End All U.S. Aid to Israel!

Presentation by Labor and Community for an Independent Party (LCIP)

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Every day that passes makes us more outraged: More than 25,000 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 people, the call to “End All U.S. Aid to Israel” has been heard. Rightly so.

We cannot forget that the 2,000-pound bombs with which Israel is pummeling the Palestinian people in Gaza and razing their homes are manufactured in the United States and paid for with U.S. grants to the Israeli government. Though the most popular demand of solidarity activists has been to call for a ceasefire, the most effective way to achieve a permanent ceasefire would be to end all aid to Israel. U.S. aid is what allows this genocidal attack to continue.

As well, the Democratic Party, which touts its support for the first amendment, has led the charge at the local, state, and federal level to suppress and criminalize discussion about the Palestinian right to self-determination.

It is time to call upon the heads of our labor movement to take up this campaign.

On December 20, 2023, the Labor Fightback Network (LFN) launched an Appeal to the union officialdom to champion the fight to end all U.S. aid— military and financial – to the state of Israel. On January 10, 2024, the Continuations Committee of LCIP endorsed the LFN Appeal and pledged to help gather endorsements nationwide.

Sister Donna Dewitt, past president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO and member of leadership bodies of both the LFN and the LCIP, put it this way:

“We are 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.”

LCIP calls on all our supporters to endorse and help gather additional endorsements in support of this appeal [see below]. Please access the QR code to endorse, either in your own name (with organization and title listed for id. only) or in the name of your organization.

The time to take action is now!

We hope to hear from you very soon,

In solidarity,

Continuations Committee of Labor and Community for an Independent Party (LCIP)

   (QR code to endorse “End All U.S. Aid to Israel” statement)

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“End All U.S. Aid to Israel!”

LFN Sign-On Statement; 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 ILWU Local 10, whose members shut down the port of Oakland, Calf., on January 12 in support of the Palestinian people, or the dockworkers in Belgium and other European 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!

• Ceasefire Now!

• Stop the Bombing of Gaza!

• Lift the Siege!

• End All U.S. Aid to Israel!

(To endorse, access the attached QR Code )

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INITIAL ENDORSERS – Partial List
(all titles and organizations listed for id. only)

Katharine Harer, Past President/Organizer AFT 1493, San Mateo Community College Fed of Teachers, San Rafael, CA;  Clarence Thomas, Past Secretary Treasurer (retired), International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, San Francisco, CA;  Alan Benjamin, Past Exec. Bd member, San Francisco Labor Council, retired OPEIU Local 29, New York, NY;  Don Bryant, President, Cleveland Peace Action, Cleveland, OH;  Mya Shone, Editorial Board, The Organizer Newspaper Vallejo, CA;  Donna Dewitt, Past president. South Carolina AFL-CIO Charleston, CA;  Nnamdi Lumumba, Organizer,   Ujima People’s Progress Party Baltimore, MD; Sandy Eaton, Chair Emeritus, Legislative Council National Nurses United, Quincy, MA;  Ruth Ibarra, Board Member, NorCal Resist Sacramento, CA;  Clifford D. Conner, Author, People’s History of Science. antiwar activist, New York, NY;  Jim Lafferty, Executive Director Emeritus, National Lawyers Guild, L.A., host of the public affairs radio shows, Law and Disorder and The Lawyers Guild Show, Los Angeles, CA;  David Keil, Member, State Committee, Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts, Natick, MA;  Desirée Rojas, Labor and Community Organizer, LCLAA Member Sacramento, CA;  Mark Burrows, Retired former Delegate, SMART-TD 1433 Railroad Workers United, Chicago, IL;  Millie Phillips, Member, LCIP Steering Committee Member, CWA 9415, Oakland, CA;  Jerry Levinsky, Amherst, MA Coordinating Committee, Educators for A Democratic Union, Mass Teachers Association, Board Member, Education Committee, Western Mass;  David Walters, IBEW 1245, retired, Pacifica, CA;  Dan Kaplan, Executive Secretary, retired AFT Local 1493, San Mateo, CA;  Timothy Stinson, Socialist Organizer, Albany, OR;  Connie White, Continuations Committee member, Labor and Community for an Independent Party, Long Beach, CA;  Coral Wheeler, Member, California Faculty Association, Azusa, CA;  Wadi’h Halabi, Labor activist, former resident of Gaza, National Writers Union/UAW 891, Boston, MA;  Mark Loy, Retired SEIU Local 1000, California State Employees, Richmond, CA