17 October 2023, Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union

The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union Committee of Management encourages our members, and all unionists, to sign this open letter which calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. We mourn the deaths of the countless thousands of civilians who have already been killed in this conflict both recently, and in all the decades since the Nakba.

All suffering is a tragedy to be avoided. We therefore stand in solidarity with calls for an immediate end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its wider occupation of Palestinian territories, and the apartheid inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government. A lasting peace can only be achieved when Palestine is free.

The call for suspension of hostilities is urgent at a time when the Albanese government and Foreign Minister Penny Wong loudly proclaim Israel’s right to self-defense via whatever means it desires while remaining stone silent on Israel’s directive for 1.1 million Gazans to flee their homes.

Government ministers have also refused to call out Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians via its blockade of all food, electricity, and until recently water. These (in)actions have made Australia complicit in war crimes and acts of ethnic cleansing.

As unionists on stolen First Nations’ land in so-called Australia, we are duty-bound to place as much pressure as possible on the Albanese government and Foreign Minister Penny Wong to reverse this imperialist course, and withdraw their support for the ongoing and worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza before it becomes a genocide. Already thousands have been killed including hundreds of children, and the death toll continues to climb rapidly each day.

We are heartened by the hundreds of rank-and-file union members who have already signed, and we hope that this will soon translate into a formal statement by the wider trade union leadership.

LINK to Unionists for Palestine solidarity statement

Source: AUWU

~~~~
[With thanks to S. Missen for her work collating statements ~ auspal.]