Open Letter to UTLA President A.J. Duffy

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW) is deeply concerned that
the leadership of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) has buckled to
Zionist pressure by canceling its Human Rights Committee's forum in
support of Palestinian rights.

Israel's crimes against the Palestinian and Lebanese people are well
documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many other
organizations. These crimes are carried out with U.S.-made F-16s, Apache
helicopters, and cluster bombs -- part of $5 billion that Israel gets
each year from the United States government.

The U.S. does not arm Israel to "promote democracy" or for
"self-defense." Even Zionist historians now admit that Israel's origins
are rooted in dispossession of the Palestinian people -- whose labor
then built the Israeli economy -- through an unrelenting campaign of
ethnic cleansing: exile, squalid refugee camps, imprisonment, torture
and murder.

Rather, it supports this racism and state terrorism because, along with
dictatorships in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, Israel is a cornerstone for U.S. domination over the
world's most important oil-producing region.

Clearly, these grave injustices are not in the interest of Palestinian
or U.S. workers. Yet, most U.S. labor bodies have a shameful record of
complicity with U.S./Israeli crimes.

State employee retirement plans and union pension funds invest hundreds
of millions of dollars in State of Israel Bonds. In April 2002, while
Israel butchered hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Jenin, AFL-CIO
president John Sweeney spoke at a "National Solidarity Rally for Israel."

This year, American Federation of Teachers specifically embraced
Israel's brutal assault on Lebanon. U.S. Labor Against the War, which
opposes the war in Iraq, has remained disturbingly silent.

In sharp contrast, international labor has strongly denounced Israel's
attacks.

On July 10, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) urgently
called for sanctions and boycotts against the "apartheid Israel state,"
which it branded worse than the former racist regime in South Africa.

On July 31, the General Union of Oil Employees in Iraq issued an "appeal
to all the honorable and free people of the world to demonstrate and
protest about what is happening to Lebanon."

On August 5, major British trade unions supported a massive London
protest against Israel's attacks. Even before the current escalation,
several labor bodies in Britain, Canada and elsewhere called for
divestment from Israel.

In this country, growing protests have been organized by the Arab-Muslim
community, people of color, anti-Zionist Jews, and other activists who
recognize that Lebanon and Palestine are inseparable from Iraq and
Afghanistan.

New York City Labor Against the War commends the UTLA Human Rights
Committee for courageously standing with this movement, and calls on
UTLA's leadership to take an equally courageous stand for free speech
and justice.


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NYCLAW Co-Conveners (other affiliations listed for identification only):

Larry Adams
Former President, NPMHU Local 300

Michael Letwin
Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys

Brenda Stokely
Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; Co-Chair, Million Worker March


http://www.traprockpeace.org/nyclaw_blog/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/