Backgrounder – Campaign to Cut Ties with the Histadrut
THE HISTADRUT
AND ISRAEL’S SETTLER
COLONIAL PROJECT IN
PALESTINE
Labour
For
Palestine
Canada
3C Nvcorú
Histadrut Chair Arnon Bar-David
signs a missile that will be
dropped on the people of Gaza
(2023)
HOT CARGO
No Labour
for Genocide KILLS
2
Once the Histadrut is recognized as, in effect, an arm of the Israeli State rather
than an independent trade union, their close relationship and apologetics for
Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians and Palestinian workers becomes less
surprising.
December 2025
Prepared by: Kevin Skerrett (Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University)
3
Contents
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
“Cut Ties with the Histadrut” in Canada…………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Smashing ‘Arab Eggs’: Over a Century of Histadrut Support for Israeli Colonization and
Apartheid ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
A. Early history of exclusion and discriminatory wages ……………………………………………………. 9
B. Histadrut as the largest non-state employer in Israel…………………………………………………. 10
C. Histadrut – established illegal paramilitary force ……………………………………………………….. 11
The Histadrut Today: Discrimination, Close Ties with Military and State, and Funds Stolen from
Palestinian Workers………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 13
A. Ongoing discrimination through different means………………………………………………………. 13
B. Direct ties with military and state committing war crimes & genocide…………………………. 14
C. Stealing from Palestinian workers to finance apartheid and genocide …………………………. 15
D. Bad faith deal-making with Palestine’s largest union body, the PGFTU………………………… 15
The Historic Precedent for Anti-Racist Labour Inter-nationalism: Fighting Apartheid in South
Africa …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 19
The Campaign to Cut Ties with the Histadrut……………………………………………………………………. 20
4
Introduction
Trade unions that practice racial discrimination against their own members, workers who are
potential members, or any other population they relate to, do not deserve the honour of full
membership rights in the international federations and institutions of the global labour
movement.
Trade unions that are implicated in war crimes, genocide, or other crimes against humanity are
equally undeserving of a seat inside the international house of labour. The Constitution of the
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), a global union federation claiming to represent
191 million workers in 169 countries and territories and has 340 national affiliates, proclaims its
rejection of – among other social ills – colonialism, militarism and racism. Similar fundamental
principles are included in the founding documents of essentially all international union bodies.
The genocide in Gaza has provoked worldwide revulsion and outrage across all sectors of
society. For trade unionists, it has exposed how both these basic standards have clearly been
breached by one supposed “trade union”: the Histadrut.
The Histadrut is referred to as Israel’s General Federation of Labour. It was founded in 1920
during British colonial rule and known at the time as the General Federation of Hebrew
Workers in the Land of Israel. Although presented internationally as an Israeli “trade union,”
the Histadrut has, since its founding, been an agent and organization of Zionism, tasked with
settling and supporting exclusively Jewish workers and laying the foundation for the Zionist
colonization of Palestine.
Today, with roughly 800,000 members and deep links to the Israeli state and military, it
continues to serve as an active participant in the mass dispossession of Palestinians and in
Israel’s apartheid regime of systematic discrimination against Palestinians. Recent events have
laid bare the Histadrut’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. During an official tour of a weapons
factory operated by Israel’s infamous Elbit Systems Ltd. in November 2023, Arnon Bar-David,
the most senior elected leader of the Histadrut, stopped for a horrifying photo opportunity (see
below).
5
The shell that Bar-David showed to reporters was described as destined for Gaza, and his
handwritten text reportedly read:
Greetings from the Histadrut and the workers of Israel.
1
Even in his carefully formulated public statements, Histadrut Chair Arnon Bar-David has made
the Histadrut’s energetic support for what is called Israel’s “war effort” very clear.
Every shekel for the war effort is important … Unnecessary offices need to be abolished,
and the money directed to the war effort.
(December 1, 2023)2
I am constantly working with senior security and economic officials to find the
golden path that will allow us to ensure the strength of the state and rebuild it
anew. (April 7, 2024)3
1 Editorial Team, “Histadrut Chairman Calls for Elections,” This is the way, December 1, 2023,
https://zoha.org.il/125718/. (Google translation from original Hebrew)
2 Yehuda Sharon, “Israeli labor union head: We need elections, Netanyahu shouldn’t run,” Jerusalem Post,
December 3, 2023. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-775833
3 Adi Marcus, “Bar David Calls for Elections in February 2025; Six Months into the War, the Government Needs to
Reach Decisions,” Working for the workers of Israel, April 7, 2024. Accessed August 10, 2025.
6
It is our duty to build military strength. The State of Israel needs fighters now.
(June 26, 2024)4
Such calls for more war and for military strength are effectively calls to continue the
commission of war crimes and the genocide that is now widely recognized as such. There
appears to be no record of the Histadrut being critical of Israeli atrocities – even those that the
Israeli government and its military have admitted to having committed.
This chilling image of the Histadrut’s top leader glorifying the weapons being actively used to
carry out a campaign of genocide against Palestinian civilians should raise very serious
questions for trade unionists in Canada. It flies in the face of the ITUC constitution and the basic
principles of international trade
unionism. Yet, national unions and union centrals in Canada, including in Québec, have so far
remained silent.
Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) president Bea Bruske met with Histadrut representatives on
December 13, 2023. She suggested that she was meeting them as “Israeli trade unionists who
support a lasting peace.” But this meeting took place a mere two weeks after Bar-David’s
bomb-signing photo opportunity shown above was taken and at a moment when the gravity of
Israel’s genocide was becoming widely recognized and condemned.5 The Histadrut continues to
use such meetings with Canadian and other unions around the world to protect the State of
Israel from legitimate criticism and to whitewash its ongoing crimes.
The fact that a supposed trade union leader would engage in such a cruel and mocking
publicity stunt with actual bombs destined for civilian areas – for use in war crimes – is an
utter betrayal of the labour movement’s principles.
International legal bodies and all credible international human rights groups and organizations
enforcing international humanitarian law have recognized the gravity of the humanitarian
catastrophe in Palestine, and particularly in Gaza. It is worth highlighting some of their
conclusions:
https://global.histadrut.org.il/news/bar-david-calls-for-elections-in-february-2025-six-months-into-the-war-thegovernment-needs-to-reach-decisions/
4 Adi Marcus, “Histadrut Chairman: Calls For Urgent Elections, An End To The Fighting – To Bring Back The
Hostages,” Working for the workers of Israel, June 26, 2024. https://global.histadrut.org.il/news/histadrutchairman-calls-for-urgent-elections-an-end-to-the-fighting-to-bring-back-the-hostages. In a 2009 statement
following Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” bombing campaign on Gaza, the Histadrut defended it as “acting with
great restraint.” Israel had “no choice,” it claimed, “but to respond to repeated attacks and aggression as an act of
justifiable self-defence.” Histadrut Statement on the situation in Southern Israel and Gaza, 13 January 2009, cited
in Michael Letwin, “Labor Zionism and the Histadrut.” Labor for Palestine (blog), September 4, 2011.
https://laborforpalestine.net/labor-for-palestine-briefings/labor-zionism-and-the-histadrut/.
5 Bea Bruske, “Meeting with PGFTU and Histadrut,” Facebook, December 13, 2023.
https://www.facebook.com/profile/1015693614/search/?q=histadrut
7
- On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a case against Israel’s violation of the
Genocide Convention through its acts against Palestinians. - On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an order that
determined that allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza are “plausible.”
6
The order imposed a set of provisional measures on Israel requiring it to take immediate
preventative action. The court agreed with the Government of South Africa that “the
conditions required by its Statute to indicate provisional measures are met”.
This ICJ decision set in motion a more comprehensive investigation into the allegations
and clarified a set of binding legal obligations on all states that are party to the Genocide
Convention – including Canada. - In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of the
Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and then Minister of Defense, Yoav
Gallant, after finding reasonable grounds to believe that both Israeli leaders “…bear
criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the
acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the
crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
7 - On December 5, 2024, Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing acts
that are prohibited by the Genocide Convention, stating that, “Amnesty International
has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel committed, between 7 October 2023
and July 2024, prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention, namely killing, causing
serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza
conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in
part.”
8
Israel’s Histadrut has ignored these recent terrible crimes – just as it has done for previous
Israeli crimes throughout its history. In fact, the Histadrut has consistently refused to condemn
the criminal, and now openly genocidal, acts by the State of Israel, its military, or its leaders. In
its public statements since October 7, 2023, Histadrut leadership has demonstrated unlimited
6
International Court of Justice, “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures,” Order of the
ICJ (International Court of Justice, January 26, 2024), https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447
7
International Criminal Court, “Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I Rejects the State of
Israel’s Challenges to Jurisdiction and Issues Warrants of Arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant |
International Criminal Court” (International Criminal Court, November 21, 2024). https://www.icccpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges.https://www.icccpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challengesInternational Criminal
Court
8 Amnesty International. “Amnesty International Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide against Palestinians in
Gaza,” December 5, 2024. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludesisrael-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/.
8
rhetorical and political support for the Israeli government and the military force that is carrying
out this genocide.
“Cut Ties with the Histadrut” in Canada
In this context, Labour for Palestine – Canada re-affirms its support for the original 2007 call
from the trade unions and worker organizations of Palestine for Boycott, Divestment, and
Sanctions (BDS) on Israeli institutions.9 Our call to Cut Ties with the Histadrut is part of our
broader Hot Cargo Kills Campaign. In building this campaign, we recall the appeal from
Palestinian trade union organizations that have explicitly asked that the Histadrut be included
in the call to boycott:
It is imperative to recognize that, since its inception, the Histadrut has supported
the Occupation and enacted racist policies against our workers, denying them
their rights. It has kept silent in front of Israel’s crimes against our people
throughout the decades of occupation. We are thus asking the international
trade unions to boycott the Histadrut to pressure it to guarantee rights for our
workers and to pressure the government to end the occupation and to recognize
the full rights of the Palestinian people.10
The call from 2007 was reiterated and expanded in May 2011 following a conference organized
by an even larger Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS). They issued the
following statement:
The Conference decisively condemned the Histadrut and called on international
trade unions to sever all links with it due to its historic and current complicity in
Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights. The Histadrut has
always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and
system of racial discrimination.11
The importance of these calls from virtually all the organized unions of Palestine is even clearer
today. This current catastrophic situation must prompt a complete re-examination of the
relationships that unions in Canada and Québec have with the Histadrut by association and
9 The 2007 call from Palestinian unions and worker organizations affirmed its support for the 2005 appeal from
Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. See https://bdsmovement.net/call
10 Labour Committee – Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, “Labour for Palestine: A Reader for Unionists and
Activists in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign against Israeli Apartheid” (Coalition Against Israeli
Apartheid, 2008), 37-38.
11 Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS, “Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) Formed at
Historic Conference,” May 4, 2011. (Emphasis added). https://www.bdsmovement.net/news/palestinian-tradeunion-coalition-bds-ptuc-bds-formed-historic-conference-0
9
affiliation with the ITUC, other Global Union Federations and international labour bodies, and
the CLC.
To put it simply, Labour for Palestine believes that the time has come for all unions of
principle in Canada, Québec, and around the world, to completely sever and refuse all
relations with the Histadrut. Whether this is formally called a “boycott”, a “suspension of
relations,” or something else, the point is that the Palestinian labour movement – like the
labour and working-class movement of Black South Africa at the height of its brutal apartheid
system – is appealing to us all to act and to do so urgently. In today’s circumstances in
Palestine, we have a responsibility to support this call and to do whatever we can to advance its
goals.
For unions in Canada to officially suspend relations with the Histadrut would be a substantial,
peaceful means of sanctioning the State of Israel and the wider institutional apparatus it uses to
maintain an apartheid labour regime and to enable the ongoing settler colonization and
genocide. For the reasons set out above, and for further reasons we outline below, the
Histadrut has no legitimacy to represent workers within the ITUC or any other international
bodies. It should face the same fate at the ITUC as the racist, pro-apartheid and colour-barred
TUCSA of South Africa faced in the 1960s at the ILO, the ICFTU and many other international
bodies: an official suspension of all relations.12
Smashing ‘Arab Eggs’: Over a Century of Histadrut
Support for Israeli Colonization and Apartheid
Since its inception in 1920 in the time of British colonial control (and then in 1922, the formal
British Mandate), the Histadrut has been a central organizational instrument for the Zionist
movement’s colonization of Palestine and for Israel’s apartheid regime. While publicly
represented as a “workers’” organization, the Histadrut was more a complex of employer
enterprises and an administrative body for a pool of ethno-nationally defined – i.e. Jewish,
immigrant / colonist – labour than it ever was a “union” in any conventional sense.
A. Early history of exclusion and discriminatory wages
The Histadrut was essential to building out and expanding Jewish settlement in Palestine. It
organized and allocated the labour inputs required for that expansion project. Its explicit
premise and goal was a racially segregated labour market serving Jewish settlers and newly
12 The ITUC Constitution (2023) “proclaims the right of all peoples to self determination and to live free from
aggression and totalitarianism” and “rejects recourse to war to resolve conflict, and condemns terrorism,
colonialism and militarism, as well as racism and sexism”.
10
arriving immigrants looking for work and housing.13 It was also a sponsor and manager of a
wide range of business enterprises and agencies needed for settlement – and thereby an
employer of thousands of workers who were ostensibly Histadrut “members.”
The settler-colonial project being facilitated by the Histadrut was never going to be
straightforward in a territory that was, up until the 1910 period, over 90% Palestinian Arab, and
where the wages paid to Jewish workers were substantially higher. The strategy developed by
so-called “Labour Zionism” and “Socialist Zionism” required a complete distortion of the
essential socialist principle of class solidarity across ethnic or racial identities. In its place, the
Histadrut asserted the primary importance of “Jewish labour” or “Hebrew labour,” which in
practice meant that the “socialist Zionists” of the Histadrut in Palestine were, among other
activities, mobilizing against, picketing, and even attacking employers who continued to hire
and employ Palestinian Arab workers.14
The Histadrut’s exclusionary labour project had obvious contradictions for genuine socialists –
in Palestine and abroad – who understood their political project as one of unifying the working
class against their exploiters. The socialist tradition teaches the importance of building that
class unity across all national, racial, and religious differences. Reversing this class-focused
thinking was inevitably going to be challenging for “Labour Zionism.” Indeed, one early leader
of the Histadrut, David HaCohen, complained about how difficult it was to carry out:
I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish Socialism, to defend the fact that I
would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to
housewives that they should not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we
stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there… to
pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the market and
smash Arab eggs they had bought… to buy dozens of dunums [of land] from an
Arab is permitted but to sell God forbid one Jewish dunum to an Arab is
prohibited…to do all that was not easy.15
B. Histadrut as the largest non-state employer in Israel
After its establishment, the Histadrut quickly became a major employer in Mandate Palestine
and eventually became the largest non-state employer in Israel. Serving as what later Israeli
Prime Minister Golda Meir called a “great colonizing agency,”16 the Histadrut established and
13 See Zachary Lockman, “Land, Labor and the Logic of Zionism: A Critical Engagement with Gershon Shafir,” Settler
Colonial Studies 2, no. 1 (2012): 9–38, https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648824.
14 For details, see Sai Englert, “Hebrew Labor without Hebrew Workers: The Histadrut, Palestinian Workers, and
the Israeli Construction Industry,” Journal of Palestine Studies 52, no. 3 (July 3, 2023): 23–45,
https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2023.2244188.
15 Cited in Trade Union Friends of Palestine, “The Histadrut Its History and Role in Occupation, Colonisation and
Apartheid” (Trade Union Friends of Palestine, June 16, 2011), 4.
16 Cited in Tony Greenstein, “Histadrut: Israel’s Racist ‘Trade Union.’” The Electronic Intifada (blog), March 9, 2009.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/histadrut-israels-racist-trade-union/8121.
11
financed a wide range of businesses and agencies: construction companies, social service and
health care agencies (serving the Jewish population exclusively), newspapers, banks and other
financial institutions, as well as the illegal paramilitary group Haganah.17
Notwithstanding this organizational complexity, the allocation of labour and the determination
of wages have been key functions for the Histadrut from its inception. This initially took the
form of a campaign for “Hebrew Labour” and the targeted displacement of Palestinian Arab
workers. Early Histadrut and “Labour Zionist” leader Haim Arlosoroff explicitly cited South
Africa’s proto-apartheid “colour bar” labour laws restricting native African workers from certain
occupations as a relevant reference point and model to learn from. Historian Zachary Lockman
recalls that,
Arlosoroff argued that the Jewish workers in Palestine, confronted as they were
with a market dominated by cheap and abundant Arab labor, faced the same
basic situation as white workers in South Africa.18
Recognizing this difficulty, Histadrut leaders such as Arlosoroff, and General Secretary David
Ben-Gurion, refined and developed an early form of proto-apartheid settler colonialism, using
coercion and violence to enforce what was effectively an extra-legal colour bar on Palestinian
Arab workers. Once the Israeli State was established, “large-scale state intervention” became
available to “reserve much of the Israeli labour market for Jews.”
19
C. Histadrut – established illegal paramilitary force
Given the current context of war crimes and genocide, the Histadrut’s original role in
establishing the illegal paramilitary force, the Haganah, is worthy of consideration. For a
supposed trade union to sponsor a paramilitary force may seem strange. But once the openly
settler-colonial character of the Zionist project that established the Histadrut is recognized as a
project against working-class resistance, the picture becomes clearer. One begins to understand
why, for example, the Haganah was regularly deployed against Palestinian workers, most
notably during the Great Revolt of 1936-1939:
17 For details, see Katherine Nastovski, “What Is the Histadrut? A Short Backgrounder on the Histadrut’s Role in
Building Apartheid in Palestine,” 2007.
18 Zachary Lockman, “Land, Labor and the Logic of Zionism: A Critical Engagement with Gershon Shafir.” Settler
Colonial Studies 2, no. 1 (2012), p 23.
19 Ibid. p 28. Lockman underlines the complexity of this, showing that Palestinian workers with Israeli citizenship
would become increasingly important to the economy for a period of time.
12
During the 1936–39 Arab Revolt… the Histadrut provided British Mandate
authorities with strikebreakers… its militias participated in securing key British
infrastructure, such as pipelines and railways.20
In 1948, during the Nakba, the Histadrut’s Haganah was re-designated as the so-called “Israel
Defence Force” (IDF) – now widely referred to as the “Israel Occupation Force” (IOF) by
Palestinians.
In the early years of the State of Israel, the Histadrut’s proto-apartheid policies were enacted
formally and “legally,” with Palestinian Arab membership in the Histadrut explicitly prohibited.
The organization’s colonial and racially exclusive character was openly and even proudly
acknowledged by its various leaders both before and after 1948. In 1960, General Secretary
Pinhas Lavon described the organization in the following terms:
The foundation of the Histadrut was a central event in the process of the rebirth
of the Hebrew people in its fatherland. Our Histadrut is a general organization to
its core. It is not a workers’ trade union, although it copes perfectly well with
the real needs of the worker.21
This conception of an organization dedicated to the “rebirth of the Hebrew people in its
fatherland” is reflected in the organization’s original name: “General Federation of Hebrew
Workers in the Land of Israel”. As an ethno-national organization dedicated to the political
project of Jewish colonization of Palestine, the Histadrut was not established to support and
defend workers as workers, but to support and defend Jewish workers and arriving Jewish
settlers seeking work – against Palestinian Arab workers. As such, from its inception in 1920
until 1959, the Histadrut completely barred Palestinian Arab workers from its membership and
aggressively opposed several attempts to unify workers’ struggles across these identities.22
The imprint of the racial discrimination in the Histadrut’s origin story continues today. Sai
Englert’s recent summary of the role of the Histadrut in Israel’s construction industry provides a
stark illustration of how this operates:
The Histadrut’s top-down strategy in the construction industry plays an important
pacifying role. It…protects the interests of its Jewish members in permanent, skilled, and
managerial positions, while simultaneously allowing Israeli capital to profit from a highly
20 Sai Englert, “Hebrew Labor without Hebrew Workers: The Histadrut, Palestinian Workers, and the Israeli
Construction Industry,” Journal of Palestine Studies 52, no. 3 (July 3, 2023): 23–45.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2023.2244188.
21 Lavon is cited in Haim Hanegbi, “The Histadrut: Union and Boss,” Matzpen.org/English, February 10, 1972.
https://matzpen.org/english/1972-02-10/the-histadrut-union-and-boss/Hanegbi. Hanegbi argues that “the entire
organization of the trade union was subordinated to the management and to the political bosses – who were
always from Zionist parties. There has never been the least trade-union independence in the Histadrut.”
22 Nastovski, “What Is the Histadrut? A Short Backgrounder on the Histadrut’s Role in Building Apartheid in
Palestine,” 1.
13
flexible, disciplined, poorly paid, and barely protected Palestinian and migrant
workforce. The fact that it does so while simultaneously presenting to the world its
“achievements” as proof of its own—and Israel’s—progressive nature, only adds insult
to injury.
The Histadrut continues to fight for the defense of Hebrew labor in construction and
does so at the expense of the majority of the industry’s Palestinian and migrant
workforce.23
The Histadrut Today: Discrimination, Close Ties with
Military and State, and Funds Stolen from Palestinian
Workers
The Histadrut’s origins as an agency of colonial settlement deeply shaped its fundamental
operation and the forms its discrimination continues to take today.
A. Ongoing discrimination through different means
While the Histadrut technically permitted Palestinian citizens of Israel to fully join the
organization in 1959, and to vote in 1965, it continues to discriminate against Palestinian
workers in several ways. It also continues a full bar against Palestinian workers employed in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) that even the United Nations recognizes as illegally
occupied by Israel.24
Jewish Israeli workers living in the illegal settlements carry full Israeli citizenship rights – and
rights to join the Histadrut. Palestinian workers on their own land, even those working
alongside Jewish Israeli Histadrut members, have no such rights.25 The apartheid character of
Israel’s labour regime – administered and defended by the Histadrut – continues.
23 Englert, ibid. p 39
24 A 2021 article in Jerusalem Quarterly journal states that “The most powerful Israeli union, the Histadrut, has
never allowed Palestinians from the occupied territories to become members.” See Morton-Jerome, Ethan. “The
Struggle for Palestinian Workers’ Rights in Israeli Settlements: The Case of Maan v. Zarfati Garage.” Jerusalem
Quarterly 86, Summer (2021). https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1651520.
25 Ethan Morton-Jerome points out that in the case of a high-profile labour dispute at a West Bank settlement auto
repair shop, the second-class and segregated status of fired Palestinian union organizer Hatem Abu Ziadeh was
stark. While “Israeli citizens who work in the garage are members of the Histadrut and are covered by a collective
agreement,” Palestinian workers barred from membership in Histadrut were forced to organize their own separate
union. While they were eventually successful, there was no support from Histadrut which, in Morton-Jerome’s
assessment, “does not assist Palestinian workers on the settlements.” For details, see his “Palestinian Labor in
West Bank Settlements.” University of Arkansas, 2018. https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2707/.
14
B. Direct ties with military and state committing war crimes &
genocide
Lerner retired after a 25-year career with the IDF. Currently, and prior to his redeployment to
the IDF after October 7, 2023, he served as the Director General of International Relations for
the Histadrut.
The Histadrut’s deep operational integration into the workings of the Israeli military also aligns
with its very close relationship with successive governments of the Israeli State. They have
accepted money paid directly from the Israeli government to fund a propaganda effort against
growing support for BDS among international labour organizations. While “clandestine” and
highly secretive, the Jerusalem Post revealed in 2017 that
Likud Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs Gilan Erdan wasworking with the
Histadrut Labor Union…on a pilot project to send emissaries to several European
capitals and strengthen its ties with the local unions, and the ministry will fund
delegations to Israel, with the participants and content chosen by the Histadrut.26
Once the Histadrut is recognized as, in effect, an arm of the Israeli State rather than an
independent trade union, their close relationship and apologetics for Israel’s brutal treatment
of Palestinians and Palestinian workers becomes less surprising.
26 Lahav Harkov, “Erdan: ‘We Have a Broad Government Program to Fight Boycotts,’” Jpost.Com (The Jerusalem
Post Online Edition), May 5, 2016.
Lt Col Peter Lerner, IDF Spokesperson on CNN, May 2024; Facebook photo.
15
C. Stealing from Palestinian workers to finance apartheid and
genocide
In a 2010 report, Israeli researchers Hanna Zohar and Shir Hever showed that over many years
the Histadrut had received very large sums of money, forcibly deducted by the State of Israel
from the paycheques of Palestinian workers. Only 8% of this money was allocated to services
and benefits for the workers represented by the Histadrut. The remainder was kept either by
the Israeli Ministry of Finance or given to the Histadrut for other purposes.
This is the most scathing example, but not the only one, of cruel theft under the
protection of a government decision, the declared goal of which is “protection”
of Palestinian workers.27
These researchers showed that some of the uses of these stolen Palestinian worker funds were
especially cynical. An example is the financing of portable stoves for Israeli soldiers during
Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009).28 Such abusive treatment has continued even in recent
months.
In January 2024, in the midst of accelerating IDF attacks on Gaza, the Chair of the Histadrut
announced to the public that he had reached an agreement with the government to establish a
new special levy on all workers in Israel – including Palestinian workers.29 The program was set
up to provide a new cash grant program to attract and compensate IDF Reservists being
mobilized for ‘Operation Swords of Iron.’ To be clear, this program for worker-funded grants to
IDF reservists was reported to be an agreement that the Histadrut leadership brokered behind
closed doors with government ministers. Media reports did not refer to a democratic
ratification process or membership vote on this decision.
Through such programs, the Histadrut leadership continues to facilitate the extraction of funds
from Palestinian workers’ paycheques, forcing them to help finance a military widely
recognized to be carrying out an illegal occupation, dispossession, war crimes, and genocide
against the Palestinian population.
D. Bad faith deal-making with Palestine’s largest union body, the
PGFTU
Within a year of the 2007 call from Palestinian trade unions in support of the international BDS
campaign – and for unions to break all relations with the Histadrut – an agreement between
the Histadrut and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) was announced
27 Hanna Zohar and Shir Hever, “Israel Owes Billions of Shekels to Palestinian Workers,” Socioeconomic Bulletin No.
25, Economy of the Occupation, January 2010, p 7. The authors point out that since 2009 Palestinian workers –
citizens of Israel – were re-defined as “foreign workers”.
28 Ibid. p 14
29 Dori, Oren. “Histadrut Agrees to Workers Financing Reserve Soldier Grants.” Globes, January 11, 2024,
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-histadrut-agrees-to-workers-financing-reserve-soldier-grants-1001467659.
16
on August 6, 2008. While the full text of that agreement does not appear to have been
released, the Histadrut, and defenders of Israel, have referenced this agreement as proof of the
promise of peaceful co-existence and of the Histadrut’s commitment to Palestinian workers –
and of the need for unions around the world to maintain normal relations with the Histadrut.
These self-interested claims should be rejected entirely.
The text by Hanna Zohar and Shir Hever cited above, published shortly after the August 2008
agreement, underlines its coercive and inequitable character. It includes the following:
On 6 August 2008, the Histadrut signed an agreement with the Palestine General
Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU). The Histadrut transferred to the PGFTU the
amount of US$3.6 million (NIS 12.76 million, according to the exchange rate on
the date of the agreement), an amount meant to represent the organizing fees
collected since 1993. According to our calculations, from 1993-2008 the
Histadrut collected organizing fees from the Palestinian workers in Israel in the
amount of NIS 66.2 million (not including interest): more than five times the
amount returned by the Histadrut.30
This agreement appears to have imposed conditions on the autonomous decision-making of the
PGFTU itself, restricting them from joining their name to calls to support the global BDS
campaign. If so, this would mean that the Histadrut was negotiating with PGFTU the conditions
for the return of money that had been “stolen” (in the words of Zohar and Hever) from
Palestinian workers with the active involvement of the Histadrut itself.
These severe limitations and the apparent policy conditionality attached to this 2008
agreement makes it a further illustration of the severe power imbalances faced by Palestinian
unions. It is a reminder that trade unionists in Canada need to respond positively to the
2007call from Palestinian unions – including the PGFTU itself – by ending all relations with the
Histadrut.
30 Zohar and Hever, p 12. This report shows that the US$3.6 million transferred to PGFTU as part of this agreement
represented just 11% of the amounts deducted from Palestinian workers since 1970. Emphasis added.
17
The Historic Precedent for
Anti-Racist Labour Inter-nationalism: Fighting Apartheid
in South Africa
The Histadrut’s involvement in Israel’s crimes should have implications for its position and
affiliation in international institutions of the labour movement. Why has that not happened
yet?
From the perspective of trade union internationalism, the political alliance between the State of
Israel and apartheid South Africa is an obvious reference point.
Notwithstanding the Cold War anti-communism of the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU) in the 1950s and 1960s, the organization was still pressed by its more
18
progressive affiliates from the global South (and its competition with the more militant and
anti-imperialist WFTU) to enforce restrictions against openly racist “colour-barred” unions such
as the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA) of South Africa.31
By the 1960s and 1970s, the apartheid government of South Africa faced widespread
condemnation in the international community, and this provoked significant trade sanctions
and civil society boycotts. Disturbingly, the Histadrut itself played a direct role in undermining
these peaceful forms of international pressure by filling in and replacing the supply of key
goods that were becoming unavailable.
South Africa’s respected anti-apartheid trade union, the Confederation of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) recalled the Histadrut’s historic collaboration with apartheid South Africa in
2011.
We will not forget that the Israeli trade union federation Histadrut, which serves the
racist Israeli state and the Jewish working class like White trade unions in South
Africa served the racist state and the White working class, actively collaborated with
the South African apartheid state. Iskoor steel company, 51 percent of which was
owned by Histadrut’s Koor Industries and 49 percent by the South African Steel
Corporation, for example, manufactured steel for South Africa’s armed forces. Partly
finished steel was shipped from Israel to South Africa, enabling the apartheid state
to escape tariffs. Other Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam were
equally complicit in supplying South Africa with weapons.32
For these reasons, COSATU has regularly reiterated its international call to the labour
movement for Histadrut to be expelled from the ITUC and other international labour bodies.
Their call reflects the powerful precedent set in the 1960s when the racist and discriminatory
white South African union federation called TUCSA was effectively expelled from the ILO in
1963 and blocked from the ICFTU in 1969, both decisions a consequence of TUCSA’s acceptance
of the South African government’s segregationist and racist apartheid labour regime. As Roger
Southall recalls,
The ICFTU was forced to shift its ground…TUCSA was informed in 1970 that it
would be neither “appropriate nor productive” for it to dispatch a delegation to
visit ICFTU headquarters.33
31 For details of this history and the CLC’s involvement, see Katherine Nastovski, “Workers Confront Apartheid:
Comparing Canadian Labor Solidarity Campaigns against South African and Israeli Apartheid,” WorkingUSA 17, no.
2 (June 2014): 211–37. https://doi.org/10.1111/wusa.12108.
32 Vavi, Zwelenzima. “COSATU Presents on Apartheid to the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.” London: Russell Tribunal
on Palestine, November 8, 2011. (Accessed April 16, 2025) https://laborforpalestine.net/2011/11/08/cosatupresents-on-apartheid-to-the-russell-tribunal-on-palestine/
33 Roger Southall, Imperialism or Solidarity?: International Labour and South African Trade Unions. (Cape Town,
S.A: U. of Cape Town Press., 1995).
19
From that time until the dissolution of South Africa’s formal apartheid system in 1994, both the
ILO and the ICFTU refused to formally recognize or engage in regular relations with the TUCSA
or any other South African union with racially discriminatory bars to membership. This was a
high point of labour internationalism, and an illustration that there were fundamental
principles that the international house of labour was going to be pressed – even reluctantly – to
uphold. These same fundamental principles are at stake in the case of the Histadrut today.
Conclusion
It is important to recognize that the Canadian labour movement has made significant progress
since the period when the Histadrut represented one of the CLC’s most significant partners and
allies in the Cold War era. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Canadian labour movement expressed
“active and long-standing support of Israeli policies and practices”. A 1996 CLC Convention
resolution committed to “continuing…[the CLC’s] longstanding relationship with the Israeli
Histadrut”.
Recognizing this, a growing number of affiliate unions and union locals – including many
involved in Labour for Palestine – have been calling for change. They have been calling on the
CLC to show genuine solidarity with Palestinian workers and unions by responding fully to the
calls to isolate Israel’s apartheid system using various forms of Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS).34
However, while several major union organizations have formally endorsed some form of BDS
(CUPE Ontario, CUPW, Unifor and PSAC), no national union in Canada has yet announced an
explicit breaking of ties with the Histadrut. The CLC has not made any commitments regarding
BDS and continues to meet with and politically support the Histadrut.
As recently as January 16, 2024, the CLC issued a weak and belated public statement on the
crisis in Gaza that expressed its support for an ITUC statement endorsing a ceasefire. It referred
to its work of “engaging and collaborating with unions from around the world, including in
Palestine and Israel” – a clear reference to its continuing engagement with the Histadrut.
Further, the statement endorsed ITUC and ILO “actions,” including “meeting with
representatives of the Histadrut…to understand the challenges faced by Israeli trade unionists
who support a lasting peace.”35
34 Katherine Nastovski, “Workers Confront Apartheid: Comparing Canadian Labor Solidarity Campaigns against
South African and Israeli Apartheid,” WorkingUSA 17, no. 2 (June 2014): 229-230. Nastovski provides a detailed
review of the emergence of union solidarity with Palestine, especially after the 2005 appeal for BDS and the
formation of a formal Canadian Labour For Palestine organization.
35 “CLC Executive Committee Reiterates Its Support for ITUC’s Call for an Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza | Canadian
Labour Congress,” (Accessed April 19, 2025). https://canadianlabour.ca/clc-executive-committee-reiterates-itssupport-for-itucs-call-for-an-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza/
20
The CLC’s continuing engagement with the Histadrut while its leaders are signing bombs
destined for Gaza’s civilian population and collaborating with Israeli government and military
war criminals, is completely unacceptable. In a recent (July 2025) letter to Prime Minister Mark
Carney, CLC president Bea Bruske did finally admit – after 22 months of mass killings and
malnutrition leading to starvation – that the intensifying crisis in Gaza “can only be described as
a genocide.”
36 Yet, the Congress and its president continue to recognize and formally meet with
the genocide-complicit Histadrut as a fully recognized and legitimate union counterpart.
The Campaign to Cut Ties with the Histadrut
In this light, Labour For Palestine – Canada formally calls for all union federations, national and
regional affiliate unions, locals, solidarity committees, and rank and file members, to respond
actively to the principled calls from our Palestinian union counterparts to fully suspend all
relations and cut ties with Israel’s Histadrut organization until such time as their legitimate
demands are met.
There are a range of activities and actions that can be taken up in support of this call, from the
most ambitious – working to have our unions pass resolutions supporting BDS and the
suspension of relations with the Histadrut – to simple steps to provide accurate information and
education about the struggle of Palestinian workers within our memberships and union
networks. Widely circulating this background document by email, on social media, and by hand
in meetings, will serve to get this information out to activists and workers across the country.
Labour For Palestine – Canada is committed to ensuring that the genocide-supporting Histadrut
is not welcome in Canada. This means that we plan to ensure that any attempts by Histadrut
leaders or officials to participate in any labour movement or other public activities here will be
met with forceful opposition, information pickets, and other forms of principled opposition and
protest.
Fortunately, we have strong expressions of worker and trade union solidarity with Palestinian
workers to build on. In Canada, solidarity activists within the four major union bodies that have
already endorsed BDS (as noted above) have an opportunity to strengthen those commitments
further by extending them to include cutting ties to the Histadrut.
One union Local, CUPE 3902 (representing educators at the University of Toronto),
demonstrated important leadership in 2015 by passing a BDS resolution that explicitly declared
it would “dissociate from Israeli trade unions which are complicit in the occupation.” The Nova
Scotia Federation of Labour passed a Hot Cargo resolution at their convention in October 2025
36 “Canada’s unions applaud recognition of Palestinian statehood and urge further action to end the crisis in Gaza,”
Accessed August 11, 2025.
https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-applaud-recognition-of-palestinian-statehood-and-urge-further-actionto-end-the-crisis-in-gaza/
21
that included a commitment to “cut ties with the Histadrut.” These initial steps are important,
and now – in the circumstances of the ongoing genocide – must be extended by all principled
unions in this country.
At the international level, there are already an impressive number of national unions and even
central federations that have formally suspended or ended all ties with the Histadrut. This
includes several UK unions with connections to the Canadian labour movement, including
Unison37, Unite38, and the University and College Union (UCU).39
Several national labour centrals affiliated to the ITUC have also broken off relations with
Histadrut. The Scottish Trade Union Council (STUC) has “no plans to re-engage with
Histadrut.”
40 All ties have been broken off since 2010 following the STUC’s declaration of
support for BDS and its decision to ‘review’ their relationship with Histadrut. When the
Histadrut themselves responded by breaking off ties with STUC, the relationship ended.41 As
the powerful statement on the STUC website affirms:
The STUC believes that trade unions across the world should act for international
justice and adhere to our slogan ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’. Thus the
STUC has no plans to re-engage with Histadrut until it is able to act meaningfully
to urge restraint on the Israeli state and an end to the occupation and killing in
Gaza.42
Even the UK’s Trade Union Congress (TUC), one of the highest profile union centrals in the
world, voted to “review” its relations with Histadrut in September 2011 and to encourage its
affiliate unions to do likewise.
This list captures only a small part of the picture of the Histadrut’s increasing isolation from
principled unions. Strong and ongoing work is underway in Ireland, Spain, Brazil, and South
Africa. (See the list compiled and attached here as an Appendix). As already shown above, the
declaration of support by South Africa’s COSATU federation for severing ties with the Histadrut
carries an especially significant weight, setting an example for trade unions in Canada.
37 See “Major UK Trade Union Backs Boycott of Histadrut,” June 23, 2012. Accessible at:
https://www.bdsmovement.net/news/major-uk-trade-union-backs-boycott-histadrut
38 Membership support for Unite’s “non-engagement” with Histadrut was “reaffirmed” at its July 2025 policy
conference. A summary of the union’s policy position can be accessed here: https://unitedleft.org.uk/unite-ecstatement-on-palestine-passed-overwhelmingly-at-policy-conference/
39 See report on passage of Motion 31 in May, 2010: https://bdsmovement.net/news/ucu-passes-important-bdsresolution
40 STUC policy statement as posted to their website: https://www.stuc.org.uk/campaigns-int-palestine-1/
41 This decision was so widely circulated that it was reported by the Jerusalem Post, as follows:
https://www.jpost.com/international/scottish-labor-federation-reaffirms-its-support-for-boycott
42 STUC, ibid.
22
It is urgent that workers, trade unionists, and union bodies in Canada and Québec rise to this
challenge. The current conjuncture, including the direct involvement of the Histadrut in the
ongoing genocide in Gaza, has opened a key opportunity for the Canadian labour movement to
respect its responsibilities to Palestinian unions and labour organizations that continue – in the
face of ongoing catastrophe – to implore us to act now. As recently as May 1, 2025, the major
Palestinian unions re-issued their fundamental appeal to their supporters in the international
labour movement:
Our struggle for justice in Palestine is inseparable from the global struggle
against systemic racism, exploitation and oppression. The 2024 decisions of the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) – that Israel is plausibly committing
genocide, that its occupation is illegal, and its policies amount to apartheid –
make ending all complicity in Israel’s crimes and imposing targeted, lawful
sanctions, including a two-way military embargo, not only a moral but also a
legal obligation for states and corporations. The same applies to all unions.43
Their statement concludes with a clear appeal to unions to pursue all steps toward “cutting all
ties with the Histadrut and expelling it from all international fora.”
Labour For Palestine – Canada calls on all our supporters to respond to this appeal with
immediate action.
43 This statement was republished in Canada on May 1, 2025, here: https://socialistproject.ca/2025/05/no-labourfor-genocide/
23
APPENDIX – A SELECT LIST OF UNION BODIES THAT HAVE CALLED FOR OR
ANNOUNCED A REVIEW OF RELATIONS OR FULLY SEVERED TIES WITH
HISTADRUT
Name of organization Country For date and further details
Ontario Federation of Labour Canada (November 2025)
http://rabble.ca/labour/the-ontario-federation-of-labouradopts-a-hot-cargo-resolution-against-israel/
Convention resolution calls on Canadian Labour Congress
to “cut ties with the Histadrut”. (Resolution submitted by
CUPW 126 and 039)
Newfoundland and Labrador
Federation of Labour
Canada (November 2025)
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRScAT-EnR1/
Convention resolution calls on Canadian Labour Congress
to “cut ties with the Histadrut”. (Resolution submitted by
CUPW 126 and 039)
Nova Scotia Federation of
Labour
Canada (October 2025)
https://www.facebook.com/Labour4Palestine/posts/victor
y-this-week-delegates-at-the-nova-scotia-federation-oflabour-have-voted-o/1631329027923815/ Motion calls on
Federation to “cut ties with the Histadrut”; passed
overwhelmingly.
CUPE 3902 Canada (May 2015) https://laborforpalestine.net/2015/05/01/thecanadian-union-of-public-employees-cupe-3902-endorsesboycott-divestment-and-sanctions-against-israel/
COSATU South Africa (April 2011)
https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinian-trade-unionmovement-applauds-scottish-congress-trade-unions-stucheeding COSATU has “taken steps to sever ties with
Histadrut”
UNISON UK (June 2010)
https://bdsmovement.net/news/major-uk-trade-unionbacks-boycott-histadrut
Unite UK (July 2014)
https://palestinecampaign.org/britains-largest-unionunite-votes-strengthen-work-boycott-divestmentsanctions/ Motion to develop the union’s BDS strategy
was approved. Motion calling for “engaging with the Israeli
Histadrut” was defeated.
24
UCU UK (June 2010)
https://www.bdsmovement.net/news/britain%25E2%258
0%2599s-largest-academic-union-cuts-ties-histadrut
Motion that passed argued that Histadrut “did not deserve
the name of a trade union organization”
STUC (Scotland) UK (April 2010)
Composite motion “condemned” Histadrut and called for
“review” of STUC relations with Histadrut
https://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/2010-april-22-stucreaffirms-israel-boycott-a-condemns-the-histadrut/
Dundee TUC Scotland (UK) (April 2010)
Motion 106 called for STUC to “isolate” the Histadrut (see
link above)
EL and IT union (affiliate of LO
Norway)
Norway (March 2011)
Motion passed calling on LO Norway to “abolish its
connections with Histadrut”
https://laborforpalestine.net/2011/03/17/norwegianelectricians-call-for-boycott-arms-trade-ban-palestiniangrassroots-anti-apartheid-wall-campaign/
ICTU Ireland (April 2011)
https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinian-trade-unionmovement-applauds-scottish-congress-trade-unions-stucheeding ICTU has “taken steps to sever ties with
Histadrut”.
25
