Workers and activists in the US, Italy, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere have launched a wave of actions today, aimed at blocking the movement of weapons bound for Israel through ports and warehouses.
In the Italian port city of Genoa, activist @gretathunberg and former Greek finance minister @yanis.varoufakis are set to join dockworkers as part of a general strike.
Italy’s last general strike in October caused days of disruption to shipments to and from Israel.
Major disruption is expected across the country as strikes hit transport routes and workers take to the streets in protests that will link low wages and the rising cost of living to military spending and the government’s support for Israel.
“We will shut down Italy again with a general strike against the war economy,” said Francesco Staccioli, a leader at Italy’s USB union. “We protest our governments’ complicity and uplift the call by Palestinian trade unions for an arms embargo.”
The strike will be followed by a rally in Rome on Saturday 29 November.
Ireland’s largest union, SIPTU, announced a workplace day of action across the country on Friday.
In the US, prominent labour organiser @chris.smalls_ has announced two Disarm Genocide Now rallies on Friday in New Jersey and San Francisco outside the International Longshoremen’s Association, the country’s largest maritime union.
The union is being called upon to halt all arms shipments to Israel amid complaints that labour leaders have suppressed solidarity with Palestine.
“Workers sit at chokepoints of the economy. When we refuse to build the weapons, move the cargo, or staff the supply chains, the machinery of genocide grinds to a halt,” said Smalls, the founder of the Amazon Labor Union.
“We are building toward a general strike in the United States,” he added.
In the Australian city of Newcastle, pro-Palestine activists paddling kayaks will join environmentalists on Saturday in an attempt to block ships at the world’s largest coal port.
“Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coal are shipped from Newcastle to Israel, fuelling Israeli war crimes,” the organisers said.
