Port of Oakland Shut Down!
All Out to Defend the Palestinian People!

Thousands of protesters gathered on January 13 to picket a military ship in the Port of Oakland, California, demanding an end to U.S. support for Israeli actions in Gaza and an immediate ceasefire. Standing for the defense of the Palestinian people, revolutionaries call for the defeat of the U.S./Israel war on Gaza. (Photo: KGO)

The following leaflet and solidarity message was distributed to protesters in Oakland on January 13.

This morning, January 13, the Port of Oakland, California has been shut down by 3,000 pickets in protest against the war on Gaza being waged by Israel and the United States, which is supplying the weaponry that is making the genocide possible. No cargo is moving, no workers are being dispatched to the port from the hiring hall of International Longshore and Warehouse (ILWU) Local 10. Demonstrators are rightly calling President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and Pentagon chief Austin war criminals. A showdown may come this evening if the employers try to work the port. Working people and opponents of imperialist mass murder in the Bay Area should go to the docks to stop any attempt to shut down the protest. This action should be a clarion call to workers internationally to use their power to defeat the genocidalists.

The following Internationalist solidarity message has been sent to the Oakland demonstrators:

The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International salute the pickets shutting down the Port of Oakland in solidarity with the Palestinian Arab people and against the genocidal war being waged against them by the Israeli militarists and U.S. imperialists. Workers everywhere should follow their example and that of of dock workers in Italy, Barcelona and transport workers in Belgium, to act now to stop the flow of arms from the United States and other imperialists to Israel. We must mobilize our class power to defeat the Zionist/imperialist war on Gaza and now against Yemen as well.

Make no mistake: this is “Genocide Joe” Biden’s war. Every one of the 2,000-pound bombs being used to wipe out whole blocks and to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable comes from the Pentagon arsenal. Take concrete action now to stop the mass murder! U.S. unions and supporters should surround the Dover, DE Air Force base from where munitions are being airlifted to Israel. The action of militant Italian unions that carried out a national strike in solidarity with the Palestinians and against the war on Gaza should be an example for all.

Break with Biden’s Democrats, the Republicans and all the bosses’ parties! Build a class-struggle workers party to fight for a workers government, here and internationally! ■