New Unions: On May Day, Let’s Unite against Apartheid Israel

On May 1, Palestinian workers join working people across the world to celebrate the ongoing collective struggle of workers for social justice.  In a world plagued by neoliberal capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, LGBTQI-phobia, and climate injustices the Palestine New Federation of Trade Unions marks May Day by emphasizing the urgency and importance of our joint struggle and mutual solidarity to topple systems of oppression and exploitation.

Today we mourn and honour Amin Warda, a Palestinian worker, kidnapped by Israeli settlers and murdered on his way to work inside Israel on April 27, 2023. Warda is a resident of the Al-Nusayrat Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip and the only breadwinner of his family. According to his son, Israeli settlers stabbed Warda to death several times in the chest, neck and belly. Warda is only the latest of the Palestinian workers that has not survived the brutality of Israeli apartheid.

Amin Al-Warda, the Palestinian worker who was killed by Israeli settlers on April 27, 2023.

For 75 years, Palestinian workers have been defending their rights as an integral part of our people’s struggle against Israel’s project of colonialism, apartheid and military occupation. Since the ethnic cleansing of over 500 cities and villages for the establishment of Israeli apartheid on our lands on the destruction of our homes, agriculture and economy, we have been re-building our society and ensuring livelihoods against all odds. We have stood up against the exploitation, repression and humiliation Israel’s settler economy wants us to submit to.

In Palestine, May Day comes while the far-right Israeli government is intensifying its violence against our workers and people. Our workers’ celebration of May Day is a call on trade unions across the world to stand up in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

The current far-right Israeli government has announced more settlement expansion in all parts of Palestinian and Arab land in the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Negev and the Syrian Golan Heights. Palestinian land is one of its top priorities. Around half a million illegal Israeli settlers already live in around 250 Jewish-only settlements and settler outposts on stolen Palestinian land. For Palestinian farmers, shepherds, workers and people at large, the increase of Israeli settlers in the West Bank will wreak more havoc on their lives and their sources of livelihood, primarily land and water.

The Israeli-government, the most openly fascist and racist government ever, has also restricted the access of many Palestinian workers to their workplaces. In recent months, the Israeli government has denied work permits for many Palestinian workers, who are forced to work for Israeli corporations after the apartheid regime has systematically destroyed Palestinian economy and confiscated the land and water resources of Palestinian farmers. The harassment of Palestinian workers at Israeli military checkpoints has also increased. Palestinian workers are also facing escalated settler violence, which is an integral part of Israeli state-sanction violence.

Israeli settler violence against our people and workers extends to targeting them at what is supposed to be their safest place-their homes. This happened in the village of Huwara in the district of Nablus. In March 2023, around 400 fanatic Israeli settlers invaded the village and burned down homes, shops and cars. During the attack, which lasted for six hours under the protection of the Israeli army, the settlers injured more than 300 Palestinians and shot dead one man in the village. The economic situation of the residents of Huwara has been badly affected by this and other settler attacks on them. Settlers and the Israeli army regularly force the residents to close their shops, sometimes, the closure lasts for days.

Despite Israeli oppression, our people and workers continue to steadfastly resist Israeli ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta, the Jordan Valley, the Naqab and beyond. Our workers, who consider their struggle for labor rights as part of the wider struggle for self-determination continue to fight for their rights through unionization and protests against the dire working conditions at Israeli corporations.

However, the international complicity with apartheid Israel undermines the struggle of the Palestinian people and workers. Apartheid Israel finances its settler colonial project across our lands by exporting what it produces in order to conquer our land and repress our people.

• Israel sells its military surveillance technology, including spyware, its arms and training, which all have been tested on our people and workers, to governments across the globe.
• Israeli multinational agri-business companies like Netafim, Mekorot and others are wreaking havoc on the lives of people and farmers in many countries in the Global South by offering technology to further neoliberal policies in these countries.
• Once again, the European Union (EU) shows its hypocrisy and deep complicity with Israeli apartheid through accepting to buy Israeli gas as part of the efforts to hold Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli-EU gas deals only entrench the systematic Israeli de-development of the Palestinian energy sector and Palestinian dependency on Israeli energy.
• Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise is propped up financially and legitimized internationally through the trade of its products, investments in and other business with corporations in the settlements.

We call on trade unions across continents to support the steadfastness of our workers and people against Israeli oppression:

• Endorse the call of Palestinian trade unions and syndicates on trade unions across the world to contribute to the Palestinian-led Anti-Apartheid Movement by taking meaningful action in support of the rights of Palestinian workers and the Palestinian people at large to end the system of occupation, colonization and apartheid.
• Trade Unions in Europe to pressure their governments to end their gas deals with apartheid Israel, particularly the Euro-Asia Interconnector and the East-Med Pipeline.
• Pressure your government and parliament to impose a comprehensive military embargo on Israel and to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
• Trade unions in the Global South and beyond to oust Israel’s multinational agribusinesses like Netafim and Mekorot, Israel’s national water company from their countries. These companies wreak havoc on the lives of farmers in the Global South to fund the colonization of Palestinian land.
• Trade Unions globally to endorse the BDS call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against apartheid Israel. The BDS is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, Justice and equality. It calls on governments, trade unions, organizations, companies and people internationally to end complicity with Israeli apartheid.