Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Since the beginning of the workers” struggles in your country – the United States of America – international solidarity has been a constant part of workers” organizing and struggle in solidarity with workers and people facing injustice everywhere in the world. We, the workers and the people of Palestine are suffering under oppression of the Israeli occupation of our land and people. This occupation began long ago, the longest-lasting occupation of the modern era.
As people who cherish life and wish to live in freedom, we look to and call upon our fellow workers of the world, particularly today our friends of truth, democracy and freedom in the San Francisco Bay Area to take a stand of courage alongside Palestinian workers to obtain justice and freedom for the workers and people of Palestine. We call upon you to support our struggle to obtain our liberty, practice our self-determination, and build a sovereign, democratic Palestine, like all other nations on earth.
Dear brothers and sisters, trade unionists, workers, and people of the San Francisco Bay Area, we remember and salute your historic and massive action on the docks in 1984, when you acted to boycott the apartheid regime in South Africa.
We look to you today from the Gaza Strip and all of Palestine, and call upon you to repeat that courageous stand today. This genuine solidarity is something we have longed for and expected. As you are responding to our appeal, we expected from you nothing less because of your history of defending the oppressed, including our people suffering under Israeli occupation, and your stand in opposition to the attack on the unarmed Gaza Freedom Flotilla seeking to deliver humanitarian assistance to the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza. Your action today is a milestone in international solidarity from honest and brave U. S. workers and trade unionists.
Greetings to you from the trade unionists and workers of Palestine. . . from the trade unionists and workers trapped in Gaza, seeking freedom. . . from the entire world who cares for humanity, freedom, justice, progress, and to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
On behalf of your brothers, sisters and comrades in the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions,
Manawell Abdul-Al
Executive Committee Member
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
– June 19, 2010
