PNN - Palestine News Network

WFTU Message of Support with the Palestinian Struggles

PNN

On behalf of its affiliates and friends all over the world, the World Federation of Trade Unions-WFTU expresses its full support and internationalist solidarity with the Palestinian Peoples and Prisoners and commit to fight until all of them are released from the Apartheid and Zionist Israel's illegitimate incarceration.

WFTU and its supporters are calling for an unconditional release of all Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Zionist Israel dungeons and concentration camp-like conditions.

Today there are more than 4600 Palestinian militants and freedom fighters imprisoned by the illegitimate occupying forces of Apartheid and Zionist Israel State. 560 of these are sentenced to life imprisonment, 220 are children, 24 are Members of Parliament, and no less than 204 have died in the Apartheid Israel prisons.

WFTU and its supporters have since its inception been firmly behind the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom, national liberation and against colonialism, capitalism and imperialism.

WFTU has declared April 17, of each year, as the Global Day of Solidarity with the Peoples of Palestine and has historically taken solidarity actions with its supporters.

WFTU continues to call on all its organs, friends and supporters to continue their solidarity with the Peoples of Palestine and to submit their statements of opposition to the continuing imprisonment and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

WFTU calls for the immediate return of the many Palestinians in exile that have been made to be refugees in the Frontline states such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc.

WFTU calls for the unconditional dismantling of the Jewish settlements build on Palestinian forcefully stolen land, stopping of the demolishing of Palestinian historical and ancestoral land and houses or Palestinians allowed to occupy them.

WFTU further call for the demolishing of the racist Wall and the laws erected to frustrate and dehumanise the Palestinian People. We call for the end to the degrading and inconveniencing checkpoints and Jewish only tarred roads whilst Palestinians are forced to use dirt and very difficult roads which are many hours longer.

We call for the removal of the illegal occupying forces of the Apartheid and Zionist Israel state and their supporters from the territories of the Palestinians. We are calling for the

Palestinians to be allowed to enjoy and participate in free political activities.

The parallels with racist and apartheid South Africa are too visible to ignore with the painful knowledge that the Palestinian experience is worse and more brutal than what blacks in South Africa went through. To talk about "the new black" in Palestine and apartheid Israel is not an exageration.

The Western governments did not support the South African struggles then, and they do not support the struggle for Palestinian true and genuine self-determination. They supported racist Apartheid South Africa then, and now they are supporting Zionist Apartheid Israel.

We condemn the complicity of the Western imperialist powers and organisations, in the form of the US, Britain, EU, UN, the International Community, etc. in the violence, oppression and killing of many Palestinian militants and patriots and we demand an immediate stop of all kinds of intimidations and terrorism against unarmed and defenceless civilians, which include women and children.

WFTU will continue to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel. We are calling for the strengthening of the proletarian global solidarity movement which must be similar, but more stronger and urgent, than the previous Anti-Apartheid Movement of the International Community against Apartheid South Africa.

WFTU calls on all the governments of the world, particularly those that claim to be progressive and democratic, not to apply double standards in the occupation of Palestine by Zionsit Apartheid Israel. We call upon SA, US, Britain, EU, etc. to cut all diplomatic, military and economic ties with Apartheid Israel as failure to do so makes their hands drip with the innocent Palestinian blood.

WFTU follows closely the struggles of the brothers and sisters in occupied PALESTINE and we call upon the governments of Israel, USA, UK, EU, and South Africa to take concrete actions that give them justice and fully satisfy their demands and their freedoms.

In the recent period it seems the imperialist logic on which the Oslo Accords of 1993 were established has been obliterated, as well as the logic which was predominant at Camp David (2000), the logic of the 'road map' to the 'two States'.

A true, independent and sustainable Palestinian State has not yet been created, the occupation of the territories which Zionist and Apartheid Israel has snatched in the 'Six Days War in 1967 continues and the situation is becoming more complex and deteriorating.

The developments which followed the situation which has been shaped in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights, etc. have created a very difficult set of circumstances for the Palestinian Resistance Movement.

It has led to an overall multifaceted interference of the imperialists in Palestine, and the broader Middle East and North Africa, which have as their main aim the stifling of the Resistance Movement against the illegal Israel occupation and to strengthen the forces and surrogates of oppression which agree to a complete sellout compromise and have a negative stance in relation to the struggle for the creation of a truly free, independent and democratic Palestine State with East Jerusalem as its Capital.

The US and EU talk about two States (Israel and Palestine), but they conceal the essence of their intentions that they do not want a sovereign, organised and viable Palestinian State and which is decided by its people.

They mean a state without borders, without an army, with limited sovereignty, while they are manoeuvring for the continued illegal occupation of Palestine by Apartheid Israel.

It is the stance of the WFTU and its supporters, having followed the activities of the Palestinian organisations, that the effectiveness of its activity is determined by its willingness and ability to gather together and mobilise all forces that are against imperialism and the illegal occupation, for the solution of the Palestinian question within the framework of radical changes which would serve the people's needs.

We fight against the attempt to make the Resistance Movement and its activities to be criminal and as being terrorist and we stress that the real terrorist which attacks the Palestinian people is Western and Zionist imperialism.

The peoples are obliged to use all the necessary and available forms of struggles, including armed struggle against the occupiers, for national, economic and social liberation, with the prospect of a class oriented/based labour movement which must pose the question of power along with its allies.

Every people, including the Palestinians, must have the right to decide on their own concerning their government and their future.

Every movement, and this is true also of the Islamist organisations, is judged on its stance in relation to imperialism, the monopolies, in relation to the capital-labour contradiction, and the anti-people policies of the Zionist Israel government.

Long live the workers struggle!

Long live the class oriented trade union movement!

Long live the international proletarian solidarity!