The Palestinian Struggle for Self-Determination: Our Solidarity Today and Tomorrow, PLUS Call on Union Leadership to Demand an End to the Support of Arms to Israel

Note: Following are the main presentations and concluding remarks at the Socialist Organizer forum, December 3, titled, “The Palestinian Struggle for Self-determination: Our Solidarity Today and Tomorrow.” Eighty-eight people were in attendance. An additional 35 people registered and requested a copy of the forum, both in print form and/or in its video format. This Report-Back includes statements and closing remarks by the following speakers. They are listed here in the order they spoke.

• Mya Shone

• Naji El Khatib

• Monadel Herzallah

• Coral Wheeler

• Alan Benjamin

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MYA SHONE:

INTRODUCTION, by Forum chair Alan Benjamin:

The first speaker, Mya Shone, is a longtime activist in the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and co-author with Ralph Schoenman of several books on the history of Zionism – including Homage to Palestine and Prisoners of Israel. She was the coordinator of the 1988 Campaign to End All Aid to Apartheid Israel, For a Democratic and Secular Palestine. Please welcome Mya Shone.

PRESENTATION:

Comrades and friends,

The genocidal assault of the Israeli state against the Palestinian people in Gaza has resumed in force. “It’s a new layer of destruction” stated Robert Mardini, head of the International Red Cross. Over 15,400 killed to date, 70% of whom are women and children, an untold number buried under rubble; 1.8 million people, nearly 80% of Gaza’s population, forced to flee their homes; over 100,000 buildings destroyed, including entire neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, mosques, vital infrastructure for electricity, water, fuel and transportation; a siege that has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions such that the number of deaths is expected to double.

Yet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refers to this genocidal attack in Gaza as the second war of independence for the Jewish people. Netanyahu harkens back to Joshua and the Biblical description of the battle for Jericho 3,000 years ago.

What is revealing about Netanyahu’s reference is that the Old Testament both extols the extermination of the indigenous Canaanites and mandates that the Israelites eliminate all peoples in the territory they conquer. This is throughout the region in which, according to Genesis 15:15:21, “the Lord made a covenant with Abram:

“To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates — the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kamonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

The conquest that created the Kingdom of Israel took place over the course of the Bronze Age. The Kingdom of Israel divided into the Kingdoms of Judea and Samaria after the death of King Solomon before it was swept away by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

But we are not here today to discuss ancient history, theology, or whether God, if one so believes in deity, is a real estate agent as Netanyahu and other Zionists contend. We are here to discuss social and political liberation in modern times and how to effectively advance the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and the vision of a society in all of Palestine — from the River to the Sea — where the rights of people do not depend upon ethnic or religious identity. This is the struggle for a democratic and secular society such as we demand for ourselves.

We must first understand that Zionism and the quest for greater Israel, accompanied by the removal of the Palestinian people — is foundational to the ideology of the Zionist movement, Revisionist and Labor Zionist alike.

In 1936, David Ben Gurion, revered as the father of the Israeli state and its first prime minister, wrote to his son: “A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning.” “The boundaries of Zionist aspiration,” he explained in a speech in 1938 to the World Council of Poale Zion, “include southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today’s Jordan, all of Cis- Jordan (the West Bank) and the Sinai.”

In 1940, Joseph Weitz, the head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department, described what that would entail: “Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country. … there is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries — all of them not one village, not one tribe should be left.”

The quest for power and the struggle for Zionist control of a wide swath of the Middle East has been unrelenting: the Nakba, the Zionist massacres that led to the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians, the subsequent war in June 1967 in which the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights were seized, the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 followed by an 18-year occupation of the south, 500,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, 220,000 in East Jerusalem and the land surrounding it, 118 outposts laying the groundwork for new West Bank settlements, most of the Jordan Valley, 30% of the West Bank, off limits to Palestinians.

Add to this the brutality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including 1 million Palestinians imprisoned and tortured since 1967, the 16-year boycott and siege of Gaza, along with periodic massive bombardment such as we witness today. Let us note that none of this could occur were it not for U.S. sponsorship and funding since the partition of Palestine on November 29, 1947.

The F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets, missiles, the 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs, the J-DAM guidance kits as well as the millions of rounds of ammunition that are killing and maiming the Palestinian people and rendering their communities uninhabitable are, for the most part, manufactured in the U.S. and paid for with our U.S. tax dollars.

That is why first and foremost we demand End All Aid to Israel. Our demand puts us in conflict with the imperialist interests of the U.S. ruling class and the Democratic and Republican parties that serve it. As we press our cause and meet opposition, the inevitable issue of who wields power is raised and, thus, it becomes essential for us to create the basis for a mass working-class party rooted in labor and oppressed communities which can serve our interests.

The Zionist state, with the assistance of the U.S. government, has built the 4th largest military in the world. It serves to protect U.S. ruling class interests in the Middle East, foremost suppressing the Palestinian and other Arab revolutions which would threaten imperialist control of oil and other resources.

A state, however, is not coextensive with its people. We have been organizing and participating in the burgeoning solidarity and anti-war movements on campuses and in our communities to Stop the Bombardment, End the Siege and End All Aid to Apartheid Israel. That, too, is why this is a critical moment for the Jews of Israel and Jews throughout the world, as well as other people, to assess whether they want to bear the consequences of the reactionary ideology of the Zionist movement and Israel, a state founded on dispossession and exclusivity.

That is why the effort of the One Democratic State Initiative with its “Open Letter to Our Jewish Allies” is so significant.

Let there be no illusion that a two-state solution was ever and is ever possible. That it is mentioned today is a sign of desperation by the imperialist powers and the country-selling regimes of the Arab world.

Aaron David Miller, who served as an adviser on Middle East issues to Democratic and Republican administrations, concluded that President Biden’s recent emphasis on a two-state solution was an “aspirational talking point.” “The odds are very, very low,” Miller said. “It’s essentially mission impossible.” (as reported in the Associated Press, October 29, 2023) Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, trying to stave off Zionist plans to drive the Palestinians in Gaza into the Sinai, has called for the establishment of a de-militarized Palestinian state with international intervention that would serve to achieve security for the State of Israel.

As noted by a veteran Palestinian militant in DeHeishe camp: “Those who hold out expectations for a two-state solution are blind to what is happening on the ground. The Zionists will not leave a centimeter for a two-state solution.”

Furthermore, he stated, “Israel and the Palestinian Authority are afraid of another Intifada in the West Bank. They know it can happen in the streets again. That is why Israeli troops enter the camps and towns every day and every night. Over 3,000 youth have been arrested in one month, most as administrative detainees, held without charge. They know we will fight until the end. We will make a new kind of history. This is not the history of the Arab leaders. This is the people themselves.”

It was during the First Intifada, beginning in December 1987, when stone-throwing youth combatted heavily-armed Israeli soldiers and their massive tanks, that Palestinians, throughout the West Bank and Gaza, refused to pay Israeli taxes, boycotted Israeli goods, withheld their labor, and most significantly organized themselves into local committees that along with representatives from social service organizations, labor unions, and the militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, and the Palestine Communist Party formed the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising. It was a national leadership independent of Chairman Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership in Tunis. In essence, a constituent assembly.

The national bourgeoisie under the leadership of Yasir Arafat sought to demobilize the Intifada. The popular organization with the UNLU was undermining its authority and threatened the PLO discussions with U.S. imperialism. Arafat pushed a policy of capitulation at the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers in mid-November 1988 wherein the P.L.O. would abandon its historic position of a democratic secular Palestine and would recognize Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state. The unrealistic expectation was that the United States would ensure a Palestinian state on a fragment of historic Palestine. We know what ensued.

To conclude: The Palestinian people have been in constant struggle for self-determination for more than 100 years — since the imperialist division of the Ottoman Empire at the close of World War I and the creation of the draconian British Mandate control of Palestine.

The Palestinian struggle has its roots in the uprisings in Jerusalem in 1920, Jaffa in 1921, Hebron in 1929, the three-year struggle from 1936 through 1939 which flowed from an unprecedented six-month Palestinian general strike. The Palestinian people have never relinquished their struggle no matter the brutality and genocide unleashed against them.

Today, just as in March 1988, during the first Intifada, when notable figures in the U.S. and internationally, such as Nobel Peace Laureate Linus Pauling, authors Gore Vidal and Kurt Vonnegut, labor leaders, leaders in the Black liberation movement, professors, and religious figures both Christian and Jews, came together to demand End All Aid to Apartheid Israel and voice their support for a Democratic Secular Palestine we see that the response to decades of outrageous tyranny still exists among the Palestinian people and is echoed in those Israeli Jews who resist the oppression of others.

“Theirs is the passion for a life without oppression.

“Theirs is the vision of a country shorn of racist dominion.

“Palestinians and Jews, free at last from discrimination and injustice, will forge lasting peace only in a democratic and secular society where elementary rights are accorded to all.

“Extend your hand to the heroic people of Palestine. Support the campaign to end all aid to apartheid Israel. Join the worldwide call for a democratic and secular Palestine.”

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Recommended Reading:

The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman available in print with your $25 contribution to Socialist Organizer. Please send your street mailing address to takingaim@pacbell.net once you have made the contribution.

The Hidden History of Zionism is available free online at https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/hidden/index.htm

Suggested Viewing:

The Palestinian Struggle for Self-Determination: Today and Tomorrow, a Socialist Organizer forum, Sunday, December 3, 2023. Contact us to view this important two-hour forum (first hour presentations and second hour discussion. Please consider contributing to Socialist Organizer via donate online at www.socialistorganizer.org. Your contributions make these forums possible.

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NAJI EL KHATIB:

INTRODUCTION, by Forum chair Alan Benjamin:

Naji El Khatib was one of the initiators of the “Open Letter to Our Jewish Allies,” which just in the space of a few days gained close to 15,000 signatures of Palestinian activists. Naji has long been active in the Palestinian resistance movement in the West Bank, particularly in Nablus.  

PRESENTATION:

Hello everyone. I am Naji, from a Palestinian refugee family in Lebanon. My family came from, was expelled from Jaffa, which is for me Palestine. Palestine was at first a fiction for me because we lived outside in the diaspora. It was difficult for me to find my identity since I was born in a Lebanese neighborhood in Beirut and did not live in a refugee camp. Finishing my PhD studies was the opportunity for me to go back to Palestine. I found work as a lecturer in An-Najah University in Nablus.

I have been involved in the Palestinian national movement since my teenage years, as were many of the youth of my generation. I became more leftist in my twenties and joined a leftist organization in the Palestinian movement.

It was clear to me that question of Palestine, that is the real self-determination for the Palestinian people, cannot be fulfilled except by the liberation of Palestine. In the beginning, I had nationalistic ideas. I thought that Palestinian rights must be realized without consideration for the other, that is, the idea that there’s also another, what we call the enemy. 

The other, the enemy, was someone to fight against, not to understand and with whom to have some relations. The first time I met an Israeli   — it was an Israeli militant — was a real shock for me because the meeting took place only two years after my best friend had been killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. (ed note: 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon)

It was complicated for me to consider how to speak, how to have an exchange, and to talk about things which are not easy to evoke and discuss. Anyway, after this, and after all the shifts in the Palestinian national movement, I considered myself a Marxist and realized that the only solution, the only resolution of the conflict over Palestine, is to create one democratic state for all the inhabitants of the region.

I was working on my PhD about Palestinian history and found a lot of documents that showed that Palestinians, especially a section of the Palestinian Communist Party which created the League for National Liberation, had proposed one democratic secular state.

These were Palestinian members of the Palestinian Communist Party who were in conflict with their Jewish comrades. The Palestinian communists thought that Palestine after the departure of the British troops would be one state, a national state composed of what we called in that time, Arabs (Palestinians) and Jews. The National Liberation League in Palestine proposed that the only resolution of the conflict over the land of Palestine must be the creation of a democratic and secular state in all of Palestine. 

It was really something astonishing to find these old documents. As early as 1942, the Palestinians proposed the creation of a secular and democratic state for all the inhabitants of Palestine. This slogan was taken up by the Palestinian National Council in 1968 with the P.L.O. declaring that all of Palestine must be the end game of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and that this was to be a state for all its inhabitants without any distinction between religious or ethnic communities.

The problem now is that there has been renunciation of this original Palestinian vision for the resolution of the conflict. The P.L.O. in 1974 issued what was called the program of 10 points. This was the beginning of the withdrawal from the Palestinian national aspiration of all Palestinian communities in 1947. The P.L.O. called this withdrawal the step-by-step struggle. It included recognition of the existence of the state of Israel and the possibility that a Palestinian state would be created beside the state of Israel.

This was the beginning of the idea which completely materialized in the Oslo agreement. Considering the creation of two states — the two-states solution— was a real catastrophe for the Palestinian struggle.

Anyway, I’d like to go back to the idea of self-determination for the Palestinian people because I consider that one democratic and secular state, which had been proposed from the beginning, is really the only end game for the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. 

It is the only resolution that can fulfill the real aspirations of all the Palestinian communities — the communities of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians who have become Israeli citizens, what we call the Palestinians of ’48, and the Palestinians of the diaspora. It is very important to go back and consider that the plan to partition Palestine, which was voted and adopted by the United Nations in November 1947, was the first act that prevented the Palestinian right of self-determination. It was really the first step which made Palestinians lose the possibility of self-determination in their homeland — Palestine from the river to the sea, the entirety of historical Palestine, or what we call sometimes the Mandatory Palestine. The U.N. partition plan was the first act of aggression against Palestinians because they lost the possibility to create their own political system according to their own aspirations. 

It deprived Palestinians of their rights by granting the right of self-determination only to the Jewish colonists, what we call the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine. It made it impossible for Palestinians to create a state of Palestine which would include the Jewish community, composed then of the Palestinian Jews historically installed in Palestine and also the new Jewish migrants, especially from Eastern Europe, who came into the country. 

Resolution 181 gave about 56 percent of the Palestinian land to the Jewish state with only 44 percent remaining for the Palestinian state., or as it was called the Arab state. (Ed. Note: This soon became 78 percent for the Jewish state versus 22 percent for the Palestinian state.)

It was the Zionist project to create a Jewish state in Palestine in most of Palestine and at the same time to reinforce the Hashemite Kingdom which was in Transjordan. Partition divided Palestine between the Hashemite Kingdom and the Zionist state, which was created at that time. The land of Palestine was completely shared by two entities, two state entities — the Hashemite Kingdom and the Israeli state.

Palestine itself completely disappeared. Palestine didn’t exist anymore because Palestine, the population of Palestine and the land of Palestine had been divided between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom. Then, after the war of June 1967 Palestine as a whole was dominated by only one state, the state of Israel. The state of Israel controls what they call Eretz Yisrael. It was the way to make the possibility for Palestinians to have any kind of possibility for self-determination disappear.

The Oslo Agreement pretended to resolve this problem with the acceptance of sharing the historical land of Palestine between what was to become a Palestinian state and the state of Israel. But in fact, it only created a Palestinian Authority which had no authority and would ultimately create only a kind of Bantustan like in South Africa.

The right of self-determination for Palestinian refugees was completely rejected in the Oslo Accords, which means the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people is rejected because refugees represent about 60% of all the Palestinian people. Without according Palestinian refugees the right to return, the Oslo agreement, could not be a real solution for the problem of self-determination for the Palestinians.

Thank you.

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MONADEL HERZALLAH:

INTRODUCTION, by Forum chair Alan Benjamin:

Monadel Herzallah is a convener of the Arab American Union Members Council and he’s also a plaintiff in the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit against President Biden and other members of the Biden administration. On a personal note, I was very proud and honored to be able to work closely with Monadel over many years in the San Francisco Labor Council, where we waged difficult struggles in support of the embattled Palestinian people – struggles that organized, educated, and laid the basis for stronger labor involvement on the issue of Palestine, struggles aimed at creating a new foreign policy within the labor movement. It’s an honor for me to present to you Brother Monadel Herzallah.

PRESENTATION:

Thank you so much for including me in this program. I would like add that I am a proud member of the Teacher’s Union in San Francisco, and I also have worked with the Health Care Workers Union and the School Employees Unions.

I appreciate the fact that I was able to hear the presentations by comrades Mya and Naji. They provided a lot of foundation for what we are about to discuss. We have heard about the roots of the conflict, and everything that’s occurred as a result of Zionist ideology. We have heard the history of the liberation movement.

It’s also important to come back to the moment and see what we need to do about all this. 

I should add that I am a proud member of a family in Gaza and I want to share with you that I am one of thousands of people who have lost members of their family in Gaza.

I have lost five members of my family so far, one of whom was four years old.

We watch TV and see all the horrific things that are taking place, with the media mainstream media coverage echoing all the Zionist propaganda and making us feel like we Palestinians are the cause of the problem – we who are being attacked and exterminated.

The people in America are subjected day after day to the Israelization of media coverage that is supporting this genocidal war, which is why were are having a major fight with the promoters and the makers of this genocide. All would have us believe that everything started on October 7.

I refuse to be interviewed by the Western media. The first thing they ask is what do you think about a certain military group? I refuse to be on the defensive. I refuse to have the other side dictate the terms of the debate for us.

On October 6th, Benjamin Netanyahu was fighting for his political survival. He made it clear that nothing was going to stop him from remaining in power, even if it entailed mass destruction. It was well planned. Netanyahu does not care about people. For him Palestinians are either terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, or collateral damage, which means a legitimate target. 

They use these categories to justify the genocidal extermination of the Palestinian people.

Luckily, we see a lot of movement taking place in support of our resistance struggle all around the world; people who know our history and are not so easily fooled.

Millions and millions of people are taking to the streets of the world, rising up and calling for victory for Palestine. At least as a minimum, they are calling for an end to the bombing and genocide.

For the Zionists and their supporters, the displacement of millions of Palestinians, the Nakba, is still an unfinished project. They have a final goal, which is expansion. Zionism is a colonial project that started in Europe. Anyone who is critical of this expansionist program is labeled as an anti-Semite.

The imperialist plan now is to promote “normalization” with the settler state of Israel and the Arab dictators, which is why there is an urgent need for united struggle and resistance with the Arab masses. They, too, are being lured by this “normalization.”  We need the Arab masses as well. 

The price that the people of Gaza paid and are paying as we speak cannot be overlooked. But peace does not come from submitting to a new condition of enslavement and that exonerates Israel and the United States and the Western countries for their participation and complicity in the ongoing war of extermination of the Palestinian people. 

Meanwhile, there is a coordinated campaign led by the fanatic anti-Palestinian, pro-Israeli groups in the United States to crush the dissidents, to stifle the debate, to censor our language, and to undermine academic freedom by conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. We live this every single day.

Brother Alan mentioned the fact that I’m one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit. I’m proud to be one of the plaintiffs representing people who have families that were killed in Gaza. We’re filing a lawsuit against the President of the United States and his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense.

And I will talk very briefly about the case just for you to have information about it. Before I do that, I’m going to read to you a set of demands that we received from Gaza a few hours ago. I have to read it quickly and translate it.

What are people in Gaza are calling for at this point? What do they want? 

They want an immediate stop to the vicious attack against our people and the practical extermination of the people.

They are calling on the United Nations contracting parties to the Geneva Convention, international and regional organizations to take serious and urgent action to stop this Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Gaza is where the following crimes are being committed: genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and collective sanctions. They are calling for opening humanitarian corridors, allowing the regular evacuation of the wounded, the flow of humanitarian aid, medical supplies. field hospitals, medical teams, journalists, life-saving equipment and goods into the Gaza Strip.

They are calling on the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Office to step out of the circle of silence that makes the court complicit in committing crimes through intentional delays of prosecuting Israeli war criminals. It emphasizes the dual behavior and the double standards and the selectivity of law enforcement with regard to the Palestinian case compared to what was done in Ukraine, for example, and calls on the contracting parties to the Geneva Convention to take all counter-measures and actions against the Israeli occupation and those complicit with it, including boycott.

Lastly, the demands that we just received from Gaza include boycott, sanctions and divestment, cutting diplomatic relations and activating the principles on universal jurisdiction to ensure accountability for war crimes and genocide committed by the Israeli occupation and forces. 

I will conclude by stating that the lawsuit prepared by the Center for Constitutional Rights has the support of Defense of Children International, Palestine and Al Haq, the plaintiffs are the families that were lost, in Gaza. We are asking to end to the U. S. military and diplomatic support to Israel.  [https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/defense-children-international-palestine-v-biden#:~:text=The%20Center%20for%20Constitutional%20Rights,demand%20that%20it%20work%20to

We have no illusions that this legal path will produce an immediate and positive result. But we feel that it’s important to utilize this lawsuit every day to mobilize and build the case. Thank you.

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CORAL WHEELER:

INTRODUCTION, by Forum chair Alan Benjamin:

Coral Wheeler is a member of the California Faculty Association. She is the department representative at Cal Poly Pomona where she teaches. Coral had been a member of UAW 2065 which represents graduate students on the University of California campuses. Coral also is an editorial board member of The Organizer Newspaper where she specializes on U.S. labor issues. 

PRESENTATION:

Our union is going out on strike tomorrow. We have reached an impasse in negotiations. We’re striking over economic issues, such as higher wages, and for the university to hire more mental health counselors for students.

This will be a four-day strike with different campuses going out on strike for one day. My campus, Cal Poly Pomona, is going out first. So, I’ll be on the picket line all day tomorrow as a strike captain.

As Alan mentioned, I have been studying a lot about the massive labor upsurge happening in the U.S. but today I want to talk about the equally unprecedented outpouring of labor solidarity for the Palestinian people.

There is a history of labor support for Palestine, notably major port shutdowns and Block the Boat actions — in the United States by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) — as well as actions in Belgium, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, and Australia in which some interfered with Israeli ships that were carrying munitions. There also have been resolutions from labor unions calling for a ceasefire and an end to aid as well.

What we’re seeing now is truly unprecedented and was in some part brought on by a coalition of Palestinian labor unions. On October 16 the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, PGFTU sent an appeal to all labor unions and organizations worldwide calling on them to refuse to build weapons for Israel and to refuse to transport weapons to Israel.

The appeal called upon unions to pass resolutions in our unions to this effect. It also asked unions to take action against complicit companies and to pressure governments to end military trade. In the case of the U.S., the appeal was to end U.S. funding of all military aid to apartheid Israel. There have been many resolutions passed and many actions taken that is building a major movement among labor.

We, in Socialist Organizer, gathered signatures in response to this appeal that shows solidarity with the Federation and their demands to end the bombing of Gaza, end the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, end the siege of Gaza, and for massive humanitarian assistance for those driven from their homes in what has become a second Nakba.

I’m going to touch on some of the actions and responses. The United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) along with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 3000, released a public statement demanding a ceasefire, demanding the release of hostages and called for a restoration of basic rights, access to water, fuel, food and other humanitarian aid. This letter was then signed by many other unions including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 520, the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers (UAW) Region Six.

Region Six is the West Coast region of UAW mostly composed of the academic unions. UAW Region Six then passed another resolution at its convention calling for an end to all U.S. aid to Israel and renewed its endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) strategy. This is a strategy to pressure the Israeli government to end the occupation and apartheid.

The ILWU longshore workers union has a long history of solidarity with Palestine. On November 3rd in Oakland, California and on November 6th in Tacoma, Washington ships that were carrying weapons headed for Israel were met with massive community protests and the ILWU refused to work the ships. The port actions in Oakland and Tacoma followed on the heels of similar action in Belgium on October 31st.

The Writers Union as well as the Pacific Media Workers Guild, and writers within the Communications Workers of America (CWA) has gotten involved, too. They’ve all made public statements in solidarity with Palestine, demanding an immediate ceasefire and condemning attacks on journalists who have been reporting on the conflict. Larry Goldbetter, the president of the National Writers Union, held a Zoom call on October 16th that was attended by 266 union activists. In the invitation, Goldbetter stated, this history did not start on October 7th.

Gaza has been little more than a massive outdoor prison for its citizens. So, health care workers also have been taking a stand. The California Nurses Association (CNA) passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, delivery of humanitarian aid, release of hostages, and end to the violence. The CNA resolution focused on how the violence in Gaza affects both health care workers and patients.

There is so much more to report. Part of the reason this is so unprecedented is that there’s been a backlash in some cases, particularly from the AFL CIO which has attempted to control its affiliates, its labor councils, and the individual union locals. The AFL-CIO has a governance rule that states that area labor councils as chartered organizations of the AFL CIO shall conform all their activities on international affairs to the policies of the AFL CIO. 

When one of the central labor councils in the Seattle area voted for a resolution against any union involvement in the production or transport of weapons destined for Israel and it called on the AFL CIO to support it, the AFL CIO pushed back and forced them to take down the resolution stating that the resolution violated this governance rule.

There are many examples but to cite a couple more. A state leader in Connecticut was forced to resign after simply saying that “we have comrades in Gaza, not enemies in Gaza.” 

Portland’s New Seasons Labor Union members were barred from wearing their support Palestine pins. Starbucks workers have been supporting the Palestinian struggle online. Right wing journalists got wind of the Starbucks workers posts and now Starbucks is suing the union to stop members from using the Starbucks Workers United logo which contains the Starbucks image.

Despite this backlash, and particularly despite the AFL CIO’s top-down efforts against labor councils and unions, solidarity continues and is growing. My union, which represents 29,000 professors, counselors, librarians, and coaches at 23 California campuses of the California State University system, passed a resolution stating that CFA stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and refuses to allow a new Nakba. We called for an immediate ceasefire, the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow aid to reach the people of Gaza, a commission to investigate war crimes, and an immediate end to all U.S. aid to Israel.

To end, I want to mention that the academic workers union, my old union, signed on to the UE statement. UAW Region Nine called for an immediate ceasefire and the director of the union joined the hunger strike that took place in Washington, D.C. Recently, in December, the entire United Auto Workers Union, a massive union within the AFL-CIO, defied the AFL-CIO and called for an immediate cease fire.

I hope that I have demonstrated with just a sampling of actions that union power is growing again and that support for the Palestinian struggle is growing. We need to keep working within our unions and with our labor allies to step up the fight. Because as we’ve heard today, and as we see reflected in the news, this is far, far from over, and it’s going to require an escalation of our efforts to win.

When labor fights, we do win.

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ALAN BENJAMIN COMMENT:

Thank you, Coral. I want to add to that there is a very important statement by Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). Brother Dimondstein said anti Zionism cannot and should not be equated with anti-Semitism. I’m an anti-Zionist Jew, he said, and our union stands with the Palestinian people. 

It’s a very strong and moving statement by one of the members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council. This, along with the UAW resolution, shows that there are fissures within the labor movement which reflect the same splits that are occurring at some levels of governance in the United States where people are speaking out against the genocide and quitting the administration, quitting the departments where they have been working for the government.

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Mya Shone closing statement:

I want to state, first and foremost, that with any paradigm, the first thing is to discuss and to understand the framework. That is why we consider what the One Democratic State Initiative (ODSI) launched with the “Open Letter to Our Jewish Allies” is so important. The “Open Letter” is a description of a democratic secular Palestine, and, as well, a methodology for approaching it. 

Socialist Organizer has created an appeal in support of the “Open Letter” on Action Network. So far, together with our comrades in the OCRFI we gathered 1,000 people in 34 countries throughout the world who signed the appeal in support of the “Open Letter.” We’ll send it to everyone here. Please sign the appeal if you haven’t already and distribute it widely.

First comes knowledge, understanding, and commitment. This is true no matter the struggle. Many of you are old enough to remember our opposition to the war in Vietnam. Discussion and opposition to the war began before many of us were involved in the antiwar movement.

In the early days, invaluable information was disseminated. Much of this was done by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation which sent investigative teams to North and South Vietnam and later prepared the International War Crimes Tribunal. Simultaneously, it created a mass-action antiwar coalition in Great Britain while here in the United States the Socialist Workers Party and other groups built a large antiwar movement.

As the genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government creates searing images daily, let us not forget that the genocide committed by the U.S. government in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia killed 3.2 million Vietnamese. But in the end, the U.S. withdrew its troops.

In addition to the courage of the Vietnamese people, our having built a powerful united-front antiwar movement in the U.S., with the involvement of the soldiers themselves, forced the U.S. government to withdraw. It didn’t happen overnight, of course. We held teach-ins, we had discussions, we had marches, we had demonstrations. The cost became too great for the warmakers, as our support for the Vietnamese people grew.

We didn’t say to the Vietnamese people: “negotiate.” We said to the U.S. government: “Out Now, Bring Our Boys Home!”  

It’s the same now for Palestine. That is why it is imperative that we expand the discussion around a democratic secular Palestine. We must deal with the moment but we must also think ahead.

When Ralph Schoenman and I were organizing with regard to the Palestinian struggle and, particularly, for a way forward with a democratic secular Palestine, we heard often enough that we were self-hating Jews and were confronted with death threats.

We had a book distributor for The Hidden History of Zionism in 1988 that placed it in bookstores across the country. Yet, The Hidden History of Zionism was pulled off bookshelves in almost every store. Did this stop us? No. We kept on speaking out and organizing. The Hidden History of Zionism was digitized and made available free on the Marxist Internet Archive. Never give up, instead expand our reach. 

As other speakers said today, we need to organize and are doing so to Stop the Bombardment, End the Siege, and End All Aid to Israel. Our struggle puts us in opposition to the Democratic Party and, as I mentioned earlier, this raises the question of how we create an independent working-class party rooted in labor and oppressed communities. It is we, inevitably, who must wield power. 

Naji will talk as well about the democratic secular Palestine as the way forward and why we must reach out to organizations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Sara Kershner, an IJAN founder, has signed the ODSI letter already.*

We need to take these and other steps, such as contacting people you know, in Israel, too. The struggle is waged from without as well as from within. As Naji pointed out, the Palestinians were clear before partition that the only way forward is a democratic and secular society. It’s basic. Would you want to live in an exclusive society where you were denied the opportunities to go to school, to have health care, and basic rights?

No! We struggle for voting rights in the United States. We struggle for the right to abortion. We fight for these fundamental democratic demands. And, so it should be for the Palestinian people. There has been an indecent exceptionalism for the Zionist state of Israel. It is up to us to turn this around.

I want to close with a quote from Leon Trotsky, from July, 1940, at the beginning of World War II. Antisemitic laws had been in place and Nazi attacks on Jews had been underway in Germany for years yet the United States and British governments refused to accept German Jewish refugees in any number. Trotsky wrote in response to a question posed to him:

“The attempt to solve the Jewish question through the migration of Jews to Palestine can now be seen for what it is, a tragic mockery of the Jewish people. The future development of military events may well transform Palestine into a bloody trap for several hundred thousand Jews. [now almost seven million] Never was it so clear as it is today,” Trotsky said, “that the salvation of the Jewish people is bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system.” 

The Palestinian people will resist and we need to stand beside them with our resistance as well.

Where do we start? We start with everything that we have been doing. We start with the resolutions in our trade unions in defiance of the AFL-CIO. We start with the Block the Boat, on the ground efforts by labor. We start with our demonstrations to Stop the Bombardment, End the Siege, and End All Aid to Israel.

We must also start changing the parameters of the discussion. We cannot support, as imperialism would impose, pacification of the Palestinian people represented by futile discussions of a two-state solution. We need to present a way forward with a democratic and secular Palestine. 

* https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/support-the-palestinian-one-democratic-state-initiative 

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Naji El-Khatib closing statement:

I want to respond to the discussion about Jeff Halper and his book “Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine.” Also, whether there is some relation between the One Democratic State Initiative (ODSI) and the movement to which Jeff Halper belongs, the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), in which there are a lot of people with whom we, in the ODSI, work. Our differences can be summed up in two points.

The first point is that Jeff Halper, himself, doesn’t believe that the democratic state must be a secular one. He considers that both Palestinians and Israelis (Jews) are too religious and to introduce the idea of secularism will make them both completely afraid of this political position. We consider that we cannot separate democracy from secularism. If a state is democratic then it must be a secular state. 

The second point that differentiates us from Jeff Halper is that he believes that there are two national groups. There are Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. A kind of coalition exists between Jeff Halper’s organization, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), and the ODSC. They recently issued a joint communique about how to reconcile the two national groups.

We consider that Jeff Halper’s ideas are not really one democratic state. It is a bi-national state. It’s not democratic because it’s not secular. We also do not consider that the Jewish people are a national group. It’s a question of a religious community.

If one considers that the Jewish people constitute a national group and that all national groups have the right to self-determination then for the Jewish people, they consider that this would be Israel. We, in ODSI, consider that these ideas of Jeff Halper, are not so far removed from the Zionist claims that all Jews constitute a nation.

We try to work with them on the issue of a democratic state but we also think it is very dangerous to consider that Palestinians and Israeli Jews represent two national groups. We consider that the only criterion is citizenship in one democratic secular state, that is, the quality of citizen. It is not in relation to one’s community, religious or ethnic, or racial. These are my differences with Jeff Halper.

We wrote an article in 2008 in which we tried to discuss with Jeff Halper.* In my first presentation today, I began to speak about the history of one democratic secular state in Palestine. I spoke about the Palestinian National League and their differences with their communist comrades in the Palestine Communist Party in 1942. The Palestinians then did not speak about Jews as a national group and this is just as true today.

In 1942, the Palestinian comrades said that if we spoke about the Jews in Palestine as a national group, it would mean that we should accept the creation of a Jewish state. But if we consider that the Jews are simply citizens of a democratic and secular state, we can speak about real co-existence on the basis of citizenship, the concept of citoyenneté in French.

For all his ideas, Jeff Halper is not in opposition to Zionism. Zionists consider that Jews as such are a national group and that they have rights as such in Palestine. We try to explain the differences between Jeff Halper and us because we consider that the one democratic state according to his views, is not really one democratic state. It’s simply a bi-national state which is not democratic because it is not secular. And for us, we consider that a future Palestine will be secular without any distinctions between religious or national communities. 

Thank you.

• https://mondoweiss.net/2018/06/democratic-ongoing-debate/

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Monadel Herzallah Closing Statement:

Thank you so much for inviting me to join you on this panel. I would like to begin by greeting Sister Lita Blanc, former president of my union, United Educators of San Francisco (UESF). 

Now to the issue being discussed: two states or one state?

I think it goes without saying that we are all subscribing to the proposal of one secular democratic state. However, I think it’s extremely important to recognize that we live in a new moment, and that we need to really benefit from it as much as we can by focusing on our immediate demands. 

For me and for most Palestinians, the “two-state” solution was dead on arrival. Today, a lot of people think that it is dead and needs to be buried. There is no viability for such a solution.

A debate is now taking place inside the Zionist state between the proponents of a Jewish state and proponents of a secular state. The only answer is to believe in, and promote, self-determination; only in this manner can we achieve the goal of defeating the Zionist entity that was created as a product of the imperialist domination.

Today, a new generation of resistance fighters is rising up. It’s amazing, in particular, to see the growing number of young Jewish activists who are not buying the two-state solution; many, in fact, are for one democratic secular state.

The youth are breaking the taboo of not criticizing Israel – which is what we need to do. Ours is a liberation movement that is fighting against an enemy that is out to liquidate our movement and our people. Ours is a fight against a colonial-settler state that started back in the 19^thcentury and that holds the levers of political power to this day. We need to expose this entity.

A sister in this discussion mentioned the need to connect with the African struggles. This is necessary. The fight is geopolitical. Let us remember the liberation struggle of the people of Haiti against their French colonizers. The colonizers want to make sure that Blacks in the U.S. and Africans don’t revolt against their colonizers.

We are witnessing a new moment. The world is being reshaped, and we cannot be just spectators. We have to build a growing movement in support of the Palestinian resistance. At the same time, we cannot let our enemies dictate the terms of the debate. And we have to support all our sisters and brothers who are losing their jobs because of their stance in support of the Palestinian people

To wage this struggle, we need to be united and organized. And we need to wage a relentless struggle to get our unions to confront the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. It is genocide that is taking place, funded by U.S. tax dollars – billions of dollars that are not going to fund schools, hospitals, and public jobs and services. 

MYA SHONE COMMENT:

I just want to let people know that in the United States, at least, there’s an organization of lawyers, Palestine Legal, and they defend students and professors and all people who have lost their jobs.

https://palestinelegal.org

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Alan Benjamin Closing Statement:

The Labor Fightback Network is preparing a model resolution for trade unions that can be adapted as a statement and that takes note of the more recent developments. [see below]

We have been discussing the need to organize a broader fightback movement against the U.S.-Israeli genocide of an entire people around the demands of Stop the Bombing, Lift the State of Siege and Massive Humanitarian Aid Now! This is our immediate task. At the same time, we need to promote our long-term vision, with the only real long-term solution to the Palestinian struggle: a one-state solution, that is, a democratic secular state on all the historic territory of Palestine.

Talking about a one-state solution is not pie in the sky, and it’s not something down the road. Right now, the ruling class in this country is preparing the next steps that will enable them to assert their imperialist domination. They are trying to sell the idea that we need a “two-state” solution to defuse the current crisis. This is a cruel joke. 

There will never be a Palestinian state alongside a Zionist Apartheid state. All wings of the Zionist political establishment have made it clear — ever since the Partition in 1947, and before — that they will never relent in their effort to drive the Palestinian people out of their homeland. In the name of two-states, tens of thousands of settlers, armed by the IDF, have pursued ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the West Bank. In the name of two-states, they have created an open-air prison in Gaza.

The plan, according to Egyptian leaders, is to create a totally demilitarized Palestinian “state” under the control and supervision of the United Nations and NATO troops. It would be totally subordinate to Israel. The Israeli government would be the basic caretaker government. But there was never a two-state solution and there will never be one that allows for any form, even a shred, of Palestinian self-determination.

We, who understand the history of the Palestinian resistance struggle, have an obligation to expose the fraud of the two-state solution, to show how the Partition of 1947 created a death trap for both Jews and Palestinians, dealing a blow to the possibility of creating a single, unified, secular state where Jews and Palestinians can live as equals with the same rights.

There is no other solution.

So, as we engage in specific actions to stop the bombing and lift the siege of Gaza, we can – and we must—change the narrative. We must not counterpose the longer-term vision with the immediate tasks of stopping the genocide and ending all US military aid to Apartheid Israel. The two tasks are intertwined.

I’d like to refer everyone participating in this zoom forum and everyone who has endorsed the Open Letter to Our Jewish Allies to subscribe to The Organizer Newspaper, which is published by Socialist Organizer, the sponsor of this zoom meeting. Also, I would like to urge you to call on your family, co-workers, friends, and fellow unionists to endorse the ODSI Open Letter. You can access The Organizer online at www.socialistorganizer.org.

And I ask you to join us in supporting the OSDI Open Letter, which now has gathered more than 1,000 signatories in 32 countries.

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APPEAL, PLEASE ENDORSE!

Labor Fightback Network appeal:

CALL FOR UNION LEADERSHIP TO DEMAND AN END TO THE SUPPORT OF ARMS TO ISRAEL

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Every day that passes makes us more outraged: Close to 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, countless others have been injured or disappeared, while 90% of the 2.1 million inhabitants of Gaza have been left without shelter, water, food or medical attention. We are watching genocide unfold before our very own eyes.

The U.S. labor movement could put a stop to this madness. It has the potential power to stay the hands of the warmakers and arms’ providers — the power to “Shut It Down.” In all the recent marches and actions in support of the Palestinian resistance, the call to “End All U.S. Aid to Apartheid Israel” has been heard.

It is time to call upon the heads of our labor movement to take up this campaign. Sister Donna Dewitt, past president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO and Steering Committee member of the Labor Fightback Network, put it this way:

“The LFN is calling for the union leadership to demand an end to the support of arms to Israel at the same time that it calls for a ceasefire. Individual unions should follow up with targeted demands based upon their membership work experiences – the weapons’ industry, the shipping industry, communications, and journalism, etc. A few have done this, and it’s making a difference. However, if they would all demand an end to the war efforts, beginning with an end to arms’ shipments to Israel, it could bring this devastation to an end.”

On December 21, we will publish this statement with the first list of endorsers. Please be among the first endorsers. Please send us ASAP your name, union or organization (list if for id. only), city, and state [see coupon below; Action Alert Endorsement Form is in the works]. The time to take action is now!

We hope to hear from you very soon,

In solidarity,

Steering Committee,

Labor Fightback Network

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APPEAL: Please Endorse Today!

Every day, every hour, every minute that passes, hundreds of tons of bombs are dropped on the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Children, women, and men are murdered, buried, and mutilated by bombs “MADE IN the USA.”

It is a fact recognized by all military specialists: The Israeli army does not have stocks of bombs and artillery shells. If U.S. arms’ deliveries were to be halted, the Israeli army would be forced to stop its bombings in less than two days.

For two months, hundreds of thousands of young people, workers, and union activists across the United States have taken to the streets to demand “END ALL AID TO APARTHEID ISRAEL!” Most notably, tens of thousands of Jewish activists have declared loudly that the genocide being perpetrated against the people in Gaza is “NOT IN OUR NAME!”

We, the undersigned trade unionists, labor activists, community activists, and militants in the Black Liberation Movement state clearly:

It is the responsibility of the leaders of the trade union organizations at the national, state, and local levels to demand:  

END ALL U.S. MILITARY AND FINANCIAL AID TO ISRAEL NOW!

• It is their responsibility, now, without delay, to mobilize their members to refuse to load cargo ships and planes with weapons earmarked for Israel, following in the footsteps of the ILWU, which decades ago blocked all ships with South African  cargo, thus helping to bring down the hated Apartheid regime in South Africa. Most recently, it would mean following the example of dockworkers in Belgium and other countries who refused to load military cargo destined to Israel.

• It is their responsibility to call for action now: Not a single weapon, not a single U.S.-made bomb, must be delivered to Israel!

SIGN-ON COUPON

NAME

TITLE

UNION/ORGANIZATION (list if for id. only)

CITY

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(fill out and send to alanbenjamin@earthlink.net)

Call for union leadership to demand an end to the support of arms to Israel