If you hate flaks, you shouldn't make a peep about Israel and Palestinians, for any way you talk about it -- from a play about Rachel Corrie to Stephen Spielberg's movie about the costs of Zionism to the PCUSA's selective divestment -- you'll get flaks. Most people don't relish getting flaks, and that's why they don't speak up, as evidenced by the cancellation of My Name Is Rachel Corrie. The amount of flaks you get is not based on what you say and how you say it but the level of your name recognition (if an individual) or institutional weight (if a union, a church, or something like that). I'm sure the PCUSA and Tony Kushner have gotten more flaks than the most strident but obscure anti-Zionists on the margins of the sectarian left.
Since you must expect flaks if you get any attention at all, what you need to do, should you decide to speak up, is to steel yourself, line up allies, and exploit flaks to keep the debate alive. That seems to be what Sid Ryan, CUPE Ontario President, seems to be doing well, and he got to publish this in The Toronto Star, a mainstream press.
<blockquote>CUPE has history of defending human rights Ontario union democratically voted to engage in a peaceful form of protest against Israel, says Sid Ryan
Jun. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
Members of CUPE Ontario — hardworking and intelligent individuals who provide a range of services in every one of our communities — have been called everything in the last week or so from courageous to naïve to stupid. But the resolution approved by delegates at the largest convention in our history, to support an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, has to be seen in the context of our union's overall policy on the Middle East and our history of union democracy and social justice.
CUPE Ontario's policy dates back to 2002. Then delegates to that convention approved a resolution requesting the Canadian government call for, and actively work toward, an end to suicide bombings and other violence against innocent people. The resolution also demanded that Israel abide by United Nations resolution 242 and withdraw from the Occupied Territories. The Canadian Labour Congress approved a similar resolution in the same year.
At the national level in 2003, CUPE members added their support for a peace process based on equality between Israelis and Palestinians and on the implementation of UN resolutions and international law.
Yet the years go by and the levels of poverty and oppression experienced by ordinary Palestinian people are further entrenched.
While editorialists condemned CUPE members for their naïveté — or worse — the World Food Program was reporting nearly 51 per cent of the Palestinian people are unable to feed themselves.
Its study pointed to international sanctions against Hamas and Israeli security restrictions on border crossing points that are holding up aid and trade. One UN official described the growing numbers of people, especially children, rummaging through garbage cans for food.
But this debasement and dehumanization did not start with the election of Hamas, a legitimate election whether we like the results or not. And, for the record, we believe Hamas must renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist.
There are Palestinians who have spent their whole lives in crowded refugee camps. They spend hours in arbitrary delay and frustration at checkpoints on their way to work, school or medical appointments. Hundreds of roads have been torn up to inhibit travel.
Since 2000, the Israeli army has demolished more than 3,000 Palestinian houses and apartment buildings, leaving people homeless, possessions lost.
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are allotted about 70 litres of water a day, while Israeli settlers get 600 litres. Unemployment is sky-high and health care difficult to get.
Israel did remove settlers from the Gaza Strip. But the area is still surrounded by a massive electric fence, in effect creating a blockade and making it almost impossible for Palestinians to conduct commerce.
Israel also continues to build the wall, creating a border that it has decided unilaterally and taking another 10 per cent of West Bank land for its own.
And Israel continues to expand the illegal settlements in the West Bank in defiance of UN resolutions.
Despite an International Court of Justice declaration that the wall is illegal, despite UN resolutions, despite opposition among many of its own citizens and calls to withdraw coming from countries, organizations — yes, even unions — around the world, Israel persists in policies that punish all Palestinians.
So, frustrated like so many millions who support a negotiated and just peace in the Middle East, CUPE members exercised their right to introduce policy resolutions to their Ontario division convention.
Three locals and one district council submitted resolutions on supporting the existing international campaign. It was distributed along with other resolutions in advance of our convention, as outlined in our constitution.
It was placed in a list by our duly constituted resolutions committee, debated and approved on the convention floor.
CUPE members continue to support a peace process.
We continue to oppose suicide bombings and other violence against innocent people.
But we also agreed that it is time to draw back the curtain on a developing, man-made humanitarian crisis in the occupied territories.
To draw attention to this inhumane suffering, we democratically voted to engage in a peaceful form of protest against the policies of the State of Israel, which are clearly contrary to international law.
Sid Ryan is president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ontario, the political wing of Canada's largest union. CUPE Ontario acts on behalf of its more than 200,000 members.
CUPE and COSATU's position has also gotten attention of the press in Israel/Palestine: "COSATU Supports CUPE Ontario for Resolution on Boycotting Israel," Palestine News Agency, 7 June 2006, <http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?id=6508>; Ronen Bodoni, "South African Union Joins Boycott of Israel," 8 June 2006, <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3260201,00.html>.
That Israelis as well as Palestinians get to know that criticisms of the Israeli policy are gradually spreading from individual activists to sizable institutions on the left like the PCUSA and CUPE Ontario in the West, supported by South Africans, is what matters.
That's setting aside that you can't do even purely bread-and-butter unionism if you are afraid of flaks. Anytime you go on strike, you get flaks, more so than when you speak up about Israel if your strike happens to impact a lot of people like TWU Local 100's strike last year. Hell, you may get fines, jail time, or worse.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>