No Neutrals There: Us Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine - Paperback

by Jeff Schuhrke (Author)

The definitive history of the US labor movement's complicity in Zionist settler colonialism, and a call for today's labor militants to organize in solidarity with Palestinians.

US trade unionists are often told to keep quiet and remain neutral on Palestine because "Palestine has nothing to do with unions" and "weighing in" only distracts from struggles for better working conditions.

No Neutrals There makes a timely and critical intervention against that pervasive sentiment by recounting the history of the US labor movement's century-long involvement in the struggle for Palestine. Scholar Jeff Schuhrke convincingly demonstrates that unions in the United States have never been silent or neutral on the question of Palestine. In fact, they have played a key role--in the initial Zionist colonization of Palestine, the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948, supporting US foreign policy commitments to Israel, and the ongoing suppression of the Palestinian liberation movement.

In his compelling telling of this history, Schuhrke conclusively shows that US unions helped build and maintain the state of Israel, and also shines a light on important exceptions to this rule: instances of US labor solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle that point the way forward for today's labor movement.

Author Biography

Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University. He is the author of Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade. His writing appears frequently in Jacobin, In These Times, Jewish Currents, and Labor Notes.