Labour for Palestine: Solidarity with Palestinian Workers (March 25)
Labour for Palestine Presents: LIFT THE SIEGE! PALESTINIAN WORKERS CALL FOR SOLIDARITY
Launching the New Book: LABOUR FOR PALESTINE: A Reader for Unionists and Activists
Date: Sunday March 25
Place: Steel Workers Hall, 25 Cecil Street
Time: 2:00Â - 5:00 pm
Over 1 million Palestinians are now facing hunger across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to the UN World Food Program, 34 percent of Palestinians suffer from food insecurity, and are living on less than $1.61 a day. Eighty percent of Gazans receive food aid from the international organizations, and, without it, are liable to starve. A recent WFP report noted that many Palestinians are subsisting on nothing but tomatoes and bread.
The Palestinian economy has crumbled, with millions unemployed and unable to feed their families. As a result of this economic strangulation, the poverty rate in the West Bank and Gaza has skyrocketed. In November 2006, the United Nations Relief Works Agency published a report on poverty statistics, concluding that the number of Palestinian families unable to meet basic human consumption needs increased by 64 percent in the first half of 2006 alone. In the Gaza Strip, four out of five Palestinians are living below the poverty line. In the West Bank, the unemployment rate is now a staggering 60 percent.
This situation is a direct and deliberate result of Israel?s siege on the Palestinian population. All movement of goods and people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is tightly controlled by the Israeli military. The Gaza Strip has become an open-air prison, while towns in the West Bank are surrounded by a massive concrete wall, military checkpoints and Israeli-only settlements.
The Canadian government is deeply complicit in this collective punishment through the political and economic support it provides to the Israeli state. Canada was the first country in the world to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Last month, Palestinian trade unions issued an urgent call for international solidarity (see http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/S-F2.pdf) Labour for Palestine, a group of cross-union rank and file activists active in the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, invites all concerned trade unionists to participate in a public meeting on the Canadian labour movement and solidarity with Palestine. The meeting will launch the new book, Labour For Palestine: A Reader for Unionists and Activists, and hear greetings from trade unionists across Ontario.
For more information on this event please contact: labour@caiaweb.orgÂ
*** Steel Workers Hall is an accessible location. Child care will be provided. ***