Statement On The Israeli Bombing of Gaza

Israel Killing Children Again With US Weaponry

Facts For Working People Blog 

Statement On The Israeli Bombing of Gaza and Ethnic Cleansing

Supporters of Facts For Working People Blog unconditionally condemn the murderous assault on the people of Gaza, by the Zionist regime.  The ethnic cleansing and driving Palestinian people from their homes in the occupied territories replacing them with a colonial force of settlers is already a violation of international law and we condemn it equally.  This ethnic cleansing is made possible through the support of major powers most importantly the US and the EU.

While recognizing the right of Jews who have lived in this part of the Middle East for millenniums to continue to do so in peace and security, we call on the Biden Administration to declare the Netanyahu Regime a colonial settler regime and the Zionist state a terrorist state. In short, the Zionist policy towards the Palestinian population is genocide and the Biden Administration should make that clear to the world.

Facts For Working People Blog calls on the leadership of organized labor both in the US and internationally to organize an international blacklisting of Israeli products and for union workers to refuse to handle any goods coming from or going to the Zionist regime. Rank and file union members should adopt and demand of their leadership that they take up support of the Palestinian cause, including not handling shipments from Israel. In the event the labor leadership refuses to act, the rank and file should lead when and where it has the resources to do so.

In the US, this would mean in particular the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) with 65,000 members on the East Coast, Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and its 30,000 members that represents the West Coast Dockworkers.

Where the union leadership refuses to take a strong position against handling goods from the Zionist regime, working class communities can and have had an affect. Members of the ILWU back in 2014 refused to unload an Israeli vessel on safety grounds. In the past, refusing to unload or slowing the unloading of cargo from Israel occurred because of community picket lines that unionized workers refused to cross for a time. We urge all workers and union members to refuse to cross community pickets set up to block any Israeli cargo being brought in to the US by sea, land or air.  

Resolutions and statements of condemnation should be raised in all local unions and sent to higher bodies and publicized on social media. As workers it is important while we condemn those Zionist workers who are intent on marching through Palestinian neighborhoods on Jerusalem Day terrorizing and intimidating residents and shopkeepers, we should always appeal to the Israeli working class to oppose Zionism and settler colonialism and to stand up for the right of the Palestinian people.

Get your union to support the Boycott, Divest Sanctions Movement (BDS) as a first step along the path to genuine solidarity with the Palestinian people and their opposition to forced displacement, relocation, violence and Apartheid.