There is little new in the statement except for repeated references to progressive Israelis, which is an improvement over the blatant anti-semitism that sometimes came from COSATU spokespeople in the past.  But here are a few of the things that are wrong with COSATU’s statement:

They refer to  ”the organized removal of native Palestinian people during the establishment of the State of Israel” which is at the very least somewhat misleading.  They neglect to mention that a war had broken out, and that the Arab neighbors were clearly the aggressors.  While there may have been some cases where Israeli forces compelled Palestinians to leave, that clearly did not happen on a mass scale.  People leave their homes in wartime for many reasons — usually to seek safety elsewhere.  The Palestinians were repeatedly assured that the invading Arab armies would destroy the new and weak Jewish state, and they’d get their homes back.  As Humphrey Bogart put it in Casablanca, they were “misinformed”.

COSATU makes repeated reference to “the apartheid state of Israel” even though they know full well that Israel is no such thing.  ”Apartheid” cannot be used to describe any country or government we don’t like.  We don’t speak about the “apartheid” state of Britain, for example, even if there is racism in the UK.  ”Apartheid” should be used to describe a very specific phenomenon — the state created by white racists in South Africa which denied even the most basic rights to the vast majority of its citizens, and attempted to keep them separated from one another.    Israel is not an apartheid society, and it helps no one to keep repeating that, nor does it make it any more true.  COSATU should know better.

The statement correctly points out that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulted in a large number of Palestinian refugees, but neglects to mention that it created hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees as well throughout the region.  The refugee problem was in effect an exchange of populations.

COSATU does no one any favours by presenting a one-sided look at what was a historical tragedy for two peoples.  It nowhere calls for mutual recognition, for two states for two peoples, and doesn’t anywhere mention the particular problem of exterminationist anti-semitism represented by Hamas, Hizbollah and their puppet-masters in Tehran.

If COSATU really is keen to help the Palestinian people, it needs to rethink its views on this, and come up with a smarter, more balanced, more nuanced and more truthful account.

According to the Ma’an News Agency, “Government and public-sector employees announced a two-hour sit in scheduled for Tuesday across the West Bank and Gaza Strip as salaries remain unpaid, the union chief said Monday.  Employees will gather outside the cabinet building in Ramallah and the Square of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza, Bassam Zakarneh said. ‘The Ministry of Finance continues to target the employees’ pockets in favor of the World Bank. It stopped paying the annual premium, the cost of living allowance while raising prices, taxes and charges,’ he said.”

It is not yet clear if there was any discussion or debate, nor do we yet know if the TSSA delegation visited Israel during their trip to the region.  Trade union delegations from the UK and Australia organized by Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) always visit and meet with both Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists, and form a more balanced view of the conflict.

According to the website of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, TSSA is an affiliated union already, so it is not clear if this represents a change in the union position, or a hardening of its line.

An Israeli pianist, Yossi Reshef, was giving a piano concert at the university on 12 March when the performance was disrupted by anti-Israel protestors.  The performance, which had been sponsored in part by the Israeli embassy, was cancelled after protestors stormed the stage, 15 minutes into the performance.  (See this report on the Radio Islam website.)

The University is considering disciplining several of the students, which has provoked widespread outrage.  COSATU, the national trade union center, has stepped into the fray with its general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, calling for the charges to be dropped and has warned that otherwise the university “risked being an instrument of ‘Zionist racists’”.  COSATU published Vavi’s speech in full on its website.

In the speech, Vavi goes to on to refer to the pianist Reshef, as “an Israeli (publicly admitted Zionist)”.  One wonders how he knows that Reshef is a Zionist and what COSATU’s view would have been had he merely been an Israeli.  Reshef currently lives in Germany, not Israel.

Following difficult negotiations, the unions agreed to postpone a wage increase, but the government confirmed the agreement on precarious workers ensuring that they would receive their planned wage boost.

Eini was reported to say that “”This was one of the most difficult negotiations I have held, and I have held many. The economy is in a serious crisis. We must realize that we must share the burden. The finance minister showed sensitivity, and agreed to implement the agreement on contract workers, who are the poorest workers in society.”

Read more here.

So while J14, its banners, encampments and mass rallies disappeared over time, and although the splits in the movement were partly behind the election of Yair Lapid, its spirit lingers on in small activist groups, the sprouting of new cooperatives all over the country and especially, the return of organized labor.

“Members of U.S. labor unions raised $1.4 million for the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv last year, 45 percent of the center’s total 2012 fundraising. Since 2005, American unions have raised $12 million for the center.

“Labor leaders say programs at the center, which celebrates the slain Labor Party prime minister who signed the 1993 Oslo Accords and promotes dialogue among Israel’s cultural groups, meshes with their core values.

“Rabin’s ‘commitment to peace in not just Israel but the world is amazing,’ said J. David Cox, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. ‘He was criticized for his willingness to make compromises, but life is full of compromises. That’s how you arrive at a solution.’”

The article goes on to note that “organized labor, particularly in Europe, has overwhelmingly shifted its sympathies to the Palestinians, routinely voting in favor of boycotting Israeli goods or divesting from Israeli companies. But American union leaders say they remain committed to Israel, supportive of what they see as a perseverant Western country with an ethic of social justice.”

But the Histadrut, the country’s national labour centre, is not likely to take this sitting down.  Ha’aretz writes: “a source at the Histadrut speaking over the weekend called it a power play. ‘The Histadrut won’t be cowed by threats, and won’t be deterred from fighting to protect workers in the public sector from change to their status,’ the source said. The Histadrut plans to convene the internal organ that discusses labor actions such as strikes on Tuesday. It is expected to recommend that the union’s management declare a nationwide labor dispute.  If the Histadrut formally declares a labor dispute, it can launch a strike after 14 days.”

A ban on strikes “in essential jobs, including at the Israel Electric Corporation, the ports, the water utility and the airports” would aim to cripple the powerful unions in those workplaces — and would almost certainly represent a breach of International Labour Organization core conventions, to which Israel is a signatory.

Now there are many good reasons to dislike G4S.

First and foremost for trade unionists, we don’t support outsourcing and privatisation of public services.  But that’s not what the Scottish TUC was protesting against.

Second, G4S notoriously screwed up security at the London Olympics last summer, with the government having to step in and deploy troops instead.  The reputation of G4S seemed permanently damaged by this debacle.  But that’s not what the Scottish TUC was protesting against either.

No — according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Scottish trade unionists are upset because G4S does business in Israel, with the Israeli defence establishment  (as they do in the UK and many other countries).  And in Israel, apparently, they provide equipment and security services not only to the defence forces and prison service, but also security for  ”businesses, including banks and supermarkets, in illegal West Bank settlements and in East Jerusalem”.

The STUC statement also “demands that G4S withdraws forthwith from all activities that contribute to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and to its denial of human rights to Palestinians”.  One wonders which occupation of Gaza they are referring to, and what role G4S plays in that occupation.  Israel closed down all its settlements and withdrew its military from Gaza nearly 8 years ago — Scottish trade unionists are encouraged to read up on their history.

The Post reports that “in staff-level meetings between the two sides, the Finance Ministry agreed to raise its participation in airline security costs from 70% to 97.5%. El Al, which said that security cost it NIS 130m. each year, would be left paying about NIS12.5 million, according to Treasury figures.”  By removing this additional burden from the Israeli airlines, the playing field is now more level and the airlines can more effectively compete with foreign carriers, as the unions were demanding.

“At the end of the crisis, the government composed itself and understood that the requests of the workers to allow the companies to survive and receive fair conditions in competition is in the national interest,” Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini said. “It’s a shame it had to come to a strike and protests and striking fear into thousands of families in order to reach this conclusion, which we could have reached in practical negotiations.”