No 'real' unions in 'apartheid' Israel?

An appeal by Eric Lee of Trade Unions Linking Israel & Palestine

In some countries, and in some unions, it's become commonplace to talk about"Israeli apartheid" and to call for unions to break ties with Israeli trade unions.

Some Israel-haters go so far as to say that there are no real unions in Israel.

The reality is that Israeli workers -- Jewish and Arab -- are involved every day in the same kinds of struggles as trade unionists everywhere else in the world. Their unions are often on the front lines of the fight for social justice, equality and peace.

Please help me spread the word about what's really happening in Israel and Palestine.

Share this message with your fellow union members. Encourage them to get onto our mailing list here: http://www.tuliponline.org/?page_id=4212

Here are some news stories from the last two weeks that we reported on the TULIP website:

• Union representing Jewish and Arab workers, mostly women, signs first-ever collective bargaining agreement in Nazareth
• Big win for cleaners as Histadrut signs agreement to extend public sector conditions to private companies
• International Transport Workers Federation votes unanimously to support Israeli port workers
• Short video about attempt to unionize by Palestinian workers at Israeli-owned factory in the West Bank
• General strike averted – for now – as Netanyahu talks to Histadrut

Martin Smith "resigns" from the SWP

The man at the centre of the recent scandals and controversies in the Socialist Workers Party finally fell on his sword and "resigned" from the organisation. This belated action by Martin Smith  was brought to our attention by the ever reliable Soviet Goon Boy who wrote:

Here’s the situation, as I understand it. First, Delta has resigned from the SWP. Second, it has been decided that, rather than trying to crudely draw a line under the affair, the Disputes Committee will proceed to hear the second complaint – the sexual harassment complaint brought by Comrade X, which has been postponed several times already – in his absence.

This seems pretty good, if a few bear traps can be negotiated.

It’s unclear, for a start, why this has happened now. I discount the possibility of Delta having had a sudden attack of conscience, because I’m not convinced he has a conscience. It seems more likely that the Central Committee, having been given a torrid time of it by the opposition recently, has leaned on him to get out of the way. That’s quite something, since it’s not so long ago that Alexander was telling anyone who’d listen that Delta – specifically his ability to forge alliances with union leaders – was so vital to the party that losing almost the entire student membership was a price worth paying.

It’s unclear, though this may change soon, what Delta is actually doing with himself. As CC members have noted, he’s not been on the party payroll for quite some time, although this has been an academic distinction as he’s been employed at a party-controlled front. Presumably he’s going to go off to be a mature student, which would explain the appeal being circulated by the Gluckstein siblings to encourage party members to support his studies.

We also don’t know what’s going to happen in the longer term. Perhaps the thinking still is that he can lie low for a period and then be reinstated. But at this point, I’m not sure that the CC actually does have a plan – and the CC has been seriously divided anyway.

Indeed how far does this "resignation" actually go? Phil BC at A Very Public Sociologist continues:

there are three quick points I'd like to raise. First, you don't need to be steeped in materialist dialectics to understand that this could simultaneously be and not be a resignation. Comrades have time and again pointed out that "Brother" Smith knows where the bodies are buried. He has a handle on the tangled web of shell companies and fronts the SWP uses to store its cash. He's the one who has the key relationships with useful folk-to-know in the trade union movement. And, of course, he's a paid employee of Unite Against Fascism. So, the subs may stop, but will the services rendered? I'm going to err on the side of doubt on that one.

Second, it does get the SWP out of a bind. There have got to be a few central committee members breathing a sigh of relief. After all, if the alleged perpetrator of two serious assaults is now outside the party, can revolutionary justice be served when the "defendant" has altogether avoided the Disputes Committee? Something tells me that it is highly unlikely the outstanding complaint against 'Delta' will ever be heard.

And lastly, is this resignation permanent or a body swerve? Is Smith going to seek a return to the fold after a decent interval of, say, a couple of years? 

Not to be left out the breakaway members of the International Socialist Network have their say:

The women's struggle for justice throws up the inescapable question of the role of the SWP's leadership. Throughout the crisis the CC has unanimously backed Delta, smeared opponents, ridden roughshod over democracy and accountability, and steered the party into the worst crisis it has ever seen. They have to go. Any chance of renewal or resetting of the party simply cannot occur while the rest of the current CC remain in place.

To any SWP members who remain we say now is the time to match the women's courage with your own. Call a special conference and pass a "No confidence" vote in the current CC.

Frankly its far to late for any of that. The SWP has throughout this disgraceful episode shown that is a cult, not a political party. At every stage they put their own organisational interests above the rights of the women who had made serious allegations against "Delta".

Far from having broken with the bureaucratic and dictatorial machinations of "Stalinism", they have shown that given the opportunity they would be no different to any of the dictators that they claim to be different from. The antics of the SWP have widely illustrated to (particularly the young) activists that Leninist forms of organisation are all equally poisonous. Their recruitment base in the universities is at an end.

The Professor and his cronies have destroyed the SWP, not a bad thing in my book and it must be remembered that this is not the first time that such a scandal has destroyed a far-left organisation as those who were around in the nineteen-eighties will recall with Gerry Healy and the Workers Revolutionary Party.

A better world cannot be built on the back of centralised, bureaucratic and undemocratic sects like the SWP and their ilk. That way leads to injustice and the Gulag.

Liberal Democrats select former Islamist as candidate for Hampstead & Kilburn

Things seem to be really hotting up in the North London constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn. Its' only a couple of days since reports emerged of an "incident" outside the Labour Party selection meeting involving a member of the Socialist Workers Party, now the area is in the news again as The Times reports:

A former member of the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahir has been selected by the Liberal Democrats to contest one of their target seats.

Maajid Nawaz, who was imprisoned in Egypt for five years over his membership of the organisation which brands itself as the non-violent advocate of political Islamism in Britain, will compete for the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, North London one of the most hotly contested seats in the country.

Despite now campaigning against Hizb ut Tahir, Mr Nawaz, who runs the anti-extremism Quillam thinktank urged the Government not to outlaw the organisation.

"It's counter-productive and on dodgy grounds to ban them. Frankly, you are going to have to deal with the likes of the BNP and the English Defence League" he said. The best thing is to adopt legal tolerance and civil intolerance. Turn them into a taboo".

The Times claims:

His election would be a huge boost for the Lib Dems, who have failed to make much ground in delivering candidates from ethnic minorities to Westminster.

The Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems all have having a realistic chance of winning Hampstead and Kilburn. At the Last election, Labour's Glenda Jackson won the seat with 17,332 votes, the Tories came second with 17,290, with the Lib Dems in third on 16,491 votes.

Labour has selected Tulip Siddiq, a Camden Councillor whose Aunt is the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

In defence of the Histadrut: a response to Gary Spedding

This article originally appeared at Left Foot Forward on July 5th and is re-posted with the authors permission.

Prof. Alan Johnson is the editor of Fathom: for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region, and is the author of The New Histadrut: Peace, Social Justice and the Israeli Trade Unions

“Quite simply, Histadrut is not a progressive force inside Israel today. Through boycotting, the international community sends a critical message [about] Histadrut’s unwillingness to challenge right-wing anti-Palestinian policies held by Israel’s government.”  – Gary Spedding, Left Foot Forward, 3 July 2013

Every last thing about Gary Spedding’s argument in favour of boycotting Histadrut, Israel’s free and democratic Israeli trade union movement, is wrong.  Speeding does not so much put a left foot forward as trip over his own feet.

It is wrong to claim the Histadrut is not a progressive force in Israel today

It is the Israeli TUC. It leads the fight for workers’ rights and job security in Israel. It unites over 700,000 union members in one organisation regardless of religion, race or gender and has organised Arab workers with full membership since 1959 and the super-exploited migrant workers since 2009.

It supported Israel’s 2011 mass street protests for social justice and in 2012 organised a successful four-day General Strike in solidarity with Israel’s most vulnerable contract workers.

It is wrong to say the Histadrut does not challenge the Israeli government

It  supports a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Histadrut has called on the Israeli government ‘to make concessions and take courageous and concrete steps towards attaining peace.

More importantly, it is engaged in making a reality of two-states. It signed a landmark agreement with the Palestinian national trade union centre, the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in 2008 under the auspices of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). That agreement was hailed by the TUC and the International Labour Organisation.

When Unison sent a delegation to Israel and the Territories in 2010 it reported that:

“The PGFTU in particular said that UNISON should maintain links with the Histadrut so that we could specifically put pressure on them to take a more vocal public stance against the occupation and the settlements. [The other independent Israeli pro-labour organisations] Kav laOved, Koach laOvdim and WAC/Ma’an all felt that international trade union influence on the Histadrut was essential.” [Yes, the Unison leadership was unable to carry its own report at conference, but that does not alter one jot what the Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists told the delegation.]

However, even if the Histadrut didn’t challenge the government, it would still be wrong to think this a good reason to boycott the Histadrut

Free and democratic trade unions do not boycott other free and democratic trade unions because they are not left-wing enough. That way madness lies; it is not how we do things in the international labour movement.

We do not punish trade unions for the policies of their governments. Even if unions support reactionary government policies – as most American trade unions did during the Vietnam war – we do not boycott them!

As Michael Leahy, general secretary of Community Union, wrote in the preface to the pamphlet ‘The New Histadrut: Peace, Social Justice and the Israeli Trade Unions’ (2012):

“Breaking links with the Israeli trade union movement would be a radical departure from the best internationalist traditions of our movement, in favour of a new kind of gesture politics. Progressive voices in the British trade union movement have traditionally refused to boycott other free trade unions because of what their governments do.

We have not gone in for gesture politics. We have preferred engagement, worker-to-worker links, practical solidarity and, yes, a critical dialogue. Those traditions have served us well. We should stick to them.”

Oh, and when Spedding says “the Histadrut fails to represent [Palestinian Arabs], especially in the occupied Territories” he trips over his own feet one more time. In fact, The Histadrut does not organise Palestinian workers in the West Bank by agreement between the two federations.

Nonetheless, in October 2007 the Histadrut’s campaign to apply Israeli labor laws to Palestinian workers who work in the settlements was successful. As a direct result of the Histadrut petition to the Courts, Israeli employers in West Bank settlements must now provide improved work benefits according to (much better) Israeli, rather than Jordanian law.

Former TUC general secretary Brendan Barber has praised the two federations for “carving a path that political leaders could now follow”.

Spedding’s boycott delusion would make that impossible. Guy Ryder, the ITUC general secretary said Israeli-Palestinian trade union co-operation has an important “contribution to make in promoting peace and mutual understanding in the Middle East.”

Spedding’s boycott would send all that into reverse.  That’s why not one Global Federation or national centre supports breaking links with the Histadrut. Not one. And nor does the ITUC.

The alternative to Spedding’s boycott is critical engagement

We can restart the trilateral delegations of unionists from Israel, Palestine and the UK, build concrete links with both the Histadrut and the PGFTU (exchanges, branch twinning, awareness-raising and financial support to trade unions in Israel and Palestine is the real way forward.

We can learn from the model of the FBU-Histadrut-PGFTU cooperation. We can support all steps, however small, to unite Israeli and Palestinian workers.

And we can support a just settlement based on mutual respect and acknowledgement of national rights. To that end, we should review the TUC’s relationship with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and consider supporting progressive organisations such as One Voice.

Why? Because the TUC supports the two-state solution: two states for two peoples, a secure Israel living in peace alongside a viable Palestine. The PSC does not. One Voice does.

The internationalist traditions of the British trade union movement have traditionally been all about engagement, building bridges, forging worker-to-worker links, delivering practical solidarity, and comradely criticism when it is due.

To break links with the Histadrut would be a giant step towards a different kind of ‘internationalism’  – alien to the British trade unions, demonising one party, glamorising the other, stoking divisions on the ground, and isolating the TUC from the constructive work of its global partners and the ITUC.

The TUC and ITUC have worked for over forty years to build bridges between the Histadrut and the PGFTU. Those efforts bore fruit in 2008, with a landmark agreement between the two federations. We should not let sectarians and political activists in the West ruin all that work.

"Crocodile tears" of the Taleban

The attempt by the Taleban to assassinate a schoolgirl for standing up for the right of girls to an education shocked the world when it occurred last October. The young woman now known by her first name, Malala has become a household name and a beacon of courage against the medieval backwardsMEN of the fundamentalist Taleban.

It seems that the various campaigns around the world that pushed her suffering and heroism to the forefront of the struggle for womens' have forced the Taleban fascists to try and backtrack in a blatantly obvious PR stunt with a letter publicised widely in the media today.

The Guardian reports:

A senior member of the Pakistani Taliban has written an open letter to Malala Yousafzai – the teenager shot in the head as she rode home on a school bus – expressing regret that he didn't warn her before the attack, but claiming that she was targeted for maligning the insurgents.

Adnan Rasheed, who was convicted for his role in a 2003 assassination attempt on the country's then-president Pervez Musharraf, did not apologise for the attack, which left Malala gravely wounded, but said he found it shocking.

"I wished it would never happened [sic] and I had advised you before," he wrote.

The paper continues:

He admitted that the Taliban are "blowing up" schools, but justified the attacks on the grounds that the Pakistani army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps use schools as hideouts.

Hundreds of schools have been targeted in Pakistan's north-west: activists say some had been used by the military, but many attacks were motivated by the Taliban's opposition to girls' education.

The Taliban commander also justified recent attacks in Pakistan on health workers vaccinating children against polio by claiming the west was trying to sterilise Muslims.

The letter is clearly intended to influence opinion in Pakistan: although in much of the world Malala has been hailed as a symbol of courage, at home she has been the subject of intense criticism and vilification. Online commentators have described her as a "drama queen" and even accused her of spying for the CIA.

Absolute nonsense on the part of the Taleban of course and most people will see straight through their attempt to "redeem" themselves.  The Taleban not only oppose the education of women but also what they call "secular or satanic" education, by which they mean anything that doesn't fit their twisted view of the world.

The attacks on women's education have continued regardless of the obvious outrage expressed around the world. The BBC reported in June:

The women's university at the centre of Saturday's deadly twin attacks in the Pakistani city of Quetta has been shut down until further notice.

In the first incident a bomb on a university bus killed 14 women. Gunmen then killed 11 when they laid siege to the hospital treating the wounded.

Sardar Bahadur Khan University is the only all-female university in troubled Balochistan province.

Meanwhile it was heartening to receive this message by e-mail today:

A personal thank you from Zia Uddin Yousafzai, Malala's father

As Malala’s father I want to express my personal gratitude and that of Malala and the whole family to you for signing the petition which gathered 1.4 million signatures in just a few weeks. 

I hope you will continue to take an interest as A World at School calls on you, from time to time, to help millions of children in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Nigeria and across the world get to school and enjoy learning.

We are very touched by the support we have received, and, as Malala said to the United Nations:

“Let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons.

“One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. 

“Education is the only solution. Education First”.

Sincerely,

Zia Uddin Yousafzai

Further information: http://www.aworldatschool.org/

Tempers flare in Hampstead Labour Party

With the current heatwave across the country it's hardly surprising that tempers get easily frayed. We've had problems over the involvement of Unite in Falkirk Constituency Labour Party, Andy Newman is busy witch hunting secularists in Brighton and now the police have been called in to Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party.

The latest edition of the Camden New Journal carries a report of the selection meeting held in Glenda Jackson's former constituency where Tulip Siddiq has been selected as the new prospective Parliamentary candidate. She is apparently a well connected individual as her auntie is none other than the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, certainly someone to turn to for advice one would think.

Problem is it all got off to a rather unfortunate start. The paper tells us about a little incident outside the Mazenod Social Club:

The private meeting had got off to the worst possible start when a clash outside led to police and an ambulance being called. Housing protesters had demanded to see Labour council leader Sarah Hayward, who had yet to arrive. It is then claimed a party member head-butted a demonstrator, who was wearing a UNITE union T-shirt, before later apologising.

The ambulance took more than an hour to arrive despite repeated requests for assistance from two police officers outside the venue. The injured man was treated in the ambulance.

So what was this all about then?

According to our friendly informants over at Urban 75 where I picked up this little gem of a story it all falls down to a simple linguistic misunderstanding.

The Unite demonstrator was in fact a member of the Socialist Workers Party who apparently mistook being referred to as a "cult" to being called, well you can guess and upon taking offence took a swing at the perceived culprit. However it seems not only did he fail in this attempt but ended up getting head-butted, hence the attendance of the police and ambulance.

Not verified by the paper, but sounds plausible. Allegedly of course.....

Must be the heat.

Cults.

Andy Newman renews his witch hunt against leading secualrist

Andy Newman has published an alarmist article at the so-called Socialist Unity website under the title of "Brighton Pavillion Labour Party on the edge of the abyss". In this he attacks leading secularist Anne Marie Waters (again) for having the temerity of not pandering to clerical fascism like he and his dwindling band of supporters do.

For some reason the Left Futures website has reprinted this article albeit with an even worse title of
"Brighton Pavillion CLP on the brink of selecting an extremist bigot".

This disgusting hatchet job is based mainly on the "evidence" that someone in the EDL endorsed something she said on their Face Book page. In the digital age its impossible to control what is republished elsewhere as he well knows, but won't let that stop him conflating secular critiques of Islam and Islamists with the far right. But as his rather excitable mate Tony Collins (that's the one with a written form of touretes) tells us they "place no conditions on defending Muslims".

"Defending Muslims" does not however place either Islam or certain individual Muslims beyond criticism. 

First you can see what One Law for All has to say for themselves here:

http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/

And for those of you who may not have seen this article I published over at Harry's Place, here is my take on the witch hunter generals attitude to real extremists.

Andy Newman turns to the dark side of the force

When I was younger I used to feel slightly envious of the local Vicar who would wander into the pub in the evening and be offered drinks by all and sundry, always taking "just a half" until he had imbibed enough and then wander back across to the local church. Seemed like a good job to me, though not one suitable for the atheist I had already become. 

The advent of the eighties saw a rather jolting revival of religious intervention on the political scene when a mob of angry young men started burning a book that had apparently been blasphemous in intent. Since those days there has been a growing disquiet over religion and one in particular that of Islam. The rest we know since Harry's Place has covered the issues in depth.

Meanwhile Andy Newman over at the rather peculiar Socialist Unity website is continuing his witch-hunt against Anne Marie Waters, the One Law for All campaign and this website all of whom he accuses of "Islamophobia" (whatever that term actually means) in a rather torturous article entitled On not fearing Muslims. 

Newman seeks in particular to defend a charming character called Yusuf Qaradawi and persuade us that this reactionary cleric is not a bigoted hate monger, so lets have a quick look at this mans thoughts:

On Gays:

A homosexual should be given] the same punishment as any sexual pervert - the same as the fornicator...The schools of thought disagree about the punishment. Some say they should be punished like fornicators, and then we distinguish between married and unmarried men, and between married and unmarried women. Some say both should be punished the same way. Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement...The important thing is to treat this act as a crime

On Women:

In his book The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam, states that wife-beating is permissible after the failure of all other means of persuasion. In such circumstances, a husband may beat his wife "lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive areas."  (Daily Telegraph)

On Genital Mutilation:

"whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world. (Modern Fatwas) 

On Jews:

Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one

and don't forget the holocaust:

Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption...The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them...Allah Willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.

Which shows any attempt to claim that Qaradawi is just "Anti-Zionist" is complete bollocks.

Yet Newman attempts to excuse this hate preacher is just a product of his "conservative society". He may well be but that's no excuse to be a bigot, others have managed to break with tradition. 

I was horrified by Newman's conflation of female and male circumcision (FMG is more akin to castration) and his argument that this is "cultural relativism" is a disgrace and shows a complete disdain for brown women's rights, since in his eyes they would seemingly have to accept their fate. Oddly he suggests that "unnecessary surgery" including " circumcision for male minors" should be illegal.

Of course the real problem with Newmans piece is that he shows no concern for those within the Muslim world who are struggling for change, like the Turkish protesters, one of whom simply stated he "wanted to hold his girlfriends hand "as Erdogan tries to crack down on "public displays of affection".

Newman and his co-thinkers at Socialist Unity are purveyors of reaction and stand in the same tradition as George Galloway with their pandering to reactionary conservatism. What this man is doing in the Labour Party, witch-hunting secular activists is open to question. He seems intent on wrecking the internal processes of candidate selection in order to keep a member of the Green Party as an MP. The Greens in Brighton are currently in dispute with their own workforce whose wages they have have cut by £4,000 a year.

In ending I would like to draw your attention to this rather enlightening quote from Qaradawi

“If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn’t exist today.”  (Statement form Al Jazeera Interview)

In other words he'd be out of a job.