Anthony McIntyre  Nobody here needs to be told that Drogheda Stands With Palestine has gathered at this spot every Saturday since Israel launched its genocide in Gaza. 

Sometimes when we raise our voices there is a sense of whistling while walking past the graveyard. On those occasions our raised voices serve as a counterweight to the drop in morale that tends to set in when every week it is the same story - during the seven days since we last assembled, Israel has murdered more children. Somethings never change and that refrain is a constant here. Child murder seems to work like Viagra for Judeo Nazis like Itimar Ben Gvir, Security Minister of the occupying state and leader of the far right political party, Jewish Power. The very term Jewish Power to those who remember the genocide spawned by Hutu Power in Rwanda three decades ago, causes the most uncomfortable of shudders.

Yet for all of that, skimming over a friend's Fakebook page yesterday, I was heartened to note his take that Israel is growing more isolated in the international community, losing friends as quickly as Donald Trump seems to lose control of his bowels, unsure whether to spew their contents out his backside or mouth. But when it doubt, shit it out either which way, spread the MAGA crowd in slurry and have them express their undying gratitude for the privilege.

My friend wrote on his page:

In September 2025, an opinion poll in Germany, once Israel's most loyal ally, 62% of German voters believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. A vast majority (82%) of Germans reject military support for Israel in its conflict, with only 36% holding a positive view of the country, marking a notable decline in favourability.

If there is such a thing as good news during a genocide this is what makes it. One would imagine that Germany having perpetrated a genocide against the Jews and an even greater one against the Russians - the Holocaust industry tries to flip that so that the Jews, rather than the Slavs, are privileged as the most targeted and violated group during Worlds War 2 - would set its face like stone against any repeat. But no, Germany has found itself in the position of having supported two genocides in the space of a century.

When Israel stood accused of genocide before the International Court of Justice, Germany defended it against the charge, claiming in January 2024 that the allegation was baseless and amounted to a “political instrumentalization” of the 1948 Genocide Convention. As such, back then, the German government undertook to file an intervention on behalf of Israel.

However, as the deadline for submission to the ICJ loomed, Germany pulled back. The reason was not that the German state had second thoughts about what Israel was doing in Gaza but that Nicaragua had taken a case against Germany for assisting Israel through arming its genocide. While The ICJ rejected an application from Nicaragua for emergency action to be taken against Berlin, it did allow the Central American state's case to proceed.

A German Foreign Ministry spokesperson explained that: “We are now ourselves part of a contentious case before the ICJ and have therefore decided not to make use of this option.” 


Germany’s failure to file an intervention on Israel’s behalf means Israel is without the support of one of its more stalwart European supporters. Germany is Israel’s second-largest weapons supplier after the United States and has rarely criticized Israel’s prosecution of the war. It lifted a partial arms embargo on Israel in November.

My friend on Facebook concluded:

The collapse in Israel's reputation, and support for it, is worldwide, and particularly marked in countries seen as guaranteed Israeli supporters. Three quarters of the world's states now recognise the State of Palestine, including Germany and the UK, formerly long-time Israeli allies. Meanwhile, Belgium has become the latest country to call for the suspension, if not the full termination, of the EU-Israel trade deal.
Israel's reputation internationally has never been lower since the state's existence. Support for its existence is rock solid but respect for, and trust in, the state is collapsing, as is military support for it. The actions of indicted war criminal Netanyahu has done catastrophic damage to Israel's reputation.

That is the value of turning up in West Street each week no matter how despondent or despairing it seems. The genocidal juggernaut is finding its tracks increasingly clogged up with the type of grit that turns out here every Saturday.

Follow on Bluesky.

True Grit

National Secular Society Men who dress as women "revolting" and "repulsive", says chair of trustees.


The National Secular Society has reported a newly registered Christian charity to the regulator after its chair claimed "the devil will come in" if wives refuse their husbands sex.

It also broadcast a sermon implying being gay should be treated as a mental illness.

Wellspring Ministry registered under the charitable purpose 'the advancement of religion' in January. Its registered address is in Southwest London but the church itself is in Reading. Charities are legally required to act for the public benefit.

'You do not have authority over your body'

In a 2022 sermon titled 'End Time Message & Sex'chair of trustees Bienvenue Hombessa, who also goes by Ben Bienvenue, tells married women in the audience: "you do not have authority over your body". The sermon is available on the charity's YouTube channel.

Men in the audience can be heard saying "amen", but Hombessa rebukes the women for not being loud enough: "I can't hear you sisters, no I can't hear you".

He goes on: "Within the context of marriage, your body, sister – it does not belong to you."

Continue @ NSS.

Christian Charity 🪶‘Devil Will Come In’ If Wife Refuses Husband Sex

Right Wing Watch 👀Written by Peter Montgomery.


A Christian nationalist organization that is vetting potential Supreme Court nominees for their adherence to the group’s biblical worldview standard says that previous Supreme Court rulings have invited God’s punishment on the U.S., and that President Donald Trump must name the “right” people to fill any vacancies “to escape national judgment.”

AFA Action, the political arm of the American Family Association, distributed an email last Thursday and again on Tuesday warning of “fearful consequences” if Trump doesn’t use any future Supreme Court nominations to restore a national relationship with God that AFA says was broken by SCOTUS rulings upholding church-state separation.

“America desperately needs our Supreme Court Justices to turn back to God,” declares the fundraising email, which comes at a time of widespread speculation about the likelihood of one or more justices resigning this year. Highlighting the uncertainty of justices’ intentions is the fact that on the same day AFA’s email said a vacancy was likely soon, the allied Family Research Council published an article saying it is unlikely that Justice Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas would be retiring soon.

AFA Action’s Center for Judicial Renewal is run by a long-time right-wing judicial activist Phillip Jauregui . . .

Continue @ RWW.

AFA 🪶 Trump Justices Must Turn SCOTUS 'Back to God' To Avoid Fearful Judgment

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Fifty Three

 

Pastords @ 41

 

A Morning Thought @ 3127

Dixie Elliot ✊I am certain that all Republicans would be in agreement with the mainstream Nationalist party Sinn Féin on the subject of Bobby Sands' statue.


However when I read the repulsive revisionism of Chris Donnelly this morning I asked myself why are these people so insistent in tarnishing the name of Bobby by dragging it into something no one in their right mind would have given their life for?

To quote Donnelly:

the political and electoral legacy of the hunger strike he led was the 'rise of Sinn Féin, the Anglo-Irish Agreement and political talks that led to the ceasefires.

I take it that the Anglo-Irish Agreement he refers to was the GFA which was in fact the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement repackaged and sold as the GFA.

As for the 'rise of Sinn Féin', who would give their lives so that Sinn Féin would one day replace the SDLP in the North and FF/FG in the South? Which is yet to happen because they've achieved nothing else other than the hope that someday the perfidious British would keep their word on agreeing to a referendum on Irish Unity. Even that couldn't be viewed as an achievement as it had also been contained in the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973.

'Political talks' has to mean the Hume/Adams talks, because if there had been talks with the British then it would have been they who did all the talking and Sinn Féin would have just listened.

Donnelly referred to Bobby as a 'personality from the conflict' (sweet fuck!). Then he claimed that 'only Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams would be viewed by the broad Republican community as equals in terms of historical status.'

That is an insult to not just Bobby but his nine brave comrades who followed him to the death on hunger strike, the many brave young Irish men and women who died for a 32-County Socialist Republic. I wouldn't compare those two with the brave leader Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes who always led from the front.

McGuinness and Adams took a once proud movement, which Bobby loved and died for, from his Republican socialist ideals to fawning over the most repugnant aspect of British imperialism, the British Royals, attending the coronation of the British King, who still claims sovereignty over the northern six counties of our country and standing in solemn silence at British war commemorations.

Let's not also forget the numerous times they apologised for the actions of the IRA, in particular the assassination of the notorious paedophile Mountbatten.

Sinn Féin would tell us that no one has the right to speak for the dead, yet they go on and brazenly use the dead, such as Bobby Sands, to sell the betrayal of everything those brave men and women died for.

The 32-County Socialist Republic Bobby and his comrades, both inside and outside the prisons, died for is no longer spoken of by Sinn Féiners.

They now speak of this 'New Ireland', which seems to be the anglicisation of 'Éire Nua' and nothing more, as they can't say what this 'New Ireland' actually is.

Sure,  don't we know how Unionists feel about anything remotely Irish, in particular the Gaelic language . . . 

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Repulsive Revisionism

Geordie Morrow ðŸ–Œ with a painting from his collection of art work. 

Coloured pencils on card

⏩Geordie Morrow is a Belfast artist.

Mickey Marley’s Roundabout

Kate Rice🔖 answers thirteen questions in Booker's Dozen.

 Reading Aloud And Allowed


TPQ: What are you currently reading?

KR: I’ve just started the ‘Shardlake’ series by C. J. Sansom. Mystery novels aren’t usually my kind of thing, so it’s a pleasant little change up.

TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?

KR: Worst book is a hard one for me because there’s definitely been a few times in my life where I’ve purposefully read those trashy sort of self-published smut books at the joking recommendation of a friend. Joke reads aside, the worst I’ve ever read was All Fours. Can I say that? I get the message but I just sort of felt embarrassed.

Best book, too many to name. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler is my modern sort of guilty pleasure. The Crucible by Arthur Miller, though that’s a play. I Could Live Here Forever by Hannah Halperin, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan - I can’t decide!

TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?

KR: For some reason I remember being really attached to this book called My Life with George by Judith Summers. It’s an autobiographical story about her dog George who she bought as a companion after losing her husband. I didn’t understand a lot of it as a child - I’d mostly just gotten it because there was a dog on the cover - but there was something within it that made me reread it a few times.

As a teenager I sort of attached myself to books like The Bell Jar and the Virgin Suicides. I felt it was very important to have books that were physical reminders - I was Girl in Pain. Very overdramatic, but great books.

TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?

KR: Jacqueline Wilson. No one was doing it like she was.

TPQ: First book to really own you?

KR: I have two - Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler and The Vegetarian by Han Kang. I read The Vegetarian as part of my university studies and was completely enraptured by it. It’s this incredible story about a woman who refuses to eat meat after she has a nightmare, but ends up devolving into some kind of psychosis. It’s told through the perspective of three other people - two of them being men in her life, and I think it’s such a stunning piece on womanhood and the use and abuse of the body as the last element of control over oneself.


Sweetbitter follows a 22 year old young woman moving to New York City from rural Ohio. She gets a job at this really upscale restaurant where everything is fast paced and everyone is on drugs. She meets this mysterious bartender and a senior server who are completely wrapped in one another, pseudo-incestuous, and she wants desperately to be part of their little private world. It’s just this fantastic exploration of food and the senses, sex, the subtle impact of child abuse. I recommend both these books to everyone.

TPQ: Favourite male and female author?

KR: Stephanie Danler, Donna Tartt, Louise Kennedy, Megan Nolan, Sylvia Plath, Han Kang, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - the list of female authors is endless.

Male authors I’m more hesitant towards after publicly admitting to liking Neil Gaiman pre-exposé. I like Arthur Miller’s work, George Orwell, Simon Stephens, Gabriel García Márquez.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

KR: I do tend to lean more towards fiction, but I’ve been reading quite a lot of non-fiction recently. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, The Widow Clicquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo etc.

TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?

KR: I read a few autobiographies when I was younger purely because I recognised the faces on the front. Miley Cyrus, Miranda Hart etc, but I wouldn’t say they stuck in my mind. I recently read a sort of memoir/biography based on the personal letters of Lord Byron, which was fascinating. Odd man.

TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?

KR: Rowling. I read some as a child but I won’t give a second more attention to someone who disregards and vilifies an identity.

TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?

KR: Stray by Stephanie Danler.


TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?

KR: The two favourites I mentioned earlier, both to the same friend.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

KR: That’s a hard one. There’s a few I’d like to see turned into films, but only if I’m starring in them and I get to pick who I star alongside. Anthony Boyle, call me.

TPQ: The just must - select one book you simply have to read before you close the final page on life.

KR: A book answering every question I’ve ever had in my life. Failing that, I suppose I’d like to read something I’ve actually ended up writing and publishing.

Kate Rice is a peace baby.

Booker's Dozen 📚 Kate Rice

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Fifty Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3126

Christopher Owens ðŸŽµ with the 61sth in his Predominance series.

"We’re gonna die when the sun comes up. We'll drink until we drop/My blood is 100 proof...I’d rather drink than fuck”  -  Gang Green

Horns up 

New Horizons


dalek - Brilliance of a Falling Moon

Nearly 30 years on, the Newark hip-hop duo continue to put out noisy, abrasive and hard-hitting records. Obviously directing their ire at the Trump administration, ICE and the general state of America in the 21st century, dalek remind us that hip-hop is protest music. ‘Normalised Tragedy’ is the standout number here.

The album can be streamed and purchased here.

Corrosion of Conformity – Good God/Baad Man

For their first record since the death of drummer Reed Mullin and the departure of bassist Mike Dean, COC have given us an eclectic mix of punk/hardcore, southern style metal and nods to the likes of ZZ Top and Grand Funk Railroad, all delivered with a knowing wink to their fanbase. A bit odd, but it works.

Golden Oldies


Hawkwind - The Friday Rock Show Sessions

Recorded at the (then) unhip Reading Festival in 1986, this BBC recording finds Hawkwind in grand form. Although more akin to hard rock/metal then their classic space rock sound, the driving rhythms are still in place and the visceral appeal cannot be denied. Lemmy joining them for ‘Silver Machine’ is the cherry on top.



The Fall – Fall Heads Roll

After the critical success of 2003’s ‘Real New Fall LP’, Mark E. Smith and co delivered the first truly brilliant Fall album of the 21st century. The garage riffing on ‘What About Us’ and ‘Youwanner’ is inspired, ‘Blindness’ grooves like a bastard and the cover of The Move’s ‘I Can Hear the Grass Grow’ is genuinely sweet.



⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Predominance 62

Open Democracy Written by Sian Norris and Nic Murray.

Exclusive: Experts demand answers as we reveal prison staff increasingly use force to deal with mental health

Women in English prisons are being increasingly handcuffed, restrained or subjected to “pain-inducing techniques” by staff, including while pregnant or during hospital examinations, openDemocracy can reveal.

Prison guards’ use of force against women more than doubled in three years, rising from 3,268 incidents in 2021/22 to 6,932 in 2024/25, according to data we obtained from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) under Freedom of Information laws. The government says such measures should be used only as “a last resort”.

Instances where a woman was physically restrained, which could include her being held face down to the floor, rose by 70% over that time period, while handcuff usage rose by 264%, from 502 occasions to 1,826.

“Use of force” against pregnant women also increased, with 11 cases in 2024/25. It is not clear from the data whether this includes non-contact interventions such as positive communication, and HMPPS refused to answer questions on this, although such techniques would usually fall under “de-escalation” rather than “use of force”. 

Continue @ Open Democracy.

Restrained, Handcuffed And In Pain 🪶 Use Of Force In Women’s Prisons Doubles