Anti-Israel protesters. (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Shutterstock) (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Shutterstock)
BDS anti Israel
boycott israel

Anti-Israel protesters in Washington. (AP/Cliff Owen)

A major US labor union chose to side with the anti-Semitic BDS movement when it passed a resolution to boycott Israel.  

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), a major American labor union, has lent a hand to the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Sanction and Divest) movement when it voted last week to call for a boycott on Israel over its so-called “apartheid” policies.

Discussing a line of resolutions during the final session of the UE’s 74th National Convention in Baltimore on Thursday morning, the delegates voted to support “Justice and Peace for the Peoples of Palestine and Israel.”

Delegates “upheld the UE tradition of taking courageous stands” on foreign policy issues when they adopted a resolution to boycott Israel, the union said in a statement.

The resolution points to Israel’s alleged “long history of violating the human rights of the Palestinians, starting with the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48 that turned most of Palestine into the State of Israel.”

The resolution calls on the US government to cut off aid to Israel and for “US support for a peace settlement on the basis of self-determination for Palestinians and the right to return.”

The resolution explicitly endorses the BDS movement by calling “to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over the Palestinians just as similar tactics helped to end South African apartheid in the 1980s.”

The UE is the first US national union to endorse BDS, which is widely recognized as essentially anti-Semitic as it targets only the Jewish state.

Autumn Martinez and Elizabeth Jesdale, two UE members, said they met Palestinian trade unionists when they attended the World Social Forum in Tunisia. “It’s absolutely disgusting what is going on. Free Palestine!” Martinez said. She did not mention whether or not she had attempted to approach Israelis to hear what they had to say on the issue.

The UE also adopted a resolution that supports the Iran nuclear deal and another that demands the US military end its “intervention” in the Middle East and other regions.

“We to get rid of this culture of war,” said Mike Ferritto, one of the delegates. Brandon Dutton, another delegate, said that “we [the US] have done enough damage. We need to get out of the Middle East.”

By: Max Gelber, United with Israel