Monthly Archives: June 2018

A Call to Action from Gaza: Cover your city with posters of the Great March of Return heroes

A Call to Action from Gaza: Cover your city with posters of the Great March of Return heroes
Open Letter on June 25, 2018

Palestinian organisations in Gaza are calling upon all people of conscience around the world, to make posters of the fallen heroes of the recent Great March of Return and plaster these all over your cities and towns, especially opposite Israeli and American embassies. This is an action that will greatly benefit the visibility of our cause!

PDF files of the fallen demonstrators can be found here : https://tinyurl.com/y96mb76m

Please send pictures or videos of your action with statement of support for the Right of Return and the Great March of Return to: greatmarchsolidarity@gmail.com

Following the media coverage of the massacre that Israel carried out against us on the first day of our march, we have been receiving less and less media coverage.Yet more and more of us are being killed every day. Gaza has been bombarded night and day too. Since the start of the Great March of Return, over 135 unarmed protesters have been shot dead and more than 14,000 wounded by the occupation forces, including children, medical staff, journalists, and the disabled. Gaza’s health system has been pushed to the brink of collapse, as hospitals struggle to handle an influx of serious and life-threatening injuries.

Help keep the freedom of Palestinians and the right to return in the spotlight!

Signed:

Great March of Return-Steering Committee

The Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)

University Teachers’ Association in Palestine

Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel Al-Aqsa University

One Democratic State Group

Voices Against Israeli Apartheid

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (Vancouver & District Labour Council)

BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, AND SANCTIONS

At the June 19, 2018 Regular meeting of the Vancouver & District Labour Council, delegates present passed the following motion in support of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel in response to the country’s actions against the Palestinian people.

****

BECAUSE article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population to territory it occupies; and             

BECAUSE the International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) violate international law; and

BECAUSE Israeli settlement expansions in the OPT are an undeniable obstacle to the Israel – Palestine peace process; and  

BECAUSE Israel has continued, despite international pressure, to expand its settlements and to demolish Palestinian homes and other infrastructure in the OPT; and

BECAUSE UN Resolution 194 establishes the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands and properties; and

BECAUSE Canada and other nations have previously succeeded in ensuring respect for human rights through the use of economic and political sanctions, including in the case of South Africa; and

BECAUSE the world has watched in horror as dozens of unarmed Palestinian protestors have been killed, and hundreds wounded, by Israeli military forces in recent weeks,

THE VANCOUVER AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL WILL support the use of boycott, divestment and sanctions (“BDS”) that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the OPT; and

THE VANCOUVER AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL WILL FURTHER support such a form of BDS until such time as Israel implements a permanent ban on further settlement construction in the OPT, and enters into good faith negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian people for the purpose of establishing a viable, contiguous and truly sovereign Palestinian state; and

THE VANCOUVER AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL WILL FURTHER support such a form of BDS until such time as Israel dismantles the apartheid wall, recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, ceases the use of excessive force against protestors, and respects the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194; and

THE VANCOUVER AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL WILL FINALLY oppose all efforts to prohibit, punish or otherwise deter expressions of support for BDS.

GEO Calls for AFT/IFT Solidarity with Palestine

GEO Calls for AFT/IFT Solidarity with Palestine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

19 June 2018

GEO Calls for AFT/IFT Solidarity with Palestine

We, the Graduate Employees Organization at UIUC, AFT/IFT 6300 have watched in outrage, sadness, and horror as Israeli snipers have maimed and murdered Palestinian children, young adults, journalists, and medical first responders in Gaza over the past month. Much of this violence was committed simultaneously with the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem: as a Christian extremist anti-Semitic U.S. pastorgave the prayer for the opening ceremony, as a virulently anti-Black rabbi blessed Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, as ordinary Israeli citizens cheered and chanted for IDF soldiers to “burn them, shoot them, kill them” in reference to non-violent Palestinian protesters, and as wealthy politicians sipped champagne and celebrated.

How many people in the U.S. labor movement are aware that Palestinian workers held a general strike on May 15, Nakba Day, in protest of incrementally-genocidal Israeli settler colonization? How many U.S. labor leaders have declared solidarity with Palestinian workers? How many U.S. labor unions have followed in the great tradition of transnational anti-colonial labor solidarity by standing with Palestine against a genocidal process currently led by anti-labor extremists such as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu? How many U.S. labor unions have followed the example of labor unions globally by declaring support for the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement?

We are saddened and disappointed that our own AFT/IFT leadership have a history not only of silence on these matters, but complicity with the racist and genocidal regime that guns down unarmed Palestinians in the open air prison that is Gaza.

We are saddened and disappointed in the hostility that AFT leaders such as Randi Weingarten have expressed to the internationally-respected and non-violent tactic of BDS. Such leaders are out of touch and out of step with the rank and file of our union. We, the GEO, proudly endorsed a Divestment campaign led by Palestinian students on our campus this academic year (2017-2018), and we plan to do likewise next year. We call on AFT/IFT leadership to unequivocally, and in an unqualified manner, condemn Israel’s murderous aggression and blatant human rights abuses against Palestinians, and to act in substantive solidarity with the Palestinian people who are struggling against racism, apartheid, and colonization—struggling for freedom. A labor movement that does not fight for justice against the bullies of the world is no labor movement at all.

Palestine must be free!

The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), IFT/AFT local 6300, AFL-CIO, is a member-run labor union and represents Teaching and Graduate Assistants (TAs and GAs) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In November 2009, and more recently, earlier this year in February 2018, GEO members and allies participated in a strike to secure a fair contract and more accessible UIUC. With an active presence in the community, the GEO continues to work for high-quality and accessible public education in Illinois.

For more information, please contact us geo@uigeo.org. More information can also be found on our website at www.uiucgeo.org.

Twitter: @geo_uiuc Facebook: @uigeo @geosolcomm Instagram:@geo_uiuc