Ignoring the negative impact BDS has on both Israeli and Palestinian workers, a major Canadian union voted to support the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel boycott movement.
In a move that can only be described as cutting off its nose to spite its face, the largest private sector labor union in Canada, Unifor, recently voted to support the anti-Israel BDS movement, which advocates economic and cultural boycotts of Israeli companies and those who do business with them. Unifor, which boasts over 300,000 members, adopted the BDS motion at its recent convention, reported the Canadian Jewish News (CJN).
While the BDS movement has been proven to harm the Palestinian workers it claims to help, organizations such as Unifor continue to promote boycotts to express opposition to Israeli policies.
The resolution made explicit reference to “occupied Palestinian territories,” parroting a common phrase used to distort the legal status of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The BDS movement uses phrases such as “occupied Palestinian territories” as part of a larger “narrative warfare” campaign designed to discredit the establishment of Jewish communities in areas that have been under Israeli control for 50 years.
“Unifor will support such a form of BDS until such time as Israel implements a permanent ban on further settlement construction in the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories], and enters into good faith negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian people for the purpose of establishing a viable, contiguous and truly sovereign Palestinian state,” demanded the motion.
The motion made no mention of the exhaustive peace offers, surrender of land, and ongoing financial aid that Israel has provided the Palestinians over the course of the last half century.
‘This Motion Does Not Benefit Canadians’
“While Unifor claims delegates left the convention with the resolve to ‘push back against the rise of the right’ and ‘build a better world,’ passing the BDS motion shows support for what has proven to be an anti-Semitic movement. This motion does not benefit Canadians, or Unifor members in any way,” Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies President and CEO Avi Benlolo stated in response to the resolution, CJN reported.
“It is appalling that Unifor has allowed itself to be drawn into the anti-Semitic, divisive and counter-productive BDS campaign against Israel. The resolution that passed last week at Unifor’s Canadian Council is misguided and shameful, and it suggests that Unifor has a complete lack of understanding of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. BDS has been roundly rejected by all major federal political parties,” added Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, according to the CJN report.
“We would invite Unifor to reach out to its labour counterparts in the Israeli Histadrut movement to learn why the passage of this resolution moves us further from peace and is detrimental to Palestinians and Israelis alike,” he offered.
By: United with Israel Staff