“If our government had acted sooner, had taken action when we could all see the genocide unfolding, how many lives could have been saved?”
Over the last three years, we have witnessed what has to be one of the most horrific and sustained assaults on the Palestinian people. Across Gaza, we have seen tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, hundreds of thousands injured, and the population displaced multiple times, forced to move from one unsafe area to another with limited access to any facilities. Alongside this, we have seen the total destruction of infrastructure, hospitals, schools, religious sites, and housing units razed to the ground, leaving the majority of Gaza lying in rubble. At the same time, we have seen a huge escalation of violent settler attacks across the West Bank and a massive increase in house demolition and the stealing of Palestinian land, more land stolen in the last two years than the last twenty years combined.
The horrific acts that we have witnessed have seen a blossoming of the solidarity movement not just here in the UK but globally. Hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets regularly to protest and put pressure on governments across the globe to take action to oppose what is happening. The massive increase in solidarity with the Palestinian people has come at a huge cost to those people, not just in terms of lives and land lost but in the total assault on their history, their culture and their community, and yet despite this they continue in their steadfastness, their ‘sumud’ in their right to their own self-determination.
The trade union movement has for decades been at the heart of the struggle for Palestinian rights, but our solidarity and action are needed now more than ever. TUC Congress has for several years now debated and carried more progressive policy on Palestine, and this must continue. This year at congress, the debate will focus on the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. This is a Palestinian-led campaign which is having an impact, and our trade union partners in Palestine are calling for us to do more. Our job as trade unionists is to take up this call; it is to push harder for the pressure that is needed to end the ongoing genocide, to end the occupation and to bring all the walls of apartheid crashing down.
The key priority for trade unions has to be the action that we take; words are not enough. Passing motions is important, but turning those words into actions that stop the complicity of organisations here in the UK in the attacks on the Palestinian people is what is desperately needed. Our job has to be to fight harder, to push back against the repression on our movement and to increase the pressure on our government. The recent statement by the government was a significant move, setting out intentions to hold Israel to account over its violations of international law and crimes against the Palestinian people. These, along with the other measures announced, must be first steps, but they have to be followed by serious action to hold Israel to account.
Let’s be clear: it is the mass movement internationally and here in Britain that has forced the change in our government. It is the millions of people who have marched, protested, campaigned and lobbied for full sanctions on Israel, including a full arms embargo, as the minimum required in the face of an unfolding genocide. This was built on the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and for solidarity and support in their struggle.
Many trade unionists have been involved in that struggle and understood the need for us to listen to our Palestinian partners. If our government had acted sooner, had taken action when we could all see the genocide unfolding, how many lives could have been saved? We know that the announcement by the government here is too little, too late for many Palestinians, but we owe it to the people of Palestine to keep up the pressure, to increase our campaigning and to continue this struggle.
One day everyone will say they were against the oppression of the Palestinian people. As trade unionists, we have been at the forefront of pushing the issue of justice for Palestine for decades, and when finally Palestinians win their freedom, their right to return and true justice, we will know that we stood on the right side of history; we will know that we never allowed ourselves to be silenced or intimidated.
Until then, our job is to fight harder, to build campaigns in our trade unions, in our communities and to listen to the call from our trade union partners and civil society in Palestine. They have been clear: boycott complicit companies, build divestment campaigns in our local communities and pressure our government to sanction Israel.
- Louise Regan is the National Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and an executive member of the National Education Union (NEU). You can follow her on Twitter/X; and follow the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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