We are writing to you at a crucial moment in history for both the workers and people in Palestine and across Latin America. As Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza continues unabated, and its siege, destruction and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank worsen by the day, we also see how the currently unfolding “Donroe Doctrine” of US imperialism follows Israel’s Gaza model of might-makes-right. The far right across Latin America is installed or propped by and is servile to genocidal Israel and the US - from election rigging to military training to extreme austerity,privatization, and the selling out of natural resources.
There is nothing new in Israel supporting US coups, military dictatorships and far-right regimes, while actively fighting progressive governments and movements in Latin America. While the Monroe Doctrine is far older than Israel itself, the “Donroe Doctrine,” which does away with any even symbolic respect for international law, democracy, national sovereignty, and workers rights, would not have been possible in this shape without Israel’s Gaza “experiment.” As former senior UN human rights official Craig Mokhiber has said, “in a world where even genocide is not a red line, there are no red lines.” Already in October 2023 Gustavo Petro warned that “Gaza is just the first experiment in considering us all disposable.”
Today, more than ever, we need to join forces and unite our struggles: Cutting complicity and collaboration between Israel and Latin American regimes, institutions, and corporations strengthens the Palestinian struggle and weakens those who attack the rights of the people across Latin America.
In 2005, the Palestinian trade union movement, together with the widest consensus of Palestinian Civil Society signed the Palestinian call for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to end complicity with Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and illegal occupation and to uphold our right to self-determination, including the right of return and full reparations. Based on this, a global movement was born, with global trade unions central on many fronts: dockworkers blocking military cargo to Israel; oil and coal workers demanding the end of energy exports to Israel; retail workers refusing to handle apartheid goods; public sector workers organising to sever complicit institutional ties and contracts; and arts, cultural and sports workers refusing to cross the Palestinian nonviolent picket line.
Trade unions have built regional networks to organize, plan, and coordinate solidarity with Palestine and cut complicity. It is the duty of unions to ensure that the workers they represent—whether in ports, on ships, in businesses, or in government offices—are not involved, often without their knowledge and/or consent, in actions that involve complicity in atrocity crimes anywhere, including Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Today, we need to organize and together build resistance that defends our rights while continuing to advance our struggles for justice and emancipation.
We, the Palestinian trade unions signatories of this letter, call on Latin American Trade Unions to support the 2005 BDS Call. We encourage trade unions across Latin America to join together and build a network for justice in Palestine and an end of complicity with our colonial oppressors. We stand ready to support you in building BDS campaigns, including:
- Adopting ethical procurement policies (EPP) and, where applicable, ethical investment policies (EIP) that exclude corporations implicated in grave human rights violations anywhere, including in Palestine.
- Pressuring corporations and institutions they work in to end any complicity through ending contracts that directly or indirectly support Israel’s atrocity crimes, and adopting EPP and/or EIP.
- Peacefully disrupting and blocking the transfer of military, energy and other dual-use supplies to Israel, by:
- Participating in actions to identify and stop the illegal transfer by sea, land or air, including by pressuring states to enforce international obligations in relation to such shipments, and by pressuring complicit corporate actors.
- Refusing to handle Israeli or Israeli-bound military supplies, energy and other dual-use cargo.
- Escalating economic, academic, cultural, and sports BDS campaigns.
- Pressuring your governments to uphold their legal obligations following the ICJ rulings of 2024, as stated by UN human rights experts, by, at a minimum, imposing “a full arms embargo on Israel, halting all arms agreements, imports, exports and transfers, including of dual-use items that could be used against the Palestinian population under occupation,” as well as canceling or suspending “economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
- Cutting all ties with Israel’s colonial Histadrut federation and expelling it from all international fora.
- Declaring your union an Apartheid-Free Zone (AFZ) to end corporate and institutional complicity with systems of oppression, particularly Israel's regime of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people.
Los pueblos unidos jamás serán vencidos.
Together we can prevail.
Signatories:
- General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW)
- Palestinian Union of Postal, IT & Telecommunications Workers
- Federation of Independent Trade Unions
- The Palestinian New Federation of Trade Unions
- Association of Employees of The Financial Sector - Palestine
- Health Services Employees’ Association
- Union of Workers in Kindergartens and Private Schools
- Union of Workers in Local Authorities
- Palestinian Electricians Union
- Southern Electricity Company Employees Union