Archive for the ‘Israel’ Category
Current positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF) has published a number of statements about the Israeli-Palestine conflict from across the globe. In addition we publish a letter which appeared in the October 11 2023 edition of the Irish Times, and solidarity statements issued by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and the SIPTU Global Solidarity Committee.
Israeli Apartheid Must Be Dismantled
Sir, – Michael Jansen (“Hamas attack on Israel followed years of containment and dire poverty in Gaza”, World, October 9th) rightly notes that the attack on Israel by Hamas was inevitable. Gaza has been under siege and blockade for 16 years, with 60 per cent of its people living in poverty, and tens of thousands suffering from post-traumatic stress after suffering four full-scale Israeli military attacks between 2008 and 2021. When people protested at the Gaza fence in the Great March of Return, they were met by snipers’ bullets.
The response of the Israeli government to the Hamas attack in recent days is shocking. It intends to punish the civilian population of Gaza, in knowing breach by a government of international law.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has ordered a total siege on Gaza. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, it’s all closed. We are fighting against human animals,” he said. The dehumanisation of Palestinian residents is the prelude to massacre. The bombs have started to fall on Gaza wiping out entire families. The statement by the Israeli ambassador Dana Ehrlich (News, October 9th) that lawyers sit with “very strict rules” observing each target is palpable nonsense.
Read the rest of this entry »Dublin Stand with Palestine – Emergency Protest, Wednesday October 11, 17.30, The Spire, O’Connell Street Dublin 1 – Organized by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign Protest in Dublin :
[Dublin] Stand with Palestine – Emergency Protest (Wed 11 Oct)
Wed, 11 October 2023, 17:30 The Spire, O’Connell Street, Dublin 1
As Apartheid Israel continues pounding the people of Gaza with indiscriminate bombing and gets ready for a full scale invasion, all with the blessing of Western powers, we ask you to join us at an emergency solidarity rally in support of the Palestinian people.
Join us in Dublin on Wednesday 11th October at 5.30pm at The Spire on O’Connell Street.
Read the rest of this entry »Palestine: Hamas Attack
Article Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article68150
“Breaking the Silence” is an interesting organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_the_Silence_(organization)
Hamas’s attack and the events unfolding since yesterday are unspeakable. We could talk about their cruel and criminal actions, or focus on how our Jewish-supremacist govt brought us to this point. But as former Israeli soldiers, our job is to talk about what we were sent to do
Israel’s security policy, for decades now, has been to “manage the conflict”. Successive Israeli governments insist on round after round of violence as if any of it will make a difference. They talk about “security”, “deterrence”, “changing the equation”.
All of these are code words for bombing the Gaza Strip to a pulp, always justified as targeting terrorists, yet always with heavy civilian casualties. In between these rounds of violence we make life impossible for Gazans, and then act surprised when it all boils over.
Read the rest of this entry »Palestine, Ukraine, Neutrality and the right to defence
Des Derwin
(This is a repost of a post on the Irish Left With Ukraine Facebook page, 8th October 2023)
There is unlikely to be any supporter of Irish Left With Ukraine who will not also support the latest Palestinian uprising (though I for one by no means approve of attacks on civilians and non-combatants). Today supporters of the Palestinian cause are rightly incensed by the reportage of the Hamas offensive and of the savage Israeli retaliation. At the inconsistency and one-sided nature of that reportage, starting with the RTE radio news bulletins this morning which featured an Israeli spokesperson but no spoken word from Palestine. RTE’s flagship This Week programme had the Israeli Ambassador on. The double standards of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who mixes vociferous support for Ukrainian resistance with a crawling support for Israeli actions, sickens any decent humanitarian. And, yes, those in solidarity with Ukraine, including myself, have opposed Ukrainian President Zelensky’s bizarre obsequious salutes to the Israeli regime too. The Irish Left rightly blasts establishment inconsistency. But seems blissfully unaware of the beam in its own eye.
It really doesn’t feel at all like whataboutery, but more like disgust at dismal double standards to point out the lack of response, the silence, across the Irish organised left to the Russian attacks on civilians of recent days, of the past twenty months, and the contrast with the horror and condemnation being quite correctly displayed over the new Israeli attacks on civilians.
What can be the motivation here but blinkered and politically-guided theatre, without any real feeling for people wherever they are trampled on, without any actual cognition of aggression, invasion, occupation and imperialist colonialism?
What is happening to the Palestinians is monstrous. What is happening to the Ukrainians is monstrous. What does the organised socialist Left and its associated ‘peace’ groups do? It organises a national march on ‘neutrality’ that is really against supporting Ukraine. Just read the text of the leaflet copied here which was distributed at the Cost of Living march yesterday. While issuing statements on the same day offering “full solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people”, while posting on Facebook on the same day ‘End the occupation of Israel’, and then rushing to organise demonstrations for the Palestinians being assailed in exactly the same ways as the Ukrainians (without waiting for the solidarity groups who have campaigned for Palestine all along)!
A post for such a demo actually says, “If Ukraine has the right to defend themselves so do the Palestinians”! While the same people, wearing even the same logos, are actively organising a march for November 4th against the Ukrainians right to defend themselves! Defending the right of Hamas and the Palestinians to defend themselves against Israel while opposing the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves against Russia, and attacking as “a breach of neutrality” even the supply of “flak jackets to the Ukrainian Armed Forces”!
This Left rightly condemns Israel but doesn’t even mention Russia in its leaflet for the neutrality march distributed yesterday.
Yes, I’ll be attending the Palestinian protests. No, I won’t be attending the anti-Ukrainian, succour-for-Putin, march in Dublin on 4th November.
Should Robbie Keane reconsider going to Israeli Football Club Maccabi Tel Aviv?
The author of this article is Zoe Lawlor. Many thanks to Seán Marmion for bringing it to our attention.
Should Robbie Keane reconsider going to Israeli Football Club Maccabi Tel Aviv?
When Robbie Keane was asked about his move to manage Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv, he said he
didn’t want to “get into politics”, but taking up a role in what has been declared apartheid is
inherently political.
The Gaza Kids to Ireland project was launched officially by Brian Kerr in late 2014. The boys, coach
and chairman of Al Helal Football Academy, Gaza City finally made it to Ireland in 2016.
The logistics of trying to get out of Gaza are very complicated. The group needed Irish visas, permits
for Jordan and most problematic – permits to leave Gaza by Israel. Palestinians are the only people
who need permission to leave their country. Israel controls most aspects of life for the Palestinians
in Gaza, and it controls whether they can leave or enter the Strip.
The visa/permits process took months. Eventually the permits were granted but one player from the
15 – Karam Zedan wasn’t given a permit and neither were 5 of the adults due to travel, including the
only woman. The cruelty of Israel denying one child from 15 the opportunity to travel to Ireland
bears further consideration. Imagine how a 13-year-old boy must have felt seeing his friends and
teammates going on a big adventure that they had been preparing for together for months. Karam
was injured by the 2009 Israeli attack on Gaza and it’s likely they didn’t want him as living evidence
of their war crimes.
They played football against Ballybrack FC, Kinvara United, Nenagh AFC, Nenagh Celtic and Pike
Rovers. They played on pitches, beaches and in parks. A highlight was their game in Ballybrack where
the Palestinian community came out in numbers and reacted as if they had won the World Cup.
They formed the guard of honour for Galway United versus Dundalk, played at half time to the
delight and cheers of the Palestinian flag waving GUFC ultras. They met with President Michael D
Higgins at this game in Galway United. The League of Ireland was very supportive of the children’s
visit.
In 2017 the Al Helal team were guard of honour for the Shamrock Rovers V Derry City game.
President Michael D Higgins came to Tallaght that evening, for his first visit, especially to meet them.
He made a speech and took loads of photos with the children. It was a serious act of solidarity from
our President.
Biden Fist Bump – Political Candidates who make promises they do not keep
Presidential candidates often make promises they don’t live up to after elections. Take the capital of Israel for example. For decades, U.S. …
Biden Fist Bump
Clay Jones writes about US Presidents like Joe Biden who made campaign promises they threw into the wheelie-bin once they took over at Washington DC’s White House :
Presidential candidates often make promises they don’t live up to after elections. Take the capital of Israel for example.
For decades, U.S. presidential candidates promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. embassy to the holy city from Tel Aviv. But reality would arrive after they were sworn in and they’d ignore the promise. Most nations don’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel since the Palestinians also claim it. While there are multiple resolutions from the United Nations, the European Union, and organized middle east nations, most of them come down to stating the designation of the city hasn’t been resolved, so no recognition. It would take a real dumbass to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our embassy there as it’d be a huge obstacle to ever bringing peace between Israel and Palestine. Donald Trump is a huge dumbass. While he kept a campaign promise others did not, he made it clear that the United States, while he was president (sic), didn’t care about the Palestinian people.
Read the rest of this entry »Evasions on the Left Over Ukraine – Conor Kostick, Independent Left (Ireland)
This is a strongly recommended article. The author is an experienced anti-war activist, an Irish historian and writer living in Dublin. He is the author of many works of history and fiction.. For more information read the information at this link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conor_Kostick?wprov=sfti1. https://www.leftarchive.ie/people/2778/ Some of Conor’s political writings are here : https://www.leftarchive.ie/people/2778/
Wars are not light topics that can be dispensed of with simple formulas. I, for one, cannot imagine how the success of Russia would further the cause of democracy and socialism around the world. If you do, then say so, openly, so it can be debated in public. But don’t falsify tradition and history and hide behind pathetic slogans. To paraphrase Marx, we Marxists disdain to conceal our views and aims.
John Ganz, Ben Burgis’s Bad History: Jacobin’s anti-Jacobins
There is a type of left argument around the war in Ukraine which has arisen in the West. It is one that condemns Putin’s invasion, but refuses to offer practical support to the people of Ukraine in resisting that invasion. It is the position one can read in Jacobin, or in statements by Chomsky, Corbyn, and the Stop the War Coalition in the UK. In Ireland we have the same type of response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine from People Before Profit and the Socialist Party of Ireland.
I will use the label Evasionist Left for this approach. It’s not clear how representative this trend is internationally, as many on the left do pro-actively support the resistance in Ukraine, e.g. parties such Razem in Poland; those associated with the Fourth International like Left Bloc and the Danish Red Green Alliance; and the main left party in Japan, the Japanese Communist Party.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 