The Anarchist Bookfair 2009 is being held in Liberty Hall on March 7th. This year, the Workers Solidarity Movement are proud to announce US Anarchist Ashanti Alston will be speaking. Ashanti was a member of the Black Panther Party in the 1960's and early 1970's. As a political prisoner he spent over a decade in US prisons. Ashanti has since become an anarchist while still drawing on many of his experiences and ideas that spurred him on as a Black Panther activist. In this interview Ashanti talks about his past, how he came to join the Panthers, what they achieved and how he views the current struggle. Audio links are highlighted and are bold.

Related Links:
• The Black Panther Party for Self Defence
• Ashanti Alston's Personal Site - AnarchistPanther.net
• Workers Solidarity Movement - an Irish Anarchist Organisation

There is no entity in the world more keenly aware of the criminal nature of the Israeli project in Palestine than the government of Israel itself. David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel is often quoted on this point. But while Palestinians remain in a state of exile and oppression in their own country, he cannot be quoted enough:

"Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? "
- David Ben Gurion, Source

Related Links:
• Leaked Database: Reveals Israeli State Complicity in 'Settler' Land Grabs / PDF of Translated Extracts
• Previous Indymedia Ireland Story: Zionist Poison Spreader Set To Win UK Weblog Awards
• Melanie Phillips' Hate Porn: MelaniePhillips.com.
• Some Truth From Palestine: 'Raising Yousuf and Noor': Diary of a Palestinian Mother.
• Irish Response To Israeli 'PR Attack': "War is Peace": Video Screened on the Israeli Embassey.
• A Shot At Bias In The Media: MediaBite.org.

Some people are aware of the network of Israel-promoters around the world who have dedicated themselves to preaching venom about the Palestinians and their sympathisers in other parts of the Muslim world. At the apex of this hate promotion is the rabid Zionist Melanie Phillips who was recently, and thankfully, defeated in her attempt to win the UK weblog awards for 2008. At least that opportunity to gloat over Palestinian deaths was denied her.

Phillips keeps a daily diary of Muslim hatred on The Spectator website from which she spews outrageous claims and distortions to an adoring crowd of fascists and sickos whose comments have to be seen to be believed.

Excerpt From 'Irish Call For Justice For Palestine': Saturday January 31 2009

"Invasion, occupation and plantation of their land is the reality that Palestinians have faced for decades and still face on a daily basis, as their country is reduced remorselessly. Unless, and until, this Israeli aggression is halted, and the democratic rights of the Palestinian people are vindicated, there will be no justice or peace in the Middle East. Israel's 40-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must be ended.

The occupation can end if political and economic pressure is placed on Israel by the international community. Recognizing this, the Palestinian people continually call on the international community to intervene."

Click on the ispc.pdf format file under the image to download the full-page statement - "Irish Call for Justice for Palestine" - which appeared in today's Irish Times (31st January) on page 5, replete with around 300 signatures. Signatories include 5 MEPs (from de Rossa to Harkin), a bundle of TDs (FF, SF, Independent and Labour), some MLAs, Gerry Adams and Tony Benn, the presidents or general secretaries of Siptu, Impact, Nipsa, Unite, Mandate and other trade union bodies, professors, activists, musicians, cultural figures, and citizens.

Please re-publish, circulate and re-circulate far and wide - especially to networks you may have in the US, UK, Australia, Europe, the Arab world, Israel etc., and to Jewish democratic or anti-Zionist groups. Journals and magazines should be encouraged to reprint it and can presume (on the basis of this publication) to have the permission to do so.

Recent Indymedia Ireland Articles on Invasion of Gaza
• Turkish Prime Minister confronts Shimon Peres at Davos
• Caoimhe Butterly : Gaza, Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing
• Edwards, Myers, Harris, Carew: Pro-British, Pro-US, Pro-Israel, Pro-War
• "War IS Peace": Video Screened On The Israeli Embassy

Following the successful factory occupation of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, the workers of Waterford Glass now show the way to fight redundancies and lay offs. In a year where it is estimated that up to 50 million workers are due to lose their jobs, and banks continue to be propped up with billions of dollars and euro, we need to demand that companies are nationalised and jobs defended.

The Direct Action by the Waterford Workers now puts it up to the Irish government- who is more important, workers and their families or the tiny financial elite of the banks?

Nationalise the Glass, and let the workers run the factory. They'd do a better job of it.

Solidarity,
Joe Carolan (Socialist Aotearoa)

Signs are already that the chemical castration of the Irish Unions from long-term immersion in the toxic environment of the Social Partnership has been completed. Reports are that they are preparing to slink away from IBEC and Fianna Fail without so much as a whimper about bailouts and other blindingly obvious transfers of enormous wealth from the poor to the rich at a time when the flow should be going in the other direction.

The French are having none of it - a million of them have shut France down today in protest at bailouts and job cuts:

Rank and file union members in Ireland NEED to get angry about what is being done. Their leaderships are virtually useless. Even the INTO, despite over 100K marching in recent weeks against education cuts, ruled out strikes from the very outset! What sort of a union is that? New leadership is urgently needed if people are to be protecting from the icy blast of the neo-conservative policies that are being railroaded through as 'emergency measures'.

Various Ongoing Analyses Of 'Their Crisis' In Ireland
The Recession Diaries
The Property Pin
Cedar Lounge Revolution