On the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November, the WFTU, representing 105 million workers in 133 countries, reiterates its firm internationalist support and solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people.
The last year has been marked by an intensification of the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where more than 120 Palestinians have been murdered and 850 injured by Israeli air strikes, while Israel has deployed ground forces near the Israeli border.
We express our full, firm and long-standing class solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for an independent homeland. We actively reject the genocide against our Palestinian brothers and sisters perpetrated by the imperialist criminal government of Israel.
The UN resolutions on the recognition of Palestinian rights are not implemented because the geopolitical and economic interests of the State of Israel and its allies prevail. The UN, the EU and other international organisations bear a great responsibility for the ongoing unacceptable situation; in words they pretend to be just, but in practice they support Israeli policy.
In the same spirit, there are also other trade union organisations, that in words support the Palestinian people but in practice ally themselves with Histadrut and the murderous state of Israel, serving the plans of the governments and imperialist unions in the region. It is them who put both the victim and the assassin in the same position and have Histradut cadres in their leading bodies.
In today’s circumstances, the workers of Palestine need to strengthen their comradely relations with the WFTU, which has stood by the side of the Palestinian people from 1945 to the present day. It is necessary for the trade unions to reject the corrupted union leaders, the puppets of yellow unionism.
The WFTU and its members have been showing for 76 years their solidarity in practice through visits, meetings, actions, demonstrations, protests and practical internationalist aid to the people of Palestine, as only workers know how to stand by the side of other workers. Proletarian internationalism was and will be the keystone on which the huge edifice of the World Federation of Trade Unions was built.
The internationalism of WFTU cannot be sold nor bought off
In this context, the WFTU calls on its members and friends and all class oriented trade unions to strengthen their struggles and express their internationalist solidarity with the Palestinian struggle by participating in the international symposium of solidarity with the Palestinian people and by contributing even more to the campaign for the collection of basic necessities.
We demand:
- Recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and east Jerusalem as its capital
- The end of the settlements and the withdrawal of all settlers who have settled across the borders of 1967.
- The demolition of the separation wall in Jerusalem.
- All the Palestinian refugees to be granted the right to return to their homes, based on the relevant decisions of the UN.
- The elimination of any exclusion against the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
- The immediate release of imprisoned Palestinians and other political prisoners kept in the Israeli prisons.
- The withdrawal of the Israeli army from all the occupied territories of the 1967, including the Golan Heights and the Sheba area of Southern Lebanon.
The World Federation of Trade Unions has been and will be on the side of the Palestinian people until the final victory.
Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people!
Date: November 29th, 2021
Time: 16.00 Greek time
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83524617528?pwd=dSsza2ltcTdOcW1aa1VnOUduTHNnQT09
Meeting ID: 835 2461 7528
Passcode: 376435
