CRIME DOSSIER BY CARTOON

On October 3, 2025October 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Genocide, Human Rights, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Resistance Art, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading/ Viewing time: 5 mins. approximately)

This is a partial dossier, documenting only some of the crimes of the Zionist entity. The dossier is largely in the form of cartoons some of which are as recent as the last few days and others a year old or more but sadly, are still valid comment today.

A great many crimes have been committed here: Ethnic cleansing, theft, murder, racial discrimination, apartheid, repression, bombing of civilians, shooting of civilians, destruction of water wells, tanks and desalination plants, power cutoffs, mass kidnappings, torture.

Bombing of residential blocks, bombing hospitals, bombing schools, bombing universities, bombing mosques and churches, starvation blockade, water cutoffs, assassinations, public humiliation of prisoners, using human shields, rape and other torture of prisoners, detention without trial.

The Israeli Zionists, a European colonial settler project, have had many criminal accomplices, both at the level of states, educational institutions public and private, and of private companies and corporations. The Irish State has permitted the transport of military cargo to Israel through Irish airspace.

Despite the clearly-expressed desires of the vast majority of the Irish people, the ‘neutral’ Irish State has permitted arms material destined for the Israeli occupier of Palestine to fly through Irish airspace, in addition to permitting the militarisation of Shannon Airport.

As part of the genocide, the Zionist authorities turned off the water supply to Gaza, using water deprivation as a weapon, a war crime of collective punishment.

*Shutting off water to the civilians in Gaza is a war crime, even if none of the other genocidal acts of the IOF had been carried out.* (*Cartoon by D.Breatnach*)

But Palestinians have dug wells. And collected seawater in desalination plants. And stored water in rooftop tanks and barrels. So the IOF destroyed the wells, bombed the desalination plants and shot up the water tanks and barrels. Clearly acts of genocide.

In addition to shutting off the water supply and destroying Palestinian alternative sources, the Zionist authorities have sealed off Gaza from humanitarian aid of food, baby supplements, medicines, etc. The intention, declared in act and words, is to starve the Palestinian people into surrender and leaving.

*The Rafah Gate, access Gaza-Egypt, by law operational only by those two agencies and main access of international humanitarian supplies to Gaza, closed by Israeli Occupation Forces tanks.* (*Cartoon by D.Breatnach*)

*Israeli Occupation Forces threaten anyone trying to enter.* (*Cartoon by D.Breatnach*)

A major party colluding with the genocider Israeli authorities has been the Mainstream Western Media. They have adopted a mantra that posits the start of everything at the Resistance action on October 7, treat Resistance claims as dubious but those of Israeli, despite its record, as credible.

The western media corporations have taken no action to protect their journalists in Palestine, where 243, mostly Palestinian or from Arab nations, have been assassinated by the IOF. They circulated Zionist atrocity propaganda without proof and, when debunked, did not publish retractions.

Reading the published 20 points of the recent Trump plan, what is clear is that Trump is demanding that the Palestinian Resistance surrender.

Not because they have been beaten and in fact there is an admission in there that they have not. The reality is that it’s the IOF and the Zionnazi administration that has failed in its declared objectives: to defeat the Resistance and release its captives by force.

NO. What is unspoken but clearly implied here is: ‘Surrender, give up your weapons or we will murder and starve thousands more Palestinian civilians.’

*Trump for the USA making another threatening ‘offer’ in true gangster style.* (*Cartoon by D.Breatnach*)

Those who advise the Resistance to agree should ponder what that means, not for Palestine alone but for the world: ‘If you can’t beat a popular resistance, just carry out ethnic cleansing and genocide until they give up. It’s perfectly acceptable and the world powers agree.’

We know about imperialist ‘peace’ plans. They only thing they deliver on is fragmentation of the resistance movement and more years of life for imperialist and colonial power. And elevation for some traitors and opportunists.

Based on history, whatever they decide, the Resistance should neither surrender their weapons or the tunnels. At the worst, there will be another day. The US and western empire is dying and with it will go this dependent zionazi European settler colony

Despite all the crimes of the Zionist entity inflicted upon the Palestinian people and despite the backing of the western powers for ethnic cleansing and genocide, the Palestinian people continue to resist.

*Despite all,* *Gaza resists and resists*. (*Cartoon by D.Breatnach*)

And despite the crimes of the Zionist entity in Western Asia/ Middle East, despite the crimes of its chief backer, US Imperialism – and the rest of western imperialism – their days around the world and at home are numbered. In effect these days they are digging their graves deeper, week by week.

War is the solution that the leaders of the US and Israel seek but that will not save them either.

Focal Scoir/ Postscript

After a long, long gap, I returned to drawing commentary cartoons a few years ago, increasing production with the current phase of the Zionist and imperialist genocide of Palestinians that began on 8^th October 2023, though even so, the output has not been great.

Drawing a cartoon requires first having the idea, then time and head-space to concentrate on its execution. Often I find the latter stage disappointing, though sometimes I am pleased with the result. I’ve also undertaken a little study and practice to improve technique.

Most of the cartoons are published quite close to their actual size, instead of drawn large and then reduced for photographing which I understand to be the professional way. But that would require my carrying a large drawing pad around or putting in a lot more time on drawing at home.

It is a fact that anything in which we invest time and concentration will reduce the availability of those same ingredients for other things. Each of us makes choices and we must manage the options available as best we can. Meanwhile, a genocide is being committed daily by the Zionist entity.

End.

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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

The Palestine Struggle in Cartoons – April/ May

On June 2, 2025June 3, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Massacres, NATO, Palestine, Political Analysis, USA, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Like many others through much of the genocidal attack on Gaza since October last 2022, I’ve been attending pickets, demonstrations and vigils organised by others. I’ve also written some reports on those events and analyses of the solidarity movement.

But in addition, I’ve been drawing cartoon comments in a sketch book, most unpublished and I thought I would publish a selection here.

One of the poorest states in the world, Ansarallah is the only one to uphold its duty to prevent genocide, which it does by putting heavy pressure on the Zionist state’s economy through maritime blockade. For this, the UK and USA rain missiles and bombs down upon it. But it does not yield.

*This one is at least as much placard as it is cartoon but I never got around to making the placard.*

*Ansarallah escalates to attack the ‘Israeli’ state directly, then again in response to Zionist airforce bombing of Yemen.*

The USA Navy sends two aircraft carriers to assist the genocidal state by attacking Yemen. Ansarallah attacks the US Navy, forcing the retreat first of one aircraft carrier followed by capitulation of the US which offers Ansarallah to end attacks on Yemen if they end attacks on US Navy. The deal makes no provision for defence of the Zionist state and is accepted by Ansarallah.

*Facing some of the most heavily armed forces in the world but somehow, it’s always the national liberation forces that must disarm. For the sake of peace, of course.*

The physical war against the Palestinians by the Zionist State was armed by a number of western imperialist states but also ideologically by the whole western media. In the face of real and ongoing genocide the WMM reported propaganda, repeated lies and framed its reports in the Zionists’ terms of reference – while courageous journalists reporting from the actual killing grounds were picked off by the IOF.

*The western imperialists promote the two-states solution (*sic) and a Palestine colony of Israel as a ‘Palestinian State’. This would be run by Zionist proxies such as the Palestinian Authority with its Fatah boss, Mahmoud Abbas, who recently publicly insulted the national resistance fighters of Hamas, calling them ‘sons of dogs’.

ARE ALL CULTURES EQUALLY VALID?

On October 16, 2024October 16, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Britain, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Political Analysis, WomenLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (30/09/2024) (Images and captions by R. Breeze)

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Kemi Badenoch, the contender for the Tory Party leadership in Britain has stirred up controversy through her comments that not all cultures are equally valid.

She referred to women’s rights, gay rights and even hating Israel as signs of which cultures are less valid.

Not surprisingly some right wing “feminists”, like the ones currently campaigning for the man who advocates sexually assaulting women in the US came out to agree with her.

Key amongst them Kellie Jay Keen, who saw fit to bring up child marriage,[1] an issue Trump and every US president would know something about, given the huge numbers of child marriages in the US, where it is legal in 37 states.[2]

There are “cultures” they say where women have fewer or even no rights, gays are hounded or even killed and even where witch burnings are legal. Badenoch said

We cannot be naive and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnic hostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid.

They are not. I am struck, for example, by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel. That sentiment has no place here. We must recognise that the world has changed.[3]

Imagine belonging to a culture that hated genocide! I am tempted to say the joke writes itself, except it is no laughing matter.

Although she brought up the issue in relation to immigration, when Badenoch says some cultures are less valid, what she really means is that there are countries that the “civilised” can bomb into the stone age, there are people Western troops can rape, women who can be bombed in maternity hospitals just as Israel does.

What she does not mean is that Britain will not supply weapons to regimes like Saudi Arabia; her concern for women only goes so far. In fact, she would personally sharpen the sword or knot the whip used to mete out lashes to women, if there was money in it for British companies.

Between March 2015, when the Saudis began bombing Yemen, and March 2024 the Saudis received 8.2 billion in weapons sales. BAE received 25 billion in the same period and has 6,700 employees based in the country.[4]

Maybe some of these people whose culture she thinks are less valid are just fleeing the British bombs dropped on them by the head-chopping misogynists in Riyadh.

But what is a culture?

There is no agreed upon definition of what is a culture, but it is popularly understood to be the norms, customs, beliefs, practices, artistic production and world view of a given set of people, who are in turn not that easy to define.

It is a malleable term that can be twisted and distorted to suit any agenda. But Badenoch had specific people in mind. Of course, she meant Muslims, though she pointed out she didn’t mean all Muslims, certainly not the ones buying British bombs.

But are there cultures where rape, witch burning and the persecution of gays is not only legal but socially acceptable? Well yes, but let’s look at some of the facts and the British or Western values Badenoch thinks are being undermined.

Witch burning

Well, belief in superstitious nonsense is prevalent everywhere. Most people believe an invisible man in the sky not only controls their everyday lives, but blesses the bombs as they rain down on the innocent. But that aside, what about witches?

Well, it was Germany that gave us the Malleus Maleficarum and the witch hunts that murdered thousands of women in Britain and Ireland between 1450 and 1750 and King James (yep the bible basher) was particularly obsessed with the issue. That was a long time ago, however, nowadays.

The harshest place for witches, or rather, female foreign domestic house workers the government thinks are witches, may be Saudi Arabia. An entire police unit is dedicated to fighting witchcraft crime, and religious judges often convict people with laughable evidence.[5]

It is now, what it always was, the persecution of women in the economy. But nobody in Britain burns witches nowadays, do they? Well, it depends on what you mean by a witch. The term is as malleable as culture.

Acid attacks are a modern form of witch burning, where women are attacked for being women.

Britain has the highest rate in the world of recorded acid attacks, with 1244 incidents in 2023,[6] not all of them against women, but a significant number were and racists have tried to paint it as an Asian problem.

But police statistics tell another tale and debunked that myth as far back as 2017.

In reality, just 6% of all suspects in London over the last 15 years were Asian.

For the same period (2002-16), ‘White Europeans’ comprised 32% of suspects, and African Caribbeans 38% of suspects. About one in five suspects remain unknown – either because they can’t be identified, or because the victim has refused to identify them.

The number of Asian victims is 421 – around one fifth of the 2,196 total for the 15-year period. Almost half the victims (987) are White European, and one quarter (557) are African Caribbean.[7]

Some right wing “feminists” have also made similar arguments to Badenoch. They ignore all their campaigning on rape when a migrant is charged and talk about imported problems. But rape has been an historic problem in Britain and indeed around the world.

“[Police ]Forces recorded 194,683 sexual offences in 2021-22, including 70,330 rapes, the highest number since records began in 2002/03.”[8] We also know now that it is part of police “culture” in Britain to rape women, particularly in Manchester.

Not sure who is sharing which “British values” Badenoch and her “feminist” friends were referring to. Rape in every society is committed mostly by the partner of the woman or someone she knew.

Migrants are not beating a track to Britain to rape women, women in Britain are being raped by their husbands, boyfriends, partners and other relatives. That is a statistic that holds true around the world.

As for political rights. It is true that Britain has had three female prime ministers (well, two and a half), Thatcher, May and Truss. None of these female leaders defended women’s rights, in fact Thatcher was particularly hostile to women.

*Margaret Thatcher speaking as Prime Minister of the UK in 1974 – she supported no steps forward for women in the UK or abroad*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

She cared so little for women that she agreed to fund the Afghan Mujahideen, the forerunner of the Taliban.[9] The Tories shared the same values as these troglodytes and that is the tradition Badenoch stands in, despite the illusions and denials of right wing “feminists”.

The US has yet to have its first female president, though that may change with the vote in November.

Meanwhile, a host of countries that do not share Badenoch’s commitment to “British values” and the rights of women, as she would claim have had female leaders, including a number of Muslim countries, such as Indonesia, Tunisia, Mauritius, and Bangladesh.

The latter has had two female leaders in the last 25 years, with both of them serving two non-consecutive terms each. One of them was recently overthrown, a fate that should have befallen Thatcher, but didn’t.

But how does Badenoch fare on women’s rights? Well, she has abstained on extending abortion to Northern Ireland, buffer zones for abortion clinics and she opposed government supports for women going through menopause.

*Kemi Badenoch MP, contender for leader of the Conservative Party in Britain.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

As Minister for Equality, she refused to outlaw discrimination against women going through the menopause, despite the fact that one in ten women between the ages of 45 and 55 leave the workforce due to menopause symptoms.[10] She has no commitment to women.

Cultures change over time, before the British arrived two of the most celebrated Arab poets were gay. After the British imposition of anti-gay legislation and the promotion of conservative figures, their books were burned.

They are not static and within certain cultures there are those who oppose the most reactionary elements of them, like Irish women who campaigned for contraception, abortion and divorce for decades.

Badenoch is just an old-fashioned imperialist, who likes to play up her own black and migrant credentials to attack other minorities. She does not defend women and the tropes about migrants repeated by KJK put her firmly in the Tommy Robinson camp she joined after the recent race riots.

It is a myth that the West is some bastion of women’s rights, when it is the West that promoted and props up the most reactionary anti-women regimes in the world.

The British police have a record of rape culture both on and off duty. They represent a greater threat to women than the “less valid” cultures of Badenoch’s delirium.

Badenoch is the enemy of women, as is her entire Tory Party, hangers-on and Tommy Robinson’s new found “feminist” friends.

End.

[1] See https://x.com/ThePosieParker/status/1840774264405852368

[2] The Guardian (09/07/2024) I was handed to a complete stranger’: the survivors fighting to end child marriage in 37 US states – and the people who want to keep it legal. Alaina Demopoulos. https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/09/child-marriage-laws

[3] The Telegraph (28/09/2024) Migrants who come to Britain must uphold its traditions, not change them. Kemi Badenoch. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/02/kemi-badenoch-interview-integration-tory-leadership/

[4] CAAT (27/03/2024) UK Arms to Saudi Arabia https://caat.org.uk/homepage/stop-arming-saudi-arabia/uk-arms-to-saudi-arabia/

[5] The Atlantic (30/10/2013) When Governments Go After Witches. Ryan Jacobs. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/when-governments-go-after-witches/280856/

[6] See www.asti.org.uk

[7] BBC (17/11/2017) Everything you know about acid attacks is wrong. https://www.bbc.com/bbcthree/article/5d38c003-c54a-4513-a369-f9eae0d52f91

[8] BBC (21/07/2022) Rape offences at highest recorded level https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62258162

[9] Declassified UK (08/09/2021) MARGARET THATCHER’S SUPPORT FOR AFGHAN JIHADISTS COVERED UP BY UK CENSORS. Phil Miller. https://www.declassifieduk.org/margaret-thatchers-support-for-afghan-jihadists-covered-up-by-uk-censors/

[10] The New Stateman (02/03/2023) Kemi Badenoch refuses to outlaw menopause discrimination. https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/healthcare/2023/03/kemi-badenoch-discrimination-menopause-women-equality-act-parliament

GAZA

On October 16, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Cartoon, Current Affairs Comment, Fascism, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Popular Resistance, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Witch-Hunting in the imperialist British Labour Party

On August 22, 2021August 22, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Political Analysis, Socialist RevolutionLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time comment: 2 mins; and article: 5 minutes)

People who’ve been following the witch-hunts in the British Labour Party — or even just generally aware of them — have seen left-wingers like Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s elected leader, actually expelled. Though Corbett has now been allowed back in with his electoral wings clipped, others have been expelled, including left-wing film-maker Ken Loach. It is witch-hunting, a type of McCarthyist hounding in which victims must prove themselves innocent of anti-semitism, which turns out to be impossible. This is because the Zionists and their supporters have succeeded in making any attack on Israel or Zionism, a political target, correspond to anti-semitism, a religious-racist view. That is all wrong certainly but it is not the job of socialists nor of anti-imperialists to “save” or “democratise” the British Labour Party.

British troops suppressing anti-colonial struggle in Malaya 1948-1960, (then a part of what is now Malaysia), carrying a bloodied Malayan prisoner (*Photo sourced: Daily Mail*)

Lenin famously once advised British socialists to support the Labour Party “as a rope supports a hanging man”. He was saying that as Labour had never yet been in sole government, it was bound to carry the idealised hopes of many working people — therefore give them the opportunity to see it in action. Whether Lenin was correct in his advice to help get Labour into government or not (and not all revolutionary socialists agreed with him), Labour was in the coalition War Government in 1915-1918 and subsequently in the periods 1924, 1929, 1945-1950, 1964-1970, 1974-1977, 1997-2010. It has had plenty of opportunities to show its real nature and has done so.

However, over the years, radical social democrats and various Trotskyist trends, along with the old Communist Party of Great Britain, have sought to support the Labour Party, not by pulling the rope, kicking the chair or unlocking the scaffold trapdoor, but by desperately getting underneath the body and propping it up. General elections were replete with slogans from the Left exhorting us to elect Labour “under a socialist program”, “under Left pressure” and “with socialist demands” or even “internal democracy” (to give the entrists room to move).

Ken Loach (right) and Jeremy Corbyn at premier of the film “I, Daniel Blake in 2016. (*Photo credit: Joel Ryan, AP via Getty Images*).

Such demands and manoeuvrings are in complete contradiction to history or a basic socialist class analysis. Lenin was certainly correct when he analysed the Labour Party as fundamentally capitalist and imperialist and the party has obligingly gone on to vindicate that analysis both in and out of government. But how could it be otherwise? It is a capitalist imperialist class that runs the UK and a party truly representing the working class will not be permitted to take over except if the ruling class is overthrown in revolution.

And such attempts will be met with whatever force the ruling class has at its disposal. In the Hebrew-Christian creation myth, the originators of humanity are driven from Paradise by an angel with a flaming sword and apparently never try to get back in (not in this life anyway). It will certainly take a flaming sword to drive capitalism from its Paradise of exploitation of labour power but in fact its predicament then is worse than Adam and Eve’s — for to be barred from entry forever means its very extinction as a class.

This is all Basic Socialist Theory 101 and proven time and again by Modern Class History 101. And yet, people on the Left who can quote volumes of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and even sometimes Bakunin, have somehow come out of those 101 courses with an entirely different understanding. And so time and time again, the hunt for the Left Messiah to lead the Labour Party and within, the gatherings of radical Leftists cliques, conspiring like the Christians in the Catacombs beneath Rome.

British troops and detainees in Kenya; the record of tortures inflicted on many is truly horrific. Although the Conservatives were in government throughout the period, it was never seriously challenged by the Labour Party on the actions of the troops. (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

Just a moment’s review will show that at its first opportunity, Labour participated in management of the imperialist WWI which, by the way, included the murder of surrendered Irish insurgent leaders in 1916. The review will also reveal the agreement in the partition of Ireland in 1921, undermining of the 1926 UK General Strike, complicity in the anti-liberation wars in Persia (now Iraq), Egypt, Greece, Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, Aden (now Yemen), Oman …. and participation in joint invasion or attacks on Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. Not to mention being the party actually in Government when in 1969 it sent the troops in to quell the large oppressed Catholic minority in the Six Counties seeking civil rights.

Well, actually yes, let us mention it because that and its collusion with the Conservative government’s introduction of internment without trial in 1971 and subsequent massacres of protesters that year and in 1972 ratcheted up a cycle of violence that lasted three decades, with huge loss of human life among civilians, liberation fighters and its own soldiery and Loyalist auxiliaries.

The first anti-fascist fighter killed in Britain by police, by the way, Kevin Gately, was killed by mounted police in 1974 — under a Labour Government.

Those who really want an end to capitalism and imperialism — and the attendant racism — in Britain need to find a solution that does not involve electing a “Left Labour Government” or anything of that kind. We can argue and discuss what that solution might involve but one thing we should insist upon is that a “Left Labour Government” is not one of the options on the table for discussion.

End.

SOURCES:

UK Labour Party pro-Israel purge continues: celebrated film maker Ken Loach latest member to be expelled

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

DUBLIN RALLY CALLS FOR EXPULSION OF ISRAELI AMBASSADOR

On May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Middle East, National Liberation, PalestineLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

A rally today outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin heard Palestinian speakers and an Irish socialist TD (Member of the Irish Parliament) denounce Israel’s attacks on Palestinians, its slaughter of civilians including children and women, call for sanctions against Israel and for its Ambassador to be expelled. The rally was jointly organised by Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Trinity BDS Campaign in solidarity with the Palestinians and with the general strike organised in Palestine.

Fatin Al Tamimi, Chair of the IPSC, opened the meeting, welcoming people and, to loud cheers, declared that she is “a Palestinian and proud to be a Palestinian”. Fatin went on to list the numbers of Palestinians dead and injured, the numbers of those who were women and children and called the Israeli regime “racist, apartheid” and murderous and called for the boycott of Israeli goods, alluding to the famous 1970s Dunne’s Stores workers’ strike in support of boycott of South African goods during the white minority apartheid regime. Fatin’s pauses were punctuated by demonstrators chanting “Free, free Palestine!” and “Boycott Israel!” At one point she said that she had children born here but they would also always be Palestinian and she hoped one day to go back and to welcome all the Irish supporter to a free Palestine, which brought a tremendous cheer from the crowd.

Fatin Al Tamimi, Chairperspon of the IPSC, opening the rally. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

She introduced Wesam Ahmed, from Al Haq, the main Palestine human rights organisation, who spoke through an audio link from Palestine.

Dr. Ibrahim Natil, a DCU academic also spoke, as did Zayd, representing Trinity BDS Campaign.

All the speakers called for stepping up of solidarity action, boycott, divestment and sanctions but also for action by the Irish government, both in their current temporary membership of the United Nations Security Council and in the EU.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD told the crowd that he and Gino Kelly and Paul Murphy had all tackled Mícheál Martin in the Dáil (Irish Parliament) earlier during Taoiseach’s Questions and Martin had claimed he had criticised Israel while also criticising the rockets fired by Hamas. Boyd Barrett said that we had to get rid of this discourse of equivalence because there is no equivalence between the positions of the Israeli Zionists and the Palestinians, neither in terms of justice nor in power, military or otherwise.

Fatin Tamimi also called for solidarity with all the Palestinian political prisoners

Dr. Ibrahim Natil speaking (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

Zayd of Trinity BDS Campaign speaking. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

GARDA HARASSMENT CONTINUES

The Irish police, the Gardaí continued to display on Tuesday the hostility they had exhibited in advance of last Saturday’s demonstration, when they threatened the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign that if they went ahead with their advertised rally the Gardaí would intervene and threatened the organisers with €5,000 fines and possible jail sentences. Fortunately the Trinity BDS Campaign group had stepped in and held the rally, which turned into a march supported by several thousand.

A Garda beckons traffic on. Gardaí kept the road open despite the inevitable crowd spillover on to the street and then pressured people into crowding closer, despite that clearly going against Covid19 transmission precautions. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

The Gardaí began on Tuesday by telling supporters as they arrived that they were required to spread out to social distancing but were soon ushering people in towards one another. A woman next to me complained to a Garda that he was moving her into close proximity with other people and violation of social distancing — the Garda shrugged. As they continued to urge people to push in towards the already crowded space, the Gardaí continually urged traffic to come through and kept repeating to rally supporters that “The road is open”. Indeed it was and the question is why was it open? Clearly forcing traffic through put people in danger of vehicle impact or Covid19 infection; the safest measure and easily enough done would have been to divert the traffic before it reached the rally. But no — the Palestinian solidarity supporters were to be shown that the Gardaí are not to be gainsaid.

Standing the line. Some women took their position on the white line dividing the traffic lanes, declining to be pushed into the crowd by the Gardaí. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

PLACARDS

I find it interesting to collect some photos of the placards displayed at these events and in particular, some of the homemade ones. These are interesting in a number of ways, some humorous, some very pointed, some quite artistic but they are all also individual expressions and a kind of commitment, to make something in advance to bring to the demonstration or rally.

There was one in Irish but sadly the only one I could find. Will there be more at the next demonstration? If the Irish language is not audible and visible in the progressive sector of society, how are we to expect it to survive, never mind thrive?

A SPACE FOR THE YOUTH

As the rally came to an end, one could observe Palestinian and some other youth, many in their teens coming together to chat but also to chant slogans. I have seen this before and it appears that this point in events is their space — but it is a dangerous one with the event formally ended and the organisers dispersing, making it easier for repressive moves to be made against them or also to be led into acts which may end in their arrest. Of course it is the organisers dispersing, adults socialising etc that also allows them to make it their space.

The youth need a space of their own but one which is also safe and in which they can be helped to consider consequences and effective action. Generally political organisations do not give the youth that space and, when they do, tend to confine them to following the line of the leaders, who are generally much older.

Young people at the end of the rally. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

More young people at end of rally (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

If organisations do not provide those spaces and assist the youth in self-organising, the likelihood is that others will and, in the case of Palestinians or Arabs in general, those others may be Islamic fundamentalists.

RALLY AGAIN NEXT SATURDAY, 2pm at the Spire, Dublin.

POSTSCRIPT COMMENT:

There is a slight sense of futility in what speakers ask us to do because justified as the calls are, there seems little hope of convincing most of our politicians of breaking radically with the western imperialist alliance, even though Ireland is not, generally speaking, itself an imperialist country. And yes, we can continue boycotting but how much of the stock in the supermarkets continues to be from Israel? And when it is, if one supermarket comes under heavy pressure, the management will often just temporarily remove the products from the targeted shop while they continue to be sold in the others. And once the pressure is off, the produce might be back on the shelves. And even if they’re not …. What can we actually DO that will make a real difference?

In one way, nothing, since the USA is the main backer of the Zionist state and the USA is the world’s major superpower. But in another way, we are making a difference, though it is not easy to see sometimes. Despite our rulers, Ireland has become the most pro-Palestinian country in Europe. Out of that may come great things in the future.

But it seems to me that there is more that we could do. Many Irish trade unions formally support the Palestinians — could they not put a motion in their annual conferences calling on the Government to expel the Ambassador? Could they not at least put a pro-Palestinian poster on each workplace union noticeboard and also advertise each solidarity march? I know that the unions are not anything like the fighting organisations they once were but that above is surely not asking too much.

end.