An Injury to One is an Injury to All: NYC Labor Stands with Palestine!
- Why is there so much focus on the war on Gaza? Since 1948, Israel has been the single biggest recipient of US aid of any nation in the world, having received at least $380b+ in present day dollars from the United States government. In the last year, the US has sent tens of billions of our tax dollars in military aid to a government that is committing genocide in Gaza (more than 40,000 Palestinians killed) and governs an apartheid system according to international law. Without this aid, the Israeli military and society would not be able to maintain its occupation nor wage its genocidal war on Gaza.
- What’s the Boycott Divest Sanction movement (BDS)? BDS is a principled, non-violent set of tactics led by Palestinian civil society and modeled after the campaign that helped end South African apartheid in 1994. It asks the international community to boycott, divest from, and/or sanction the Israeli government and entities complicit in Israel’s violation of Palestinian human rights, until the Israeli government: 1) ends the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantles the Wall (separation barrier in the West Bank); 2) recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3) respects, protects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
- What is the Nakba? “The Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) refers to the violent expulsion of approximately three quarters (between 750,000-one million) of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland by Zionist militias and the new Israeli army during the state of Israel’s establishment (1947-49).”
- What is the Palestinian right of return? The Palestinian right of return is the acknowledgement and recognition that Palestinians have the legal right to return to the lands they fled or were forcibly expelled from in Palestine.
- What is Zionism? Zionism is an explicitly colonial ideology that claims that safety for the Jewish people requires a Jewish-only nation-state. Zionist leaders understood this from the start and made it clear in their own writings and the policy of ‘transfer’ (ethnic cleansing) that they established during the Nakba. David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of the state of Israel, stated “We must expel Arabs and take their places… and, if we have to use force…Then we have force at our disposal.” It is only in recent decades that many Zionists have changed their language around colonization to protect their interests.
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Why is Palestine a Labor Issue?
- Our unions fund Israel. Our unions are already involved—on the wrong side. In the 1920s-1930s, top labor officials donated millions to the Histadrut, the Zionist ‘labor federation’ that spearheaded anti-Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and was called ‘a great colonizing agency’ by Golda Meir, former prime minister of Israel. For more than 70 years, they have used our union dues and pension funds to buy billions of dollars worth of Israel Bonds. Today, despite horrendous Palestinian casualties, lost labor officials remain silent—or worse. Zionism and the dispossession of Palestinian workers has always been a labor issue.
- Our workplaces arm Israel. Many of our unionized factories, logistics, academia, tech, and other workplaces—without our consent—produce weapons, transportation, research, technology, and other materials for the genocidal Israeli regime.
- Our tax dollars arm Israel. Since 1948, Israel has been the single biggest recipient of US aid in the world. Without the more than $380 billion dollars we’ve sent them over the past decades, continued occupation of Palestne and ongoing genocide would not be possible. US tax dollars should be spent on badly-needed jobs, food, housing, healthcare, education, and transportation for poor and working people at home, not to pay for war crimes and exploitation of Palestinian and migrant workers halfway across the world. While Israeli citizens enjoy free healthcare subsidized by the US government, American workers struggle to meet their basic needs.
- Union workers don’t cross picket lines: Palestinian workers have called for more than words. The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement lays out a framework through which we as workers can use our collective power to put pressure on the Israeli regime which brutalizes Palestinians. We must demand that our unions divest our dues from Israel Bonds and industries connected with Zionist settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation! Break union ties with the racist Histadrut and Jewish Labor Committee! Refuse to provide weapons, research, technology, and all other aid for the Israeli genocide machine!
- An injury to one is an injury to all: the same system that lends money and support to the Israeli genocide in Gaza oppresses workers and enriches billionaires around the world. This makes Palestine an epicenter of class struggle. We can’t win without international solidarity and classwide unity. By standing with workers in Palestine, you are fighting for your own rights and your communities. Workers can, and must, stop the US backed Israeli genocide.
