The Ceasefire Between Israel and Iran Was At Israel’s Request

 The Attempt to Smear Palestine Action as Terrorists Can Be Defeated By People Declaring ‘We Are All Palestine Action’ & Refusing to be Deterred by the Lie that Protest=Terrorism

Sit in at Brighton Station & Demo In Protest Against the US Strike Against Iran's Nuclear Facilities

Last Monday was a day of two demonstrations on two separate but interlinked issues. At midday there was the energetic and lively demonstration against the proscription of Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ group.

At 5.30 pm when back in Brighton there was firstly a sit-in at Brighton Railway Station and then a march and demonstration against the United States attack on Iran.  I am posting videos and photos from both demonstrations. I spoke twice at the Brighton demonstration and sit-in.

Rally at Brighton Clocktower

Tony Greenstein Speech at Brighton's Clocktower on 23 June after a march against the Attack on Iran

Just as in 2006 when a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah, which Israel got Bush to arrange when Israel was getting the worst of the fight, so too with the ceasefire that Trump arranged on Tuesday.

The ceasefire was clearly at Israel’s behest. Trump also came out with strident criticism of Israel for having broken the ceasefire not understanding that in Israel’s eyes a ceasefire means you cease and we’ll fire.

Rally at Brighton Clocktower

Demonstration Against the Proscription of Palestine Action 23 June 2025

Israel launched the attack on Iran hoping to remove its regime and thus establish complete dominance in the region.  The lie that Iran was developing nuclear weapons has been comprehensively discredited by US Intelligence.

However we should be clear. Israel and the United States attack on Iran never had anything to do with Iran' non-existent nuclear weapons. The aim is to eliminate the Iranian state from disrupting Israeli  and US plans for the Middle East. An extension of the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia at its centre.

The latest manifestation of this is The Abraham Shield which is Israel’s New Blueprint for Regional Control After Gaza. The aim is the integration of the Gulf and Arab economies with that of Israel as the latter excludes the Palestinians, both physically and politically from having any say in their future. It is an Orwellian nightmare of total control by Israel and the Arab regimes of the destiny of the Arab peoples.

The attack on Iran has been the fulfilment of a 20 year wet dream by Netanyahu. He believed that with Trump in power that he could drag the US into the conflict. However despite the fact that the US bombed three nuclear installations, it was clear that the US didn’t want to get embroiled in Netanyahu’s war.

Netanyahu was under the impression that the surprise attack on Iran would be a cakewalk. It was anything but. Instead Iran gave Israelis a chance to experience what Palestinians in Gaza have experienced with demolished buildings and streets and an understanding of what war means in reality. One-third of Tel Aviv was damaged or destroyed.

Not since 1948 in the so-called War of Independence has Tel Aviv been bombed (by the Egyptian airforce).  If Hezbollah had done the same when they had the chance then Israel might have thought twice about devastating Gaza.

The Police were at their aggressive best

What now? Israel will not give up easily having been bruised in the current encounter. Iran will need to replenish their missile stocks and renew their air defences as well as trying to supply their allies in the region, the so-called Axis of Resistance, with new weaponry.

But the challenge is not only military but political and this is where the Iranian regime is fatally flawed.  It is a repressive, undemocratic regime that is at odds with its own citizens. Although Iranians rallied round when Israel was attacking it, they are not going to tolerate a corrupt and dictatorial clerical state that believes in using religion to justify its attacks on women, minorities and the working class.

Rally at Brighton Clocktower

Iran suffered a great deal of damage from Israeli air attacks on its infrastructure. It is also suffering from economic sanctions and the thinly veiled hostility of neighbouring Arab regimes. Both Jordan and Saudi Arabia were involved in shooting down Iranian missiles. Qatar hosts the largest US base in the region.

Iran is unable to respond to these treacherous regimes precisely because it is not dissimilar in its contempt and repression of its own people. That is the problem for those who believe that the struggle is simply military. The Iranian regime is unable to appeal to the wider Arab populace as Egypt's President Nasser was once able to. Theocratic dictatorships are not popular, either in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Of one thing we can be sure and that is that Israel is not going to give up and it is going to enlist the Arab regimes in its plans. The Iranian regime, which believes it can ally with those regimes is very much mistaken if it thinks they will help it resist US imperialism and its Israeli attack dog.

The Mullahs are incapable of a genuine anti-imperialist alliance because that would mean allying with the very forces, the Arab street, which in Iran would also remove its own dictatorship.

The Iranian regime is often seen as anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist. This is a mistake.  It had a golden opportunity with its ceasefire with Israel to demand that Israel also agree to a ceasefire and withdrawal in Gaza. I doubt if the idea even entered the head of Khameini and Iran’s rulers.

In Lebanon the forces of the state and the Phalangists are encircling Hezbollah which has become very unpopular given the way they handled the confrontation with Israel. Allowing suppliers to provide them with pagers containing explosives without checking them raises the question as to how they were so careless.

It is clear that Hezbollah was penetrated from top to bottom by Zionist agents and that Israel was in possession of real time information about the whereabouts of Hezbollah’s leadership.

Rally at Brighton Clocktower

But the real problem is that Hezbollah became part of the corrupt Lebanese Establishment. It had no programme for social and political change that could unite the different communities. It had no proposals for ending the confessional nature of the Lebanese political system whereby a Christian becomes President, a Sunni Prime Minister, a Shi’ite Speaker of the Parliament etc. The 128 seats in Parliament are divided equally between Muslim and Christian despite Muslims being in a majority.

Rally at Brighton Clocktower

Changing this was the main goal of the Lebanese National Movement in the civil war of the 1970s. A civil war which saw Syria’s Assad intervene on the side of the Phalangists.

MSNBC on Donald Trump and his Lies About 'Obliterating' Iran's Nuclear Sites

Netanyahu succeeded in his aim in that the US bombed Iran's 3 nuclear sites last weekend. Unfortunately for Trump, despite his boasts that he had obliterated the facilities it is clear that the MOABs did not do the job as the facilities were too well protected.

The Familiar Face of Alexei Sayle

However the present ceasefire is not designed to last and we can be sure that Israel will be plotting with the traitorous Arab regimes, not least those of Jordan and Saudi Arabia how to renew the conflict.

It now seems that a desperate Israeli military has taken to threatening Iranian officials and their families: rebel or we’ll kill you

The guy on the right was the speaker before me

"WE ARE ALL PAL ACTION"

Meanwhile at home Palestine Action is due to be proscribed despite massive opposition to Starmer’s giant step towards a police state. It is clear to most people that the terrorists are the genocidaires not those who oppose them.

Even that beacon of fair-weather liberal opinion, The Guardian, has come out strongly against the proposals of Starmer and Cooper with its legal correspondent Haroon Sidique saying it would have a ‘chilling effect’ on other protest groups, which of course was the whole purpose.

Its leading article asked ‘if red paint is terrorism, what isn’t?’ begging the question as to why the Guardian backed Police State Starmer and the ‘feminist’ Yvette Cooper against Jeremy Corbyn in the first place.

The war of this miserable ‘Labour’ government against our democratic rights, coupled with their attacks on the disabled and working class people shows that it is nothing but a continuation of the Tories. Labour is preparing the way for Nigel Farage’s far-right racist Reform.

Tony Greenstein