NYCLAW Statement On the 61st Anniversary of the Nakba

[Presented at the NYC rally and march sponsored by the Break the Siege on Gaza Coalition-NY <http://www.bsg-ny.org/> and Al-Awda NY <http://www.al-awdany.org/index.htm>]

Statement On the 61st Anniversary of the Nakba
Times Square, New York City, May 17, 2009
Presented by Michael Letwin, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW); Founding Member, Labor for Palestine

Today we commemorate the Nakba of 1947-1948, when Zionists ethnically cleansed Palestine by massacring Palestinians in places like Deir Yassin, erasing 531 towns and village, emptying 11 urban neighborhoods, and expelling more than 750,000 (85 percent) of the Palestinians from 78 percent of their country.

But the Nakba did not end there.

In 1967, Israel seized the remaining 22 percent of Palestine  —  including East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza  —  which, in violation of UN resolutions, remains under Israeli military rule.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

Today, at least 70 percent of 10 million Palestinians remain refugees  —  the largest such population in the world. Despite other UN resolutions, Israel vows that it will never allow them to return.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

Palestinians who managed to remain within the 1948 areas  —  today, 1.4 million (or 20 percent of the population in Israel)  —  are permanently separated from their families in exile, subject to more than 20 discriminatory laws, treated as a “demographic threat,” and threatened with mass expulsion.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, 140 illegal, ever-expanding Jewish-only settlements and road systems dominate the water resources and control 40 percent of the land. Palestinians are confined, separated, denied medical treatment, and degraded by an 8-meter-high separation wall, pass laws, curfews and 600 military checkpoints.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

From 2000-2007, 4274 Palestinians in these 1967 territories were killed. During the same period, the military seized 60,000 political prisoners; it still holds and tortures 10,000 or more.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

In 2006, Israel turned Lebanon into a killing ground, slaughtering and maiming thousands of people, destroying the civilian infrastructure, and turning a quarter of the population into refugees in their own land. At the same time, it continued to brutalize Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

On December 27, 2008, Israel invaded Gaza, killing 1400 Palestinians and wounding another 5,000; nearly all were civilians, including hundreds of children. Gaza remains under brutal Israeli siege.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

Since 1948, the U.S. government has given Israel  —  its foreign aid recipient  — at least $108 billion. In the past ten years alone, U.S. military aid was $17 billion; over the next decade, it will be $30 billion. Just as in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, U.S. aircraft, white phosphorous and bullets kill and maim on behalf of the occupiers, while both Democratic and Republican politicians condone the slaughter.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

The U.S. and Israeli regimes continue to arm and train the corrupt Quisling Palestinian Authority in order to suppress Palestinian resistance and overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government.
Isn’t that the Nakba?

Fifteen hundred 500 U.S. labor bodies have plowed at least $5 billion of our union pension funds and retirement plans into State of Israel Bonds.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

In July 2007, top officials of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win signed a statement by the Jewish Labor Committee that condemned British unions for even considering the nonviolent campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Isn’t that the Nakba?

What can *we* do to end the Nakba?

Above all, we can support the growing international campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, which demands full Palestinian self-determination, including an end to Israeli military occupation, the right of Palestinian refugees to return, and elimination of apartheid throughout historic Palestine.

When those goals have been won — and only then — will the Nakba truly end.

Open Letter to the Labor Research Association: Don’t Honor Israeli Apartheid

Open Letter to the Labor Research Association: Don’t Honor Israeli Apartheid
May 4, 2009

As longtime labor and anti-apartheid activists, we strongly disagree with the decision to honor Stuart Appelbaum at tonight’s annual dinner of the Labor Research Association in New York City.

The LRA’s dinner program praises Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, for building “relationships with community organizations in an effort to expand the rights of unorganized workers.”

What it doesn’t say is that, as head of the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC), he leads the witch-hunt against labor bodies in South Africa and around the world that support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.

The BDS campaign was initiated by Palestinian civil society, including its entire labor movement. The campaign demands Palestinian self-determination, including an end to Israeli military occupation, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the land from which they have been ethnically cleansed since the Nakba of 1947-1948, and equal rights for all throughout historic Palestine.

It has been endorsed by numerous labor bodies, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), UNISON (UK), Transport and General Workers’ Union (UK), Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Canadian Union of Public Employees-Ontario, six Norwegian trade unions, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Scottish Trades Union Congress, and Intersindical Alternativa de Catallunya.

The campaign gained still greater urgency after the Gaza Ghetto Massacre launched by Israel on December 27, and which left 1,400 dead and 5,000 wounded; nearly all were civilians, hundreds of them children. Gaza remains under Israeli siege.

War crime investigations have been called for by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN officials, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, and Israeli soldiers themselves.

But the strongest response was made by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union in Durban, and the Western Australia Branch of the Maritime Union of Australia, both of which refused to handle Israeli cargo.

Their action is in the honorable tradition of dockworkers in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay Area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused to handle shipping for apartheid South Africa; Oakland dockworkers who refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and West Coast dockworkers who struck against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008).

COSATU, in turn, “call[ed] on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.”

That call took on renewed urgency after Israeli Occupation forces fired on a nonviolent May Day protest against the Apartheid Wall in the Bethlehem area of the West Bank. Nine marchers were injured, including the head of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), Shaher Sa’ad. Six protesters were arrested and remain in prison.

As the protest organizers point out, “The events of May 1 are the latest of a strategy of escalation implemented over the last months by the Occupation forces and which has lead to increased arrests, injuries and deaths among the coordinators and activists against the Apartheid Wall.”

In response to the May Day attack, the Bethlehem branch of the PGFTU and its allies have specifically called on “trade unions across the globe” to “Support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and promote concrete BDS actions to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and force it to respect Palestinian rights.”

This appeal is particularly relevant to workers in the United States.

In the past ten years alone, U.S. military aid to Israel was $17 billion; over the next decade, it will be another $30 billion. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. aircraft, white phosphorous and bullets kill and maim on behalf of the occupiers, while both Democratic and Republican politicians condone the slaughter.

U.S. support bolsters Israel’s longstanding role as watchdog and junior partner for U.S. domination over the oil-rich Middle East — and beyond. In that capacity, Israel was apartheid South Africa’s closest ally; no wonder South African anti-apartheid veterans lead the international movement against Israeli apartheid.

Moreover, as with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, workers in the United States also pay a staggering human and financial price, including deepening economic crisis, for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation throughout the region.

Yet Appelbaum and the JLC denounce those in labor who respond to Palestinian appeals for solidarity. They smear BDS supporters with accusations of “anti-Semitism,” just as the Israel Lobby routinely attacks Archbishop Desmond Tutu and numerous other critics of Israeli apartheid — many of whom are Jewish.

This is standard JLC operating procedure. For decades, it has served as “progressive” mouthpiece for the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that has spearheaded — and whitewashed — apartheid, dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians since the 1920s. Meanwhile, U.S. labor leaders have plowed at least $5 billion of our union pension funds and retirement plans into State of Israel Bonds.

In 2007, Appelbaum and the JLC recruited top AFL-CIO and Change to Win officials to sign a statement condemning British unions for supporting the BDS campaign. Now, to deflect international outrage over Gaza, they have launched “Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP),” a benign-sounding name whose express purpose is to target labor BDS supporters.

Their shameful complicity with Israeli apartheid echoes “AFL-CIA” support for U.S. war and dictatorship in Vietnam, Latin America, Gulf War I, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

For all these reasons, we call on the LRA to revoke its award to Stuart Appelbaum, and suggest that it be given instead to COSATU, whose courageous leadership against Israeli apartheid is an example to workers everywhere.

Issued by New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW) Co-Conveners:

Larry Adams
Former President, NPMHU Local 300

Michael Letwin
Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys

Brenda Stokely
Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; Co-Chair, Million Worker March

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