By Left Horizons reporters
This is the text of an emergency resolution passed unanimously by Unite London and Eastern Regional Committee. [format only changed slightly]
This Regional Committee expresses its shock and outrage at the ongoing siege and bombing of Gaza by Israel. Gaza is a tiny territory densely populated by over two million Palestinians almost half of whom are under the age of sixteen. Israel has cut off food, fuel and water to a population that is already undernourished by years of a semi-blockade. Israel has demanded a million civilians move in 24 hours before it launches a major offensive with tanks and troops.
These actions: collective punishment, mass bombing of civilians, siege and now potential ethnic cleansing into the south of the Gaza strip and Egypt, are war crimes committed by the Israeli state. We condemn the Tory government’s declared support for these crimes and the Labour leadership’s endorsement of them. All this is done with the spurious claim that Israel is acting in “self-defence” – in fact it is acting to destroy the Palestinian resistance at any cost in lives of civilians – men, women, and children.
We do not endorse the atrocities committed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad against Israeli civilians and young people in their incursion into Israel, but we recognise the boiling rage brought about by decades of occupation, discrimination, arbitrary detention and killings – the de-facto establishment of an apartheid like state by Israel in occupied Palestine. We do not equate the oppressor with the oppressed and continue to support the Palestinian resistance and its right to defend itself against the Israeli army and armed settlers by all available means under international law.
Actions
This Committee:
1. Notes it is affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign
2. Supports and encourages its members to attend all protests against the siege and war against Gaza
3. Calls for an immediate ceasefire, the lifting of all blockades, the return of all stolen and occupied land to the Palestinians, and a just and lasting peace acceptable to the Palestinian people, implementation of full parity of all civil and human rights and the dismantling of all apparatus of apartheid.
4. Supports and promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel
5. Opposes any moves by the Tory government to legally restrict shows of solidarity with Palestine
6. Sends this resolution to Sharon Graham for the Unite Executive and calls upon them to issue a statement in support of Palestine
7. Instructs its LP delegates to put this resolution, unamended, to their General Committees.
8. Sends a donation to Medical Aid for Palestinians
The Israelis need to withdraw to the borders agreed in the ’40s.