News Brief07:07 AM

(IsraelNN.com) The president of the American Jewish Labor Committee wrote in the left-wing Jewish Forward that the worldwide labor movement has been a key element in anti-Israel bias and that the American labor movement is guilty of non-involvement. Stuart Applebaum, who is also is the leader of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, wrote that "any effort to build worldwide support on the left for the Jewish state will be extraordinary difficult" because of labor's absence during the debate concerning Israel.

He cited the Socialist International's recent condemnation of "the excessive use of force by Israel in Gaza" and an Australian union leader's declaration that his union dissociates itself from Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations because of the Jewish state's "ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the al-Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948."

Applebaum said that recent American Labor Committee opposition to European unions' anti-Israel boycotts helped force them to back off, proving that labor can be more of a pro-Israel force. The "continuing assault against Israel by the left in other countries demands that we make our voices heard," he concluded. "We owe it to the families living in Sderot to try."