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Stolen from the creator Ethan Heitner’s blog.

Normalising Apartheid: The Israeli parliamentary visit to Ireland

Yesterday, Irish Left Review published a piece I wrote concerning the recent Israeli hasbara mission to Ireland. Entitled, ‘Normalising Apartheid: The Israeli Parliamentary Visit to Ireland’ it analyzes the visit in the context of the Irish government’s apparent warming to the Apartheid state of Israel. You can read it (and leave comments) online by clicking here.

EXCERPT:This visit, the highest profile Israeli state visit in over 25 years, was part of an ongoing attempt to normalise the abnormal, i.e., the apartheid policies of the Israeli state directed against the Palestinian people. Such visits – including the official welcomes by both the Dail and Seanad, along with high profile political meetings – serve only to legitimise Israel’s apartheid regime and associated breaches of international law. They portray serious and grave breaches of international law not as clear-cut issues where there are perpetrators and victims, but as disputed issues that are open for “debate between democratic countries… – Read More.

Photo Credit: Fatin Al Tamimi

Some posters for the Poster Fish

Here are some gig posters I’ve done in the last couple of months for my good friend Freda who runs Poster Fish Promotions (click the images to see larger versions).

A rambling interview with yours truly

At a leafletting action outside Ana Moura’s performance at Dublin’s National Concert Hall (Ana is planning on playing in Tel Aviv, ignoring the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel), a camera was stuck in my face and this normally camera shy guy rambled on about Palestine, Israel, BDS, the EU and the Irish Labour Party for a good twenty minutes. The results can viewed below (starts at the 4.30 minute mark)…

(This is post #50, and its only taken me about four years…)

Some shorts for LookLeft and an unpublished exhibition review

Below are some shorts I wrote for LookLeft magazine, and a review of an exhibition about reggae soundsystems which was dropped due to space issues.

‘Jemmy Hope column’ – shorts
LookLeft #8, October 2011

- After sacking 575 workers in Waterford – some of whom actually trained their low cost replacements – TalkTalk have offered an “insulting” redundancy package of four weeks pay for every year worked. At the same time, TalkTalk hosted a lavish bash in an English stately home which cost a mere €2.3 million. Priorities, priorities.

- The Labour Party is celebrating both its centenary and the inauguration of the National Job Bridge internship scheme. They’re looking for someone to work a 30 hour week on the celebrations. This lucky intern will get €50 per week, plus dole. Larkin and Connolly would be proud.

- It’s not all doom and gloom for social welfare recipients. When they’re not trawling the pages of JobBridge.ie looking for an internship that isn’t actually insulting, they can revel in the fact that since 1986 dole payments have risen by princely €143.75. Meanwhile, TDs’ take-home pay rose by a paltry €980. Per week.

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Soundsystem culture: From Kingston to Dublin
LookLeft #9, December 2011 (unpublished)

In November, Dublin’s Little Green Street Gallery played host to a slice of reggae history. Soundsystem: From Jamaica to Europe 1950-1995, created by music historian Ronan Lynch, designer Paula Strzelecka, and artists Freestylee and Mau Mau, explored the history of reggae soundsystem culture.

Soundsystems – collectives of deejays, selectors and technicians – have been the backbone of Jamaican music from ska and rocksteady through to today’s dancehall styles.

Using words and images, and a constant backing track of reggae tunes, the interesting and informative exhibit traced the movement from its roots in Kingston’s ghettos to its influence on the rise of European warehouse parties. Alongside the displays, the documentary Holding On To Jah was screened and gigs featuring the cream of the Irish reggae scene were held in the venue.

Poster Fish Promotions’ Freda Hughes, organiser of the event said: “The positive vibes and sense of community we created is something I hope will live on in future gigs and events”.

Two reviews of Dr. David Landy’s ‘Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights’

Below are two, essentially identical, reviews of Dr. David Landy’s Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel, for LookLeft magazine and SIPTU’s Liberty newspaper.

Identity Crisis? Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights. Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel by David Landy (Zed, 2011)
LookLeft #8, October 2011

Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights is a ground-breaking investigation into the relatively recent phenomenon of organised international Jewish criticism of the Israeli state. From the outset Landy, an Irish-Jewish academic in Trinity, opposes the much touted rightwing view that those involved in this field are either “self-hating Jews” or suffering from “identity crises”. He instead asserts that such groups, in their various different forms, exist because those involved are universalist in outlook and feel that, as Jews, they can play a role in ending Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.

While not uncritical of these groups, Landy points out that they have played a very important role in making both Jewish and non-Jewish criticism of Israel more “acceptable” in the mainstream than previously. This is especially true for Western Europe, where the shadow of the Nazi holocaust still looms large – no longer do people have the same fear of being painted as “self-haters” or “anti-Semitic” by Israel’s supporters. However, their positive role in wider society aside, outside of providing a relatively safe avenue for Israel-critical Jews to “come out”, these groups have thus far failed to make a serious impact within the Jewish diaspora. Landy also outlines some of the problems with the worldviews of some of these groups, a major one being that Palestinians can be essentially eliminated from their discourse, treating what is a national liberation issue instead as a “Jewish issue” that will only be solved by Jews.

In conclusion, Landy points out that although his is the first such study of this emerging movement, it is not the “definitive” account. These groups have grown and developed over the past decade – some even moving into the “boycott and solidarity” camp – and will continue to evolve in the future. Despite the sometimes slightly alienating academic jargon, for anyone interested in the Palestinian solidarity movement and/or the long history of progressive and critical Jewish thought, this book is highly recommended.

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Palestine’s Jewish Lobby: Book about Jewish opposition to Israel launched in Dublin
Liberty, November 2011

Prof. David Landy

The long-standing concern for Palestine in Ireland was evident in the capacity crowd which attended the launch of Professor David Landy’s Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Opposition to Israel (Zed, 2011) in Dublin’s New Theatre on the 1st November.

The book is a groundbreaking examination of the relatively recent phenomenon of organised international Jewish criticism of Israel. Landy, an Irish-Jewish lecturer in Trinity College, opposes the right-wing view that those involved in this field are either “self-hating Jews” or suffering from “identity crises”. His view is that such groups exist because those involved are universalist in outlook and feel that, as Jews, they can play a role in ending Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.

While not uncritical of these groups, Landy points out that they have played an extremely important role in making both Jewish and non-Jewish criticism of Israel more “acceptable” in mainstream discourse – no longer do Israel’s critics harbour the same fear of being painted as “self-haters” or “anti-Semitic” by that state’s supporters. However, notwithstanding this positive role in wider society, outside of providing a relatively safe avenue for Israel-critical Jews to “come out”, these groups have so far failed to make a serious impact within the Jewish diaspora itself.

The book outlines the problems often associated with the world views of some of these groups. Often Palestinians can be essentially eliminated from their discourse, treating what is a national liberation issue instead as a “Jewish issue”. As Trinity Professor Ronit Lentin, herself an Israeli, said at the launch; “The book does not shirk from the difficult question as to whether movement members’
activism is about constructing a ‘better’ Jewish identity or about genuine solidarity.”

Wrapping up the event Professors Landy and Lentin said that although this is the first such study of this emerging movement it could not be considered “definitive” as these groups have developed significantly over the past decade, and that “the thing about social movements is they are always moving”.

A recording of the launch – which was a collaboration between Zed Books, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Trinity College Department of Sociology and Poster Fish Promotions – can be heard online here (Note: I also spoke at the launch)

Capitalism’s crisis and a progressive exit strategy

Review of Debtocracy by Katerina Kitidi & Aris Hatzistefanou (2011)
LookLeft #8, October 2011

Debtocracy is an independent, low budget film that has taken Greece by storm. Released on the internet earlier this year, it has already been seen by over one million Greeks and tens of thousands elsewhere. Using newsreel and archive footage, intercut with interviews with economists and philosophers like Samir Amin and Alain Badiou, Debtocracy presents an unashamedly left-wing view of the economic crisis that has engulfed capitalism.

While its primary focus is Greece, it also touches on the cases of Argentina in 2001, Ecuador in 2005 and the other PIIGS today. It points the finger of blame for the Greek crisis at capitalist politicians, inept economic management, EU restrictions, the loss of financial sovereignty following the adoption of the Euro, and the crippling terms of the European Central Bank and IMF bailouts. Sound familiar?

Using the Ecuadorian example, Debtocracy suggests a way out of the crisis that should also interest us in Ireland. It advocates repudiating “odious debt”, i.e. money owed for projects and investments that benefit only an elite few and not the people (in Ireland’s case, the money tossed down the banking black hole) and investment in public projects and national industry of money generated by natural resources (we have €750 billion worth of offshore oil and gas). Watch this film online at www.debtocracy.gr

National campaign to defeat new household tax launched

National campaign to defeat new household tax launched
LookLeft #8, October 2011

Using the cover of the EU/IMF austerity deal, the government announced the imposition of an annual tax of €100 on households. In September, a national meeting of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes was held, at which over 200 people from 16 different counties initiated a movement that will fight this new tax through non-payment. This campaign includes virtually all left-wing organisations, with the exception of Sinn Fein.

Campaign steering committee member Gregor Kerr says, “it is clear this is just the thin end of the wedge. John Fitzgerald of the ESRI said the approximate annual take should actually be about €1,350 per household. If the government gets away with this initial €100, we’re looking at it rising to €1,300 per household within two years. It’s just another way of extracting more tax from ordinary people, which will go straight into the banking bailout black hole. On top of this, there is Irish capitalism’s privatisation agenda. Therefore, the campaign is organising for people to unite against this tax, to stand up and say ‘No! We won’t pay’”.

The campaign seeks to build a national movement that will “get the idea of non-payment out into communities quickly, even before the bills arrive, so there’s already a feeling that nobody’s paying, neither will we”.  The aim until January is “hosting public meetings and building local non-payment campaigns, with the goal of having open and democratic campaigns in every community. It’s got to be much bigger than the existing Left. If we’re to defeat the government we need to turn people, who may never have done anything political before, into organisers in their own areas”.

In conclusion, Kerr says “in bringing forward local organisers and empowering communities, we’ll not only defeat the tax, the campaign will politicise people and encourage thinking about the type of society we live in and ways change can be brought about.”

To get involved in establishing a non-payment campaign in your community, visit www.nohouseholdtax.org

New issues of LookLeft and Rabble out now

Just a heads up that the new issues of LookLeft (#9) and Rabble (#2) are out now.

I’ve a couple of articles in the LookLeft, dealing with the Israeli hijacking of the #Freedomwaves boats in November, and a review feature looking at recent Irish comics and graphic novels.

LookLeft costs €2 and is available from these places. Rabble is free and you can pick it up in lots of places around Dublin, Cork and Galway.

A couple of comic related articles up on Rabble

Rabble, Ireland’s newest and best non-party culture/politics freesheet has published a couple of articles about Irish comics (the type you read) that I wrote on their website. Hoepfully I’ll be contributing more frequently to this mag, which is one that is definitely worth supporting!

1 – Now Now Stolen Cow: The Cattle Raid of Cooley Webcomic – an interview with Belfast comic creator Patrick Brown, about his epic (in both senses of the the word) online interpretation of the Táin Bó Cúailnge.

2 – Irish Comics on the Web: Five of the Best – does what it says on the tin. Almost…