In a sign of desperation the neoconservatives have created their latest committee, the ‘Emergency Committee for Israel’, complete with its own website, which has been set up to counter growing anti-Zionist public opinion.
The tide of public opinion began to turn against the Israelis back in July and August of 2006 when Israel launched its attack against the people of Lebanon. Public opinion against the Israelis then strengthened further when Israel launched its murderous attack against the women and children of the beleaguered Gaza Strip. The Flotilla Massacre at the end of May of this year has brought public opinion against Israel to a tipping point that the neoconservatives, together with their Evangelical Christian Zionist supporters, can no longer tolerate.
The ‘Emergency Committee for Israel’ has been set by well-known neoconservatives William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, Gary Bauer, a Christian conservative and former Republican presidential candidate who now heads up a neocon/Christian Zionist front group called ‘American Values’, and Rachel Abrams, wife of former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams and daughter of neoconservative writer Midge Decter and step-daughter of neocon founding father Norman Podhoretz who is married to Midge Decter. (Talk about keeping it in the family!) Neocon Michael Goldfarb, also with the Weekly Standard and an ex-John McCain aide, is an advisor to the new group.
The ‘who we are’ blurb at their website is telling:
The Emergency Committee for Israel is committed to mounting an active defense of the US-Israel relationship by educating the public about the positions of political candidates on this important issue, and by keeping the public informed of the latest developments in both countries. Join us to help support Israel and her many friends here in the United States.
A growing majority of Americans also oppose Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. In Britain, the US, and around the world, public opinion demands the lifting of the Gaza blockade and has condemned the Flotilla Massacre.
The neoconservatives are beginning to get nervous about the future of Israel. The push toward a one state binational solution is mounting. The neocons know that a one state binational solution will spell the end of Zionism and their dreams of a Greater Israel. It is why the neoconservatives and their allies are pushing for the final confrontation against Iran. They know that that is now their only salvation.
For the neoconservatives it really is an emergency for Israel. Israel is close to the beginning of the end of itself. Palestine can be renewed and a state created in which Jews and Palestinians alike can live together as equals in a single state where all are free and with he same rights as each other.
Three weeks after the massacre on the Freedom Flotilla, ILWU dockworkers in the San Francisco Bay area delayed an Israeli Zim Lines ship for 24 hours, the Swedish Dockworkers Union began a week-long blockade of Israeli ships and containers, dockers in the Port of Cochin, India, refused to handle Israeli cargo, and the Turkish dockworkers union Liman-Is announced their members would refuse to service any Israeli shipping. In South Africa, Durban dockers had already boycotted a Zim Lines ship in response to the invasion of Gaza last year.
On the 5th Anniversary of the United Palestinian Call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Israel faces the prospect of targetted industrial action to implement boycotts. How did it happen, what does it mean, and how can the solidarity movement respond to the new opening?
At 5am on Sunday 20th June, 800 trade unionists and Palestine solidarity activists from the San Francisco Bay Area marched to the SSA (Stevedoring Services of America) terminal at Berths 57-58 in the Port of Oakland, where the “Zim Shenzhen” was due. Zim Lines is the main Israeli shipping company, with services connecting Israel to the world. The ship sailed from Haifa, calling at Piraeus, Livorno, Genoa, Tarragona, Halifax, New York, Savannah, Kingston, Panama Canal, Los Angeles before reaching Oakland.
When longshore workers turned up for the day shift a mass demo was in place at four gates chanting “Free, Free Palestine, Don’t You Cross Our Picket Line”. . .“An Injury to One is An Injury to All, Bring Down the Apartheid Wall”. . .“Open the Siege, Close the Gate, Israel is a Terrorist State”. . . As union members spoke to drivers, pickets sat down in front of cars. The San Francisco Labor Council and the Alameda County Labor Council had passed their own resolutions and mobilised hundreds of trade unionists to back the demo called by the Labor Community Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People. It was an unprecedented show of strength from the local and regional AFL-CIO, affiliated unions and their members side by side with Palestinian and Arab-American activists. The Gaza ships were originally organised by Paul Larudee from San Francisco, and Bay Area residents had sailed with him. Now everyone came together for a united action organised in just two weeks.
Local 10 and Local 34 (clerical) are militant sections of the International Longshore Workers Union. The ILWU organises longshore (dockers) and many other industrial sectors on the US West Coast and Hawaii. With a history stretching back to 1934, the ILWU has faced the employers in countless disputes on the docks, carried out industrial solidarity action with other workers, fought against racism, adopted resolutions which characterize the Israeli oppression of Palestinians as “state-sponsored terrorism”, and on May 1st 2008 shut down every port on the US West Coast against the war in Iraq. Labor laws in the U. S. like the Taft-Hartley Act make it illegal for unions to organize solidarity actions.
The Oakland longshore workers arrived for the day shift and refused to cross the picket line on grounds of “health and safety”. The Pacific Maritime Association, on behalf of the employer SSA, immediately called in the Arbitrator (a joint union-management procedure for first-line response to disputes on the docks) hoping he would order everyone to work. The Arbitrator considered the PMA demand that the police use force to open access through the picket line, to make it “safe” for workers to enter the terminal. The union argued that the Oakland police are a threat to the security of workers and demonstrators. In 2003, as the U. S. attacked Iraq, Oakland police fired so-called “non lethal” weapons at longshore workers and anti-war demonstrators alike, injuring scores and sending many to hospital.
REUTERS/Tim Wimborne
The Arbitrator agreed with the union. As per their contract, the dockers were sent home with pay for standing by, however the employers have refused to abide by the Arbitrator’s decision and have paid out nothing, leaving the issue in dispute.
The “Zim Shenzen” had left Los Angeles around 2:30pm Saturday, and could have arrived at the San Francisco pilot station in as little as 18 hours, plus 2 hours to the dock. The ship’s tracking system was removed from the nautical GPS system, leaving the demo guessing when it would arrive. But with several hundred marching at 5:30am swelling to 800 as the morning progressed, the company decided to hold up the docking until 6pm. By then, SSA Terminal realised that the mass picket line would return for the evening shift and the Arbitrator would make the same decision, so they gave up and prudently chose not to call longshoremen to report for work. The ship sat at the quay, untouched. Establishing the mass picket line early and preventing longshoremen and clerks from working the terminal was critical in this victory.
This was the first ever boycott of an Israeli ship by workers in the US, where Zionism has counted on influencing the traditional stance of the mainstream labor movement, as well as elected politicians.
“An Injury to One is An Injury to All” is the slogan of the ILWU. It is also an emblem for South African workers.
The “Zim” action was recognised as a direct echo of Local 10’s fight against apartheid in 1984, when members refused to work South African steel and coal for 11 days until the employer obtained a Federal injunction to break the boycott. Interviewed on video during the “Zim” picket, Local 10 Executive Board member Clarence Thomas stated [1]
“This is a historic occasion. Everyone remembers the action taken by the community and labor in 1984 at Pier 80 in San Francisco, where the “Nedlloyd Kimberley” was picketed.”
Retired Local 10 longshore worker Howard Keylor, a co-organiser of that action, recalled:
“This was the result of over a decade of education within the Local on the horrors of the South African apartheid regime. South Africa arrested the entire leadership of the black miners union (the National Union of Mineworkers) and charged them with treason, and was threatening to execute them. I made the motion in Local 10, which passed unanimously, not to work the cargo in the next ship that came in. It was the longshore courage in deliberately violating the Taft-Hartley law and the union contract that made that successful.”
Clarence Thomas set out the current strategy:
“People are lacking food, people cannot rebuild in Gaza, construction supplies are not allowed. They haven’t even been allowing chewing gum! The thing that is going to make Israel and the United States both understand that this cannot continue, is the whole question of commerce and trade. Israel is very vulnerable on that question. This was critical in building the mobilisation in 1984 against apartheid, with three prongs: Boycotts, Sanctions, and Divestment.”
Jack Heyman, also from the Local 10 Executive Board:
“If longshoremen decide they’re not going to cross the picket line, then the Zim ship that’s coming in is not going to be worked, and that’s going to be repeated around the world, in Norway, Sweden, South Africa. I think people are beginning to understand that the Israeli government is going to have to be sent a message loud and clear, that their policies towards the Palestinian people are unjust and they’re going to suffer the consequences. It’s not business as usual when they commit acts of murder like this.”
Monadel Herzallah, of the Arab American Union Members Council summed up the impact on the labour movement:
“It’s indeed a significant turning point in the work with labour, and it’s significant because ILWU has honoured our picket line, it is something that we cherish, that we think will make an impact not only in the United States of America but also worldwide. The Labor Councils in Alameda and in San Francisco, responded to the call by encouraging labor unions, members, activists, to support this, with dozens of other community organisations who have worked to make this picket successful. People have wanted to tell this government and the government of Israel that they cannot be above the law, they have to be held accountable for what they did against these unarmed civilians on the flotilla ship in the Mediterranean.”
Palestinian unions appeal
On 7 June, the Palestinian trade union movement had produced a united appeal [2] to dockworkers unions worldwide. It was signed by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), the General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW), the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (IFU), and 11 other Palestinian union and labour movement organisations. It concluded
“Gaza today has become the test of our universal morality and our common humanity. During the South African anti-apartheid struggle, the world was inspired by the brave and principled actions of dockworkers unions who refused to handle South African cargo, contributing significantly to the ultimate fall of apartheid. Today, we call on you, dockworkers unions of the world, to do the same against Israel’s occupation and apartheid. This is the most effective form of solidarity to end injustice and uphold universal human rights.”
This appeal was doubly significant. It gave the basis for dockers to respond, knowing that the call came from fellow workers. And, it showed exceptional unity on the Palestinian side, a big step in its own right.
The joint union appeal developed the call from the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) issued on 1 June, which included: [3]
We call specifically on transport and dock workers and unions around the globe to: Refuse to load/offload Israeli ships and airplanes, following the historic example set by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in Durban in February 2009 and endorsed by the Maritime Union of Australia (Western Australia).
The ILWU Local 10 Executive Board met on 8 June, and heard from members of the San Francisco Labour Council, a Palestinian speaker and solidarity activists. The Board unanimously adopted an Executive motion [4] citing the Palestinian union appeal which they had received, and noting that the flotilla massacre had been condemned by the International Dockworkers Council (IDC), the International Transportworkers Federation (ITF), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and British union UNITE. The Executive motion joined in condemning the massacre and concluded with a “call for unions to protest by any action they choose to take”.
The ILWU also noted that Swedish Dockworkers were planning an action, scheduled to begin on 15 June.
Sweden
Even before the Palestinian unions issued their appeal, the Swedish Dockworkers Union had announced plans for a week-long blockade of all trade with Israel. The union is a key member of the International Dockworkers Council formed during the Liverpool dockers battle from 1995 – 1998 to regain their jobs after being sacked for refusing to cross a picket line. Former Liverpool dockers and Swedish dockers discussed the possibilities for action and alerted the IDC and its affiliated unions when the Palestinian BNC made contact through BDS activists in both countries on 31 May.
The Swedish Dockworkers Union set out the aims of the blockade and discussed strategy in detailed briefings to the membership and press articles. [5]
Their blockade was designed to last one week, a temporary measure to be evaluated with the possibility of further action. It aimed to influence the Israeli government to:
“1. Lift the illegal and inhuman blockade of Gaza, which has been going on for over three years.
“2. Allow an independent, international inquiry into Israel’s boarding of the Freedom Flotilla (of which the Swedish Ship to Gaza was a member) in international waters, when nine people were killed and at least 48 people were injured. The requirements are clearly defined and conform fully with the demands that the UN and the EU have made to Israel.”
After the initial announcement, the employers’ association “Ports of Sweden” threatened to sue individual union members, deduct from their wages, and demand compensation for participation in the blockade. The dockworkers postponed their action for a week, to dovetail with plans by the Norwegian Transportworkers Union. The Palestinian unions issued their appeal and Sweden would now be acting in response. In the event, the Norwegian blockade did not take place – yet – but Sweden went ahead.
“From the 23rd of June we will no longer handle containers with Israeli wines, vegetables or fruits branded Jaffa, Carmel or Top, vegetarian pre-fabricated foods from Tivall or the carbonation-machine Soda Stream. Neither will we contribute to the Swedish export of Volvo buses, which were used by Israel to transport hundreds of human right activists from the Freedom Flotilla to Israeli prisons.”
The union was directly involved in the original plans for the Swedish Ship to Gaza, which the dockworkers intended to load for free. When the “Sofia” was eventually purchased jointly with a Greek solidarity organisation, the Swedish Dockworkers were in touch with the Greek Port Workers Union who loaded “Sofia” with electric wheelchairs and cement at the port of Pireus, free of charge. The Swedish also approached the IDC to ask affiliates to protect and handle voluntarily all ships carrying supplies to Gaza.
Björn Borg, Chairperson of the Swedish Dockworkers Union, and Erik Helgeson, Ombudsman, local 4 Gothenburg, stressed the significance of the Flotilla.
“We could see how the eyes of the world were finally turned towards the isolated population of Gaza. Even the night before the Israeli military violently stormed the Freedom Flotilla, this international initiative had done more to bring attention to the catastrophic situation of the people of Gaza, than all the diplomatic moves, declarations and resolutions put forward in recent years. That also inspires us and our colleagues in ports around the world to take action.”
When the blockade began, the dockers identified and isolated 10 containers full of goods to or from Israel. Erik Helgeson commented:
“We thought the flow of goods would be much lower considering the blockade has been announced for twenty days. Our ambition is of course that our action can be one of many grassroots initiatives that will keep the eyes of the world focused on the 800, 000 children living isolated in Gaza. The Palestinian civilian population must be allowed to rebuild their economy, their infrastructure and freely integrate with the rest of the world. The war on Gaza and Israel’s brutal blockade have made all this impossible for over three years.”
As the Swedish began their blockade, news emerged that the dockworkers union Liman-Is intended to join the fast growing movement for boycott sweeping through all levels of society after the murder of Turkish aid volunteers aboard the “Mavi Marmara”. Alongside the Physicians’ Association of Turkey and the Chamber of Agricultural Engineers, the Liman-Is Central Committee stated: [6]
“. . . The attack that was protested throughout the world and condemned harshly by the UN also brought people out to the streets in Turkey. The government’s announcements indicate that further sanctions against Israel are to be expected.“However, Israel needs to be answered not only through the channels of government, but through all institutions and social organizations, most of all, through NGO’s and unions.
“Our union Liman-Is, has decided to boycott the ships from Israel, which has become a machine of death and torture. In the framework, no member of our union will give service to Israel in any docks where we are organized.
“Liman-Is union invites all unions and NGO’s organized in our country and throughout the world to join this boycott and protest campaign.”
Turning this declaration into an actual boycott will require the active involvement of other unions in Turkish ports.
India
A few days before the Oakland action, unions in the Port of Cochin, in the state of Kerala, India, had agreed to boycott Israeli ships and cargo. [7] The boycott began on June 17 on receipt of information that cargo unloaded at Colombo Port from Israeli ship m/v Zim Livorno was bound to arrive at Cochin Port in a feeder vessel. Similar consignments unloaded at Colombo from Israeli ships were set to arrive in feeder vessels.
On June 23, trade unions held a joint protest rally in Cochin Port near the office of Zim Integrated Shipping Services (India) Pvt Ltd – the Israeli shipping line. Addressing the rally B Hamza, general secretary of Cochin Port Labour Union (CITU) condemned the flotilla massacre and expressed the Port workers solidarity with Palestine. Leaders of at least five port unions and the Water Transport Workers Federation of India expressed the unity of Cochin Port workers with the growing world-wide boycott.
South Africa
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) had already responded straight after the attack on Gaza in Dec 2008 – Jan 2009. In three weeks, Israeli forces killed 1400 Palestinians including over 300 children. In the midst of the carnage, the International Committee of the Red Cross had to wait 4 days before the Israeli military allowed ambulances to reach children huddled next to their dead mothers in a house shelled by Israeli forces. A UN compound was attacked with white phosphorus munitions. Schools, hospitals, ambulances, sewage treatment plants, all came under fire. Long before the UN launched their own investigation of possible war crimes (the “Goldstone Report”), South African workers knew enough to act. Members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union SATAWU, affiliated to COSATU, refused to work the Zim Lines “Johanna Russ” – which sailed from Haifa at the height of the invasion – when it arrived in Durban in early February 2009. On the eve of that action, COSATU wrote: [8]
“SATAWU’s action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and, later, in Liverpool also refused to offload South African goods. South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions.“Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.
“This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.”
photo: Greg Dropkin
COSATU Campaigns Co-ordinator George Mahlangu
at UN building, Cairo 28 Dec 2009
Five COSATU officers were amongst the 1400 internationals who converged on Cairo last December, hoping to enter Gaza for the Gaza Freedom March. Zico Tamela, the International Secretary of SATAWU, was on the delegation. Interviewed outside the UN buildings by the Nile, he called on transportworkers throughout the world [9]
“. . . to assist in the struggle for the liberation of our brothers and sisters in Palestine. We must support and actively participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. This means the total isolation of Israel in terms of arms embargo, economically, culturally, socially, and otherwise. Just like you fellow workers did with apartheid South Africa. This also means that the Israeli labour movement, which is Zionist to the core, must be kicked out of the progressive international trade union movement. It’s not a question of fighting Jewish workers, no, no, it’s a question of isolating Zionism within the labour movement. Just like it was not a question of fighting white workers, but of fighting racism and isolating it within the international progressive trade union movement.“The action we South Africans took in relation to an Israeli ship and a Chinese ship that docked in Durban, when we refused to offload the consignments those ships carried, the Israeli ship carried civilian goods, the Chinese ship carried arms for Zimbabwe, we didn’t offload those goods. As transport workers throughout the world, we need to be at the forefront of the struggle to implement Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign, because we are the ones who transport goods to and from Israel throughout the world.”
Israeli Consulate rebuffed by ILWU Local 10 Executive
Israel is taking this seriously. Their San Francisco based Consul for the Pacific Northwest Akiva Tor sought to meet with the ILWU Local 10 Executive Board on 6 July, hoping to persuade the union to change course. When the PGFTU found out, they wrote to the Executive Board on 2 July, saluting the union’s boycott, their history of international solidarity, and the risks taken by African-Americans in the civil rights movement. They appealed to the union to stand firm: [10]
…Although we do not live in the United States, we find it highly unusual and somewhat uncustomary that a paid foreign representative of a racist and apartheid regime can demand and get a meeting with the executive board of a local union no less than the ILWU. . .Our civil society has risen and said that justice is universal. We supported the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, the struggle for Civil Rights in the United States, and the struggle for international solidarity. We remember that May 1st commemorates a labor struggle that took place in Chicago, IL, in the US and on May Day 2008, your union the ILWU, shut down all west coast ports to oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, setting a precedent in the U. S. Labor movement.
We humbly ask of you to hold steadfast in the face of backlash and revenge against your union. The call for a meeting with your union by a foreign paid emissary is intervening in the domestic affairs of local community grassroots action in the United States. Israel, an apartheid state, maintaining an illegal war against our people, should not be given the platform at your union house. That platform should be reserved for heroes who champion justice and equality for all.
The Consul may have scented danger, and 6 July his Deputy Gideon Lustig turned up to head the delegation. Lustig spent 10 years in the Israeli Defence Force and attained the rank of Major before turning to a diplomatic career.
Deputy Israeli Consul for the Pacific Northwest Gideon Lustig (left) and Dr. Roberta Seid (3rd from left)
The Consular delegation was joined by Dr Roberta Seid, an academic at University of California Irvine who believes the IDF was not responsible for the death of ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie, run over by an IDF Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza on 16 March 2003 while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian doctor’s house. Why? Because an official Israeli investigation concluded her death was an accident.
In a major diplomatic rebuff for Consular staff, the Executive Board refused to allow the delegation to enter the meeting, in line with the appeal from the PGFTU. [11] Dr Seid was given permission to speak. To general amazement, she defended the murderous attack on the Freedom Flotilla. Perhaps she anticipates the official Israeli investigation will clear the Navy of responsibility. What differences would the Israeli government have with her presentation, she was asked. None, apparently. Had the journal “Foreign Affairs” recently exposed Israel’s offer to supply South Africa with nuclear weapons during the apartheid era? Seid admitted they had, but claimed the story was untrue. A former ILWU official recalled his own experience of visiting Palestine in 1989 and described the expansionist aims of the Israeli state in detail.
When it was over, the Executive reaffirmed the union’s position opposing the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the apartheid wall in the West Bank, the continuing bloody Zionist oppression of Palestinians and the murderous Israeli attack on the aid flotilla.
What does it mean?
In the past, with a few very important exceptions, unions have focused on adopting national policies in solidarity with Palestine, donated funds, sent delegations to the West Bank and occasionally to Gaza, invited their Palestinian counterparts to address conferences, but without engaging in any dispute with their own employers over this issue. Although unions have adopted policies in support of BDS, and even overcome strong internal opposition before doing so, these policies have mainly remained paper committments. Yet these small steps are essential preparation. As Howard Keylor remarked, it took years of education within Local 10 before the boycott of the “Nedlloyd Kimberley” became possible.
The first sign of another strategy came in 2006, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the largely secret war in Gaza that same year. [12] Tram drivers in Dublin were instructed to train their Israeli counterparts on how to operate the planned Light Rail system connecting Jerusalem to the illegal Settlements. In line with the policies of their union SIPTU and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, they refused, risking their jobs. [13] At the same time, an appeal from sacked Liverpool dockers entitled “Sanctions on Israel: If not now, when?” concluded “If you can, intervene directly to stop trade with Israel while the carnage in Lebanon and Gaza continues”. Possible action against Zim Lines was discussed in San Francisco a few months later.
During the bombardment and invasion of Gaza from Dec 2008 – Jan 2009, Greek dockers threatened to boycott a shipment of US arms to Israel, which was then re-routed, eventually reaching Ashdod in March. [14]
Now, for the first time, Israel faces the prospect that their trade links are no longer secure as unions across the world are willing to go into dispute to implement the boycott. This is not a dockers issue, it is an issue for any union which wants to make BDS a reality. And the dockers are only able to act because they know there is a strong basis of support in the wider labour movement.
This is exactly what happened to South Africa from about 1978 onwards. Workers at the computer manufacturing firm ICL (now Fujitsu) in Manchester refused to dispatch the machine they had built for administration of the hated Pass Laws. Air France pilots were poised to refuse to fly uranium illegally mined by Rio Tinto Zinc in South African-occupied Namibia. The trade was suddenly switched to sea. But a decade later Liverpool dockers blockaded containers to interrupt the export of processed South African and Namibian uranium, touching off an outcry in Japan where electricity contracts with RTZ were cancelled. Dublin shopworkers refused to sell Outspan oranges, and were sacked. Oakland dockers refused to offload South African steel and coal, and survived.
It all coincided with the emergence inside South Africa of militant independent trade unions ready to strike against the employer and the apartheid system, eventually forming the Congress of South African Trade Unions in 1985. That was the moment when the South African ruling class knew it would have to find a way out of apartheid. Even so, it took another 9 years.
These were not the only factors which brought down the apartheid regime. Nobody should imagine that a week of blockades spells the end of Israeli apartheid, or even the end of the siege of Gaza. But the dockers have broken through the consensus that trade union solidarity begins and ends with resolutions at trade union congresses, education, fundraising and delegation work, important as these are in laying the basis for action.
The blockades connect Palestine to the class struggle which workers live through every day of their lives. In Oakland, Sweden, Turkey, India, and South Africa, a new generation of dockers has joined a fight with echoes of the 1980s. Clarence Thomas:
“Today what you witnessed was the current young membership of ILWU Local 10 answering the call of the brothers and sisters who came before them. We understand what international solidarity means. It is not an empty slogan. You have to give something up. Our members were willing to give up a day’s pay today. That’s what solidarity means. This is indeed a people’s victory, and remember, just because it’s not on the front page of the New York Times, just because it’s not on CNN, we have to get the word out. We claim no easy victories and tell no lies. Solidarity to the Palestinians. Solidarity to the working class around the world.”
Whatever the immediate consequences, Israel’s murderous attack on the flotilla has landed the Zionist regime in very dangerous waters.
“There is an action, a crime here. Turkey’s demand is rather lucid. Since there is a death, the killing side is acknowledged and an international commission should be formed and make its decision with respect to this fact in the frame of objective provisions of law. If Israel does not want an international commission, then it has to acknowledge this crime, apologize, and pay compensation,” Davutoglu said in an interview published in the Newsweek magazine on July 9.
The top Turkish diplomat made the comments after the recent Israeli attack on the aid fleet seeking to break the siege of Gaza Strip. The deadly attack in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea claimed the lives of nine Turkish citizens.
“If the international community and the international law do not ask about the causes of these deaths, we, as the government of the Republic of Turkey, have the right to ask. Turkey-Israel relations will never be on a normal footing until we have an answer. And Turkey has the right to one-sidedly apply its own sanctions,” the Turkish top diplomat added.
“If the right steps are not taken (by Israel), the relations would go in the direction of a break-off process. However, I cannot share with you what I have told them behind closed doors. They know what kind of sanctions we would impose,” Davutoglu said.
Asked about Ankara’s “zero-tension policy” with Turkey’s neighbor countries and the recent escalation of tensions with Israel, Davutoglu said: “Zero problems with neighbors is a value. But another equally important value is to establish peace. If any actor blocks peace processes, keeps civilians under blockade, massacres civil people on international waters, the peace value could not be disregarded for the sake of zero problems with neighbors. These policies of Israel are a menace to regional peace. Excusing these policies that go against peace just to develop zero-problem relations is out of the question.”
In a July 8th interview with new CNI President Alison Weir, Dr. Chomsky at first denied that he opposed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, calling this an “internet rumor.”
However, when Weir said she had heard him say that he opposed boycott during a lecture at the University of California Berkeley several years ago, Chomsky admitted that he had opposed boycotting Israel then and said that he still did so now. He said that he felt that activists should instead only divest from American companies.
Chomsky claimed that the boycott movement “hurts Palestinians,” because he felt it was “hypocritical to boycott Israel and not the US, which funds Israeli actions.” Weir pointed out that many authors – among them Donald Neff, George Ball, Stephen Green, Kathleen Christison, Edward Tivnan, Walt and Mearsheimer, and, most recently, Grant Smith – have provided massive evidence that the primary reason the U.S. supports Israel is the Israel Lobby (the most powerful lobby for a foreign country in the US).
Chomsky, who has consistently denied the power of the Israel Lobby, said that AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) would use the charge that the Palestinian support movement is allegedly “hypocritcal” to undermine its effectiveness, and that therefore this boycott would be harmful to Palestinians. While this statement appeared to indicate that Chomsky now acknowledges the power and significance of the Israel lobby, later in the interview he continued to deny the importance of this lobby.
A caller to the show, long-time Middle East analyst Jeffrey Blankfort, commented that he felt it was highly inappropriate and condescending for Chomsky, a Jewish-American who had lived on a Kibbutz and says that he supports Israel, to tell Palestinians what’s good for them.
During the interview, Chomsky said that he has long favored a binational state. He said that he felt that the call for a “single, secular, democratic state” did not make much sense, suggesting that calls for one state were “rhetorical” and did not “rise to the state of advocacy” because proponents had not sketched out a path of how to get there. He did not comment on the books on this subject by Ali Abunimah and Virginia Tilley, which advance detailed discussion on this approach.
Because technical problems caused occasional problems during the program, Weir, who is also executive director of If Americans Knew, has invited Chomsky to come on the show again so that he may explain his position further. Chomsky accepted the invitation and will appear again in a few months when his schedule permits.
The interview, in which Chomsky also discusses other aspects of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, can be heard in full on the CNI: Jerusalem Calling section of the WS Radio website. Outgoing CNI President Eugene Bird says that CNI will post a transcript on the CNI website within a few days.
Hundreds of activists in Washington, DC demonstrated outside the White House to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit on Tuesday, 6 July. As protesters held signs calling on the US government to end military aid to Israel, Netanhayu met with US President Barack Obama in a meeting characterized by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “empty theatrics.”
“I think the Israeli government, working through layers of various governmental entities and jurisdictions, has shown restraint over the last several months that I think has been conducive to the prospects of us getting into direct talks,” Obama announced in a press briefing after their meeting yesterday, referring to Netanyahu’s settlement “moratorium.”
Earlier in the week, right-wing Zionist settler groups from colonies inside the occupied West Bank called on Netanyahu to honor a “promise to resume” settlement construction after his much-lauded ten-month moratorium that ends 26 September. The groups also urged Netanyahu not to react to pressure he could face at the White House to extend the settlement “freeze” (“Israel settlers pressure PM on construction halt,” Agence France Presse, 2 July 2010). The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that regional settler councils across the West Bank announced plans to build at least 2,700 housing units beginning 27 September. Shomron regional council deputy Ehud Stondia commented to Haaretz that the council was “preparing for construction on the scale that existed before the freeze or even more” (“2,700 houses to be built as soon as West Bank settlement freeze ends,” 5 July 2010).
But settlement construction has not, in fact, stopped during Netanyahu’s supposed moratorium that began 25 November 2009.
Coinciding with Netanyahu’s White House visit, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem published an in-depth report, with detailed maps, yesterday. The report updates Israeli settlement policy in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem from 1967 through May 2010 and documents the ongoing “means employed by Israel to gain control of land for building the settlements” (“By Hook and by Crook: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank“).
In the 79-page report, B’Tselem states that after Netanyahu’s announcement of a cessation of settlement construction, Israel’s Central Command office allowed building “for which permits had already been issued and whose foundations had been laid … Although the wording of the decision was sweeping, Haaretz reported that it was not intended to apply to East Jerusalem, to 2,500 apartments already under construction, or to 455 other apartments whose marketing the defense minister had approved prior to the decision of 25 November.”
According to B’Tselem’s documentation, the settler population inside the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has skyrocketed, notably doubling since the Oslo accords in the mid-1990s. Approximately 500,000 Israeli settlers are currently living in 121 illegal settlement colonies, in nearly 100 “outposts” in the West Bank and in 12 neighborhoods in East Jerusalem “on land it annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality … The settlement enterprise has been characterized, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank.”
More than 42 percent of the West Bank, says B’Tselem, has been appropriated to this ever-expanding settlement infrastructure, despite Netanyahu’s “moratorium.”
“Israel established a legal-bureaucratic apparatus to gain control of the West Bank, based on the false grounds that the land was required for ‘military needs’ or for ‘public needs’ or that it was ‘state land,’ the objective being to transfer private and public Palestinian land to the settlements for their use,” says B’Tselem. “This apparatus enabled the transfer to the settlements of more than 42 percent of the land in the West Bank and the construction of 21 percent of the settlements’ built-up land on private Palestinian land. In operating this apparatus, Israel has extensively and systematically infringed on the right of property of Palestinians in the West Bank.”
As Barack Obama reiterated that the US-Israel bond will remain “unbreakable” yesterday at the White House, he urged Palestinians, occupied and subjected to Israel’s military apartheid structure, to avoid soliciting “opportunities to embarrass Israel.” He said he hoped talks between the Israeli government and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority would begin before the September settlement “freeze” ended.
But Dawoud Hammoud, researcher with the Ramallah-based Stop the Wall Campaign, told The Electronic Intifada that the machinations of a settlement freeze misses the bigger issue. “We are not asking to freeze the settlements. We are demanding to end the entire colonization system,” he said. “The announcement of a settlement freeze is just trying to market the failure of the peace project.”
Meanwhile, activists in New York are gearing up for protest as Netanyahu makes his way to Manhattan on Thursday, 8 July (“Protest Netanyahu in NYC,” Adalah-NY). “We are on a roll, people. The world is confronting Israeli war criminals,” states the Adalah-NY press release for the protest. “Let’s not permit this one to visit NYC with no resistance!”
Hollywood actors Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman cancelled plans to attend the Jerusalem film festival following Israel‘s raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine dead earlier this year, an official has told the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Yigal Molad Hayo – associate director of the Jerusalem Cinemateque, the main venue for the event – said neither actor had cited the international outcry over the country’s actions as a reason for pulling out of the annual festival, but added: “It became quite clear that this was the reason.”
“Meg Ryan was supposed to come here – it had all been closed with her people,” he told the Post. “A day after the flotilla incident we got an email saying she was not going to attend, and although they claimed it was because she was too busy it was clear to me that it probably had something to do with what had happened.”
Hayo added: “We were very close to reaching an agreement with [Hoffman], then the flotilla happened and correspondence was ended.”
The two-week festival, which opens tomorrow, will nevertheless play host to some 150 international guests including heads of other international festivals, actors, producers and directors. It will debut around 50 Israeli movies, documentaries and short films.
BRUSSELS: The Brussels-based European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza said that there has been a large turnout for Freedom Flotilla 2, in terms of activists requesting to participate, and in terms of the number of ships.
The campaign, which was one of the founders of the Freedom Flotilla coalition, in a press statement on Monday, boasted that the new flotilla has a few surprises in store for Israeli authorities, one of which is that seven of the ships scheduled to participate in the flotilla are from European counties.
The European campaign added that it received around nine thousand requests forms from sympathizers from around the world since opening registration to participate in the second Freedom Flotilla, which is expected to set sail into the Gaza Strip within a few weeks, despite Israel’s May 31st raid against the first Freedom Flotilla, which left nine dead, others injured, and properties confiscated and damaged.
The first Freedom Flotilla carried 750 activists from more than 40 countries, including 44 Arab and European government and political officials, including ten Algerian MPs, more than 10,000 tons of medical supplies, building materials, and timber, and 100 ready-made houses in support of the tens of thousands of people who lost their homes in the Israeli war on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. The ships also carried 500 electric vehicles for the use of the disabled, especially since the recent war left nearly 600 disabled in Gaza.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, independent MP Jamal al-Khudari, Chairman of the Popular Committee against the Siege, has confirmed that Israel has publically announced that it will ease the aggravated siege on Gaza, without any mention of ending the root of the crisis.
Khudari, in a press release on Monday, noted that ending the blockade would require a series of measures on the ground, the most important of which would be to completely open commercial crossings to allow the flow of goods, and to put an end to the “restricted lists” policy, underlining that Gaza is need of all the supplies it was deprived of since the institution of the blockade four years ago.
He noted that Israel was still closing all Gaza commercial crossings except the crossing point at Kerem Abu Salem, the absorptive capacity of which is small when compared to the Strip’s needs, the biggest proof that the broadcasted ease of the siege is merely an attempt to ease international pressure.
Preparations by European, Arab, and Islamic parties for new ships headed for the Gaza Strip are well underway, Khudari confirmed, adding that scheduled departures will soon be announced.
The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is gaining significant momentum cross the United States and Europe, including at US campuses. In response, opposition to the movement is devising new ways to divert attention from efforts to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and flagrant abuses of Palestinian human rights.
At Stanford University, the school I graduated from last year, the Stanford Israel Alliance has created a counter-divestment campaign called “Invest For Peace.” Cloaked in the language of good intentions, Invest For Peace suggests that their campaign will work to uplift Palestinian society and economy by raising money to invest in micro-finance organizations in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Their mission states that in contrast to divestment, Invest For Peace makes positive contributions that “move beyond counterproductive rhetoric.” Invest For Peace calls for campus unity by suggesting it aspires to the same goal as the divestment movements, but by different means. This campaign muddies the issue by conflating the goals of campus unity and advancing justice, not to mention aligning itself with the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The goal of divestment is to expose Israel’s oppressive policies and bring pressure to bear on Israel to end them. Stanford’s Invest For Peace campaign utterly denies Israel’s integral role in the debilitation of the Palestinian economy and therefore can have no credibility as a force to ameliorate the conflict. It ignores the fact that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Palestinian civil and economic society through its decades of usurpation of resources and military occupation.
The similarity in rhetoric between Invest for Peace and the Netanyahu government is conspicuous. Last year, Netanyahu called for an “economic peace” with the Palestinians, as opposed to a peace based on negotiations, rights and justice. In spite of his talk of improving the standard of living among Palestinians, Netanyahu has continued and expanded Israel’s policy of building settlements on Palestinian land in violation of international law while the siege of Gaza enters its 36th month. Netanyahu’s talk of an “economic peace” is empty rhetoric designed to disguise nefarious policies.
Moreover, investing in micro-finance organizations while demanding continued unquestioned US aid to Israel and its military is like dropping a quarter in someone’s tin cup after you’ve chopped off her hands. When Israel disconnects Palestinian orange groves from their water supplies, uproots its olive trees and cuts Gaza off from any potential trade, it commits intentional acts of destruction to the Palestinian economy. Invest For Peace speaks of the deterioration of the Palestinian economy as though it were a natural disaster, without specific and man-made origins, designed to ensure Palestinian economic dependency and penury.
In her book Failing Peace and other works, Harvard’s Sara Roy chronicles the deterioration of the Palestinian economy as it relates directly to Israel’s occupation and control of trade and borders. Roy identifies Israel’s imposition of closure policies as well as its division of Palestinian land as the principle culprits of the rapidly declining Palestinian economy. She states that “The result is de-development — a process I define as the deliberate, systematic and progressive dismemberment of an indigenous economy by a dominant one, where economic — and by extension — societal-potential is not only distorted but denied.”
Roy is not alone in her assessment. The World Bank has indicted Israel’s system of checkpoints, roadblocks, and obstructions to Palestinian movement as the chief source of the decaying economic life in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a 2007 report entitled “Movement and Access Restrictions in the West Bank,” the World Bank called for an overhaul in Israel’s treatment of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, prescribing “a fundamental reassessment of closure practices, a restoration of the presumption of movement, and review of Israeli control of the population registry and other means of dictating the residency of Palestinians” (“West Bank Restrictions,” [PDF]).
Considering the brutality of Israeli policies and the clear effects they have on the Palestinian economy, it is hard to take seriously the Invest For Peace campaign’s assertion that it is seeking to take “effective action” to remediate poverty in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. In an op-ed published by the Stanford Daily, Stanford student and member of the Stanford Israel Alliance and Invest For Peace, Yishai Kabaker argued that “In my experience with divestment when applied to this conflict, damage is wrought, but nothing positive comes of it.” He added: “In the past, divestment campaigns helped combat apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Darfur. However, the divestment campaign against Israel is a crass bludgeon, which reduces an incredibly complex situation to euphemisms and demonizations” (“We Choose to Invest,” 4 May 2010). Yet, the dissolution of Israel’s policies is precisely the “positive” outcome that divestment campaigns intend to achieve.
Historically, Israel-allied groups have inhibited Palestinian solidarity groups from gaining prominence on college campuses across the country. But that time is ending. The astonishing mobilization and collaboration that divestment efforts at schools like UC Berkeley, Hampshire College and Evergreen State College are generating reflect the broad support for divestment and the success that it will eventually achieve. Public opinion is catching up to the radical reality of Israeli policies in Palestine. The train for BDS has left the station, and you’re not going to catch it if you’re running in the opposite direction.
Charlotte Silver, a litigation assistant at the American Civil Liberties Union, can be reached at charlottesilver A T gmail D O T com.
Ever since a group of ordinary people from more than 40 different countries came together and set sail for Gaza have we seen various world leaders scramble to persuade Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza. Why? To honour the memory of those martyred by Israeli soldiers who shot nine unarmed peace activists at virtually point-blank range? Hell no!
They realize that people power has achieved more in that one heroic action, than any of them have achieved for the people of Palestine. And, despite that brutal episode, they know that more flotillas and convoys are being planned because people power is achieving more than anything else has over the past 60 years for the people of Palestine.
The so-called Middle East Peace Envoy Tony Blair certainly does not want to see any more flotillas sailing for Gaza. It’s not because he lies awake at night thinking about the deaths of those innocent humanitarian activists. No, Blair is afraid – very afraid – that people power will expose him for what he is, probably the most useless peace envoy on this planet. Exactly what has he done for the Palestinians since he took the job? Actually it would be easier to list what he hasn’t done:
*HE HAS NOT stopped the land-grabbing Israelis from building ever more illegal settlements in complete defiance of international law.
* HE HAS NOT managed to lift the Siege of Gaza so that the thousands left homeless after last year’s invasion can start rebuilding their homes.
* HE HAS NOT been able to push ahead with an independent UN investigation in to the Israeli raid on and hijacking of the Freedom Flotilla.
* HE HAS NOT been able to stop babies dying in the hopelessly under-equipped Gaza maternity units.
* HE HAS NOT stopped or even attempted to expose the corruption of the Palestinian Authority.
* HE HAS NOT been able to make one iota of progress in fulfilling his job description.
Apart from the Shah of Palestine – Mahmoud Abbas – I am struggling to think of a more redundant individual than Tony Blair, but I’ll come to Abbas later.
Blair was on television recently boasting about how life is improving in the West Bank for the Palestinians and saying that there’s been a reduction in the number of checkpoints. What a stupid, silly, silly little man he is, almost as blinkered as the journalist who was interviewing him. There are fewer checkpoints because the Israelis are grabbing more land and huge swathes of stolen land are merging into other tracts of stolen land, making some checkpoints redundant. That doesn’t change the fact that the West Bank is now a series of small islands, cut off by Israel and its Apartheid Wall and settler-only roads, as well as the illegal settlements.
The inference during the interview was that if the people of Gaza dumped Hamas and put their faith once more in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority then everyone’s lives would be so much easier.
What the journalist failed to ask and Blair failed to address is the fact that even with the horrendous hardships facing the people of Gaza and their children, many Palestinians living in the West Bank are actually worse off. The truth is, children living in the poorest parts of the occupied West Bank face significantly worse conditions than their counterparts in Gaza, according to a report by Save the Children UK.
The European Commission-funded study found that in “Area C” – the 60 percent of the West Bank under direct Israeli control – the poorest sections of society are suffering disproportionately because basic infrastructure is not being repaired due to Israel’s refusal to approve the work. Homes, schools, drainage systems and roads are in urgent need of repair, but instead of work being allowed, families are being forced to live in tents and do not have access to clean water. Restrictions on the use of land for agriculture have left thousands of Palestinian children without enough food and many are becoming ill as a result, the study found.
Conditions in Area C have reached “crisis point”, says Save the Children, with 79 percent of the local communities surveyed lacking sufficient food, a greater proportion than in blockaded Gaza, where the figure is 61 percent. Many children living in such communities are showing signs of stunted growth, with the figure running at more than double Gaza’s rate, and more than one in ten children surveyed for the study were found to be underweight.
So there you have it – the Shah of Palestine has delivered nothing but more hardship for his own people in the West Bank while lining his own pockets and those of his enforcers. Abbas has been praised by Tony Blair for making friends with Israel and proving he’s someone the West can do business with. This might be true but in the process he has well and truly sold his own people down the river and I hope they punish him in the ballot box, should there ever be another free and fair election.
No wonder Mahmoud Abbas has no time for the human rights activists and humanitarian aid workers who put their lives on the line to launch the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla. But that’s nothing new. I remember in 2008 being slightly crestfallen after arriving on the shores of Gaza on board one of the first boats in the Free Gaza Movement only to learn Abbas had brushed away our efforts with a shrug of the shoulders. Still, none of us were in it for the glory, we just wanted to raise public awareness about the Siege of Gaza, and I think it’s fair to say that virtually the whole world now knows about the Siege of Gaza and the brutality of the Israeli government. Why? Because of the efforts of those on board the Turkish-led flotilla, that’s why. The reality is that charities like the Turkish IHH and the UK-based Interpal, the Free Gaza Movement, Viva Palestina and other groups such as the International Solidarity Movement, have done so much more for the people of Palestine than the politicians.
That is why we can never leave Palestine to the politicians; if we had done so it would have been wiped off the face of the map completely by now. Instead, thanks to people power, Palestine has a global support movement among hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary people. We are too many in number to be bought off by the Israeli lobbies, and are too pure in heart to want our palms greased by even greasier individuals. We are people of all faiths and no faith, many cultures, skin colours, nationalities and political beliefs. We are going to cause great pain – as is already evident – through our boycotts of Israeli goods and products and we will continue until the Apartheid State of Israel is a fading memory just like the Apartheid State of South Africa.
It doesn’t matter how many corrupt politicians there are in the pay and sway of Tel Aviv, we, the ordinary people of the world, outnumber you and we are growing in number and strength.
There are more flotillas being planned, more land convoys in the making and more ordinary people prepared to step up to the plate to do what it takes to free Palestine. And we will. When the people lead the leaders must follow or they will become irrelevant and redundant. Just like Mr. Tony Blair.
Yvonne Ridley was on board the first boat to break the siege of Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement and she is one of the founders of Viva Palestina. She is also the European President of the International Muslim Women’s Union.
Swedish Radio reported on 23 June that home furnishings retail giant IKEA in Israel discriminately ships to Israel’s illegal settlements but not Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank.
Swedish Radio’s correspondent in Israel, Cecilia Udden, explained that she was moving to the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and asked the staff at IKEA Israel if her furniture could be delivered there. She reported that behind the store’s counter was a huge map of Israel that showed no boundaries for the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, or the Syrian Golan Heights. Although IKEA’s cost of transport is calculated according to distance, to Udden’s surprise, transport to Ramallah was not possible. However, the store did inform her that furniture could be delivered to various Israeli settlements throughout the occupied West Bank.
Ove Bring, a professor of international law, explained to Swedish online magazine Stockholm News that IKEA’s policies discriminate against Palestinians. In addition, the shipping policies violate the company’s code of conduct, which is published on its website (“IWAY Standard” [PDF]).
IKEA stated in Udden’s report that because it relies on local transport companies for deliveries it is bound by local rules. However, Bring challenged the company’s assertion and stated that IKEA must examine whether the transport companies are truly unable to deliver to all customers who request the products. Indeed, when Udden insisted on an answer from the transportation company about why her furniture could not be delivered to Ramallah, she was informed that the Israeli military prohibits the deliveries to customers in Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
In its historic 2004 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice emphasized the illegality of activity that normalizes Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Indeed, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center — which is building a Museum of Tolerance on a historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem — told the California-based Jewish weekly J. that the opening of an IKEA store in Israel “will be another chink in the attempts that are still out there to boycott Israel” (““IKEA’s 1st Israeli store to open in spring,” 12 January 2001).
Ironically, before the opening of an IKEA store in Israel in 2001, the retailer was threatened with boycott by the Wiesenthal Center because the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was a member of the fascist New Swedish Movement in the 1940s. The Wiesenthal Center also suspected IKEA of complying with the Arab League boycott of Israel because it appeared to avoid commercial involvement in Israel despite possible opportunities. In a December 1994 letter to the Wiesenthal Center, IKEA President Anders Moberg stated that IKEA had not participated in the Arab League boycott and that the company was in the process of investigating the possibility of opening an IKEA store in Israel.
Today IKEA’s empire boasts 300 stores in 35 countries, including two stores in Israel; the company intends to open a third store in Haifa in 2012. The IKEA brand survived the revelations of its founder’s links to fascism during his youth and the company demonstrated its sensitivity to a possible consumer boycott.
In yet another irony, the boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel movement is already mobilizing in Sweden. At the end of June, the Swedish Dockworkers Union began a week-long blockade of goods to and from Israel. The action by the SDU was in response to a call by Palestinian trade unionists in the context of Israel’s three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip and its attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship on 31 May. In this context, it remains to be seen whether IKEA will rectify the racist policies of its store in Israel before such practices inspire a new consumer boycott threat.
Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.
In another sign of the deteriorating ties between Israel and Turkey, the Turkish Defense Ministry informed the Israeli occupation army over the weekend that it has decided not to participate in a naval search-and-rescue exercise planned for next month.
Called Reliant Mermaid, the annual exercise began 10 years ago and included the Israeli, Turkish and American navies. The objective of the exercise is to practice search-and-rescue operations and to familiarize each navy with international partners who also operate in the Mediterranean Sea.
The exercise was held last summer despite the rift that erupted in Turkish-Israeli relations following Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. But defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that the Israeli army had expected Turkey would cancel the planned drill following the raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla on May 31 that ended with nine dead Turkish nationals.
The officials said that the Israeli and American navies will still conduct the drill.
This is not the first time that the Turks have canceled joint drills with the Israeli occupation army. Last year, Israel was removed from the Anatolian Eagle air force exercise, days before it was scheduled to begin. As a result, the US Air Force also dropped out.
Until Operation Cast Lead, the IAF frequently flew in Turkish air space and participated in several annual exercises with its Turkish counterpart.
A Turkish woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
Turkey’s foreign minister has warned that diplomatic ties with Israel will be cut in the wake of the recent flotilla crisis unless certain conditions are met, the Turkish press reported Monday.
“The Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off,” Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters on Saturday during a visit to Kyrgyzstan.
The once-close Turkish-Israeli relationship has taken a steep nose dive following a tragically botched May 31 Israeli commando raid on a Gaza aid flotilla led by a Turkish non-governmental organization. Nine Turks were killed in the attack.
Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel after the raid. It has also closed its airspace to Israeli military aircraft in response to the incident.
Turkey has previously stated its demands that before relations are normalized Israel must apologize, pay compensation to the victims and allow for an international inquiry into the event.
Israel has so far refused to meet those demands. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said his country would not apologize or pay compensation to the flotilla victims.
Israel has meanwhile set up its own inquiry, headed by a former Supreme Court justice. “We showed them an exit road. If they apologize as a result of their own investigation’s conclusion, that would be fine for us. But of course we first have to see it,” Davutoglu said.
“They are aware of our demands. If they do not want to apologize, then they should accept an international investigation,” he added.
Davutoglu also suggested that Turkey could impose further sanctions against Israel should it fail to meet Turkey’s conditions. “If steps are not taken, the process of isolation will continue,” he said.
Davutoglu also said that Turkey had closed its airspace to all Israeli military flights in reaction to the raid. “This decision was not taken for only one or two airplanes,” the minister said, adding that the closure could be extended to civilian flights as well.
Last week Turkey closed its airspace to two military airplanes, but authorities said that it was not a generalized ban.
On Friday, Israeli Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer refuted a report by Turkish daily Hurriyet, which claimed that he had indicated to Davutoglu during their clandestine meeting in Brussels last week that Israel was rethinking its refusal to compensate and apologize over the flotilla incident.
“We have no plans to do that, and the minister did not promise anything to that regard during his meeting with the Turkish foreign minister two days ago,” Ben-Eliezer’s bureau said in response to the report.
Our world is run by oligarchs, the holders of vast wealth from monopolies in banking, resource extraction, manufacturing, and technology. Oligarchs have such power that most of the world doesn’t even know of their influence over our lives. Their overall agenda is global power — a world government, run by them — to be achieved through planned steps of social engineering. The oligarchs remain in the background and have heads of state and entire governments acting in their service. Presidents and prime ministers are their puppets. Bureaucrats and politicians are their factotums.
Who are politicians? Politicians are people who work for the powerful while pretending to represent the people who voted for them. This double-dealing involves a lot of lying, so successful politicians must be good at it. It’s not an easy job to make the insane agenda of the powerful seem reasonable. Politicians can’t reveal this agenda because it almost always goes against the interests of their constituents, so they become adept at sophistry, mystification, and the appearance of authority. For example, wars for Israel have been part of the agenda of the powerful for years. Since 2001, wars for Israel have been sold as “the war on terror” and lots of lies had to be made up as to why the war on terror was a real thing. The visible faces promoting the war on terror were neoconservatives in the US, almost all of whom were advocates for Israel, or Zionists. Zionists are not the only members of the oligarchy, but they seem to be its lead actors. ... continue
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Even before the Palestinian unions issued their appeal, the 
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) had already responded straight after the attack on Gaza in Dec 2008 – Jan 2009. In three weeks, Israeli forces killed 1400 Palestinians including over 300 children. In the midst of the carnage, the International Committee of the Red Cross had to wait 4 days before the Israeli military allowed ambulances to reach children huddled next to their dead mothers in a house shelled by Israeli forces. A UN compound was attacked with white phosphorus munitions. Schools, hospitals, ambulances, sewage treatment plants, all came under fire. Long before the UN launched their own investigation of possible war crimes (the “Goldstone Report”), South African workers knew enough to act. Members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union SATAWU, affiliated to COSATU, refused to work the Zim Lines “Johanna Russ” – which sailed from Haifa at the height of the invasion – when it arrived in Durban in early February 2009. On the eve of that action, COSATU wrote: [8]
…Although we do not live in the United States, we find it highly unusual and somewhat uncustomary that a paid foreign representative of a racist and apartheid regime can demand and get a meeting with the executive board of a local union no less than the ILWU. . .Our civil society has risen and said that justice is universal. We supported the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, the struggle for Civil Rights in the United States, and the struggle for international solidarity. We remember that May 1st commemorates a labor struggle that took place in Chicago, IL, in the US and on May Day 2008, your union the ILWU, shut down all west coast ports to oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, setting a precedent in the U. S. Labor movement.
Aletho News 