their critics would have approved? Yes, they could. They could have admitted their error of last year, apologised for it and called for a St. Patrick’s Day White House boycott at least until the USA stops supporting genocide.

No need to worry about my sanity, they won’t, of course nor did I imagine for one minute that they would.

IMPERIALISM AND SF SUPPORT

The USA is a world imperialist power and still the one dominating the world, though it is under serious challenge and its days appear numbered. The ruling class of the USA, a European settler state, practised genocide and exploitation on the indigenous people and on imported slaves.

It also ruthlessly exploited the immigrant working class and its descendants, along with the emancipated slaves. It fought attempts to organise labour and legal trade unions with billy clubs, pistols, machine guns, arson, laws and regulations, jail and the hangman’s noose.

The fact that a section of the immigrant Irish in the US support Sinn Féin is in part due to the socially conservative background of both groups of people and also to SF’s never seriously challenging the imperialist nature of the USA.

And how does this obeisance supposedly benefit Ireland? Will the US support an Irish revolution against British colonial occupation? It refused to do so even at the time of its greatest hostility with the British, when the latter actively supported the Confederate states in the Civil War.^⁸

No, for the major imperialists of the US, the lesser imperialists of the UK are occasional competition but much more fundamentally, allies and it is not going to undermine its fundamental external power base.

Mary-Lou Mac Donald stated very clearly that Mícheál Martin should attend the shamrock fest. What was that about? Possibly she was indicating to Ireland’s Tánaiste (Prime Minister), that she would not be taking political advantage of his attendance at the White House to denounce him.

But she was also clearly indicating that the Sinn Féin leadership are ‘responsible’ potential representatives of an imperialist-dependent Gombeen ruling class, who understand how there are times to put aside any principle in order to attend at the Court of King US Imperialism.^⁹

Through her statement Mary-Lou MacDonald represented her party as a safe pair of hands to run the State for the Gombeen class in the future.

Should the current representatives of the Irish neo-colonial ruling class be invited, they will of course attend, bearing the shamrock tribute, knowing that they are safe at least from the criticism of SF, the largest opposition party in Leinster House (the parliament of the Irish State).

US and Zionist military flights can continue to stop over at Shannon and otherwise fly through Irish airspace. On the international stage, the Irish State will continue to align itself with the western imperialist bloc and continue to open its markets, resources and networks to imperialist plunder.

If O’Neill does indeed say what she claimed she would to her grandchildren about her reasons for not going, she will be lying to them. But then, at least the grandchildren will come to know they were not alone – the party’s supporters and the whole country were being lied to also.

If there was anything other than rank opportunism behind the statements of the SF (Stoop Further) party leaders, such as solidarity, it certainly wasn’t with the Palestinians; solidarity with EU imperialist elites and with the genocidal Democratic Party elite, perhaps.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/michelle-oneill-boycott-white-house-31050982

2 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy870w30q6qo

3 https://www.reuters.com/world/palestinians-have-no-alternative-leaving-gaza-trump-says-2025-02-04/

4 https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/israel-is-stepping-up-its-military-aggression-across-the-region-but-is-it-out-of-strength-or-weakness/

5Ibid.

6There is every likelihood that she would not have been; SF is in government only in a colony of the UK and furthermore in the USA is strongly connected to Trump’s political rivals, the Democratic Party – and he is not known for kindness towards his political enemies.

7 https://vote.sinnfein.ie/sinn-fein-leaders-announce-they-will-not-attend-white-house-events-this-year/

8The USA under General Ulysses Grant, who was of part Irish descent, arrested Fenians and in 1866 prevented the support forces from crossing the St. Lawrence River to support the advance invasion forces which had emerged victorious from two engagements against British forces in Canada.

9And O’Neill displayed her responsible credentials in managing the colonial occupation also, stating that she would not criticise the colony’s Second Minister, Unionist Emma Little-Pengelly, if she were to attend.

GAZA RIVIERA SEAFRONT PLAN HITS OBSTACLES

On March 2, 2025March 3, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 11 mins.)

Recently Donald Trump scandalised much of the world with his suggestion that Gaza could be turned into an attractive location after its inhabitants, the Palestinians, were removed.

Was this a serious proposal? If so, could the US and Israel manage it? What are the chances?

Firstly, a quick look at the territory envisaged and its recent history.

GAZA

A strip of land 365 km2 (141 sq mi)¹ on the eastern coast of the Middle Eastern land of Palestine, bordered by the State of ‘Israel’ and the State of Egypt, with an estimated Palestinian population of 2.1 million in 2024 (since hugely depleted by genocide and removal).

Gaza had been settled mainly by Palestinian refugees expelled from Zionist-occupied Palestine in 1948 and by those fleeing Israeli Occupation Force persecution and harassment in the West Bank in subsequent years added to of course by their descendants born and growing up there.

The strip was occupied after the 1967 War by around 5,000 Zionist settlers – illegally even by international law — who took up around 40% of the land there but after the Second Intifada,² left in 2005, as did the Israeli Occupation Army.

In the 2006 elections in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas won, ousting the Fatah party which had won the previous elections. However, Fatah refused to accept the results and had to be physically removed in Gaza in 2007, though Hamas stepped back from doing the same in the West Bank.

The Western powers, those bastions of the democratic way of doing things, refused to acknowledge the Palestinian popular will and blocked Hamas from all aid, which went instead to the undemocratic Palestinian Authority, which the Fatah party control.

‘Israel’ blockaded Gaza from then onwards, keeping the population at a marginal level of existence and regularly attacked it, what they called “mowing the lawn” in 2008/9, 2012, 2014, 2018/19, 2021 until the Palestinian breakout and counter-attack of October 2023.³

In October 2023 Hamas and Islamic Jihad broke out of their concentration camp, overran the ‘Israeli’ armed forces overseeing them and seized captives to exchange for the many Palestinian captives in ‘Israeli’ jails. Other groups and individuals also poured through the gaps in the wall.

The IOF besieged Gaza, cutting off its supplies of food, clean water and other supplies. It dropped 85,000 tonnes of explosives⁴ on that highly-concentrated population, killing an estimated 46,000 (with another 10,000 buried in rubble)⁵ and injuring at least 110,265 (one in every 20).⁶

The IOF destroyed nearly all wells and rooftop water tanks, along with desalination plants,⁷ destroyed totally or in part 90% of residential buildings,⁸ at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical centres,⁹ along with schools, higher education buildings, mosques and churches.

Some 1.9 million people have been displaced, 90% of the population, with many of them forced to move repeatedly.¹⁰ “Nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza are internally displaced, of which nearly 80 percent are living in makeshift shelters without adequate clothing or protection from the cold.

“UN agencies estimated that nearly half a million are in flood-prone areas. Authorities in Gaza said about 110,000 of the 135,000 tents being used as shelters in the Gaza Strip are worn out and not fit for use.”¹¹

PROPOSERS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING

The USA – In March 2024 Jared Kushner, property developer, senior policy adviser and son-in-law of Donald Trump (then former US President and now President again) commented that Gaza after the removal of the Palestinians would make a great site for a beach-front property development.¹²

Donald Trump, after being re-elected, commented in somewhat similar lines and bluntly proposed the expulsion (‘voluntary relocation’) of Palestinians from Gaza. But to where? Well, to Jordan and Egypt in particular, whose ruling regimes would accept them, he assured.¹³

The Democratic Party wing of the US imperialist ruling class expressed horror at such crass statements of ethnic cleansing but had supported the ‘Israeli’ state in maintaining the siege, periodic bombing attacks and in demonising Hamas along with the whole Palestinian resistance.¹⁴

‘Israel’: Prime Minister Netanyahu and a number of his cabinet made statements supporting the plan.

REACTION OF ARAB & IRANIAN STATE LEADERS

The leaders of Arab states and of Iran have opposed the ethnic cleansing plan, all of them concerned at further destabilisation of the Middle East (and threat to their regimes). Most (excepting Yemen and Iran), advocating instead Gaza as part of a Palestinian state (sic) alongside the ‘Israeli’ one.¹⁵

WHAT EUROPEAN STATE LEADERS SAY

All of the leaders of European states that have commented have opposed the plan, all of them concerned at further destabilisation of the Middle East and, with regard to Palestine, advocating instead Gaza as part of a Palestinian state (sic) alongside the ‘Israeli’ one.¹⁶

All of the main political parties in the European states have also opposed the ethnic cleansing and advocate the “two state solution” (sic).

RUSSIA & CHINA also oppose Trump’s plan as do many states in AFRICA and in LATIN AMERICA. The top levels of the United Nations also oppose Trump’s idea.

WHY MOST STATES OPPOSE THE PLAN

Those objecting to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and transporting Palestinians to other destinations may well have moral objections to that plan but their political and practical reasons for objecting are much stronger.

Lebanon already has a Palestinian refugee population of 60% and in 1975-’90 a war there saw fascist Lebanese forces combined with the IOF fight Palestinian and Druze forces with massacres of refugees as “Beirut” became a byword in urban destruction, invasion and ethnic conflict.

The Jordanian regime is heavily foreign-dependent and vulnerable to imperialist pressure but it also knows that it walks a tightrope and can’t afford to add to the economic, social and political pressures by taking in a large influx of Palestinians forced out of Gaza.

Nearly 25% of Jordan’s population is composed of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.¹⁷

The King of Jordan, an imperialist stooge trained in the UK, nervously attended the meeting with the real king, Trump, to which he was summoned, evidencing his unease with a nervous tic taking over his face. He agreed to take 2,000 injured children, not at all the same thing as Trump wanted.

Egypt, a bigger power though also US-dependent (especially its military) has its own economic, social and political reasons for rejecting a proposal to integrate a large population of forced Palestinian refugees into its society and economy and declined an invitation to meet Trump.

US ally Saudi Arabia, which has not been pressured to the degree of Egypt and Lebanon, nevertheless has reasons to reject the plan and that is the de-stabilization of the whole Middle East by a further expansion of the Zionist State and growing population of stateless refugees.

That is the other and fundamental reason why the Saudi ruling class is opposed to the expulsion of Palestinians and they have stated it in terms of the need for a ‘Palestinian state’ – within the framework of a two-state ‘solution’ (i.e. a partitioned Palestine with about 20% for Palestinians).

The Saudis have also proposed to rebuild and set up Gaza with the Palestinians remaining there but in the course of which they intend to have somebody other than Hamas – whom the people elected, let’s not forget – administer the area.

The Palestinian Authority (sic) despite its role as proxy policeman for the Zionist State and US Imperialism, would not welcome the loss of a large part of its possible fiefdom and certainly could not politically afford to agree to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Macron, for the French imperialist ruling class, has welcomed the Saudi proposal. It is not beyond possibility that the US ruling class will approve and it may even have been part of its plan to frighten everyone and make such ‘solutions’ as that of the Saudis more generally accepted.

UAE is not vulnerable internally to anything like the degree of Egypt and Jordan and on the other hand is at times in contention with Saudi Arabia for influence in the region but also ally of the USA is nevertheless opposed the Trump ethnic cleansing process.

Qatar, home of Al-Jazeera news channel and much more in contention with Saudi Arabia and also the UAE, is also an ally of the USA but opposed to removing the Palestinians from Gaza.

The elites of the Western European states, from imperialist to lesser capitalist states wishing to coexist with imperialism, including the colonial and neo-colonial states of Ireland all oppose the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, saying it threatens the ‘two state option’.

That option would copper-fasten Israeli occupation of around 80% of Palestine and control over the remaining 20% as a client state. They would hope to isolate the Palestinian resistance under collaborator rule and help and assist in the stabilisation under imperialism of the Middle East.

A DIFFERENT BASIS FOR OPPOSITION

The ruling elites of IRAN and YEMEN¹⁸ see ‘Israel’ as an important foothold for US and other Western imperialism in the Middle East and also as an aggressive colonial force in its own right. Therefore they are fundamentally hostile to any kind of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

That too is the position of Hezbollah, a major political and military force in Lebanon.

IS THE ZIONIST ARMY CAPABLE OF ETHNICALLY CLEANSING GAZA?

The Israeli Occupation Army is unlikely to welcome being sent back into Gaza to fight the Palestinian resistance there once again. And signalling that, rather than an inadvertent slip, may have caused the admission of very high combat fatality figures by the IOF’s commander.¹⁹

Eyal Zamir, ‘Israel’s’ new Chief of Staff, referred in a recent interview to the “5,942 of bereaved families”²⁰ since October 2023, terminology only used by the IOF to refer to the families of their soldiers killed and also noted that some families likely lost more than one member.

Those numbers, apart from being around six times those previously admitted by the IOF, are not such that can be replaced in the short term.

Furthermore, the Palestinian resistance in Gaza (and presumably Hezbollah in Lebanon) targeted officers whenever they could resulting in a high attrition rate among higher ranks engaged in combat. These take longer to replace due to their experience, training and skills.

It has long been suspected in many quarters that Israel was concealing its war casualty numbers by imposing press censorship, installing IOF officers to answer queries at hospitals and issuing untrue statistics for foreign and home consumption.

Zamir also stated that 15,000 soldiers were suffering from physical or mental injuries.²¹ As early as December 2023, the ‘Israeli’ publication Haartez, quoted their Health Ministry figures of a staggering 10,548 injured as opposed to the 1,593 stated by the IOF.²²

“In October 2024, Haaretz also reported that around 1,000 wounded soldiers were admitted to rehabilitation centres each month, along with new injury claims associated with past incidents.

“The report stated that the rehabilitation division estimates that by 2030, around 100,000 Israeli soldiers will be classed as disabled, and almost half also experience some form of psychological challenge.”²³

Statistics show a military age population in ‘Israel’, male and female, of around three million²⁴ of which some are already serving, many exempt from recruitment due to specific occupation or studies, pregnancy, general health or ability, criminal status or psychological unfitness.

This is without taking into account the Haredi, formerly exempt from service due to religious studies but since June last year eligible to call-up. However this has led to Haredi protests and only 10% of those called actually presenting for service — and also strains Netanyahu’s coalition.²⁵

On the other hand, there is general agreement among commentators that the Resistance, in particular Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas military wing) have already replaced their fallen across the ranks. The survivors are likely to be for the most part battle-hardened, motivated and confident.

‘Israel’ fought the war in Gaza largely from the air through bombing and missile strikes along with artillery at a distance or a little closer by tanks. The IOF Merkava tanks have been severely depleted due to roadside IEDs (bombs) and Resistance-developed or modified RPGs.

The IOF generally did not take the Resistance on in soldier-to-soldier combat and when they did, were generally defeated. IOF snipers were often themselves sniped or they and their spy-posts eliminated by a rocket with thermobaric warhead.

Gaza still contains a vast network of sophisticated tunnels of which the IOF know very little nor, when an entrance is discovered, do the IOF go in there to fight. The IOF-created rubble landscape with rarely any building for the IOF to hole up but no way of spotting tunnel exits.

As demonstrated in the prisoner handover events, Hamas is not short of weapons, though level of ammunition stores is an unknown factor. Given the huge amount of unexploded bombs dropped by the IOF, possibly as high as 15% the Resistance will not be short of explosives either.²⁶

CONCLUSION

Whether Trump was serious about the plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza or was merely soft-soaping Netanyahu and his most fascist Zionist supporters remains to be seen. Equally, the US may have wanted to scare Palestinian Arab neighbours to step forward to police Gaza for them.

Let us not forget that Brett McGurk under Biden’s administration discussed the need to consider how to manage Gaza “the day after” the war there ended and that a revamped Palestinian Authority might be able to do the job²⁷ – Abbas rushing to assure his masters that the PA was indeed ready!

Proving themselves ready for Gaza management was probably the reason for the PA’s siege of Jenin and then participating in attacks upon the Resistance there alongside the IOF. However, it is unlikely that the imperialists have much faith in the corrupt PA’s ability to take on running Gaza.

The ethnic cleansing of Gaza, whether it was ever really contemplated by Trump or not, will not happen in the near future because none of the regional stakeholders – other than the blindest fascists of the Israeli Government – can afford to agree with it.

Also because the only ones reasonably available to attack Gaza again, the IOF, got really badly chewed up in their fifteen months of genocidal warfare there. But then perhaps the whole threat was scare-bait to get Arab states to collude even further with ‘Israel’ in managing post-war Gaza.

On the other hand, an unthinkable idea has been thought of and widely publicised. And when the unthinkable becomes part of public discourse, it breaks the taboo around it and makes it easier to put into practice at some point in the future.

Resumption of and constant bombing of Gaza is therefore not totally beyond possibility but it seems unlikely the master, the USA (Trump variety) wants that and, while that is the case, it cannot happen.

End.

Footnotes

1Not very much larger than Dublin city.

2The 2^nd Intifada (uprising) was against the ‘Israeli’ occupation but also against the Oslo Accords, the perceived sell-out by the ruling Fatah party of Palestinian self-determination and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

3A very biased source nevertheless gives the dates and some statistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict

4 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/15/the-human-toll-of-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers#:~:text=46%2C707%20Palestinians%20killed,number%20killed%20is%20far%20higher.

5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/15/the-devastating-impact-of-15-months-of-war-on-gaza

6 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/15/the-human-toll-of-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers

7 https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/less-than-seven-percent-of-pre-conflict-water-levels-available-to-rafah-and-north-gaza-worsening-a-health-catastrophe/ and (from para 8 in) https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/22/israel-palestine-gaza-water, not only by the IOF but also in attacks by Zionist settlers.

8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/15/the-devastating-impact-of-15-months-of-war-on-gaza

9Quoted in this anti-Hamas report .https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/israels-attacks-have-devastating-impact-gazas-hospitals-turk-tells-security-council

10 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/15/the-devastating-impact-of-15-months-of-war-on-gaza

11 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/15/the-human-toll-of-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers

12 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev

13 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-gaza-riviera-echoes-kushner-waterfront-property-dreams-2025-02-05/

14Since the IOF pulled out of Gaza and the election of Hamas by the people, five US Presidencies have supported ‘Israel’s’ actions and supplied them with the financial and military means to carry them out: George Bush Jnr, Barrack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Donald Trump (again). Two individual Presidents have been Democrats, two Republican; two Presidencies have been Democratic and three Republican.

15 https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/02/05/world-reactions-to-trump-s-proposal-for-us-to-take-over-gaza-strip_6737820_4.html

16 https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/02/05/world-reactions-to-trump-s-proposal-for-us-to-take-over-gaza-strip_6737820_4.html

17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians_in_Jordan

18And seems to reflect the opinion of their countries’ masses also.

19Given the secrecy around the real statistics he may have been not only signalling disapproval of resuming the war in Gaza but also feeding information ammunition to others who might also be opposed to that return.

20 https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-new-army-chief-admits-gaza-losses-higher-reported

21Ibid

22Ibid

23Ibid.

24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_manpower_fit_for_military_service Some of those may have left ‘Israel’ without intention to return in the short term (“manpower” is a misnomer since female figures are also included)..

25 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-supreme-court-rules-religious-seminary-students-must-be-drafted-military-2024-06-25/

26 https://www.timesofisrael.com/much-of-hamas-explosives-comes-from-idf-fire-that-failed-to-detonate-report/

27Also a suggestion of Borrell’s, Foreign Affairs Minister of the EU: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/corrupt-discredited-could-a-reformed-palestinian-authority-run-gaza

Sources

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-gaza-riviera-echoes-kushner-waterfront-property-dreams-2025-02-05/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw89x8x11o

Roundup of reaction of states and major organisations to Trump’s ethnic cleansing words: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/5/world-reaction-to-trumps-comments-on-ethnic-cleansing-in-gaza

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

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

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The day of the massacre

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

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

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

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

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

Not one of their targets was armed.

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

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

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

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

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

“The last Bloody Sunday march”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This year’s march

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

end.

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

Footnotes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Useful links:

COURT LIFTS CURFEW ON PALESTINE SUPPORTER

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

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

end.

Policing Palestine Solidarity

On January 18, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Britain, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Journalism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, US ImperialismLeave a comment

By Nicki Jameson 13 January 2025 (Reading time: 12 mins.)

(NB: An unconnected article with very similar title about the Irish organisation IPSC, rather than the English one as this is, was published on this blog in December 2023)

The below speech was delivered by Nicki Jameson at a Revolutionary Communist Group public meeting in London on 12 December 2024 titled ‘Defend the right to defend Palestine: fight back against state repression and media lies’. It is reprinted here from its publication in the RCG’s Fight Racism Fight Imperialism newspaper with permission and reformatted by RB for publication.

The genocidal Zionist onslaught which followed the 7 October 2023 Al Aqsa Flood operation caused a crisis for the imperialist ruling class. In both the US and Britain this was reflected in election results, for example.

Whatever now happens in the aftermath of this week’s events in Syria, and what splits in the solidarity movement this may lead to, it remains the case that international support for the resilient Palestinian struggle is widespread and not diminishing.

In this context, the British government, both under the previous Conservative administration and now under Labour, has sought to contain and limit the effectiveness of the protest movement.

It does not want to be seen to ban protests entirely, but it has aimed to render them impotent and tokenistic.

While it would, of course deny this, the role of the national Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is to facilitate this limitation.

It does this by ensuring that anger against the Zionist genocide is channelled into ‘safe’ slogans such as the demand for a ceasefire, and formulaic A to B marches, organised on terms dictated by the police, culminating with a passive crowd listening to anodyne speeches from the usual suspects.

Contained as they are, that PSC marches nonetheless constitute a regular expression of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle by a significant section of the British public is way too much for some in the political establishment.

And also for the vocal cohort of Zionists whose angry social media presence is used to decry ‘hate marches’ and demand greater policing and more arrests.

The police themselves vacillate between different approaches, dependent on the whims of the Home Secretary of the moment and Zionist political pressure.

Palestine protests

The very first protests in early October 2023 after the AAF operation were lightly policed. On 9 October we stood directly outside the Israeli embassy with no conditions or attempt to prevent the demo.

Within a very short period of time this had changed dramatically and the then weekly protests organised by PSC were subject to heavy policing.

Zionist keyboard warriors on twitter began immediately to play a role in fingering people, posting video footage of alleged crimes, with the demand that people be arrested. The police duly obliged.

While total overall arrest figures seem hard to track down, between October 2023 and March 2024 there were 305 arrests under the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Brocks – the policing operation related to Palestine protests in London.

This included 89 far-right counter protesters arrested on Remembrance Day, when – riled up by then Home Secretary Suella Braverman – they came to ‘defend the cenotaph’ from a non-existent attack.

During this period eight people were arrested on FRFI contingents in London. Their experience is fairly typical of those targeted at the time.

London police making an arrest on Palestine solidarity march 13 January 2024 (Photo cred: FRFI)

In the main they were profiled by Zionists on twitter, who flagged up to the compliant police that the comrades either had placards bearing the words ‘Victory to the Intifada’ or were using that slogan.

A young person was also arrested on the spurious pretext that he was wearing a symbol of a proscribed organisation, although the PFLP is not in fact proscribed in this country. He was subsequently de-arrested but not before those who came to his aid were also swept up.

Of this eight, only one person was charged. This was subsequently thrown out of court. Of the others, all but one have been definitively told they will not be charged.

A ninth comrade, arrested in a dawn-raid on their home remains on bail under the Terrorism Act in relation to a speech made 15 months ago.

It was clear from police interviews, that the cops in Operation Brocks had no idea what Intifada actually meant and had been given a script by their political masters.

We take the exoneration of those arrested to mean that VICTORY TO THE INTIFADA, a call for solidarity with the uprisings of Palestinians against Zionist oppression, is entirely legitimate and in no way criminal.

Spurious arrests continue to take place, using the now tried and tested process of Zionist twitter posts highlighting the offensive words or item, prompting either immediate arrest or the publishing of a police ‘wanted’ notice.

Following the lack of any prosecution for slogans such as ‘From the river to the sea’ or ‘Victory to the Intifada’, the most common ‘crime’ is comparison of Israeli genocide to the Nazi holocaust.

Although no-one has been successfully prosecuted along these lines, Zionists continue to claim it is an anti-Semitic hate crime.

Many of these arrests are farcical.

People will remember the arrest, charging, trial and not guilty verdict of Marieha Hussain, who had depicted Conservative politicians Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts on a homemade placard she took to a protest on 11 November 2023.

In May 2024, four activists from Camden Friends of Palestine were arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding a banner depicting a dove flying through the Israeli apartheid wall.

Police claimed that as the banner depicted ‘a clear blue sky with no clouds’ and there had been similar weather on 7 October, this showed obvious support for Hamas. After 3 months on bail they were told that there would be no charges.

A tremendous amount of police time and money is being spent on this process with what would appear to be no tangible reward in terms of convictions or imprisonment.

However, what simply looking at the charge or conviction rates fails to show is the way these arrests are used as harassment and interference both in people’s ability to protest and their everyday lives.

Those described here have had bail conditions which specified variously that they could not enter the borough of Westminster, could not enter university premises other than for study and must surrender their passports and not leave the country.

Arrestees from the CPGB-ML were banned for the duration of their bail from attending protests and distributing literature. People flagged for arrest by Zionist twitter have also been reported to their employers, professional bodies and universities in an attempt to ruin their ability to work or study.

While most early arrests were under Public Order police powers, there is increasing use of the Terrorism Act (TA) 2003 to criminalise solidarity with Palestine, targeting both protesters on the streets and what people say on line.

Journalists and youtubers, such as Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson and Asa Winstanley have been subject to arrests and house raids.

The TA was brought in by the last Labour government at a time when Keir Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions.

On 27 November, the Met Police used the TA to raid the premises of the Kurdish Community Centre in Haringey, north London, arresting six people and placing the centre under siege.

Anti-Zionist blogger/activist Tony Greenstein will be in court next week on a charge under section 12 of the TA, for responding over a year ago to a Zionist tweet accusing him of being a Hamas supporter with the words: ‘I support the Palestinians, that is enough and I support Hamas against the Israeli army.’

*Anti-imperialist Jewish and Palestine Solidarity activist Tony Greenstein, who is being persecuted by the British police.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The aim is to create a climate of fear in which people become scared to attend even the most peaceful and routine of protests, where we censor our own slogans, placards and behaviour in order to evade the eyes of the on-line harassers and the police.

Palestine Action and Elbit

Alongside all this has run another process in which the brave participants show no fear in the way they exercise their solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

Palestine Action was set up in 2020 by activists who were frustrated by the PSC’s lack of direct action to enforce BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Since then it has primarily targeted the British operation of Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems, as well as other companies collaborating with Elbit or are otherwise implicated in the arming of the Zionist war machine or sale of its ‘battle tested’ technology to other countries’ militaries.

*Daily Stop Arming Genocide banner outside Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London.* (Source photo: *Internet*)

Palestine Action’s tactics mainly consist of occupations, blockades and drenching premises in red paint to symbolise the blood on the hands of these profiteering companies.

Until recently, although a lot of these actions led to arrests, very few Palestine Action activists ended up behind bars. This has changed since Keir Starmer’s Labour government came to power. There are currently 18 Palestine Action activists in prison in England, along with 2 in Scotland.

One of the Scottish prisoners is the last of the group known as the Thales 5, who were convicted of occupying the roof of the Glasgow premises of French company Thales in 2022. Thales was working with Elbit to produce Watchkeeper drones for the British military.

The prisoners in England have not been convicted and are all held on remand, having been refused bail by the courts. The majority were arrested in relation to actions against the Filton arms factory in Bristol. Ten people were remanded in August and a further eight in November.

Although none have been charged with terrorism offences, the TA was used to effect their arrests, allowing the police more powers to detain pre-charge, raid homes and generally act in a heavy-handed manner.

In the latest arrests in November, flatmates and families were evicted from their homes, sometimes for several days while the police searched premises. In one raid, the mother and younger brother of the person arrested were both handcuffed, despite not being accused of any offence.

In prison, those on remand for pro-Palestine direct action have come in for special scrutiny and additional intrusive measures on top of those which all prisoners are forced to deal with.

The six women detained in Bronzefield prison in August were all allocated to separate wings and deliberately prevented from associating with one another. Their mail has been heavily censored.

Four male prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, although not subject to the same separation regime, have also had their correspondence held up, censored and returned to sender, with supporters being served with notices to the effect that no communication between them is permitted.

FRFI successfully appealed against such a notice in relation to our sending the paper to the prisoners, although the prison claims it still has a right to withhold the paper or other publications if the censors decide they are ‘inappropriate for a prison setting’.

The purpose of all this is clearly to scare those it is directly targeting it and to deter others from coming forward to join Palestine Action’s activities.

As Palestine Action carries out more actions against Elbit, including repeatedly blockading the UAV Engines site at Shenstone in the Midlands, which manufactures engines for Elbit, it is clear that the repression is not succeeding.

*Palestine solidarity demonstration Downing Street 14 December 2024.* (Source photo: *Internet*)

Kitson methodology

General Sir Frank Edward Kitson died on 2 January 2024, aged 97, after a long and illustrious career as a dedicated servant of British imperialism.

In addition to the litany of his war crimes, he will be remembered for authoring the text book Low Intensity Operations – Subversion, Insurgency and Peace-keeping (1971), a manual for dealing with subversive and recalcitrant populations, both at home and abroad.

Kitson’s work continues to form a central plank of British strategy for policing dissent and his disciples are clearly leading policing operations against pro-Palestine protesters.

In Kitson’s book, he details how ‘psychological operations’ should be used to isolate ‘subversives’ from the people while building links with and strengthening support for moderate elements who do not oppose the state but disagree on certain policies.

This technique was used both abroad in Britain’s colonies, and at home to police, for example, the Irish solidarity movement of the 1970s-80s.

Today’s ‘moderates’ take the form of the PSC, Stop the War and similar organisations. PSC marches are negotiated with the police, with strict conditions imposed on the protests.

The PSC has provided no support for people arrested on its demonstrations, citing the low arrest rates as proof of how respectable their protests are, while distancing itself from those who have been targeted.

While the PSC opposes Zionist massacres of the Palestinian people, it does not support the resistance of those under attack.

Consequently it does not complain when the British police uses Terrorism Act powers to criminalise people for supporting the right of Palestinians to resist their oppressors through armed struggle.

This treachery puts the PSC on the wrong side of international law – oppressed nations successfully fought for the right to self-defence by means of armed struggle to be enshrined in UN resolutions in 1974 and 1982.

Fighting back, building solidarity

For some of us, the culture around supporting our arrested comrades was drilled into us many years ago. A whole new generation has had to learn these lessons.

It is positive to see that, although the PSC and such organisations continue not to want to get their hands dirty with supporting anyone targeted by the police, a different attitude is also widespread and ‘arrestee support’, prison solidarity letter-writing etc are common currency among activists.

At the same time there is an element of this solidarity which is depoliticised. For example, the provision of a constant presence at a police station to monitor things and be there when arrestees are released is a good thing and the support organisations which provide this do an invaluable job.

However, when we have comrades under arrest, we want to do more than legal monitoring and instead turn the police station into a focus for protest. The same with courts and prisons.

It’s very positive to see Palestine Action, the SOAS encampment and others also doing this to great effect, thus ensuring that the focus is not just on the Israeli companies who are their principle targets, but also on the British criminal justice machinery which is being marshalled against those who take a stand.

Our task, as always, here in the belly of the imperialist beast, remains to protest against the British government and British corporations’ complicity in the Zionist genocide.

And to show unconditional solidarity with those who fight back against the Zionist war machine by whatever means are at their disposal.

Supporting the resistance and opposing the British state cannot fail to bring us into conflict with that same state and we must continue to stand alongside everyone who is criminalised for their solidarity.

End.

SOURCE

Policing Palestine solidarity

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: COLLUSION, CORRUPTION, REPRESSION, MURDER

On December 10, 2024December 11, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A HISTORY OF CORRUPTION, COLLUSION AND REPRESSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COLLUSIVE REGIMES IN EUROPE

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

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

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

SUPPORTING THE PA, COLLUDING WITH ZIONISM

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

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

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

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

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

End.

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

FOOTNOTES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOURCES

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

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

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

THERE WILL BE NO RED LINES

On October 25, 2024October 27, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Torture3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s because there are no red lines anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It will happen because …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What hasn’t been done yet?

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

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

Anything goes.

End.

Footnotes

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

CENSORSHIP OVER PALESTINE EXPOSES SHAM OF WESTERN ‘FREE PRESS’

On August 29, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, Middle East, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

The image of freedom of the press in Western society has been undermined by the biased reporting of the corporate media and yet further by the wave of censorship of social media in recent years, including blocking media platforms.

Time and again readers have seen that the version of events reported is that which favours the western powers and if and when the latter’s enemies are reported it is done perfunctorily and often with an air of doubt.

In war zones, the reporters for western media tend to be embedded among western military and rarely among their opponents.

Media censorship was already rife on reporting the war in Ukraine but has spread higher and wider during the current ‘Israeli’ genocide in Palestine, causing increasing numbers of people to resort to social media news and commentary platforms. But these alternatives too are targeted in turn.

The Western powers have attacked social media platforms such as Telegram, arresting its founder a few days ago¹ and this week blocking to subscribers throughout the European Union the Resistance News Network, which reported throughout the day on events in the ‘Israeli’ genocide on Telegram.

*Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, currently under French State arrest.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Earlier this month the FBI raided the homes of two US citizens, Scott Ritter and Dimitri K. Simes, journalists whose broadcasting has been hosted by Russian media,² in alleged concern over possible Russian interference in the Presidential elections (!).

Both men have been critical of US foreign policy, which is likely the reason for intimidation through house searches, the same going for the UK police ‘welcome home’ upon Heathrow arrival of Richard Medhurst, an independent journalist and his arrest under ‘Anti-Terrorism’ law.³

Censorship in Reporting the War in Ukraine

Ukraine war news censorship has been running since 2014 but it really ramped up when Russia invaded in 2022. Any prominent individual or site, whether pro-Russia or just NATO-critical that challenged or did not follow the western imperialist line, was soon subjected to censorship.

Pablo González, a dual-nationality Basque reporter, was threatened by Ukrainian intelligence agents and then arrested and jailed in Poland, allegedly for spying for Russia. No evidence was produced during the 886 days he was jailed but now he’s released⁴ they claim they have a lot.

The Russia-based site RT America was closed down in the USA in 2022,⁵ as was RT UK in the UK.⁶

Oliver Stone’s documentary Ukraine On Fire was removed from YouTube⁷ and veteran conflict reporter and author Christopher Hedges, who left his post as Middle East reporter for the New York Times because of the paper’s censorship, was censored again by YouTube.⁸

*Oliver Stone’s acclaimed documentary on Ukraine prior to Russian invasion was removed by Youtube.*

The Grayzone electronic media outlet was characterised as a ‘pro-Russia’ site and veteran anti-imperialist and celebrated linguist Naom Chomsky was accused of being naive or also biased towards Russia.

To what would be their shame if they were capable of such a saving grace, much of the western Left and liberals, both reformist and revolutionary-claiming sections, rowed in behind the censors and labelled all who didn’t swallow their line, including Chomsky⁹ as “Putinistas”.

The reporting of the western mass media was accepted uncritically while any alternative reporting was attacked, some being characterised as Russian-backed media (in contrast with the corporate media, which of course is free of bias!).

Challenging journalists have also disappeared in Ukraine, where regime-critical journalist Gonzalo Lira died in Ukrainian jail,¹⁰ whereas in Palestine, the Israeli Occupation Force had killed at least 116 journalists as August drew to a close.¹¹

In their acceptance of western censorship, those sections of the Left helped to ideologically prepare the ground for the wide-scale censorship around Palestine about which some of them complain bitterly now.

End.

Footnotes

1 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/telegram-messaging-app-ceo-pavel-durov-arrested-france-tf1-tv-says-2024-08-24/ Update: Durov’s arrest in custody had been extended (see References & Sources).

2 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-searched-homes-two-americans-with-ties-russian-state-media-2024-08-22/

3Medhurst is currently out on bail.

4In a prisoner exchange https://elpais.com/espana/2024-08-01/el-periodista-espanol-pablo-gonzalez-liberado-en-un-intercambio-de-presos-entre-ee-uu-y-rusia.html

5 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202204/1258996.shtml

6‘The UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality and on one occasion found it had broadcast “materially misleading” content.[3][4][5] On 18 March 2022, Ofcom cancelled RT’s UK broadcasting licence “with immediate effect” after concluding the outlet was not “fit and proper” or a “responsible broadcaster”’(Wikipedia). The unconscious irony is staggering.

7 https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/03/13/678482/Video-sharing-giants-delete-documentary-Ukrainian-revolution

8Six years of his broadcasts for On Contact and Russia Today were removed from Youtube, prompting him to set up on Substack.

9For many years the darling of the western Left.

10 https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/24744-the-tragic-end-of-gonzalo-lira-a-voice-silenced-in-ukraine.html

11 https://cpj.org/2024/08/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict

References & Sources

59 news organisations protest ‘Israeli’ slaughter of journalists in Palestine: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/media-groups-urge-eu-to-sanction–israel—suspend-treaty

Thoughtful piece on bias in reporting the Ukraine War: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/8/4/western-media-and-the-war-on-truth-in

Ukrainian state censorship on war reporting: https://theintercept.com/2023/06/22/ukraine-war-journalists-press-credentials/

French authorities’ arrest of Telegram founder: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/french-police-custody-extended-after-arrest-of-telegram-chief-executive-durov-1665708.html

HEZBOLLAH DRONE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES SHOCK ‘ISRAELI’ SECURITY

On July 29, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The ability of enemy drones to evade detection and even attack, reaching into the heart of the ‘Israeli’ state’s territory, both to photograph and, in the case of the Jaffa (‘Haifa’) town and ‘Eilat’ port to strike, have shocked the state’s military.

They have shocked settler society too. Hadashot Bazman¹ reported: “Hezbollah’s drones do not need a visa, and they are controlled remotely via cameras with an operator in the control room. What you do not know will not kill you now …²

“they are telling us: ‘We are here, inside you, planning, and capable of delivering harsh strikes’.” ‘Israeli’ daily newspaper Maariv added: “The Air Force has been asleep at the wheel for years.” ³

‘The sarcasm reached the point where one person wrote: “I lost a black leather wallet at Haifa (sic) Port; we hope Hezbollah will locate it accurately and professionally.”⁴

The hit in Jaffa was by Ansar Allah, exploding a drone near what was the former main US Embassy building (before its internationally illegal relocation to Jerusalem)⁵; the other was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. But the drones hitting them almost daily are from Hezbollah.

Why the shock? It’s because they have come to believe in their security, their own racist European settler propaganda of innate superiority, instead of recognising the real source of their domination over the indigenous: the financial, military and political support of the Western powers.

With constant propaganda through western mass media, that image of the westernised (‘civilised’) ‘Israelis’ has permeated throughout the west, even infecting many who detest the Occupation’s genocidal actions.

Imagine the reaction as we explain years of Hezbollah’s drone development, testing, production, more testing … “We thought they got their weapons from Iran.⁶ Wait a minute! You’re talking engineers, designers, labs, test crews … Actual factories, assembly lines! In an Arab insurgency army?!”

We have been trained to see the ordinary people of the Middle East as underdeveloped industrially and (therefore!) socially, their fighters as religious fanatics. This image is not compatible with decades devoted to research development and production of sophisticated modern weaponry.

And yet, that is the ‘secret’ of the Yemeni success: determination, years of R&D, testing their ability, testing the enemy’s, redesign, more testing, tight security and deceiving the enemy … until the cat is out of the bag, spitting, claws fully extended.⁷

*Hezbollah’s Karar drone*. (Source: *Yemen’s Air Force PDF*)

And yet … and yet … Hezbollah is still showing restraint. Yes, they are targeting the IOF in the occupied lands and, in response to genocidal attacks on Palestinians, also some of the colonial settlements until recently untouched.

They are also hitting and destroying parts of the genocidal state’s surveillance and defence infrastructure, practically on a weekly basis. The “Iron Dome” depends on launching interception missiles and the launchers are being periodically hit by Hezbollah too.

*‘Iron Dome’ launcher of interception missiles with members of the IOF in attendance* (Source: *Yemen’s Air Force PDF*)

And they will continue doing this, they say, until the genocidal attacks on Palestinians cease and international humanitarian aid returns unimpeded (Yemen’s attacks on certain shipping will continue until the same point, as made clear by Ansar Allah).

Hezbollah, like most anti-imperialists, Arab or otherwise, want to see the demise of the genocidal state. But they clearly don’t want all-out war with it at present, with attendant wide-scale destruction of Lebanon by the air forces of the imperialist alliance.

So they have published the results of their surveillance drones flyovers, including most recently of the IOF’s high-security military airport, noting the identity of its commanding officer and also exploded a warning in the centre of the state’s third-largest city.

Published results from the earlier ‘Flight of the Hoopoe’ in June.

THE SHORT, MEDIUM AND LONGER-TERM SIGNIFICANCE

In the short term, the significance of this development is that the settler state is very vulnerable. It must endure Hezbollah’s attacks on its military and its defence systems, knowing that its vulnerability increases steadily.

Scenes from and commentary on the most recent published results of Hezbollah’s undetected drone flight containing detailed aerial film of the IOF’s airbase.

Or attack the source, which Gallant has threatened and Netanyahu desires — for which, as this was being written, they tried to find an excuse in a deadly explosion on children playing football in the occupied Golan, blamed on Hezbollah but for which they’ve denied responsibility.⁸

But it is extremely doubtful that their armed forces now have the necessary numbers of armour or troops to attack Lebanon, having suffered so many damaged or destroyed of the first and dead or severely injured of the second, inflicted by the lower-tech fighters of the Palestinian Resistance.

In the short-to-medium term, all the allies of the Palestinians in the Middle East draw encouragement in their own contention with the ‘Israeli’ state and with its imperialist supporters and suppliers, while some other states reconsider their alliance with what looks increasingly like a loser.

There is no question but that in recent decades the role of drones in wars between states has been significant but also in asymmetrical conflicts against resistance fighters, such as that of the ‘Israeli’ state against the Palestinians, both against fighters and more commonly against unarmed civilians.

From now on, insurgency movements will have to organise not only to neutralise the adverse effects of drones in their adversaries’ hands but also to maximise the numbers and efficiency of their own against their enemies’ troops, armaments and battle HQs, production and administrative centres.

The term “drone” is used to describe UACVs (unmanned aerial combat vehicle) but versions operating on the ground, on and under sea have also been developed.

Sea versions like an unmanned boat exploding on contact or from radio signal have been used by Yemen recently. In the NATO proxy Ukraine war, the latter has also deployed them against Russian assets. The development of multi-environment military drones cannot be far away.

Drones can also observe, record, hunt and attack through detection of infra-red imaging, attacking human fighters of either side at night or in heavy fog, rain or snow – as long as the drones can fly.

In future, killer combat drones may hunt not only by detecting infra-red light and carbon dioxide emission,⁹ gun oil odour, presence of ammonia etc but even of pheromones, able to distinguish between sexually active males and females.

Of course, the development of drones could focus on means to find survivors (or recover bodies) in collapsed mines or buildings (something the Palestinians could make great use of due to IOF bombing), locate missing persons etc, instead of for observing people in order to kill them.

Well … not much chance of that, is there?

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Middle East commentator.

2Hezbollah_Air_Force.pdf from Resistance News Network (see Sources).

3Ibid.

4Ibid.

5Under Trump’s previous Presidency but not withdrawn under Biden’s.

6Well Iran might be viewed as ‘mad Arabs’ (they’re not even Arabs, for the most part) but at least it’s a state, not an insurgent army. In fact, it appears to be the case that Hezbollah have not only developed their own drone-building capacity but contributed to Iran’s.

7Or one of the cats, anyway; Hezbollah says it has more surprises in store and it’s hard not to believe them.

8The western mass media has recorded Hezbollah’s denial of responsibility for the explosion perfunctorily while giving much space to ‘Israeli’ and US accusations against the organisation. This should be bizarre, given Hezbollah’s record of accuracy in missile firing and in statements, compared with an ‘Israeli’ history of blatant and monstrous lies (as recently as by Netanyahu in his address to the US Congress in Washington) … but has sadly become routine.

9One of the ways in which female mosquitoes locate their prey from which to suck blood.