NEW DELHI: India’s main trade unions urged the government on Wednesday to uphold its historical support for Palestinian statehood and scrap plans to send tens of thousands of workers to Israel.
Representing some 100 million workers, Indian trade union organizations said earlier this month that the government was considering manpower exports to Israel, which would see some 90,000 Indian construction workers replace their Palestinian counterparts.
As plans to facilitate their replacement with Indians began to emerge, 10 prominent trade unions issued a statement saying the Israeli occupation of Palestine had decimated its economy, making Palestinians dependent on Israel for employment. Facilitating it would “amount to complicity on India’s part with Israel’s ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians,” said the statement.
The unions repeated their call as they observed the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Nov. 29.
“(The) Indian…