Our Fight Doesn’t End at Cease-Fire

During the week of the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Chicago in August 2024, Dissenters, a national antiwar and anti-capitalist organization, hosted a counter conference (aptly named Fuck The Genocidal National Convention) where I moderated a panel of pro-Palestine, antiwar organizers who have answers to this question and more. Nadya Tannous (a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement working on the Mask Off Maersk campaign), Frances Fan (from Port Workers and Communities for Palestine who worked to mobilize to block ZIM ships from ports in New York and New Jersey), Sam (from Workers for a Free Palestine in Britain who asked to remain anonymous due to their antiwar work), and Charlotte (a part of an autonomous direct action collective in St. Louis who also asked to remain anonymous due to their antiwar work) all shared their perspectives on organizing around logistics and weapons during the genocide which had not yet reached its year mark at the time of this panel.

While we direct efforts towards rebuilding Gaza in this moment, we must also work to disrupt the infrastructures of global commerce and weapons deliveries that facilitated its destruction in the first place so that we may finally put a wrench in zionism and imperialism to achieve our ultimate goal.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Would you all mind going around and introducing the campaigns you are currently working on and a bit about their goals, strategies and tactics?

Nadya Tannous: Logistics companies are currently one of the major players in shipping weapons to Israel from the United States and Europe. Their main role is taking weapons that are manufactured in the Global Southto the United States in order to be combined and then shipped directly to Israel in order to be utilized in this genocide. One of the reasons why we chose Maersk as our target, and the reason we’re focusing on logistics, is because we knew that if we walked up to Boeing or Raytheon or Lockheed Martin and said, ​“stop creating these weapons,” they won’t. That’s what they do, that’s their bottom line, right? Making weapons of destruction, manufacturing death is their entire business model. But logistics — how those weapons get from those companies to Israel — and specifically with Maersk being one of the largest logistics companies in the industry, they only have a small proportion in their overall business portfolio dedicated to carrying weapons. This means that they can still divest from that area of work without forfeiting the majority of their profits. That’s the action logic. That’s the campaign logic. We know that Maersk and logistics in general use the streets, the infrastructure of our cities and the areas that we live in to transport these weapons of destruction and be able to facilitate the genocide. So what role do we have in saying this is not just an Israeli genocide, it’s also an American one? Being here in the heart of empire, going after trucks, vans, boats, trains, special cargo, airplanes, all of those different methods of transport rely on our infrastructure, in our cities, in our neighborhoods in order to get there. So this campaign is about the people enacting our own arms embargo where our government’s refuse by cutting off the veins of this genocide and being able to go after the arteries: logistics. Maersk is one of the largest suppliers of military cargo to Israel, making them have a huge dependency rate on Maersk. What that offers us is an opportunity to be able to organize across different cities and contexts and have that flow of weapons interrupted.

Fan: Since last fall, we’ve built a campaign to stop ZIM, an Israeli shipping company, from being able to move through the Port of New York and New Jersey by developing methods of worker cooperation or through targeting different links in the chain of how big cargo has moved through New York.

Sam: Our group started last October in response to the call from Palestinian trade unions for a military embargo to Israel, and we’ve been working in three main ways to build pressure from workers in different sectors towards this. The first is through picketing arms factories. We started off last October with a small blockade of an Elbit Systems factory in Kent. Then, throughout the last year we’ve been coordinating actions with other groups that have turned out over 1,000 people to shut down arms factories across different parts of the UK at the same time. We have really built up a kind of solid organization and organizing capacity behind those pickets. We’ve also done pickets in collaboration with trade unions who are working in civil service because they threatened to strike over their role in working on export licenses for weapons going to Israel. So we’ve got a kind of inside-outside approach for those pickets, which would be partially in London, and at the same time with arms factories across the UK. The second approach we take – and this is what I’ve been most involved with – is similar to what you guys have described in terms of doing more long-term organizing, trying to build a within the military industry in the UK.The third way we build pressure is by holding these workers assemblies in London, basically to build workplace organizing across all sectors, whether that’s pension fund divestment campaigns or such.

Charlotte: I’m a part of a direct action collective that is targeting Boeing in St. Louis. We have two main factories here, one of which is the biggest control manufacturer of F-15 planes, which, as we know, are very high on the wish list of the Israeli military. The second factory, which is maybe 20 minutes outside of St. Louis, is the sole facility in the country that is the final manufacturer for JDAMs and small diameter bombs. Those are the weapons that have been dropped during the tent massacre. There are a lot of the massacres that we’ve seen that are obviously human rights violations so the issue for us in St. Louis is that Boeing is a huge job creator in the city, right? It very much has its roots in the city’s economy, in the city’s arts, in the city’s philanthropy. It has really strong connections to Washington University, which is one of the major private universities in the city. So there are a lot of networks there and a lot of public education to do in the city around this. For our collective, we are most responsive to policy trade unions’ demands to disrupt that pipeline. We started back in October 2023 and have organized three blockades so far. Temporary blockades, not as long as we would like, not as robust as we would like, but the building is very robust.

What makes organizing logistics disruptions different from other forms of activist intervention?

Tannous: There’s a lot of mystique around logistics: The Empire allows us to get whatever we want at any time. If you order something online, boom, it arrives at your door, and depending on how much you pay for shipping, it could arrive the very next day. We think about world trade in an uncritical way, it’s something that we take for granted. When we first launched the Mask Off Maersk campaign at the People’s Conference in Detroit, we knew part of our role was to discuss the colonial history of logistics. This history – whether it’s France’s involvement and extended colonization in Algeria or Britain’s relationship and extension to Kashmir in India – could not have happened without logistics companies or telecommunications or, really, thinking about this infrastructure as one of the main girdles of empire. When we launched the campaign, most people didn’t know what Maersk was. But I mean, how many of y’all are familiar with the campaign now? And since you heard of it, how many of y’all are suddenly seeing Maersk trucks everywhere, right? That is the primary stage of the campaign we’re in: popularizing the target, discussing the long history of the role of logistics companies, and being able to challenge them, since it’s extremely difficult to challenge the weapons manufacturers themselves. After months of genocide, now is the time for us to form a larger movement around logistics companies, weapons manufacturers, green colonialism, and all the different prongs of this military-industrial complex that makes genocide possible. Logistics is a low-hanging fruit and there’s no reason we shouldn’t pick it.

Sam: Having the kind of clarity on what type of work our targets demand. For instance, in the UK, we have Palestine Action. They do a lot of work sabotaging Elbit in the UK, and they’re really effective because they’ve identified a target that, you know, you’re not going to do long-term work organizing around Palestine at Elbit Systems. Because these are people who decided to work at Elbit Systems. They’re actually a very small workforce – often less blue collar – and that’s where sabotage works, you know? Where there are targets like that, or there are finished products, like St Louis – how could we think creatively to do this kind of effective direct action that really does disrupt that supply? And then in these areas where it’s like a long-term military industrial project and, in the UK context, their main involvement isn’t with supply weapons to Israel, it’s a range of other projects, and this is a small part of their work. How can we build their capacity to stop collaborating or being interested in the genocide? And building that longer-term capacity within labor movement, I think, is a secondary, essential part.

Charlotte: I think one of the things that sets what we’re doing apart in St. Louis is that there’s so much information coming from our research. We know the locations, we know what they build, we know who transports them. What’s really interesting is that this is happening in our backyards but doing this work might really just depend on people just not knowing about it, right? So, if you are able to do that research and share it with your community, oftentimes – I know for us in St. Louis – people are shocked. They didn’t know, and when you give them that information, they’re dedicated to finding out what they can do to stop it. To me, it gets to the core of what I understand direct action to be: I think direct action is sort of a thing that is an umbrella term under which a lot of things fall at this point, but I do think that at the core of direct action, what you’re saying is essentially that you are directly doing the thing that is needed to be done. The example that’s often used is like, if a community needs a well dug, instead of doing a sit-in at the City Council to pass something to do the well, the community digs the well, right? I think it forces you to think seriously about what it means to be transformed in struggle and to be a part of a community, and to really say that if you believe in uprooting empires, you believe in being co-conspirators at the national liberation level. If you believe in ending capitalism, what are you then responsible to do? Who are you responsible to become? And I think that direct action is a way that you can sort of step into the possibility. Even in our community, if we have the capacity to figure out how to fulfill needs and do what’s right, we should do those thing. When it comes to stopping bombs or stopping weapons or disrupting the supply chain, there are a lot of different ways to do that. One of the ways to do that is to build a capacity to stop them at the point that they’re being made, as opposed to perhaps passing a resolution asking someone to put pressure on someone else to stop them.

What are some of the contradictions and challenges that have emerged from this work?

Tannous: Being able to organize inside-outside with a multiplicity of contexts, right? How do we break down that kind of line of workers, local geography and context, the movement in different cities, and try and build a united movement that really is built on the principles that we have? Which is that we’re pro worker, we’re against business unionism, and we’re pro justice for our people, right? This is part of national and international struggles. If we’re committed to actually stopping weapons from flowing to the zionist entity, that’s when we have to get specific and dive into that dynamic. It’s the research block, it’s the relationship building in the military industrial complex. What that could look like, sometimes, is being able to find those folks within these industries who actually know that what they’re doing is wrong and being there, making yourself accessible, once they realize that they themselves can have a role in stopping this. And that’s everything from inside of the Trade Federation for Maersk to the folks who are actually doing some of those weapons bargaining and contracts. They are there, you just have to find them and be able to create a movement where they can upend and be able to play their role, so we can play ours.

Fan: Just to reiterate what Nadya said, the inside-outside stuff is really important, and it’s hard because we don’t have a lot of people in these sectors, but establishing these relationships is really crucial to having a long-term impact and to actually be able to carry out this work. But it’s still an open question of, you know, at times, these workers’ material interests are opposed to what we’re asking them to do. And even with, as we’ve encountered, truckers who are really sympathetic to what we’re asking them to do, it’s very difficult to take that leap and just say, ​“you know, maybe I won’t be able to continue being a trucker.” Or, you know, the ILA being like, ​“we have contracts that we need to fulfill.” I think it’s not impossible, but it’s really kind of at the heart of one of the contradictions.

Sam: Originally, we set out to blockade arms factories to materially disrupt the supply of weapons to the Israeli Occupation Forces. Because of the UK’s role in the supply chain of weapons being used in the genocide, that’s actually very difficult to do here. In the UK, what you mostly have is more of a flow of components that will then be assembled in the United States. Or spare parts that are crucial to Israel’s ability to commit genocide but difficult to trace. To reach that goal of trying to exert material pressure, I’d say that it wouldn’t really be possible without something more like we’ve seen historically, such as a peace camp (a type of encampment usually outside of military base) outside of a specific factory that remains there for a period of months, rather than for a day. What we’ve learned is that the UK’s military collaborates with Israel through its Cyprus air base, which is also used by the United States and Germany. Unfortunately though, it’s not part of the military logistics supply chain we can access very well. When speaking to comrades at civilian ports and airports, they’ve struggled to know when components are moving through, and that’s something we need to work on further.

Another issue is that the left in the UK is well connected with the labour movement, but it’s weaker within the military industry. Even though we’re coming to them as trade unionists ourselves from other sectors, it’s difficult to build close relationships with workers who are already inside. That being said, I think knowing our target and that the British military industry is making these components and making these parts has allowed us to build some connections and have an impact.

Charlotte: I think the movement is still framing worker participation as a moral choice, or like a choice you make if you agree with Palestinian liberation, or a decision you make if you feel guilty about being implicated as opposed to framing worker involvement as a part of class struggle, right? I understand the argument that standing in solidarity with Palestinian workers isn’t going to immediately translate into increased wages for that worker, for example, but I do think that we should be framing it as like every time a worker stands in solidarity with another worker, you’re both growing your agency as workers. As a logistics worker, to stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers and Palestinian trade unions is also growing your own agency. It’s also expanding your self determination as a worker, because logistics workers also have the right to work jobs and get health care and put food on the table and to have their needs met without destroying other communities. They should have the agency to demand working conditions that don’t require them to ship weapons or contribute to a genocide. As working class people, we should always be struggling to expand our ability to challenge what kinds of things we’re supposed to normalize around our jobs. So while there are obstacles, we should also be looking at them as opportunities to encourage workers in all of these different spaces and industries to be thinking about solidarity as a way that you grow your own power as well as a way that we grow working class power in our communities.

What kinds of new approaches does the left (in US and Britain) need to build up this sector of organizing?

Nadya: There’s a lot of politics inside of the unions that some in the Palestine movement may be new to. There’s a lot of different levers and political considerations for how the union functions and why the unions function the way they do. And there’s different understandings of unions and their connection to different political parties. We need to better map and understand the unions that we’re working with, what some of the considerations of the workers are inside, and also the culture of the workers inside. When we talk about building up worker power in some of these sectors, we also want to build up internationalist politics and consciousness, so we have to be able to address the conditions of their immediate work as well as the policies that impact them in their context – so building worker power that has a global consciousness and can extend around the world to tackle the same injustices.

Sam: As a movement, we need greater access to shipping and trade databases to be able to trace military supply chains. We also need a more detailed understanding of military logistics and the use of military aircraft and bases to transport weapons to Israel. Finally, we need to collaborate closely with rank and file workers in the logistics sector to use their knowledge to trace the supply of weapons and to build their capacity to take actions in support of Palestine.

Fan: We have to make commitments to long-term, slower organizing in this area. We’ll have to work with workers to address their needs and build their collective power. We will also have to really listen and build trust; it’s not a matter of just flyering a couple times or calling a one-day picket. The challenge is to link logistic workers’ struggles with our antiwar aims. Doing so will require creativity and commitment, but the unique significance of this sector to the global economy and war machine makes this commitment worth it.

Charlotte: I think the left needs to be better coordinated nationally. We know that the industry and capital in general disregards borders, so we need to think broader than individual shops or factories or specific points on a pipeline too. But at the same time, it’s important not to lose the specificity of the local context or ecosystem… I do feel like there’s still a tendency to be organizing in these isolated pockets, and I think when you’re talking about a broader industry, an entire sector, the scale of what we’re fighting against, I think we’re going to need to start thinking with more intentional coordination in order to be a serious and meaningful threat.