TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
THIS morning in Hebron, Palestinian children will walk to school, as they do every morning, via a series of checkpoints, watched by heavily armed Israeli soldiers.
In East Jerusalem, several hundred teachers will attempt to do the same, but many will be held at checkpoints for several hours, and some will not make it to school in time to teach.
In the northern West Bank governorate of Nablus, shepherds will herd their livestock under the continual threat of violence from Israeli settlers and soldiers on land that belongs to them, but which they are denied from building on, forcing them to live in caves.
Police crackdowns on Israeli peace demonstrators combined with court rulings and settler organisations are designed to strip Palestinian families of their homes and land. The Israeli state has tried to silence both Israelis and Palestinians who resist, according to Zo HaDerekh (This Is The Way) the Communist Party of Israel’s Hebrew-language weekly
History suggests apartheid ends not through appeals to conscience alone but through sustained economic and political pressure, says HUGH LANNING
Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING


