Israeli settlers target Palestinian children with violent attacks

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Israeli Army response to settler violence - torture the victims

Israeli Army response to settler violence – torture the victims

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‘We are still living in fear.’

Israeli settlers target Palestinian children with violent attacks

This article first appeared on the Defense for Children International – Palestine website on 23rd March 2021. It is reproduced here exactly as it was at that time.

Ramallah, March 23, 2021 — ‘I thought she was dead,’ We’am told Defense for Children International – Palestine following a January incident when Israeli settlers attacked her and her children outside their West Bank home. An Israeli settler struck We’am’s 10-year-old daughter, Hala, in the face with a stone, injuring her. ‘I tried to carry her but I could not carry her alone.’

Palestinian children living in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, find themselves in a hyper-militarized environment where they are vulnerable to violence at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers.

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property is widespread and occurs daily throughout the West Bank. Israeli settlers perpetrate violence, damage, and destroy Palestinian property, take over land, and commit other offenses against Palestinian civilians living in the occupied West Bank.

Defense for Children International – Palestine documented four Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank between January 17 and February 15, 2021, that injured six Palestinian children between the ages of three and 13. The attacks occurred in close proximity to a number of illegal Israeli settlements spanning the occupied West Bank. Two of the children required hospitalization following the attacks, according to evidence collected by DCIP.

Israeli settlers attack 10-year-old Palestinian girl outside her home

On January 17, settlers from the illegal Jewish-only settlement of Yitzhar attacked the Palestinian village of Madama, in the northern West Bank governorate of Nablus, injuring 10-year-old Hala Q. The girl’s mother, We’am, told DCIP that approximately 20 masked Israeli settlers used rocks to smash windows in homes along their street and that the settlers had attempted to attack the village three weeks prior, but were held off by local residents. Hala was on her way to her uncle’s home nearby to study when she was attacked by an Israeli settler.

‘He was a tall man, wearing jeans, and his face was masked with a cloth, holding a huge rock,’ Hala told DCIP. ‘He threw the rock at my face, and I fell down in front of the house and partially passed out. I felt that someone was pulling me, but I had no power to move at all, then I completely lost consciousness.’

Both Hala’s five-year-old sister, Masa, and We’am sustained injuries to their legs during the attack.

‘When I went out, the masked settler who was standing next to Hala fled the scene.’ We’am, the girls’ mother, told DCIP. ‘I thought she was dead. I tried to carry her but I could not carry her alone.’

Aided by her nine-year-old son, Karam, We’am took Hala into the home, where the family hid while they waited for someone to help them transport Hala to the hospital. The Israeli settlers, who were approximately 15 meters (49 feet) away, threw stones at the house for almost ten minutes, according to We’am.

‘Hala’s face was covered with blood,’ We’am said. ‘My other children were panicking as we were hiding in the house and still hearing the stones smashing our windows.’

Once the attack subsided, neighbors took Hala in a private car to Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus City. Hala was evaluated and had bleeding in her nose and mouth, bruises under her left eye, and a broken tooth. Once she regained consciousness, she was discharged and returned home.

‘None of us could sleep that night,’ Hala told DCIP. ‘We were still scared that the settlers would attack us again. Until this moment we are still living in fear.’

Despite living in the same territory, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are subject to Israeli military law, while Israeli settlers living illegally in permanent, Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land are subject to the Israeli civilian legal system. Since Israeli forces occupied the West Bank in 1967, Israeli authorities have established more than 200 Jewish-only settlements that house around 700,000 Israeli citizens, according to the Times of Israel.

Yitzhar is widely known as a hotbed of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians. The illegal settlement was founded in 1983 as a military outpost that soon turned into a civilian settlement. Nearby villages previously used the land for agricultural purposes, and Palestinian villagers are frequently targeted with violence by Yitzhar settlers. The Od Yosef Chai yeshiva is based in Yitzhar and is known for encouraging its students to perpetrate violence against Palestinians. The yeshiva was previously located in Nablus until it moved to Yitzhar in 2000 during the Second Intifada.

30 Israeli settlers attack Palestinian family planting olive trees

On February 15, settlers from Brakha, an illegal Jewish-only settlement south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, attacked and injured two girls, aged eight and 10, who were on their land in Burin, some 50 meters (164 feet) west of Brakha. Rafeef I., 10, told DCIP that she, her parents, 11-year-old brother, eight-year-old sister, and an adult cousin were planting olive trees on their land around 4 p.m. when a group of 30 Israeli settlers, some armed, descended towards them from the illegal Brakha settlement.

‘We felt so scared when we saw them approaching us,’ said Rafeef, who told DCIP that the settlers threw stones at the family from a distance of around 30 meters (98 feet). ‘We tried to escape and a stone hit my back so hard that I started screaming and crying, but I kept running back to the village. My eight-year-old sister Alanoud started crying and screaming and saying that she had been hit by a stone. She fell to the ground.’

The Israeli settlers fired live ammunition and tear gas canisters in their direction, and the family fled to their village by car. The settlers also injured Rafeef’s mother in the attack and destroyed the family’s olive trees. ‘We can’t sleep normally because of what happened,’ Rafeef told DCIP.

Despite being civilians, Israeli settlers are issued firearmsby the Israeli government and many subscribe to ultra-nationalistic beliefs that manifest in extreme violence towards Palestinians, including children. Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians are motivated by the drive to dispossess Palestinians of their land, according to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din.

Palestinian toddler hospitalized after Israeli settler attack

Alaa S. told DCIP that his three-year-old son was hospitalized after Israeli settlers attacked his family while they drove from Ramallah to visit family in Tubas, a city in the northeastern West Bank, on January 21, 2021. As the car approached a junction near an Israeli checkpoint located close to the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit El, the family noticed a person in the road ahead signaling with a flashlight for the car to stop.

‘We thought he was an Israeli police officer asking us to stop to make sure that we were wearing masks because of the coronavirus pandemic,’ said Alaa. ‘My wife slowed down the car gradually until it came to a full stop and then within a few seconds, people started throwing stones at the car from all directions while talking to each other in Hebrew. We realized we had been ambushed by a group of settlers.’

The Israeli settlers broke the left rear window of the car, where three-year-old Jad S. sat beside his six-year-old brother, Majd. The terrified family drove to the junction where two Israeli police cars and a military vehicle were stationed, and Alaa reported the attack to the Israeli police officers and soldiers. Alaa noticed that Jad had sustained injuries to his face, and a police officer called an ambulance, which arrived approximately 20 minutes later.

A Palestinian ambulance also arrived at the scene and provided the family with first aid, before taking Alaa and the two children to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah. Jad was discharged the following day at 12:30 p.m. On January 28, Alaa filed a complaint with Israeli police at the Beit El police station. He has yet to hear from the station regarding an outcome.

‘The rest of us were not injured, but we were all traumatized,’ said Alaa. ‘My sons had nightmares during the nights after the incident. They would wake up crying and screaming and saying stones were being thrown at them. They are scared to leave the house or get into the car. They are saying they do not want to go to Tubas, and they are refusing to sleep alone in their room.’

Impunity is rampant for Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians. According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, 91 percent of investigations into ideological crimes against Palestinians are closed with no indictments filed.

Palestinian children share what it’s like to live in Jalazoun refugee camp near Beit El settlement.

Israeli settler assaults 13-year-old Palestinian boy walking home

Haitham A., 13, told DCIP that an Israeli settler attacked him on February 6, 2021, as he walked home with his parents around 8 p.m. in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. The family had entered the area through an Israeli checkpoint at Jabal al-Rahma, near their home, when five Israeli settlers repairing a motorbike in the street noticed the family.

One of them, a 14-year-old boy, followed the family. Haitham’s mother noticed the settler following them and alerted her son.

‘I turned around and saw the settler was so close. He hit me with his hand on my head, on the right ear, and he ran away into the settlement, but he was stopped by soldiers at the gate,’ Haitham told DCIP. ‘My father followed him and asked him why he hit me. The soldiers called the police. My ear was all red.’

Israeli police forces took the family to Ja’bara police station near the illegal Israeli settlement of Givat HaAvot, where Haitham was taken to an interrogation room, shown videos of the incident, and asked to provide a statement.

In 1984, the illegal Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida was established inside the Palestinian Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron. Functionally closed by Israeli authorities to non-residents since 2015, Tel Rumeida is heavily militarized, and Palestinians face frequent Israeli settler and soldier violence.

About 200 meters (655 feet) from Tel Rumeida, Hebron’s city center, including the historic Old City, the old market, and the Ibrahimi Mosque, is under full Israeli military and civil control as part of a 1997 agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which was approved by the Palestinian Authority. The city was split into two areas, H1, which is under nominal Palestinian Authority control, and H2, controlled by the Israeli military. About 34,000 Palestinians and 700 Israeli settlers live in the H2 area, and thousands of Israeli forces patrol the area, according to B’Tselem.

Palestinian children in Hebron describe how they move around the city, which is filled with military checkpoints and illegal Israeli settlements.

Israeli authorities consistently fail to investigate complaints filed against settlers. According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, between 2005-2019, 82 percent of investigative files on ideological crimes against Palestinians were closed due to police failures.

It is rare for charges to be filed and even rarer for Israeli settlers to be convicted for violence or offenses against Palestinians. One recent exception was when an Israeli court found Israeli settler Amiram Ben-Uleil, 25, guilty of the racially motivated murder of a Palestinian toddler and his parents. In the early hours of July 31, 2015, Ben-Uleil and another masked man threw firebombs into the home of 18-month old Ali Dawabsheh, four-year-old Ahmad, and their parents, Saad and Riham, in the northern occupied West Bank village of Duma. Only Ahmad, who sustained burns to over 60 percent of his body, survived.

DCIP has documented 73 settler attacks on Palestinian children since January 2015.

Israel is obligated to protect Palestinian civilians under Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to situations of armed conflict, including occupation. Despite this, Israeli soldiers deployed throughout the occupied West Bank rarely protect Palestinians from settler attacks and have even participated in some cases.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits Israel, the occupying power, from transferring its civilians to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It also prohibits Israel from transferring Palestinians, the protected population, unless necessary for the protected population’s security or out of military necessity. Violations of Article 49 are grave violations of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes.

The United Nations Security Council reaffirmed the prohibition on establishing settlements in Resolutions 446, 452, 465, and most recently, 2334. Despite this prohibition, Israel began establishing settlements for Israeli civilians shortly after it occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Israeli authorities frequently displace Palestinian communities and appropriate Palestinian farmland to establish these Jewish-only settlements.

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27th March 1886 – Birth of Sergei Mironovich Kirov

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Sergei M Kirov

Sergei M Kirov

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Sergei Mironovich Kirov 27th March 1886 – 1st December 1934

From The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979)

(Party pseudonym of S. M. Kostrikov). Born March 27th 1886, in Urzhum, in present-day Kirov Oblast; died December 1st 1934, in Leningrad. A prominent figure of the Communist Party and the Soviet state. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1904.

Kirov’s father belonged to the lower middle class (meshchanstvo). After his parents died, Kirov at the age of seven was placed in an orphanage. He studied at the Urzhum City School from 1897 to 1901 and the Kazan Mechanical and Technical School, from which he graduated in 1904; that same autumn he moved to Tomsk and worked as a draftsman with the city executive board. There Kirov became an active member of the Bolshevik group of the Tomsk Social Democratic organization. He was elected to the Tomsk Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) committee in July 1905 and organized an underground printing press and conducted party work among railroad workers in the summer of 1906. In October 1905, Kirov prepared and successfully led a strike at the important Taiga railroad station. He was repeatedly arrested in 1905 and 1906; in February 1907, having spent seven months in prison, he was sentenced to one year and four months of detention in a fortress.

After his release in June 1908, Kirov moved to Irkutsk, where he re-established the Party organization that had been smashed by the police. Evading police persecution, Kirov moved in May 1909 to Vladikavkaz (now Ordzhonikidze), assumed the leadership of the Bolshevik organization, and worked on the newspaper Terek. In November 1912 the newspaper published the article “Simplicity of Mores” over the signature S. Kirov, a surname that became his party pseudonym. In the period of the new revolutionary upswing in 1910–14 and during World War I, Kirov directed all Bolshevik political work in the Northern Caucasus; he was elected to the Vladikavkaz Soviet after the February Revolution of 1917. In October 1917, Kirov was a delegate to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets and participated in the October armed uprising in Petrograd. Upon returning to Vladikavkaz, Kirov led the struggle of the working people of the Terek for Soviet rule. He attended the second oblast congress of the peoples of the Terek, held in Piatigorsk in February-March 1918, which proclaimed Soviet rule in the Northern Caucasus, and attended the Sixth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in November 1918 as a delegate of Terek Oblast.

In late December 1918, Kirov led an expedition transporting arms and ammunition through Astrakhan to the Northern Caucasus; he stopped in Astrakhan because the Whites had captured the Northern Caucasus by that time. He was then appointed chairman of the Provisional Military Revolutionary Committee of Astrakhan Krai in February 1919, becoming a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eleventh Army on May 7th 1919, and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Troop Group of the Red Army on July 7th Kirov was one of the organizers and leaders of the defense of Astrakhan. From January 1919, Kirov and G. K. Ordzhonikidze directed the offensive of the Eleventh Army in the Northern Caucasus; after capturing Vladikavkaz on March 30th and Baku on May 1st the army helped the workers in Baku overthrow the Musavatists and restore Soviet power.

On May 29th 1920, Kirov was appointed plenipotentiary of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in Georgia, where the Mensheviks had seized power, and on October 1st – 12th 1920, he headed the Soviet delegation in Riga concluding the peace treaty with Poland. Kirov became a member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) RCP (B) after his return to the Northern Caucasus (October 1920). He was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(B) in March 1921 and directed the work of the constituent congress of the Gorskaia Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) (Vladikavkaz) on April 16th – 22nd 1921. Elected secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan in early July 1921, Kirov was instrumental in the rehabilitation of the petroleum industry and was one of the founders of the Transcaucasion Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (December 1922). The Twelfth Congress of the RCP(B), held in April 1923, elected him to the Central Committee of the RCP(B).

At a crucial point in the struggle against the Trotskyite-Zinovievite opposition, the party sent Kirov to Leningrad, and in February 1926 he was elected first secretary of the Leningrad Province Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik), ACP(B) and of the North-western Bureau of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) and a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the ACP(B). Under his leadership the Leningrad organization made great strides in all fields of socialist construction. Kirov waged an uncompromising and principled struggle for party unity against all anti-party groupings, such as the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, and Bukharinites. He was elected to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) in 1930, to the Organization Bureau in 1934, also becoming its secretary, and to the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. A passionate tribune totally committed to the cause of the Party, Kirov enjoyed tremendous prestige among and had the love of the Soviet people. On December 1st 1934, Kirov was killed by an enemy of the Communist Party in Smol’nyi Institute (Leningrad).

Kirov had been awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner. He is buried in Moscow on Red Square at the Kremlin wall.

Sergei with JV Stalin

Sergei with JV Stalin

On December 1, 1934, S. M. Kirov was foully murdered in the Smolny, in Leningrad, by a shot from a revolver.

The assassin was caught red-handed and turned out to be a member of a secret counter-revolutionary group made up of members of an anti-Soviet group of Zinovievites in Leningrad.

S. M. Kirov was loved by the Party and the working class, and his murder stirred the people profoundly, sending a wave of wrath and deep sorrow through the country.

The investigation established that in 1933 and 1934 an underground counter-revolutionary terrorist group had been formed in Leningrad consisting of former members of the Zinoviev opposition and headed by a so-called “Leningrad Centre.” The purpose of this group was to murder leaders of the Communist Party. S. M. Kirov was chosen as the first victim. The testimony of the members of this counter-revolutionary group showed that they were connected with representatives of foreign capitalist states and were receiving funds from them.

The exposed members of this organization were sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. to the supreme penalty—to be shot.

…..

In a circular letter to Party organizations on the subject of the foul murder of S. M. Kirov, the Central Committee of the Party stated:

a) We must put an end to the opportunist complacency engendered by the enormous assumption that as we grow stronger the enemy will become tamer and more inoffensive. This assumption is an utter fallacy. It is a recrudescence of the Right deviation, which assured all and sundry that our enemies would little by little creep into Socialism and in the end become real Socialists. The Bolsheviks have no business to rest on their laurels; they have no business to sleep at their posts. What we need is not complacency, but vigilance, real Bolshevik revolutionary vigilance. It should be remembered that the more hopeless the position of the enemies, the more eagerly will they clutch at ‘extreme measures’ as the only recourse of the doomed in their struggle against the Soviet power. We must remember this, and be vigilant.

b) We must properly organize the teaching of the history of the Party to Party members, the study of all and sundry anti-Party groups in the history of our Party, their methods of combating the Party line, their tactics and—still more the tactics and methods of our Party in combating anti-Party groups, the tactics and methods which have enabled our Party to vanquish and demolish these groups. Party members should not only know how the Party combated and vanquished the Constitutional-Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Anarchists, but also how it combated and vanquished the Trotskyites, the ‘Democratic-Centralists,’ the ‘Workers’ Opposition,’ the Zinovievites, the Right deviators, the Right-Leftist freaks and the like. It should never be forgotten that a knowledge and understanding of the history of our Party is a most important and essential means of fully ensuring the revolutionary vigilance of the Party members.

From The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 19039, pp325-328.

SM Kirov addressing a meeting in the Ingush village of Bazorkino

SM Kirov addressing a meeting in the Ingush village of Bazorkino

IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS

In the North Caucasus the Bolsheviks were obliged to fight under extremely difficult conditions. The very intricate national situation, the antagonisms among the Cossacks, the strife between the higher caste of the Cossacks and the Mountain People, and between the Cossacks as a whole and the peasant settlers from other parts of the country, the national strife among the Mountain People, and the numerical weakness of the proletariat in the region – all this necessitated the employment of exceptionally cautious tactics. An example of thoughtful, Bolshevik handling of problems was set in the Terek Region in 1917 by Sergei Mironovich Kirov.

Kirov had been away in Petrograd on a mission on behalf of the Vladikavkaz Bolshevik organisation and the Vladikavkaz Soviet. He returned on September 2 and immediately plunged into revolutionary work. Every day, and sometimes several times a day, he addressed meetings of workers and soldiers. A brilliant speaker, and well read, he had a gift for illustrating his arguments with vivid metaphors and examples. His inspired speeches, breathing profound faith in the victory of the revolution, literally fired his audiences. In preparing the proletariat and the working people in the North Caucasus in general for armed insurrection Kirov attached enormous importance to propaganda activities among the poorer sections of the Mountain People, among whom he was already extremely popular.

The counter-revolutionaries among the Cossacks and Mountain People did their utmost to foment national strife. Rumours were deliberately spread in the Cossack stanitsas to the effect that the Bolsheviks were· inciting the Mountain People to set fire to and destroy the stanitsas. On the other hand, the mullahs and kulaks among the Mountain People spread the rumour that the shaitans (devils), the Bolsheviks, were urging the Cossacks to wreck their mosques and seize their wives and children. The poorer sections of the Mountain People and the Cossacks, however, knew Kirov as a courageous Bolshevik who had already on one occasion averted what had seemed an inevitable sanguinary collision. On July 6, the soldiers in Vladikavkaz, incited by the counter-revolutionaries, brutally assaulted the unarmed Mountain People who had come to market. The flames of national war threatened to engulf the city, the Cossack stanitsas and the auls, or mountain villages. Foreseeing the frightful bloodshed that would result in the extermination of the best revolutionary forces and the strengthening of the counter-revolutionary forces among the Cossacks’ and the Mountain People, Kirov went off alone to the Ingush village of Bazorkino, where preparations were in progress for an armed attack on Vladikavkaz and succeeded in revealing to the Ingush people the provocative designs of the counter-revolutionaries among the Cossacks and Mountain People. His courage and daring made such a profound impression upon them that they abandoned their intention of attacking the city. Through Kirov, the best representatives of the Ingush people, such as Sultan Kostayev and Yusup Albagachiev, made contact with the Vladikavkaz Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

Kirov also established connections with the poorer sections of the Ossetian people through the Ossetian revolutionary party known as ‘Kermen’, which was formed in the summer of 1917. This party took its name from the legendary Ossetian hero, Kermcn, a slave, who had fought for his rights and had been treacherously killed by his oppressors. True, this organisation lacked a definite program and clung to a number of nationalist prejudices and fallacies, but it exercised considerable influence among the poorer sections of the Ossetian peasants. In May 1918 the best elements of the ‘Kermenists’ joined the Bolshevik Party and formed an Ossetian Area Bolshevik organisation.

By the autumn of 1917 the Vladikavkaz Party organisation had undergone considerable change. Under Kirov’s leadership, the Bolsheviks had won over the proletarian nucleus in the united Social-Democratic organisation, and from the very first days of the revolution had acted as an independent group. They were backed by the workers in the railway workshops and the Alagir Works.

The split in the Social-Democratic organisation occurred at the end of October 1917. At a general Party meeting held in Vladikavkaz, of the 500 members present, only eight supported the Menshevik platform. In face of this overwhelming defeat the Mensheviks withdrew from the meeting.

Thus, on the eve of the Great Proletarian Revolution the Vladikavkaz Bolsheviks were united in a strong and solid Party organisation. This was an extremely important factor in securing the victory of the Soviet regime in the North Caucasus. Already at the end of September the Bolsheviks had gained control of the Vladikavkaz Soviet.

On October 5 the Vladikavkaz Soviet elected Kirov as one of its delegates to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. He was also elected as a delegate to this Congress by the Nalchik Soviet. On October 21, after Kirov had left for Petrograd, the Vladikavkaz Soviet re-elected him in his absence a member of the new Executive Committee that was chosen that night.

From The History of the Civil War in the USSR, Volume 2, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1947, pp136-138

THE DEATH OF KIROV

1st December 1934

A great sorrow has befallen our Party. On December 1st, Comrade Kirov fell victim to the hand of an assassin, a scallawag sent by the class enemies.

The death of Kirov is an irreparable loss, not only for us, his close friends and comrades, but also for all those who have known him in his revolutionary work, and have known him as a fighter, comrade and friend. A man who has given all his brilliant life to the cause of the working class, to the cause of Communism, to the cause of the liberation of humanity, is dead, victim of the enemy.

Comrade Kirov was an example of Bolshevism, recognizing neither fear nor difficulties in the realizing of the great aim, fixed by the Party. His integrity, his will of iron, his astonishing qualities as an orator, inspired by the Revolution, were combined in him with such cordiality and such tenderness in his relations with his comrades and personal friends, with such warmth and modesty, all of which are traits of the true Leninist.

Comrade Kirov has worked in different parts of the U.S.S.R. in the period of illegality and after the October Revolution – at Tomsk and Astrakhan, at Vladicaucase and Baku – and everywhere he upheld the high standard of the Party; he has won for the Party millions of workers, due to his revolutionary work, indefatigable, energetic and fruitful.

During the last nine years, Comrade Kirov directed the organization of our Party in Lenin’s town, and the region of Leningrad. There is no possibility, by means of a short and sad letter, to give an appreciation of his activities among the workers of Leningrad. It would have been difficult to find in our Party, a director who could be more successfully in harmony with the working class of Leningrad, who could so ably unite all the members of the Party and all the working class around the Party. He has created in the whole organization of Leningrad, this same atmosphere of organization, of discipline, of love and of Bolshevik devotion to the Revolution, which characterised Comrade Kirov himself.

You were near us all Comrade Kirov, as a trusted friend, as a loved comrade, as a faithful companion in arms. We will remember you, dear friend, till the end of our life and of our struggle and we feel bitterness at our loss. You were always with us in the difficult years of the struggle for the victory of Socialism in our country, you were always with us in the years of uncertainty and internal difficulties in our Party, you have lived with us all the difficulties of these last years, and we have lost you at the moment when our country has achieved great victories. In all these struggles, in all our achievements, there is very much evidence of you, of your energy, your strength and your ardent love for the Communist cause.

Farewell, Sergei, our dear friend and comrade.

J. Stalin, S. Ordjonikidze, V. Molotov, M. Kalinin, K. Voroshilov, L. Kaganovich, A. Mikoyan, A. Andreyev, V. Tchoubar, A. Idanov, V. Kuibyshev. Ia. Roudzoutak, S. Kossior, P. Postychev, G. Petrovsky, A. Ienoukidze, M. Chkiriatov, Em. Iaroslavski, N. Ejov,

Pravda

2 December 1934

In JV Stalin, Works, Volume 14, pp63-65

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The first anniversary – how many more before the end?

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The first anniversary – how many more before the end?

It wasn’t the intention to post on the exact first anniversary of the imposition of the first lock down in the UK but as I am it would be impossible to not comment on such an ‘important’ milestone. As with many anniversaries in Britain (and the country seems to be obsessed with finding an opportunity to ‘commemorate’ an event – whatever it might have been) the real issue is often brushed over, minimised or just ignored.

A case in point was the centenary of the start of the 1914-1919 World War. There was little (official) debate of why millions of working men and women were sent to aid in the slaughter of other working men and women for ‘God, King and Country’. There was even less debate about the morality of workers still being sent to kill other workers in various countries. Turn them into martyrs and you can hide the underlying causes in a cloak of sentimentality. ‘A war to end all wars’. Did anyone ever really believe that slogan? Not as long as the oppressive and exploitative system of capitalism is dominant throughout the world.

On March 23rd 2021 there was a lot made about remembering the (to date) 148,125 people who had died in the UK as a result of the pandemic (numbers which will continue to rise and which still miss out on an unknown number of ‘collateral casualties’). However, little was made about why the situation was allowed to get to such a state that the costs – in both human and economic terms – have been so great.

Many in the last year might have put down the chaotic management of the present pandemic by the Buffoon and his rich, entitled and incestuous bunch of cretins to crass ineptitude, ignorance and incompetence. Everything was too little, too late; too much, too soon; following the science, not following the science; concerned more about private business profit rather than public safety and well being; and strategy? What strategy? (There isn’t even one now – everything hanging on the success of the vaccination programme.)

Indeed the aim of this blog (under the banner ‘Journal of the Plague Years 2020-2?’) in the last year has been to present the story as it unfolded so that people could use some of the many articles referenced here to remind themselves of what a total disaster this ‘war’ against the virus has been. But all the negatives above are only part of the story.

Instead of putting all efforts of Government into finding the quickest, most efficient and (yes) cheapest manner of ‘defeating’ (or, at least, effectively managing) the virus outbreak substantial parts of government have been working on the main agenda of the Tories – all the things they wanted to do but which were never mentioned prior to the last General Election at the end of 2019.

Even though the pandemic is still raging throughout the world, although less so in the UK (at least at the moment) and the rebuilding of even a capitalist society in the next few years will be a difficult task, the Buffoon has chosen the days before the first anniversary of lock down to push forward the Tory, neo-fascist, militarist policies that are aimed at maintaining themselves in power and to prevent the development of any movements that might seek to change the moribund and already redundant capitalist system.

Internationally they are stirring up feelings against foreign ‘enemies’ who ‘threaten the British way of life’. Both Russia and China are in the strange position of being the main enemy to so called ‘liberal values’ of capitalist ‘democracies’ when they were countries which openly challenged those capitalist values (when they were dedicated to the construction of socialism) and now as countries who are challenging capitalism by the very fact that capitalism has been restored in both those countries.

For the best part of the last 30 years (the period after the end of the ‘Cold War’) the argument to maintain vast expenditure on ‘defence’ was predicated on the threat from ‘international terrorism’ and ‘rogue states’. Now that that sham argument isn’t working they have returned to the tried and tested rhetoric of the ‘Cold War’ era.

Part of the ‘defence’ review is the proposal to increase the number of nuclear missiles held by the UK armed forces. The issue of the morality of such weapons is too big to go into here but just to state that increasing their number by 40% won’t make life more secure for anyone in the UK (or the rest of the world) and the morality of their possession (in whatever numbers) and use remains obnoxious.

On the domestic front the Buffoon and the odious Patel are pushing for changes in the law to prevent any effective protest against government action or inaction. Those laws introduced in the late 1980s (under the equally odious Thatcher) aren’t enough for these ‘defenders of liberty and western values’. Making a noise will be a criminal offence and there are probably many other restrictive stipulations which are yet to be made public.

And in a two fingers up to the people of Britain the Buffoon’s government introduces such new laws when there is already emergency legislation in place (the Coronavirus Act of 25th March 2020) which has – and will become in a matter of a couple of days – more draconian as it undergoes its second, six-monthly review. Under the emergency act of last year people were prevented from peacefully protesting as this would ‘endanger public health’. As stated in this blog way back in April of last year no government which is able to pass emergency legislation in ‘extreme circumstances’ is easily convinced to rescind such laws.

What the Tories have done is to overcome that obstacle by putting their restrictions into law under a ‘normal’ piece of legislation – which it is illegal to oppose during the time of the pandemic.

And there’s still no real strategy to combat the virus – just the crossing of fingers, the touching of wood, and the occasional prayer to a non-existent supreme entity.

Vaccination programme in the UK …

UK’s ‘colour-blind’ vaccine strategy puts ethnic minorities at risk.

Why the UK’s vaccine roll out should prioritise people according to deprivation as well as age.

People who are homeless to be prioritised for vaccine.

‘The NHS at its best’: making a Covid mass vaccination centre a reality.

Covid vaccines: is it wrong to jump the queue?

The UK variant is likely deadlier, more infectious and becoming dominant but the vaccines still work well against it.

AstraZeneca vaccine: ‘No indication’ of link to blood clots.

Covid-19 vaccines are probably less effective at preventing transmission than symptoms.

… and in the rest of the world

AstraZeneca vaccine: careless talk has dented confidence and uptake in Europe.

The Political Economy of covid-19 vaccines. Within a month of the regulatory approval being granted to the first three vaccines, advanced countries, accounting for only 14% of the world’s population, had placed orders for around 85% of the estimated entire production for 2021.

Why ‘Big Pharma’ shouldn’t control covid-19 vaccines.

Netherlands joins Ireland in vaccine suspension over blood clot concerns. This decision has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Dutch General Election is taking (this year over three days) this week. It’s not the cynicism of politicians worldwide that bothers me, its the way that most people don’t seem to see through the sham.

Europe’s caution over Oxford vaccine about more than the science.

How misapplication of the precautionary principle may undermine public trust in vaccines.

Rich states ‘block’ vaccine plans for developing nations.

Treatment of those infected with covid-19

Is coronavirus treatment fair? Not in an unequal society.

Pregnant women at increased risk of severe covid.

Summer will see cases of covid drop?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Pollen can raise your risk of getting covid-19, whether you have allergies or not.

Nightingale Hospitals

Nightingale Hospitals to be closed after cost of £500 million. The whole concept of ‘fever hospitals’ and overflow facilities must be looked into at the earliest opportunity in readiness for the next pandemic. And facilities used from companies who have been getting millions in other hand-outs from the government over the last year should be a nil cost to the British population. Resources not being used for anything productive, as we have seen in the lock downs of the last year, should be requisitioned by the state.

Emergency Powers – and the reluctance of the State to give them up

London’s Metropolitan Police criticised over Clapham vigil policing.

One of the ‘solutions’ to a problem (violence against women) that stems from the development of oppressive societies over millennia is the introduction of more surveillance of the population as a whole. Presenting the sham of doing something the Buffoon proposes having a greater undercover police presence in social venues and an increase in the number of Close-circuit Television (CCTV) cameras – in a country that already has more per head of population that any other country in the world. These measures haven’t stopped assaults in the past and won’t in the future. It just legitimises more intrusion into everyone’s lives without providing any benefits.

Test, track and trace

This was, is still now and will be in the future pivotal in dealing with a virus that is now generally considered ‘won’t be going away any time soon’. However, apart from making a small number of people very wealthy this system is still not up to the task and the cavalier manner in which it is being managed will mean that it will not be ready in the face of any resurgence in the future.

NHS Test and Trace ‘no clear impact’ despite £37 billion budget.

The Government’s flagship £22 billion Test and Trace scheme ‘wins the prize for the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time.’

Thousands of test and trace staff to be let go with just a week’s notice.

On a slightly different tack. Here’s what happens when we test lots of people as cases are falling.

A look at the situation one year on

Two countries that got it right, and three that got it wrong.

Brazil is in crisis with a second wave – but the UK’s not much better off.

Covid-19: where does the World Health Organization go from here?

MPs’ report scathing on UK’s handling and sharing of covid data.

Ministers frustrated with Buffoon’s ‘mistakes’ ahead of covid second wave.

The inside story of the government’s battle against the virus.

Where the Government has delivered – and where it has failed – during the Covid-19 crisis. A Resolution Foundation report entitled The 12-month Stretch. There was a zoom discussion around this report that took place on 18th March and a video of this event can be watched here.

Delaying England’s winter lock down ’caused up to 27,000 extra covid deaths‘.

Six lessons the UK should have learned, one year on from its first lock down. But has it? Will it ever?

And a ‘covid free’ future?

UK faces ‘covid decade’ due to damage done by pandemic.

Britain continues to see the world as its domain

NHS recruits thousands of overseas nurses to work on understaffed wards.

Care Homes

In Northern Ireland – families ‘denied care home visits’ despite new policy.

After covid: why we need a change in care home culture.

Blanket ‘do not resuscitate’ orders imposed on English care homes.

The winners in the pandemic

Covid test kit supplier joked to Hancock on WhatsApp he had ‘never heard of him’.

An investigation about the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the last year by the BBC Panorama programme, broadcast on 15th March, entitled Cashing in on covid.

UK furlough scheme pays out millions to foreign states and tax exiles.

Poverty in Britain

Food bank use surged during the pandemic – but they can rarely provide all the help people need.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced a couple of reports on poverty in Britain. The first, ‘Seeking an anchor in an unstable world – Experiences of low-income families overtime’, looks at the issue of poverty in general. The second, ‘Staying afloat in a crisis – Families on low incomes in the pandemic’, considers the added difficulties during the pandemic.

One in seven adults worried they will become homeless due to pandemic.

New Children’s Commissioner piles pressure on the Buffoon to extend free school meals and also urged him not to “drop” the £20 uplift in Universal Credit.

A new report reveals how the introduction of Universal Credit has contributed to homelessness in Scotland – and if in Scotland there’s no reason to believe it will be different in the rest of the UK.

Nine in 10 councils in England see rise in people using food banks.

‘Collateral damage’

Home-grown cannabis: how covid-19 has fuelled a boom around the world.

How covid-19 became a cover to reduce refugee rights.

Hospital waiting lists in England hit new high after January’s coronavirus peak.

Covid-19 wasn’t just a disaster for humanity – new research shows nature suffered greatly too.

How living life on a screen during covid-19 affects your eyes.

The logic of what is and what is not open defies many. Hospitality bosses threaten government with court.

Services at risk unless NHS England gets £8 billion extra funding within days.

Personal Protective Equipment use in England generated ‘colossal’ amount of carbon.

Who was to blame for the disastrous ‘management’ of the pandemic in the UK

This is a review of a book which I have not yet read but thought that the introduction of some of the ideas in it would be useful to have an idea about. Failures of State by Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott review – how Britain became ‘Plague Island’.

Pressure mounts on the Buffoon to launch coronavirus inquiry.

Preparing to return to normal

The idea is now becoming acceptable that no society can really function with so called ‘social distancing’ and there are plans to experiment with various combinations in what used to be mass venues. For this Liverpool has been chosen to test covid crowd safety in ‘roadmap’ pilot.

Politicians in Liverpool seem to be happy about the city being at the forefront of this change in approach however, perhaps they should remember a few things about the recent past.

The Buffoon and his government attempted to seed the virus in the Merseyside area at the very beginning of the pandemic by sending Brits who had arrived from Wuhan way back in April to a quarantine site at Arrowe Park Hospital. All these people arrived in London but they had to be bused hundreds of miles away – as if there were no places closer to Heathrow.

When that didn’t achieve the desired objective it was Liverpool who were to ‘pilot’ mass testing – potentially bringing many infected people in contact with many others when there was a partial lock down and meetings discouraged. That didn’t cause any problems – although it’s not too sure if the city really learnt anything from that pilot as they were constantly changing the parameters.

And now we are to have hundreds – possibly thousands – of people concentrated in small, enclosed areas. Third time lucky for the southerners to get at the Scousers?

Also it is hoped that this ‘pilot’ doesn’t take place in a UK bubble. Other countries have been carying out such ‘pilots’ for more than a month now – the Netherlands being at least one of the countries who have been playing with various combinations and locations. Little seems to have been shared between countries over the last year – will this latest ‘pilot’ be any different?

More on covid pandemic 2020-2?

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told