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)

“DEATH TO THE IDF” IS A HUMANITARIAN CALL

On July 1, 2025July 1, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Journalism, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)

The media and some British politicians have been in a furore about what a performer of one of the acts at the Glastonbury Festival¹ called from the stage and got most of the audience to chant with him: Death, death to the IDF!²

The performer was not, for change, one of the Kneecap trio (who also performed at Glastonbury) despite British politician complaints after another anti-Zionist “controversy” (i.e. unlike daily Zionist genocide of Palestinians, supplied by UK weapons, which is not at all controversial).

The latest performer to raise the genocide-proof ire of British politicians and mass media commentators was a member of the Bob Vylan group and the call which caused such anger in pro-Zionist circles was uttered from the West Holts stage during the Festival on Saturday.

*Bob Vylan lead singer performing on the West Holts stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset*. (Photo cred: *Yui Mok*/AP)

This call was not only denounced by right wing conservative and social-democratic figures such as the UK’s Prime Minister, Keith Starmer, who dubbed it ‘hate speech’ but also went too far for the liberal Glastonbury Festival management who issued a statement declaring it “appalling”.³

To call for the ‘death’ of an organisation or a power is to call for it to cease to exist, to end. So what is the IDF? Well, the acronym stands for Israeli Defence Force, often and more realistically referred to as the IOF, i.e. the Israeli Occupation Force.

Now this organisation is the military wing of the Zionist European settler colony which is ‘Israel’, and with a history of attacks on the indigenous Palestinians, in addition to the people of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and, the week before last, Iran.⁴

APPALLING OR MODERATE AND REASONABLE?

On that basis alone, surely it would be moderate and reasonable to call for such a military organisation to cease to exist, i.e. to call for its death?

But there’s more – a lot more! The IOF has since 9^th October 2023 been enforcing a water and starvation blockade on Gaza, also depriving it of importation of medicines.⁵ The IOF ground and air forces have destroyed at least in part but mostly completely every hospital and medical facility in Gaza.⁶

*Cartoon regarding the Israeli water blockade on Gaza* (D.Breatnach)

In addition to starving the population of Gaza by military blockade, the IOF has, with the direct assistance of the USA, set up the “killing fields” in which hungry Palestinian people are sniped, machine-gunned and shelled as they queue for meagre GHF food parcels.⁷

The IOF has assassinated or caused the death of at least 54,607 Palestinians and wounded 125,341 between 7 October 2023 and 4 June this year,⁸ including hundreds of first responders and civil defence workers,⁹ over 230 journalists¹⁰ and many police and security workers.¹¹

This same organisation is the one primarily responsible for the mass demolition in Gaza of Palestinian residential buildings and the displacement of 1.9 million people,¹² along with destruction of water and sewage infrastructure, desalination plants, water tanks and agriculture.

*Many massacres by the IOF have been carried out in areas they had declared safe when* *displacing Palestinians from another area.* (D.Breatnach)

The evidence of daily genocide by the IOF is incontrovertible and even the weak and hesitant International Court of Justice in the Hague stated that there was a plausible case to answer.¹³ The court also ordered the arrest of some leading government ministers who control the IOF.¹⁴

UNCONTROVERSIAL, A DUTY

To call for the death of an army of genocide is surely not only not controversial but is instead correct, a duty, one which all reasonable institutions and individuals should emulate.

According to the Genocide Convention of 1948, all signatory states have a duty to act to prevent genocide,¹⁵ not only not to collude with it. Bob Vylan is to be commended for their call and those who condemn them should, at the very least, face widespread opprobrium.

Bob Vylan’s call is absolutely correct and humanity awaits its implementation, not only death to the IOF but also to the regime and colonial state that gave rise to and which program it follows. Let us join our voices to the humanitarian call and expand upon it.¹⁶

Death to the IOF — and to the Zionist settler colony that spawned it!

End.

Sources:

1The Glastonbury music festival is an annual event of a liberal alternative ambience.

2 https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0629/1520889-kneecap-glastonbury/

3Ibid.

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

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip_(2023%E2%80%93present)

6 https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/uk-s-channel-4-to-air-gaza-medics-documentary-rejected-by-bb

7 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000 and https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/charities-call-for-end-to-israeli-backed-aid-group-as-dozens-more-die-in-gaza-1779018.html

8Gaza health Ministry figures, quoted in https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r1xl5wgnko (which incorrectly quotes the Israeli figures on Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7^th despite a number of Israeli sources indicating that an unknown number of those were killed by the IOF in implementation of the “Hannibal Doctrine”.

9 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-1-500-humanitarian-workers-killed-since-start-of-israel-s-war-on-gaza-media-office/3524966

10More since this published https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/2/gaza-war-deadliest-ever-for-journalists-says-report https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/2/gaza-war-deadliest-ever-for-journalists-says-report

11In particular to facilitate food looters under IOF protection https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strike-kills-18-palestinians-central-gaza-turmoil-mounts-food-rcna215479

12About 90% of the population, some of them many times https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-177-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-jerusalem

13 https://www.npr.org/2024/01/27/1227397107/icj-finds-genocide-case-against-israel-plausible-orders-it-to-stop-violations

14Prime Minister Netanyahu and (then) Minister of ‘Defence’ Gallant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Israeli_leaders

15See States’ Obligations in https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

16 https://x.com/BobbyVylan/status/1940015727743815986

AFTER A 12-DAY WAR – HOW DOES THE BALANCE LOOK?

On June 27, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Middle East, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins)

Both the USA and its proxy Israel carried out an unprovoked attack on Iran, both attacking nuclear facilities and Israel, as per their playbook, bombing civilians and their public facilities.

Iran targeted every category in Israel (generally not civilians) matching those the IOF bombed in Iran, assassinations excepted. And replied to the USA’s attack by hitting their most forward base in a Middle Eastern state, Al-Udeid in Qatar.¹

The objectives of the US and of Israel were ostensibly to wreck Iran’s nuclear program. But more than that, to achieve a change of regime to one amenable to the western powers, such as is the case with most of the Middle Eastern regimes.

The regime change was to take place internally by subversion, terrorism and uprisings as it was fighting bombing by Israel.

Neither the US nor Israel achieved those listed objectives.

Iran’s objectives were to maintain its sovereignty and independence in general and, because of the US and Israeli public focus, defend its sovereignty with regard to uranium enrichment to improve its nuclear energy and by-products.

Iran achieved those objectives,² at least for the time being and it will probably now leave the IAEA with justification³ so western powers will know very little of what is going one with Iran’s nuclear program, which is to Iran’s benefit.

Iran however also wanted the lifting of sanctions and it has not achieved that.

Once the Israeli attack started, Iran’s objectives were a) to recover from the initial external and internal assaults and assassinations; b) defend the state from internal subversion and terrorism and from Israeli bombing; b) strike back at Israel and punish it so thoroughly as to prevent repetition.

Iran successfully and quickly recovered from internal assaults and assassinations; b) put up a strong defence but was unable to down enemy planes other than drones, which was not a success;⁴ c) punished Israel very severely, to an extent that will become clearer as time goes on.

*Scene of Iranian missile damage in ‘Israel’, June 2025* (Photo sourced: *Telegram*)

But the level of Iran’s attack was not enough to ensure Israel will never attack it again and the Zionist entity’s political and military leadership is probably even now concentrating on how to rebuild itself to strike again.

Once the USA attacked, Iran had to show that it was capable of eliminating US bases across the region and would do so if attacked again. The strike on its evacuated Al-Udeid base in Qatar was largely symbolic but in fact proved Iran’s point and willingness to go that far if necessary.

In that, Iran was resoundingly successful. No other state has attacked a Middle Eastern US base, albeit warned and evacuated at the time, without serious repercussion.

This conflict ended overall as a draw but with the preponderance of success on Iran’s side.

It is more difficult to assess the political wins and losses but in so far as there is any change in the overall political situation one would have to say it has shifted in Iran’s favour.

One process of assessment is to investigate what the antagonists think:

Iran is celebrating nationally before turning to the funerals of their martyrs, in particular state funerals of victims of assassinations;
Israel is full of recriminations against its leadership but also against the US⁵ for not going further and imposing a ceasefire;
The USA leadership seems divided but opinion is increasingly mounting that Trump is mistaken in his assessment of ‘obliteration’ of Iran’s enriched uranium production sites.

Another measure is the relative financial expenditure and loss.

Although this picture is far from clear from either side we know of over 39,000 insurance claims in Israel so far⁶and the state spent $5 Billion in the first week of the war.⁷

They lost a prominent military science development site and lost or sustained damage to military and military intelligence sites too but it will be some time before the true level or even approximation will escape Israeli military censorship.

Israel also lost presumably a great deal of its Mossad-run sabotage and terrorist network in Iran which exposed itself as part of Israel’s attack, much of which is now under interrogation, on trial or already executed.

U.S. spending on aid for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere in the region between Oct. 7, 2023 – Oct. 7, 2024 was calculated at over $17.9 billion; spending on related U.S. operations in the region at over $4.86 billion.⁸
Iran produces missiles much more cheaply than Israeli munitions and has greater productive capacity; its greatest loss was the human cost (the disparity in civilian deaths shows who was really targeting civilians) and it lost a lot of scientists through Israeli assassinations.

On the political-psychological level, an extremely important one:

Iran emerged as a strong state with popular support in defence of sovereignty that cannot easily be defeated. Internally this has led to greater unity, at least for the moment.

Externally, Russia and China will see it not only worthwhile but important to support Iran and possibly even to part-arm them (which Pakistan too may do).

Iran’s western-friendly neighbours will be wondering whether US airbases brings them greater security or the opposite and also whether any alliance with Israel is a good idea, even though pushed by the USA and other Western powers.

Israel has seen its image of military superiority and even invincibility destroyed, internally by its war in Gaza and externally by its recent war with Iran and this process will increase as those from other areas view the damage in ‘Tel Aviv’ for example.

For a decade the state has been seeing a steady exodus of dual-nationality Israelis, particularly among its technocrat population and during this war mass evacuations by boat and land after the Israeli State closed its airports.¹⁰

The degradation of the IOF through mental fatigue, injuries and deaths (totalling more than 10,000 since their Gaza offensive), along with damaged armour, will continue in a deeply divided body politic.¹¹

The USA’s population will continue to see protests not only against the wars in the Middle East and genocide in Palestine but also against the increasing decrees and police repressing free speech and the right to organise and participate in protests.
Western capitalist companies will continue to reduce or even end their investment in – or relationships with – the Israeli state,¹² pushed in part by targeted protests and probably more largely by doubts about how financially safe Israel really is, even in the mid-term.

IN CONCLUSION

Iran is the overall winner, Israel definitely the big loser and the USA somewhat also (not forgetting that any Israeli loss is ultimately one for the US also). But the Zionazis will rearm and increase spying, sabotage and probably covert assassination operations in Iran.

Iran will rearm also, possibly even in nuclear terms and will intensify its intelligence war against subversion and spying and always viewing future attacks on it as inevitable.

The US will continue to view Iran as its primary adversary in the Middle East, in terms of its sovereignty and military capabilities.

Also viewing Iran as a necessary obstacle to remove before its future full confrontation with China, a state financially and economically already ahead of the US and a strong proponent of a multi-polar world against the existing unipolar version with the US as its head.

The world geopolitically-militarily will not be a better place as the result of the outcome of this 12-day war and may even be worse for it – after all, Israel and the US were permitted by the rest of the western alliance to bomb nuclear installations while continuing to support genocide in Gaza.

But with the weakening of US Imperialism and Israeli Zionism, it will offer opportunities for reversing damaged sovereignty, for anti-imperialist revolutions and for social progress.

End.

FOOTNOTES & SOURCES

1 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjxdgjpd48o

2 https://thecradle.co/articles/european-intel-says-irans-enriched-uranium-survived-us-attacks

3 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/25/irans-parliament-approves-bill-to-suspend-cooperation-with-iaea

https://thecradle.co/articles/russian-fm-warns-new-iaea-inspections-of-iran-can-lead-to-sensitive-leaks

4Sharmine Narwani on the Cradle podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK8tYo3jdIk pointed out that none of the many Israeli photos taken from the air over central Iran could be ascertained as typically originating from IOF planes and were instead likely taken from drones. This raised the possibility that all the air-launched missiles of the IOF were all from airspace outside Iran (and we know that the Iraqi Government complained about the US violation of its airspace by opening it to the IOF). This also seems to answer a question that was bothering me: What happened in this war to the sophisticated radar that allegedly caused enemy planes to veer away from Iranian airspace in the attack last year, with some leaks alleged from pilots claiming that the Iranians were able to ‘see’ and target the latest stealth fighter planes. However ‘seeing’ fighters is not the same as ‘targeting’ them and may not even be possible at all with US B2 bombers – see interesting short presentation from this hostile source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz6cd9tHiyM No doubt scientists are working on the problem and technology will develop further so that stealth bombers may be detected and fighters and bombers targeted, with US technology developing technology to confuse the targeting and so on … and on.

5Including reported tweets and comments calling for Israel to bomb the US!

6 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-receives-nearly-39-000-compensation-claims-for-damages-caused-by-iranian-missiles/3611868 and https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-multi-billion-shekel-price-tag-iran-war

7“The David’s Sling system, used to intercept short- and long-range threats, costs around $700,000 per activation when firing its minimum of two interceptors.” https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/12billion-a-month-the-cost-of-israels-daily-strikes-and-defence-against-iran-war-at-a-premium/articleshow/121979978.cms

8 Costs of War

9 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/world/middleeast/gulf-states-iran-attack-us-qatar-base.html

10Even before the retaliation by Iran https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/over-550000-israelis-flee-country-amid-gaza-war-data-shows-18176225 and during the war reported leaving by sea and land, after Israel closed airports https://www.newarab.com/news/israelis-quietly-flee-europe-yacht-escape-iran-missiles

11 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-10-000-israeli-soldiers-killed-or-wounded-in-gaza-war-says-military-officer/3587606

12The largest European consumers’ cooperative with 2,700,000 members (Wikipedia) joins boycott of Israeli products European retailers drop Israeli goods in solidarity with Gaza – TRT Global

The feminist call to war

On June 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, US Imperialism, WomenLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 24 June

Reprinted in full from G.Ó.L’s substack and formatted for the Rebel Breeze blog.

Feminism used to be associated with pacifist anti-militarist movements, but times have changed and now there are feminists who call for war, whilst they still continue to blame all wars on men. It is an enormous contradiction.

For the last two years Gaza has lived under a siege and a genocide, supported by some sectors of feminism and in the midst of the conflict with Iran, once again feminist voices come out with a clamour for war. The reason is their supposed rush to free the women of Iran.

Four female political prisoners in Evin prison in Tehran (before it was bombed by Israel), conscious of the cynicism of some feminist groups in the West issued a communiqué denouncing the war and those who support it.

They stated that Israel wanted a submissive and weak Middle East and they opted to continue their own struggle against the government in Tehran without allying themselves with Yankee imperialism.

Our liberation…from the dictatorship ruling the country is possible through the struggle of the masses and by resorting to social forces – not by clinging to foreign powers or placing hopes in them.

The powers that have always brought destruction to the countries of the region through exploitation and colonisation, by inciting wars and killing in pursuit of greater benefits, will have no way out for us except for new destruction and exploitation.[1]

The four women are pro-Kurdish and also women detained in the protests following the death of Masha Amini at the hands of the Morality Police in 2022. One of them fought against ISIS in Syria. They are not coffee house feminists.

*Women ‘of colour’ probably of the Combahee Collective with banner in what seems to be a general women’s liberation demonstration in the early 1970s.* (Photo sourced: Internet)

They branded as traitors those Iranian who have called for war, amongst them the son of the despotic Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah imposed by the USA in 1953 following the CIA coup.

He ruled with an iron hand murdering and torturing the opposition, both the Left and Right, men and women. His son wants to go back to robbing the country’s coffers.

Traitors to Iran and traitors to the peoples of the Middle East and traitors to the people’s years of freedom-seeking struggles against oppression will know that their betrayal and disdain will be recorded in the memory of the Iranian people and in history.

Future generations will remember with shame those who stand on the corpses of defenceless people and trample them.[2]

Whilst these women who did actually rise up against the regime are opposed to the war, in the West there are those bourgeois feminists who in between their macchiatos ask for more attacks on Iran, in order to “free” the women.

They only think of Iran when a US president or the Nazis in Tel Aviv want to attack the country. They believe that the sexual predator who acts as US president is going to fight for the women. Maybe the way he did in Syria by installing ISIS.

One of the first to invoke the repression of women was none other than Netanyahu,[3] a man who has bombed maternity hospitals in Gaza killing women and children all around.

The US said something similar about Afghanistan and various bourgeois feminists came out to justify the war, deliberately ignoring that without US support the Taliban would never have existed.

It was Jimmy Carter and then Reagan who started to finance the troglodytes of the Mujahadeen and later the Taliban i.e. the bourgeois feminists too.

I should clarify that many of those feminists are not bourgeois in the sense of their social class, they have no capital, they are not rich, though there is no lack of those who are.

They are bourgeois in an ideological sense, although they use terms such as liberal, radical, separatist etc., but what unites them is their defence of capitalism and the bourgeoisie.

You could say right wing feminists but many of them like to present themselves as progressive when they are bourgeois, or in the case of the less wealthy ones, acolytes of the bourgeoisie.

Hillary Clinton, a bourgeois feminist (both in the ideological sense and also in terms of her bank balance) who has her hands stained with the blood of women in Libya and other parts is one of the spokeswomen for bourgeois feminism.

Much though they may shout, down with patriarchy! Their favourite slogan is Long Live Capitalism and Imperialism! This includes feminist intellectuals like Julie Bindel.

They kept silent about the genocide in Gaza and now believe that whoever criticises the war against Iran supports the regime. I suppose this includes the political prisoners who don’t sip macchiatos in their cells.

Bindel writing in The Sun said that those who criticise the war support Iran and the oppression of women. She repeated the usual lies about October 7th, mixed with some truths about Iran with the aim of supporting the war.[4] Bindel has kept silent about the massacres of women in Gaza.

She doesn’t support the women of Iran, but rather the West. It is worth pointing out that the owner of the paper, where she writes, has supported reactionary governments around the world, including in Great Britain where Bindel lives.

It is a misogynist, homophobic paper that frequently runs campaigns against the poor and migrants. Bindel is not alone, Kelly Jay Keen shares videos of the son of the Shah, perhaps to indicate that she supports the monarchy.[5]

The bourgeois feminists, like all of the bourgeoise in practice see other cultures as inferior ones. They use the same imperialist language to justify wars as did Rudyard Kipling, the author of the infamous poem The White Man’s Burden. They boast about the White Woman’s Burden.

It should be remembered that Kipling wrote that poem to seek and to justify the US invasion of the Philippines.

Take up the White Man’s burden
The savage wars of peace
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Then they say that men are to blame for wars and not their dear capitalist system. Over and again the bourgeois feminists call for war.

But if they want wars and invasions, well why not ask for the US to be invaded, where women are pursued fleeing from one state to another to obtain an abortion, or where access to sex education is restricted and deficient as is access to contraceptives,[6] where women earn less than men and are under-represented in a wide range of fields.

Afghanistan is a country where women are more repressed than in any other part of the world. Throughout the conflict the US financed the Mujahadeen and later the Taliban.

They had the option of supporting organisations such as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a women’s organisation that opposed the Islamists and also the Russians and later the US invasion.[7]

No, between one macchiato and another our dear bourgeois feminists let the men in the Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton support the Taliban troglodytes.

They said the same in Iraq. I am sure more than one reader is asking themselves what Iraq has to do with it all. It was a secular country, that promoted women’s education and participation.

However, one of the reasons bandied about by Bush was that he was rescuing and defending women and he compared their situation to that of Afghanistan, despite Saddam promoting women’s education.[8]

In fact, under Saddam, 30% of faculty staff were women, trained in Europe and the USA with full funding from the government. It is no longer like that, in fact there is no intellectual world in Iraq, the bombs the bourgeois feminists asked for, put paid to that.[9]

In the US the bourgeois feminists paid to go to universities, but Iraq promoted women as a state policy, something the Yanks have never done. In Britain, just 31% of the lecturers were women.

Iraq almost beat them, but in-between macchiatos the bourgeois feminists called for a war to improve the situation of women in Iraq and of course their investment portfolios.

Now the drums of war are beating again and the bourgeois feminists once more give themselves over to the war, despite believing that wars are a male product rather than a capitalist one.

They are not going to analyse their own participation, whilst a refugee from one of their wars prepares another macchiato for them.

As the female political prisoners in Evin said, it will be the Iranian people and the Iranian women who will free Iran and the Iranian women and not the bourgeois with the macchiatos, wine and caviar.

They are just as much the enemy of the women of Iran as the male bourgeois and are as deserving of our contempt.

There is no lack of Iranian voices asking for war and not just the son of the despot Pahlevi. Masih Alinejad is an exiled journalist. She took part in the movement against the obligatory use of head coverings in Iran and other things.

So far so good, unlike others she has fought against the oppression of women in the country.

But in exile, she turned out to be a Zionist and in the first Trump government met with the hawk Mike Pompeo and also worked at the official US propaganda radio station, Voice of America, transmitting programmes in Farsi.

*Masih Alinejad & Jake Sullivan, Intelligence Adviser to US President Biden 2021 2025.* (Source: *Wikipedia*)

Now she criticises Netanyahu, but not for bombing Iran and killing civilians but because of his bad timing. She believes he should have waited for protests against the government and attacked at that time. Of course the bombs were not going to fall on her, safe in New York.

Those feminists who keep silent about the genocide in Gaza do not seek the liberation of women in Iran, but rather a geopolitical reorganisation of the region and the victory of Zionism.

But that slogan doesn’t sound too good and you can easier convince the dozy in the world by talking about the rights of women in Iran. Meanwhile they have little to say about why their governments installed and recognised the Islamists from ISIS in Syria.

It is an exercise in public relations rather than real concern for the future of women in Iran. At the end of the day bourgeois feminists defend the bourgeoisie more than they defend women.

End.

NOTES

[1] Middle East Eye (19/06/2025) Iran: Jailed women activists issue letter condemning Israeli attacks. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jailed-female-activists-iran-issue-letter-condemning-israeli-attacks

[2] Ibíd.,

[3] See https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/ab68f07d-68ef-4e79-9561-0c8062663882?j=eyJ1IjoiMzBqYW1wIn0.0Y_uIvVCiPFxQqpA0lVO04u7LmUWrBGajjuhH6mjvNk

[4] The Sun (23/06/2025) Stupid ignorant lefties who support Iran when it stones women for adultery are mad and immoral. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/35536772/support-iran-death-cult-opinion-julie-bindel/

[5] See https://x.com/Mylovanov/status/1937201198370549828

[6] The Guardian (23/01/2025) As Trump returns, state lawmakers pursue bills that would treat abortion as homicide. Carter Sherman. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/abortion-homicide-bills

[7] See http://www.rawa.org/index.php

[8] The New Arab (22/10/2021) Colonial feminism and the un-liberation of women in Iraq. Jyhene Kebsi. https://www.newarab.com/opinion/colonial-feminism-and-un-liberation-women-iraq

[9] Al Jazeera (01/10/2013) The Destruction of Iraq’s Intellectuals. Matthew Schweitzer. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/10/1/the-destruction-of-iraqs-intellectuals

Don’t Change the System – Just the Parties in Government

On June 19, 2025June 20, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Political Analysis, Socialist Revolution, Trade unionsLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

I was relieved by my attendance at the Raise the Roof housing demonstration in Molesworth Street in Dublin City Centre. That was because I learned from speakers that just by voting in ‘a Left Government’ we could receive the housing we need.

Raise the Roof is a coalition of trade unions with its address at the Labour Party-orientated ICTU and a number of housing NGOs. The coalition also contains political parties: Sinn Féin; Labour Party; People Before Profit/ Solidarity; Social Democrats; Independents4Change.¹

A view of the protest in Molesworth St. Leinster House is in the background across Kildare Street with access prevented by police barriers at the end of Molesworth St with a special gate to allow entry and exit for customers of the hotel on the corner. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Previously I’d thought that either we’d need a revolution or a country-wide campaign of direct action occupying empty properties. This is because the housing crisis is deliberately constructed for the benefit of profits for big landlords, vulture funds and the banks that finance them.

And since they keep making massive profits out of the situation, they won’t want it to change as it would if, for example, were the State to seize empty properties² for conversion to housing along with a massive public housing for rent construction campaign.

And if the profiteers don’t want that, naturally their (sorry, ‘our’) government will make sure not to do anything of the sort.

So it was great to learn that we won’t have to really fight and break the law, going to jail and all that. Phew! Just change the parties in the Government at the next election! Elect a Left Government!

*Visual accidental irony comment in the same street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

But… lately I have to admit I’ve been having doubts about this solution. First of all, there’s the question of numbers of TDs available to form this aspired-to government. There are overall 174 TDs in Leinster House (the Parliament of the Irish State) and a fragile majority requires 88.

The Sinn Féin party has 39 TDs and People Before Profit/ Rise/ Solidarity five in total, a combination of 44 still needing another 44 to reach the 88 minimum. FG and FF, formerly opposition parties but now in government have 86 votes between them and needed some extras to run the Government.

But I’ve got a much bigger doubt really, and that’s whether SF will stand up to the bankers and property magnates.

SF has for decades being setting out its stall that it is safe pair of hands to run the system, in other words that the profiteers have nothing to worry about. And to tell the truth, I believe them. Though some of their followers think SF is fooling the system, I think it’s the followers being fooled.

*View of the Raise the Roof protest in Molesworth street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

So … after further consideration, it really does look like a revolution will be required to end the housing crisis — or at least something so near as to make the managers of the system believe that unless they resolve the housing crisis, there will be a revolution. So I’m worried again.

Anyway, it was interesting seeing the amount of Tricolours in what was predominantly a left-wing rally of hundreds (despite a small contingent holding an Aontú banner) and there was some nice music with singers including Lisa O’Neill and Jimi Cullen (with his Homes for All composition).

I still left early, however.

End.

Footnotes

1 https://www.raisetheroof.ie/about-raise-the-roof

2 https://www.socialjustice.ie/article/vacancy-and-dereliction-ireland