The American Resistance to Israel
by Paul Larudee / October 29th, 2014
The
movement to prevent Israeli cargo ships from being unloaded or loaded
is potentially one of the greatest challenges that Israel
faces from ordinary citizens around the world. Amazingly, it doesn’t
even require huge numbers or even very much unity of organization, only
of purpose.
The August, 2014 picket of the Zim Piraeus in
Oakland, California, is a case in point. It began with a massive
demonstration of thousands that responded to a call from the Block the
Boat coalition to picket the port on August 16 and 17.
During that time, the ship chose to remain in a stationary position
more than 100 miles away. The organizers then declared victory on the
basis that the ship had been delayed more than 24 hours, and the ship
came into port.
For some of the
picketers, however, this was not enough. They chose to continue the
picket after the ship had docked and was ready to be worked. This
required maintaining the picket line on a
sustained basis and eliciting the cooperation of the workers in not
crossing the line. Because of these efforts, there was no one to work
the ship for another three days.
Finally,
the employer, Ports America, tried to trick both the picketers and the
workers by reassigning workers from another ship (an illegal practice).
This was only partly successful, and the ship left on August 20 for Russia with most of its Oakland-bound cargo still on board and without taking on any of the cargo that it was to pick up.
One
of the volunteers did follow-up research, even calling Zim’s clients.
What she discovered was that the extra cargo on board created problems
for the loading operations in Russia and had to be off loaded without a
clear picture of when it would reach Oakland. At least two of the
clients also decided to stop using Zim because of
uncertain delivery. The cost of delays, fuel, berthing fees and
additional transport must have been staggering.
The
following month brought even worse news to Zim. This time, a group
calling itself the Stop Zim Action Committee succeeded in completely
blocking the Zim Shanghai from unloading or loading any cargo at
all in the port of Oakland. After trying for only 24 hours, it left for
Los Angeles, where it had apparently made alternate arrangements for
the cargo to be offloaded and transported to Oakland by other carriers
(possibly by truck). Again, the result was extra cost and delay.
Unfortunately for Zim, Los Angeles and other cities decided to follow the Oakland example. On August 26, Block the Boat – LA held its first protest against the Zim Haifa. Then,
on October 18, the Zim Savannah remained at anchor for two days
while picketers stayed at the port, calling on workers not to work the
ship. In the end the workers agreed to cross the picket lines with
police herding the protesters away, and the ship came in.
Protests
and pickets were also held against Zim ships in Seattle/Tacoma,
Washington and Tampa, Florida, but officials claimed that there were no
delays. In Vancouver, Canada, an informational picket was held in order
to initiate a dialog with the workers.
Indeed,
workers were the key to the degree of success or failure at each port.
Oakland has an activist union tradition with a keen socio-political
conscience. In 1984 ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union)
Local 10 refused to unload a South African ship for eleven days, and in
2010 it
refused to cross 24 hours of picket lines set up to block another Zim
ship from unloading. That tradition may be less strong in other ports,
but it argues for a partnership that may empower both labor and activist
communities in ways that we have not seen in decades.
But
what about other countries? Palestinians and others were quite frankly
astonished that the first successful denial of service to an Israeli
ship would happen in a U.S. city, to say nothing of demonstrations in at
least five different North American ports. The American resistance
surprised everyone. Why, then, do we not see similar actions in other
parts of the world?
Part of the
reason is that Zim doesn’t operate everywhere. It has no ports of call
on the west coast of South America, for example, or in Scandinavia.
Nevertheless, its ships sail to Barcelona,
whose dockworkers union sent aBarcelona Dockworkers Salute ILWU Local 10 and 34 | Labor for Palestine (U.S.) to the Oakland workers. Why are no Zim ships being turned away in Barcelona?
South Africa also seems a likely location. COSATU, the giant South African union, has repeatedly declared its solidarity with
the Palestinian struggle. Why is it not participating? What about Cuba
and Venezuela? Other possibilities might be Malaysia, Brazil, Greece
and even Liverpool in the UK.
Until
now, Zim and the Israeli government have been very cool about the
potential impact of a movement that ought to terrify them to the depths
of their souls. It takes only a small amount of disruption to cause
shipping customers to take their business elsewhere. As noted, this has
already happened, starting with the first picket in August. We can
only guess at the effect when a second Zim ship had to leave Oakland
untouched.
In October, a third Zim ship, the Zim Beijing,
was scheduled to arrive in Oakland, and another picket was planned.
This time, however, the ship kept delaying its arrival date until it
was de-listed from the port arrival schedule. There are no Zim ships
currently scheduled to arrive in Oakland for the foreseeable future,
although Zim bravely refuses to declare this as a policy.
Zim
and the Israeli government dare not reveal how vulnerable they are. It
will take only a few major ports around the world to sound the death
knell for an Israeli shipping giant that is the tenth largest cargo
carrier in the world (more than $3 billion in annual revenue). The loss
of a few million in Oakland may not seem like much to them, but
uncertain and unreliable delivery can put them at a huge disadvantage –
perhaps even out of business. This is why we saw no
counter-demonstrators at the port (actually one): they have to pretend
it means nothing to them.
On the
other hand, the Oakland victory cannot be sustained alone. If it does
not spread to other countries, it will wither. Israel knows that, but
all their power and influence may be insufficient to prevent the
movement from happening. We have been looking for a way to strike a
blow for Palestine. Now is our chance.
Paul
Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine
Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.Read other articles by Paul.
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