While workers around the world watch in horror, the escalating slaughter taking place in Gaza leaves many people feeling helpless. With the demise of the old communist movement, workers are increasingly being led to the slaughter by one group of nationalists, religious fundamentalists or another.

While we cannot control the outcome of events right now, we can affect the outlook of our coworkers and within our unions, and fight for the political leadership of the working class. What we do, where we are, is all-important. We can, if we are creative and bold, expose the hellish world the capitalists have built, and organize to destroy these bosses and their system with communist revolution.

Last week, the NYC Jewish Labor Committee hosted an online panel on the Gaza war, chaired by Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union (RWDSU) President Stuart Applebaum and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten. It included Peter Lerner, Director General of International Relations at Histadrut (the Israeli General Federation) and a Lt. Colonel in the Israeli reserves, Rami Hod - Executive Director at Berl Katznelson Center, a Liberal Zionist think tank, and Congressman Dan Goldman of Brooklyn.
Fascism was on full display! The main point of the call was to rally progressive labor leaders to support the genocidal collective punishment the Israeli government, with U.S. support, is unleashing on Gaza.  

But the Jewish Labor Committee ironically got one thing right; war is union business. No imperialist can wage war for long without the active or passive support of their workers, and their willingness to sacrifice for the costly war effort. Our job is to win workers to oppose imperialist war and overthrow the bosses.

At the urgent request of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, which has hundreds of members in Gaza, the leadership of the National Writers Union issued a statement that opposed the collective punishment, shed light on the journalists who have been targeted and murdered and the 50 media offices that were destroyed.

The statement called on the mainstream media, especially in the U.S. to not rely on unconfirmed statements from the Israeli and U.S. warmakers, and to defend any journalist or author being fired or threatened for daring to oppose the rush to war. It said that we should not repeat the post-9/11 story where the media led us to a 20-year war in Iraq and sanctioned the mass roundup and surveillance of Muslims in the U.S. There are numerous reports of writers and events being canceled and disciplined in the U.S. and across Europe.   

The current situation demands that Progressive Labor Party (PLP) be bold and speak out in our unions, and with our coworkers, in transit, in healthcare, in the schools and campuses. We should boldly oppose Randi Weingarten, who has been a spokesperson for U.S. imperialism in Ukraine and around the world.  There is no short-term solution to this endless nightmare. We must do our best to build the Party. Have lunchroom discussions, raise union resolutions, invite your coworkers for dinner for more discussions, and bring some coworkers to local anti-war actions. Getting CHALLENGE to workers is essential to countering fascist ideas.

Let’s do what we can, as limited as that may be, to oppose the current slaughter that is now underway. The answer in Israel/Palestine, and everywhere, must start with international solidarity, antiracism, and building the unity of Jews and Palestinians, which has been done before, yet today seems unimaginable. It ends with turning imperialist war into communist revolution, and the international working class coming to power.