Endorsed by the Labor for Palestine National Network on August 10, 2024.
As we now pass 300 days of escalated genocide in Palestine by the Zionist entity and the U.S., and as the Zionist entity and its U.S. partners intensify their horrific reign of terror across the Middle East, NYC Labor for Palestine expresses our solidarity with the people of Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, and reiterates our call on U.S. labor to abide by the Palestinian trade union call to End All Complicity–Stop Arming Israel.
In a period of just 24 hours earlier this week, the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) bombed a densely populated civilian area in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, killing four civilians and assassinating Hezbollah top military leader Fuad Shukr; the Zionist entity assassinated Hamas Political Chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran and Palestinian journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi in Gaza; and the U.S. conducted a strike south of Baghdad in Iraq, killing at least four people. The Zionist entity’s brutalization of Palestine has not relented. Just last night, the IOF once again targeted a Palestinian hospital, bombing the tents of displaced people at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Our hearts are with the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and across the Middle East mourning their martyrs and living in anticipation of an escalating regional war, and we express our solidarity with Palestinian workers in the West Bank currently striking in response to Haniyeh’s brutal assassination.
It does not escape our notice that the latest Israeli escalation, including the murder of Haniyeh, an essential figure in ceasefire negotiations, came just a week after notorious war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu was warmly welcomed by Congress and visited with the Biden administration, including Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. By supplying weapons and political support, the U.S. government remains a bipartisan partner in every instance of Zionist war crimes.
With all of this in mind, we applaud the seven major U.S. unions who recently called on Joe Biden to end U.S. military funding to the “Israeli” settler-colonial regime. Representing more than six million workers, these include the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), and United Electrical Workers (UE).
We recognize that this significant step is the direct result of more than half a century of dedicated rank-and-file labor solidarity with Palestinian liberation—alongside a broader global solidarity movement led by Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and other BIPOC communities, students, and young people. At the same time, our unions must go beyond pleas with an administration fueling “Israel’s” genocidal war on Palestine. Moreover, it is shameful that higher ups at APWU, IUPAT, NEA, SEIU, and the UAW, have undermined their leverage to stop arming “Israel” by endorsing Kamala Harris, a carceral imperialist and committed Zionist, and #2 in the very administration presiding over the escalated Nakba that has murdered at least 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 10 months. From Harris’s meeting with Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s operations this week, to her full-throated condemnation of the July 24 D.C. protest of Netanyahu, to her reiteration that “Israel has a right to defend itself” in response to the Beirut bombing, we see no evidence that she plans to break with Biden’s genocidal legacy. Her statements in support of Israel come not only amid this horrifying regional escalation and continued brutalization of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but while hundreds of Israelis riot in defense of soldiers arrested for raping a Palestinian prisoner.
With a career built on incarcerating Black and brown people in California, Harris thoroughly represents U.S. capital and imperialist interests—receiving over $5 million from AIPAC and co-sponsoring a Senate resolution to combat supposed “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations. It is deplorable to endorse a leading accomplice in Zionist murder, even as the entity continues to bomb schools, cities, and refugee camps. Endorsing Harris is also a slap in the face to our union siblings facing brutalization and retaliation for protesting the genocide. Rank-and-file from the NEA and SEIU have also made public their own condemnation of their union leaderships’ endorsement of Harris.
U.S. labor must comply with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by divesting from “Israel” Bonds, cutting ties with the racist Histadrut and the Jewish Labor Committee, organizing members to stop arming “Israel,” and ending support for Kamala Harris and all other Zionist political candidates.
We will not allow our movement to be quelled, co-opted, or rerouted into the very system that is committing genocide in Gaza and throughout historic Palestine. The Labor for Palestine National Network will answer the Palestinian trade union call by continuing to build rank-and-file workers’ power to stand with oppressed people in Palestine and everywhere else, until we all are free.
