Next Thursday sees the New York launch of TULIP – Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine – an important new initiative to counter the anti-Israeli drift in the labor movement and the left.
TULIP is the brainchild of Paul Howes, a young and dynamic Australian trade unionist, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union. He served his political apprenticeship on the Trotskyist left, in the Socialist Workers’ Party, until a trip to Cuba burst that ideological bubble. The outfit’s co-leaders are Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (USA), and Michael J. Leahy, OBE, General Secretary of Community (United Kingdom).
As TULIP’s founding statement notes, it aims to unite those unions and NGOs which are fighting within the labour movement against the boycott of Israel and for genuine peace, justice and reconciliation. It continues:
At the moment, the opponents of a two-state solution are on the offensive, working hard to promote their destructive agenda of boycotts and sanctions targetting Israel.
It’s time for trade unionists in all countries to go on the offensive ourselves, to challenge the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement.
We have no illusions that this will be anything other than a long and difficult process. But we also know that we have no choice. We cannot abandon the field to those whose goal is the destruction of any chance for a real Israeli-Palestinian peace.
TULIP is supported by Israel’s Histadrut union confederation, Kav LaOved, and Workers Advice Center ; the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center ; the UK’s Engage and Trade Union Friends of Israel ; the US Jewish Labor Committee; and Canada’s Union Members for Israel.
Please circulate to colleagues and comrades.
