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Rete dei Comunisti in International Bulletin November 2023
Friday, November 10, unequivocally marks a “quantum leap” in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance as far as our country is concerned.
After this weekend’s demonstrations in some 20 Italian cities, the occupations and demonstrations in universities, the first occupations in high schools, the popular boycott against Israel and its accomplices-including our government and the European Union-and mass civil disobedience seem to be taking their first steps toward concrete and incisive actions.
In Genoa, from 6 a.m., one of the main port crossings – that of San Benigno – was blocked with a garrison near the port access at a strategic junction of the traffic of trucks, diverted not without difficulty to the Ethiopia crossing, which disrupted the normal flow of trucks.
Several hundred protesters then left mid-morning for a procession that went all the way to the headquarters of ZIM – the Israeli shipping company ZIM Integrate Shopping Ltd. – one of the world’s top twenty shipping companies, listed on the New York Stock Exchange in January 2021, with the backing of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Barclays; a group that in March of the same reported the largest profits in its 75- year history, in part thanks to the trafficking of arms to the Zionist state.
An Israeli-flagged giant of the sea with several offices in Italy, a major player in the Mediterranean maritime-port system, whose activities (like similar companies) are conducted in relative “opacity” thanks to complicity to the various national authorities that monitor maritime traffic.
The procession, after stopping in front of the ZIM headquarters – protected by police forces in riot gear in front of the entrance – set off again in the direction of the garrison, joining those who had maintained the active blockade, thus marking their presence until noon.
It was a day of struggle that left its mark and found some media prominence already since its announcement, given that it is part of a series of global actions against arms deals to Israel, against the military-industrial apparatus that works for the Zionist state and the war research supply chain that collaborates with Tel Aviv.
A giant Palestinian flag was painted on the asphalt in the vicinity of the blockade, with the words “Stop Wars” and “Free Palestine” in English and Arabic, while in front of the Israeli company headquarters pelted with red paint was written on the road surface “Stop the Weapons Traffic. Murderous Israel.” Numerous speeches were made from early morning at the presidium convened by CALP, which succeeded in bringing together the entire arc of trade union-political activism in the city and drew numerous comrades and comrades from outside La Superba.
The national spokesperson of Potere al Popolo, Marta Collot, spoke and recalled, speaking of the November 4 demonstration in Rome, the call that came out of it to “build on November 19 in Rome a large assembly to which you are all invited to participate in order to build a boycott to what are Israeli crimes, to build a broad and popular boycott to what Israel is doing in Palestine, to make sure that the Palestinian people are not alone, and to make our contribution not only by filling the squares, but also by building with moments like today — and we hope that they will grow wider and wider — of struggle and concrete support for the cause of the Palestinian people that speaks to each and every one of us.” Collot was referring to the appeal launched by the Angelo Baracca Committee, promoter of the Nov. 4 national demonstration, which has convened an assembly for Sunday, Nov. 19, at 10:30 a.m. at the Intifada in Rome “to revive the importance of the boycott and sanctions against the Zionist state.” A student from the Student Opposition Alternative recalled “the silence and complicity of the West, which immediately sided with Israel,” recalling that CALP’s is “an example of a concrete struggle against arms trafficking in the port of Genoa.” He then announced that they will be in the streets all over Italy on the November 17 mobilization day with the watchwords, “money to school and not to war!” according to the effective slogan launched in a joint statement with Cambiare Rotta a few days ago.
A university student from Changing Course then recalled how “it is from boycott actions like this one that the opposition to the war and barbarism of the West starts.” She went on to talk about the various occupations that have developed in various universities “from Naples to Rome” and the various petitions that “demand the cessation of the agreements between the universities, the war chain and the illegitimate state of Israel.” He also confirmed the students’ presence at the national assembly in Rome on Nov. 19.
If CALP was the initiator of this day of struggle, responding to the call made on Oct. 16 by the Palestinian unions, the Union of Basic Trade Unions-along with a part of confrontational unionism-immediately made it its own.
There is in fact emerging in combative unionism in Genoa the need for a moment of city struggle that would give workers the opportunity to express, through appropriate action, their opposition to the Palestinian massacre by crossing their arms.
At the same time, throughout the union, the need has arisen for a moment of national confrontation of the workers’ categories on how to act-as workers-on the whole military-industrial complex ranging from manufacturing to logistics, and not only in the port area.
As was the case on Feb. 25, a “workers’ point of view” on the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict must emerge, making use of the historical tools that the workers’ movement has deployed to stop wars, aggregating a wide area of consensus in concrete action.
Another important action was the raid on the headquarters of the European Parliament in Rome, with related occupation. Here the banner, “EU complicit with Israel,” was displayed, and activists handed over the list of more than 10,000 Palestinian civilian victims in Gaza.
They also demanded an immediate stand for a ceasefire, as well as “a halt to agreements and funding through research programs that the European Union allocates every year to the colonial state of Israel.” It is clear that this Friday opens with facts a different horizon to the possibility of expressing concrete support for Palestine, and we think that the assembly on Sunday, November 19 in Rome can be a first shared framework, in a path that interweaves street mobilization with active boycott and mass civil disobedience.
Because those who wage war on the Palestinian people should not be left in.
