The Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, calls on all labour activists, trade unionists and workers’ organizations to take action to block Israeli ships, refuse to load or unload them, and refuse to transport weapons of war to the Israeli occupation currently waging a genocide against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip.
We have already seen several important actions around the world, first and foremost the actions of the Yemeni military and people in blocking the use of Yemeni seas for the transportation and passage of Zionist ships and cargo.
Transport workers in Belgium, Barcelona and Japan have declared that they will refuse to load weapons bound for the Israeli occupation, while dockworkers in Italy conducted a one-day strike against the ongoing genocide. From India to the Philippines to South Africa, the labour movement has made its position clear, demanding the expulsion of the Zionist ambassadors and rejecting the use of migrant labour to prop up the Israeli occupation regime in replacement of Palestinian workers.
We also see a growing willingness of popular movements to take serious and meaningful action to shut down the Zionist war machine, exemplified by Palestine Action’s direct actions to shut down Elbit Systems, the largest Israeli weapons manufacturer, and extracting a significant cost financially and materially from Elbit in both Britain and the United States.
Palestinian workers, labour organizations and trade unions have already issued a call for workers around the world to refuse to build and transport weapons for the occupation regime, and many organizations and activists are participating in blockades of weapons factories, railways and ports transporting weapons and supplies to the occupation, as represented by the Block the Boat campaign.
It is critically important that these are not symbolic actions, statements of solidarity or messages of support. Turning Israeli ships away from the ports of the world is, building upon the Yemeni example, a material means of besieging the occupation and supporting the colonized, occupied people of Palestine. It is a material contribution to confronting and ending the escalating genocide carried out by the Israeli regime for over 75 years, with an intense and bloody escalation over the past 57 days that has already claimed nearly 20,000 Palestinian lives.
Israel is not carrying out its genocide alone. It is backed, armed and funded by the imperialist powers – first and foremost, the United States, together with its partners in Canada, France, Germany, and Britain. Every port and company that allows Israeli ships of any kind to dock at its port is a full partner in war crimes and genocide with the blood of the Palestinian people on their hands and and must be held accountable.
We know that we cannot wait for these same criminal states or international agencies to hold these parties accountable for their ongoing crimes, or to bring the genocide to an end. The Palestinian people and their Resistance are struggling daily to do exactly that. We call upon you, the workers of the world, to exercise your tremendous power, the power of the workers, without which, nothing runs.
We in the Masar Badil have been called upon by the workers of Gaza to bring this call to you, our international global working class, to harness your power and materially contribute to ending the genocide. We urge you to:
- Block and reject the appearance or docking of any Israeli ship in any global port; to refuse to load or unload any Israeli ship. All states should follow the Yemeni example and prohibit the use of their ports and seas to arm this genocidal regime!
- Refuse to load, unload or allow to sail any ship of any country bringing weaponry, materiel and supplies to the genocidal Zionist regime. The hands of the workers should not be sullied with the cargo of genocide!
We, the Palestinian workers in exile and diaspora, are part and parcel of the workers of the world. It is long past time to escalate our participation in this struggle to a material level that can shut down the trade routes of genocide, occupation and colonialism, cutting off the flow of weaponry, bombs and artillery that allows the Israeli regime to slaughter Palestinian men, women and children. We call upon all of you today, our fellow workers, to join us in action to end the genocide, for justice, victory and liberation for the workers and the people of Palestine!