Instead of Implementing UNITE Policy on Palestine & Trying to Stop the Transfer of Weapons for Israel's Genocide, Sharon Graham attacked Activists Protesting Against the Arms Factories
UPDATE
This is the email Fiona Sharpe sent to the venue. It consists of a series of lies and smears - two of the five speakers are Jews opposed to Israel's Genocide - that makes us 'anti-Jewish racist supporters'. The Zionists will stop at nothing to prevent free speech.
Jim Kelly – Chair of London & Eastern Region Criticises Sharon
Graham’s Obstruction of Palestine solidarity
Fiona
Sharpe of Sussex
Friends of Israel and Labour Against Anti-Semitism,[LAA] is trying to get our meeting cancelled
on the grounds of ‘anti-Semitism’. This has not prevented SFI members in the
past from demonstrating
alongside the EDL. In 2014 SFI invited
Israeli academic Mordechai Kedar to speak at a meeting they held. Kedar advocates
raping Palestinian women in war.
LAA
was involved in the anti-Semitism smear campaign against Corbyn. Its principal
spokesperson is Euan Philips, a non-Jew who, as Al Jazeera exposed,
uses a Jewish name ‘David Gordstein’ to pretend that he is Jewish when making
complaints of ‘anti-Semitism’.
The
reason why Unite4Palestine are
holding a fringe meeting at TUC Conference is the refusal of General Secretary
Sharon Graham to implement Unite policy on Palestine or support any solidarity
action with the Palestinians. Graham has even refused to condemn Israel’s
genocide in Gaza.
Jewish American Doctor Mark Perlmutter saw Children in G۸Z۸ BEING SH۵T 2x by SN۱PERS
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) September 4, 2024
These are NOT Accidentspic.twitter.com/3WrzfQ42i2
Unite
policy on
Palestine is good – it supports BDS, opposes the settlements and Israeli
Apartheid and calls on Unite to ‘support
the Palestinian population in Gaza living under siege.’ It describes Israeli
Palestinians as ‘second class citizens (and)
subject to racist laws.’
There
is only one problem. It is nowhere to be found on Unite’s own website. As far
as Graham is concerned it doesn’t exist.
The first inkling that Graham was a Zionist and a
supporter of Israeli Apartheid came on 8 June when
she banned Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie
from Unite premises and Asa Winstanley from speaking about his book, The
Weaponisation of Anti-Semitism at Unite’s Tony Benn house in Bristol.
SE Regional Secretary Sarah Carpenter, who has now been appointed as Graham’s bag carrier, informed
Unite branch SE 6246, that she had asked for screenings of the film to be
cancelled ‘whilst I seek further guidance.’
The reasons for the bans were
explained in an email
of 27.10.23. from Graham’s spokesperson, Gail
Cartmail:
The General Secretary... is also clear that the Unite position
must be that we do not stoke division through anti-semitism and anti-Muslim
racism
What Cartmail was saying was that British Jews would offended by
suggestions that supporters of Israel automatically cry ‘anti-Semitism’
whenever Israel is criticised. Except of course that they do!
When the International
Court of Justice called Israel’s war on Gaza ‘plausible genocide’ Israeli
officials and ministers immediately described
them as ‘anti-Semitic’. There are many, many other examples too numerous to
count.
‘Anti-Semitism’ is the all-purpose smear of those who support Zionism
and its ethnic cleansing settler colonial project in Palestine. What Graham was
effectively saying was that all Jews support Israel’s war crimes. This is in
itself anti-Semitic. It is the Suella Braverman/Sunak/Starmer line.
The far-right Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, an
Israeli government cut out, campaigned strenuously to cancel Corbyn – The Big lie. They
wrote asking Graham to ban the film from Unite premises and she was happy to
oblige. Yet on 30 August 23 Cartmail sent me an email saying that:
Your
disagreeable attack is
based on a falsehood. No one in Unite took advice from the Campaign
Against Antisemitism, on ‘Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie’,
nor indeed any other matter.
Yet on 23 July, the CAA posted
an article claiming that:
Following correspondence with Campaign Against Antisemitism, the
Unite union has cancelled the screening of a propaganda film about the antisemitic former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that was due to be shown alongside a book signing and
talk from Asa Winstanley....
following contact from Campaign Against Antisemitism in which we
pointed out that the scheduling of the event appeared to be contradictory to
the reports that the film has been banned in all of Unite’s
buildings, it was cancelled....
Campaign Against Antisemitism commends
Unite for its swift and decisive action to cancel the screening as soon as we
brought it to its attention.
I
replied asking Cartmail if Unite had put out a statement denying the claims of
the CAA. I received no response. Cartmail also wrote that:
Unite as a union is outstanding in both our commitment to
anti-racism and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, actions speak louder
than words.'
For once she was right. Actions do
speak louder than words. Graham’s actions or rather inaction speak volumes.
Graham’s behaviour has been warmly welcomed by the Zionists. Writing in the Zionist Jewish News ‘Liar’ Lee Harpin
described how,
In a further put down on far-left foreign policy dogma Graham
also wrote “Similarly, we cannot be expected to affiliate to organisations
that actively work against our members and their jobs.
“Examples include groups that look to build networks inside
trade unions to undermine the defence industry or demand the disbandment of
NATO and AUKUS.”
Under Graham’s leadership Unite has also taken great strides in
attempting to combat antisemitism within the movement. Despite early claims
that the left-wing leader would seek to move the union away from Labour and
disaffiliate, Unite now appears to be opting to become a “critical friend” of
the Starmer led Labour Party.
Similarly
Labour Against Anti-Semitism, in the
wake of Graham’s election issued a statement welcoming her election. Euan Philipps (Gordstein) wrote:
“LAAS
congratulates Sharon Graham on her election as General Secretary of Unite the
Union.
During
her campaign Ms Graham was clear that as General Secretary of one of the UK’’s
largest unions she would avoid interfering in the running of the Labour Party.
We trust Ms Graham will be true to her word and allow Keir Starmer and the
Labour Party leadership a free hand to undertake the large reforms required to
effectively tackle antisemitism.
We
also hope Ms Graham will look to the concerning evidence of widespread
antisemitism in her own organisation and begin reforms to tackle anti-Jewish
racism there.”
Despite
her claims at the time of her election as General Secretary to be ‘non-political’
Zionist groups seem to have been well aware of Graham’s support for Israel and
hostility to the Palestinians.
Graham
has refused to take part in a single national Palestine demonstration. She has even
refused to allow the national banner on the marches and has tried to prevent
others giving solidarity.
According to Jim Kelly, Chair of London and Eastern Region, Graham’s
representatives ‘advised’ Peter Kavanagh, the Regional Secretary, not to speak
at a Palestine solidarity demonstration. Kelly described how activists on
Palestine had had to work in ‘an environment of silence and obstruction’ by
union officials, in particular Graham.
Graham attempted to prevent attempts to mobilise solidarity in
support of the Palestinians. Kelly described an ‘expectation that employees
will not speak alongside other General Secretaries’ at demonstrations.
Carpenter even threatened
Peter Kavanagh, the union’s London regional secretary, with the loss of a
discretionary pension bonus if he did not pull back from his support for
Palestinians in Gaza.
Carpenter was
appointed by Graham without the position being advertised and without the
approval of Unite’s elected executive.
Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu:
— S p r i n t e r (@SprinterFamily) November 2, 2023
“North Gaza is more beautiful than ever. Blowing up and flattening everything is amazing. Once we are finished, we will hand over the lands of Gaza to the fighting soldiers and settlers who lived in Gush Katif." pic.twitter.com/lTlOEwnIce
On October 16 2023 Unite put out a statement which
said it
‘unreservedly condemns and
expresses its revulsion at the recent appalling acts of violence by Hamas
against innocent civilians in Israel. We further deplore the subsequent
suffering and loss of life being endured by civilians in Gaza’.
Although Graham ‘unreservedly
condemned’ and expressed her ‘revulsion’
at the killing of ‘innocent’ Israeli
civilians, she merely ‘deplored’ the
suffering and murder of Palestinian civilians, who were presumably not innocent.
This is BBC language.
By October 16 2,750 Palestinians had died and 9,700 were wounded. Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav
Gallant had made clear Israel’s genocidal intent when he said, on October 9 that
I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be
no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human
animals and we are acting accordingly.
ISRAELI KNESSET MEMBER: Israeli Knesset member Almog Cohen said that he received “excellent news” following the assassination of 3 of the sons of the head of Hamas' Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, and three of his grandchildren.
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) April 10, 2024
FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG: https://t.co/zltt11MY3B pic.twitter.com/OScP3HrIFX
Israeli spokesman Daniel Hagari had said that “right now
we’re focused on what causes maximum damage”. President Herzog said on October 14 that ‘There are no innocent civilians
in Gaza".
Graham and Unite’s Executive refused, like Starmer, to call for
an immediate ceasefire.
On 17 October Peter Kavanagh, the Regional Secretary of London
and Eastern Region Unite, wrote a letter to Graham asking why there had been no Unite
banner or speaker at the previous Palestine demonstration in London on October
7 and why Unite had done nothing to advertise the demonstration on its web
site.
Kavanagh asked that Graham write to all branches urging members to
attend the demonstration. No reply was ever received.
On November 1 I sent an Open Letter signed by 135 members of Unite to Graham demanding that
the Union call for an immediate ceasefire and take part in and publicise the
national demonstrations.
On November 3, having resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire up
till then, Graham finally issued a
statement calling for a ceasefire
although it was pitifully weak, failing to mention still less condemn Israel’s
genocide. The only good thing about the
statement was its headline ‘Unite calls for an immediate ceasefire’.
On March 7 Israel bombed the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation
of Trade Unions in Gaza City. The Federation’s five-story building had attached
to it a kindergarten that served 380 children, as well as a large automatic
bakery.
On March 25, over two weeks later, Graham
penned a letter to the PGFTU General Secretary Shaher Saeed, in
which she expressed her solidarity and boasted of Unite's record including a
donation of £50,000 to Medicin Sans Frontiere. This is in the context of £500 million reserves and a report that Graham
and Unite’s legal bill for defending itself against Brendan Ogle, their former
Ireland Regional Secretary, is over £1m.
Between the November 3 statement and that
letter she had done absolutely nothing. This letter was all that she had
done. She had clearly written it in order to justify her previous inactivity.
The very
next day Graham penned
an undated letter to Unite Officers,
Organisers and Staff. It was written, it said
to alert and inform you about a number of extremely troubling actions
being undertaken by a tiny minority of individuals, inside and outside of our
Union.
Some of these individuals are linked to the past leadership and
a small number are linked to groups who want us to make decisions detrimental
to our membership and their jobs.
It was written in the language of Joe McCarthy and its purpose
was to witch-hunt Palestine solidarity and anti-war activists who Graham saw as
a threat to jobs in the arms industry. What happens in wider society, with growing
militarisation and the danger of nuclear war was irrelevant. The consequences
of increased military expenditure, reduced spending on the NHS and the welfare
state was irrelevant. According to Graham Unite must tie its fortunes to the
military-industrial complex.
Graham could have told Unite workers that she would support them
refusing to handle arms destined for Israel’s genocide in Gaza just as happened
with Rolls Royce workers in East Kilbride in 1973 when they refused to service engines for
Pinochet’s airforce.
According to Graham’s
logic the right of workers at IG Farben to produce Zyklon B for the gas
chambers trumped the rights of Jews not to be murdered.
Graham made a number of false claims in her letter such as that ‘Unite was the first major union to publicly
... call for a permanent ceasefire in
Gaza’. This was a silly lie. UNISON called for an immediate ceasefire on October 26. UNISON also
condemned Israel for its attacks on civilians unlike Unite’s statement.
Rather than supporting the diversification of production and enabling
arms factories to produce useful equipment like solar panels and wind turbines,
on the lines of the Lucas
Aerospace plan, Graham adopted the mentality of the most backward section
of workers who believed that opposition to the British Empire spelt doom for
British workers.
The USA today is seeking a confrontation with China. Graham’s
support for NATO and AUKUS demonstrates that she supports the United States in
its war plans. How will a nuclear war benefit Unite workers? International
solidarity is not something Graham can even spell. She is an imperialist shill.
Unite should have been trying to persuade Unite workers and
dockers not to handle arms shipments to Israel. When it came to Ukraine Graham gave her full
support to dockers at Dungeness and Ellesmere Port refusing to
unload Russian oil. Graham didn’t mince her words:
“There is overwhelming support being expressed throughout Unite
to support the people of Ukraine.
But on Palestine there has only been silence.
Graham was happy
to be seen with the Ukrainian flag backing NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine,
which has armed various neo-Nazi militias, but she has not been seen anywhere near a Palestinian
flag.
Getting Graham to condemn what Israel does is like drawing
teeth. In her letter condemning the bombing of the PGFTU headquarters in Gaza City
Graham failed to even to mention the word ‘Israel’. It is as if the bombing of
the Trade union HQ happened by itself.
On March 11 we organised a demonstration outside Unite HQ to coincide with an Executive Committee
meeting. About 50 Unite members attended from 3 regions.
Graham justified not discussing Gaza’s genocide because ‘Palestine
is not a service we offer members.’ This one phrase sums up everything
about Graham’s narrow minded, blinkered chauvinism.
Graham is wedded to capitalism. She simply wants workers to have
a larger share of the imperialist cake. At previous TUC
Conferences she has supported an increase in arms expenditure despite more
military expenditure meaning less expenditure on the NHS, housing etc.
On December 19 166 Unite members sent another letter to Graham pointing out that in the statement of November
3
There was no mention of genocide or ethnic cleansing or war
crimes ... the bombing of hospitals, the targeting and murder of journalists,
academics and doctors... or the murder
of 8000 children....
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.
The letter demanded that Graham
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.
We quoted a report from Vatican
News of 16 December as an example of Israel’s war crimes:
‘Israelis have opened fire on Gaza’s Christians ... 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.’
The letter referred to ‘an even more horrifying massacre’ on 17 December when Al Jazeera reported that
Israeli bulldozers had 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.
Resistance Street
In April of this year Sharon Graham banned On Resistance
Street an anti-fascist/anti-racist film
that looks at the role music has played in the fight against fascism and
racism. The reasons for the ban were explained
by Sarah Carpenter who said that it didn’t
conform with Graham’s ‘industrial strategy’ or ‘existing Unite policies’.
One can only marvel at the tunnel vision of Graham. Her ‘industrial
agenda’ poses no threat to British capitalism. Existing Unite policy is
anti-racist. Graham is politically illiterate if she does not understand how
racism has been used to divide and weaken, if not destroy the trade union and
labour movements elsewhere. Carpenter wrote that:
In this context the Union should be especially careful to avoid
appearing to endorse any material which causes unnecessary offence to members.’
In other words we should not give offence to racists.
On Resistance Street revisits
the ‘Rock Against Racism’ movement of the late 70s, noting its influence on
future waves of radical artists and political activists. The film also
highlights the role played by punk rock in uniting young people in 1970s’
sectarian Belfast.
On Resistance Street tracks
contemporary drifts to the right in the West, right wing musical cultural
appropriation and the role of anti-racist social media groups today. It looks at grime music and the historic role
played by Black musicians in British music.
The decision to ban the film is shocking. For a trade union leader
to ban an anti-fascist and anti-racist film is a sign of how politically
degenerate the Sharon Graham leadership is.
Why Does the Sectarian Left Still
Support Graham
To
this day the SWP and the Socialist Party have given their full
support to Graham and refused to critice her. Why? Because she has supported
workers strikes in this country that means that her support for the murder of
workers in Palestine is ok.
It is time for those on the left who placed their faith in
Graham to realise they have backed the wrong horse. Graham is a narrow minded
British nationalist, an imperialist, racist war monger and a Zionist who has
nothing to offer the working class.
Industrial strikes do not by themselves challenge capitalism
unless they are generalised and politicised. It is quite possible to combine
industrial militancy with racist, imperialist attitudes. The White South
African working class was militant as was the Protestant working class of
Northern Ireland. Israel’s Jewish working class was militant but it fought like
its South Africa counterparts for a color bar.
It is unfortunate that much of the left in Britain is unable to
understand that racism and imperialism mean the working class allying with its
bosses. Both Marx and Lenin understood these things unlike the SWP, SP and
Counterfire.
This
is why Unite4Palestine, a pressure group set up to campaign for Unite to
implement its policy on Palestine is holding a meeting on Sunday night at 6 pm
in Community Base, Queens Road Brighton, about 5 minutes from the railway
station.
It
is also why the Zionists want to prevent the meeting.
Tony
Greenstein
Graham is disgusting and I hope there is a vote of no confidence in her and an investigation into corruption at Unite under her leadership.
ReplyDeleteUnite and TUC are both dead ends - both just fronts for the Labour Party.
ReplyDeleteTony (& Huda, Asa, Mick, Jonathon ...), I really hope you're going take these nerks (i.e. the SussexJRC) to the cleaners for defamation - I've got some spare change if you're minded to crowdfund it ...
ReplyDeleteBest,
Nick