At its meeting on Tuesday, the Rail Action Committee in Germany adopted a resolution in support of the call by Palestinian trade unions to stop transporting weapons to Israel.
We call on you to disseminate it as widely as possible. Send it to colleagues, friends, and acquaintances. Print it out and distribute it at rail stations, seaports and airports. Get in touch with the action committee and register using the form below and the Whatsapp number +49-163-337 8340.
Stop all arms shipments to Israel! Stop the genocide in Palestine!
We, the Rail Action Committee, condemn Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, which are fully supported by the German government and all parties in the Bundestag (federal parliament).
The bombing of 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, half of them children, and attacks on hospitals, churches and other civilian infrastructure are no accident and certainly have nothing to do with self-defence. There are already over 10,000 dead—most of them women and children (over 5,000!). The aim is to terrorise the population, raze Gaza to the ground and drive the survivors into the Sinai desert.
The German government is fully behind this. In a video address last week, Economics Minister Robert Habeck explicitly supported the genocide of the Palestinians and threatened those who protest and demonstrate against it. Representatives of all parliamentary groups—from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the Left Party—support this policy.
The only social force that can put an end to these ongoing war crimes is the international working class.
The Rail Action Committee therefore supports the Palestinian trade unions’ call on October 16 to “refuse to build weapons for Israel” and “refuse to transport weapons to Israel.”
On October 31, an alliance of Belgian airport unions called on their ground staff members to stop handling arms shipments to Israel.
On Tuesday, the Barcelona Port Workers’ Union (Organización Estibadores Portuarios de Barcelona, OEPB) took a stand against Israel’s violence and called for no weapons to be shipped to Israel.
The Rail Action Committee supports these actions and calls on workers in Germany to ensure that no weapons leave the country. Both the production of weapons and ammunition for Israel and their transport must be stopped.
A coordinated awareness campaign must be launched to inform all armaments, port, railway, and transport workers about the ongoing genocide in Gaza and to pass resolutions in support of the appeal of our colleagues in Palestine.
The worldwide mass protests against the genocide of the Palestinians are developing at the same time as mass struggles of the working class against declining wages and austerity. These struggles must be united. The Railway Action Committee therefore supports the international strike and protest movement. It must be expanded and unite Palestinian and Israeli workers, workers here in Germany, throughout Europe, the US and worldwide—in a common struggle against capitalism, oppression and war.
The enormous social power of the international working class must be mobilised in support of the Palestinians, including through a political general strike in all imperialist countries.