February, 2009

Photo: Israeli walls surrounding the Gaza Strip.

“For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” –Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam, April 4, 1967

We salute the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in Durban, and Western Australian dock worker members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), for refusing to handle Israeli cargo.

Theirs is a courageous response to Israel’s attack on Palestinians in Gaza that, since December 27 alone, have left some 1,400 dead and 5,000 wounded — nearly all of them civilians.

This action is in the best tradition of dock workers in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay Area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused to handle shipping for apartheid South Africa; Oakland dock workers’ refusal to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and West Coast dock workers’ strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008).

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) rightly “calls on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.”

COSATU’s appeal is particularly relevant for workers in the United States, whose government stands behind Israel’s war against the Palestinians, and without which Israeli apartheid cannot continue.

In the past ten years alone, U.S. military aid to Israel was $17 billion; over the next decade, it will be $30 billion. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is U.S. aircraft, white phosphorous and bullets that kill and maim on behalf of the occupiers. Both the Democratic and Republican parties condone the slaughter in Gaza.

Such support bolsters Israel’s longstanding role as watchdog and junior partner for U.S. domination over the oil-rich Middle East — and beyond. In that capacity, Israel was apartheid South Africa’s closest ally.

As with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, workers in the United States pay a staggering human and financial price, including deepening economic crisis, for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation.

Yet, in contrast to trade union bodies in South Africa, Australia, Denmark, Britain, Canada and elsewhere, most of labor officialdom in this country — often without the knowledge or consent of union members — is a main accomplice of Israeli apartheid.

For more than sixty years, it has closely collaborated with the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that has spearheaded — and whitewashed — apartheid, dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians since the 1920s.

U.S. labor leaders have plowed at least $5 billion of our union pension funds and retirement plans into State of Israel Bonds.

In April 2002, while Israel butchered Palestinian refugees at Jenin in the West Bank, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was a featured speaker at a belligerent “National Solidarity Rally for Israel.”

In July 2007, the Jewish Labor Committee, a Histadrut mouthpiece, enlisted top officials of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to condemn British union support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

Now, by their silence, these same leaders are complicit in Israel’s massacre in Gaza.

These policies echo infamous “AFL-CIA” support for U.S. war and dictatorship in Vietnam, Latin America, Gulf War I, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

It strengthens the U.S.-Israel war machine and labor’s corporate enemies, reinforces racism and Islamophobia, and makes a mockery of international solidarity.

For all these reasons, we join COSATU in supporting the growing international campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which demands Palestinian self-determination, including an end to Israeli military occupation, the right of Palestinian refugees to return, and elimination of apartheid throughout historic Palestine.

Join us in publicizing the example of South African and Australian dock workers, and working toward the same kind of labor solidarity here at home.

Join us in demanding immediate and total:

1. End to U.S. aid for Israel.

4. Withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from the Middle East.

Initial Signers

Larry Adams
Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former President, NPMHU Local 300*

Michael Letwin
Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*

Brenda Stokely
Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former President, AFSCME DC 1707*; Co-Chair, Million Worker March

Anthony Arnove
National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981*

Black Workers for Justice (North Carolina)

Marty Goodman
Former Executive Board Member, TWU Local 100*

Monadel Herzallah
President, Arab American Union Members Council, California

Clarence Thomas
National Co-Chair, Million Worker March Movement; Executive Board Member, ILWU Local 10*

Sam Weinstein
Former President, UWUA Local 132*

Steve Zeltzer
Producer, Labor Video Project

Charles Jenkins
Million Worker March Movement

Mike Gimbel
Chair, Labor-Community Unity Committee, AFSCME DC 37 Local 375*; Delegate, NYC Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Noha Arafa
UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*

Helene J. Busby
UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*

Julie Fry
Vice-President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*

Steve Terry
UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*

Azalia Torres
Former Executive Bd. Member, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys*

Gloria La Riva
President, Typographical Sector, N. California Media Workers Guild Local 39521 CWA*

Carol Seligman
South San Francisco California Teachers Association*

Roland Sheppard
Retired Business Agent, Painters Local 4*

Hank Silver, SEIU Local 1021,* retired

Matt Kline
San Francisco May 1st Organizing Committee

Kevin Kachadourian
CTA Castro Valley*

Beth Youhn
IUOE Local 3 *

Leo L. Robinson
ILWU Local 10,* retired

Mark Glass
UA Local 399*

Charles Hinton
GCIU/Teamsters3M*

Charles Minster
California Alliance for Retired Americans*

Marcus Holder
ILWU Local 10*

Judy Jamerson
Sign & Display Local 510*

Tom Lacey
OPEIU Local 3*

Joel Schor
Sailors Union Of The Pacific*

Russ Miyashiro
ILWU Local 34*

Dave Welsh
Delegate, San Francisco Labor Council*

Larry Wright
ILWU Local 91*

Pierre Labossiere
CSEA*

Gene Pepi
Past Vice President retired, ATU Local 1555*

* For identification only.