by Reflections on How to Bring the Palestine Solidarity Movement to Our Unions
Interview with Whitney Kahn by Stan Strasner
We’ve passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza in our union, the Seattle Education Association. How did this SEA resolution come together?
This wasn’t the first pro-Palestine resolution that SEA members had put forward. In 2021, folks put together a comprehensive BDS resolution that put SEA strongly on the side of Palestinian liberation. It went far beyond our ceasefire resolution, calling for an end to US aid to Israel, and “for Israel to end all current and future bombings of Gaza.” It passed without much debate.
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But in the post-October 7 landscape, our new resolution caused a huge stir in the union. All of the Zionists came out of the woodwork to oppose it. What the BDS resolution did for us, however, is that many of us were already organized, practiced at working together around this issue, and we had exposed the union to this conversation before.
Our original ceasefire resolution also called for an end to US funding of the Israeli military and signed onto Palestinian trade union demands, but when we took this to our executive board meeting, many were hesitant. The arguments ranged from fearing that this decision would be too divisive in our union to arguing that it wasn’t our place as an educators’ union to take a stand on US foreign policy. It became clear to us from that meeting that if we went forward with our resolution as-is, a motion would be made to table it until the next meeting. With the urgency of the situation, for us, that would have been as bad as having it be defeated, so we boiled it down to the most urgent point: ceasefire now.
Our leadership took some very panicked steps that ramped up tensions rather than bringing membership together to learn from each other. It would have been so helpful for the strength and unity of our union to have organized discussions and education around the conflict. Many educators feel they don’t know enough to teach about this important issue, and that ends up harming our students. I wish our union leadership had used this as an opportunity to have those conversations, which are vital if we’re going to teach truth in schools.
We wanted to make it immediately clear that Jews were not united for Zionism, and that it’s not antisemitic to stand with Palestine or criticize Israel.
How did the vote go?
Tensions were high before we even started our monthly shop steward meeting where we vote on resolutions like this, but we were well prepared. There were many of us anti-Zionist Jewish educators who were supporting the resolution, and we wore our “Jews say ceasefire now” shirts from Jewish Voice for Peace actions. We wanted to make it immediately, visually clear that Jews were not united for Zionism, and that it’s not antisemitic to stand with Palestine or criticize Israel.
The resolution was beautifully introduced by one of the authors, and many of the speakers against it threw personal attacks that were called out of order. As much as I have some criticisms about our leadership’s approach leading up to this vote, I have to say they did a great job under difficult circumstances helping to manage that rough debate.
How does the approach to Palestine solidarity taken within SEA compare to other approaches taken in other locals of NEA, the National Education Association? What do you see as the relative strengths and weaknesses of those approaches?
In the couple of years leading up to this siege, support for Palestine has been on the rise. I attended the NEA convention last summer for the first time and worked with pro-Palestine activists there, and they all reported that for years they faced attacks and slander. But as of last year their resolutions had begun to pass. They had even convinced Becky Pringle, the President of the NEA, to go to Palestine.
So Palestinian activists and allies felt very strong going into this year.
I think for those who have been in this struggle, the change immediately after October 7 was quite jarring. Even though more broadly this moment has been a real shift away from support for Zionism across the US, the Zionist backlash has also been out in full force. So some union locals went for stronger resolutions, which were beautifully courageous, but which opened them up to backlash, and which they then had to walk back. This happened in a big way in the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, which felt the need to issue an apology and rescind their statement.
I was on a call with teachers talking about this, and a teacher from another local had a similar experience, saying she helped write their resolution and was proud of it, but in hindsight she wishes they had limited themselves to ceasefire and been able to defend it more strongly. In Chicago, they took a similar approach to what we did in Seattle and were able to defend it.
It’s always hard to judge how far to push demands. It’s a constant tension that requires being in touch and as organized as possible. Could we have kept in our resolution the demand to cease funding the Israeli military without it being delayed or shot down? You can never know for certain, which is what makes these tactical decisions so difficult and uncomfortable, but they are often the difference between taking the union a step forward and a step backward.
What are the next steps, within SEA, NEA, and the US labor movement as a whole?
These are horrific times we’re living through. This genocide in Gaza is being done in our names. Not just those of us who are Jewish like myself – it is our government that is behind it, using our tax money. The silver lining is the resistance, and the millions of people in the US who are now seeing this conflict and the role of the US government differently. But we still have so far to go. Most unions have not yet called for a ceasefire, but there have been some big steps forward.
We desperately need to grow the anti-war movement in every labor union and in every local. We have no time to lose as our government, led by war-profiteering corporations, march us closer and closer to regional wars and World War III.
The silver lining is the resistance, the millions of people in the US who are now seeing this conflict and the role of the US government differently.
The group of educators across the country who has been leading the charge pushing for a ceasefire is now pushing NEA to revoke its early endorsement of Joe Biden until some basic conditions like a ceasefire are met.
More and more unions are stepping up and taking a stand to support a ceasefire. Recently, both our local Martin Luther King County Labor Council and our state-wide Washington Education Association joined the call for a ceasefire, alongside national leader United Auto Workers (UAW), and most recently at the time of writing SEIU, who is a big player in the Democratic Party machine. I’m hoping this signals a turning point in the struggle.
Unions have incredible power to sway politics if we’re unafraid to use it.
Whitney Kahn (any/all) is a paraeducator in Seattle and a building representative with the Seattle Education Association. They are an active member of Seattle DSA and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Stan Strasner (he/him) is a member of the Seattle Education Association, an activist in DSA and organizing Reform & Revolution’s work in Seattle.
Stan Strasner
Stan Strasner is a teacher and former President of the Seattle Substitutes Association. He is also a member of Seattle DSA.
Whitney Kahn
Whitney Kahn is a paraeducator in Seattle and a building representative with the Seattle Education Association. He is an active member of Seattle DSA and Labor for Black Lives.
