Unite activists sign letter to Graham after ban on union banners at Palestine demos

Unite members and activists have issued an outraged letter to union general secretary Sharon Graham, after members of the elected executive were told not to attend, under a Unite banner, demonstrations against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The letter reads:

Dear Sharon Graham,

As a result of our letters of 30 October and 1 November and other representations, including from London and Eastern Region, you finally agreed, after nearly 4 weeks of an ongoing genocide by Israel, to issue a statement on November 3 calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The statement was however pitiably weak. There was no mention of genocide or ethnic cleansing. There was no mention of the war crimes perpetrated by Israel – the bombing of hospitals, the targeting and murder of journalists, academics and doctors to say nothing of the bombing of residential areas or the murder of children, which now stands at over 8,000.

There was no mention of the fact that Israel has imposed a food, water and fuel blockade on the Gaza strip resulting in starvation according to the United Nations. Collective punishment of a civilian population is a egregious breach of international law yet the statement treats the Palestinians and the Israeli state as equally responsible.

It is not Hamas which possesses an air force but Israel. It is the Israeli state which is carrying out the carpet bombing of Gaza with the intent of forcing Palestinians out altogether.

The statement treats the genocidal attack on the people of Gaza as equivalent to the break-out from the world’s largest open air prison on October 7. Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip for 56 years imposing a suffocating siege on it since 2007.

This report from Vatican News of 16 December gives just one example of Israel’s war crimes:

‘Israelis have opened fire on Gaza’s Christians. Following heavy bombardment overnight of the area around Holy Family Latin parish in Gaza City, dozens are reported dead… and reports continue to arrive that shooting by Israeli snipers continues during these hours. A statement released by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem confirmed that an Israeli sniper murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish where the majority of Christian families have taken refuge since the start of the war.’

An even more horrifying massacre took place on 17 December. Al Jazeera reported that Israeli bulldozers have crushed Palestinians who were taking shelter in tents outside Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Dozens of Palestinians are reported to have been buried alive. These are Nazi-style massacres and yet you have said nothing and done nothing since issuing your statement. You were happy to wave the Ukrainian flag but you haven’t waved the Palestinian flag or expressed any sympathy with the thousands of murdered Palestinian civilians, not least children.

UN Secretary General António Guterres accepted that there was a context to October 7. Many Israeli civilians died at the hands of the Israeli military. See Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says.

Unite at its 2023 Policy Conference passed motions supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and affirmed that Israel is practising the crime of apartheid. That should have informed Unite’s statement.

The statement treats one of the world’s most powerful militaries and the resistance of the Palestinians as equal. Your claim that Israel’s goal is to eliminate Hamas is untrue. Why bomb homes, schools and ambulances if this was the case? Were the dead children also Hamas ‘terrorists’?

The statement says nothing about what Unite intends to do. You have done nothing to publicise all the previous national demonstrations. Are you going to ignore the one on January 13 too? There has been no national Unite presence on the marches to date.

We demand that you publicise all future demonstration, that you provide the resources necessary for Unite members to attend, that Unite nationally is present on the march together with its banner and that Unite has a speaker at the rally.

A leaked Israeli intelligence document makes it clear that Israel’s intention is to repeat the Nakba in 1948 when ¾ million Palestinians were expelled.

If Israel succeeds this will be a prelude to ethnic cleansing on the West Bank where there has been a reign of terror in the past 6 months. Over 250 people have died since October 7. Vast areas of Area C have been ‘cleansed’ as Israeli settlers and the army attack farmers.None of this is recognised in your statement. Netanyahu has compared the Palestinians to ‘Amalek’ whom God instructed the Israelites to exterminate yet Unite’s statement ignores this. Open calls in Israel for the extermination of the Palestinians are being made and Israel’s army is doing just that.

By blocking fuel, babies on incubators and people on dialysis machines have already died.

It is time for Unite to show that the situation in Gaza is an urgent one and to mobilise its members. We give the Labour Party over £1m a year. We should be demanding that Keir Starmer makes way for someone who is not a ‘Zionist without qualification’. At the moment he is nothing more than Sunak’s echo chamber.

Yours sincerely

Sharon Graham had already infuriated supporters of Palestinian rights by remaining silent for many weeks at the start of Israel’s latest genocidal assault on Gaza – then making a grossly asymmetrical statement appearing to treat Israeli deaths more seriously than Palestinian and allegedly having the exec railroaded into accepting only her preferred wording when the statement was eventually issued.

Graham was also exposed using proxies to order the cancellation of showings of the film ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’, which exposes the political abuse of antisemitism accusations against left-wingers in the Labour party, and discussion of Asa Winstanley’s forensic book Weaponising Antisemitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn. Proxies were similarly despatched to try, unsuccessfully, to cancel a Unite ‘fringe’ event at Labour’s conference earlier this month in support of Palestinians.

At the time of writing, the letter is still open for Unite members to add their signature via Google Docs. It will be submitted shortly after new year.