UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Wednesday 23 December 2009

TUFI - interfering in the internal affairs of Palestinian trade unions‏

Delegates at trade union conferences in Britain may have come across the Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI), the insidious apologists for the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. TUFI is always on the outside looking in at trade union events and it is widely understood that its influence in the higher echelons of the Labour Party and TUC is inverse proportion to the presence of TUFI supporters in democratically elected rank and file delegations.

However it is of real concern that TUFI misrepresentaion of Palestinian opinion on the BDS campaign is causing consternation amongst Palestinian trade union organisations in the occupied territories. So much so that the organisation - which purports to reconcile the irreconcilable of a brutal occupation - has been forced to acknowledge its reckless interference in the internal affiars of an oppressed people. It has been playing politics with the lives of trade unionists operating under occupation.
http://www.tufi.org.uk/

It is inconceivable that during the apartheid era British unions would have tolerated apologists for the Botha regime or the perpetrators of the Sharpeville massacre. As the first anniversary approaches of the Gaza atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Force, it is time for us to no longer tolerate those who defend and justify its brutal actions or those of the political war criminals who this time last year were masterminding an onslaught against a defenceless people.
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/Index9b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=3&l2_id=62&Content_ID=1035