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Swindon TUC has received an appeal for support from the Workers Advice Centres in Israel. At its meeting on December 1st, STUC agreed to press for an end to the threat against WAC, resulting from the ‘investigation’ carried out by the Regsitrar of Non-Profit Associations. STUC Secretary Martin Wicks traveled to Israel to visit the WAC in 2002. He explains what he believes is behind the harassment of WAC. “One of the most inspiring things about my visit to Israel was the fact that in the activity of the WAC you could see Arabs and Jews, all Israeli citizens, working together as equals. This is an image that the Israeli state does not like because it conceives Israel to be a “state of the Jews”. Arabs are second class citizens in every way. They even get less water than the Jewish population. WAC in particular has consistently challenged the discrimination against Arabs; it challenges the racist results of the “state of the Jews”. The Jews involved in WAC are, of course, considered “traitors” for holding such views. Over the past couple of years WAC’s major campaign, “A Job to Win”, has been to get Arab Israeli citizens jobs in the construction industry from which they were expelled in large numbers, to be replaced by cheaper foreign labour, working and living under virtual slave labour conditions. They had to challenge the racist nonsense of many employers that Arabs did not want to work, that they were ‘lazy’, unrelaiable etc. They have succeeded in winning more than 600 jobs with various contractors. From the evidence of my own eyes, and the results they have achieved, the assertion of the Registrar that the purpose of WAC is to advance the interests of the political party, the ODA, it patent nonsense. WAC has no political restrictions on membership. Whilst it is true that WAC was the initiative of the ODA, that is to their credit; nobody else was interested in organizing Arab workers or organizing against the discrimination and oppression they suffer. Swindon TUC has written to the relevant authorities in Israel, demanding that this harassment of WAC is stopped and they are allowed to continue with their activity without state interference. We are calling on all our affiliated unions to do likewise.” The relevant details are printed overleaf. You can visit the WAC web site for all the documentation behind their case, at: |