Socialist Action /May 2002
Middle East War Roils SF Labor Council
By CHARLES WALKER
On March 11, the San Francisco Labor Council narrowly adopted a resolution
condemning the Israeli "bombing of civilian and political targets most
specifically, but not limited to, the Palestine trade-union offices in Nablus,
Palestine, and remind the U.S. government that this is both a moral and
legal crime."
The resolution also called upon Israeli and Palestinian labor federations
"to launch joint action against both sides' attacks on innocents and
civilians and work together to gain control over this horrible situation."
The labor council represents several hundred local unions with a total
of some 75,000 members. The council has taken many controversial positions
over the years, including support for Mumia Abu-Jamal. More recently, the
council endorsed the National Marches to protest War, Racism and Poverty,
which took place on April 20 in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
But just a month after the council adopted the resolution that also stated
that "the U.S. proves to be the main culprit in this struggle by supplying
the Israeli state billions of dollars in arms to suppress the Palestinian
struggle for statehood and ancestral lands" the labor body reversed
itself and rescinded the resolution.
Perhaps the March 11 resolution might have been rescinded even if outside
pressures had not been applied to the council. We say that because it barely
passed in the first place, and because the council's executive committee,
its central leadership body, seemingly opposed the resolution from the get-go.
So chances are the leadership would have attempted to rescind the resolution,
if they figured they could muster the necessary two-thirds majority required
to rescind a motion by the council.
But the council, or more correctly, the council's leadership, came under
heavy pressure to overturn the March 11 action. That's not to say that all
the pressure that was brought to bear has been made public. It may well
be that what is publicly known is no more than the tip of the iceberg. If
so, that would be no surprise.
What we do know is that the San Francisco Zionist establishment, which
includes prominent Democratic Party contributors and politicians, was terribly
upset that the council resolution implicitly called for the end of the 35
years of Israeli occupation of Palestine and pointedly condemned the use
of U.S.-supplied "Israeli F-16 jets that continue to bomb civilian
and Palestinian political targets," in defiance of the un-enforced
U.S. legal restrictions.
The San Francisco Examiner carried a column by Andrew Heinze, professor
of history and director of the Swig Judaic Studies Program at the University
of San Francisco. Heinze lambasted the labor council for adopting what he
called "one-sided and ill-informed declarations that add nothing but
more fuel to the fire."
Heinze seemingly believes that Israeli and Palestinian warfare is rooted
in a long-standing anti-Semitic pan-Arab "world view," utterly
opposed to a "Jewish State." In other words, the professor implicitly
defends the decades-long occupation and settlement of pre-1967 Palestine
as strictly a matter of morally justifiable self-defense.
Heinze called the resolution's opposition to the Israeli occupation "arbitrary,
divisive and unjust." Heinze says that Israel "should be judged
by the same standards we use to judge any nation," but fails to apply
the standards to Israel that have judged and condemned the domination by
powerful nations of weak nations, especially during the past two centuries.
The professor's attack on the labor council's short-lived resolution
revealed little more than his loyalties and insensitivities. Another attack,
however, disclosed the close ties between the labor council's leadership
and the region's organized Zionists. That's not to say that those relationships
were a secret. But they would not have received such notice except for the
storm the resolution precipitated.
The executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, Rabbi
Doug Kahn, said the Jewish community had a "close and longstanding
relationship with the labor movement in San Francisco, and, specifically,
the labor council leadership," reported the Northern California Jewish
Bulletin on March 28.
The same bulletin account quoted a colleague of Rabbi Kahn as saying,
"This is not the traditional relationship of labor in San Francisco
or the nation to Jews and Israel. The AFL-CIO has been one of the strongest
friends of Israel among organized communities in the country." "In
the weeks to come," Rabbi Kahn told the Jewish Bulletin, "we will
be engaged in extensive discussions with the leaders of the labor council
to see what steps we can take to undo [the resolution]."
We can't report on those discussions nor say with certainty that they
even took place. However, we think it highly probable that the Zionists
and their supporters in the Democratic Party who routinely are touted as
"friends of labor" did pressure the labor council leadership to
withdraw the council's statement condemning the apparently endless occupation
of Palestinian territory and the Israeli domination of the Palestinian inhabitants.
Of course the labor council has the right to adopt any resolution it
chooses, and if it chooses to rescind a resolution, that also is its right.
But what is wrong is that in the end, the pressures of the Zionists and
their supporters outweighed the cries of the wounded and dying Palestinians
whose blood was shed upon the land that bore them.
In the wake of the council's rescinding of the Israeli/Palestine resolution,
it was announced that the labor council plans to form a committee and write
a "broader" resolution.
Socialist Action /May 2002 |