NATIONAL: Firefighters at airports around Australia will start industrial action, including overtime bans, from 5 April.

The Aviation branch of the United Firefighters Union wants a pay rise based on the real cost of living and adequate staffing issues addressed.

UFU members are fighting the Australian Public Service Commission, which is implementing a “one-size-fits-all” public service pay deal for all public service employees at the behest of the Albanese government.

Other unions in the public service which object to this pay-capping by the commission include the AMWU, CFMEU and ETU.

AMWU members, trades staff employed at Federal Parliament House, have already taken strike action on 22 February, so the commission knows the UFU may strike, too.

Wes Garrett, secretary of the UFU’s Aviation branch, singled out regional airports such as Launceston and Sunshine Coast as being understaffed by firefighters.

AirServices Australia is sticking to the script of having offered “the maximum pay rise allowable under the APSC’s recent pay decision”. That maximum is 11.2 per cent over three years or 3.7 per cent a year, effectively an under-inflation pay cut.

Now air traffic controllers have taken initial steps towards organising their first strike in more than 20 years.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Pilots at Qantas subsidiaries, Network Aviation and QantasLink, and members of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots went on strike for three days in early March for a cost-of-living pay rise.

Their EBA expired in October 2020.

More than 95 per cent of pilots at Network Aviation are unionised and have rejected three of management’s below-par offers.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA: 18,000 public school teachers, members of the State School Teachers Union, have started work bans and work-to-rule, seeking a pay rise from the Cook Labor government following the expiry of their agreement in December 2023.

Premier Cook said Labor had removed the pay cap for state public sector workers but it failed to offer a deal over the summer.

The union wants a 12 per cent pay rise in a two-year agreement—7 per cent in the first year and 5 per cent in the second.

This is the common claim of all public sector unions in WA, who have united as the “Public Sector Alliance.”

In early March, the teachers’ union rejected an immediate 4.75 per cent pay rise, then 3 per cent for each of the next two years.

QUEENSLAND: About 7000 construction workers went on strike and marched on State Parliament on 15 February over state health and safety laws, winning a concession on heat policy.

This the second mass strike over this issue since September.

One construction worker told Solidarity, “Our protest was to get the Labor government to put our EBA heat policy into a code of practice to cover all construction workers—EBA and non-EBA alike. That is, to stop work at 35 degrees or at 29 degrees at 75 per cent humidity.

“It came about as a result of four heat stress-related deaths on non-EBA jobs over the Christmas period.

“The $6 billion CPB tunnel had one death and many others collapsing, with many ambulance trips to hospital.

“All the jobs in the CBD of Brisbane marched on State Parliament. We sent a delegation in to see the relevant Minister.

“As a result of our pressure on Labor, the government has agreed to implement the EBA heat-stress policy in a code of practice. It has already passed in Parliament and should be written-up as a code within the next six months, ready for next summer.

“I see it as a victory.”

QUEENSLAND: Fifteen electricians at the stevedore DP World, members of the ETU, held rolling strikes in March and placed work bans for a decent pay rise.

The sparkies’ actions began in December, with DP World refusing to resume negotiations until industrial action ended.

The skilled trades maintain and repair container handling equipment, including the automatic cranes.

Sparkies have rejected DP World’s offer of rises over four years of 6, 4, 4 and 4.5 per cent. They want a pay rise on a par with the company deal with the MUA, which was a four-year deal of 8, 7, 4 and 4.5 per cent.

VICTORIA: Academics and professional staff at Monash University, members of the NTEU, held a 24-hour strike from midday on 20 March for higher wages and better conditions, job security and the end of wage theft by their employer.

VICTORIA: More than 1000 regional rail workers went on strike for 13 hours on 8 March, the Friday before the Victorian long weekend, for a pay rise similar to Melbourne’s metro rail workers.

Operations staff, including conductors, train controllers, station and customer service staff and authorised officers, members of the RTBU, have been in dispute with V/Line since June last year.

The strike was an escalation on seven three-hour strikes since November.

Strikers have rejected V/Line’s offer of 4 per cent a year including bonuses and allowances, which is within the Allan Labor government’s pay cap of 3.5 per cent without additional payments.

The RTBU’s deal with Metro was barely better, at just 17 per cent over four years, or 4.25 per cent a year.

Workers are also demanding increased staffing levels and improved job security.

TASMANIA: Electricians at KONE and OTIS elevators went on a half-day strike on 1 March for pay parity with their counterparts in mainland states.

The sparkies install and maintain elevators for these two big companies. Their union, the ETU, said that matching mainland wages would mean a pay rise of 20 per cent.

The elevator companies can afford such a pay hike. KONE, a Finnish multinational, made a profit of 930 million euros in 2023, while OTIS, a US multinational, made a profit of $US1 billion in 2020.

The ETU members have also imposed a ban on after-hours call outs.

NATIONAL: More than 200,000 aged care workers have been granted a 28 per cent pay rise by the Fair Work Commission. But they won’t be getting it in one go or across the board, as mainstream headlines have suggested.

The Health Services Union and other unions first lodged a case in November 2020, with the FWC awarding an interim 15 per cent to direct care employees at the end of 2022. The HSU then pushed for an additional “work value” case.

This has meant another two-year wait for the rest of the pay rise to come through.

The rises for some workers start at 18 per cent and can go up to 28 per cent but for others it’s a rise of between 15 and 26 per cent, with only a 6.8 per cent increase for a third category of workers.

In addition, the FWC has yet to decide “the phasing-in schedule” of the pay rise.

Private aged care providers like the largest one, Catholic Health Australia, called on the federal government to fully fund the rise, so they don’t have to cut into their profits.

By Tom Orsag

The post Firies, sparkies and pilots fight cost-of-living pain first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Clare Fester reviews a new book that looks at the history of Jewish working class radicalism and struggle that Zionism has sought to hide

The Radical Jewish Tradition tells the inspiring and lesser-known story of working class Jews—together with their non-Jewish neighbours—who took on the bosses, the Czars and the fascists.

Broken into four sections, the book first makes the case that antisemitism is socially constructed to serve the unequal society we live in, not an immutable hatred that is generated from below and impossible to defeat.

In section two the authors share rich stories about the history of Jewish radicalism—from the barricades in revolutionary Russia to London’s anti-fascist Battle for Cable Street, from the garment strikes on New York’s Lower East Side to the Jewish-led self-defence militias of Poland.

The third section tells about counterrevolution in Germany laying the foundations for fascism and details how the Nazis imposed antisemitism from above (rather than it being a mass movement from below), as well as the proud history of Jewish resistance in the most difficult of circumstances: in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Finally, the book looks at the settlement of Palestine and establishment of the Israeli state, where Zionism—particularly its left wing—hammered “the final nail in the coffin of the remarkable phenomenon of mass Jewish radicalism”.

Timely

As Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza enters its sixth month, the book is a timely reminder that Zionism, the Holocaust, the Nakba and the horrors beamed into our phones 24/7 since 7 October were not foregone conclusions. As the writers show, Jews were involved (and often statistically over-represented) in every major European revolutionary movement, and it was these movements that offered real possibilities for ending anti-Jewish racism and the system that relies on it.

Today a generation of Jews are breaking with the Zionist consensus that has existed since the end of the Second World War, unmasking the Israeli apartheid state for what it is, and reckoning with the lies they were told about a settler state in the Middle East ensuring Jewish safety. The stories that Gluckstein and Stone tell were not only cut short by genocide—Zionism forcibly removed them from the canon of Jewish history.

The book is recommended reading for all Jewish people scouring their histories for alternatives to Zionism. But it is meant for a more general audience, too. All readers interested in uncovering the roots of racism, understanding the way ruling classes need scapegoats to divide and rule and learning strategies for cross-cultural movements against oppression, will get something out of The Radical Jewish Tradition.

Zionism

One of the book’s most valuable contributions is its argument that Zionism has never had a strategy or practice of fighting anti-Jewish racism. In every case study, Gluckstein and Stone show how Zionist organisations and theorists ignored, discouraged and undermined any fight against antisemitism in Europe and the US, especially movements that united Jews and non-Jews.

This is one of many reasons that Zionism as an ideology and migration to Palestine as a practice were supremely unpopular among most Jews for a long time—they offered nothing to improve the lives of oppressed Jews in Europe.

In Britain the Zionists discouraged Jews from joining the victorious Battle for Cable Street, where tens of thousands of demonstrators sent the British Union of Fascists packing. The Revisionist Zionists (the movement’s right flank and the forebearer of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party) categorically believed antisemitism could not be defeated in Europe. In fact, they backed virulently antisemitic Polish nationalism—illustrated in the book with the anecdote that their members would sing the Polish national anthem while they beat up Jewish socialists. They agreed with the antisemites that Jews never belonged in Europe in the first place.

Labor Zionism

This was not only a limitation of right wing or general/mainstream Zionism. When Nazis famously rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1939, one labour Zionist organisation declined to counterprotest. “Sorry we can’t join you … Our Zionist policy is to take no part in politics outside Palestine.”

Critics may complain that the book gives labour Zionism short shrift, arguing there is a qualitative difference between left wing Zionism and the far right Zionism that dominates Israel today. But as the book explains, even Zionism’s left flank was primarily a middle class movement that concerned itself with removing Jews from Europe, rather than fighting for a Europe where Jews belonged.

The book’s argument is not that labour Zionists never participated in struggle—the authors share many examples where they did. The issue is that labour Zionism was always caught in the contradiction between socialism and nationalism, and nationalism won.

Founded by labour Zionists, the Israeli trade union federation was one of the largest in the world. But it led the charge excluding Arab labour from the Israeli economy, removing any possibility ofJews and Palestinians uniting as one multi-ethnic working class.

Labour Zionism built “socialist” agricultural settlements (kibbutzim), but they were the leading force in the expropriation of Palestinian land. Combined, the kibbutzim and labour Zionist parties have supplied 65 per cent of Israel’s military chiefs and many of its generals. In Europe, Jewish self-defence militias were the bulwark against racist violence. In Palestine they became the opposite. The paramilitary precursor to the Israeli Defense Forces, the Haganah, was created to protect the kibbutzim. It led the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 and was far larger than any right wing Zionist militia.

The section exploring the role of labour Zionism in the colonisation of Palestine is among the book’s shorter chapters. The role of labour Zionism in colonising Palestine could be spelled out in more detail, particularly for a general audience less familiar with the subject matter. What is more, the leaders of key Jewish anti-occupation organisations in the US like IfNotNow come from the labour Zionist summer camps. Thorough accounts of the movement’s limitations would help clarify which political traditions are capable of confronting both anti-Jewish and anti-Arab racism as these current formations grow.

The Left

In the context of an inane and specious campaign that claims there is a dangerous form of “left antisemitism” on the rise today, The Radical Jewish Tradition performs a political rescue mission. In numerous case studies, the authors show how socialists, communists, anarchists, unionists and leftists of all sorts believed antisemitism was a real threat to working people everywhere and took the fight against it very seriously. How else can we explain the proportionally large presence of Jews in left parties, organisations and at the ballot box through the first half of the 20th century?

As the book demonstrates, it was their commitment to fighting antisemitism that made the left popular—more popular than Zionism—among Jewish people. On the eve of the Second World War in Eastern Europe, the Jewish Labour Bund was the most popular Jewish party and union movement in history.

The book recounts proud moments of this history, Cable Street being the best known. One honorable mention is the 1936 day-long strike and demonstration called by the Jewish Labor Bund responding to a pogrom in the town of Przytyk. A quarter of a million people joined, including non-Jewish Poles organised in the Polish Socialist Party. Years of groundwork between the two organisations allowed working class Poles and Jews to see their common cause and fight the right together—chipping away at the Zionist myth that antisemitism cannot be fought.

Another is the story of the Minsk ghetto, where Jews were highly integrated in a multi-ethnic society and resisted the Nazis together with their Belarusian (and many other nationalities) neighbours.

The authors point out that exploitation and oppression will not automatically teach people how to act in solidarity. Stalinism, sectarianism, nationalism and reformism—on all sides—undermined collaboration between Jews and non-Jews many times over.

Gluckstein and Stone don’t tell about these moments of joint resistance to paint a rosy revisionist history . They do so to point to the possibility of anti-racist solidarity through class struggle. It was that kind of struggle that could fight back antisemitism and the capitalist system that breeds it in the 20th century and that remains the key to defeating them today.

Relevant

More than an academic study, The Radical Jewish Tradition offers important strategic notes for today’s Jewish left. Particularly in the US, there is a burgeoning and somewhat romanticised interest in resurrecting the politics of organizations like the Jewish Labour Bund as an alternative to Zionism. But the book touches on how even nationalism rooted in the diaspora, as opposed to Israel, still comes with pitfalls. For all the outstanding work it did, the Bund’s ideas about “national cultural autonomy” often undermined class struggle across national boundaries.

In fact, early Russian revolutionary Georgi Plekhanov labeled the Bund “Zionists afraid of seasickness”—meaning that they didn’t want to leave Europe for Palestine, but they were nationalists nevertheless.

Much more could be teased out about the Bund’s limitations, including its economism, federalism and relationship with Austro-Marxism. But if these chapters inspire more people to do their own critical reading about the politics of the Bund, that is all to the good.

The Radical Jewish Tradition tells us about some of the best, most inspiring moments in struggle when Jews and non-Jews fought together as a class for a better world. Gluckstein and Stone show how Jewish radicalism not only fought immediate threats of exploitation, antisemitism and fascism. It also fed into movements against other types of racism, for tenant rights, for women’s liberation and more.

There are many more stories to tell—about the Lithuanian librarians who smuggled weapons into the Nazi ghettos, the Polish nuns who provided Jewish safe houses, the Bund-led multi-ethnic strikes of tannery workers in the Russian Empire, the immigrants from 50-plus nationalities who struck in the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile mills, and Black-Jewish solidarity beyond Harlem—to say nothing of the movements involving radical Jews in France, Spain, Argentina, Iraq and elsewhere. The book initiates readers into this forgotten history.

As the authors say, “The battle for memory is also a battle for the present.” The Zionists don’t want us to know there is a different answer to antisemitism than the Israeli state. The ruling class doesn’t want us to know there are ways to defeat their divide and rule scapegoating. The Radical Jewish Tradition sets the record straight.

By Clare Fester

The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands
By Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone
Bookmarks, 2023 / Interventions, 2024

The post The hidden history of Jewish anti-Zionism and radicalism first appeared on Solidarity Online.

The two-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine was marked by the Russian capture of the strategically important Ukrainian city of Avdiivka.

The last year of grinding bloodshed with little military gains on either side—but massive casualties—has given way to a consensus the advantage has swung in Russia’s favour.

There was a whiff of panic from Western European commentators and leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February. Some talked of the potential for Russia to invade another NATO country if it eventually wins in Ukraine.

A week later French President Emmanuel Macron publicly stated that NATO countries sending troops directly into Ukraine “could not be ruled out”, after this was discussed at a meeting of 25 European leaders Macron hosted.

This would mean a direct war between NATO and Russia, something the US has sought to avoid because it would mean a direct confrontation between nuclear armed powers. Predictably, Putin responded by threatening to use nuclear weapons if NATO troops were within striking distance of Russia.

The scaremongering about Russia is really driven by a desire to speed up arms production and shipments to Ukraine.

An acute shortage of artillery shells is the main reason why Russia was able to take Avdiivka, according to Ukrainian commanders and the White House.

In February the European Union passed a $54 billion aid package for Ukraine, to last until 2027. But this was mostly financial aid.

Europe’s military production is still far too small to meet Ukraine’s needs. It has only met half of its promise a year ago to deliver one million artillery shells. Europe still needs the US to project military power.

But US President Joe Biden hasn’t been able to get $61.4 billion in new military funding for Ukraine through Congress due to Republican opposition.

Ukraine is totally dependent on Western backing to continue the war, showing without a doubt the proxy-war nature of the conflict.

The extent of NATO involvement was reinforced by a leak in Russian media revealing that British soldiers are secretly “on the ground” in Ukraine helping to launch the long-range Storm Shadow missiles.

Russian resilience

But Russia’s war economy is outproducing the US and Europe.

The Financial Times describes how “Russia will churn out some 2 million artillery shells this year and has acquired a further 2 million from North Korea. It can deliver more than 100 tanks a month to the army, although many are refurbished. The Russian army will recruit another 400,000 men this year without resorting to full-scale mobilisation, Ukrainian officials forecast.”

Financial sanctions against Russia have not crippled it as hoped. And according to Western experts new sanctions Biden has introduced will fail to reduce the billions of dollars in energy profits that Russian President Vladimir Putin has used to finance the war.

The US announced that it would sanction Russia’s largest shipping company Sovcomflot who publicly claim to operate 147 ships and oil tankers. However, all but 14 of its vessels are exempt from the sanctions.

Russia’s GDP grew by 3 per cent last year, faster than all the G7 economies, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that it will outpace them again in 2024.

The IMF revised its growth forecasts for Russia for this year from 1.5 per cent to 2.6 per cent.

The US is cautious about sanctioning Russian oil too aggressively, as this could cause an international hike in oil prices, resulting in more money for Putin and a surge in inflation.

Biden wants to keep the war going to bleed and weaken Russia at the cost of more deaths of both Ukrainians and Russians. The US has opposed negotiations for a ceasefire from the beginning.

Putin is ruthless and power-hungry, as his assumed murder of opposition figure Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison shows. But the US, NATO, and its allies like Australia are not benign or democratic powers.

The West talks of a “rules based international order” when it suits them, but they have no issue funding and supporting allies like Israel, which is committing genocide and breaks every international humanitarian law.

Western states are using Ukrainians as a cheap way of protecting their own imperialist interests.

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times sums it up succinctly: “Aiding Ukraine is… cheap. No Western soldiers are at risk. The sums to be agreed this year amount to less than 0.25 percent of the combined GDP of the EU, UK and US”.

Palestine supporters rightly use Western support for Ukraine to expose government hypocrisy. But support for arming Ukraine is also used to allow weapons companies into schools and universities, although the West is arming Ukraine only to maintain their imperialist interests in the bloody proxy war with Russia.

They want ordinary people to keep dying in Ukraine to advance their power and profits.

We must oppose sending more weapons for the slaughter in Ukraine. The hope lies in anti-war rebellions in Russia, NATO, and Ukraine to end the war.

By Luke Ottavi

The post Western alarm as Russia makes gains in Ukraine proxy war first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Repression of Palestine activism echoes the crackdown during previous wars, argue James Supple and Tom Orsag

The war on Gaza has seen Australian governments, schools, universities and the media all attempt to silence and crack down on support for Palestine.

Displays of support that would be commonplace around issues from climate action to anti-racism, or government-supported wars like Ukraine, have seen workers face disciplinary action and threats.

This is not a result of the Zionist lobby—although pro-Israel activists do press for sackings and other action against Palestine supporters. It is the kind of media and state mobilisation that often takes place during war.

The hysterical climate following 9/11 is one example—with the US President George W Bush declaring the population was, “Either with us, or with the terrorists”, and waves of Islamophobia and anti-terror laws.

Another is “McCarthyism”, the fevered climate in the US during the onset of the Cold War in the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunt against Communist sympathisers saw many people lose jobs and careers.

Australia may not be formally at war in Gaza. But the ruling class here recognises that they have a stake in the outcome. Both major parties see US global power as essential to their own interests, and recognise Israel as the US’s key partner in the Middle East.

The result has been a closing of ranks across major social institutions against pro-Palestine activism—with a firm echo of wartime repression.

Ruling classes recognise war as a situation of life and death. Defeat is a threat to their power and privileges.

They will spend billions of dollars and require enormous sacrifices from the population. This requires mobilising all the means at their disposal to whip up support for the war, and isolate anyone standing against it.

The freedom of speech and freedom to organise that are accepted in ordinary times have frequently been suspended during wartime—with the First World World and Vietnam War clear examples.

The Great War

The federal Labor government that came to office in August 1914 was fully committed to the war effort.

Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes passed a new War Precautions Act in an effort to target and silence opponents of the war. There were 3442 prosecutions under the Act. Even minor offences could attract six months’ jail.

While there was initial enthusiasm for the war, left-wing groups, most importantly the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), opposed it from the outset.

The government set out to break them. In 1915 IWW leader Tom Barker was charged for publishing an anti-war poster deemed “prejudicial to recruitment”.

He was charged again over a cartoon in their newspaper Direct Action and jailed in March 1916, but released three months later after a protest campaign. A succession of other IWW members were prosecuted under the Act for anti-war speeches at rallies in Sydney’s Domain.

Miners in NSW who took strike action in late 1915 for a shorter working week were denounced as “German sympathisers” and traitors by the media.

The crackdown accelerated as the government moved to introduce conscription. The union movement led an enormous campaign that defeated two referendums (technically plebiscites) in October 1916 and December 1917.

The IWW was also central to the anti-conscription movement.

In late 1916 police raided the IWW’s office, with membership lists passed on to employers to encourage sackings. Individual members had their homes raided.

Twelve IWW members were arrested on trumped up arson charges in Sydney just weeks before the first conscription referendum in 1916.

In July 1917, Hughes made continued membership of the IWW a crime punishable by six months’ jail.

Vietnam

Australia joined the US war against the National Liberation Front (NLF) of Vietnam in the early 1960s. Conscription was introduced in 1965.

In the climate of the Cold War, opposition was initially limited to a small minority. ASIO carried out intimidating surveillance of anti-war activists, feeding information to employers, conservative MPs and the media.

In July 1967 it was revealed that the mainstream press had agreed to a voluntary censorship system, where the Federal Government would issue a “D notice” on Defence-related matters not to be reported.

Protests were regularly attacked by the police. Even the massive Moratorium street marches in May and September 1970 attracted hysteria and vitriol. The media warned darkly that the protests would be be violent and leave blood in the streets. Billy Sneeden, then Minister for National Service, attacked marchers as “political bikies pack-raping democracy”.

School students were suspended for wearing badges supporting the Moratorium and several teachers supporting the protests were also sacked.

In July 1967, members of the Monash University Labour Club in Melbourne voted to collect money for “unspecified aid” to the NLF, including military aid. This signalled their intention to aid the enemy.

“All hell broke loose,” as one account of the movement explains. “The press, the government, the RSL and the ALP condemned the action as treason, and the Monash Vice-Chancellor banned the collection.”

The Federal Government passed laws to make collecting money for the NLF punishable by up to two years’ jail. But 1000 students voted to support collecting aid at a Student General Meeting, and the government backed off.

Both the First World War and Vietnam show that war leads to repression—but also that it can produce movements that bring the war to an end.

Teacher activist: ‘Antoinette Lattouf was fired. Teachers are facing intimidation by the Department’

NSW teacher Maryam Chekchok spoke at a Unionists for Palestine forum on supporting Palestine at work. Below is part of her speech

I ama high school teacher and I became one, not just to educate but to empower our youth to stand up for what is just and what is right. I also sought to work alongside like-minded individuals with whom I could share my ideas.

Like people in other industries, I was told to remain “neutral” and asked to never speak of the “international conflict” in the school space. Note the word, “international” as if it doesn’t have implications on us here in Australia. I guess we need to rewrite the syllabus for three-quarters of the subjects we teach if we are to steer clear of international affairs.

The refusal to expose students to different ideas, branded as provocative or too radical, for fear of corruption is absurd. The attempt at denouncing talk amongst teachers regarding the genocide occurring in Palestine goes against every moral bone in our body.

We are here to stand in the face of hypocrisy and call out our leaders for their uninformed stance that teachers are to remain neutral in the genocide happening in real time in Palestine.

What we do in our school setting is a direct reflection on the values we uphold outside of it. Our role as teachers emphasises that we have, not just a responsibility, but a right to inform students about global issues, including but not limited to the historical context, political dynamics and humanitarian consequences of the situation in Palestine. We have a right to discuss world issues with our fellow teachers openly and be trusted to do so respectfully.

In the same way we drive events and programs to show solidarity with our Indigenous community, we promote fairness in love and sexual freedom, so too should we stand up against the injustices being inflicted on our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

Campaigning for Palestine also raises important issues about our rights at work.

Our integrity, our professional judgement is being questioned every time we are told to keep schools as politically neutral spaces. Despite the Teachers Fed backing the wearing of the keffiyeh in schools, we are somehow still fearful of the repercussions.

Our leaders are very well aware of the power of education. The respect that teachers have in the community scares them.

This is why the Minns government is attempting to weaponise the education system for the purpose of supporting its pro-Israeli stance in schools through the call to neutrality. I’m sorry to say, but Chris Minns, when you lit up our Opera House with the Israeli flag, you made it very clear that you yourself would not remain neutral.

Censorship

When Zionists targeted Victorian teacher Jason Wong for speaking at a pro-Palestine rally in his own time and not in his school, his employer took heed of the Zionists’ complaints and almost cost him his job.

Antoinette Lattouf was fired from the ABC as a reporter for sharing a Human Rights Watch post—a post from a reputable organisation, skewed to no side except the side of humanity. The media union has labelled her sacking as “disturbing” and claimed staff from “diverse backgrounds” are “disproportionately” attacked.

This kind of censorship and discrimination negates the foundation of our democratic right to free speech and claims to be a multicultural society.

Teachers in NSW are facing the same intimidation by the Department. Our ever-growing group, Teachers for Palestine, is testament to our dedication and refusal to kneel to the demands of the Minns govt.

Starting with only 14 teachers at our first forum, we saw 40 at our second and 60 at our third. Our WhatsApp group has 217 members—that number continues to grow. Twenty schools took part in our first group photo action, including Watermelon Wednesday.

On Tuesday 13 February, we saw teachers and school staff don keffiyehs, pins, jewellery and watermelon symbols. We have had reports from 13 schools so far from this second action. The decline in the number of participating schools is because of the repression of any support for Palestine and the fear of disciplinary action.

We call on unions to speak up for humanity and to have our backs when we face disciplinary action in our workplaces.

With my olive skin, hijab and Lebanese background, I am told that I need to keep my “personal connection” to the conflict out of my classroom.

But, I still have hope. We must continue the fight, post about it on our social media, be allowed and be trusted to have these conversations with our students and our colleagues.

Remaining neutral only serves to perpetuate ignorance, gives life to the false notion that supporting Palestine is antisemitic and hinders meaningful and trusting relationships from being created through our common humanity.

Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor.

The post A new McCarthyism? War and the crackdown on support for Palestine first appeared on Solidarity Online.