Tag: Sinn Féin

A LOAD OF ROWLOCKS ABOUT NO SHAMROCKS

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

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“CAN’T WIN”?

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

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

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

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

IMPERIALISM AND SF SUPPORT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End.

FOOTNOTES

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

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

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

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

5Ibid.

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

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

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

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

Erasing Murals and Erasing Gaza

On By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Satire, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 13 March 2024

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

       
         Original Latuff cartoon.                              West Belfast mural.                                  Mural blacked out.

Once upon a time, Belfast was famed for its murals, so much so that even now a part of the tourist industry depends on a plastic paddy tour of the current murals on display in nationalist areas of Belfast.

It was the 1981 hunger strike and its aftermath that saw an explosion in political murals in nationalist areas.  As the 1980s went on, the technical and artistic quality of them improved dramatically and the politics they sought to represent expanded. 

Some of them were very militaristic, others much more political in content.  On international issues, murals sprang up on South Africa, Palestine and figures from revolutionary struggles around the world were to be found on gable ends all over the city and indeed in other cities throughout the North. 

Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Camilo Torres, Che amongst others looked down at the wandering revolutionary tourists who would come over in August.  The message was clear: Ireland was part of an international struggle against imperialism.(1)

After the peace process the quality continued to improve, but the politics went for a walk.  Twee Celtic murals abounded, young girls dancing a jig displaced images of women holding an armalite aloft for International Women’s Day. 

about Imperialism were softened, when not blunted entirely or removed.  So, it comes as no surprise to see what has happened to recent murals.

Sinn Féin supporters recently unveiled murals in solidarity with Palestine.  They are of good quality and try to capture the suffering of the Palestinians through the images and poignant quotes. 

However, they say nothing about who is causing the suffering: the US and Israel, though there are silhouette ghostly like images of soldiers standing over dead children. 

There was once a mural on the White Rock Road which pictured a US Indian superimposed over a US flag saying Your struggle, Our struggle.  No references are to be made now to the US role in exterminating a people.  That is strictly Verboten.

However, someone decided to reproduce a cartoon from the artist Carlos Latuff in mural form in Belfast.  It depicts Joe Biden, standing with bloodied hands in front of Mary Lou, who is clearly identifiable in the image, and the leaders of FG and FF, who can be identified from the initials FG and FF on their backs.

The British Army and the RUC used to deface republican murals, not any more.  Very quickly, Sinn Féin, officially or unofficially (no pun intended, though it is apt) painted over the mural.  It was quickly restored by others, who the artist Latuff described as real republicans.(2)

Sinn Féin are clearly uncomfortable about the issue in the run up their fest in Washington with Biden and not only are they content to throw Palestinians out of public meetings, they will now supress any public artistic attempts to draw people’s attention to the Slaughter Soirée they will have in the White House.

Many Palestinian voices such as the Electronic Intifada have called on Sinn Féin not to go to Washington, the calls in Ireland have been much more muted and tamer on the issue.  However, it is a clear issue, what is colloquially called a no-brainer. 

You don’t have to think very deeply to understand that Sinn Féin shouldn’t go to Washington DC, that they should tell Genocide Joe they don’t want to meet him.  They will go and they will say nothing about Palestine. 

Their erasure of a mural criticising them, tells you everything you need to know about their real attitude to Palestine.

Whatever you say, say nothing used to be a catchphrase about loose talk and informers, now it means never to mention Joe Biden and the Palestinians in the same breath, unless you are green washing genocide. 

Meanwhile Sinn Féin does its part, emulating the British army and vandalising political murals.

Notes

(1)  A selection of images can be seen on Bill Rolston’s website.  Rolston has chronicled and photographed murals going right back to the 1970s.  See https://billrolston.weebly.com

(2) See https://x.com/LatuffCartoons/status/1767239594083324017?s=20
 

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Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

(1. Letter in reply to claims that Sinn Fein has betrayed the Palestinians; 2) Reply by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)

Greetings Comrades,

I am a former member of Sinn Féin who still lives in a Republican and working-class community. I see a lot of point to your views on Sinn Féin and the peace process. But I think you hit the wrong note in your article: Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh.

The idea that: “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

Is not true, is offensive and will put off the people who might otherwise listen to you. The leaders put forward a political analysis and the members accept it. If you want to oppose this, kick the ball and not the player.

Yours, Owen

Reply

Thinking of Sinn Féin, trying not to think of Palestine

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

22 February 2024

Biden poses for a selfie with Gerry Adams.

To my surprise I have received some feedback from a Republican on my article Sinn Féin, the IRA and the betrayal of the Palestinians, published on the Socialist Democracy site and elsewhere in which I took issue with Sinn Féin’s abominable decision.

Which was to fly to Washington to meet and greet Joe Biden, a man whose hands drip with Palestinian blood. Though given the scale of the genocide, dripping with blood is an understatement as Palestinian blood gushes off his hands, like a burst oil well.

There were a number of points made, some of them more important than the others. One, was my insinuation that corruption was at the heart of the decision, that Sinn Féin were not going to give up on a hooley and a lavish shindig paid for by others.

My comment on the matter was a bit facetious in part. I did describe the event as a hooley, and it is fair to say that it is a lot more than that, though the drunken shenanigans are a part of the festivities and the informal deals to be struck.

Colum Eastwood from the SDLP stated that “I could not rub shoulders, drink Guinness and have the craic while the horrifying impacts of the brutal war in Gaza continue”(1).

I had stated that “Sinn Féin prefers a hooley, even some furtive carnal or political romance in the halls of power rather than show their solidarity with the Palestinians. They are in love with power, money and the screams from Gaza make them uncomfortable.”

There is a part of those sentences that is obviously tongue in cheek. I don’t actually believe that Mary Lou will be trying to get her leg over anyone at the White House, though I wouldn’t discount any of the lower ranking minions on the junket trying their hand.

The furtive political romance was a more serious comment.

St Patrick’s Day at the White House is one for showcasing Ireland, not just in the paddywhackery sense of the word, but it is where informal and formal discussions can take place on economic policy, foreign policy and other matters.

Not for nothing that Varadkar used last year’s event to shore up his support for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a false historical narrative about US government support for Irish freedom.(2) The Government’s own propaganda about its importance actually says as much.

Sinn Féin have various corrupt reasons for going. I should point that there are various forms of corruption, there is the type of corruption of brown paper envelopes from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians seeking or giving favours.

There is another type of corruption, which is that where politicians go along with policies they know to be wrong, immoral, damaging or dangerous for reasons of political expediency, as part of an overall strategy.

Or because money will be legally made by the chosen few as a result of these decisions.  Current government policies around vulture funds, the bank bailout (for which Sinn Féin also voted), privatization of the health industry etc., are examples of this type of corruption.

I have no doubt that Sinn Féin members are involved in the brown paper envelope type of corruption, the building industry still reeks of Republican involvement, though they have a long way to go yet to outdo Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

But it is more the latter type of corruption that is important.

Two and a half years ago, Pearse Doherty stated that “big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”(3). The issue has come up again recently with Sinn Féin seeking to assure US companies that the corporate tax rate is safe with them.

The new head of the Industrial Development Authority Fergal O’ Rourke, in January this year described Sinn Féin as being on an outreach programme to reassure US companies.(4) He was fulsome in his praise for Sinn Féin and he wasn’t the only one.

Henry Goddard from Deloitte Ireland claimed that Sinn Féin had done a good job in calming down international investors by reaching out to them, by meeting with them and even Mary Lou McDonald visiting Silicon Valley was cited as an example.

He stated “Fair play to Sinn Féin, they went out to the US, they engaged, said all the right things and provided a lot of confidence. They now need to follow through on that.”(5)

They are going to Washington to follow through, to reassure not only US businesses but the Irish capitalist class that the economy will be in safe hands with them and those business leaders from IBEC, various companies like PwC and others who have praised Sinn Féin are not mistaken.

Sinn Féin has stated that it is worried that it might not win the next election and has repeatedly spoken about reassuring the so-called business community.

The other aspect of the visit is that were they not to go, it would send a message to their reactionary base in the US that they are on the side of “Islamic terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how true this is, their base in the US has never been very discerning about these issues.

It would also give the government parties something to beat them with and allow them to claim that Sinn Féin are a party unfit for bourgeois government.

Implicit in the feedback is the idea that my criticisms of the provos would annoy or offend Republicans who would otherwise be open to the general message i.e. ‘kick the ball not the player’. But the player and the ball cannot be separated in politics.

If someone is upset at facetious comments about romances and would otherwise be won around, then they clearly haven’t appreciated the scale of the slaughter in Gaza, nor Biden’s role in it and Sinn Féin’s ditching of what would, once upon a time, have been a no-brainer for their base.

Proof is in the pudding and the fact that some Sinn Féin supporters see through the party’s position shows that those who can be won round have been won round already. Those in attendance at the meeting from which three Palestinians were ejected are all lost causes, political degenerates.

This brings us to the last item which is how Sinn Féin is selling this to their base. Part of the criticism of ‘kicking the player’ is that Sinn Féin has taken a position, spelt it out publicly and its members have accepted this. This is not how democracy works in that organisation.

But the position was best spelt out by Gerry Adams. He stated that Palestinians would understand why they had to go. Would they really?

Apart from the corrupt and contemptible Palestinian Authority that spends a full third of its budget on security and repressing other Palestinians, who in Palestine would understand? The parents who saw their children shot and bombed? The prisoners? The families of prisoners?

The thousands of people who pulled others from the rubble with their bare hands? Or just Abbas who while busy stifling Palestinian dissent has had little to say or do on the genocide.

Adams made one further point. He claimed there was a lack of coherence amongst Sinn Féin critics.

“Some folks are saying the Sinn Féin leadership shouldn’t meet with the American political system… They are not saying we shouldn’t meet with the British political system. The Brits are up to their neck in this.”(6)

He is right about the contradiction, but it doesn’t absolve him, rather it condemns those who are ambivalent about it.

All Adams is pointing out, indeed boasting about, is that they are in cahoots with British imperialism and treasure that relationship as much as they do their “special relationship” with the US. He went on to underline this point.

Serious people involved in struggle, particularly people who are involved in national liberation struggles, understand that your own struggle whether it be internationalist has to be your primary focus.

So, they will expect you to raise their issues and we should. They would expect you to stand with them, and so we should. But they would not expect us to do anything – any more than we would expect them to do anything – which would set back our own struggle.

So, I think it’s Irish-America’s day, it may be dominated by what’s happening in Washington.(7)

Adams clearly hasn’t a clue about what an internationalist struggle is. How could boycotting Biden harm the Irish struggle?

Adams’ question goes to the heart of the matter, he and Sinn Féin not only cling to the illusion that the Irish peace process is bringing unity closer but also that US imperialism plays a progressive role in Ireland.

And that upsetting Biden would be a setback and annoy a regime that is committed to some progressive outcome in Ireland.

Adams is not the only one to believe in this progressive role of US imperialism, Yasser Arafat also believed in it and thus we got the Oslo Accords and 30,000 people in Gaza have been murdered by this progressive imperialism of Adams and Arafat.

Courting reactionary elites in the US is not putting the Irish struggle first, it is continuing with Sinn Féin’s gallop to the right. It is to paraphrase the expression about the struggle for socialism in Ireland that Labour Must Wait!

Now Palestine must wait, indeed everything and everyone must wait. What must never happen is that US imperialisms and Sinn Féin’s reactionary base in the US be upset.

Whilst the Republican who gave the feedback is clearly aware of Sinn Féin’s limitations on the issue of Palestine, there is no republican milieu waiting to be won round on this issue that may be put off by the tone of my last piece or other such pieces by other writers elsewhere.

There is no world in which the player and the ball do not both get a well-deserved kicking, indeed, were I in a position to do so, I would give them the hiding of their lives. Alas my efforts are unfortunately more modest than that.

Anyone who is Republican and thinks Sinn Féin is right to go to Washington is thinking only of Sinn Féin and not of Palestine. They are, like Adams and co, looking the other way in the midst of a genocide, something you would have thought was an easy issue to take a position on.

But when you drink of the Peace Process Kool Aid, you don’t drink half the glass, but chug the whole glass down in one go, like Mean Joe Greene in the famous Coca Cola ad of the 1970s. Like Greene, Sinn Féin has been asked to reshoot the scene time and again.

Greene vomited after his sixth coke, though he had to swallow eighteen, 16-ounce bottles on the final day of shooting.(8)

There is no end to what peace process supporters are asked to swallow and unlike Greene, no sign anyone in Sinn Féin is about to puke at the nauseous spectacle of being asked to sideline a genocide for the meet and greet in Washington DC.

End.

Notes

(1)  The Derry Journal (29/01/2024) SDLP Leader, Derry MP Colum Eastwood ‘cannot in good conscience’ go to US for St Patrick’s Day.  Brendan McDaid. https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/sdlp-leader-derry-mp-colum-eastwood-cannot-in-good-conscience-go-to-us-for-st-patricks-day-4495907

(2)  Remarks by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the White House Shamrock Ceremony and St. Patrick’s Day Reception https://www.gov.ie/en/speech/5b46b-remarks-by-taoiseach-leo-varadkar-td-at-the-white-house-shamrock-ceremony-st-patricks-day-reception/

(3)  Irish Independent (10/10/2021) Pearse Doherty Interview: ‘Big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them’ Hugh O’ Connell.  https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pearse-doherty-interview-big-business-and-investors-know-sinn-fein-wont-go-after-them/40933992.html?

(4)  Business Post (14/01/2024) IDA boss reveals Sinn Féin plans to woo US firms on corporate tax. Donal MacNamee and Lorcan Allen. https://www.businesspost.ie/news/ida-boss-reveals-sinn-fein-plans-to-woo-us-firms-on-corporate-tax/

(5)  Ibíd.,

(6) Irish Independent (27/01/2024) Gerry Adams says calls for Sinn Féin to boycott St Patrick’s Day visit to US are ‘inconsistent’. Maeve McTaggart and Hugh O’Connell. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gerry-adams-says-calls-for-sinn-fein-to-boycott-st-patricks-day-visit-to-us-are-inconsistent/a410016838.html

(7) Ibíd.,

(8)  See Pendergrast, M – For God, Country and Coca Cola.  New York. Basic Books. paragraph 34.99 and footnote 34.117

PALESTINIANS EVICTED FROM PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY MEETING

On By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon comment, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 7 mins.)

Videos doing the rounds of social media sites show a brief intervention by Palestinians at a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast about Palestine followed by the party’s heavies evicting them to applause from many in the audience.

The event at the Europa Hotel on Thursday evening was intended, according to the party’s National Chairperson, “… as an opportunity to demonstrate that Ireland stands with the people of Gaza and the West Bank and to reiterate calls for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the occupation.”1

Actually Ireland is already – except for the Unionists — well behind the Palestinians as shown by attendance at marches and opinion surveys. What is needed is a) clarity on what we are calling for and b) direct action to put the States and companies under greater pressure.

The video of the intervention I’ve seen began with an apology for interrupting the Palestinian Ambassador, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, as “a mouthpieceof the Palestinian Authority” which, the challenger said, is an undemocratic organisation which has not had an election since 2006.

Boos and cries of objection followed from the audience as the Palestinian asked to be listened to, pointed out that those doing the intervention were all Palestinians but the party’s security men were soon hustling them out and periodically trying to block the phone camera.

When people don’t want to examine the issues or are feeling guilty about them, it’s always tempting to blame the critics, suggest they’re dissidents, trouble-makers, etc. That way the pointing finger is turned around and the actual issues don’t need to be thought about.

Of course this time some SF supporters commented along those lines, accusing their critics of being Loyalists, or as they have in the past outsiders, ultra-leftists, intelligence service agents, dissidents, malcontents, trouble-makers … or just plain Utopians.

“MOUTHPIECE OF … AN UNDEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION”

The intervention from the floor was challenging but what of the content? Palestinian Ambassadors are appointed and employed by the Palestinian Authority which, though never intended as a government is acting like one. So “mouthpiece for the PA”? Blunt — but entirely accurate.

Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland of the undemocratic and corrupt Palestinian Authority at a Sinn Féin meeting (note SF President Mary Lou McDonald applauding in the background). (Sourced: Internet)

The PA “has not had an election in 18 years”? Accurate also – though they’re supposed to have one every five years. The last time there were elections in Palestine was 2006 and Hamas won overall throughout Palestine. However Fatah, the losers, refused to give up their seats.

In 2007 in Gaza, Hamas moved against Fatah and after a short struggle, took the seats to which the electorate had voted them. However, they chose not to do that in the West Bank, where the PA’s HQ is and where EU and USA money comes flowing in to Abbas and his unelected cronies.

The reason for not holding elections is that Hamas would almost certainly win again. Meanwhile, “democratic Israel” refused to recognise the Gaza administration or the elected representatives of the Palestinians while the US, EU and UK followed suit and ‘Israel’ blockaded Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority, as well as being undemocratic, deeply corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive2 is also actively colluding with the Zionist state and feeding its masters intelligence on the Palestinian opposition and resistance while it represses their supporters.

That’s what most Palestinians think about the PA and, as is widely known and even tacitly admitted by the USA3, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, Palestinians have no confidence in the institution.4

Some of the comments on the circulating videos criticised SF’s bad management of the event, opining that the Palestinians should have been allowed to speak and then the meeting could have proceeded as the organisers planned and the challenge would have got little publicity.

True … but SF is used to throttling dissent inside its party or in the communities it controls and managing dissent – rather than crushing it — is just not its style.

In any case, is ‘bad management’ the main issue with regard to SF and Palestine? More important than supporting partition of Palestine, the institutionalisation of a Bantustan “Palestinian State” under the guns of the Zionists – and the PA’s collusion with those same Zionists?

The Provisionals weren’t always pro-Palestinian; though it might shock some people, they originally mirrored Irish society’s position of support for Israel, the perceived ‘underdog’ up to the mid-1960s, Hollocaust survivors (Zionists) who had fought the British police and army.5

THE PROVO LEADERSHIP AND PALESTINE

For a while pieces by a Fred Burns O’Brien apparently based in the USA were featured in the Provos’ newspaper but some time after he revealed himself as a Zionist he was ‘let go’, probably through internal pressure from those who thought the Palestinians were the natural ally.6

One of the problems with taking a political position, physically or ideologically, is that you might get called on it someday. This is why bourgeois politicians try to give themselves wriggle and even retreat room in their statements – lots of good-sounding bites with little content.

The Provisionals owe a debt to some Palestinians but it’s a very bad one. I don’t mean when they got some arms for the struggle7 but rather their following Fatah/PLO down the pacification process, for which Fatah and the ANC sent fraternal delegates to SF’s Ard-Fheiseanna (annual congresses).

Subsequently, Ireland and South Africa were used as promotional examples of the pacification process and their delegates travelled as kinds of sales representatives8 — but Palestine got dropped from 2000 onwards because of the Second Intifada, when Palestinians rejected Fatah’s deal.

You can’t sell a process as ‘working’ when the youth have overwhelmingly rejected it and are fighting the Occupation in the street.

“ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENT”

One prominent member of SF in the British colony told the Palestinian protesters they should have organised “their own event.” Er – was this event not advertised as being for solidarity with Palestine? But ‘Palestinians not welcome’? Or only zionist-collaborating Palestinians?

Imagine if back in the day some political party had been having a meeting about Ireland and were inviting an Irish State or British colonial minister as a speaker, would anyone have been shocked to see and hear SF activists challenging or even heckling the speakers during the meeting?

Would we not be reading statements from SF talking about ‘no right of colonialists to represent the Irish people’ and about ‘censorship of Irish voices’?

Cartoon by DB.

Gerry Adams, former President of the party was quoted as saying the calls are “inconsistent” because they are not making the same call with regard to the UK though “the Brits are up to their neck in this” and what is important for SF in the USA is Irish-America.

But SF long ago accommodated itself to the colonialist “Brits”, including its royalty. Irish politicians don’t flock to London for St. Patrick’s Day. Anyway the primary financial and military supplier – and political backer of the Zionist state in the UN Security Council — is the USA.

Why is the diaspora in the USA so important to Sinn Féin but not the diaspora in Britain or in Australia? It must be because the USA is the “boss of the world” and pathetic Irish gombeen politicians think their diaspora gives them them some kind of weight with the imperialists.

What would really help with the Irish diaspora would be if SF were to address the Irish-Americans and ask them to push their political representatives to call for the USA to stop supporting genocide in Palestine.

But of course there is no chance of them doing that because 1) some Irish Americans oppose imperialism from Britain but support it from the USA; also 2) because Irish gombeens, the political class to which SF aspire, are pro-western imperialism.

INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY AND THE HOME STRUGGLE

I have commented in the past that the level of commitment to internationalist solidarity is one of the indicators as to whether an organisation is going to carry through its own revolution or instead is going to finish up in liberalism and abandon its struggle, ending in actual collusion.

It seems some others have the same idea.

As she was being evicted, the Palestinian woman called out for SF not to attend Washington on St. Patrick’s Day and also shouted, though she may have meant it the other way around: “There will not be a free Palestine without a united Ireland!”

Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah put it quite succintly: “If you can’t say NO to the White House in the middle of a genocide, then you’d never be able to stand up, not even for Ireland.”

end.

FOOTNOTES

1https://vote.sinnfein.ie/solidarity-rally-for-palestine-to-take-place-in-belfast/

2“The PA has actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population. Many perceive the body as a tool of the Israeli security apparatus, its US-trained forces not only targeting those suspected of planning attacks on Israelis, but also arresting union figures, journalists and critics on social media.” (Al Jazeera – see Sources)

3Hence the USA’s post-war plan for Gaza, as expressed by Blinken, is to have it run by a “revamped PA”, i.e one that might have some credibility among Palestinians.

4“Today, a staggering 87 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that the PA is corrupt, 78 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombingpercent want Abbas to resign, and 62 percent believe that the PA is a liability.” (Washington Institute — see Sources).

5On 22 July 1946, Zionist militias bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which the British Mandate administration had offices including its police intelligence department, killing 91: “49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers; 13 were soldiers; 3 policemen; and 5 were bystanders. By nationality, there were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens ….” Forty-six were injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

6The same kind of pressure from the support base that caused the SF leadership recently to reestablish their ‘expel the Israeli Ambassador’ position that Mary Lou had announced they were abandoning.

7In 1977 a consignment of arms allegedly from the PLO bound for Ireland was seized by the authorities at Antwerp.

8To the Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc.

SOURCES

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/palestinian-activists-thrown-out-of-sinn-fein-solidarity-rally-in-belfast-hotel/a1343153914.html

Criticism of the PA’s corruption and unpopularity
a) from a pro-imperialist source: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-palestinian-authority-failed-its-people and
b) from Al Jazeera (pro-Palestinian but not pro-Hamas): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/what-is-the-palestinian-authority-and-how-is-it-viewed-by-palestinians

Book Review: Stakeknife’s Dirty War by Richard O’ Rawe, Merrion Press, 2023

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Guerrilla Action, Ireland, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Peace Process, Political Analysis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 02 November 2023

Richard O’ Rawe’s Stakeknife’s Dirty War is a timely book, coming as it does after the death, or supposed death of Stakeknife in England and what looks like a thwarting of the intent and findings of Boutcher’s Kenova Inquiry into the affair.

It is now accepted by all that IRA Volunteer Scappaticci was also the British agent known as Stakeknife.

O’Rawe had access to IRA volunteers and former intelligence operatives and weaves together aspects of Scappaticci’s life and role into a narrative that is convincing and despite the nature of the subject matter, torture, murder and betrayal it is an easy read.

O’Rawe also introduces us to Scappaticci the person. The person however, isn’t any more likeable than the British agent, torturer and murderer. In fact, it would seem they are flip sides of the same coin. Scappaticci was an industrious character, always on the make, running private tax scams.

He was used to money long before he became a paid British agent. His fortune earned from murders on behalf of the British and the IRA, though the IRA weren’t giving him anything like the sum the British did, is estimated to be in the region of a million pounds in pay-outs.

He also had various properties. Scappaticci was also a lowlife thug long before the British and the IRA gave him carte blanche to murder and torture his way through republican ranks. Some of things he did, had he not been in the IRA would have led to him being kneecapped by the IRA.

A man called Collins made the mistake of publicly calling the area in Twinbrook in which Scappaticci lived ‘Provie Corner’. Scappaticci did not like that and decided that Collins had to pay for his transgression.

He knocked on Collins’ door and, when it was answered, the informer battered the older man multiple times over the head with a sock containing a brick. Only when Collins collapsed did Scappaticci walk away.

This is the type of low life thuggish behaviour that the IRA was willing to tolerate and perhaps even encourage from people like Scappaticci. In a genuinely political movement, a thug like Scappaticci would have been out on his ear. But not in the IRA nor in Sinn Féin.

He was, to paraphrase the Yanks when talking about the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza, “he may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch”, though in this case it would seem that not only was he theirs he had just the qualities that both the IRA and the British valued, ruthless thuggish qualities.

Scappaticci the person and agent are intimately related it would seem though O’Rawe doesn’t explicitly say so. He does however, give us ample material with which to draw that conclusion.

One of the issues never dealt with it in the press and not really fully covered here is what type of organisation recruits, tolerates and promotes such people. He was a reprobate who should never have graced the ranks of the IRA. That he did so, is down to Adams and co.

That is also clear from the book. It is not an aspersion on Adams or on McGuinness either to question their role.

Republican funeral, Scappaticci on left photo, Adams on right (Photo cred: Pacemakers)

The latter of the two comes in for some questioning in the book regarding his role and O’Rawe goes into some detail and also explains in the epilogue that before beginning his research he was unaware of the level of unease amongst republicans about McGuinness’ trustworthiness.

Though he does point out earlier that if McGuinness was a tout, why was it necessary for the British to have a spy such as Willie Carlin get close to him. The same could also be said of Adams.

The British had an agent, Denis Donaldson, whispering sweet nothings in Adam’s ear over many years, shaping Adam’s view of the world and reporting back to the British how successful he had been in his endeavours.

The Peace Process, in that regard, was partially the result of what ideas the British planted in Adam’s and McGuinness’ minds through their various agents. However, it does seem unlikely either of them were touts in the classical sense of the word.

They didn’t need to be, they were at a different level. They were both on the same side as Scappaticci in winding down the war, they just had different methods of going about it.

It is possible that at some stage they had dealings with the British security services in pursuit of common aims. O’ Rawe is not the first to question McGuinness either.

Ed Moloney has put forward the idea that the reprehensible proxy bombs that provoked so much revulsion were signed off on, precisely because they would strengthen the hands of those who sought to wind up the war.

O’Rawe gives many examples of what Scappaticci and the other British agents in the Internal Security Unit did. It wasn’t limited to executing alleged informers or those the British thought should be removed for various reasons under the guise of them being informers.

They were also in a position to give information on operations which led to the British either arresting or killing the Volunteers involved.  The book opens with an account of one such operation, where fortunately they were able to pull back from it without the planned British ambush going ahead.

There were of course other incidents, one of them being Loughall where the British ambushed an entire unit of the IRA. Scappaticci and his ilk did great harm to the IRA, but they were not the reason the IRA lost the war, and O’Rawe doesn’t argue it was either.

However, others have made this point. But the IRA was never going to win the war, they weren’t going to outgun the Brits ever.

Another part of the problem of course, is related to Scappaticci. A movement so highly infiltrated would always have problems, but it is telling of the political weakness of the IRA and Sinn Féin that a thug like Scappaticci could rise through the ranks and remain at the top for so long.

That says more about their weaknesses, than anything else.

That Denis Donaldson, a British agent was the chief advisor to the IRA and Sinn Féin on strategy, for so long, shaping policy, whilst Scappaticci weeded out of the ranks anyone who would oppose it, says more about the weakness of republican politics than whether operations went ahead or not.

O’Rawe, however, is more interested in what happened and who bears responsibility for it.

He is quite clear that the IRA are to blame and is equally clear that those in the intelligence services who allowed Scappaticci and other British agents in the ISU to murder their way through republican ranks are also to blame.

He is not wrong in that, Danny Morrison described Scappaticci as Number 10’s murderer(1) and that he was, he was also the IRA and Sinn Féin’s murderer.

Adam’s infamously justified in a blasé fashion the IRA murder of alleged informer Charles McIlmurray in 1987 when he said that “like anyone else living in West Belfast [he] knows the consequence for informing is death.”(2)

Neither the British, the IRA, Sinn Féin and Gerry Adams in particular, get to wash their hands of the affair.

This book is an important contribution to uncovering the truth of Troubles, one which will neither please Sinn Féin nor the British and Irish governments written from the perspective of a former IRA volunteer.

It deserves to be read and kept on the book shelf as the issue is not going away any time soon.

end.

Notes

(1) Morrison, D. (30/01/2016) No 10’s Murderer – Scap https://www.dannymorrison.com/the-times-of-no-10s-main-murderer/

(2)  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kwrj6Ku9ZU
 

SO SORRY, YOUR MAJESTY

On By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Current Affairs Comment, Fan Letters, Imperialism, irish history, National Liberation, SatireLeave a comment

Nearly completely reprint from Rebel Breeze eight years ago

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Your Most Exalted Majesty, Queen of the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland, Commander-in-Chief of the UK Armed Forces, Head of the Church of England, Queen of the Commonwealth.

We trust this letter finds your Highness well, as we do also with regard to Your Highness’ large family and of course your trusted corgis.

I am tasked with writing to yourselves in order to make some embarrassing admissions and to ask your Royal forgiveness.

No doubt your family carries the memory of an uprising in Dublin in 1916? Yes, of course one’s family does, as your Highness says.

Well …. the embarrassing thing is this ……. it’s so difficult to say but no amount of dressing up is going to make it better so I’d best just come out with it: that was us. Well, our forebears. Yes, it’s true.

Not just us, of course. There were a load of Reds in green uniforms too, Connolly and Markievicz’s lot. And of course our female auxiliaries, and the youth group.

But most of that rebellious band was us, the Irish Volunteers (that became the IRA). I can’t adequately express to your Highness how ashamed we are of it all now.

Your government of the time was quite right to authorise the courts-martial of hundreds of us and to sentence so many to death. Your magnanimity is truly astounding in that only fifteen were shot by firing squads and that Casement fellow hanged.

But were we grateful? Not a bit of it! Does your Highness know that some people still go on about that Red and trade union agitator, James Connolly, being shot in a chair? What would they have your Army do? Shoot him standing up? Sure he had a shattered ankle and gangrene in his leg!

One can’t please some people – damned if one does something and damned if one doesn’t. If the Army hadn’t kindly lent him a chair, those same people would be saying that the British wouldn’t even give him a chair to sit on while they shot him.

And how did we repay your Highness’ kindness and magnanimity in only executing sixteen? And in releasing about a thousand after only a year on dieting rations?

By campaigning for independence almost immediately afterwards and starting a guerrilla war just three years after that Rising! A guerrilla war that went on for no less than three years. Your Majesty, we burn with shame just thinking of it now!

Our boys chased your loyal police force out of the countryside, shot down your intelligence officers in the streets of Dublin, ambushed your soldiers from behind stone walls and bushes ….. but still your Highness did not give up on us.

Some people still go on and on about the two groups of RIC specials and auxiliaries and the things they did, referring to them by the disrespectful nicknames of “Black and Tans” (after a pack of hunting dogs) and “Auxies”. They exaggerate the number of murders, tortures, arson and theft carried out by them.

Of course, your Highness, we realise now, though it’s taken a century for us to come to that realisation, that sending us that group of police auxiliaries was a most moderate response by yourself. But we were too blind to see that then and shot at them as well!

That fellow Barry and his Flying Column of West Cork hooligans wiped out a whole column of them. Your Highness will no doubt find it hard to believe this, but some troublemaker even went so far as to compose a song in praise of that cowardly ambush! Oh yes, indeed!

And some people still sing it today – in fact they sing songs about a lot of regrettable things we did, even going back as far as when we fought against your Royal ancestors Henry and Elizabeth 1st! Truly I don’t know how your Highness keeps her patience.

Then we went on and declared a kind of independence for most of the country but …. some of us weren’t even satisfied with that! It was good of your Grandfather George V to have your Army lend Collins a few cannon and armoured cars to deal with those troublemakers.

King George V of the UK, who kindly lent Collins some of His Army weapons and transports.

And then some time later, even after those generous loans, some of us declared a Republic and pulled the country (four fifths of it, at any rate), out of the Commonwealth. Left the great family of nations that your Highness leads! Words fail me ….well almost, but I must carry on, painful though it is to do so.

A full confession must be made – nothing less will do. And then, perhaps …. forgiveness.

Of course your government held on to six counties …. You were still caring for us, even after all our ingratitude! It was like hanging on to something left behind by someone who stormed off in an argument – giving them an excuse to come back for it, so there can be a reconciliation.

How incredibly generous and far-sighted of your Majesty to leave that door open all that time!

Fifty years after that shameful Rising, it was celebrated here with great pomp and cheering, even going so far as to rename railway stations that had perfectly good British names, giving them the names of rebel leaders instead.

Then just a few years later, some of our people up North started making a fuss about civil rights and rose up against your loyal police force, forcing your government to send in your own Army. And was that enough for the trouble-makers?

Of course not – didn’t they start a war with your soldiers and police that lasted three decades!

No doubt your Majesty will have noted that some of those troublemakers have changed their ways completely and are in your Northern Ireland government now.

They’ve been helping to pass on the necessary austerity measures in your government’s budgets, campaigning for the acceptance of the police force and for no protests against yourself.

Indeed, their Martin McGuinness has shaken your hand and rest assured were it not considered highly inappropriate and lacking in decorum, he would have been glad to kiss your cheek, as he did with Hillary Clinton when she visited. Or both cheeks, in your Majesty’s case!

Your Majesty can see, I hope, that we can be reformed.

Our crimes are so many, your Highness; and we have been so, so ungrateful. But we were hoping, after you’d heard our confession, our humble apologies, after your Highness had seen how desperately sorry we are, that you’d forgive us.

And if it’s not too much to hope for, that you’d take us back into the United Kingdom. Reunite us with those six counties, and so into the Commonwealth. Is there even a tiniest chance? Please tell us what we have to do and we’ll do it, no matter how demeaning. Please?

Your most humble servant,

P. O’Neill Jnr.

The Queen’s Service To ….

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Ireland, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, South Africa1 Comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(Reading time: one minute)


Queen Elizabeth II / Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald

Mary Lou McDonald, the current president of Sinn Féin, surprised a few, just a few, with her recent comments thanking the English queen, Elizabeth, for her service.  She stated that “Can I also extend to the British Queen a word of congratulations because 70 years is quite some record.  That is what you call a lifetime of service.”(1)

Why someone who describes herself as a republican would want to heap praise on a monarch and refer to the reign of the monarch as service is bewildering.  However, it is not that strange in the context of the Irish peace process.  It is part of the long road of Sinn Féin’s accommodation to the British state that was laid out in the Good Friday Agreement.  Sinn Féin at that time abandoned any pretence of having a critique of imperialism and capitalism.

The agreement signed basically stated that the British had no selfish interest in Ireland and the conflict was a communal one.  Putting it in blunt terms, two savage tribes agreed to settle their differences, the British state was not one of those savage agents in the conflict.(2)

Exactly what service has the English queen given and to whom?  As a monarch she has blessed every British military adventure since her coronation in 1953, including the savagery of the British repression of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, various other colonial wars, not to mention her awarding of an OBE to Lt. Colonel Derek Wilford the man responsible for Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972.  In 2019 she stood over her behaviour when she stated that the British government would “bring forward proposals to tackle vexatious claims that undermine our armed forces, and will continue to seek better ways of dealing with legacy issues that provide better outcomes for victims and survivors”.(3)  The massacre of Bloody Sunday was placed in the category of vexatious claims.

Part of the service that McDonald now lauds includes this and many more such incidents.  Though it is not unexpected.  It can only surprise those who pay no attention to the outcomes of peace processes around the world.  Yasser Arafat spent more time repressing Palestinians than he did fighting the Israelis after the Oslo Accords.  In South Africa, the former mining trade union leader Cyril Ramphosa became a mining magnate, whose company was involved in the massacre of 34 striking miners at Marikana in 2012.(4)  He and the ANC made their peace with white capitalists and obtained a share of the wealth, in Ramphosa’s case a very substantial amount which some estimates place around $780 million dollars.  In El Salvador, the FMLN eventually gained power, but did not implement a single thing they had ever fought for and their former commander Joaquín Villalobos is now a consultant to right wing forces on how to defeat left wing movements and contributes to the right-wing think tank The Inter-American Dialogue, which includes such illustrious figures as Violetta Chamorro from Nicaragua and former head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, to name just two unsavoury characters.(5)  In Colombia, the ink hadn’t even dried on the agreement and the FARC commander Timochenko declared that the Colombian armed forces would be allies of the FARC in building a new country.  The murder of just over 300 members of the FARC since the signing of the peace agreement has not caused him to change his evaluation of the Colombian armed forces, in fact he has doubled down on his position.

It is in the nature of the beast.  In every peace process that has happened, the former enemies of the state reconciled themselves to the regime and the system, without exception.  McDonald’s declarations are just a confirmation of that and also a sign that it is a bottomless pit and there is no level of political depravity that Sinn Féin will not sink to.

Notes

(1)  Belfast Telegraph (10/02/2022) Sinn Féin leader congratulates Queen on ‘lifetime of service’ https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/sinn-fein-leader-congratulates-queen-on-lifetime-of-service-41334673.html

(2)  The agreement can be consulted at https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/good-friday-agreement.pdf

(3)  The Irish Post (20/12/2019) Anger as Queen’s speech appears to dismiss fight for justice for Bloody Sunday victim’s as ‘vexatious claims’ https://www.irishpost.com/news/anger-queens-speech-appears-dismiss-fight-justice-bloody-sunday-victims-vexatious-claims-175999

(4)  The Guardian (19/05/2015) Marikana massacre: the untold story of the strike leader who died for workers’ rights https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/19/marikana-massacre-untold-story-strike-leader-died-workers-rights
 
(5) See https://www.thedialogue.org