UID-DER’s Solidarity Message to Palestinian Trade Unions
Palestinian trade unions, including Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions issued a call to action on 16 October and called on international trade unions and working people of all countries to take action and put pressure on their own governments in order to end all complicity and stop arming Israel.
UİD-DER, a militant organisation of the working class, responded to this call with a message of solidarity that emphasised the determination to heighten the struggle against the capitalist order of exploitation and imperialist war and to extend solidarity to the Palestinian people.
UID-DER’s message is as follows:
Our Palestinian brothers and sisters
As your class brothers and sisters from Turkey, as the Association of International Workers’ Solidarity, we share your grief for all our Palestinian brothers and sisters, those slaughtered women, men, babies, children, young and old, and your anger against the Israeli rulers in the depths of our hearts.
From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Syria to Yemen, from Libya to Palestine, we live in a region that has been a conflagration area because of the imperialist war for years. On every occasion we experience again and again how vital it is to fight for the unity of workers and the fraternity of peoples in such a region.
In Turkey, where the workers and toiling people are provoked and poisoned by nationalism and prejudices, where they are divided and fragmented on artificial grounds such as Kurdish-Turkish, Alevi-Sunni, local-Syrian, we try to raise the flag of internationalism in the ranks of the working class and take the slogan of “Long Live International Unity of the Workers and the Fraternity of Peoples” as our watchword. We believe that it is the common struggle of the workers of the world that will change the fate of the peoples of the Middle East and we try to strengthen this struggle.
All the working people of the world, whether they are from the USA, Europe, Israel, Middle East, Far East or Latin America, are our brothers and sisters. Our Israeli class brothers and sisters who shouted “Stop the massacre of the Palestinian people” have shown this fact once again to the world. In our country, as in other countries, the working people, your class brothers and sisters, take to the streets and shout: “Palestinian people are not alone, stop Israel!”
All the rulers of the world, whether they are from the USA, Europe, Israel, the Middle East, the Far East or Latin America, are our enemies. Just like the Israeli rulers! In our country, as in other countries, the rulers only care about their economic and trade relations with Israel, their arms deals, their own interests.
The capitalist order and the rulers of this order who fuel wars are the source of all our sufferings as toilers. Therefore, in response to your righteous call, we intensify the struggle against capitalist exploitation, imperialist wars and the rulers of our own country, declare our solidarity with the Palestinian people, and work with all our strength to mobilise the workers and labourers and the trade unions. In this regard, we try to expand the struggle against the imperialist war together with sister workers’ organisations from different countries such as the Philippines, Japan, Italy, Britain and Canada.
The suffering will not be in vain, the Israeli rulers and the Western rulers who support them, as well as the rulers who pretend to be on the side of the Palestinian people and set them on fire, will be called to account! Real peace and freedom for Palestine and the Middle East will come with the united struggle of the workers of the world!
Palestinian People are not Alone!
No to Imperialist War!
Association of International Workers’ Solidarity
UID-DER participated in the “Fair Wages, Fair Tax System” rally organised by Türkiye Progressive Trade Union Confederation, DISK, with the banner “No to Imperialist Wars! Solidarity with the Palestinian People!” UID-DER column raised furious slogans against capitalist exploitation, imperialist wars and the enmity of the peoples against each other.
