05 August 2014
FILIPINO WORKERS STAND WITH GAZA
BMP to PH gov’t: Cancel diplomatic, military ties with Israel
The Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino(BMP), or Solidarity of Filipino Workers, a socialist labor center composed of around 200 trade unions and organizations in the Philippines, joins the rest of the world in condemning the barbaric bombardment of Gaza by the State of Israel.
The world’s most densely populated city is rained on by a storm of bombs. Hospitals, universities, and sanitation systems destroyed by missiles. Kids and their mothers are killed while sleeping. Around 10,000 are injured and nearly are 2,000 dead, including around 300 defenseless children, so far. As of the time of this writing, the death toll is steadily rising because there are no signs of any halt in Israel’s genocidal offensive.
What Israel has been doing to the Palestinians is a crime against humanity, an attack against civilization, that must be stopped immediately. Israel must not only be compelled to end this latest bombardment and invasion. It must also be compelled to end its nearly decade-long blockade of Gaza, bring down its Apartheid Wall, stop and roll back the construction of all illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, end its nearly half-century-long illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, and honor the right to return of all refugees it has illegally expelled.
We call upon all workers worldwide to stand with Gaza and to work together to pressure their own governments and the international community to stop this terrorist state.
We express our solidarity with all the Palestinian workers already resisting this state terrorism and with all Israeli workers struggling against their own government. We express our support to all Filipino and other migrant workers affected by Israel’s aggression.
We support the call for boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against Israel that Palestinian civil society has called for since 2005.
In particular, we support the Palestinian people’s demand for an arms embargo against Israel and for sanctions against all countries that provide weapons and military aid to Israel, such as the United States and the European Union.
We demand that our own government stand for international law by joining the growing number of governments that have cut off their diplomatic ties with Israel and recalled their ambassadors from Tel Aviv.
To back this stance, we demand the Philippine government to ban all future deployments of Filipino migrant workers to Israel, ensure the safe repatriation of all workers who wish to return to the country, and ensure their gainful employment upon their return.
We also demand the Philippine government to immediately cancel all its military contracts with Israel and terminate all negotiations for Israel to supply the Philippines with weapons.
Only by isolating Israel—just as it isolated apartheid South Africa in the 1980s—can the international community send a strong message that violations of international law will not be tolerated; only then can we have a chance of preventing crimes against humanity and defending civilization.#
