Sacked Liverpool Dockers Call For Sanctions Against Israel
Sacked Liverpool Dockers | 05.08.2006 22:22 | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | Liverpool
On behalf of Merseyside trade unionists the Sacked Liverpool
Dockworkers have been asked to circulate, coordinate and collate all
responses to this message.
Dockworkers have been asked to circulate, coordinate and collate all
responses to this message.
We are trade unionists with a record of action within our own
industries and in opposition to racism and war. We watch with horror
and outrage as Israel has bombed Lebanon indisciminately since 12
July with hundreds of civilian casualties, and their army begins a
major ground invasion. Similar atrocities are being committed
against Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza.
We know that the Blair government, including even the T&G sponsored
Foreign Secretary, has given Israel a blank cheque to continue this
war while the UN Secretary General calls for an immediate ceasefire
and Israeli bombs kill UN observers at their post in Lebanon.
We also know that our own unions have been very slow to react. It is
two years since the International Court of Justice declared the
apartheid wall which carves up the West Bank to be completely
illegal under the 4th Geneva Convention, along with the Israeli
settlements and the entire occupation itself.
How much longer are we prepared to watch Lebanon and Palestine burn,
before we act?
In the 1930's, trade unionists from Merseyside fought fascism in
Spain.
In 1973, Rolls-Royce engineers in Glasgow refused to ship RB-111 jet
engines to the Chilean junta after Pinochet overthrew the
democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. On
Merseyside, trade unionists and our movement took Chilean refugees
to their heart.
In the 1980's, Liverpool dockers and many other workers around the
world imposed sanctions on South Africa, even while Margaret
Thatcher backed the apartheid regime to the hilt. We agree with
Willie Madisha, President of the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU), who wrote on 6 June:
Boycotts, disinvestments and sanctions against the apartheid regime
in South Africa hastened our march to democracy. Why should it be
different for Palestinians? In the face of an intransigent,
arrogant, racist and brutal Israeli state, this strategy of
isolation - particularly since the vast majority of Palestinians
support it - should be applied to Israel as well. It is a peaceful
option.
If not now, when?
We call on our brothers and sisters throughout the movement to
1) boycott Israeli consumer goods
2) identify your employer's trade and investment links with Israel,
and raise these as a matter of utmost urgency
3) speak out within your union and demand that your elected
leadership recognise the slaughter in Lebanon and Gaza is a trade
union issue and act accordingly
4) join demonstrations and donate funds in solidarity with
Palestinian and Lebanese victims of the Israeli military aggresion
5) if you can, intervene directly to stop trade with Israel while
the carnage in Lebanon and Gaza continues
contact
dockers@gn.apc.org to sign this statement
industries and in opposition to racism and war. We watch with horror
and outrage as Israel has bombed Lebanon indisciminately since 12
July with hundreds of civilian casualties, and their army begins a
major ground invasion. Similar atrocities are being committed
against Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza.
We know that the Blair government, including even the T&G sponsored
Foreign Secretary, has given Israel a blank cheque to continue this
war while the UN Secretary General calls for an immediate ceasefire
and Israeli bombs kill UN observers at their post in Lebanon.
We also know that our own unions have been very slow to react. It is
two years since the International Court of Justice declared the
apartheid wall which carves up the West Bank to be completely
illegal under the 4th Geneva Convention, along with the Israeli
settlements and the entire occupation itself.
How much longer are we prepared to watch Lebanon and Palestine burn,
before we act?
In the 1930's, trade unionists from Merseyside fought fascism in
Spain.
In 1973, Rolls-Royce engineers in Glasgow refused to ship RB-111 jet
engines to the Chilean junta after Pinochet overthrew the
democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. On
Merseyside, trade unionists and our movement took Chilean refugees
to their heart.
In the 1980's, Liverpool dockers and many other workers around the
world imposed sanctions on South Africa, even while Margaret
Thatcher backed the apartheid regime to the hilt. We agree with
Willie Madisha, President of the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU), who wrote on 6 June:
Boycotts, disinvestments and sanctions against the apartheid regime
in South Africa hastened our march to democracy. Why should it be
different for Palestinians? In the face of an intransigent,
arrogant, racist and brutal Israeli state, this strategy of
isolation - particularly since the vast majority of Palestinians
support it - should be applied to Israel as well. It is a peaceful
option.
If not now, when?
We call on our brothers and sisters throughout the movement to
1) boycott Israeli consumer goods
2) identify your employer's trade and investment links with Israel,
and raise these as a matter of utmost urgency
3) speak out within your union and demand that your elected
leadership recognise the slaughter in Lebanon and Gaza is a trade
union issue and act accordingly
4) join demonstrations and donate funds in solidarity with
Palestinian and Lebanese victims of the Israeli military aggresion
5) if you can, intervene directly to stop trade with Israel while
the carnage in Lebanon and Gaza continues
contact
dockers@gn.apc.org to sign this statement
Sacked Liverpool Dockers
e-mail:
dockers@gn.apc.org
Comments
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Demo?
05.08.2006 23:14
why di you and stop the war people ignore
a) 200 rockets landing in Israel
b) 1million dispaced israelis.
if you want peace surtely it helps to condem both sides or do you hate all Israelis? you know somw are muslems and christians as well?
Rebbe
sacked when
06.08.2006 14:14
asda
They were sacked a long time ago...
06.08.2006 14:45
But many of them are still involved in radical politics, and they set up the Casa pub in Liverpool's Hope Street, where lots of radical meetings and events are held.
Ad Nauseam
Fourth Geneva Convention should be used against Arabs, not Israel
23.04.2007 17:00
Since 1997 the Arab group at the United Nations has been trying to invoke the Fourth Geneva Convention against Israel, in regard to its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in particular at Har Homa in Jerusalem. This is a tactic in the on-going Palestinian Arab attempts to undermine the Oslo "Peace Process". Rather than participate in bi-lateral negotiations as agreed in the Oslo Accords and successive documents, it is more satisfactory to the Palestinian Arabs to appeal for international condemnation of Israel.
Israel rejects applying the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stating that those territories were captured in 1967 as a result of a defensive war against Jordan and Egypt, countries which had illegally occupied them since 1948. Furthermore, it is Article 49 that is commonly cited to accuse Israel of violating the Fourth Geneva Convention. But a close reading of Article 49 reveals that it prohibits "individual or mass forcible transfers" which are not happening in the territories under Israeli administration. Further, the Occupying Power is obliged not to "deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population" to territories under its control. The use of "deport" and "transfer" indicate that the Convention prohibits the Occupying Power from the active or forcible transfer of its own civilians. Article 49 does not oblige Israel to prevent voluntary settlement by its civilian population just because Arabs don't like it.
It is also interesting to find in the Fourth Geneva Convention, in Art. 3 and elsewhere, prohibitions of murder, violence to life and person, and other acts that are commonly employed by Palestinian Arabs against innocent Israeli civilians. To date no one in the international community has made a formal protest against these Palestinian Arab tactics.
Shin Bet
Homepage:
http://www.palestinefacts.org/
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