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* The following facts were correct as of January 2024. Since then, many more have been killed and injured

We, the undersigned Australian Services Union members and workers in the social, community and not-for-profit sector, write this statement in solidarity with Palestinian people. We condemn and mourn all targeting of life and the living. We are against all forms of oppression including Islamophobia and Antisemitism. Everyone has a right to live free from violence. We extend condolences to any individual from the sector who has lost loved ones. 

Many organisations we work for are advocates for social justice, human rights and inclusion. Many do commendable work to support and advocate for people experiencing violence, injustice and oppression, regularly speaking out on the failures of the Australian government to promote equality, safety and justice. Many of these organisations actively spoke up and endorsed the recent campaign for a Voice to Parliament: a rightful recognition of the voice and strength of First Nations peoples and their experiences of historical and ongoing colonisation.

With few exceptions, many of these organisations now remain disturbingly silent on the genocide being enacted upon the people of Palestine.

We have been filled with grief and rage at the escalation of violence since October 7. The United Nations have issued warnings that Palestinians are at grave risk of mass ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. Scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies have echoed warning of a potential genocide. We understand these warnings in a longer history, including ethnic cleansing, and 75 years of settler-colonial oppression and dispossession. 

We stand against all forms of racism, discrimination and settler-colonial violence. We recognise that Zionism is not the same as Judaism, that criticism of the actions of Israel's government is not, in and of itself, anti-Semitic, and that increasing numbers of Jewish people are speaking out against Israel’s crimes. These include groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, Loud Jew Collective, and Jews Against the Occupation. We stand with the hundreds of  thousands of people across the world calling for an end to the assault on Gaza. To stand with Palestine is to stand for humanity.

This did not begin on October 7 

In 1948 the state of Israel declared independence over 55 per cent of Palestinian territory. This required massacres and mass expulsion of Palestinian people, referred to as The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe”. For more than 75 years, since the Nakba,  Israel's military rule has disrupted every aspect of daily life in Palestine.  Israel has illegally blockaded and besieged Gaza for the past 16 years, making it – as acknowledged by Amnesty International among many others – the world’s largest open-air prison. 

In 2023 alone, prior to October 7, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed that Israel had killed 243 Palestinians (205 in the occupied West Bank, 34 in Gaza and a further 4 Palestinians in Israel. 

Since 7 October 2023, Israel has significantly intensified its attacks on the Palestinian people – subjecting 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to unprecedented bombardment, increasing settler violence on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and a mass arrest campaign targeting Palestinians. These Palestinians join the thousands already held hostage in Israeli prisons.

Israel has bombed and leveled entire neighborhoods in Gaza for nine weeks, killing more than 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza and at least 275 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, many of whom are children. This is not to mention civilians who are injured or missing. According to Euro-Med Monitor figures, roughly 700,000 children have been affected by Israel’s Gaza genocide, a number that includes those who were killed, injured, and internally displaced. With food, water, medical supplies, and electricity restricted by Israel,  Gaza’s population is now facing starvation and disease. Deliberately depriving civilian populations of food, water and fuel and willfully impeding relief supplies is a method of warfare, with  deadly impacts on children.

Almost 300 medical and health workers have been killed and more than half of the hospitals in Gaza are out of service. There are countless reports of medical procedures including cesareans and amputations needing to be conducted on patients without anesthesia. Israel has bombed schools, UN refugee camps, and mosques. Aid workers, journalists, academics, and doctors have been deliberately targeted and killed. We cannot remain silent. 

Israeli government officials have publicly expressed genocidal intent, labeling Palestinians 'human animals' and ‘children of darkness', and calling for the complete destruction and erasure of Gaza. These expressions and actions are evidence of Israel’s racist ideology, law, policies, and practices against Palestinians that operate within a violent system of apartheid. 

In recent weeks, Israel has demanded that 1.1 million Palestinians evacuate the northern half of Gaza and has further cut off the little fuel, electricity, water, food and medical supplies from entering Gaza. Israel’s actions, massacres, and rhetoric point to its intention to implement its long promised  second Nakba, expelling as many Palestinians as possible and creating a ‘New Middle East’ in which Palestinians live in perpetual subjugation.

Our demands

The union movement has a proud history of standing for peace and against war, apartheid and injustice. Victorian Trades Hall Council has called for solidarity with Palestine. We join the unions, including the NTEU, the AEU and the AMWU in their calls for peace. The Australian Services Union Victoria and Tasmania Authorities and Services Branch recently passed a motion with demands, including for an immediate ceasefire, end to the blockade in Gaza, and the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. A similar motion was passed in the ASU SA NT branch.  Unionists for Palestine Victoria and NSW also recently pledged to stand in solidarity with the right of union officials to recognise union members to join actions in solidarity with Palestinians and will defend any worker facing retaliation from their employer for their involvement in actions. 

While we welcome the Prime Minister’s recent call for a 'pause in hostilities', this is not enough. The statement made with New Zealand and Canada inaccurately states that Israel has a ‘right to defend itself’ and minimises  the ongoing apartheid.  

We condemn the Australian government's support for the state of Israel, which has resulted in the murder of more than 18,000 Palestinians.  We call on our employers in the social, community and NFP sector to end their silence and speak out for Palestine. 

We are calling for: 

• Our employers across the NFP and community sector to end their silence now and show public support for Palestine;

• The right of community and NFP workers to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine in our workplaces without retribution or retaliation;  

• For all Social and Community services organisations and NFPs to join in the demand from human rights organisations in Australia and across the globe including: Amnesty International, Plan International, UNICEF, Save the Children, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, The World Health Organisation, and the heads of several United Nations bodies, to call on Israel to enact and follow an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and 

• Demand an end to Israel’s bombing and blockade of Gaza and the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

• The Australian government to cut all military and diplomatic ties with Israel.