LESSONS THE PALESTINIANS AND THE ISRAELI ZIONISTS HAVE TAUGHT US (Part 2)

On April 21, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, US Imperialism, Zionism1 Comment

The past six months of an almost incredible level of Israeli genocide and Palestinian resistance have taught the world some valuable lessons but particularly perhaps those of us living among the Western powers.

PART TWO: LESSONS FROM THE ISRAELI ZIONISTS

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

The Nature of Zionism

The Zionists have taught us the nature of Zionism as an ideology upholding a people allegedly chosen by religion to occupy a land and to repress or expel the indigenous occupants of that land.

Nature of settler states

As Zionism is a variant of occupier-settler ideology we have, by extension, learned to recognise the nature of all settler states. To be fair, the evidence of that nature was clearly before us but we had perhaps learned to push it to the backs of our minds.

The European settler states of USA and Canada practiced genocide against their native indigenous peoples, of which only discriminated fractions remain from “California” to “Newfoundland”, from Pacific to Atlantic coasts. Both those states have diligently supported the Zionist settler project.

*Lithograph image of aftermath of the Wounded Knee massacre of Indigenous people, USA, 29 December 1890* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Those Northern American territories were primarily English colonies¹ as were Australia and New Zealand, both also practicing genocide and discrimination against their indigenous populations and both those states too have supported the Zionist settler project.

*European coloniser collection of New Zealand Indigenous heads 1895* (Photo source: *Khamen.ir*)

Less unanimous have been the mainly Spanish and Portuguese settler colonies of what is now called “Latin America”, from Brazil to Argentina to Mexico. Their indigenous populations too were ethnically cleansed and subjected to genocide, although to varying degrees of intensity.²

The Caribbean islands have all been settler and imported slave colonies of the states of England, Spain and France³, all now having nominal independence but, with the exception of Cuba,⁴ remaining within the imperial ambit of the USA (mostly) and France and have responded accordingly.

Nature of the zionist state

The Zionist State has demonstrated to us the true outcome of the Israeli zionist ideology, expansionist and prepared to inflict any horror upon the indigenous people in order to achieve its aims, descending to depths of inhumanity unimaginable only if Nazism were forgotten history.

*An early mass grave of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in Gaza back in November 2023 as the cemeteries were already full* (Photo cred: *Mohammed Salem/ Reuters*)

Currently the Israelis’ toll of Palestinians is at least 34,049 dead and 76,901 wounded, with an estimated further 8,000 under rubble in Gaza, nearly 2 million displaced (many several times), all medical, educational and social facilities and infrastructure degraded if not totally destroyed.⁵

And with at least 9,500 prisoners (i.e hostages) reportedly ill-treated, humiliated and even tortured, of which an Israeli-admitted 27 have died during these six months alone and 3,660 are held without trial or release date in “administrative detention”.⁶

Brazen Truth and Lies

We have also learned from the Zionist state its brazen genocidal intentions towards the Palestinians, expressed for internal Israeli consumption, alongside its outlandish lies for the international public about October 7^th: beheaded babies, mass rapes, disfigurements, burning alive, etc.

All of those have been debunked and the recorded statistics alone (but also backed by evidence of other agencies) expose the lies that the Israeli army is attacking only⁷ the Palestinian resistance, that it is not applying collective punishment and using starvation as a weapon.

False Israeli Zionist propaganda about the Palestinian resistance “beheading babies” repeated by US President Joe Biden in press statement, claiming he had seen photos. His aides later ‘clarified’ that he was relying on reports from the Israeli state and had not seen actual photos. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Not bothering to give excuses for its demolition of universities and museums, schools and places of Muslim and Christian worship, ‘Israel’ has claimed the existence of tunnel entrances in them as excuses for the total elimination of Palestine’s main hospitals and degradation of all others.

It has done this despite its lack of evidence of such use of the hospitals, despite denials of hospital staff and organisations and without having to explain how such claims, even if they were true, could justify siege of hospitals, killing patients and staff and their destruction as functioning hospitals.

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(Three before-and-after images of Israeli military destruction of Al Shifa Hospital, internally and externally)
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Impunity from world legal order

What Israel and the western imperialist states have shown us to date is that Israel has impunity to carry on its genocide. Not only will it not be boycotted, much less blockaded, not to even mention invaded, it will continue to be supplied with weapons, money and political support.

Even after the ICJ judgement in favour of S. Africa that Israel was “plausibly committing genocide” and restrictions imposed on Israel by the court, the genocide continued without pause and without any serious international repercussions by any western state.

Israel has given us a clear demonstration in practice of the hollowness of western institutional democracy and liberalism, not only in its continued support for the genocidal state but in the repression by western states of those who have supported the Palestinians in word or deed.

Demonstrations and pickets have been forbidden⁸, protesters threatened and arrested⁹, academics hounded and sacked,¹⁰ artists and public speakers cancelled, social media profiles hampered or blocked. In fact, all the kinds of undemocratic actions of which some other states are often accused.

Exposure of the world order of legal democratic institutions

The exposure of these institutions was almost complete. The United Nations of 193 states was shown powerless to act without the authorisation of the five Permanent Members¹¹ of the Security Council — which itself was shown nullified by a veto of even one Member.¹²

United nations

The International Court of Justice, a sub-institution of the UN itself, with a history of never even trying a western power, though judging Israel plausibly guilty of genocide,¹³ failed in its judgement on 26^th January to order an immediate cease to the state’s attacks on the Gaza population.

The ICJ failed even to take action on Israel’s non-compliance with the interim measures it ordered, viz: “to take all measures to prevent any acts that could be considered genocidal according to the 1948 Genocide Convention”, other than to issue another non-complied order on 28^th March.¹⁴

The United Nations failed to defend its own aid organisation for the relief of Palestinians (both in Palestine and as refugees in other parts) from unsupported Israeli allegations of the participation of 0.04% of its staff in the Palestinian resistance operation of October 7^th 2023.

The UNWRA chiefs responded by failing to stand up to Israeli bullying and by sacking nine of their own workers without any evidence presented against them and without a right to a hearing or appeal. It also for a time failed to denounce Israel for reported torture of the agency’s employees.¹⁵

The UN failed to defend the staff of UNWRA from unproven allegations, unfair internal treatment and Israeli intimidation and murder or to maintain the essential funding of UNWRA essential for the Palestinians, or to insist on the regular and protected entry of aid trucks safe from Israeli attack.

The European Union refused to even call for a ceasefire; continued to act as Israel’s biggest export market; some of its members withdrew UNRWA funding and continued to supply the genocidal state with arms, while many states repressed their own citizens acting in solidarity with Palestine.

The need for revolutionary resistance

The Zionist state and its imperialist backers and, to be fair to it, our own Irish state too, have demonstrated to us the fragile and temporary nature of western liberalism and democracy on the one hand and the need, by implication, of revolutionary resistance and organisation on the other.

IN CONCLUSION

It remains to us to learn those hard-earned lessons, to internalise them and to apply them externally. We owe that to the Palestinians and to ourselves.

End.

*Part of Gaza after Israeli bombardment back July 2014; now of course it is much, much worse*. (Image sourced: *Internet*)

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.voanews.com/a/7577969.html

https://www.addameer.org/statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

https://www.unrwa.org

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

1The Dutch also colonised the north-east of what is now the USA and the French particularly Louisiana, in what is now the USA and Quebec in what is now Canada. What is now SW USA was part of the Spanish colonial empire, subsequently part of the Mexican Empire and gained by the USA in two wars with Mexico.

2The disparity in approach of these states is underlined by for example on the one hand El Salvador unreservedly supporting the zionist state and by Nicaragua on the other hand taking Germany to the International Court of Justice in accusation of being complicit in the Israeli genocide by supporting the state with weapons and finance.

3Without overlooking the fact that each of those states (England now as the United Kingdom) contains other dominated nations within it.

4During the existence of the USSR Cuba was often described as being under Soviet colonial influence but remains today the only truly independent (though part-occupied) state in the whole of the Caribbean.

5 https://www.voanews.com/a/7577969.html, a pro-Israeli source.

6 At the time of writing Adameer, the Palestinian prisoner and human rights organisation reports 9,500 Palestinian prisoners of which 3,660 are “administrative detainees”, 200 children and 80 women. Seventeen of the prisoners are elected Legislative Council members (similar to MPs or TDs) https://www.addameer.org/statistics. These figures have changed regularly during the 6 months of zionist genocide and the trend is always upward except for a brief period during the truce and exchange of hostages.

7In fact, not even mainly.

8Particularly in Germany and France

9Particularly in Britain

10Particularly in the USA

11UK, France, USA, Russia, China

12Most often and recently in the case of Israel/ Palestine several time by the USA but at times also by the UK and France.

13In a case taken by South Africa lodged at the end of December 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

14In response to application of South Africa again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_allegations_against_UNRWA

LESSONS THE PALESTINIANS AND THE ISRAELI ZIONISTS HAVE TAUGHT US

On April 19, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, Zionism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

The past six months of an almost incredible level of Israeli genocide and Palestinian resistance have taught the world some valuable lessons but particularly perhaps to those of us living among the Western powers.

PART ONE: LESSONS FROM THE PALESTINIANS

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 11 mins.)

Resistance – ongoing, preparation, striking, unity

The Palestinians have taught us the strength and value to an occupied and oppressed people of resistance, from generation to generation, maintaining and developing culture and nurturing historical memory while the occupier tried to erase it all and make the endeavour seem hopeless.

*Palestinian woman in Gaza defiant, January 8, 2009* (Photo cred: *Eric Gaillard/Reuters*)

Without a navy, air force, tanks, armoured vehicles or standard artillery (apart from home-made rockets and missiles), they faced what is often called the “strongest military power in the Middle east”. Despite periodic massacres they have regularly risen against the oppressor.

In truth, it was a lesson that at one time we hardly needed in Ireland, learned even earlier than the Palestinians. But we needed reminding of it.

It is also important for the morale and dignity of the resistance that it shows itself capable of striking at the enemy.

We’ve been reminded of the importance of long-term preparation. The Palestinian resistance built kilometres of tunnels underground in which they also set weapon production factories, developing their own weapons and repurposing existing weapons, including unexploded Israeli Army bombs.

In their Al Aqsa Flood attack on October 7^thand fighting since, the Palestinians taught us the value of not only of daring and prior preparation but of coordination and unity, as a number of resistance organisations cooperated in struggle, some secular and some Islamic fundamentalist.¹

*Palestinian resistance fighters from different organisations displaying their unity in struggle in this photo* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

In meeting the subsequent genocidal rage of the occupier, the Palestinian resistance have taught us that all the technological might and expertise of the enemy was incapable of crushing a prepared, courageous, united and determined resistance.

The Israeli domination of the air from which it rained down genocidal bombing on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or targeted assassinations of the families of resistance fighters, was not sufficient to defend its ground troops from attack and is itself under attack from GTA missiles.²

The occupier was effective only in genocidal actions against the civilian population and civilian infrastructure for which it will forever be reviled in historical memory. It achieved neither of the objectives it declared as it unleashed its war against Gaza: the wiping out of the resistance and release of captives.

Imperialism

We been shown – if we were willing to see it – the unity of western imperialism in supporting the ‘right ‘of a European settler group to establish itself on the land of the indigenous, creating an ethnocentric and theocratic state founded with an act of ‘ethnic cleansing’.³

We have been taught the willingness of the western imperialist states to tolerate the proliferation of acts and policies which it claims go against its fundamental liberal values: oppression, apartheid, discrimination and repression, while lauding the ‘European liberal values’ of the occupier state.

Betrayal

Another lesson which we should have learned too within the necessity of unity in a broad front is that it needs to be on a principled basis and the dangers in unity without such safeguards, leading to treachery, betrayal and collusion with the occupier.

The secular left-wing Fatah⁴ organisation may have seemed at one time the ideal one to follow though some would have favoured the further-left People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine.⁵ But it was Fatah, as leading element in the PLO alliance, that signed up to the Oslo accords.⁶

In return for limited autonomy in a fraction of Palestinian land and without consideration of the right of return to the expelled Palestinians, the Fatah leadership with Yasser Arafat at its head agreed to this “peace process” while its officials scrambled for the gains of official corruption.

Hence the Palestinian Authority, corrupt, unrepresentative, undemocratic and repressive, working in collusion with the occupying authority. Again, our own history should have taught us that lesson but again, it is good to be reminded.

The Palestinians taught us how to deal with such a poisonous fungal growth with the Second Intifada and their last elections, those of 2006⁷ and the carrying through of the electorate’s wishes in 2007, along with the ongoing resistance since.

Western Mass Media and alternatives

In reporting the events in Palestine over the decades but in particular over the last six months, we have learned the heavy anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli bias of the WMM, that accepted without question the transparent lies of the Israeli regime and even questioned the massacre statistics.

Never once has the unjust claim of the occupiers to their stolen gains been questioned, never once the fundamentally just claim of the indigenous even mentioned. The Palestinian resistance has been reduced to one organisation in reporting, to be held up as a bogeyman monster.

If atrocities from across the Palestinian people were reported in the media, they were framed as of dubious provenance, while the most outlandish and illogical claims of the occupier were reported as reasonable fact.

We have, in fact, been taught not to trust the western mass media when reporting on international events and, by extension, not to trust it on domestic issues either. Conversely we have learned to rely more on alternative Internet media but also on the need to navigate those with some caution.

We have also learned that some of the most prominent alternative sources on the war between NATO/Ukraine and Russia, attacked by liberals and sections of the Left as “Russian-controlled” or “Putinistas” turned out to be the most reliable in reporting the realities of the Israeli genocide.

Internationalist solidarity

We have relearned the importance of international solidarity, both as we expressed it ourselves and saw its outpouring across the globe. We have been taught the existence of an alternative world of human solidarity in opposition to one based on expropriation, exploitation and competition.

We saw Hizbolah in Jordan and Syria come to the assistance of the Palestinians and pay the price for doing so, as did Ansar Allah (“Houthis”) in Yemen and as has also Iran — what the Electronic Intifada has called “the Axis of Resistance”.

*Chilean football team players May 2021* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

And we have learned to use internationalism as a measuring stick also in evaluating institutions, political parties and politicians in our own countries. We have seen the meaning of anti-semitism twisted and employed in repression with a stifling censorship across public life – academic, political and social.

*Downing Street (containing home of the UK Prime Minister) 29 December 2023* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Political parties and politicians have revealed either their complicity in and collusion with the criminal Israeli genocide or alternatively their inability to resist and effectively oppose it. That has exposed their lack of fitness to lead us in our domestic struggles too.

Teachers and others in Palestine solidarity demonstration in Dublin, March 2024 symbolically carrying infant school chairs in protest against the Palestinian children murdered by the Israeli armed forces. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

IN CONCLUSION

The need for revolutionary resistance

The Palestinian resistance has taught us important lessons, including the need of revolutionary resistance in addition to revolutionary organisation and preparation.

It remains to us to learn those hard-earned lessons, to internalise them and to apply them externally. We owe that to the Palestinians and to ourselves.

End.
(Read also Part B – What the Israeli Zionists have taught us follows.)

FOOTNOTES

1Hamas – Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades; Palestinian Islamic Jihad – Al-Quds Brigades; Popular Resistance Committees Al-Nasser Salah ad-Din Brigades; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command Jihad Jibril Brigades; Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) – National Resistance Brigades, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades; Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and its Mujahideen Brigades.

https://www.newsweek.com/not-only-hamas-eight-factions-war-israel-gaza-1841292

2Ground To Air missiles.

3The expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians and massacres such as the one in the village of Dir Yassin.

4Fatah wasfounded in 1957 and was the majority party in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

5The PLO was founded in 1964 and the PFLP in 1967, next in size of organisation in the PLO to Fatah (Islamic organisations were excluded from the PLO; Hamas recently proposed the reconstruction of the PLO open to all resistance organisations).

6The Oslo Accords were the result of a number of conferences, overseen by the USA and was part of the second of the current“peace processes” which include Ireland, the Basque Country and Colombia.

7Hamas won the elections throughout the accepted Palestinian territories but Fatah tried to continue to keep control, being dislodged from Gaza in 2007 by Hamas, which held back from doing the same thing in the West Bank which has remained under the undemocratic, repressive and colluder control of the Palestine Authority.

SOURCES

https://www.addameer.org/statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genocide_Convention)

https://www.unrwa.org

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

POLISARIO FRONT GIVES UN MISSION 12 HOURS TO GET OUT

On November 14, 2020November 15, 2020 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, National LiberationLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time text: 5 mins.)

After a military invasion by the Moroccan Kingdom into the “buffer zone” in Western Sahara, the Polisario Front, liberation and resistance organisation of the Saharawi, gave the MINURSO (UN) mission in Western Sahara 12 hours to leave the territory. Meanwhile the Polisario also retaliated against the Moroccan occupation with an attack against the Wall, while young Saharawi confronted occupation forces in a number of localities.

According to sources close to Polisario, the Saharan People’s Liberation Army, in response to the Moroccan invasion, undertook artillery strikes against Moroccan military targets along the Moroccan military wall that cuts through Western Sahara. The targets of the attacks were the following Moroccan military bases and surveillance points along the wall: Moroccan military base No.23 (Mahbes), Moroccan military base No.4 (Hauza), Surveillance Point No.71, Moroccan military base No.17 (Oust), surveillance point No.172, Moroccan military base Nos. 17 and 18. A press release from the Saharan People’s Liberation Army added that its fire on Moroccan military positions led to human casualties and material losses for the Moroccan Army and that Moroccan soldiers fled some of their positions along the Moroccan Wall.

Conflict at the protest camp as Moroccan forces attack civilian protesters. (Photo source: Telesur)

The Polisario also alleged that Moroccan forces had attacked Saharawi civilians who had gone to protest peacefully at the first breach of the buffer zone, at Guerguerat, civilians which subsequently the Polisario had evacuated safely. Subsequently Moroccan military had breached the zone at another three points, it alleged.

The General Secretary of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, gave a press statement in which he announced the retaliatory attacks against what he called a violation of the 1991 ceasefire, “repeatedly violated by Morocco” but which, with the invasion of the buffer zone, “has now gone past the point of no return”.

Leader of the Polisario, Brahim Ghali, giving a press statement. (Photo source: ec.saharaui)

“DIFFICULT TO RESTRAIN THE YOUTH”

Over the years since 1991, as no progress towards independence seemed to be made, the Polisario leadership has at times found it difficult to restrain its youth from returning to armed struggle. And Moroccan police have carried out much repression of peaceful protest demonstrations, plain-clothes officers beating even women and children in the street. At a conference in Dublin last year (see Rebel Breeze report link below) representatives of the Saharawi people spoke about the human rights abuses by the Moroccan authorities in Western Sahara and about the discrimination and deprivation of the Saharawi people in a number of important areas of life.

At the above conference, despite reference by a number of people to a “Western Saharan peace process”, in reply to a direct question from the floor, the European representative of the Polisario, Mr. Mohamed Belsat, tacitly admitted that no such process existed and talked about the Polisario’s difficulty in restraining the Saharawi youth.

Mohamed Belsat of the Polisario speaking at the conference in Dublin last year (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A source close to Saharan activists from the city of El Aaiún confirmed that dozens of young Saharauis in the El Inach Matalaa and Tatan districts were confronting Moroccan gendarmerie and police patrols during the early hours of Friday evening. According to the sources, these protests against the occupation and support for the start of war against the regime have shifted and hardened in the Ghiyadet, Bucraa and Lahum districts. The source consulted stated that as of Friday night, the riots against the occupation administration in the city of El Aai ún were continuing.

BACKGROUND

The Spanish colony of Western Sahara (also known in the past as “Spanish Sahara”) was abandoned by the Spanish State in 1975; instead of decolonising it and facilitating a referendum on independence, the Spanish State’s evacuation cleared the stage for two neighbouring states to invade the country: the Kingdom of Morocco and Mauritania.

The Saharawi people formed the Polisario Front guerrilla organisation to resist the invasion and occupation of their land and also formed a government in exile, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, in Tindouf in Algeria. Mauritania relinquished the territory it occupied and any claim to Western Sahara in 1979 but Morocco continues to pursue its annexation and its attendant repression of the Saharawi people.

Female fighters of the Polisario about ten years ago (Photo source: Inernet)

“Western Sahara has been described as the last colony in Africa and has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. Morocco is obliged under international law and as a member of the UN to allow a vote of self-determination for the people of the territory. Yet for 35 years 165,000 Saharawi people have lived in refugee camps in Southern Algeria, ethnically cleansed from their own country. Morocco built a 2,700km wall visible from Google earth to stop the Saharawi people returniing to their country.” (From press release at the launch of Western Sahara Ireland Action group in November 2010).

Formally the UN considers that the Saharawi people have the right to self-determination and recognises the Polisario Front as the legitimate representative of the Saharawi people. In 1991 the UN brokered a ceasefire and established a mission on the territory. However over the years the UN has failed to take any action and many people have wondered at the point of its mission there. Interestingly, it is the only UN permanent mission that does not have a human rights watch brief. At the same time, the Moroccan authorities put a media blanket over Western Sahara to prevent reports of repression, including torture, emerging or, if leaked out, being investigated by journalists.

In addition, the ceasefire agreement authorised Morocco to administer two-thirds of the country and most of the Atlantic coastline, which has facilitated its plunder of Western Sahara’s natural resources and by others, including by EU states. One of the big member states of the EU, France is a big supporter of its former colony, the Kingdom of Morocco and the US has also tacitly to date supported Morocco.

A referendum was supposed to be held after 1991 but it kept getting blocked as Morocco disputed the terms under which it would take place. About 85,000 voters were identified by the UN in 1991, nearly half of which were in the Moroccan-controlled parts of Western Sahara, with the others scattered between the Tindouf refugee camps, Mauritania and other places of exile. The Polisario accepted this voter list, as it had done with the previous list presented by the UN (both of them originally based on the Spanish census of 1974), but Morocco refused and, as rejected voter candidates began a mass-appeals procedure, insisted that each application be scrutinised individually. This brought the process to a halt once more.

The ceasefire agreement of 1991 also provided for a buffer zone in Western Sahara which, in effect, protects the Moroccan wall from Saharawi attack but was supposed to protect the Saharawi also from further Moroccan incursion. This zone by Morocco’s Wall was to be patrolled by the UN but it was that same zone which the Moroccan Army has now invaded; the Polisario have obviously lost patience with the state of affairs, retaliated against Morocco’s troops on the Wall and ordered the UN Mission to leave the country.