Palestinian Human Rights Defender Issa Amro convicted by Israeli military court

 

 An Israeli military court on Wednesday convicted  Palestinian rights activist Issa Amro of offences in the occupied West Bank, his lawyer said. Amro was convicted on three counts of protesting without a permit, two counts of obstructing security forces and one count of assault. his lawyer said,  Amro denied the charges,

Amro denied the charges, which included protesting without a permit, obstructing Israeli soldiers’ activities in the flashpoint city of Hebron and assaulting a Jewish settler.

The charges date back to 2010, according to a statement put out by his supporters, which said sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 8. It was not clear what kind of sentence he might receive.

The longtime Palestinian activist and organizer in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Issa  is a prominent human rights defender who has been recognized by the European Union and the United Nations,  and is a founding member of many non-violent organisations in Hebron who work peacefully against Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Amongst these organisations include the the Hebron branch of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), https://palsolidarity.org/  and Youth Against Settlements, a group that organizes non violent demonstrations and direct actions against the violent  settler encampments that are protected by heavily armed soldiers who frequently harass Palestinian residents in the city. He is also the founder of ‘Humans of Hebron’,http://humansofhebron.weebly.com/ which seeks to humanise the Palestinians of his city who have endured 53years living under Israel’s military boot.

Every year, Youth Against Settlements organizes a week of activities calling to open Shuhada Street. Once the city’s main commercial strip, Shuhada Street was closed off to Palestinians in 1994.Issa  inspired by the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi who he has been compared to and that of  Martin Luther King,  advocating civil disobedience and non-violent and pro-active measures to document and protest against the Israeli occupation in Hebron and the West Bank. 

Amro has been identified increasingly over the years as a targeted activist, and  he is frequently detained, arrested, and harassed for his work in the occupied territories.often after confrontations with settlers in which he says he was attacked and beaten. The Palestinian Authority detained him for a week in 2017 over a Facebook post critical of President Mahmoud Abbas .

Hundreds of hard-line Jewish settlers live in the heart of Hebron in enclaves guarded by Israeli troops. The city has a population of over 200,000 Palestinians, and there is a long history of tensions between the two communities.

 Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of a future state. Most countries view the presence of nearly a half million Jewish settlers in the West Bank as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace. Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical connections to the territory, as well as security needs.

Amro's supporters say the charges are linked to his participation in various peaceful protests over the years. They said the assault charge stems from a previously closed case in 2010 in which Amro allegedly shoved someone during a scuffle in which he said he was assaulted.

Amnesty International said in a statement ahead of Wednesday's hearing that Amro faced “politically motivated charges for his peaceful activism against Israel’s military occupation and illegal settlements.

Amnesty also said it would consider Amro a "prisoner of conscience" if he was convicted, and has expressed fears that Amro's  conviction would lead to further suppression of Palestinian  voices against the occupation. 

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of a future state. The Palestinians view the presence of nearly a half million Jewish settlers in the West Bank as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace.

“It doesn’t make sense to punish someone for non-violent resistance,” Amro told Reuters. “The Israeli military system exists only to oppress Palestinians and restrict freedom of speech.”

Amro was convicted on six of 18 charges against him, in incidents that occurred between 2010 and 2016, his lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said.

Lasky said it was hard to predict whether Amro would face prison time, but that a Palestinian in a similar case received a 10-month term.

Amro said his next Palestinian court hearing is on January 20.

Most countries view settlements Israel built on West Bank land captured in a 1967 war as illegal. Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical connections to the territory, as well as security needs.

 Issa is not a criminal but a human rights defender who uses principles of non-violence that can only be commended. He and  all other  human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territories I believe should be able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities, including through the exercise of their right to free assembly, without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.  

 Amro is one of dozens of leaders across the West Bank and East Jerusalem who are using nonviolent tactics, civil disobedience, and direct action to challenge Israel's occupation. The work of these activists has gone nearly unrecognized,  but for years he and others have been courageously  carrying on with this work regardless of the consequences. Currently it seems that Issa is being used as an example to instill fear in other activists who resist the occupation. 

Solidarity with Issa and all others put under similar situation, His case another example of widespread targetting of human rights activists using old and exaggerated charges in a military court system whose conviction for Palestinians  is over 99%,

Support the Teachers Before the Tories

The National Education Union has told its members that they must not return to work on Monday, referencing the strains on the NHS and the lack of effective steps by the government to make schools safe against COVID transmission.

Calling on the government to delay the opening of schools until at least 18 January and to move schools to online learning, NEU Vice President Daniel Kebede told teachers:

Our Heads and School Leaders have been amazing. However the Government have failed to deliver the resource we need.

As a result transmission of Covid in schools has been driving transmission in communities. This has pushed our NHS to breaking point.

The Government must do the correct thing and delay the opening of schools until the 18th January. Schools must move online and be open to Vulnerable and Key Worker children only.

If the government don’t do what is right, and delay the opening of schools, we will action our legal rights under Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act.

Schools are not safe for our young people, our educators or our communities.
Education will continue remotely. Do not go into work for Monday’s INSET, work from home.

In Solidarity.

Their union leader claimed what was right for London was right for the rest of the country and called on ministers to "do their duty" and close all primary and secondary schools to contain the coronavirus.The demand, from the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, Mary Bousted, came after Education Secretary Gavin Williamson in an embarrassing U-turn bowed to pressure to close all primary schools in the capital.

Also in an abrupt policy reversal following protests and threats of legal action by local authorities, Mr Williamson also signalled more schools outside London could close by warning that the list of closures is being kept under review.

On Wednesday, in a hastily arranged statement to MPs on bringing children back to school this term, Mr Williamson said that the majority of primary schools in England would open as planned on Monday 4 January.

Announcing his climbdown, Mr Williamson said: "Children's education and wellbeing remains a national priority. Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution.

"As infection rates rise across the country, and particularly in London, we must make this move to protect our country and the NHS. We will continue to keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can."

Another teachers' union leader, NASUWT general secretary Dr Patrick Roach, said: "Yet again, parents, pupils and staff are having to deal with the consequences of yet more last-minute chaotic announcements from the government.

"In just a matter of days, the government's plans for the safe reopening of schools are unravelling.

"Primary schools and parents in Tier 4 areas across the country will no doubt wonder why the government regards the risks to their health and safety as less significant than in other Tier 4 areas in London and the southeast of England."

Once again, and in spite of the lack of support from Keir Starmer's Labour party, unions are leading the way to protect their members and the children they teach, while the government recklessly refuses to act for most of the country , despite now acknowledging that schools are the engine of the pandemic. 

Remember: education is a devolved responsibility so the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland choose whether their schools will open or not.

According to the BBC,

In Wales, there will be “flexibility” at the beginning of term, with teaching due to start in most places from 4 January. Schools are expected to offer face-to-face learning for most pupils by 11 January, with a full return by 18 January.

In Northern Ireland, primary school pupils will be taught online until 11 January. In secondary schools, years 8 to 11 will be taught online throughout January. Years 12 to 14 will return to school after the first week of January.

In Scotland, the Christmas holidays have been extended to 11 January, and the following week will be online learning only. A full return to face-to-face learning is planned for 18 January.

Dr Bousted  also pointed out that it is impossible to stop children from mixing with each other in large numbers and if just one has the virus, then they all may catch it and transmit it to their families – and out into the community.Which would condemn thousands to catch the virus when the NHS cannot take the strain and fatalities are rising.

Our schools and colleges are simply not safe. Full classrooms provide an environment where the new variant will quickly spread. No member of staff and no pupil should have to work in such dangerous conditions.

For months, the government has been ignoring growing evidence that school aged children have high levels of infection and that poorly ventilated, closely-packed schools have been an important factor in the spread of Covid-19.

Keeping schools fully open has nothing to do with keeping children safe. Instead it has put more lives in danger, more pressure on an overwhelmed NHS, more chaotic disruption in schools. Before Christmas, even their own scientific advisers warned ministers that "accumulating evidence is consistent with increased transmission occurring amongst school children when schools are open". 

With Covid infections r record levels, hundreds of deaths each day and many hospitals at breaking point, it is inevitable that once again mixing in  schools could have a devastating impact on the spread of the virus, particularly amid the emergence of the highly infectious mutant strain.

 We must not let this rotten  government treat our  hardworking teachers lives with such disdain and such dismissal. Full support and solidarity to the National Education Union in calling for schools to close. If our government refuses to protect staff and communities then the unions have to stand  up for all of us, and if the teachers refuse to go back to school on Monday, it's up to the rest of us to support them.

 I have just signed the following petition from the National Education Union and unison the union, to keep families and schools safe. We must make schools safe to protect our communities. Please sign too.

 

https://actionnetwork.org/forms/make-schools-safe-and-protect-communities?source=twitter& 

Beyond This Weeping World

Escaping annus horribilus on a global scale

The chaos all around us, that has spread so much fear,

Daily death throes, that release a dutiful concern

The rising distrust of establishment that has taken hold,

An ongoing nightmare, that is cursing silently hope

Tender now are hearts, filled with worry and sorrow,

Tensions increasing, thoughts of conspiracy growing

We have to lift one another, pray for a better tomorrow,

Beyond the ongoing confusion, anger and mistrust

Lets be seduced by the sound of distant violins,

As sands of time, stretch out and rearrange

May our cherry lips one day soon reconnect,

We can gather again, wash away our tears

Under the Golden sun still shining upon us,

Allow us to awaken to a more fragrant world

Destroy the bubbles that contain and imprison,

Hands again clasped together, friends and foe

Allow anguished memories, soak in to the earth,

Let every moment of the future, nourish our souls

With steady steps, may our evenings be less remote.

 As the old year leaves, and a new one begins, all the very best , stay safe, heddwch/ peace

Wounded Knee Massacre: Never Forget, Never Forgive.

                                             
                                                         poster by Bruce Carter

On this day 1890,the US army massacred  over 300 Lakota Sioux men, women and children  at Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. .
Earlier that fall,  native American Indians had began hosting ritual Ghost Dances to celebrate and bring back the native way of life. The Ghost Dance ritual spread through native communities in the Dakota revitalising native culture, but terrifying White officials known as Indian Agents. White officials unsuccessfully attempted to outlaw the Ghost Dance. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....We need protection and we need it now." The event’s common name, “The Battle of Wounded Knee,” obscures the true horrors of that day. For this was no “battle” — it was a massacre. The military  on the morning of December 29th with a force of over 500 soldiers. found a pneumonia-stricken chief with his cold and frightened followers. Big Foot explained that he was not a hostile, but instead was trying to meet with other chiefs to arrange a peaceful solution to the crisis with the soldiers. When the troops moved to disarm Big Foot’s Lakota warriors, who remained peaceful,  a deaf and confused Lakota misfired his gun into the air, a shot that was the only impetus U.S. forces  to unleash overwhelming force onto the bed-ridden chief and his fleeing people and initiate a slaughter.

By the end of the brutal and unnecessary violence,  hundreds  of native Indian  lives were lost including the Lakotan Chief Big Foot. The massacre, the violent climax of decades of white duplicity, greed, murder and theft, is often considered the "last showdown" between the United States and the native people of the American frontier.In the aftermath as many as 300 Lakota Sioux men, women and children were killed, many shot in the back while attempting to flee. Their bodies left to freeze  in a mass grave. It serves today as a constant   reminder  and example of the brutal mistreatment and oppression bestowed upon the Indians. 

Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it's unlikely that Big Foot's band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians specylate that th soldiers of the 7th Cavalry had deliberately taken revenge for the regiment's defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever thee motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America's cruel deadly war against the Plains Indians.

 

 A mass grave after the Wounded Knee Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota in 1890

In 2008 a petition was  launched demanding that the U.S reclaim the medal of Honour  that was given to 22 members of  the 7th Cavalry  for their role in the massacre of defenceless Indians , and to remove any  recognition the U.S military bestowed to its entities for the massacre and to obtain  the return  of personal items taken from the Lakota people.https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/12-20-1890/
The federal government tried to forever erase the memory of Wounded Knee. The village that sprang up on the site of the massacre was named Brennan after a Bureau of Indian Affairs official. But the Lakota people never forgot. Much as the “Ghost Dance” was the first truly pan-Indian movement, Wounded Knee became a pan-Indian site for memorializing the dead, recalling the pain, remembering the Indians’ hopes for a different kind of world, mourning the death of those hopes, and mobilizing to protest contemporary conditions that are the legacies of white Americans’ war of genocide against the Indian tribes that peopled North America before they got there.
The deaths at Wounded Knee marked an important and tragic point in American history for Native Americans. But after Wounded Knee came hunger, disease, malnutrition, and population decline and thousands  more Native Americans were killed or forced into reservations by the U.S. government throughout American history. Over 80 years later in  1973 the American Indian Movement (A.I.M ) occupied Wounded Knee, noting its historic significance, choosing this place,  because it alluded to physical loss and injury. When AIM challenged people to “Remember Wounded Knee,” there were multiple meanings at play,  AIM encouraged people to not only remember this history, but to also correct the normative white history that has become the standard American narrative, often stripped of the violence and injustice Native Americans faced.
 After a 71 day stand off ensured with federal law enforcement officials. Leonard Peltier an A.I.M leader was asked  by traditional people at Pine Ridge  in South Dakota to support and protect them. He was later illegally arrested by means  of coerced and fraudulent testimony for the murder of 2 F.B.I agents.After a trial in which irregularities and discrimination were on the agenda, he was convicted of a jury made up of whites alone. In Fargo, a city known for anti-Indian sentiments, and by a judge known for his racism. Discordant testimonies were used.He was always denied the review of the trial, despite the fact that new testimonies and evidence exonerated him. In 2020 he ran as the vice-presidential running mate of Gloria La Riva on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation  in the presidential campaign, but was forced to resign from the ticket for health reasons in early August 2020, and was replaced with Sunil Freeman.. Today after forty-four years  hard prison and long periods of isolation, he is now one of the longest held political prisoners in the United States,who continues to suffer the injustice of being denied his freedom because of being a native American, of having fought for the rights of his  people to which he belongs, and for not having renounced his struggles. 
Two  earlier posts of relevance  can be found here:- 

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/leonard-peltier-day.html.

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/05/40-years-after-american-indian-movement.html

After the Wounded Knee occupation, nearly 1200 Indian activists were arrested, and the incident began the FBI and BIA instigated "Reign of Terror." and during  the three years following , 64 tribal members were unsolved murder victims, 300 harassed and beaten, and 562 arrests were made, and of these arrests only 15 people were convicted of any crime. A large price to pay for a movement to live as a free people on the land of one's ancestors.
Past and present, the Sioux and other American Indians have charted a path of defiance and independence despite genocidal efforts by European conquerors and American settlers. Today, as I remember these ancestors lost on December 29th, 1890, their peace on earth shattered, all those winters ago, this particularly brutal chapter in the violent effort to wipe out America’s first peoples, a horrific event that has resonated with native american writers ever since. For Native Americans today, the slaughter of unarmed women and children dominates a painful history of U.S. government Indian policies centered on assimilation and genocide.American Indians are still fighting injustices and fighting to recover from injustices of the past.A proud people wo have been  massacred, brutalized, humiliated and reduced by the "progress" brought by the "whites" and their capitalist society to survive in the absence of rights and without a future worthy of its name.  Wounded Knee: Never Forget, Never Forgive. 

Dancing Towards Wounded Knee :The Hope and Tragedy of the Ghost Dance Religion

 Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - Buffy Sainte Marie

Indian legislation on the desk of a do-right Congressman
Now, he don't know much about the issue
so he picks up the phone and he asks advice from the
Senator out in Indian country
A darling of the energy companies who are
ripping off what's left of the reservations. Huh.

1.
I learned a safety rule
I don't know who to thank
Don't stand between the reservation and the
corporate bank
They send in federal tanks
It isn't nice but it's reality
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Huh.

2.
They got these energy companies that want the land
and they've got churches by the dozen who want to
guide our hands
and sign Mother Earth over to pollution, war and
greed
Get rich... get rich quick.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Huh.

3. We got the federal marshals
We got the covert spies
We got the liars by the fire
We got the FBIs
They lie in court and get nailed
and still Peltier goes off to jail
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Huh.

4.
My girlfriend Annie Mae talked about uranium
Her head was filled with bullets and her body dumped
The FBI cut off her hands and told us she'd died of  exposure
Loo loo loo loo loo

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Huh.

We had the Goldrush Wars
Aw, didn't we learn to crawl and still our history gets
written in a liar's scrawl
They tell ‘ya “Honey, you can still be an Indian
d-d-down at the ‘Y'
on Saturday nights”

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Huh!

Countess Constance Markievicz first woman elected to UK's House of Commons

 

 

Countess Constance Marchievicz (née Gore-Booth) was a painter, revolutionary,socialist, activist, politician and a republican who dedicated her life to Ireland’s struggle for independence The story of Constance, Countess Markievicz, is a story of a woman of determination, independence, idealism and self-sacrifice in pursuit of freedom for the Irish people. It is the story of a woman who has inspired generations of Irish men and women.

The name Constance means 'Firm of Purpose' and 'Steadfastness' and it was these very traits that brought Countess Constance Markievicz into the Irish history books. I greatly admire humans who fight against formidable odds for what they believe in and there is no better example of this than the legendary and gutsy Irishwoman, Countess Constance Georgine Markievicz 

She  was born Constance Gore-Booth on, February 4th, 1868 at Buckingham Gate, London, the daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth, explorer, philanthropist and heir to extensive estates at Lissadell, County Sligo. When Sir Henry inherited his estates, the family moved to Lissadell, where Constance and her younger sister Eva Gore-Booth were educated by governesses. The young W.B. Yeats was a frequent visitor, as was A.E. George Russell, and other literary figures of the time.

Constance was presented at the Court of Queen Victoria when she was nineteen and took her place in society. She intended to be a full time artist, and in 1893 went to London to study at the Slade School, and to Paris in 1898, to the Julian School. Here she met her future husband, Count Casimir Dunin Markievicz, a practising artist from a land-owning family of Polish extraction in the Ukraine, Russia. The couple settled in Dublin in 1903, and had one daughter Maeve, born at Lissadell in 1901, who was reared by her grand-parents.

Constance and her husband soon became part of the artistic and social life of the capital. She began to make a name for herself as a landscape artist, and though her output was small some of her work is represented in Municipal collections and other Galleries.Soon they were the center of Dublin’s artistic set. As he painted, she painted; he wrote plays, she starred in them; and both were the darlings of Dublin Castle. Some time later when asked why she no longer attended balls at the Castle, the Countess didn’t hesitate – “Because I want to blow it up.” The Markievicz marriage was not a success; the couple separated and Casimir left Dublin. Thereafter, the Countess, as she was known, became increasingly interested in nationalism and social issues.

Her transformation from society doyenne to rebel was swift, beginning innocently enough on a painting retreat in the country. It was there she found the writings of Irish revolutionary poet Padraic Colum and, as she put it, “the lightning struck at last.” Back in Dublin, she joined, in quick order, Sinn Féin, Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland),a revolutionary women’s movement—and teamed up with her sister  Eva to oppose the election of Winston Churchill to the British parliament. As the nationalist cause gained momentum, Constance founded the Warriors of Ireland (Fianna Éireann), which trained teenagers in the use of firearms. Speaking at a rally of 30,000 people opposed to King George V’s visit to Ireland in 1911, Countess Constance experienced her first arrest, after she helped stone the likeness of the King and Queen and tried to burn the British flag.

During the Lock out of 1913, in which workers who supported the union were shut out of their places of employment, the Countess assisted in the soup kitchens where she worked tirelessly, then personally delivered food to the poor and starving of Dublin.

She joined with “Big Jim” Larkin and James Connolly in the Lockout of 1913, that led to the formation of the Irish Citizen Army, a band of trade union workers. The Countess, a lieutenant in the Army, was its most enthusiastic member – she designed the Citizen Army uniforms and wrote its theme song. Its leader, James Connolly, became, forever, her hero.

In April 1916, Irish republicans staged an insurrection; Constance was appointed staff lieutenant, second in command at St. Stephen’s Green, the park in central Dublin. With her troops responsible for barricading the park, fighting flared after Connolly shot a policeman who had tried to prevent him from entering City Hall. Rumor had Constance shooting a British army sniper in the head, but she was never charged in such a death. Pinned down by British fire at St. Stephen’s Green, she pulled her troops back to the Royal College of Surgeons, where they held out for nearly a week before surrendering.

Taken to Kilmainham jail, Constance Markievicz was isolated from her comrades and court-martialed for “causing disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty”; she was convicted and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison because of her sex.

A few days later, she heard a volley from a firing squad at dawn and was informed that her mentor, James Connolly, had been executed.

“Why don’t they let me die with my friends?” she asked.

At her court-martial, Constance was defiant, taunting the court, “At least Ireland was free for a week!” Overjoyed at being condemned to death, she was soon outraged when her sentence was reduced to penal servitude – “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me.” The British government, fearing a cult would grow around her, sent Constance to Aylesbury Prison in Buckinghamshire where she was denied the status of political prisoner.

Eva Gore-Booth, a highly skilled activist, saw her sister’s failing health, lobbied for more humane treatment of prisoners, and in 1917 helped to get her sister included in an amnesty for participants in the Easter Rising.

Constance returned to Ireland a hero and was practically carried by a welcoming crowd to Liberty Hall in Dublin, where she declared herself back in politics. As Sinn Fein’s new leader Eamon de Valera  saw Constance Markievicz elected to the 24-member executive council. But in 1918, she was back in jail after the British arrested Sinn Fein’s leaders for working against the conscription of troops for World War I,. 

While in Britain’s Holloway Prison, incredibly she ran for a seat in Parliament. The Irishwoman with the Polish name won and became the first woman elected to the British Parliament on 28th December, 1918 beating her opponent with 66% of the vote. In accordance with Sinn Féin, Madame refused to take an oath of allegiance to the King and when the other Irish M.P.s voted to form the Dáil Éireann she cast her vote as fé ghlas ag Gallaibh (“imprisoned abroad”). Sinn Fein MPs did not take up their seats, because they would be required to swear allegiance to the crown, which explains why establishment figure Nancy Astor is celebrated as the first woman to sit as an MP after winning an election in 1919.  

It is important to remember that the Constance Markievicz was not only the first woman elected to the House of Commons, she was also elected on an openly feminist and socialist platform. Her election was, therefore, even more extraordinary than is usually acknowledged. 

When Markievicz was released from Holloway, she joined the revolutionary Irish Republic’s parliament – also becoming the first elected woman cabinet minister in the world. Constance was against the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921.A  staunch republican, she was again jailed during Ireland’s 1922–23 civil war, but in 1927,weakened by spells behind bars and penniless she died aged 59 on 15 July 1927 in Dublin, Ireland  in Sir Patrick Dunn’s Hospital in Dublin. 

Her position as an activist, a militant woman, a rebel, the first woman MP, the first woman minister, and her radical ideas about equality (of gender and class)  has a place in revolutionary history,and  deservedly, she is now being accepted as one of the central figures, male or female, of revolutionary Ireland.Countess Markievicz was buried  on 15th July 1927 in Glasnevin Cemetry alongside many of her fellow Irish patriots.  Her Glasnevin funeral was attended by 300,000 people.  What a woman.

"Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver." Countess Constance Markievicz, 

Operation Cast Lead Remembered

  

On December 27th 2008, Israel  without warning began an intensive campaign that would last 22 days, combined with a ground invasion which they called 'operation cast lead,' It would lead to  death and destruction and international condemnation and protests and would be met by Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
In the aftermath of the offensive, a UN-appointed fact finding mission found strong evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Israeli military and Palestinian militias. Investigations by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch came to the same conclusion. 

Six months before Cast Lead, Israel negotiated a ceasefire with Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. Under the agreement, which went into effect on June 19, 2008, both sides agreed to stop hostilities across the Green Line, the de facto border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Despite a number of violations by both sides, the truce was largely successful. 

Hamas negotiators claim that Israel agreed to end its closure of Gaza's border crossings as part of the ceasefire agreement, however Israeli officials dispute this. While Israel did resume operations at one border crossing, the overall policy of closure did not change. Two months after the truce began, the UN reported that the number of goods allowed into Gaza actually decreased.

Nevertheless, overall, a situation of relative quiet prevailed in and around Gaza until November 4, when Israeli soldiers staged a raid into the Strip, killing six members of Hamas. The attack, which took place on the eve of the US presidential elections, ended the ceasefire and led to an escalation of hostilities culminating in Cast Lead the following month.

Despite claiming that Operation Cast Lead  was a response to Hamas rockets and Hamas was refusing to negotiate another ceasefire, which was untrue, Israel later revealed it had been planning the offensive for 6 months. The reality was that Israel provoked Hamas, and then used their retaliation as an excuse to launch the offensive for two reasons to send Hamas a message and to attempt to recover the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. 

Operation Cast Lead proceeded in two phases: a week of intense aerial bombing followed by two weeks of a joint air and land assault and invasion. The surprise attack began at 11:30 a.m. on December 27, 2008, with Israeli F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopters, and unmanned drones striking more than 100 locations across the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip within a matter of minutes.

Among the targets were four Palestinian police stations, including the central police headquarters in Gaza City, where a graduation ceremony for new officers was underway. Ninety-nine police personnel and 9 members of the public were killed in the first minutes of the attack. By the end of the first day at least 230 Palestinians had been killed.

 The massive bombardment continued until January 3, 2009, when the Israeli army invaded the Strip from the north and east. Israel's navy also shelled Gaza from offshore. The  ferocity of the attack was  unprecedented in the more than six decade conflict. Reports of the exact number of Palestinians killed vary, but casualty figures supplied by credible independent nongovernmental organizations are generally consistent.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that the offensive left 1,419 Palestinians dead, including 1,167 civilians. The Centre also reported more than 5,000 Palestinians wounded, as did the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reported 1,385 Palestinians killed, including 762 noncombatants, and 318 minors under the age of 18.

Officially, local authorities in Gaza put the total Palestinian fatalities at 1,444. For its part, the Israeli government claimed that 1,166 Palestinians were killed, including 709 combatants.According to Israeli authorities, three Israeli civilians and one soldier were killed by rockets fired from Gaza during Cast Lead. Nine Israeli soldiers also died in combat in Gaza, including four killed by friendly fire. According to the UN, 518 Israelis were wounded.

On January 18, 2009, under enormous international pressure and just two days before Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew its forces from Gaza. Palestinian armed groups followed with a separate unilateral ceasefire.

In April 2009, following international outrage at the carnage caused by Cast Lead, the UN Human Rights Council established a Fact Finding Mission to investigate possible violations of international law committed during the conflict. Leading the mission was Justice Richard Goldstone, a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and war crimes prosecutor for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The four members of the mission visited Gaza in late May and early June 2009, holding hearings there and in Geneva. They conducted 188 interviews and reviewed more than 10,000 pages of documents, more than 30 videos, and 1,200 photographs.

Israel refused to cooperate with the inquiry, denying the mission the opportunity to meet with Israeli officials or visit the West Bank.
As a result of its investigation, the mission issued the so-called "Goldstone Report," a 575-page document detailing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli military. The report also accused Palestinian armed groups of war crimes as a result of indiscriminate rockets attacks on Israeli civilians living near Gaza.  an incendiary substance that is illegal when used in populated areas. Israeli forces illegally used white phosphorus (a banned chemical weapon)  in attacks on at least two hospitals (Al-Quds Hospital and Al-Wafa Hospital), as well as the central UN compound in Gaza City. Numerous civilian casualties were caused by white phosphorus in the small, densely populated Strip. leading to symptoms that medical professionals had never seen before. Burning flesh to the bone. In what amounts to  a war crime in violation of international law. Also there was deliberate targetting of civilians and vital infrastructure. 

In addition to the Goldstone Report, human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports of their own documenting numerous allegations of war crimes being committed by Israeli forces.

The horrors inflicted remain  indelibilly embedded in the minds of all Gazans. As many as 340,000 Palestinians were displaced by Peration Cast lead and due to the blockade many of these remain homeless. Twelve years later, Gaza still relies on international  aid for day to day activities, including the most basic needs such as food and drink. 75% of homes  destroyed are still waiting to be rebuilt. Leaving many people still displaced. The people of Gaza  left with a legacy of poverty and economic injustice,  80% of the population lives under the poverty line. 1.8 million of people in Gaza still locked in like animals by Israels illegal blockade, that  prevents them from access to essential goods that are needed to rebuild and sustain life.
In a sense the war never ended. People still demanding an end to the occupation and justice, because without justice, peace will remain a distant illusion.as conditions for Palestinians  continue to deteriorate our solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine is more necessary than ever.

 

Further References

 

Amnesty International

Operation 'Cast Lead': 22 Days of Death and Destruction (July 2009)

Impunity for war crimes in Gaza and southern Israel a recipe for further civilian suffering (July 2009)

Breaking the Chains

Poems and songs are written

To illuminate our shadows,

From Gaza and other prisons

Tales of endurance daily woven,

Where rights of humanity are violated

When darkness alters feeling,

With craft can open windows

Release all the doors that contain,

Allow the fire in hearts to be nourished

Hear the sparks of another tongue,

Feed the lonely, so their not forgotten

Allow feelings of love to be exchanged,

Under sky clouds of passing division

Allow thoughts to heal and mend,

Under the constant threads of unhappiness

let our words, soften the world's gloom.

The Sonics - don't believe in christmas

We have all  lived through  12 months  dominated  by coronavirus , a disease that has at least exposed the fragility and inequality of the global economy like nothing before, 

combined with thousands  going hungry, the  NHS on its knees, food banks growing , don't get me started on the chaos that will be caused by Brexit. This morning alone we have seen miles of queues along the M20 as companies rushed to stockpile before the end of the of the transition period, with swathes of  Britain now in in Tier3  Covid restrictions , Brexit talks  looking grimmer and grimmer  and relations between  the UK Government  and devolved  parliaments worse than ever it does not seem to be the  season to be merry. 

As Tony Blair hints at return to political life to lead coronavirus vaccination efforts , are we not already doomed enough. With forces of racism, xenophobia,  intolerance exploiting our fears, as we struggle on,  lets try not give up hope, find a way to create a fairer society, personally I feel that  getting rid of the Torys is now a national emergency.

In the face of  continual hardships, as all of us now forced into lockdown, I offer some simple musical respite, there are all types of Christmas songs, from the pure and sacred to the the ultra profane,  but  this song from the Washington state garage rock band The Sonics from 1965  really makes my feet shuffle, it's a mighty fine distraction .  In these crazy, twisted fucked up times, wishing you a peaceful and safe holiday, look after yourselves.

Mother Maria of Paris : Anti Fascist Martyr

 

 

Maria Skobtsova , known as Mother Maria of Paris, who saved numerous Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris,  was born Elisabeth Pilenko on 20th December 1891 to a well-to-do Russian family in the Latvian city of Riga. Her parents were devout Orthodox Christians and in this atmosphere of piety Elisabeth was raised to love and serve God. All this changed at the age of fourteen when her father died, which seemed meaningless and unjust to her. She decided that she no longer believed in God and declared herself an atheist. "If there is no justice, there is no God!" she said.

During her teenage years, Russia was in the throes of the approaching end of Tsarist rule, the subsequent revolution and Communist rise to power. Elisabeth became enamored of this revolutionary movement and at the age of 18 married a member of the Bolshevik party. While at the university in St. Petersburg, she was involved with an avant-garde literary circle and later published two volumes of poetry that were highly acclaimed.  Though she still regarded herself as an atheist she began to question her revolutionary sympathies as she saw the violence, poverty and suffering that the revolution plunged Russia into. Little by little, her earlier attraction to Christ and His Church came back to life and grew deeper in her soul. She began to read the Gospels and lives of the Saints. She applied for entrance to the Theological Seminary at St. Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg, an unprecedented request. Up to this date only male students preparing for the priesthood were admitted to the seminary and yet, surprisingly, she was admitted to the renowned school.

By 1913 Elisabeth's marriage had collapsed and ended in divorce while she was expecting their first child, Gaiana. Returning home to her family's country estate in Russia's south, she joined the Social Revolutionary party  after the February Revolution. She apparently wished to assassinate Leon Trotsky for closing the SR Party Congress, but friends persuaded her to instead move back to the Black Sea to work for the SR there. She was very active as a community organizer in Anapa, and in 1918 was elected mayor of the city when it fell under White Army control. 

She led underground resistance against the Bolsheviks, while trying to protect the population from the terror of the new regime. She was arrested and put on trial, but managed to escape capital punishment due to a skilled defence and help by the judge, D. Skobtsov, whom she ended up falling in love with and marrying. Before long Elizabeth was again pregnant and her son, Yuri, was born and later another daughter, Anastasia. With the Bolsheviks beginning to gain the upper hand in the civil war, Daniel and Elizabeth decided s too dangerous to remain in Russia and after a long journey found themselves in Paris, France in 1923.

Tragedy struck the family in 1926 when five year old Anastasia died of influenza. After keeping vigil by her daughter's bedside for a month and watching her beloved child die, Elizabeth penned these mournful words:

"When someone you love has died, the gates have suddenly opened onto eternity, all natural life has trembled and collapsed, yesterday's laws have been abolished, desires have faded, meaning has become meaningless, and another incomprehensible meaning has grown wings on their backs..... Everything flies into the black maw of the fresh grave: hopes, plans, calculations, above all, meaning, the meaning of a whole life. If this is so, then everything has to be reconsidered, everything rejected, seen in its corruptibility and falseness. " 

In Paris, more and more moved by religious impulse after the deaths of her daughters, she completed a course of study at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute by correspondence, and in 1932 became a lay nun, taking the name Maria. She became aware that God was calling her to become a mother to all people who would cross her path. She felt that she was to share the love she had for her daughter with all people, especially "for all who need maternal care, assistance, or protection," as she said. While her husband supported the family by driving a taxi, Elizabeth devoted herself more and more to social work and theological writing. Perhaps a result of their daughter's death, Elizabeth's second marriage to Daniel Skobstov was dying and they soon separated.

Elizabeth acquired a position with an agency that assisted Russian refugees living in France and saw first-hand the poverty and dire circumstances in which they lived. With two failed marriage behind her, Elizabeth searched for what her true vocation in life was to be. With the support of her bishop, Metropolitan Evlogy, she began to consider the monastic life. But she felt herself drawn to a new form of monastic life, one that combined prayer and contemplation with service to those in need around her. She was tonsured a nun in 1932 and given the name Maria. Metropolitan Evlogy blessed her to devote herself to a new kind of monastic life, what she called "monasticism in the world." She opened a house of hospitality in Paris to serve the poor, the homeless, the desperate. She was not content to simply wait for the needy to ring her doorbell but traveled the back alleys and bars of Paris seeking out those in need of her maternal care. She entered those places where other people were simply afraid to go; she found beggars and drunkards, took them to her home, washed, clothed, and fed them.

The last phase of Mother Maria's life began when the German Nazis conquered and occupied France during World War II. While it would have been possible for her to flee France as the Germans were advancing toward Paris, she refused to leave. "If the Germans take Paris, I shall stay here with my old women. Where else could I send them?"

Mother Maria joined some colleagues in preparing and dispatching food parcels and funds to families of more than 1,000 Russian émigrés who were imprisoned by the Nazis.Early in 1942 the Nazis began their registration of Jews. Jews began to knock on the door of the house of hospitality asking if the chaplain, Father Dimitri Klepinine, would issue fake baptismal certificates to save their lives. With the support of Mother Maria, Father Dmitri issued the fake documents, convinced that Christ would do the same. When the order came from Berlin that the yellow star must be worn by all Jews, many French Christians felt that this was not their concern since it was not a Christian problem. Mother Maria replied, "There is no such thing as a Christian problem. Don't you realize that the battle is being waged against Christianity? If we were true Christians we would all wear the Star. The age of confessors has arrived."  She also hid Jews at Lourmel and forged documents for them.

In July, 1942, mass arrests of Jews began to take place--12,884 were arrested of whom 6,900 were children. They were held prisoner in the Velodrome d’Hiver, Paris’ sports stadium, just a kilometer from Mother Maria's house, before they were sent to Auschwitz. With her monastic robe gaining her entrance, she spent three days at the sports stadium distributing food and clothing and even managing to smuggle out some children by bribing garbage collectors to hide them in trash cans. Her house of hospitality was literally bursting at the seams with people, many of them Jews. Mother Maria remarked, "It is amazing that the Germans haven't pounced on us yet." She also said that if anyone came looking for Jews she would show them an icon of the Mother of God.

On February 8, 1943 the Nazis did pounce and arrested Mother Maria, her son Yuri, Father Dmitri, and their helper, Elia Fondaminski. In the pocket of Yuri was found a letter from a Jewish family asking for a false baptismal certificate.

Father Dmitri was interrogated by Hans Hoffinan, a Gestapo officer. A portion of the interrogation has been preserved:

Hoffman: If we release you, will you give your word never again to aid Jews?

Father Dimitri: I can do no such thing. I am a Christian and must act as I must.

 (Hoffinan struck the priest across the face.)

Hoffman: Jew lover! How dare you talk of helping those swine as being a Christian duty!

Father Dimitri: (holding up the cross from his cassock): Do you know this Jew?

For this Father Dimitri was knocked to the floor.

Mother Maria and those arrested with her were all sent to concentration camps--the men to Buchenwald and Dora and Mother Maria to Ravensbruck. There, as prisoner Number 19263, she continued her ministry among her companions, with the strength of her faith giving them encouragement and love in the midst of hopelessness and despair. Finally, Maria, her health broken, could no longer pass the roll call on Good Friday 1945. She stepped into the line with those women condemned to die, hoping to inspire them to meet their fate with faith in God. As one witness wrote, “She offered herself consciously to the holocaust . . . thus assisting each one of us to accept the cross. . . . She radiated the peace of God and communicated it to us.” Mother Maria Skobtsova was  killed in the gas chamber at Ravensbruck concentration camp on March 31, 1945, Holy Saturday, only a week before the camp was liberated. 

In 1985, Yad Vashem recognized her as Righteous Among the Nations for her work saving Jews from the Holocaust, and in 2004, with some controversy, she was a former socialist revolutionary who was twice-married for starters, and she remained an intellectual of leftist bent throughout her life, the fact that she smoked, and her somewhat heterodox preaching,  the Russian Orthodox Church canonized her as a martyred saint.

Passing Christmas Lights

 

Passing colors glowing, tinsel hung high 

Christmas lights, shimmering and sparkling

the smell of food, enticing on tongue

another world lingers though

a different reality resides

in the corner of our eyes

beyond the tragedy of hunger

the waste of consumerism

austerity that daily bites.

For many now the air drips with sadness

as the cold season blows again

people on their own, due to Covid pandemic 

as the sky above turns dark and grey

citizens left wanting, running on empty

struggling on, feeding on misery and decay

but think of all the Turkey's that will be  saved.

Perhaps some small acts of kindness
will be sufficient to keep some gladness alight
against buffeting winds, strength can grow
allow people to decorate hearts with hope
fill glasses full of reason and some cheer
with little things, perhaps time will heal
abandon the past, infiltrate the future 
share some sustenance of survival.