‘A new solidarity where Palestine becomes central’: Activist traces labour history of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [video]

Montreal-based activist Mostafa Henaway says “we’ve seen the victories line up” in the fight against the Israeli genocide.

Henaway gave a talk titled, “The histories and legacy of Palestine Solidarity from the Naqsa to the Genocide in Gaza,” on March 10 at the University of New Brunswick.

His goal for the talk was to show how pro-Palestinian activism is “part of a bigger, larger vision” of solidarity.

Henaway has fought for Palestine solidarity in the International Solidarity Movement, Al-Awda (the Palestine Right to Return Coalition) and Tadamon! (Solidarity) Montreal.

Tadamon! is a collective that supports struggles for self-determination, equality, and justice across the Middle East, including an end to Israeli apartheid policies and support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Henaway is also a prize-winning author and researcher. His 2023 book Essential Work, Disposable Workers: Migration, Capitalism and Class won the Errol Sharpe book award in 2024, and honorable mention for the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies 2024 book award.

He is currently researching labour conditions inside Amazon warehouses for his doctorate in Geography, Planning and Environmental Studies at Concordia University.

Speaking at UNB, he started off by presenting some context for the left’s involvement in the Palestinian cause.

For him, the Six-Day War in June 1967 can’t be seen as a moment of defeat for the Palestinians — despite Israel seizing territories that remain occupied today — because at that time they made their place in the pan-Arab world with a “Palestinian Revolution.”

They learned, at that moment, “we are the masters of our own fate,” he said.

Within the larger context of “Third World” international anti-imperialism — directed especially against the United States — leftist organizations in Palestine began to take over the Palestinian Liberation Organization and make it a revolutionary force uniting women, farmers, and other groups.

In Canada, at the same time, there was the emergence of Quebec nationalism and its radicalization. Left-wing forces like labour and student organizations forged alliances around 1969, creating “a new solidarity where Palestine becomes central” for some organizations.

Using archival materials, Henaway showed the centrality of Palestine to labour history in Quebec.

The Confederation internationale de solidarité ouvrière (the International Confederation of Workers’ Solidarity) was key to establishing ties to Palestine. To this day, CISO issues declarations of solidarity with Palestine.

CISO worked with the Association Québec-Palestine, which even had a newspaper called Fedayin (one who sacrifices themselves in Arabic), funded by the union. The AQP, founded in 1972, was active until the 1990s.

The Quebec labour establishment, through people like Michel Chartrand, a noted labour leader, created links with Palestine leaders such as Yasser Arafat. The AQP even sent a delegation to Lebanon in 1972.

This organizational support has varied over the years. For example, it changed during the Second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005, and amid the violence that accompanied Palestinian peaceful protest of Israel’s ever-growing occupation.

At that time, the response became “quite fractured” in Canada, during the anti-globalization movement’s rise, according to Henaway. For example, students protesting Benjamin Netanyahu’s talk at Concordia University were teargassed in 2002.

The language of solidarity again shifted from resistance and right of return towards peace after the Oslo Accords.

Activists have travelled to occupied Palestinian territories to witness the conditions on the ground and publicize them. Some, like U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, were killed, confirming the extremes that Israel was (and is) willing to go to shut down this type of activity.

Organizations such as Al-Awda (the Palestine Right to Return Coalition) were formed in response to the large Palestinian diaspora produced by the Israeli occupation.

The U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq starting in 2003 caused the Palestinian solidarity movement to deviate in interesting ways. Iraq had supported Palestine against Israel as well as welcoming displaced Palestinians.

The Arab Student Collective at the University of Toronto organized the first Israeli Apartheid Week in 2005, to discuss Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. This activist event has since then spread to other places in Canada and internationally.

Organizers purposefully held talks on local struggles and social justice issues to “build local connections, also with Indigenous struggles,” Henaway said. “Palestine allowed us to talk about colonialism here,” he said. “It was very important.”

The official call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, starting in 2005, has been “extremely successful,” he said, with unions and student groups on various campuses pushing for institutional change. BDS continued growing in the 2010s, he said.

The Arab Spring, especially in Syria, created, for Henaway, “massive divisions within the Arab left and within the left in general,” in part because of the suspicion of U.S. involvement in backing the movement.

Between 2014 and Oct. 7, 2023, one of the most interesting moments for Palestine solidarity was the Black Lives Matter movement, which consolidated struggle against oppression within the U.S.

Once the Israeli siege of Gaza intensified in 2023, a huge swell of solidarity, especially on university campuses in Canada, was met by “the violent repression of those encampments,” he said. However, the movement in Canada “became decentralized” which “created pitfalls” in coalition building.

This is the present situation, but it isn’t the case everywhere.

Henaway provided the example of Italy, where two million people went on strike last October in solidarity with Palestine. This movement was pushed by grassroots unions made up of mostly immigrant workers from Northern Italy like SI Cobas, he said.

The effect of this action was “tremendous,” causing the Italian president to fear losing political power. For Henaway, this shows the power unions can have in changing the public discourse on Palestinian solidarity.

Henaway sees this type of event with optimism and says that recent victories in Canada — like Scotiabank’s recent decision to divest from Elbit Systems — were steps in the right direction for the BDS movement’s efforts to “suffocate Israel from conducting its genocide.”

Henaway’s lecture was organized by UNB’s Department of Historical Studies, and co-sponsored by the UNB Department of English and the NB Media Co-op.

Sophie M. Lavoie is a member of the NB Media Co-op’s editorial board.