Archive for the ‘Apartheid’ Category
Is Independence the “Settled Will” of the Scottish People in the 2020’s?
Recent political events in England and Wales suggest chaos : Support for Rishi Sunak’s Tories is dive bombing. The excellent Stats for Lefties site regularly updates numbers, and they are startling :
At the same time Keir Starmer’s Labour Party seems to be busting a gut : Is it desperately snatching general election defeat from the jaws of victory? Readers are probably aware of Starmer’s deeply unpopular refusal to oppose Israeli genocide in Palestine. Did Sir Keir Starmer say Israel has the right to cut off food water and electricity to 2 million people in Gaza?
Starmer might be scoring an own-goal in Scotland. This Bella Caledonia article reviews the latest developments. Source : The Settled Will About the Author Mike Small : Mike Small
The Settled Will
How do you understand the latest polling from IPSOS which puts the SNP ahead of Labour by seven points and predicts they would pick up 40 seats in the next General Election?
At the last general election IPSOS predicted the SNP would win 48 seats (and were the most accurate pollster to predict the result). The SNP would indeed later win 48 seats. If the ‘extinction event’ that is predicted for the Conservatives this would mean the SNP taking 70% of available seats in Scotland. If Labour annihilate the Tories in England as looks very likely, there’s a possibility of the SNP becoming the official opposition.
The wider party prediction seat prediction is:
SNP 40
Labour 13
Conservatives 2
Lib Dems 2
Emily Gray from IPSOS Scotland said: “The SNP lead by 7 points on General Election voting intention, but Labour are narrowing the gap. There’s a Rise in public trust in Scottish Labour, including on the NHS and the economy – though SNP still the most trusted party.”
What’s going on?
Read the rest of this entry »“Israeli basketball player accuses Ireland of anti-Semitism ahead of European qualifier” – Mary Hannigan Report, Irish Times (Updated)
Basketball Ireland says comments were ‘inflammatory and wholly inaccurate’ and has raised them with basketball’s governing body
Unconfirmed reports suggested an Ireland v Israel Basketball match in Lativa, scheduled for February 8 2024, would not go ahead. Unfortunately the match happened, but it was not “business as usual” :
Ten out of Ten to Mary Hannigan for filing this report in the Irish Times :
As if there wasn’t already enough heat surrounding Ireland’s basketball meeting with Israel in Latvia on Thursday evening, the comments of Dor Saar, one of the Israeli squad, have added yet more fuel to the fire.
Speaking to Israel’s official basketball site, which noted that the team isn’t “officially talking about the Irish and their behaviour lately”, Saar, a United States-based student, said: “It’s known that they [Ireland] are quite anti-Semitic, it’s not a secret, so we are expecting an intense game. We need to show that we’re better than them and to win. We speak about it between ourselves, we know that they don’t love us so we will leave everything on the court, as always. And especially in this game.”
Basketball Ireland responded with no little fury to Saar’s comments, branding them, in a statement to the Irish Independent, as “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate”, saying that they had raised her remarks with Fiba, the International Basketball Federation.
Fiba, meanwhile, have said that they will look into online posts by the Israeli federation which featured photos of the Israeli Defence Force’s mixed gender Bardelas battalion, dubbed the Cheetahs, visiting the team in the build-up to the game, one showing an assault weapon lying at the side of the court where they were training.
The Cheetahs include several female soldiers who have been active in Gaza since October. “We are moved by the connection between the Cheetahs unit and the Israel women’s basketball team, which reflects the support of civil society for the IDF,” said Nir Galili, chief executive of the team’s sponsor, Sonol Energy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Irish Support for a Patrick’s Day 2024 Boycott of Joe Biden’s White House Shamrock-Drowning Grows
We wish to thank Joe Brolly for posting this image on his twitter feed :
Joe Brolly is tirelessly promoting the cause of the Palestinian people.
Readers familiar with political parties based in the six county state in the north of Ireland may be rubbing their eyes in disbelief – is it really possible that the SDLP is taking a stand on this issue, agreeing with most people on the Irish left, and against the Sinn Féin party? The answer is Yes.
The article below puts a remarkable story in context :
Read the rest of this entry »Sinn Féin Leaders are attending President Joe Biden’s Washington DC White House on Patrick’s Day, March 17 2024 – “drowning of the shamrock” decision has generated an avalanche of hostile left-wing criticism in Ireland
A Patrick’s Day “Drowning of the Shamrock” celebration in Washington DC’s White House, including Irish politicians and the USA President, is a long-established tradition. President Joe Biden is an Irish-American who enjoyed a warm welcome “home” to Mayo and Louth in 2023. Biden’s Irish-American links are very strong and genuine – but many people who welcomed him to Ireland less than a year ago have broken with “Genocide Joe” because of USA political and military support of the Israeli murderous assault on the people of Gaza and Palestine.
An articulate response came from a Derry GAA All-Ireland winner, who is related by marriage to Mr Biden – Joe Brolly’s wife is Laurita Blewitt, a third cousin of Mr Biden.
“President Biden has pledged 14 billion in state of the art weapons of war for Israel to continue to pummel this defenceless population. And 20 trucks of humanitarian aid for Gaza.
https://tomasoflatharta.com/2023/10/24/irish-podcast-host-and-former-gaelic-footballer-joe-brolly-slams-president-joe-biden-over-usa-support-of-israel-a-rogue-state-completely-out-of-control/#more-7255
“I cannot think of anything sicker or more obscene bombing churches, hospitals, indiscriminate slaughter. Israel is a rogue state, completely out of control, as described by many leading Jewish academics and thinkers, acting beyond all norms of morality and anything that we could conceive of as decency and humanity.
“And when Joe Biden goes to Israel and hugs, quite rightly, the parents of those slaughtered children and human beings who lost their lives on 7th October, he doesn’t f***ing go to Palestine and do it and hug the children there and hug the mothers and fathers and tell them that he loves them.
“That alone would bring about a ceasefire. I stand with humanity he should be saying.”
The leaders of Sinn Féin are going to the White House to shake hands with “Genocide Joe” on March 17 2024.
Here is one typical online response :
Read the rest of this entry »“Are there two international courts?!!” – Post published by the Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog
A very welcome post by Des Derwin, first published on the Cedar Lounge Revolution blog. Source : https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/are-there-two-international-courts/
Last week the left – alongside all decent people – was blaring a fanfare for the referral of Israel by South Africa to the International Court of Justice. And rightly so, of course. It is to be welcomed and it should be supported by the Irish government. All platforms and publications of the left are buzzing with it. South Africa is being commended effusively for their initiative and congratulated wholeheartedly for their solidarity with the people of Gaza. The left has, obliviously, great respect and faith in the International Court of Justice. The left sees it as very significant that a state should be brought to the International Court of Justice to answer for its crimes.
The BBC reported: ‘evidence submitted by South Africa claims “acts and omissions” by Israel “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”’. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922346
The Irish government and many other governments are being accused, not least by the Irish radical left, of double standards, inconsistency and hypocrisy in their attitudes and responses to Russian crimes in Ukraine and Israeli crimes in Palestine.
Read the rest of this entry »With Palestine and Ukraine – Against Russia, NATO and Israel – Greta Thunberg of Sweden leads the way – “denounces and fights both the Israeli genocidaires of the Palestinians and the Russian invaders of the Ukraine”
Ecosocialists in Ireland should follow the fine example of Greta Thunberg
Source : With Palestine and Ukraine against Russia, NATO and Israel Greta leads the way!
“And yet, despite the gloomy news, despite the rampant barbarism, despite the depression that pervades everything, there is still light and hope! And this light and this hope are the young people who are fighting at the same time on all the great fronts where humanity is measuring itself against death in its final struggle to exist: on the fronts of climate catastrophe and injustice, of Palestine and the Ukraine, on the fronts of the struggle of the poor, the oppressed and the humiliated throughout the world.”
And the most emblematic representative of this new generation resisting and counter-attacking is, of course, the young Swedish world citizen Greta Thunberg, who denounces and fights both the Israeli genocidaires of the Palestinians and the Russian invaders of the Ukraine, Putin’s obscurantist, imperialist Russia and militarist, equally imperialist NATO. And of course, above all, the capitalists and their governments who are methodically destroying our planet’s climate, preparing the most nightmarish future for humankind. And all this against the mainstream, despite the campaign of denigration and intimidation against her, fighting against all imperialisms without choosing one imperialism against another, one executioner and his victim more than another. And, above all, systematically putting her words into practice, even if they often land her in a police station or prison, handcuffed…
Read the rest of this entry »The War in Ukraine: Agenda for the Left – the most serious war on the European continent since the end of World War 2 in 1945 has not gone away, you know
Here are the latest articles published on the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine website ukraine-solidarity.eu in English.
For more information, write to the network at info@ukraine-solidarity.eu.
Israel’s genocidal war against Palestine has pushed Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine off the national and international headlines, but the most serious war on the European continent since the end of World War 2 in 1945 has not gone away, you know.
In a rational left-wing political ecosphere, all forces across the left would be promoting the information below, and seeking collective action in solidarity with the workers and social movements of Ukraine against Moscow’s sinister far-right invasion. It is time to step up solidarity with Ukraine, before it is too late. One of the articles linked below is reproduced at the end of this blog post : The War in Ukraine: Agenda for the Left . We also reproduce the latest news report written by the outstanding Irish Times Eastern Europe correspondent, Daniel McLaughlin.
Did British Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer say “Israel has the right” to cut off food water and electricity to 2 million people in Gaza?
A resident of Great Britain advises these posters are appearing in an English city. The correspondent observes “Someone is sailing very close to the wind with electoral law even if it is an accurate account of what he said. This is the latest and biggest of a series of these that have popped up locally.”
Has anyone seen these posters in other parts of the British state, including the bit styled “Northern Ireland”. I am guessing the posters would be popular in Scotland and Wales. They could catch on!
A correspondent wondered “And of course it’s not what he said!” – so the blog team looked it up.
Read the rest of this entry »Ukraine Needs Extra Aid – Everywhere, far-right forces are trying to facilitate Putin’s genocide – Oppose genocide in Ukraine and Palestine
Dublin City Council has voted unanimously to fly the Palestinian flag at City Hall on Dame Street for seven days. Great decision.
The Ukrainian flag should flutter alongside the Palestinian flag. Solidarity with the people of Palestine and Ukraine – under genocidal bombardment from the states of Israel and the Russian Federation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 