“At the moment we’re looking at a people lacking the control that allows them to function as a society — water, the freedom to travel, the basic right to safety,” said Martin Sundram, delegate for the Artists’ Union of England (AUE) at the annual congress of the British trade union movement.
The AUE tabled Motion 75, titled “Palestine: supporting rights to self-determination,” to the conference, stating unequivocally that “Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ is an attempt to destroy core Palestinian rights”.
Representing more than 5.5 million members, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is the peak British union representative body, equivalent to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
The AUE’s Palestine motion was passed unanimously on September 11, according to the TUC’s report.
The motion affirmed the collective rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to return to their homes, called for a stop to the British arms trade with Israel, and reaffirmed the union movement’s call to boycott companies complicit with the Israeli settlement industry.
Philippa Marsden, executive council member of Unite, Britain’s second-largest union, said: “Increasing numbers of annexations and the building of illegal settlements has built a string of mini-Gazas across the country. All of us here must redouble our efforts to build solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Read this article by Glen Davies in Green Left Weekly.
[For a detailed account of Israel’s utilisation of white phosphorous refer to THE OPERATION IN GAZA: FACTUAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS. Also it should be noted that Israel has stopped utilising white phosphorous militarily in 2013.]