Palestinians say NO to BDS!

While the British union movement contorts itself over the issue of BDS, an interesting item just came by my desk written by the organization TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine) which indicates that Palestinian workers and unions do not support the boycott campaign.

Now admittedly, this revelation came from a brief fact-finding mission by an organization dedicated to cooperation vs. confrontation. At the same time, as I’ve stated before the Palestinian union movement has never indicated support for economic sanctions against Israeli companies or industry.

The dynamics surrounding the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel suffer from a number of issues (notably the likelihood of coercion), but as the name of the coalition itself implies, the organization has never announced support of the kind of economic boycotts and divestment projects that are most popular within some European unions.

Given that whenever boycotters are asked why they are demanding economic punishment of Israel vs. other far worse human rights abusers, they point to the alleged support for their policies by Palestinian unions (or civil society as a whole) they are actually talking about PACBI, it’s interesting to note that this institution has NOT thrown its support against a boycott of Israeli products (for example), especially since they well understand that their members are the ones who would suffer from such a policy.

Given this context, the TULIP report certainly passes the intuition test. Like unions anywhere, Palestinian unions must balance their desire to take political stands against the need to focus on policies that help their members. And unlike the Fireman’s Union in the UK (the force behind the recent TUC boycott vote), members of Palestinian unions will face actual hardships related to boycotts that represent little more than political poses to the radical cells committed to turning European unions (or other civic organizations) into their mouthpieces, regardless of the cost to their own unions, and regardless of the cost to Palestinian workers.