Unions and Israel

To the Editor:

I felt compelled to respond to the collective letter to the editor written by Milton Lovett, Mitchell Feder, Martin Hollander, Stephan Benedict, Maurice Spreiregen, Marvin Greisman and Hilda Schneider in the Nov. 9 issue of THE CHIEF in response to Mike Gimbel's Oct. 26 letter.

Their letter contained so much misinformation that it is almost impossible to correct or to even respond to within the space of the letters section. But more importantly, it saddened me since the letter was riddled with the racism that spews forth from the daily newspapers in America about Arabs in general and about Palestinians in particular.

Israel has not only been oppressive to Palestinians historically but has moreover pulled people who support it to the right, supporting the most reactionary policies proffered by the government.

Growing up in New York, the one thing I was assured of was that the Jews, who had been historically oppressed as a people, understood this and thought racism of all kinds abhorrent. In fact, anti-Semitism always took on the tinge of anti-communism, or at least anti-radicalism. This is something that we were proud of.

Now with this slavish attitude toward Israel, it is virtually impossible for Zionists to be critical, and thus impossible for them to look at the world from the point of view of the oppressed, thus landing on the side of the oppressor.

Any honest reader of the news (even American news) cannot but admit that even now Israel continues to starve people of the necessities of life. The latest indignity perpetrated by Israel is the fact that it reduced the electrical flow to Gaza. Tom Pessah, an Israeli, writing about the right of return in an article, "Coming to Terms With the Right of Return: Damn It, Those Neighbors!" writes: "As a famous Israeli song goes, things that I can see from here, you don't see from there."

In discussing the Right of Return, Pessah states: "It seems much simpler to me that Palestine/Israel isn't mine to give; Palestinians have as much of a right to it as I do."

And yet American Zionists cannot even be critical of the Israeli government, let alone sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians.

The authors of the article should understand that not everyone in Israel aligns himself with the government. But in order to support Israeli policies, the article is either riddled with lies or half-truths, making the explanations for the events rocking Palestine unexplainable. Ask the Irish why they have been historically viewed as crazy terrorists by the English. This fact holds true in Palestine as well.

In responding to Mike's letter, the authors write that "Mr. Gimbel, under the guise of trade-unionism, wrote 'eloquently' about the plight of the Palestinians, equating their treatment to the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews. But, the authors go on to write: "In doing so, he is monumentally wrong, and one doesn't have to be a Ph.D. in history to realize this horrendous comparison." And just like that, everything is explained.

Do these authors know anything about the plight of the Palestinians, or is this the usual "the Jews are the most victimized people in history" and thus ends the discussion? And while they are right that it is not possible to solve the problem at the level of the rank and file, it is possible to organize a debate about where our money is being spent and demand that the union disinvest from Israel.

DC 37 sends money to Israeli schools, but according to Haaretz, that money goes to schools that teach Israeli kids to hate Palestinians. As workers, who must identify with oppressed peoples around the world, do we want our dues to go to such a horrendous venture? That is why I suggest that as unionists we question where our money goes and demand that DC 37 open its books so that we can make some decisions about how our money is spent.

The U.S. working class has historically taken on political questions from the 8-hour day to questions of war. The reason that American workers have any social safety net at all is because in the 1930s and 1940s workers not only talked about social questions but they took to the streets fighting to have these policies implemented.

It is only in the past 60 years or so that workers have been denied this chance to discuss politics in the union, and that is largely due to the union leaders. But indeed workers can change the world. This view is in contrast to the stated beliefs of the authors, who argue that it is not for workers to take on these complex, heady questions that impact our lives daily. Instead, they try to make us believe that these questions should only be discussed by our betters. They argue that these issues are not for people such as us, who either cannot understand the issues or that they don't concern us. I disagree. This is elitism, pure and simple.

We have to stop thinking that unions should fight only for bread-and-butter issues. That philosophy has gotten us nowhere. All the issues that face us, including the Middle East, are issues that we must tackle, since the employers and their government henchmen insist on creating the problems in the first place.

We have to understand that the hopes and dreams of workers in all lands mirror our own hopes and dreams, and that we as a class should be in opposition to all exploitation, oppression and bigotry. We should be in the forefront of fighting for people's rights. Otherwise, our world will not be a safe place to live in.

CAROL LANG, Local 384, District Council 37