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19 June, Berlin: Grup Yorum concert and demonstration for freedom

Saturday, 19 June
4:00 pm
Oranienplatz
Berlin, Germany

Resistance and revolutionary arts festival in the fight against fascism and Zionism – Berlin

Samidoun invites you to take part in this popular, artistic festival with the revolutionary band “Grup Yorum” from Turkey. Members of this band have given their lives in hunger strikes for freedom and in solidarity with political prisoners in Turkey.

Together, we celebrate revolutionary solidarity and common struggle against colonialism and fascism! We support Grup Yorum, who will present a number of their song about the Intifada and Palestinian resistance. Many of these songs are in Arabic!

Bring your Palestinian flags and hold them high in our response to the Zionist “Flag-march” in occupied Jerusalem.

Join us to engage with revolutionary art and support resistance on Saturday, 19 June at 4 pm at Oranienplatz in Berlin.

Widerstands- und revolutionäres Kunstfest im Kampf gegen Faschismus und Zionismus – Berlin

Samidoun lädt Euch ein, an dem populären und künstlerischen Fest mit der türkischen revolutionären Band “Yorum” teilzunehmen. Mitglieder dieser Band kämpften bis zum Martyrium unter Hungerstreik für die Freiheit und in Solidarität mit politischen Gefangenen in der Türkei.

Gemeinsam feiern wir die revolutionäre Solidarität und den gemeinsamen Kampf gegen das koloniale und faschistische Lager! Dazu unterstützen wir “Grup Yorum”, die uns eine Reihe ihrer verbotenen Lieder über die Intifada und den palästinensischen Widerstand präsentieren werden. Viele dieser Lieder sind auf Arabisch!

Bringt Euere palästinensische Fahnen mit und haltet sie hoch als Antwort auf den zionistischen „Flaggen-Marsch“ im besetzten Jerusalem.

Lasst uns engagierte revolutionäre Kunst unterstützen und am Widerstandsfest teilnehmen
Samstag, 19. Juni um 16 Uhr
Oranienplatz, Berlin

مهرجان المقاومة والفن الثوري في مواجهة الفاشية والصهيونية – برلين

تدعوكم شبكة صامدون للمشاركة الواسعة في المهرجان الشعبي والفني الذي تحييه فرقة “يوروم” التركية للأغاني الثورية الملتزمة. هذه الفرقة الثورية التي قدمت كوكبة من رفاقها شهداءً تحت وطئة الإضراب عن الطعام من أجل الحرية، وتضامناً مع المعتقلين السياسيين في تركيا.

معاً نحتفي بالتضامن الثوري والنضال المشترك في مواجهة معسكر الإستعمار والفاشيّة. وندعم “فرقة يوروم” التي ستقدم مجموعة من أعمالها الفنية الممنوعة! أغاني تدعم الإنتفاضة والمقاومة الفلسطينية، والتي ستقدمها “يوروم” باللغة العربية

لنرفع الأعلام الفلسطينية رداً على مسيرة الأعلام الصهيونية في القدس المحتل ولندعم الفن الثوري الملتزم!

شاركوا معنا في مهرجان المقاومة يوم السبت 19 يونيو حزيران / الساعة 4 عصراً
المكان: ساحة الأورانيين في برلين

19 June, Manchester: Rally in Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners

Saturday, 19 June
12 pm
Piccadilly Gardens
Manchester, England
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1015380345870452/

Join us on the streets of Manchester in solidarity with Palestine, to demand the release of prisoners locked up by Israel and to build the boycott!
Responding to the Samidoun call for action, we stand with the six hunger strikers and for the release of all political prisoners. As imperialism continues to back the Zionist state, we also demand the release of Issam Hijjawi, imprisoned by the British state and Georges Abdallah, locked up for four decades in a French jail.
Victory to the Palestinian resistance!
Free all political prisoners!
Isolate the Zionist state! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

There are currently six Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails on open hunger strike, demanding their release from Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial under “administrative detention” orders. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner demands their immediate release, an end to the policy of administrative detention, and freedom for all Palestinian prisoners.
Ghadanfar Abu Atwan has been on hunger strike for 40 days to demand his freedom; he is joined by Khader Adnan, former long-time hunger striker, who has been on hunger strike for 15 days, as well as Amer al-Shami and Yousef al-Amer, on hunger strike for 14 days, and Mohammed Masalmeh and Sheikh Jamal al-Tawil, on hunger strike for 11 days. Al-Tawil’s strike demands the release of his daughter, Bushra al-Tawil, from administrative detention, as well as his release.

Al-Buraq Revolution: Legacy, Continuing Struggle and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement

The three Palestinians executed at Akka prison – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum

The following is a slightly updated version of the article originally published on 17 June 2017 by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. The living legacy of Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer, Mohammed Jamjoum and the Buraq Revolution is deeply relevant today, especially as extremist Zionist forces engage in “flag marches” designed to declare full colonial control over all of Palestinian Jerusalem while chanting slogans like “Death to the Arabs.” A very similar march sparked the uprising of 1929. The close ties between Zionism and British colonialism – which would eventually imprison 900 Palestinians and execute 20 for participating in the revolt – today mirrors the strategic partnership between the Zionist state and U.S. and other Western imperialist powers. Nearly 90 years on, the Palestinian revolution continues, until liberation and return. 

17 June marks the anniversary of the execution of three of the earliest martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum – by British colonial occupiers, in Akka prison.

The execution of these Palestinian strugglers has remained for years an ongoing story of resistance that continues to inspire strugglers through 100 years of resistance to colonization and occupation. Indeed, the song written to commemorate Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum, “From Akka Prison,” today remains one of the most well-known and powerful poems of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum were seized by the British colonizers for their role in Al-Buraq Revolution of 1929, named for the al-Buraq Wall in Jerusalem. The uprising was sparked after Zionist groups came to the wall and planted Zionist flags, declaring that “This wall is ours.”

In Jerusalem, Haifa, Yafa and Safad, Palestinians rose up against British colonization and the declared Zionist plans to colonize Palestine and declare it a “Jewish state.” Hundreds of Palestinians were seized by British forces and 26 sentenced to death by hanging; there was such an outcry by the Palestinian people that most of these sentences were converted to life imprisonment, with the exception of Hijazi, Jamjoum and al-Zeer.

Photo from the 1929 Buraq Revolution

Fouad Hijazi was 26 years old, from Safad; Mohammed Jamjoum was 28, from al-Khalil, as was Atta al-Zeer, 35.

Born in Safad in 1904, Hijazi received his primary education in his hometown; his university education was completed at the American University of Beirut. He actively participated in the Buraq Revolution and wrote a message to his family the day before his execution, which was published in the newspaper on 18 June 1930. In the message, he said, “On 17 June of each year, this should be a historic day in which speeches are made and songs are sung in the memory of our blood spilled for the sake of Palestine and the Arab cause.”

Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum was born in 1902 in al-Khalil; like Hijazi he attended university at the American University of Beirut. Atta al-Zeer was born in al-Khalil also, in 1895. Throughout his life he worked as a farmer and a manual laborer and was known from his earliest days for his courage and physical strength.

On 17 June 1930, Palestinians organized a general strike throughout Palestine as large crowds gathered in major Palestinian cities across the country – in Yafa, Haifa, al-Khalil and Nablus. After the executions, their bodies were handed to the men’s families, who had been denied the right to bury them in their home cities. Thousands of Palestinians streamed through the streets of Akka in honor of Jamjoum, Hijazi and al-Zeer, figures and symbols of Palestinian resistance to British and Zionist colonization. The three revolutionaries were executed on that day, but their anti-colonial message and commitment has continued to resonate through generations of Palestinian struggle for national liberation.

Abu Maher al-Yamani, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian labor leader and historical leader of the Palestinian national movement, left his village of Suhmata for the first time at the age of six with his father. There, he “was surprised to encounter the execution of three Palestinian martyrs by British colonial authorities on that day, June 17, 1930 – Fouad Hijazi, Mohammed Jamjoum and Atta al-Zeer. The awareness of the child Ahmed al-Yamani was awakened, viewing the executions and the bodies of the martyrs in the gallows of the courtyard of Akka central prison; this incident greatly affected him and remained an image in his mind that could not be forgotten.”

Their story has been embedded as well in the Palestinian culture of resistance. Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan’s poem, “Red Tuesday,” commemorates the three, noting “their bodies in the homeland’s graves/their souls in the reaches of heaven.”

The popular song, “Min Sijjin Akka,” or “From Akka Prison,” continues to be sung and celebrated throughout Palestine. The origin of the poem is not precisely clear; some say that it was written on the walls of Akka prison by a revolutionary named ‘Awad, himself awaiting execution by the British colonial rulers. Other scholars note that the poem was likely composed by a working-class popular poet and in Haifa, Nuh Ibrahim, perhaps the most famous Palestinian poet of his time and carrying his own legacy of resistance. “He was not a poet of the elite and he did not write poetry for social occasions or holidays. Instead Ibrahim is known for composing for the 1936-1939 Palestinian Revolt and to peasants working their grapevines, orchards and wheat fields. He spoke and wrote in everyday language, as a provocateur and broadcaster for the revolt, in which he also participated as a fighter,” wrote Samih Shabeeb.

The lyrics of the song are known today throughout Palestine and continue to be sung at national events, weddings and cultural celebrations. Ibrahim himself died struggling for Palestine eight years later, as a fighter in the movement of Izzedine al-Qassam in the 1936-39 revolution in Palestine. After being imprisoned in Akka prison himself, he was killed by the British colonial army in a battle in the Westen Galilee.

Today, over 200 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli occupation prisons since 1967. 72 of them were killed as a result of Israeli torture, including three hunger strikers, Izhak Maragha, Ali Ja’afari and Rasim Halawa, killed by torturous forced feeding in 1980. The Israeli state constantly threatens the reimposition of the death penalty, while putting it into practice in reality, with escalating extrajudicial executions – particularly against Palestinian youth; “arrest raids” that are in fact assassination raids as in the targeting of Basil al-Araj  and Moataz Washaha; and the policy of “slow death” of medical neglect and mistreatment inside occupation prisons.

On this anniversary, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network remembers and honors the martyrs of 1930 and their ongoing legacy and role as a symbol of resistance and anti-colonial revolution that reverberates through generations to defend Palestinian land and Palestinian rights, in Jerusalem and throughout occupied Palestine, from Zionism, imperialism and colonization.

 

Letter to Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra: Israeli Apartheid Not Welcome in Canadian Ports #BlocktheBoat

(The following letter was sent today to Canada’s Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and called on “the Canadian government to stop legitimizing the crimes of apartheid…and suspend all instances of Zim-operated ships docking and unloading in Canadian ports.”. This action is part of the growing demand that Canada must hold Israel accountable, through economic sanctions and a bilateral arms embargo.)

June 15, 2021

Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra
Ottawa, Ontario

In recent weeks, people of conscience in Canada watched in horror as the Israeli regime ruthlessly targeted Palestinians from all regions of historic Palestine. What started as a popular movement to #SaveSheikhJarrah residents from further ethnic cleansing expanded into a broad unity of Palestinians from Jerusalem to Gaza to Haifa to Toronto and Vancouver all sending the same message. Palestinians will no longer accept the status quo of Israeli apartheid.

As part of this burgeoning movement, Palestinian-Canadians and their supporters have actively participated in rallies, pickets and #BlockTheBoat actions. The latter refers to the efforts to stop Zim-operated ships from either docking in, or unloading, at U.S., Canadian and other international ports.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd is Israel’s largest and oldest cargo shipping company, dealing in Israeli manufactured military technology, armaments and logistics equipment, as well as consumer goods.

The Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and a large coalition of all major Palestinian workers unions and professional associations have called on fellow trade unions and workers worldwide to boycott Israel and businesses that are complicit with its apartheid regime. They specifically urge “refus[ing] to handle Israeli goods” and “supporting [union] members refusing to build Israeli weapons.”

Last month, and in response to the above appeal from Palestinian trade unions, South African trade unions refused handling cargo from an Israeli ship in Durban. Dockworkers in Italy have also successfully blocked a recent shipment of munitions and armaments destined for Israel.

At Canada’s largest port in Vancouver, there was a successful community picket on June 8 that tied up both the Port entrance and a busy intersection; activists from a diverse range of groups stated clearly – “Israeli Apartheid Not Welcome in Vancouver Ports”. (The same message was also delivered on June 14 at the Prince Rupert Port.)

Port Authorities in Canada fall under the Ministry of Transport. As such, Mr. Alghabra, allowing and enabling such Israeli apartheid profiteering makes both the ports and the Canadian government further complicit in the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians. Both B’tselem and Human Rights Watch have been clear in exposing the system of Israeli governance as apartheid. We, the undersigned organizations, expect the Canadian government to stop legitimizing the crimes of apartheid, and to refuse to give economic incentives to such abhorrent behaviour.

Your ministry is already mired in controversy for refusing to cancel a contract with Elbit Systems to purchase one of their drones. Who would have imagined that the Canadian Ministry of Transport would be so entangled with Israeli apartheid? We call on you to observe your government’s alleged respect for international law and human rights and suspend all instances of Zim-operated ships docking and unloading in Canadian ports.

Popular protest is not going to stop as long as Palestinians are not free.

c.c. PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau
Vancouver Fraser Port Authority

Signed:

BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish Territories
Canada Palestine Association
Palestinian Youth Movement Vancouver
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Endorsed by:

Anti-Imperialist Alliance, Ottawa
BAYAN Canada
Canadian Peace Congress
Communist Party of Canada
Gabriela BC
Independent Jewish Voices Vancouver
Just Peace Advocates
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine Israel
OPRA – Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
Palestinian Canadian Community Centre – Palestine House
Poetic Justice Foundation
Regina Peace Council
Sulong UBC
West Coast Coalition Against Racism Society

Breaking the ties between the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and the Israeli Histadrut is a trade union, political and ethical duty

The following article was initially published in Spanish at El Salto Diario.

by Liliana Córdova KaczerginskiJaldia Abubakra, and Daniel Lobato Bellido

Context

The definition of Israel as an apartheid state is beginning to spread internationally and unstoppably. In 2009 Palestinian and South African academics published a comprehensive report that determined that Israel was committing the crime of apartheid. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, with the participation of the emeritus magistrate of the Spanish Supreme Court, José Antonio Martín Pallín, ruled in 2010 that Israel exercises systematic apartheid. Also two former UN special reporters on human rights in Palestine came to the same conclusion: in 2007, John Dugard determined that Israel commits colonialism and apartheid. In 2017, Richard Falk and the UN ESCWA Commission concluded that Israel has established an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Faced with the scandal over the report, Israel and the US pressured the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, and succeeded in removing the text from the UN website.

In early 2021, B’Tselem, a very prestigious Israeli organization in the monitoring of human rights, published a report that concludes that Israel is an apartheid state in a single political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore, by acknowledging that ancient historical Palestine as a whole is a single geopolitical entity ruled by Tel Aviv, it has exposed the fraud of the rhetoric of the “two-state solution,” “negotiating table,” and so on that do not help the diagnosis or the solution of what is happening. It is very significant that the CCOO Trade Union Confederation has assumed the importance and seriousness of what the B’tselem report indicates, collecting the news on its CCOO website along with the translated version of the document. Recently, the NGO Human Rights Watch has joined in defining Israel as an apartheid regime.

The analogy with South Africa is immediate, although Israel has made the set of legal mechanisms more sophisticated, and intensified the media and diplomatic pressure to try to hide the segregation. From the internal institutional racism against the Palestinians who are citizens of the State of Israel (21% of its population) with more than 60 apartheid laws, to the unlimited segregationist repression against the Palestinians in the ghettos of the West Bank and Gaza. The first ghetto – West Bank – under a military dictatorship of varying intensity and the second – Gaza – under maximum security imprisonment. The latest segregationist crime of the Israeli regime, by way of macabre collective punishment, has been not only its refusal to vaccinate the 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank despite being mandated by the Fourth Geneva Convention, but also preventing the vaccines entering Gaza.

At a different extreme of segregation and exclusion are the more than six million Palestinian refugees that Israel prevents from returning to their land and homes after having expelled them, doubly violating international law.

In a deceptive geopolitical context, which appears to be favorable to Israeli impunity, in reality the beginning of the end of its decades of impunity begins in its violation of international legality and in its contempt for dozens of UN resolutions.

Alongside this snapshot of apartheid, which is gradually and inexorably revealed even to those who refused to look, is added the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for the committing of war crimes against the Palestinians.

In a deceptive geopolitical context, which appears to be favorable to Israeli impunity, in reality the beginning of the end of its decades of impunity begins in its violation of international legality and in its disregard of dozens of UN resolutions, both of the Security Council and the General Assembly. With the Pretoria regime in South Africa there was a turning point in the late 1970s in world awareness. With Israel it will also come, or is coming already, despite crude efforts by the Israeli regime to stir up Western anti-Jewish ghosts by wanting to link the growing boycott of Israel with anti-Semitism. In the same way that the boycott of apartheid South Africa was not “anti-white”, but against the racist Pretoria regime, and obviously millions of Western “white” people supported the boycott, the boycott of Israel is not Judeophobic, but against the racist regime of Tel Aviv; and hundreds of Jewish survivors of Nazi concentration camps support the boycott of Israel, as well as dozens of international Jewish organizations.

Histadrut: a tool for colonization, exploitation and segregation of the Palestinian indigenous population

In 1992, the Comisiones Obreras (CC OO) Trade Union Confederation, the major trade union confederation in Spain, invited the head of international relations at Histadrut to make this Israeli organization known to the Spanish working class. His apologetic article was published by CCOO. Between half truths and praise for the supremacist mythology of Zionism – which by definition implies the dispossession of the Palestinian natives and apartheid – it also included lies and calls for the violation of international legality, which in CC OO must have gone unnoticed. Just six years after Spain’s recognition of Israel, CC OO followed the institutional inertia of normalization with Israel, without considering the background of the decisions.

In addition, the question of the Middle East became a question of State policy and CC OO accommodated itself to that framework without considering it, when the important thing in those years was that agreements between Israel and the PLO (Madrid and Oslo) were looming on the horizon. Finally, the article by the Histadrut leader in the CCOO magazine reinforced the view of how Histadrut was seen outside of Israel as a common union, equivalent to the British Trade Union Congress, or the American AFL / CIO, and inclusive, because Histadrut always had a “convenient” Israeli-Palestinian member in his delegations.

In 1992, amid the collapse of the apartheid regime in Pretoria, no one at CCOO thought that Histadrut was the equivalent of an Afrikaner union with some indigenous South African member.

In the Western imagination, and in that of the CCOO and other Spanish unions, Histadrut came to embody Israeli progressivism in capital-labor relations, and that has been enough, without going deeper. In that Olympic year, in the midst of the collapse of the apartheid regime in Pretoria, and two years after Mandela was elected president of the new South Africa, no one at CCOO thought that Histadrut was the equivalent of an Afrikaner union with some indigenous South African member.

In 2003, the International Policy Secretariat of CCOO and Paz y Solidaridad published an exhaustive monograph on Labour and Trade Unionism in Palestine / Israel, co-authored by Isaías Barreñada, one of the leading experts on Palestine in Spain.

Histadrut was analyzed in depth, and in addition to reflecting apartheid as the backbone of this organization, the report recognizes that Histadrut “played a direct role with the Israeli military occupation” and that it benefited economically from it with its construction company and its entire holding company business.

Furthermore, “Histadrut legitimized the actions of the Israeli government in violation of international law.” It also points out that following the signing of the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements between Histadrut and the Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, Histadrut did not fulfill its commitments to the Palestinian trade unions. Among others, the return of quotas withheld by Israeli companies to Palestinian workers for 30 years, which during all those decades enriched Histadrut. That debt was estimated in the agreements at 400 million dollars and has never been paid to the Palestinians.

CC OO and Histadrut international alliances

The CC OO report clearly pointed out Histadrut’s guilt in the war crime that involves obtaining financial gain by collaborating with and taking advantage of an illegal military occupation. In other words, the document prepared at the highest level within CC OO clearly stated that Histadrut was unequivocally involved in war crimes; But for some reason that escapes us, CC OO did not make any decision on what to do with its ally: CC OO and Histadrut shared membership in the CIOSL until its dissolution in 2006, being replaced by the CSI, the International Trade Union Confederation – the first world trade union organization – where again Histadrut and CC OO are allies. Similarly, both organizations join forces in international trade union alliances, such as Public Services International, ISP / PSI, and others.

Histadrut and the Palestinian workforce

The report did not include some other relevant elements of Histadrut’s history, organization and ideology, which are worth knowing.

As the CC OO document pointed out, Histadrut is not and has not exactly been a union. Not only because it was the founder of the Labor Party or the Haganah paramilitary militias, later converted into the Israel Army, in charge of expelling the Palestinian natives, but because it was the second largest employer in Israel, owning the main bank or more than 25% of industry, with hundreds of thousands of employees. After the privatization of part of its industrial conglomerate in the 80s and 90s, its “union” decline began, although at the same time its political weight was reinforced.

From its inception in 1920, it excluded native Palestinian labour. In 1936 Palestinian workers carried out a six-month general strike against the foreign invasion and colonization of Palestine, one of the longest strikes in the history of labour. Histadrut replaced striking Palestinian workers with exclusive Jewish labour. Together with the British occupying power, Histadrut established Tel Aviv as an alternative port to Jaffa, paralyzed by the strike.

Histadrut not only segregated native labor, but conceptually dismissed solidarity among workers in favor of ethno-religious exclusivism. It destroyed the early efforts of Palestinian and Jewish workers’ groups for a joint unionism based on true equality. And it is true that the main role of Histadrut was not the defence of working conditions but the colonization of Palestine. As Golda Meir pointed out, it was a great colonization agency, endorsing the positions of the Zionist movement: Jewish labor, Jewish production and Jewish consumption, with apartheid and Zionist supremacism as its backbone.

Eleven years after the establishment of the State of Israel by the settlers, in 1959, Histadrut began to admit Palestinian members with Israeli citizenship (as indicated above, 21% of the population of Israel), confined in a special section of the organization. Of course, this admission has never included Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza ghettos, even if they work on Israeli territory.

There was a reason behind this “openness” towards a part of the indigenous workforce: on that date Israel agreed to provide health services to the Palestinian-Israelis who until then lacked them, and this in turn forced them to pay a union dues, that is, they had to join Histadrut. However, Histadrut has never given them jobs in strategic sectors (weapons, oil, chemicals, electronics, aviation, navigation, airlines, electricity, gas, telecommunications, etc.), because to access a job in these branches requires military service, and that fifth of Israel’s population, the Palestinian-Israelis, do not perform military service in the army.

Histadrut has never started any mobilization against the different governments for labour segregation against natives with Israeli citizenship … including discrimination that occurs in public administration

Histadrut has never started any mobilization against the different governments for this labour segregation against natives with Israeli citizenship. Neither because of this, nor because of the discrimination that occurs in the public administration, where only 12% of public employment is held by Palestinian-Israelis, and almost exclusively as health personnel. Less than 1% of the executive positions of the administration are held by Palestinian-Israelis, who we recall, are 21% of the population of Israel.

Histadrut also does not confront systemic employment and wage discrimination on ethnic grounds in Israel. The average remuneration of Palestinian workers with Israeli citizenship is 42% lower than that of the rest of Israelis (5,420 shekel per month compared to 7,950, data from 2019). Histadrut also did not invest or build any industry in mostly Palestinian Israeli populations, contributing to their impoverishment. In 1990, Histadrut enforced the construction employers’ demand that Palestinian-Israeli workers pay an additional tax to finance the training of Jewish immigrants from the former USSR. This meant that the Palestinian-Israeli workers were forced to subsidize the job training of the workers destined to replace them.

In this systemic racism it is necessary to include the linguistic one as well. Let us suppose, as an example, that CCOO de Cataluña did not denounce, or mobilize, or put itself in profile before the repression of companies in Girona or Barcelona against workers who spoke Catalan among themselves, with Catalan being an official language of Catalonia. Well, that is exactly Histadrut’s position regarding the firings and repression of Palestinian-Israeli workers who communicate with each other in Arabic, Arabic being one of the official languages ​​of Israel.

Finally, what about the Palestinians in the ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank? They work in Israeli companies, either because they enter and leave the State of Israel on a daily basis crossing the ghetto’s military checkpoints (they are forbidden to sleep in Israeli territory), or because Israeli factories have settled in the West Bank (violating international law). The answer is that this native working class of the ghettos does not exist for Histadrut, nor does it exist for the State of Israel. They do not have the right to collective bargaining, nor to promotions, nor to pensions, nor to remuneration in the event of an accident at work or illness; they are given very low wages, etc. Taking advantage of the legal vacuum, Israeli employers apply individual bargaining or archaic Jordanian law with the Palestinian workforce in Gaza and the West Bank. This fact exemplifies the labour conflict during these months in an Israeli factory in occupied West Bank territory. Faced with the apartheid exercised by Histadrut against the Palestinian workers in the ghettos, other Israeli organizations such as Kavlaoved or Maan are in charge of supporting and organizing them.

The identification of Histadrut with Israeli politics, or Histadrut as an appendage of Israel 

Beyond its racist business and labour portrayal, it must be emphasized that Histadrut has supported all large-scale Israeli military aggressions against the Gaza ghetto: in 2008, 2012 and 2014, with about 5,000 deaths in total, a quarter children and girls, Histadrut justifies them in the same words as the Israeli government, “Israel’s right to self-defence.” Let us remember that the Palestinians are forcibly locked up in Gaza, since Tel Aviv does not allow them to return to their homes and lands that are within the State of Israel itself. In the same way, Histadrut justified the criminal Israeli assault in 2010 on the international flotilla headed by the Mavi Marmara, which sought to break the blockade of the Gaza ghetto. It has also supported all of Israel’s military aggressions against other neighboring countries. Notably, in 2006 Histadrut Secretary General Amir Peretz became the Labour Party Minister of Defence and carried out the brutal 2006 war against Lebanon.

Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam supplied the South African government with weapons, helping the Afrikaner regime to circumvent its global boycott. The Zionist regime in Israel and the Pretoria regime were close partners

Histadrut acted on behalf of Israeli and American foreign policy operating on behalf of the United States in African countries such as Zaire and Kenya in the 1960s, receiving funds from the US State Department. In the 1970s and 1980s it cooperated with the AIFLD program of the AFL-CIO and the CIA to undermine rural cooperatives in El Salvador for the benefit of intensive agribusiness, repressing indigenous union leaders and organizations, but above all being an additional element of the penetration of the US and Israel in Central America to finance and support the dictatorial regimes of the time or the death squads of the counterinsurgency.

Histadrut collaborated with the South African apartheid regime. The Iskoor Steel Company, 51 percent owned by Histadrut Koor Industries and 49 percent by the South African Steel Corporation, manufactured steel for the South African Armed Forces, helped build the wall between South Africa and Namibia, and Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam supplied the South African government with weapons, helping the Afrikaner regime to circumvent its global boycott. The Zionist regime in Israel and the Pretoria regime were close partners, since they shared supremacist ideology of the settlers against the indigenous people, and Histadrut was part of that institutional alliance.

The severance of relations with Histadrut is an ethical, political and union imperative

We have already seen how Palestinian workers are one of the sectors of the Palestinian population most affected by Israeli efforts to undermine the Palestinian economy with its regime of settler colonialism and apartheid. In 2005, numerous Palestinian unions were founding members of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in Israel, BDS. This movement for the Boycott of Israel has grown unstoppably over the years, despite Israeli efforts to combat it, even creating a specific ministry.

The Palestinian unions, for their part, formed the Palestine Trade Union Coalition PTUC-BDS. This Palestinian trade union coalition issued in 2011 a statement of solidarity with the unions and the European working class that was suffering from the austerity policies of the EU, but also renewed the call to international unions to join the BDS movement, and expressly requested the break of union relations with Histadrut.

In response to this call, in September 2011 the British Trade Union Congress at the proposal of Unite, the largest British union, passed a resolution calling on all unions to review their bilateral relations with Israeli organizations, including Histadrut. Unite had already approved its severance of relations with Histadrut unanimously months before. In the same way, 27 Australian unions joined the Palestinian BDS campaign, supporting boycotts of the settlement industry, arms embargoes and divestments. Major unions from South Africa, France, Norway, Brazil, Canada, Ireland and more countries, have joined the boycott of Israel to varying degrees, and also the severance of relations with Histadrut. In Spain, multiple unions are attached to the BDS campaign.

In these days of May 2021, in the midst of a new massacre against the Gaza ghetto and a wave of repression by the regime against the indigenous population throughout the Palestinian territory – including lynching of Palestinian subjects of the State of Israel – there has been an overwhelming general strike by the whole of Palestinian society in the three parts in which Palestine is broken (Israel, the ghettos of the West Bank and the ghetto of Gaza).

The unity of Palestinian society in resisting oppression and apartheid has been rebuilt after decades of efforts to fragment and divide it by Israel and Western countries. For this reason, once again the Palestinian trade unions have launched an international call for solidarity: “to achieve our liberation, we need the solidarity of our comrades and friends of the international trade union movement”, calling for urgent measures from all trade union organizations in the world. Among them, joining the BDS movement, showing solidarity with the Palestinian strikes by calling mobilizations in their support, helping in resistance funds or taking forceful measures against companies or investment funds related to Israel.

It is the basic principle of international solidarity against oppression. Reciprocal to that received by the CC OO struggle during the Franco regime and the repression it suffered, including Process 1001, by international trade union forces.

Almost 20 years have passed since an internal report by CC OO exposed that Histadrut, an allied organization of this union, was an accomplice in war crimes. In 2021, CC OO continues to share organizational spaces with Histadrut: What is CC OO going to do?

Liliana Córdova Kaczerginski belongs to the International Network of Anti-Zionist Jews – IJAN

Jaldia Abubakra is a member of the Palestinian Women’s Movement – Alkarama

Daniel Lobato Bellido is a member of the Unadikum Association for solidarity with Palestine and the Middle East

All three are members of Samidoun España.

15 June, Vancouver: Day of Rage protest – Defend Jerusalem

Tuesday, 15 June
5:30 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery
Georgia and Hornby, Pacific Centre Side
Vancouver
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/3082398258710847/

VANCOUVER: EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION

Tomorrow hundreds of Israeli settlers will participate in the Zionist March of Flags to taunt and attack Palestinian neighbourhoods. Historically, this march has seen settlers chant “Death to Arabs” and swarmed Occupied Jerusalem, attacking Palestinians. In response, Palestinians are calling on us to mobilize to protect the Occupied Jerusalem community. We are calling for a day of rage tomorrow in Vancouver to defend Al-Aqsa Mosque and to stand with Palestinians fighting settler violence.

Bring your kuffiyehs and masks, and be ready to march from the Vancouver Art Gallery, right near the Hornby and Georgia intersection, as not to disrespect the Indigenous vigil on the steps in front of Robson Square.

Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement Vancouver, endorsed by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the Canada Palestine Association

15 June, NYC: Emergency Protest to Defend Palestine

Tuesday, 15 June
5:30 pm
Zionist Mission to the UN
800 2nd Ave
NYC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1159667421200689/

Join a day of rage by Palestinians in Jerusalem/Al-Quds, across occupied Palestine, in the refugee camps, and throughout the diaspora to resist a massive ‘flag march’ against Al-Aqsa Mosque by Zionist settlers

Launching “Souli”, a new Palestinian song

Samidoun thanks this group of dedicated and revolutionary Palestinian artists in occupied Palestine and the diaspora who cooperated together to complete the song صولي  – Souli (leaping advance), which we dedicate in turn to the Palestinian people and their supporters everywhere, and to the Palestinian prisoners’ liberation movement imprisoned in Zionist and imperialist jails.

This song is part of the Palestinian heritage and reality of cultural struggle and resistance until liberation and return, for all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Lyrics: Khaled Barakat
Composer: Ibrahim Al Silwadi
Arrangement and supervision: Youssef Seif
Vocals: Ahmed Melhem
Percussion: Hussein Al Rimawi
Qanun: Raouf Al-Jahmani
Video: Maram Saadi

Canada action alert: Remove NDP defence critic, out of step with grassroots membership

Canada action alert: Take one minute to write to Jagmeet Singh and Canadian New Democratic Party officials calling for Randall Garrison, the NDP’s defence critic, to be removed from his position for his militarism and anti-Palestinian stance. 

Send a letter here or take action below: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/write-letter-ndp-needs-a-new-defence-critic/

Dear Jagmeet Singh and NDP officials, 

Randall Garrison needs to be removed as NDP Defence critic. He promotes militarism and is anti-Palestinian.

Garrison has repeatedly demanded more resources for the military, which has more than 10 times the budget of Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Garrison recently complained to the Hill Times that the budget didn’t devote enough to the military, saying:

we spent a decade not providing the military with an adequate operating budget to do the work we already asked them to do. It’s time to fix that.

Similarly, when the Liberals announced a 70 per cent increase in military spending in 2017, Garrison criticized the announcement for not putting up more money immediately.

Garrison supports the government’s plan to spend $19 billion – $77 billion over their lifecycle – on 88 new aggressive, climate destroying, fighter jets. He also wants Canada to purchase 15 surface combatant vessels armed with Tomahawk missiles that can travel 1,700 kilometers. The frigates are expected to cost $77 billion upfront and an eye-popping $286 billion over their lifecycle.

In mid-April, 85% of NDP convention delegates voted for the Palestine Resolution. It calls for “Ending all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine” and “Suspending the bilateral trade of all arms and related materials with the State of Israel until Palestinian rights are upheld.”

In response to Israel’s recent ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem, attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque and violence in Gaza, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called for an arms embargo on Israel and the party promoted a petition making this demand, which most NDP MPs have shared.

Garrison has stayed quiet on the convention resolution and arms embargo. He also failed to criticize Israel’s recent violence and ethnic cleansing. Instead, on May 25 he signed a statement designed to shield Israel from criticism, which was promoted by lobby group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

Garrison is vice-chair of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG). Three years ago 200 well-known musicians, academics, trade unionists and NDP members called on NDP MPs to withdraw from CIIG. Most ultimately did so. Garrison has refused to leave a group that promotes “greater friendship” and “cooperation” between the Canadian and Israeli parliaments.

Garrison is out of step with NDP members on Palestinian rights. His militarism is also not shared by most in the party. It is time Garrison was removed as NDP defence critic.

Send a letter here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/write-letter-ndp-needs-a-new-defence-critic/

Endorsing organizations:

Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste

Canadian BDS Coalition

Canada Palestine Association

Palestinian and Jewish Unity

World BEYOND War

Anti-Imperialist Alliance-Ottawa

World Beyond War Vancouver

Canadian Muslim Peace Alliance

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Oakville Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)

Canadian Foreign Policy Institute

Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine Israel

Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste

Regina Peace Council

NDP Socialist Caucus

Al-Quds Committee-Toronto

Victoria Peace Coalition

Yemeni Community in Canada

Pax Christi Toronto

St. John’s Solidarity for Palestine

Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War

Tamam: Fine Palestinian Cuisine

17 June, Online Event: Palestine between the path of Liquidation and the path of Liberation and Return

Palestine: between the path of liquidation and the path of liberation and return. The alternative path conference preparatory Committee in Greece invites you to participate in a political meeting and discussion with Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat on the current political development in Palestine and the region, and on the efforts to convene the alternative path conference.

Thursday 17/06/2021 at 8 pm occupied Jerusalem and Athens time
The meeting will be held through Zoom platform.
Zoom meeting: 825 2249 0486
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82522490486
This event will take place in Arabic with translation available in English, Spanish and Greek.

تدعوكم اللجنة التحضيرية لمؤتمر المسار الفلسطيني البديل – محلية اليونان – إلى المشاركة في اللقاء السياسي مع الكاتب الفلسطيني خالد بركات حول المستجدات السياسية في فلسطين المحتلة والمنطقة، والجهود الشعبية المتواصلة لعقد مؤتمر المسار الفلسطيني البديل .
الخميس17 / 06 / 2021 تمام الساعة الثامنة مساءً بتوقيت القدس المحتلة وأثينا.
اللقاء عبر منصة زوم الإلكترونية

Η Επιτροπή της Διάσκεψης για την εναλλακτική πορεία του παλαιστινιακού αγώνα – Τοπική Επιτροπή Ελλάδα- σας προσκαλεί να συμμετάσχετε στην πολιτική διαδικτυακή συνάντηση με τον Παλαιστίνιο συγγράφει Χάλεντ Μπαρακάτ, σε μια ανοιχτή συζήτηση γύρω από τις τελευταίες πολιτικές εξελίξεις στην κατεχόμενη Παλαιστίνη και τις λαϊκές προσπάθειες για την προετοιμασία της Διάσκεψης για την εναλλακτική πορεία του παλαιστινιακού αγώνα.
Την Πέμπτη 17/6/2021 στις 20.00, ώρα Αθήνας και κατεχόμενων Ιεροσολύμων.
Η συνάντηση θα γίνει μέσω Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82522490486

Palestina: entre el camino de la liquidación y el camino de la liberación y el retorno. El Comité preparatorio de la conferencia de la ruta alternativa palestinas en Grecia os invita a participar en una reunión política y debate con el escritor palestino Khaled Barakat sobre el desarrollo político actual en Palestina y la región, y sobre los esfuerzos para convocar la conferencia de la ruta palestina alternativa.
Jueves 17/06/2021 a las 8 pm hora de Jerusalén y Atenas
La reunión se llevará a cabo a través de plataforma Zoom.
Reunión zoom: 825 2249 0486