Yesterday, on the 11 September 2012, trade union delegates at the TUC’s Congress voted in favour of a motion calling for TUC to organise a
delegation to Gaza in conjunction with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign ‘to determine how the TUC may most effectively contribute to the end of the blockade.’ The motion can be found here.

The TUC’s decision to singularly focus on Gaza again is bizarre. There is no motion on Syria, at a time when hundreds are dying every week, or on anywhere else in the Middle East, still reeling from the aftershocks of the Arab Spring.

A visit to only Gaza, ignoring the West Bank, Israel and the Sinai, is a distorted snapshot of a complex situation; it would be the sort of trip which
conceals as much as it reveals.

More concerning, though, is the TUC’s decision to visit Gaza with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. PSC trips are necessarily biased and one-sided, meeting only those parts of Palestinian society that support their views. In particular, PSC trips to Gaza usually include meetings with terrorist leaders from Hamas. The PSC makes no secret of its agenda.

We believe that the trip should not go ahead as envisaged in the motion. However, if it does, we call upon the TUC to take the opportunity and have a more balanced visit to the wider region, organised by neutral and fair organisations, and to guarantee that they will not meet with the terrorist leaders of Hamas.

We are appalled that Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust has cancelled a planned talk by a mediation expert solely because he is Israeli. This decision appears to be unlawful discrimination on the basis of nationality, taken by an NHS Trust. There must be an independent investigation into how this happened, possibly followed by dismissals or prosecutions of those who have broken the law. 
 
UNISON, which pressured for this boycott, is acting like a racist organisation. UNISON also claimed that banning Israeli speakers is consistant with the policy of the Trade Union Congress. We call on the TUC to clearly state that this is not TUC policy and to condemn the UNISON branch’s discriminatory actions.