An Israeli cargo ship arriving in Oakland today was forced to sit idle and not offload its containers when longshoremen joined forces with a coalition of communist and Islamist groups who picketed the port in protest against the recent violent incident off the coast of Gaza.Additional reporting at the link (via Instapundit, "BUT THERE’S NO ANTI-SEMITISM INVOLVED").
The ship, owned by Zim Lines, was not carrying any controversial cargo, nor is Zim involved in politics in any way; it was targeted simply because the shipping company is based in Israel.
The planned protest and blockade were organized by The Free Palestine Movement (one of the same groups which organized the Gaza “flotilla” in the first place) as well as a rogues’ gallery of nearly every communist, anti-Israel and radical Islamist group in the Bay Area ...
Video from the communist website Indy Bay:
And at the Free Palestine Movement's homepage, "Israeli Ship Successfully Blocked, More Help Needed." Also, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, "6/20/2010 Oakland Labor Community Picket of an Israeli Zim Line ship":
Protest Israel’s Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla!
Boycott Israeli Ships and Goods!
Lift the Blockade NOW – Let Gaza Live!
Bring Down Israel's Apartheid Wall!
Unions, labor federations and other organizations around the world have condemned Israel’s deadly attack against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31. Nine people were killed and dozens seriously injured in the Israeli commando attack in international waters on ships attempting to bring humanitarian cargo to the suffering and blockaded people of Gaza. Six people aboard the ships are still missing and presumed dead.
The Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a blatant act of piracy on the high seas. No Israeli ship should now be allowed to carry on trading activity any where in the world without facing picket lines, protests and embargo. Dock workers in several countries including South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Malaysia have declared that they will refuse to handle Israeli cargo in the coming weeks.
We call on everyone who stands for justice and against occupation and apartheid to join the June 20 picket at the Port of Oakland. This is a moment of great opportunity. In San Francisco in 1984, a picket line and refusal to unload cargo of a ship carrying South African cargo was a key event in mobilizing the anti-apartheid movement worldwide.
9 comments:
I keep looking for the tiniest admission of the total, abject failure of the Neocon Wars, yet you continue avoiding the subject.
I'm curious: Do you feel any guilt for cheering on these disasters?
It puzzles me how otherwise normal people like those in the article turn into raving lunatics, purposely ignoring the facts in favor of behaving like ignorant racists.
I understand there's a ship from Pakistan coming in the same time. Osama Bin Laden is a passenger. He's here to inspect the mosque to be built in New York celebrating 911.
Is the rumor true the Longshoremen have rolled out the red carpet?
normal people like those in the article turn into raving lunatics
Nothing to apologize for, old rebel. From time to time, national socialists still kill people in Europe - but there is no need for us to apologize for WW II, even if it helped perpetuate the rule of the Bolsheviks for another half century. North Koreans still try to kill South Koreans too, but there's no reason to apologize for the Korean War either.
We don't avoid the subject at all. Instead we try to refine and improve the way we resist the depredations of the totalitarian socialists and their hodge podge of terrorist allies-of-convenience. We certainly don't expect an apology for the 100 million deaths that the Marxists have caused either. We simply live our lives, fight back when we must, and help those who can't fight back by themselves.
Perhaps a Marxist can't understand a philosophy that doesn't entail the enslavement of others, but we attach great honor to this sort of resistance.
It undermines your case that you believe racism is the only reason people might have for opposing Israeli actions.
Certainly, there's a case Israeli actions are a justified response to terrorism (I would agree a response is justified, but argue Israel's policies are grossly disproportionate and carried out with a depraved indifference to innocent people's suffering).
When you argue that anyone who opposes policies of military aggression - like bombing and blockading neighbouring states - is by definition a racist, you only reveal your own ethnic and nationalistic chauvinism.
(Remember being on the receiving end of a much less severe blockade was Israel's justification for the 1967 war.)
bulletproofcourier. One only needs to look around them to see that "normal" people are imperfect beings. One of the realities of life is that some people will work hard to achieve while others will do what is required of them or something else. When those who have worked hard succeed those who did not will begin to feel that the achievers in life had an unfair advantage, or otherwise had more than they did. This is not to say that there are some challenges and conditions that need to be addressed. I am speaking in general.
The lack of success needs to have a reason and the easiest is to blame conditions or those who achieve. You see that with the hatred of the "rich", the Americans, the whites, et al. NOTE: It is always aimed at groups because a group lacks individuality only possibilities for stereotyping. It serves to take the responsibility for their failure off of the ones most responsible for their status, themselves.
The Jewish people, for the most part, have always worked hard and have succeeded where others have not done as well in almost every environment or country that exists. Ergo, those who have not done as well, for whatever reason, have a ready example of who to blame. Blame almost always leads to hate and what you see is the reason why seemingly "normal" people resort to violence against others.
One will see it in all walks of life. hate is a powerful emotion that most quickly lose control.
The haters and radicals always need the ability to put individuals in groups because it is easy to pit groups against other groups. It is not so easy when each person is an individual.
"When you argue that anyone who opposes policies of military aggression - like bombing and blockading neighbouring states - is by definition a racist, you only reveal your own ethnic and nationalistic chauvinism."
When you ignore the actions that motivate the "bombing and blockading" -- the suicide bombers, the mortars, the rocket attacks -- you're revealing not only your own "ethnic and nationalistic chauvinism", but your love of barbarism and out-and-out Jew hatred.
Cuffy Meigs,
So the growth of big government at home, the crippling or our economy, and inciting more hatred against us for unnwinnable wars are good things in your book?
Amazing.
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