Watch: IPSC May Day Solidarity Message
On May Day the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign sends solidarity greetings to workers around the world.
We wish to thank and pay tribute, in particular, to the frontline workers keeping the world going through the COVID-19 crisis. We salute you, and mourn those who have fallen.
In Palestine, we look on in horror as Apartheid Israel continues its anti-Palestinian racism, exploiting cheap labour while denying rights and dignity of Palestinian workers. Palestinians who work in Israel displaying COVID-19 symptoms have simply been dumped at checkpoints, while Israel has failed to test Palestinian workers. The Palestinian Health Ministry has found that returning workers, their families, and their contacts make up the majority of infections in the West Bank.
While releasing hundreds of Israeli criminal prisoners, Israel continues to hold thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in crowded jails exposing them to serious risk of infection.
And, brazenly, Israel has used the cover provided by the pandemic to announce that will annex large parts of the Palestinian West Bank in a serious violation of international law – a move that looks like it will be, shamefully, un-opposed by the Irish government and the EU.
Thus we see that, even in the midst of a global pandemic, the racist regime of the Apartheid State of Israel continues to oppress, dispossess and further colonise Palestine and her people.
On May Day we ask the workers of the world to stand with their sisters and brothers in Palestine, and to support the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement until we Palestinians are free.