AWU stands up for Israel's sovereign rights

The Australian Jewish News has today run a feature piece written by the Australian Workers' Union National Secretary articulating the AWU's position on the state of Israel and why we defend it.

The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is proud of the fact that we maintain close relations with the Histadrut, the umbrella body of the Israeli trade union movement.

We wrote some time ago to congratulate the Histadrut on their important role in the creation of the State of Israel 60 years' ago.

The Histadrut and the AWU share a common tradition of playing a central role in nation building for our two countries.

The Histadrut has played a central role in the development of Israel's political culture ever since the 1920s the AWU has played a similar role in Australia ever since our union was established 121 years ago.

We both believe in ensuring that our national institutions respect the central role of egalitarian values, values based on the good labour traditions of mateship or "chaverim".

The great Aussie word 'cobber', evoking this quality of mateship, is said, by some academics, to originate from the Yiddish/Hebrew word of 'chaver'.

Our union, the oldest union in Australia and our biggest blue-collar union, wholeheartedly supported Prime Minister Rudd's initiative to have parliament offer Australia's continuing goodwill and support to the people of Israel as they were about to celebrate their 60th anniversary.

The AWU has also invited the chair of Histadrut, Ofer Eini, to come to Australia and speak to our next national conference to outline the role trade unions can play in bringing about a just peace for the peoples of Palestine and Israel.

We are heartened by the fact that the Histadrut and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions are working closely together on a number of projects to improve the economic lot of the people of the West Bank.

Most importantly, the two union groups are working with the International Transport Workers Federation to ensure that union drivers on trucks taking goods between the Palestinian territories and Israel can move easily and quickly across the Green Line.

Our union cannot understand those union leaders here in Australia, and Labor MPs such as Julia Irwin, who line up in support of Hamas.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have a history of hostility to labour unions. Palestinian union leaders have been assassinated and kidnapped by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and union leaders have seen their offices and homes burned down by these elements who are hostile to the creation of independent civil society organisations.

The main Palestinian union grouping, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, is working hard to build up a representative union structure.

Unfortunately the PGFTU has often been the play-thing of Palestinian factional politics. Famously in the late 1990s, Arafat shut down the Congress of the PGFTU because it seemed that 'opposition' non-Fatah groups were about to be elected to the leadership.

While there is much to be critical of in the way Israel has handled some elements of the Palestinian question, our critique is no different from that of many other people inside the State of Israel, a nation with a vibrant civil and political life which allows for the equal participation of all its citizens in all aspects of social and civic life.

Unfortunately the same open, transparent and democratic values are not upheld by the Palestinian leadership who have stood by and allowed corruption and mafia-style thuggery to be the dominant language of civil society inside the Palestinian territories.

The key issue for the AWU is not whether one supports or opposes this or that Israeli action, or this or that Israeli government.

The issue is whether trade unions and democrats should celebrate the 'existence' of Israel.

I can agree with critiques of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians but unlike some critics I do not see that as an excuse to refuse support to Israel's right to exist, and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, the right of the Jewish people to have land rights, a homeland of their own.

The AWU hopes that all Australians and Israelis who have similar visions of a nation built upon egalitarian values, supporting social inclusion for all, and seeking to live in peace with neighbours, will look to each other for solidarity in the years to come.