US Imperialism Tries to Disarm Two Countries’ Resistance Forces

On August 18, 2025August 19, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 10 mins.)

US Imperialism is currently meeting resistance in two Middle Eastern/ West Asian states as, through pressure on their governments, it tries to disarm the guerrilla organisations.

People in most Western states are familiar with political binaries of Right and Left but in many parts of the world, though that exists, the dominant binary is sovereignist or clientist¹, the former placing national interests above all and the latter aligning with the interests of imperial powers.

LEBANON

This country is known as the heartland of Hezbollah but many may not be aware that this resistance movement is fairly new in historical terms, coming into existence as it did in opposition to the ‘Israeli’ occupation of 1982 and instrumental in forcing total IOF withdrawal by 2000.

Hezbollah has been described more recently as “a state within a state”, with its Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc political representation and its Jihad Council army. It works in alliance with the Amal Party, also majority Shia and the Free Patriotic Movement (mostly Christian).²

Lebanon had been earlier occupied by French colonialism and its colonial elite was typically among the Catholic Christian sect known as Maronites,³ as were half the population then, the reason why the Constitution (National Pact of 1943) gives half the seats to Christian candidates.

However no population census has been carried out since 1932 and many believe that a census today would not justify half the Parliament seats allocated to Christian representatives, even in a sectarian Constitution. The others sects are Muslim (Shia and Sunni) and Druze.

This has been the case in Lebanon which, outside of the Civil War of 1975-1990, has been governed in a balance of these forces, with the recent former President, though a Maronite, sympathetic to the country’s sovereign interests and therefore also to Hezbollah and the Amal party.

On the clientist side (but proclaiming Lebanese ‘independence’) are the remains after its 2016 dissolution of “the March 14 Alliance,” consisting now of the Lebanese Forces party, with the largest parliamentary representation⁴ and of the Ketaeb, the fascist Phalangist party of the Civil War.

The main political representation of the Druze community, the Progressive Socialist Party, has supported one bloc or the other at various times.

The Lebanese Constitution (National Pact) stipulates that the President must be a Maronite but cannot be a serving member of the military. On 9^th January, Josef Aoun was elected President of the Government, for which he had to give up his position of Commander of the Armed Forces.

His election and cabinet choices were not good news for the sovereignists since the USA, as in many countries had been penetrating the armed forces through weaponry and recruitment grants and Aoun was considered their proxy – a description which his conduct has done nothing to refute.

Josef Aoun (centre right) in discussion with US Envoy Tom Barrack (middle left).

On 5^th August the Lebanese Parliament began to discuss the question of who is entitled to bear arms with a clear intention to follow the US lead that it should be the State only.⁵ Many in the West would perhaps think this a normal position but only Hezbollah fighters have defended Lebanon.

Since the ‘Israeli’ armed forces attacked Lebanon on 1^st October 2024,⁶ not once has the Lebanese Army fought them. Hezbollah fought the IOF to a standstill in the south of Lebanon, also bombing troop concentrations in northern ‘Israel’⁷ in support of Gaza and causing large settler evacuations.

The IOF had to beg for a ceasefire, to which Hezbollah and the Lebanese Government (also US, France …) agreed and which the IOF, true to form, has violated since thousands of times in bombing flights, drone assassinations, invasion of Lebanese land and kidnapping of Lebanese civilians.⁸

Hezbollah and Amal’s representatives walked out of the Government disarmament discussions, accusing their reigning opposition of failing to stand up to US threats and seeking to disarm the Resistance while at the same time failing to confront ‘Israeli’ occupation and ceasefire violations.

*Hezbollah parade 2024, Beirut, Lebanon.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The Government went ahead and tasked the Army with preparing a plan – not to defend Lebanon against the occupation and constant attacks by the IOF but instead to disarm Hezbollah.

No observer thinks the Government or Lebanese Army are capable of disarming Hezbollah and serious commentators view this move by US proxies as seeking to delegitimise the Lebanese Resistance and blame them for the attacks of the IOF upon targets in Lebanon.

Hezbollah in fact is the only force that has fought the Zionist occupation⁹of 1982 after the PLO left, also during later IOF invasions of 1993 and 1996. Josef Aoun is widely believed to have asked Hezbollah to defend Lebanon’s western border with Syria against infiltration from ISIS.¹⁰

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi commented on the reason for trying to disarm Hezbollah “is that it has shown its capability on the battlefield”, and “that the positions of the party and its Secretary-General are strong showing the Resistance’s steadfastness in the face of pressures.”¹¹

The Lebanese Foreign Minister accused Araghchi of “violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty,”¹² which might have been considered fair comment, were it not for the fact of Lebanon’s government’s acting under admitted US pressure and toleration of ‘Israeli’ bombing and assassinations.

This kind of dialogue continued up to very recently as Ali Larijani, Iran’s Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Council visited the country but he pointed out in public statements that interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs is not by them but rather by others in an overseas faraway office.

Nightly protest demonstrations,¹³ including huge motorcades have been carried out in many areas since the Government’s decision, mostly by young people, often flying Hezbollah flags.

An opinion poll taken between 27 July and 4 August 2025 indicates that 76% wouldn’t trust diplomacy with ‘Israel’, 71.7% don’t believe the Lebanese Army is capable of defending the country against ‘Israel’ and 58% don’t think Hezbollah should surrender its weapons at this point.¹⁴

On Saturday, the Lebanese army said an explosion at a weapons depot near the Israeli border killed six soldiers as troops were sent to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure in the area as part of a disarmament plan; the Government is now mourning them but blaming Hezbollah.

However, observers note that people in the south are angry that the Government never had a word to say about all the Lebanese civilians killed by the IOF since October 24 or about the Hezbollah fighters that fell fighting the ‘Israeli’ invasion then.

IRAQ

The position in Iraq is very different, although the USA is also keen to restrict arms to the State there only. The US armed forces have a base in Iraq and in addition, control its air space.¹⁵ However, the resolve of the Iraqi Government is different to that of Lebanon’s.¹⁶

US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce criticised the recent visit of Ali Larijani, Iran’s Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Council and the signing of a joint security pact between Iraq and Iran. Iraq’s Embassy in New York replied that they are a sovereign state.¹⁷

Let us recall for a moment that Iraq was ruled by the Sadam Hussein regime, first a client of the US when it went to war with the Islamic Republic of Iran 1980-1988 but an enemy when, in pursuit of his own policies in 1990, his armed forces invaded Kuwait, a US client state.

In order to justify their regime-change war of 2003, political leaders of both the USA and the UK lied to their populations claiming that Iraq held WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) which were an imminent threat. The subsequent war overthrew Hussein but destroyed the country for years.

The US occupation was widely criticised even by sources within the imperialist camp for its absence of an integrated governing policy and structure to replace the Hussein regime, with jihadist and Kurdish warlords ruling different areas and at times in conflict with one another.

Until the US forces agreed to pull out in 2011,¹⁸ the US proxy Iraqi administration and armed forces, along with the armed forces of the US itself faced constant attacks from both Iraqi national resistance organisations and Islamic jihadists, including by roadside bombs and suicide bombers.

The independent or citizen armed forces¹⁹ mostly came into existence during the war against the ISIS invasion of Iraq in 2014, being instrumental not only in defence of Baghdad but also in taking the war to the sectarian jihadists at a time when much of the Iraqi armed forces were failing.

Most of the media commentary on those Popular Mobilisation Forces characterises them as proxies of Iran and raises fears about their integration into the state armed forces without being under direct control of the military command, instead answerable only to the President.

While such media raises concerns about dangers to Iraq’s sovereignty from the militias, the same media sees no problem with the USA control of Iraq’s airspace, of foreign troops installed on their land past the date they agreed to leave, and openly pressuring Iraq on how to deal with the militias.

With regard to the call that all armed forces should be unified under the State, that generally suits the USA since they often arm, train and educate the armed forces in countries where they have influence, not to mention actual military bases.

The position of Western powers that only the State should have weapons is hypocritical given their history of supporting armed insurrection to topple regimes they consider unfriendly, also with regard to the right for citizens to bear arms in the USA’s own Constitution.

The hypocrisy of the USA and Western powers is exposed not only in that but also by the fact that they sponsored Muslim fundamentalist terrorist forces to overthrow secular regimes such as Assad’s in Syria, including supporting a prominent former ISIS commander to take over that state.

The multitude of militias under the self-proclaimed current President of Syria, Al Julani, former second-in command of the Nusra Front,²⁰ have been massacring Alawites, Druze and Christians but despite some murmurs of concern Macron welcomed Julani to the Elysée Palace in Paris.

For the US and the Western imperialists then, the real issue is not about a need for one effective central military command or state sovereignty, but rather about whether or not all the armed forces within the State are under a command over which the imperialists can exercise control.

And even more so, whether the guerrilla groups or at least their commanders are orientated towards the western powers or instead towards an oppositional centre, whether that be a state such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, or an internal force in favour of national sovereignty and anti-imperialism.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

Lebanon: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/07/us-pushes-lebanon-towards-dangerous-course-of-disarming-hezbollah

https://thecradle.co/articles/damascus-requests-russian-patrols-in-south-syria-to-limit-israeli-incursions-report

Iraq: https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/04/07/iraqi-militias-considering-to-disarm-ahead-of-us-iran-talks-sources-say/

https://thecradle.co/articles-id/32447

US pressure on Iraq re popular resistance forces: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2025/04/02/iraq-wrestles-with-us-pressure-over-iran-backed-militias/

1I do not think these handy short descriptive terms exist in English but I am going to employ them nevertheless.

2Known as “the March 8^th Alliance.”

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronites

4According to the National Pact sectarian allocation of seats between the various religious communities. However, as noted, there has not been a census since 1932 and many suspect that the Christian community no longer has dominance in numbers.

5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/07/us-pushes-lebanon-towards-dangerous-course-of-disarming-hezbollah

6For the sixth time.

7In solidarity with the people of Gaza.

8In April, the most recent reference I was able to find, The Cradle quoted Lebanon’s Information Minister stating the occurrence since the 27 November 2024 ceasefire signing of 2,740 such violations by ‘Israel’ https://thecradle.co/articles/nearly-200-killed-in-2740-israeli-violations-of-ceasefire-with-lebanon

9And the main force that drove the Zionist occupation out in 2006.

10Hezbollah is reputed to have refused, not surprisingly, while the current Lebanese regime is following US dictates (which is the major cause of the presence of ISIS in Syria) and demanding the disarmament of the Resistance.

11Reported by The Cradle on its Telegram Updates.

12Ibid: “The recent statements made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mr. Abbas Araghchi, in which he addressed internal Lebanese matters that do not concern the Islamic Republic in any way, are rejected and condemned. They constitute a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, unity, and stability, and are considered interference in its internal affairs and sovereign decisions.

Relations between states can only be built on the basis of mutual respect, equality, non-interference in internal affairs, and full adherence to the decisions of legitimate constitutional institutions. It is completely unacceptable for these relations to be exploited to encourage or support internal parties outside the framework of the Lebanese state and its institutions, and at its expense.”

13 https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/08/11/hezbollah-doubles-down-on-rejecting-lebanons-impossible-disarmament-plan/

14 https://thecradle.co/articles/majority-of-lebanese-oppose-hezbollah-disarmament-say-army-incapable-of-confronting-israel

15Over the protests of the Iraq Government, the US used its airspace from which to bomb Iran in the recent attack.

16Though one might not think so from the predominance of current media headlines announcing government and resistance groups’ alleged acquiescence.

17‘Iraq is a fully sovereign state and has the right to conclude agreements according to its constitution and laws, without being subject to any country’s policies‘. Details of the agreement remain unknown.

18But have yet to actually do so.

19This excludes the Kurdish peshmerga who fought ISIS mostly to defend their areas and many with a desire to create an independent Kurdish authority there.

202016 description of Al Nusra Front by pro-western publication: https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/11/al-nusra-is-stronger-than-ever.html

OASIS, MANCHESTER & THE FENIANS

On August 17, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Britain, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Song, Song in Struggle, Workers' Struggles2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Oasis rock band are performing on 16 and 17 August in Croke Park, the Gaelic sports stadium in Dublin, to a sold out capacity of 82,300. Brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher are the two leading members of the band.

Oasis-marked t-shirts and caps are being sold from stalls in the city and posters announcing the forthcoming concerts adorned shop windows and lampposts but how many fans know the Gallaghers’ background?

*Liam and Noel Gallagher* of Oasis (Source imag: *Internet*)

Liam and Noel were born in Manchester to Irish migrant parents but their mother Peggy split from her abusive husband and moved elsewhere in Manchester, taking the kids with her. Liam dedicated Stand by Me to her on Saturday night and gave a shout-out to her her birthplace in Co. Mayo.¹

Ireland fed the British ‘industrial revolution’ and the Irish have a long association with Manchester. In 1845 the city’s factories were already attracting Irish workers and its farms probably also agricultural workers to replace English labourers deserting the farms for the factories.

Friedrich Engels wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England,² published in 1845 (the first year of the Great Hunger) and mentioned the Irish migrants not too favourably. He was writing mostly about Salford, the subject of Ewan McColl’s Dirty Old Town,³ just outside the city then.

By the time Engels’ book was published, the Great Starvation was gearing up. Uncomplimentary references to the Jews can also be found in that work but whatever about that ethnic minority,⁴ Engels changed his mind radically about the Irish in Britain and came to admire them greatly.

Instrumental in learning about the Irish for Engels were two Irish sisters living in Manchester, Lizzie and Mary Burns, illiterate but intelligent and militant mill workers. Mary and Friedrich became life partners and, after her death, Friedrich became Lizzie’s partner thereafter.

The Irish, as the natives and diaspora of what is often referred to as “England’s first colony” were of considerable interest to the revolutionary partnership of Engels and Karl Marx and more so still as the Fenian movement, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, spread throughout Britain.⁵

*Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, leading theoreticians and activists of the revolutionary socialist movement.* (Source: *Workers Liberty*)

A largely proletarian movement, the Fenians were admitted to the First International Workingmen’s Association⁶; no doubt the Irish struggle against British domination greatly influenced the political opinions of Marx and Engels in relation to nations under colonialist rule by capitalist states.

The struggle spilled over from Ireland into the Irish diaspora, particularly that in North America, Australia and Britain. In Australia the Fenians’ role seems to have been mostly in facilitating and escaping British jails there⁷ while in America, they invaded the British colony of Canada.⁸

The charge of the Fenians (wearing green uniforms) under Colonel John O’Neill at the Battle of Ridgeway, near Niagara, Canada West, on June 2, 1866. In reality, the Fenians had their own green flags but wore a very mixed bag of Union and Confederate uniforms (if they still had them, or parts of them left over from the Civil War), or civilian garb, with strips of green as arm or hat bands to distinguish themselves. (library and archives canada, c-18737)

In Britain itself, the Fenians went to war against the ruling class with dynamite. To spy on them, Scotland Yard created the Irish Special Branch which evolved into the Special Branch, the political police in Britain and in any colony the British had since then.⁹

The activities of the US Fenians intersected with those of Britain-based Fenians when two of the former, Thomas J. Kelly and Timothy Deasy, American Civil War veterans, were arrested in England. On their prison van’s journey to jail it was ambushed¹⁰ and both officers spirited away.

*Artists’ impression of the rescue of the Fenian prisoners.*
(Image source: *Internet*)

Unfortunately and entirely unintentionally, Constable Brett was killed during the breakout. Refusing to hand over the keys from inside the wagon, he was bending to look through the keyhole when in order to release the prisoners one of the Fenians fired at the lock, the bullet entering Brett’s brain.¹¹

The British police swept vengefully through the Irish quarters of Manchester and Salford arresting at least 28 people but eventually sending five for trial on ‘murder’ charges. Three were hanged, all innocent of intentional killing and at least two probably not even present at the scene.

As sentence of death was passed upon them, all five cried “God save Ireland!” Although the sentences on two were commuted, Timothy Sullivan used those words for his ballad about The Manchester Martyrs, as the executed three became known among the Irish at home and abroad.

The song travelled quickly and became an unofficial national anthem of Ireland and the Irish until it was decisively supplantedafter the 1916 Rising by Peadar Kearney’s The Soldiers Song (latertranslated: Amhrán na bhFiann).¹² A memorial to the three was erected in Mostyn Cemetery.

*Artist’s impression of the trial of the five convicted including the three Manchester Martyrs.*
(Image source: *Internet*)

Manchester continued to be a destination for Irish migrants, for factories still, including motor car production but also post-WW2 reconstruction and motorway building.

Manchester United FC, along with a number of other British soccer teams, recruited Irish players and Irishman Liam Whelan was one of the eight players killed in the Munich air crash of 1958. Another 30 Irish have played for the club at one time or another, some quite famous.¹³

The city is one of a number of British cities that has a name in the Irish language; Mancunians would probably be delighted to know that their city’s name in Irish is Manchuin.

From the late 1960s to late 1990s the city was host to an active branch of the Troops Out Movement in solidarity with Ireland, also from 1980s to an active branch of the Irish in Britain Representation Group; the Special Branch was active in monitoring and, from time to time, harassing their activists.

The Provisional IRA bombed the city in 1996 as part of its campaign against the British State and — despite a 90-minute warning — 212 were injured.

Today Manchester, alongside South Asian ethnic influences, continues its Irish ethnic presence with Irish traditional cultural activities¹⁴ and no doubt the sons and daughters of Manchester’s Irish diaspora will continue to contribute to other sport and artistic culture in Britain and in the world.

Footnotes

1 https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/oasis-review-the-band-were-great-the-service-was-not-1793012.html

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Condition_of_the_Working_Class_in_England

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11BuatTuXk here performed by The Pogues

4Given that Marx, a German Jew, became his closest political comrade and writing partner, it’s likely he changed his bias against Jews also.

5 https://www.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1867/fenians.htm and Introduction to https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/030639688202400204

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workingmen%27s_Association

7For example, the escape on board The Catalpa https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irish-diary/2023/11/01/the-greatest-escape-frank-mcnally-on-one-mans-mission-to-make-a-movie-about-the-catalpa-rescue/

8 https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/irish-fenian-invasion-canada Unlike many other accounts easily available this one gives a reasonable assessment of the rationale for the invasion, including its potential and the reasons of its ultimate failure, the interests of the ruling class of the USA, which the Irish Republican movement should have learned from forever afterwards – but failed to do.

9Often referred to simply as ‘the Branch’ or ‘Branchmen’ (though the organisation of course also recruits women).

10The location, by an arch under a railway bridge, is still unofficially known as “Fenian Arch.”

11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_Ireland

12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_Ireland

13For example, George Best and Roy Keane.

14Manchester has a Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann club (for Irish traditional music) and informal music sessions, also an Irish dancing school https://www.facebook.com/profile.php; Gaelic Athletic Association clubs including St Brendan’s, St Peter’s, Oisín, and St. Lawrence’s.

Sources

The Fenian Ambush: https://ballymacoda.ie

The ballad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_Ireland

The First International and Fenians: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1867/fenians.htm

The Saturday concert in Croke Park: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/oasis-review-the-band-were-great-the-service-was-not-1793012.html

A MOTHER’S HEART – A Review.

On August 5, 2025August 5, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Palestine, Political Analysis, Song, Women1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time:4 mins.)

On August 1st singer Mary Black released A Mother’s Heart for Palestine, a soundtrack and video.¹ The title and music built on the 1992 track by Mary Black and Eleanor McEvoy, A Woman’s Heart (title of album also).²

The voices are beautiful and the adaptations of the Arab women particularly so. Or at least, they affected me even more deeply.

Like actions by Mothers Against Genocide,³ the recording seeks to transverse borders in the mind, to represent Palestinians as humans, as human as ourselves, through the image of the mother, which almost all of us have had and which many women are or have been.

It is worth thinking about this a bit further. The image of the mother is a powerful one in all cultures for at least biological evolutionary reasons. The future of the human species depends on productive motherhood and in all cultures, in that capacity at least, pregnant women are protected.

The image is also overlain by personal affect, of ourselves nurtured (in most cases) by a mother or ourselves as a mother, nurturing in turn.

The image of the mother is also manipulated by all degrees of the Right, whether to uphold clerical control, to counter assertion of reproductive rights, or to deny the right of lesbian (and gay) sexuality. And ‘to protect ‘our women’’ from imagined migrant assault (or indeed intermarriage).

In Christian religious iconography, the Mother as Madonna is particularly prevalent and she is always passive, whether depicted serene or suffering.

*A detail from the Madonna and child painting by Duccio, late 13th Century* (Image sourced: *on line*)

The mother image is also employed by imperialists to send us to war and was crudely used for example in the UK (of which Ireland was then a part) in a WWI poster depicting a mother and child telling the man to go and fight (for them, of course – not for the imperialists, mar dhea!).

WW1 recruitment poster for Britain (Image sourced: *on line*)

*A particularly offensive recruitment poster for the British Army in WW1 given that Ireland was under British occupation and only six decades after a British genocide of Irish people through starvation*. (Image sourced: *on line*)

But in nearly all cases it is a passive representation of womanhood and is combined in the Mothers Heart video with images of sorrow – naturally, about all the children killed or starving, soon to die — which is also a passive emotion.

Many of the visual representations of Palestinian women are in domestic roles assigned to women around the world: food preparation, washing and drying clothes and of course child care.

Mothers are uniquely women but women are also more than mothers. Slightly more than one-half the human race, they are also workers,⁴ cultural producers, thinkers, leaders — and fighters. Even in revolutionary iconography we rarely see the woman, never mind mother, represented armed.

This is despite the 1970s images of a Mozambican or Vietnamese woman carrying a gun and a child. Or the famous staged INLA photo of a skirted woman in the Six Counties aiming an automatic rifle. Such images are very much exceptions to the rule.⁵

Poster promoting the Mozambique People’s Liberation Army. (Image sourced: *on line*)

*Poster from the Vietnam War.* (Image sourced: *on line*)

The music video shows Palestinian women, among their domestic roles, lamenting, speaking on mobile phones, presumably worried about relatives, carrying belongings, on the move, displaced. The lyrics also are of lament.

As complete counterpoint in the Arab world we have only one image that I know of, which is Leila Khaled with an automatic rifle, because her society too insists on a largely passive role for women, even though their position in that society otherwise seems very influential.

The women shown in the video accompanying the music and lyrics are apparently Arab, Arab-Irish and mostly Irish. On the Palestine solidarity marches here my impression is that born women are the majority over born males and many have taken militant action, for which some are facing prosecution.

Women, in particular Arab women, often lead these marches, calling out the chants for others to respond.

Newsreels show Palestinian and other Arab women abroad marching, shouting slogans, clenched fists in the air. I have seen them denouncing ‘Israeli’ soldiers for invasion and occupation, for mistreatment of children, for demolition of houses, one slapping an armed Israeli soldier in the face.

In our own history (as distinct from mythology and legend) we had few female figures of armed action and Pearse mythologised Gráinne Ní Mháille⁶ in song to epitomise resistance when he had her represent the nation. But compare that to his poem The Mother!

In recent years Markievicz, Skinnider⁷ and to a degree Farrell⁸ have part-emerged from history’s shadows bearing weapons but there is still a long way to go in changing the image of women (through all their biological phases) in the struggle.

This song for all that it affects me emotionally does not do that nor is it expected to and, more to the point, I fear will be used to reinforce passivity in the assigned role of women in struggles — fortitude and solidarity in suffering no doubt, but passivity none the less.

It seems to me that social democrats and liberals perpetuate the mother aspect of the woman manipulatively in order to promote pacifism and much as I appreciate this cultural production, it will be used in that way.

While enjoying cultural productions visually, in sound or in print, we need also to be aware of the social packages they carry and their effects upon us, intended or otherwise.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.mary-black.net/

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman%27s_Heart_(compilation_album)

3Whose official stamp is also on the video.

4Industrial, agricultural, municipal, health services, technical and scientific services.

5There was some coverage of armed Kurdish women in Syria fighting ISIS (I wrote about some myself) but it is now clear that was in the context of NATO coordination in the war to overthrow the non-western aligned regime.

6A 17^th Century female chief of the Uí Máille clan in Mayo who led attacks on her enemies by land and sea. Pearse adapted the ancient bride-welcoming song to bid her welcome with armed warriors to reclaim her land and disperse the English occupiers.

7Both Markievicz (nee Gore-Booth) and Skinnider were members of the Irish Citizen Army and both carried and fired weapons in the 1916 Rising.

8Though unarmed, she was part of an Active Service Unit of the IRA when she and her two comrades were gunned down in the British colony of Gibraltar on 6^th March 1988.

SOURCE

https://www.mary-black.net/

1 https://www.mary-black.net/

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman%27s_Heart_(compilation_album)

3Whose official stamp is also on the video.

4Industrial, agricultural, municipal, health services, technical and scientific services.

7Both Markievicz (nee Gore-Booth) and Skinnider were members of the Irish Citizen Army and both carried and fired weapons in the 1916 Rising.

8Though unarmed, she was part of an Active Service Unit of the IRA when she and her two comrades were gunned down in the British colony of Gibraltar on 6^th March 1988.

THE GIDEON CHARIOTS ARE HEADING FOR A CRASH

On August 4, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Even as European imperialists and imperialist client Arab states try to save the Zionist state with a proposal to disarm the Palestinian Resistance and put the quisling Palestine Authority in charge of Gaza,¹ many Israeli Zionists are signalling that it’s too late.

Middle East Spectator reports that six hundred members of the ‘Commanders for Israel’s Security’ (CIS) have written a letter to President Trump urging him to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the war in Gaza due to Israel’s ‘desperate situation’ regarding ‘global legitimacy’.

The MES source is The Jerusalem Post. The ‘Commanders’ consists of former senior officials from the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet, which is to say the ‘Israeli’ armed forces, external and internal state intelligence services.

On the popular free-to-air Channel 12 TV, ex-general Noam Tibbon complained that ‘Israel’ was facing international isolation through its starvation of Gaza while its unsuccessful “Gideon Chariots”² military campaign has resulted in the deaths of 50 of its soldiers.

Actually the Zionist army’s deaths are almost certainly under-reported³ as are the 6,145 wounded stated by the IOF, in comparison to the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Division reported 18,500 soldiers and other security forces wounded with varying severity.⁴

In addition, seven of its soldiers took their own lives during July this year. Seventeen IOF suicides were recorded in 2023 and twenty-one in 2024 with another 17 already this year. Those figures do not include reservists taking their lives in periods after military duty.⁵

The IOF’s losses in damaged tanks, armoured bulldozers and personnel carriers are also high. Despite this situation, the Zionist State is also carrying out military operations in Syria and Lebanon and its leaders talk about resuming its war with Iran, which had disastrous results for ‘Israel’.

Palestinian Resistance operations of various factions occur every day, while every second day or so ‘Israeli’ media reports “a security incident” in Gaza, their coded description for a Resistance operation resulting in the death of at least one IOF soldier.

In addition to the armed resistance of Palestinians particularly in Gaza putting a strain on the armed Zionist Occupation, it has strained also the relationship between the latter and the Government coalition led by Netanyahu, as discussed on Zionist Army radio and reported by The Cradle.

IOF Army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir is quoted as saying that the Zionist army lacks clear strategic direction from the Government and that it favours a deal with Hamas allowing it to return to Gaza’s periphery as before October 8^th and to ‘exhaust’ Gaza.⁶

As a practical alternative the IOF could occupy the whole of Gaza, which Zamir says can be done in a period of months but the ‘clearing’ of the Resistance above and below ground (in the tunnels) would take years and though he left it unsaid, would drain the IOF to cracking point.

The Resistance is fighting a long war of attrition. While the IOF can and does kill civilians in thousands it cannot operate with impunity on the ground against the Resistance fighters, despite its high technology and drones, both for surveillance and attack, in addition to artillery and air cover.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkiye-eu-arab-league-16-countries-endorse-new-york-declaration-supporting-2-state-solution/3646558

2IOF Codeword for the military operation since they broke the ceasefire agreement in March this year and restored the genocidal blockade, along with bombing of residential areas and ethnic cleansing of whole districts.

3(390 soldiers reported in January since launch of its ground operation in Gaza, with 61 of those individuals falling in the last months of 2023). https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/01/israel-takes-stock-of-military-casualties-over-a-year-of-war.php

4 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/at-least-18-500-israeli-soldiers-injured-since-outbreak-of-gaza-war-media/3643460

5 https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-suicides-tied-to-combat-trauma-internal-probes-said-to-reveal/

6What this term entails is not clear but could be a return to the conditions of constant power cuts, restriction on food entry to the minimum and heavy restrictions on entry and departure, along with regular raids in force to capture or kill Palestinians.

SOURCES

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/ex-israeli-general-says-gaza-starvation-campaign-isolated–i

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/at-least-18-500-israeli-soldiers-injured-since-outbreak-of-gaza-war-media/3643460

https://thecradle.co/articles/tensions-between-israeli-army-chief-government-reach-their-peak-report

THANK YOU, DENIS O’BRIEN!

On July 31, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Capitalism, Cartoon, Cartoon comment, Imperialism, Ireland, National Liberation, NATO, SatireLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

No, I’m not being sarcastic – I am quite serious. Thank you for making it clear that you support the Irish State joining the imperialist alliance of NATO.¹ I take it that opinion is at least widespread among your social class.

After all you are among the biggest of the native Irish monopoly capitalists, right? Number eight of the eleven richest people in Ireland.²

From the statements and actions of politicians I had assumed your Gombeen neo-colonial class was of that opinion but I suppose there was always a slim chance that the politicians were out on a limb, going it alone, not representing their bosses … but sure now you’ve confirmed it yourself.

I see you’re concerned about the defence of Ireland. That’s really good – so am I. Hold on, you just mean the Irish state – the 26 Counties? Oh, of course, that’s right, the Six Counties are already in NATO. They didn’t get to vote on that, did they? But we will here, of course.

Wait now, didn’t Mícheál Martin say he didn’t believe it would have to be voted on? And isn’t the Government now trying to get rid of the Triple Lock stopping us sending many soldiers anywhere without approval of the government, a majority vote in Leinster House and a UN mandate?³

The Government and majority vote shouldn’t be a problem for you, should it? You’ve got a comfortable majority in Leinster House on abiding by the Western Imperialist stance. Ah you have, Denis, you have – sure isn’t the Irish State the biggest customer of Israel, next to the USA?

Getting a UN mandate might be a bit trickier, especially these days. After all, a lot of UN members have been at the sharp end of NATO, or that of the USA, or UK, or France – which is all pretty much the same thing. The Security Council would work if Russia or China didn’t veto it.

Anyway, back to defending Ireland. We should really discuss what that means. Defending our physical lives and homes? A lot of our homes belong to the banks and vulture funds so I’m thinking maybe THEY should defend them.

Or maybe defending our natural resources and public infrastructures, i.e the ones that our governments for decades have been giving away to native and foreign monopoly capitalists. I think you’ve benefited from a bit of that yourself, Denis. Ah you have, you know you have.

Many of those foreign monopoly capitalists taking over our industry come from NATO countries too, as it happens.

Defending our physical lives? The thing I find hardest to understand, however, Denis, is how you think we’d be safer within NATO, of which the UK is a major part. I mean, since Britain invaded us in 1169 it has caused wars in Ireland, famines, genocide, linguicide, sectarianism and division.

You could say that’s in the past but it’s not, is it though? And they do say that the best predictor of future behaviour is previous behaviour, after all.

I know you’re concerned about the undersea cables. I’m not just worried about the UK in NATO – the top boss of NATO is the USA. And their record is more of sabotaging undersea pipes than protecting cables! I know, I know … no concrete evidence. But who else had motive, opportunity and capability?

Now, you want to see the Irish armed services expanded. But I can’t see why we have to be a part of NATO to do that. And if, as part of NATO, our armed services go to war, will you be ok with your grandchildren Meghan, Catherine, Denis, Michael, Kevin, and Patrick risking being killed?

Of course, I do know that big capitalists generally ensure that it’s the lower classes they send to the battlefield while they guarantee safe positions for their own family. I think you’d want to emulate John Redmond,⁴ whose son joined the army of a foreign King and Country but didn’t die for it.

Unlike the 35,000 other Irish who were killed in the British Army in WWI, not to mention the Irish wounded and permanently disabled, for which figures apparently do not exist.

However, I have to say, credit where credit is due: I did think the account of your visit to Venezuela was interesting and how the officer in charge of the President’s Office there was impressed by Ireland’s solidarity with Palestine and other stands, probably in support of underdeveloped countries.⁵

Thanks for that, it was very interesting – and heart-warming, to be honest. But I wonder, would the Venezuelan diplomat have been as friendly to you, Denis, if the Irish State, your point of origin, had been a member of NATO, practising imperialist wars and supporting genocide?

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.businesspost.ie/uncategorized/denis-obrien-ireland-should-join-nato-and-end-security-complacency/

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_billionaires_by_net_worth

3 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41275612.html

4In 1914 John Redmond was leader of the Irish Parliamentary party, representing the native Irish colonial capitalist class. He not only delivered thousands of Irish to the British Army for WWI but also supported the suppression of the 1916 Rising.

5O’Brien charted his own experience in subsea communications cables, starting with an Esat Telecom funded cable between Land’s End and Wexford in the late 1990s, and several projects in the Carribean, including the $75 million (€64 million) Deep Blue One cable in Trinidad which was completed last year.

O’Brien recalled how – due to a “cock up” – the cable had been designed to run through contested waters between Venezuela and Guyana.

“When the Venezuelan government got wind that our cable laying ship was about to start they sent us a cease and desist letter,” he said. O’Brien explained how he then flew to Venezuela to meet Jorge Elieser Marquez who was in charge of office of the presidency to “fall on his sword” and apologise.

“He graciously accepted my apology but then to my surprise he started to talk about Ireland and how we had supported the Palestinians, like Venezuela, in their quest for a two-state solution in Gaza,” he said.

“For some reason, he knew everything about Ireland and our principled stand over many decades – dating back as far as when Brian Lenihan senior was minister for foreign affairs.

O’Brien credited Ireland’s position on Palestine as part of what eventually led him to strike a deal with the Venezuelan government and complete the cable. https://www.businesspost.ie/uncategorized/denis-obrien-ireland-should-join-nato-and-end-security-complacency/

SOURCES

https://www.businesspost.ie/uncategorized/denis-obrien-ireland-should-join-nato-and-end-security-complacency/

USA GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY DEFEATED

On July 30, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Middle East, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: One minute)

(23/ 07/ 2025: Continuing conversation on the control deck of the USS Fitzgerald, a destroyer of the US Navy in the Sea of Oman, off the coast of Iran.)

…. Sir, that course takes us into Iranian waters.

That’s right son. We’re the US Navy. We go where we like. Stay on course.

Yes sir, steady on course.

Sir, an Iranian helicopter is buzzing us, wanting us to turn back.

Signal the pilot to move off or we’ll shoot him down.

Yes, sir. Signalling.

Sir, he continues buzzing us.

Signal the pilot we’re a destroyer of the US Navy. He should move off or we’ll shoot him down.

Yes, sir. Signalling.

Sir, he continues buzzing us, says we’re heading for Iranian national waters and ordering us to turn away.

Warn the god-damn pilot again. We’ll shoot the fucker down.

Yes s …
Sir, message received from the Iranian shore.

What does it say?

Sir, message reads “Your ship is in the cross hairs of our missile battery. Stop threatening our airforce pilot. Turn around and leave Iranian territorial waters. Repeat. You are in the cross hairs of our missile battery. Desist and turn away from our territorial waters forthwith.”

Sir? …

Sir?

Change course away towards international waters. Full speed.

Sir? Away from …

Yes! NOW, goddamn you! Back to international waters!

Yessir. Changing course now, sir.

End.

The idea for the cartoon was a good one, showing the confident sailing towards Iran and then the sharp turn away after warnings. The panels would have probably worked best in black and white: The blue in No.1 overwhelmed the overall image and in No.2, trying for a lighter touch, still did not work all that well. (Cartoon: *D.Breatnach*)

SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/24/iranian-helicopter-confronts-us-warship-approaching-territorial-waters

“Building resistance through culture”: successful Solidarity Sessions launch in Dublin

On July 27, 2025July 28, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Folk Custom, Gaeilge, Genocide, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Language, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Resistance Art, Song, Traditions & Folk Custom2 Comments

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Around 80 people attended a concert in the back room of Dublin’s Cobblestone pub launching an initiative to “build a community of solidarity and resistance through culture”. Flags of Irish and other struggles around the world decorated the venue.

The evening’s entertainment consisted of five musical acts and one of poetry. The MC for the evening, Diarmuid Breatnach, told the audience that Irish struggles had always found an expression in culture and that culture itself encouraged further resistance.

He gave the example of Thomas Davis who founded with others the patriotic newspaper The Nation in the mid-1800s, publishing contributed songs and poems and his own, including The West’s Awake and A Nation Once Again, songs still sung in Ireland nearly two centuries later.

The first act of the evening was the folk duo The Yearners, specialising in harmonies around renditions of song covers and their own song about the Mary of the New Testament, as a woman pressured to bear a child because “How can you say no to God?

The audience joining in on Pearse’s Gráinne Mhaol was followed by some songs with hard satirical edges like the Kinky Boots song from the Irish Republican repertoire and their own Save A Landlord.

*The Yearners during their performance.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

*Dúlamban during their performance.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

The MC introduced another all-female duo, Dúlamban, recently formed from two individual singer-musicians. Among their material, Sinéad on violin played two compositions of her own while Aisling sang her adaptation and translation of the Rising of the Moon: Ar Éirí na Geallaigh.

The one poet of the evening, Barry Currivan, performed a number of shorter and longer pieces of his repertoire. He was particularly applauded for his “anti-othering” piece Those People and his humorous concluding piece comparing himself to a good cup of tea or coffee.

After the break, the MC spent a few minutes outlining the Solidarity Sessions collective’s project and encouraging the audience to take part in it by spreading word of its events and supporting them in person, in addition to stepping forward to assist in organisation and in poster design.

*Barry Currivan during his poetry performance at the Solidarity Sessions launch.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

*Section of the audience presumably during Currivan’s performance.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

Another female duo took the stage, Sage Against the Machine on guitar accompanied by Ríona on violin, performing a number of love pop covers and SAM’s own song against patriarchy.

Some remarks about Bob Dylan’s Zionism followed in Sage’s introduction of the former’s Masters of War which she performed with great feeling and followed with El Gallo Rojo, an anti-fascist song from the Spanish ‘Civil War’.

*Sage Against the Marchine (right) and Ríona during their performance.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

*Jimi Cullen during his performance at the Solidarity Sessions launch.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

Breatnach then introduced Jimi Cullen who he said has been hosting a weekly musical protest picket for an hour on Wednesdays (2-3 pm) outside the US Embassy for a great many weeks, in which the MC had sometimes accompanied him amidst the solidarity beeping of passing traffic.

Jimi accompanied himself singing his Housing for All and Guthrie’s You Fascists Bound to Lose, then commenting on Bob Marley’s Zionism while introducing the latter’s One Love song, saying that love above all is what binds humanity together, a theme also of his We Are All Palestinians.

His monologue The Genocide Will Be Televised was much sharper and renewed an earlier Death, death to the IDF!¹ chant from the audience.

*Trad Sabbath during their performance.* (Photo credit with thanks: *Dermo Photography*)

There was much irreverent comment about the name of the band to conclude the evening, Trad Sabbath, a four-piece band of guitars, banjo, bodhrán and fiddle, apparently in the context of the very recent death of the Black Sabbath band’s lead vocalist, Ozzie Osbourne.

Sardonic cries about “his poor widow”, Sharon Osbourne² were also heard, a Zionist personality star in a ‘reality’ TV show about the late Ozzie’s family. To fill in the delay in their setting up with the sound engineer, Breatnach sang Kearney’s Down by the Glenside ballad.

The band concluded the evening with traditional melodies and some songs from Eoghan and Hat with others backing on choruses.

*Poster advertising the event* (Design: *Ríona and D.Breatnach*)

The MC thanked all for their attendance, performances and technical support before reiterating the Solidarity Sessions’ objective and encouraging participation. His comment that “Repression is here and more is coming down the road” was underlined by the presence there of a prominent victim.

In the audience was Richard Medhurst, the Britain-based journalist specialising in Middle Eastern coverage who was recently detained under anti-terror (sic) legislation and charged by British police as he returned from abroad and again later detained though not actually charged by Austrian police.

*Richard Medhurst’s tweet during the evening at the event.*

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Made famous by the Bob Vylan duo at Glastonbuy getting the audience chanting the slogan. The IDF is what the Israeli Occupation Forces call themselves.

2Who had called for the banning of the the Irish rap group Kneecap.

FAKE PATRIOTS MISUSE IRISH HISTORY AND THE HOMELESS CRISIS

On July 14, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Anti-Fascism, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Housing, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In recent days we have seen the far-Right mobilise people to allegedly defend the GPO and protest homelessness, not against its causes but instead against migrants. In defence of ‘Irishness’ they also menaced an annual religious Muslim procession.

Participants in these and similar events wave the Irish Tricolour and Irish Republic flags and claim to be ‘Irish patriots’ standing up for ‘the Irish nation.’ However, it’s far from that they are in reality as we can see.

They

disgrace the Proclamation

The far-Right claim to honour our national history of resistance to colonialism and occupation and even display copies of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence.^¹

Yet they are often also seen and heard denouncing Muslims, in direct contravention of the Proclamation’s words: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty … to all”; similarly they held protests when use of Croke Park was hired to celebrants of the Eid festival.

disgrace the GPO as HQ of the 1916 Rising

They have and do disgrace the very symbolic building they claim to be trying to protect.

They have often held racist gatherings outside it; one of their organisers^² (e.g. of weekly protests during the Covid crisis) leading a chant of support for British fascist Tommy Robinson, who defended the Paratroopers who carried out the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.

Their recent protest at the GPO featured as speaker a man known for his active membership of the sectarian UVF murder gang, who admitted working for British Intelligence and who called for the strengthening of the colonial British Border – and was cheered for saying so.

disgrace the flags

The far-Right disgrace and misuse the very flags they wave so keenly.

The Tricolour was presented to the revolutionary Young Irelander republicans^³ by French revolutionary republican women in 1848. It signified peace and unity between the descendants of settlers and the indigenous Irish in revolutionary struggle against the British colonial occupation.

The flag with the words “Irish Republic” painted in white and gold on a green background was made on domestic material of socialist Republican Constance Markievicz (see next section) in her house and delivered by her to the GPO.

It was installed and flown on the roof at the Princes St. corner by Eamon Bulfin^⁴ (see next section), a migrant from Argentina.

disown but also misappropriate real patriots

In dishonest manipulation, the far-Right claim to honour our patriots and even invoke them in their campaigns. In their agitation against migrants they hide the fact that Constance Markievicz, Thomas Clarke and James Connolly were all migrants (Connolly and Clarke no less than three times).^⁵

Also a migrant was Eamon Bulfin (see previous section) along with many others who fought for Irish freedom and even sacrificed their lives (including Erskine Childers)^⁶.

Placards on an anti-racist rally on Custom House Quay some years ago. The text placard quotes the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all”. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation (see earlier section), two – Pearse and McDonagh^⁷ – were children of migrants and two were themselves migrants (Connolly and Clarke).

Among many such examples, the father of Young Irelander Republican patriot Thomas Davis (author of the song A Nation Once Again) was a migrant.

join with Loyalists and British fascists

A far-Right organiser calling for three cheers for British fascist Tommy Robinson was not the only such example and outside the GPO this week far-Right elements welcomed as speaker Mark Sinclair, a member of the UVF, a British colonial sectarian murder and terrorist squad.^⁸

Prominent Irish leaders of fascist organisations have also shared a platform with Scottish fascist and Loyalist Jim Dowson.^⁹ And of course how can we forget the desecration of the Tricolour unfurled among Union Jack and Loyalist flags in Belfast by some Dublin far-Right activists!^¹⁰

*Admitted UVF/ MI5 Sectarian Loyalist UVF murder gang member Mark Sinclair.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

don’t act against British occupation

With all that background, it’s hardly surprising that the far-Right “patriots” don’t organise against the British occupation of the Six Counties or in support of Irish Republican political prisoners in jails on either side of the British Border.

burn buildings

Apart from misleading people and distracting them from the real sources of problems to Irish working people and seeking to intimidate refugees, what do the far-Right actually do? Ah, yes, they burn buildings that might be used as accommodation. A great help to the homeless indeed!

attack homeless refugee and migrant tents

But no, that’s not all. No, the brave ‘patriots’ slash tents and threaten migrants and refugees who are sleeping on the streets. They don’t take on the big landlords, bankers, property speculators and vulture funds – no, they strike down at people poorer and in worse conditions than themselves.

cover for the property speculators and vulture funds, big landlords, bankers

So with all this whipping up fear and hatred of migrants, the far-Right obscure the actual cause of the problems, which is not only Irish capitalism but its total subjection to foreign capitalism. The only ones to benefit from this activity are those who are the real causes of the problems.

are not patriots, nor nationalists

Despite their claims and flag-waving, the far-Right in Ireland are neither patriots nor true nationalists. They do not organise in defence of Irish sovereignty and against British occupation nor against foreign capitalist exploitation of Irish natural resources, labour or infrastructures.

Or the contrary, they work to distract attention away from these centrally-important issues for the Irish nation and raise false issues to divide the people. And usually their concept of ‘Ireland’ ends at the British border which the recent far-Right rally at the GPO called for strengthening!

are a sub-class of deprived individuals allowing themselves to be manipulated by fascists, MI5 and NATO

Many of those being mobilised against migrants come from parts of the cities neglected for generations, often associated with low educational level, substance misuse, unemployment and unresolved mental health issues.

The ideological fascists will recruit those elements to fight, not against the cause of their deprivation, the neo-colonial ruling class or the flooding of foreign capitalist companies into Ireland, assisted by banks and political decisions -but instead against migrant workers and refugees.

are filling a vacuum left by the Republican and Socialist movement

WILL WE LEARN FROM OUR FAILURES?

Many of those participating, while some are also unfortunate victims of Irish capitalism, will be recruited as the boot boys of fascism.

While it is true that historically capitalism in crisis turns to fostering fascism and that capitalism, including the neo-colonial variant in the Irish state is running out of other options, we must evaluate our own role in this development, examine our own failures, learn from and remedy them.

The ground was largely ceded to the Far-Right in the period of their initial growth during the Covid crisis. The socialist Left and Republican movement, in particular its organisations, had little response to the early FR mobilisations or to responding creatively to state-imposed restrictions.

Throughout that period and subsequently the socialist Left sector, despite its protestations of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, completely ceded the ground of Irish national sovereignty and its symbols to anyone who wished to occupy it.

They did not, for the most part, protest the use of State repression against Irish Republicans both sides of the British Border, whether through police harassment, special legislation and special no-jury courts, nor stand up for the human and civil rights of Republicans, including political prisoners.

Their distaste for the very issue of national sovereignty was reflected in their refusal to fly the Irish Tricolour, which, although now also the official flag of the Irish State, is originally and remains still a potent symbol of Irish Republican anti-colonial struggle over 170 years.

They might argue that they wished to be identified with the struggle of the working class rather than a nationalist one but they also chose not to fly the flag of the insurrectionary Irish working class, the Starry Plough, in among their internationally-recognised red flags.

The Irish Republican organisations in their fragmented movement, on the national question, failed to sustain unity even around opposition to repression of the states or even around solidarity with the movement’s political prisoners.

They also failed and, to an even greater extent, in fighting for universal affordable housing in a crisis which seems to offer no end and is seized upon by the Far-Right to target refugees and economic migrants, who of course have no responsibility whatsoever for the crisis.

This area too has been a notable failure of the socialist Left organisations which, although marching often enough in public demonstrations and participating in a couple of media-orientated occupations,¹¹ failed to organise and lead a state-wide campaign of empty building occupations.

And so, here we are today, when the FR are able to bring Tricolour and Irish Republic flag-waving crowds on to the streets in false claims of patriotism, dividing and seeking to intimidate migrant workers and anti-racists, burning buildings and insisting on their definition of ‘Irish’ being correct.

Our omissions and failures, if we recognise and act to remedy them, also point the way forward.

End.

1In a travesty of frequent Irish Republican ceremonial occasions, it was even read out at the recent Far-Right gathering outside the GPO which was addressed by a known member of the UVF sectarian murder gang.

2Under the name Dee Wall (real name Dolores Webster).

3Including to Thomas Meagher ‘of the Sword’ who later recruited for, joined and fought in the Union Army in the US Civil War against slavery. Meagher unfurled the flag first in Wexford and later in Dublin, both acts in 1848.

4Bulfin came to Ireland around the age of ten with his family and later joined the IRB and the Irish Volunteers. After the surrender in Moore Street he was sentenced to death, later commuted to life sentence, then from Frongoch prison camp deported to Argentina from where he was the Latin American representative for the Movement.

5Clarke and Markievicz were both born in England. Clarke was first a migrant to Ireland, later to the US, then back again. Connolly was born in Edinburgh and a migrant to Ireland, then to England, then to the USA before his return to Ireland.

6Childers was born in England. He captained the yacht that brought the Mauser rifles and ammunition to Howth. Later he joined the IRA, took the anti-Treaty side and was executed by the Free State during the Civil War.

7The father of the Pearse brothers was English, as was McDonagh’s mother.

8During his trial for bank robbery for the UVF in Glasgow, Sinclair declared he had been working for MI5 which was well known to be steering Loyalist organisations. The UVF and British Intelligence bombed Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, causing the deaths of 34 people and a full-term baby, the highest death toll of one day during the recent 30 Years War.

9Rowan Croft, Herman Kelly (Irish Freedom Party) and Niall McConnell (Síol na hÉireann).

10A prominent group among the Dublin far-Right calling themselves Coolock Says No.

11 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/09/former-loyalist-uvf-prisoner-addressed-anti-immigration-protest-at-dublins-gpo/

12For example, the 27-day occupation of Apollo House, Dublin, from 15 December 2016 by housing activists and homeless people, with speeches and performances by prominent musicians.

THOUSANDS MARCHING IN DUBLIN BLAME VULTURE FUNDS AND THE GOVERNMENT FOR HOMELESSNESS

On July 7, 2025July 8, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, City Planning, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Environmental, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Irish Language, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

An estimated 10,000 people marched through Dublin city centre on Saturday in a national protest organised by CATU about homelessness, high rents, lack of public housing and the facilitation of property speculators by Irish Governments.

Groups from across Ireland attended the national march organised by the Community Action Tenants Union and without regard to the British Border around the Six-County occupied colony. They gathered at the Garden of Remembrance before marching towards Leinster House.

*One of the housing groups that travelled to Dublin from the occupied Six Counties* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

It was warm but not excessively so and the rain held off. The march ended with a rally in Molesworth Street, where Garda barricades prevent marchers from crossing the street to approach the gates of Leinster House, where the parliament of the Irish State sits.

In addition to drummers and also some singing, many chants could be heard: Homes for need – not for greed! What do we need? – Public housing; When do we need it? Now! When tenants are under attack? Stand up, fight back! (also something like: Get the landlords out of the Dáil!).

Among banners and flags of local area housing action groups and trade unions there were a great many Irish Tricolours in view; to see them being flown on a demonstration not of the Far-Right was a welcome sight. There were some Starry Ploughs and some red flags flying also.

It was good also to see the Irish language on some placards among the demonstrators. A notable feature was the high proportion of young people participating, many with their own home-made placards.

*A certain species of vulture seems to have raised hostility in Ireland!* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Too Damn everything – except good!* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

A lot of people were also in Dublin that afternoon for other events, including supporters of Gaelic Athletic Association county teams competing in Croke Park, in particular the Cork Vs Dublin teams in the Hurling Semi-Final. (Dublin getting that far surprised many but Cork beat them decisively).

A large anti-abortion demonstration also took place in the city centre, starting later than its advertised hours but immediately after the start of the CATU march. There are a range of attitudes on abortion but in general those campaigners like to project themselves as ‘pro-life’.

Some might comment that a pro-life cause would also include good housing for all – or to support the Palestinian people but generally the anti-abortion campaigners do not march in support of those, which is why they are often accused of being ‘pro-birth’ rather than ‘pro-life’.

Numbers of homeless single people and families with children rising annually passes 15,000 for the first time.

Out of 10,743 adults accessing emergency accommodation in March this year, 1,178 were under 24. In addition, 4,675 children were also using emergency accommodation.¹ In January 134 individuals were counted sleeping on streets and in parks in the four Dublin areas, a 14% increase on 2024.²

In addition, the numbers of homeless does not include those sofa-surfing, awaiting eviction, in domestic violence refuges or unaccommodated refugees.

CATU’s list of demands points to the unfilled needs across a range of indicators and in itself is an indictment of the current state of affairs. In addition, the numbers of homeless has been rising annually and does not include those sofa-surfing, in violence refuges or unserviced refugees.

Prior to the march, CATU published a list of objectives and demands:

End child homelessness by 2026
Eviction ban North & South, Lower rents
Properly resource the Tenant In Situ scheme
End Direct Provision
Ban Vulture Funds
Build and maintain Public Housing – use public land
Build and resource culturally-appropriate Traveller Accommodation
Homes, not Holiday Lets
Build Communities of Care: education, community, addiction & mental health services now!

*Front of the CATU march comes around from D’Olier Street while the rest of it is still coming down O’Connell St.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

COMMENT – Housing Need and Action

It was an excellent turnout for CATU who are to be congratulated on their mobilisation and organisation around the country and in Dublin. The housing crisis is one of the great practical problems facing working people and a very big public housing program is the only solution.

However, the Irish neo-liberal ruling class are clearly wedded to housing provision by the private sector, with its soaring rents and mortgage payments resulting for many in sleeping on the street or living in hotels and hostels, not just single people but family groups with children too.

Housing marches and occasional symbolic occupations of buildings through the years have not changed the situation which worsens annually. The far-Right use the issue to target migrants who have not caused the crisis and even asylum seekers who cannot possibly have any effect on it.

Plentiful public housing is clearly the answer, rented according to the occupiers’ income. After the initial building cost, the rents will pay for maintenance, repairs, upgrades and even new buildings. And the construction program will provide much employment too.

Clearly a radical program of action will be needed to force the Irish ruling class to adopt a large public housing program. It does not require a revolution to achieve the change but it will almost certainly need the fear of one to move our rulers in the necessary direction.

In the 1960s and 1970s a number of housing schemes construction and renovation programs were won by the direct action of the Housing Action Committees of Dublin and Dún Laoghaire. The Committees included occupations in their program, alongside street rallies and marches.

Some years ago a small group called Revolutionary Housing League began a series of occupations of empty buildings, also refusing to give guarantees not to continue the actions when taken to court. They called for replication action on a wide scale along the same lines but that did not materialise.

Action of the kind up and down the country seems to be what is required and activists may be jailed before this ruling class is prepared to supply the basic human need of decent and affordable housing for the working people. It remains to be seen what role CATU will play in all of that.

End.

“Resist Evictions” banner (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

1 https://homelessnessinireland.ie/

2 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2025/01/03/number-of-homeless-people-passes-15000-for-first-time-since-records-began/

3 https://homelessnessinireland.ie/

4 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2025/01/03/number-of-homeless-people-passes-15000-for-first-time-since-records-began/

GAZA CEASEFIRE DISCUSSION: A PANTOMIME WITH MANY ACTORS

On July 4, 2025July 6, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Guerrilla Action, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, Uncategorized, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Trump says he convinced Netanyahu to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and the Palestinian Resistance¹ had better take it because it’s the best they are going to get. Does the deal include the IOF pulling out of or an end to bombing Gaza? No, neither.

Mass media speculation abounds that the Resistance are under pressure (by starving Gaza residents in the midst of daily massacres) to agree to the ceasefire promoted by Trump and that it will be announced during Netanyahu’s visit to meet his imperialist backers in the USA.

Netanyahu says he won’t agree to ultimate peace nor even to the IOF pulling out of Gaza. His aim, he declares is the total defeat of Hamas (i.e. all the Palestinian resistance and the expulsion of their leaderships). Details of the deal mention a 60-day ceasefire.

Older now but still holding hands: back on 23 May 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and US President Donald Trump shake hands at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. (Photo cred: *Sebastian Scheiner/AP*)

And Gaza afterwards? All options are open, perhaps even the Israeli seaside resort of which Trump and Netanyahu were speaking earlier.² But not a Palestinian administration by free and popular elections, because that would mean the election of supporters of the Resistance).³

No doubt in order to increase the pressure on the Resistance, the IOF intensifies its daily bombing of civilian housing and refugee centres and food queue massacres. Starvations deaths begin to appear, first of children then of adults too, emaciated bodies and skull-like faces.

The Palestinian Resistance factions led by Hamas have been adamant all along that they will sign up to an end to the war but not to a temporary ceasefire. The IOF must pull out of Gaza and the gates must be opened to let desperately-needed food, medicine, fuel and water in.

The Resistance will release living Israeli prisoners and dead (bodies) and ‘Israel’ will release Palestinian hostages. This has been their position for a long time and was part of the US envoy’s (Witkoff)-approved agreement of 19 January with ‘Israel’ this year which the latter broke on 18March.⁴

Smotrich and Ben Gvir threaten to bring down Netanyahu’s coalition if there is a ceasefire agreement, saying the war should continue without pause until the defeat of the Resistance. But Smotrich and Ben Gvir also shadow-box against one another through the Israeli media.

There are elements of pantomime and farce between some pushing for a deal and those against – “Look out, Netanyahu: Ben Gvir’s behind you!” But Trump and Zionists are playing with real lives, primarily those of the Palestinians but also those of their own IOF on the ground.

Funeral of IOF Captain Elkana Vizel in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery Jerusalem 23 January 2024. Vizel was killed with 20 other IOF when the Resistance fired a rocket into a house where the IOF had stored explosives intended for demolishing Palestinian houses. (Photo: *Getty*)

The armed Resistance, fighting in areas of Gaza cleared of civilians by the IOF have been hitting the latter hard, Israeli media reporting “a security incident” (its shorthand for fatalities of their soldiers by Resistance action) every second day or so (sometimes a number in the same day).

This after 20 months of attack by the strongest and best-supplied military force in the region which has undisputed air cover over Gaza.

Jon Elmer, in his Resistance Report on Electronic Intifada Updates podcast on Thursday evening said that June had been the worst month for the IOF in a year of battle fatalities and injuries. He recorded nearly 200 Resistance operations with IEDs, snipers, RPGs, rocket and mortar attacks.⁵

The IOF are being hit in areas they have invaded before and claimed to have ‘cleared’ of the Resistance. In approaching two years Netanyahu has failed to achieve his two declared war objectives: to defeat Hamas (Resistance leading faction) and recover the captives.

By any sober assessment Netanyahu and his coalition government have lost the Gaza war so far but he wants to cover that over and knock out the Israeli opposition which demands a deal with the Resistance to free the Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinians.

Netanyahu and his wife face a trial for corruption as soon as he can no longer use the war in Gaza (or with Iran!) as an excuse not to stand trial. So peace is not a good option for him personally. A deal releasing the prisoners of the Resistance followed by renewal of the war might be best for him.

The Resistance is taking heavy toll of the IOF whenever they try to move forward in Gaza. But in the limited area of the Resistance, possibly the IOF can defeat them eventually by massive continuous bombing with ordnance supplied by the USA, the UK and some EU states.

But who knows what other factors might develop in the meantime and whom they might favour?

The resistance of the Palestinian people and the operations of their armed Resistance factions have challenged not only the actions of the Zionist colonial state but its very legitimacy to a degree not seen before, across the world and among the people of the Zionist-supplying heartlands.

The desperation of the ruling classes of the colonial state and of its principal backer was behind their short recent war against Iran, leading to a danger of World War. They were defeated for now but in the logic of imperialist power must try again.

The world is changing but whether that will favour the Palestinians in the short or medium-term is not certain. However that the question can even be asked is the result of the long cultural and political resistance of the Palestinian people and of their armed resistance movement.

End.

FOOTNOTES & SOURCES

1Trump, Netanyahu and the western mass media generally identify the Resistance as Hamas, whether to avoid the legitimising term, as a shorthand or to conceal the fact that the Palestinian resistance is composed of a number of factions, some of them Islamist (e.g. like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others secular (such as the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine, perhaps the longest-surviving Resistance organisation.

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/1/26/hamas-wins-huge-majority and https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/if-palestinian-elections-proceed-hamas-may-have-upper-hand

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

4 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5klgv5zv0o

5The Resistance in Gaza have made June the worst month for the IDF in a year (mostly in just one area, Khan Younis). “180 (resistance infantry) operations in Khan Younis in one month alone plus 60 artillery operations” (discussion at end of Jon Elmer’s Resistance Report @ 3.16 minutes mins.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4nuYJp5RC0&t=11283s)