TUC motion for end to all arms sales to Israel welcomed by pro-Palestine group

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The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has welcomed the motion passed today by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) re-affirming support for Palestinian rights in the face of Israel’s decades of illegal military occupation, ethnic cleansing and imposition of a system of apartheid. The TUC called on the UK Labour government to end all licences for arms traded with Israel and to meet its obligations in full under international law and the Genocide Convention.

Congress also accepted the call of Palestinian unions, made in October and reaffirmed in May, for international unions to end all complicity with Israel’s violations of international law and to make their unions apartheid-free zones.

“We welcome the passing of this important motion which confirms the enduring support of the British trade union movement for the Palestinian struggle for liberation,” said PSC Director Ben Jamal. “It marks a clear dividing line between the union movement, which is committed to ending Israel’s genocide, occupation and system of apartheid, and the Labour government which has so far taken a wholly inadequate approach to its obligations under international law.”

The motion was passed by the TUC the day after Prime Minister Keir Starmer addressed delegates, who voted unanimously for the motion which exposed the inadequacy of the government’s approach to Israel’s ongoing offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Congress voted to condemn Israel’s decades of violations of the rights of Palestinians and call for an active UK policy to hold Israel to account.

Submitted by the National Education Union, with the support of Unison and Unite, the motion saw Britain’s trade union movement heap pressure on Labour with a clear rebuke for the decision by Foreign Secretary David Lammy to suspend only 10 per cent of arms export licences to the occupation state, crucially excluding indirect exports of components for the F-35 combat aircraft known to have been used to massacre civilians in Gaza.

Jamal described the suspension of a small fraction of arms exports to Israel as a “slap on the wrist” and little else. “The Labour government has been scrambling to reassure this genocidal Israeli regime of its continued support. This slap on the wrist basically gives Israel permission to continue to kill Palestinians.”

The motion recognised that Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza, and the subsequent death toll and suffering, amount to a plausible genocide and should be met with a principled foreign policy that under the Genocide Convention requires all steps be taken to prevent genocide and punish those responsible. The TUC called for sanctions against those individuals and entities that have incited genocide against Palestinians. This is in marked contrast to Labour’s position of treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a key ally.

The TUC motion also recognised that Israel’s offensive follows decades of violations of Palestinian human rights, ethnic cleansing and that throughout historic Palestine, Palestinians — including those living under occupation and those with Israeli citizenship — are subjected to a system of apartheid. As was the case of South African apartheid, this requires a concerted effort from the labour movement to dismantle it and Congress called for sanctions and a ramping up of boycott and divestment campaigns to bring pressure to bear on those who are complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.

“The time for half measures and hypocrisy is over,” added Ben Jamal. “The Labour government must choose whether its stands with a state committing the crimes of genocide, occupation and apartheid, or with the millions of people in the unions and in the UK who want to see freedom, justice and equality for Palestinians.”

READ: PA agrees security deal with occupation regime amid Gaza genocide