It had been widely anticipated that, to maintain any institutional respect, the International Criminal Court would have to indict some Israeli leaders, unavoidably including Prime Minister Netanyahu, in connection with the Gaza genocide and that, for balance, it would choose to indict at least one Hamas leader at the same time.
Its announcement Monday of applications for five arrest warrantsand the strong language of its announcement, particularly coming from a British Prosecutor who had previously been suspected of being totally subservient to the British government, is excellent news.
However, it offered three surprises:
(1) ANNOUNCING APPLICATIONS FOR ARREST WARRANTS
It is normal ICC practice to announce the issuance of arrest warrants only after the court’s judges have approved them on the basis of an application from the Prosecutor.
This was the procedure followed last year when the court announced the issuance of arrest warrants for President Putin and for Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.
The decision to announce these applications for arrest warrants prior to their formal approval may have been motivated by a sense that the conditions under which the people of Gaza are striving to survive are deteriorating so rapidly and horrifically that there is no time to waste and by a hope that announcing the applications now might have a positive impact on the decisions of relevant decision-makers for whom arrest warrants are not yet being sought but could be sought later.
(2) NOT SEEKING AN ARREST WARRANT AGAINST GENERAL HALEVI
When rumors of imminent ICC indictments started swirling several weeks ago, three Israeli leaders were cited as targeted — Prime Minister Netanyahu, and General Herzi Halevi, Chief of General Staff of the IDF. Arrest warrants are now being sought only against Netanyahu and Gallant.
The Prosecutor may be hoping that not indicting General Halevi or other top military officers for the time being while stating explicitly that his office “will not hesitate to submit further applications for warrants” if conditions are met might encourage them, in their own self-interests, to try to rein in their political leadership and to wind down or even wind up Israel’s genocidal assault against the people of Gaza.
(3) SEEKING AN ARREST WARRANT AGAINST ISMAIL HANIYEH
It was widely reported at the time that Hamas Political Bureau head Ismail Haniyeh and other members of the external leadership of Hamas had no advance knowledge of the October 7 operation, which makes attributing “criminal responsibility” to Haniyeh for the events of that day surprising.
It is possible that, in the hope of mitigating American fury and the publicly threatened American retaliation for any indictments of Israelis, the Prosecutor thought it desirable to seek arrest warrants for more Palestinians than Israelis. Within Gaza, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif are the only widely recognized personalities to whom responsibility might be attributed. Hence, perhaps Haniyeh was added to achieve the desired Palestinian majority.
In these circumstances, it is possible that the court’s “independent judges” might show their independence by not issuing an arrest warrant against Haniyeh, which should not upset the Prosecutor if he was adding Haniyeh primarily to achieve a Palestinian majority.
If an arrest warrant were to be issued against Haniyeh, he might, with good reasons to hope for an acquittal, choose to turn himself in to the court and, thereby, to set a good example for (and contrast to) Netanyahu and Gallant.
Indeed, Sinwar and Dief might at least be tempted to do likewise if they could find a way to be safely extricated from the Gaza Strip.
Since October 7, their future has offered only martyrdom — and not necessarily a quick and easy one. They may well be reconciled to martyrdom or actively seek it, but they could also view the chance to live out their natural lives and to defend themselves and their acts on the basis of the right of an occupied and oppressed people to self-defense against perpetual occupation and oppression and on the basis of 10/7 Truth as a viable and even attractive alternative.
It has also been widely reported that Netanyahu is personally obsessed with killing Sinwar and Deif and is determined to pursue his assault against Gaza until he achieves that goal.
If that goal were to become impossible because Sinwar and Deif had successfully turned themselves into the court, thousands of lives might be saved.
John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.
Guess who threatened them? The Girl Scouts of the United States.
Stories abound of retaliation against those who express concern over Israeli ethnic cleansing – from censoring news reports to reprimanding faculty, mass arrests, and suppressing students’ right to protest. A well-orchestrated campaign against Palestine’s right to exist is spreading like Covid across the US. Now, it has hit a new low.
The national Girl Scouts are threatening legal action against a St. Louis troop for the crime of making bracelets to raise money for Gaza’s children.
A story in the March 25, 2024 St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Aisha Sultan documents that the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri and the Girl Scouts of the United States have written scout leader Nawal Abuhamdeh of her failure to follow proper procedure and “sent her instructions on how to leave the organization.”
For four years Abuhamdeh had coordinated the group’s cookie sales. But after witnessing what happened to her parents’ Palestinian homeland she brought the idea of raising money to the diverse group of girls whose families are from Somalia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and India.
Not just these countries, but most others around the world are horrified at the Zionist “final solution” against Palestinians.
With reports of IDF forces summarily killing captive Palestinians, Ralph Nader’s question of the scarcity of reports on Israeli POW camps becomes salient. Has Netanyahu given the order for “No prisoners” even after Palestinians have surrendered?
Though there are now reports of 30,000 Palestinian deaths, Israeli efforts to block food, water and human waste management means that death by starvation, thirst and infectious diseases may vastly exceed deaths via weapon annihilation.
As of February 21, US representatives have stymied efforts to have the UN call for a cease-fire four times. While Biden calls for “restraint” by Israel out of one side of his mouth, the other side continues to order that weapons of mass destruction be sent.
The targeting of hospitals continues as the deaths of children mount. These facts are consistent with a Zionist goal of obliterating the future of Palestinians as a people.
These scenes are not lost on the girls in Abuhamdeh’s troop. Videos of the war crimes are highly disturbing.
One video shows a Palestinian father using a shopping bag to collect pieces of his slaughtered children. Another depicts a doctor who must amputate a leg of his 16-year-old niece on the dinner table without anesthesia. In one, viewers see that “A wailing 4-year-old tried to get up and look for his parents — both of whom were killed, and his own legs amputated.”
Particularly revealing are the comments published at the bottom of the Sultan article. Though most were supportive of the St. Louis scouts, several identified with Zionist disdain for Palestinians. A person self-identifying as “kuuindhater” wrote “Helicopter Mom with an article dripping in victimology.” “medi8r” added “I fear this sort of one sided propaganda leads to misplaced hate toward Israel and Jews.”
One called “billikenforever” exuded general dislike: “What a crock! The Girl Scouts have partnered with Planned Parenthood for years in promoting the elimination of innocent babies.”
The St. Louis scout troop had posted on social media that supporters could buy bracelets for $5 or $10, with the funds going to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). The Girl Scouts of the US then wrote to them that it was impermissible to raise money for “partisan politics.” Agreeing with them, “lucygirl” posted in the comments “Does the PCRF fund Hamas? The Girls Scouts are correct in not wanting their organization accused of having members donate to an organization that fund terrorist groups.”
Interestingly, the Girl Scouts had no problem with raising money for those injured in Ukraine. Abuhamdeh pointed out the similarity and the absence of reprisals for that effort. Defending this double standard, “MOgal2” commented that “This is a political war unlike Ukraine. Ukraine was invaded by an unprovoked army. They are fighting back on their own land. Israel was attacked in a heinous way.”
Yes, the propaganda machines control millions of minds in colonizing countries. Slicing through the Gordian knot of twisted logic, “zap973” simply noted “It’s obvious that Ukrainians are perceived as white westerners therefore deserving of compassion. Palestinians are not. End of story.”
His efforts to open space in global literature for Palestinian writers were a contribution to the struggle against apartheid.
In contexts of class struggle, national liberation, and the fight for self-determination, art is a cultural weapon. It is a tool for educating, for inspiring change. It gives voice to the injustices of the past and present and gestures toward a more just future.
In post-independence Indonesia, the Lekra cultural movement aimed to give “hope and direction” to their nation’s people by creating art that “showed a way out” of present circumstances toward a more equitable future. This was often done through socialist realism, but the movement didn’t limit itself to this style.
Lekra had tens of thousands of members. After the US-backed coup of 1965, however, the movement was banned. Their “way out” was obliterated in the genocidal violence that followed.
During the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the Medu Art Ensemble created posters, songs, dances, and poems to motivate South Africans to resist the white supremacist government. Thami Mnyele, one of Medu’s founders, stated: “the role of an artist is to teach others; the role of an artist is to ceaselessly search for the ways and means of achieving freedom. Art cannot overthrow a government, but it can inspire change.”
For his efforts to inspire change, Mnyele and three other Medu members were killed in a 1985 raid by South African troops. The organization subsequently disbanded.
Art itself does not change the world, but without bringing imagination to life through art, we would resign ourselves to the present. Radical artists allude to reality, trying to raise the consciousness of people who might otherwise not have considered this or that aspect of their relationship with others. It is the role of art to focus the people’s attention and build their confidence to struggle against the misery inflicted upon the global majority.
The Israeli government seems to recognize this fact. In over two months of slaughter, Israeli forces have devastated Gaza’s cultural sector, destroying libraries, publishing houses, theatres, cultural centres, and historical sites and killing artists, poets, writers, musicians, calligraphers, and dancers. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is doing this with the full support of Canada, the US, and other Western powers.
Israel’s targeted bombing of Gaza’s creative professionals and cultural sites is part of what Literary Hubdescribes as an “ongoing cultural genocide.” Gaza’s Minister of Culture, Atef Abu Saif, has called it a “war on culture.” According to Saif:
…the real war is a war on the narrative to steal the land and its rich treasures of knowledge, history, and civilization, along with the stories it holds [but Palestinians] will undoubtedly continue to contribute to human civilization, restoring joy and hope, elevating through singing, music, poetry, novels, stories, and tales rooted in the ever-evolving consciousness, culture, and thought of the land of the first stories.
On October 20, the Israeli military killed Heba Abu Nada, a poet, novelist, and educator whose novel Oxygen is Not for the Dead won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. Nada’s last words, released by Anthony Anaxagorou on October 24, read:
We find ourselves in an indescribable state of bliss amidst the chaos. Amidst the ruins, a new city emerges—a testament to our resilience. Cries of pain echo through the air, mingling with the blood-stained garments of doctors. Teachers, despite their grievances, embrace their little pupils, while families display unwavering strength in the face of adversity.
On December 6, an Israeli airstrike assassinated another writer, the Gazan poet and academic Refaat Alareer, with several members of his family. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reports that Alareer was deliberately targeted by the IDF. Prior to his death, Alareer and his family had been sheltering at a school administered by the UN when he received a death threat over the phone. Not wanting to endanger the other refugees, he withdrew to his sister’s apartment, where the Israeli military murdered him with a targeted airstrike.
In his final interview, Alareer stated:
I am an academic. Probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade, if they barge at us, charge at us open door-to-door to massacre us, I am going to use that marker to throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that is the last thing that I would be able to do. And this is the feeling of everybody. We are helpless. We have nothing to lose.
In addition to his writing and activism, Alareer taught creative writing and literature (including Hebrew literature) at the Islamic University of Gaza. Through his work with We Are Not Numbers (a project established in 2015 by the Euro-Med Monitor to provide English-language writing workshops for young Palestinians in Gaza) and the publication of literary anthologies, Alareer aimed to educate the world about the horrendous conditions Palestinians have been forced to endure under Israeli occupation.
Gaza Writes Back, published in 2013, compiles short stories from 15 Palestinian writers in Gaza. As the jacket reads: “These stories are acts of resistance and defiance, proclaiming the endurance of Palestinians and the continuing resilience and creativity of their culture in the face of ongoing obstacles and attempts to silence them.”
Alareer believed that by preserving old stories and penning new ones, Palestinians are not just producing works that can be admired by local and global literary communities. They are asserting their right to the land.
During his 2015 Ted Talk, Alareer told a story about a “native Canadian” during the early years of colonization. In Alareer’s story, a group of European colonizers were discussing how to divide the land when an Indigenous elder approached them. “If this is your land,” the elder says, “tell me your stories.”
“Of course, the answer is silence,” Alareer explains. “They had no stories and they don’t own the land.”
For Alareer, his efforts to open space in global literature for Palestinian writers were a contribution to the struggle against Israeli colonization and apartheid. As an academic—someone with nothing tougher than a marker at home—he recognized his literary skills could challenge his oppressor’s efforts to deny his people a voice. For empowering Palestinian voices, for speaking out fearlessly against injustice in occupied lands, the oppressor killed him.
During a talk at the Community Church of Boston, journalist Max Blumenthal, who knew Alareer personally, said, “I believe Refaat Alareer’s book tour for Gaza Writes Back was a dangerous moment for US empire and Israel [as an] extension of US empire.”
Blumenthal stated bluntly: “He was killed for his words, because his words were so threatening.”
This places Alareer in the ranks of great artists who were persecuted and killed for trying to inspire change, like the Lekra members who were murdered by Suharto’s thugs and the Medu artists who were assassinated by apartheid commandos.
Toronto-based writer Sarah Hagi described Alareer aptly: “He worked his entire life to not only become an incredible writer and academic, but to teach other Palestinians how to use storytelling as a tool of resistance. He nurtured so many of his students and brought stories from Gaza that may have otherwise been overlooked to the world.”
Since Israel’s killing of Alareer earlier this month, his poem “If I Must Die” has resonated with readers around the world, being translated into over 40 languages and read by actor Brian Cox for the Palestinian Festival of Literature. Other writers have made efforts to popularize Palestinian literature, such as Irish author Sally Rooney, who read Ghassan Kanafani’s “Letter From Gaza” as part of Irish Writers for Palestine.
In Canada, literary culture has divided. When three protestors disrupted the Scotiabank Giller Prize gala with signs condemning Scotiabank’s funding of Israel’s Elbit Systems (a military technology company and defense contractor), they were met with boos from the audience. Giller Executive Director Elana Rabinovitch later said the anti-genocide protestors showed “disrespect to Canadian authors, and their literary achievements that were made throughout the year.” The protestors are facing criminal charges.
In the aftermath of the disruption, Canada’s literary mainstream polarized. Some prominent authors—Waubgeshig Rice, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Anuja Varghese, Omar El Akkad, Noor Naga, and Tsering Yangzom Lama, to name a few—signed an open letter calling on literary institutions like the Giller Prize to endorse a ceasefire and urge the Canadian government to end its material support for the Israeli military. In total, about 2,200 people, including many authors and industry figures, signed the letter.
In response, Canadian authors Sidura Ludwig and Anna Rosner wrote a competing open letter in which they claimed the ceasefire letter had “deep biases” and that its framing of the war on Gaza contributes to “growing hatred of Jews.” The open letter has been signed by over 2,000 “writers, artists, industry professionals and supporters of the arts.”
Canada’s literary community is evidently split on the war on Gaza. Thousands of writers have condemned Israel’s genocidal assault, while others have chosen to tacitly support the IDF’s campaign to erase Palestinian lives, culture, and storytelling.
The hypocrisy of writers, in Canada and elsewhere, who support Israel’s actions is astounding. As Dan Sheehan writes in Literary Hub:
Consider the household names who spent the Trump years cataloging every MAGA obscenity on their Twitter feeds, now silent on the subject of Gaza; authors who (rightly, admirably, and regularly) speak out about Florida book bans and the dismantling of Roe vs. Wade and the incursion of artificial intelligence into the literary space and the January 6 insurrection and the actions of Russia in Ukraine, but who, seemingly, have nothing to say about the US-backed killing of over 8,000 Palestinian civilians [almost 20,000 at the time of writing].
The attack on Gaza is targeting the very ability of Palestinians to express themselves to the outside world. This is why Israel is assassinating poets, novelists, journalists, and other creative professionals.
At his talk in Boston, Max Blumenthal said, “We have to pick up the marker”—a reference to Refaat Alareer’s final interview. “Pick up the marker and throw your marker at the architects of this genocide for the rest of your lives.”
It is incumbent on Canadian poets, novelists, journalists—anyone with the means—to write back against this genocide. If Canadians don’t, it calls into question their commitment to the values that supposedly underpin Canadian literature.
A young person mourning after an Israeli attack that struck a refugee camp in Gaza City on Nov. 2, 2023. So far, more than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military | Photo by Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty Images
The move illustrates larger dynamics currently at play within the U.S. labor movement as the assault on Gaza rages on. While some unions and labor activists are advocating for an immediate end to the onslaught, most officials are keeping quiet.
The Israeli military has been bombarding Gaza for weeks — dropping thousands and thousands of bombs and killing more than 9,000 Palestinians—including more than 3,700 children — and displacing some 1.4 million.
On Oct. 16, Palestinian trade unions issued a call to action for organized labor and workers everywhere “to halt the sale and funding of arms to Israel — and related military research.”
The Palestinian labor coalition — including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions — specifically called on trade unions around the world to: Refuse to manufacture weapons destined for Israel, refuse to transport weapons to Israel, pass motions in their individual trade unions demanding the same, take action against companies complicit in the siege of Gaza, and apply pressure to governments to stop supporting and funding the Israeli war machine.
The call resonated with some union members in the United States, including Alice, a delegate with the Olympia, Washington-based Thurston-Lewis-Mason Central Labor Council (TLM CLC). The TLM CLC represents the AFL-CIO-affiliated local unions in the western Washington counties of Thurston, Lewis and Mason.
Alice (who asked that her last name not be published because she fears being targeted by anti-Palestinian groups) saw the call from the Palestinian trade unions and was inspired to draft a resolution for the TLM CLC to publicly affirm its solidarity.
After the council discussed and unanimously adopted Alice’s measure on Oct. 18, according to two TLM CLC delegates, an announcement with a link to the resolution was posted on the council’s website and Twitter account.
The resolution stated that the labor council “opposes in principle any union involvement in the production or transportation of weapons destined for Israel.” It also encouraged the national AFL-CIO to “publicly support an immediate ceasefire and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis.”
But the following Monday, an AFL-CIO senior field representative informed the board that the resolution did not conform with the national AFL-CIO’s official position, according to interviews and emails shared with In These Times.
He specifically pointed to a press release issued by the national labor federation on Oct. 11 calling for “a swift resolution to the current conflict to end the bloodshed of innocent civilians, and to promote a just and long-lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” but not explicitly mentioning a cease-fire or opposing the production and shipment of weapons destined for Israel. (Some AFL-CIO-affiliated unions represent workers in the defense industry, including the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and United Auto Workers.)
By differing from the AFL-CIO’s stated position, the field representative explained, the TLM CLC’s resolution was technically void because it violates a governance rule, Rule 4(b), which states: “Area labor councils, as chartered organizations of the AFL-CIO, shall conform their activities on national affairs to the policies of the AFL-CIO.” He further clarified to Alice that the rule “has long been understood to apply to international positions as well as national.”
A screenshot of a deleted tweet from the Thurston-Lewis-Mason Central Labor Council (left) and evidence that it had been deleted based on a retweet from DSA Labor (right) | Provided to In These Times by the article’s author.
Meanwhile, the resolution had already gained widespread public attention after the TLM CLC’s statement about it was retweeted by the ,ational Labor Commission.
But Alice says that after being pressured by the AFL-CIO’s field representative, the TLM CLC deleted the statement from its website and X (formerly Twitter) account late last week. She adds that the field representative also asked her not make a public statement — including to media — about the situation, but she feels it is urgent to get the word out to encourage more local bodies within the AFL-CIO to take a stand at this critical moment. (Labor Notes also published an article about the AFL-CIO and TLM CLC.)
“We need more labor councils, we need more locals passing resolutions like this, because they can’t stop us all,” Alice says. “If it’s just us, they can sweep it under the rug like they’re trying to do right now. But if many, many of us across the country start doing it, then it becomes something much harder for them to sweep under the rug.”
The AFL-CIO’s intervention against the TLM CLC’s cease-fire resolution illustrates the larger dynamics currently at play within the U.S. labor movement as the assault on Gaza, which has been described and decried as genocidal, rages on.
While some unions and labor activists are advocating for an immediate end the Israeli military’s onslaught and expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people, most of the top officials in U.S. labor are either keeping quiet, dancing around the central issues, or — in this case with the AFL-CIO — stepping in to police voices calling for a cease-fire and non-cooperation with Israel’s war machine.
Smoke rises in Gaza after an attack by the Israeli military on Nov. 2, 2023 | Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images
John Campbell, another TLM CLC delegate (we are using a pseudonym because he is concerned about retaliation), says Alice intentionally tried to make the resolution palatable for people with various viewpoints and that the council wasn’t “exactly going out of our way to say anything [outlandish] here” and that “I think calling for a cease-fire is pretty reasonable.”
“The fact that even what she did end up putting out, and what the membership did end up voting on — again, unanimously — the fact that that still ruffled feathers is a bit surprising, honestly,” Campbell says.
The AFL-CIO and the field representative who Alice said she interacted with did not respond to requests for comment.
Kooper Caraway, who was previously president of the South Dakota State Federation of Labor and the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO, says it is not uncommon for the AFL-CIO to step in and overrule central labor councils when they take actions on national or international issues.
Caraway resigned as executive director of the SEIU Connecticut State Council a couple of weeks ago after backlash from state Republicans and Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont over remarks Caraway made at an Oct. 9 Palestine solidarity rally in New Haven — making him one of at least dozens of people in the United States who have lost their jobs or had job offers rescinded resulting from their advocacy for Palestinians in recent weeks.
While not commenting on the circumstances of his resignation, Caraway urges local labor bodies to “act locally in any way they can” to support Palestine, similar to how they did to encourage the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
“There was a lot of local action for a long time in support of the ANC [African National Congress] and supporting the South African struggle against apartheid before the national labor movement got behind that,” he says. “That helped build momentum nationally.”
BUILDING MOMENTUM
U.S. labor officials have a long history of being among Israel’s most stalwart supporters, using union funds to purchase hundreds of millions of dollars in State of Israel bonds from the 1950s onward.
Only in recent years have some unions become more critical of the Israeli government and more sympathetic to the Palestinian freedom movement, including during Israel’s 2021 bombardment of Gaza.
In the past few weeks, several local unions and networks of labor activists have issued statements or circulated letters expressing solidarity with Palestinians, urging a cease-fire and condemning both the unfolding genocide in Gaza and escalating settler attacks in the West Bank.
One of the latest examples is the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), whose house of delegates this week approved signing on to a letter of solidarity with other unions “calling for human rights, for the release of all hostages, and for a cease-fire in Israel and Palestine.” The letter also directly calls on Biden to immediately call for a cease-fire.
At the same meeting, the CTU also approved another resolution focused on the classroom and teaching and learning that called for increased measures around “social emotional supports for members and students during world conflicts.” This includes, among other things, professional development “to help members understand the historic complexity and profound human impacts of this conflict” and that the CTU “will gather, share, and support options and resources for supporting children and families impacted by this conflict.”
Meanwhile, after Republicans, right-wing news outlets and Starbucks smeared Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) as terrorist supporters in response to some members posting statements in support of Palestinians on social media, Workers United President Lynne Fox came to SBWU’s defense.
“At a time when we should be focused on the human tragedy taking place in Gaza and Israel, Starbucks is instead taking every chance it gets to bash its employees as supporters of hate and violence without any concern for truth — or consequences,” Fox wrote in In These Times.
On October 20, SBWU posted a statement on social media reaffirming their members’ “solidarity with the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.”
“We are opposed to violence, and each death occurring as the result of violence is a tragedy. We absolutely condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia,” the SBWU statement said. “We condemn the occupation, displacement, state violence, apartheid, and threats of genocide Palestinians face.”
Unions of academic workers at institutions including Rutgers, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Columbia and New York University have also published statements expressing solidarity with Palestine in recent weeks. The Harvard Graduate Student Union (HGSU)’s attempt to do the same was allegedly obstructed at an Oct. 16 membership meeting through intimidation and procedural delays, according to a press release from a group of rank-and-file HGSU members. (The HGSU did not respond to a request for comment.)
About two weeks ago, U.S. Labor Against Racism and War convened a call attended by hundreds of unionists across the country, and has organized an email-writing campaign directed at national union presidents urging them to call for a cease-fire. Since the campaign was launched at that time, more than 28,000 letters have been sent. Another national call is planned for tonight (Thursday, Nov. 2).
The National Writers Union, which also convened a call in the middle of October for labor activists to discuss the situation in Gaza, has criticized the Israeli government for violating international law and called on Western media to do a better job of covering the crisis.
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) has called for a cease-fire. UE is also the only national union to both call for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to peacefully pressure Israel to end the occupation. Together with with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000 (and endorsed by a group of unions including the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers & Support Personnel Local 67), the UE has sponsored a petition for unions and members to demand a cease-fire. This is the petition that the CTU signed.
Labor for Palestine, a group that has been active since 2004, is also asking U.S. union members to sign onto a statement embracing Palestinian trade unions’ call to not build or transport weapons for Israel, while rank-and-file United Auto Workers (UAW) members are circulating an open letter urging the union to endorse BDS, which can be signed by UAW members or community allies. (In 2015, after rank-and-file members with UAW-affiliated graduate worker unions at the University of California, New York University and University of Massachusetts Amherst each voted in 2014 to endorse BDS, the UAW’s international executive board formally “nullified” the measures.)
“MORAL RESPONSIBILITY”
Calls for a cease-fire have been growing and coming from a variety of groups around the world, including coalitions of Palestinian-led organizations, Jewish American activists holding mass civildisobedience protests around the country and respected humanitarian groups like Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as the United Nations General Assembly and hundreds of thousands of protesters across the globe. The editorial board of the conservative Financial Times, one of the most pro-business publications in the world, has also recently joined the calls for a cease-fire.
Palestinian children in Gaza following an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City on Nov. 1, 2023. More than 3,700 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli military over the last several weeks, and more than 6,300 other Palestinian children have been injured | Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images
Meanwhile, most U.S. union leaders have remained silent.
In These Times reached out to fifteen prominent U.S. unions and asked directly if their national leaders support the growing demands for a cease-fire and whether they support Palestinian labor’s call for an end to the arms trade with Israel. In what appears to be a sign of the larger movement’s hesitations, only the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) responded.
“We unequivocally condemn the actions taken by Hamas that purposefully targeted Israeli citizens. Civilians now on both sides of the conflict are disproportionately suffering, and the current humanitarian disaster unfolding in the Gaza strip is entirely preventable,” IUPAT General President Jimmy Williams, Jr. said in an emailed statement. “Israel must cease bombing dense urban areas and should immediately allow for humanitarian aid to reach the people most affected by the conflict. Targeting civilians is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime. It is the duty of all working people to stand up and say enough.”
“A conflict of this magnitude cannot be fixed by bombs and bullets,” Williams continued. “The IUPAT is proud to join the labor movement across the globe in calling for an immediate end to hostilities and de-escalation of tensions across the region.”
The AFT’s response pointed to recenttweets by the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, callingfor a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid into Gaza and criticizing the Israeli government for not doingenough to stop settler attacks in the West Bank and harassment of Arab students at Netanya College.
Weingarten and two of the AFT’s other top officers also issued a statement shortly after Hamas had attacked southern Israel and killed 1,400 people, including more than 1,000 civilians, and the Israeli government had begun its assault on Gaza. That statement said in part that “Israel has every right to defend itself as it will now do,” while also expressing concern for Palestinian civilians “caught in the crossfire.”
Only a few other national unions have publicly said anything about the recent violence in the region, or have explained to their members why they will not be speaking out.
or example, on Oct. 17, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry denounced “the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas” and said the union was “deeply troubled by the emerging humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” calling for “long-term solutions that will bring safety, peace and justice to the people of the region.”
A brief SAG-AFTRA statement on Oct. 13 similarly condemned the Hamas attack, but made no mention of Palestinians or Israel’s siege and bombing of Gaza. Several high-profile SAG-AFTRA members have signed onto the Artists Call for Ceasefire Now letter to President Joe Biden, supported by Oxfam America and ActionAid USA.
In an internal message to members noting “the atrocities in Israel committed by Hamas” and “the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” officers of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) East said they would not be making any public comments due to a recent change in policy around public statements. Leaders of the WGA West similarly told members they would not make public remarks about the violence in Palestine and Israel due to a lack of consensus, but later told members they were “horrified” by the “murder of so many innocent people in Israel” and that they “deeply mourn the deaths of innocent Palestinians.”
Behind closed doors at an AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting last Monday, American Postal Workers Union (APWU) President Mark Dimondstein reportedly urged the labor federation to demand a cease-fire while also arguing that Israel and Palestine should be combined into a single state (APWU did not respond to a request for comment). According to the New York Times, “no other labor leader in the meeting offered vocal support for his position,” but the AFT’s Weingarten “asserted Israel’s right to defend itself.”
The relatively muted response from U.S. union presidents stands in contrast to labor leaders in other countries, particularly the United Kingdom. At a massive Palestine solidarity rally in London last Saturday, the crowd was addressed by Libby Nolan, president of the 1.3-million-member public service union UNISON, and by Mick Lynch, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT).
“The Labour Party and the whole workers movement must show it is on the side of the peacemakers, not the warmongers,” Lynch said at the rally. “End the killing now, call the immediate cease-fire, and let’s create the road to a settlement with peace, social justice, human rights, freedom and dignity for all. Solidarity to Palestine.”
Caraway says there are strategic reasons why U.S. labor leaders should not only call for a cease-fire, but support the Palestinian freedom movement.
“This is one of the most pro-Palestinian generations that this country has ever seen. Millennials and Gen-Z — the same folks who are the most pro-union generation — those are also the folks who do not want the U.S. to continue sending weapons to Israel,” Caraway says. “It’s strategically important for the leadership of the labor movement to do their best to reflect the values and principles of the younger generation of working-class people who they seek to unionize or help organize.”
A view of part of the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City that was bombed again by the Israeli army on Nov. 1, 2023 | Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images
But Caraway adds that there are other reasons for U.S. labor to stand with Palestine.
“There’s the old labor adage that an injury to one is an injury to all,” he says. “So as long as one group of working folks are colonized or occupied, or their families are facing elimination and genocide, there’s the moral responsibility of the labor movement — particularly in the country that is funding that occupation and genocide — to stand in support of the workers being attacked.”
Alice from the Thurston-Lewis-Mason Central Labor Council says this sense of solidarity is what motivated her to introduce the cease-fire resolution.
“I felt like this was something we really needed to press for,” she explains. “There’s ethnic cleansing going on in Gaza right now, and we have a responsibility — especially in the richest country in the world — to do everything we can to stop that.”
Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, educator, journalist and union activist who teaches at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He has been an In These Times contributor since 2013. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSchuhrke.
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