[News] Vancouver Canada Also Blocks Israeli Ship

[Anti-Imperialist News]

September 9, 2014

*Vancouver Canada Blocks Israeli Ship: Tremendous Victory*

In a four-day standoff pitting human rights groups and organized labor 
against Israeli shipping giant Zim, the giant was defeated today in 
Vancouver, Canada.

The huge container ship Zim Djibouti first docked at the high-tech 
Deltaport facility on September 5, only to discover that the workers had 
agreed to respect a picket line set up by human rights advocates. The 
coalition of picketers, under the name Block the Boat Vancouver, were 
trying to prevent the unloading and loading of the ship, as a solidarity 
protest against Israel's 47-year blockade of the port of Gaza and the 
recent Israeli sttack on Gaza that killed more than 2000 Palestinians, 
mostly civilians, as well as 72 Israelis, almost all soldiers.

The ship then returned to open water along the Pacific coast and stayed 
there several days, until midnight last night. At that time it set 
course for Port Angeles, on the US side of the passage to Vancouver. By 
unloading at an unexpected US port, the company apparently hoped to 
circumvent the blockade.

It didn't work. Perhaps the logistics of arranging passage by land 
through another country for the hazardous cargo on board was too much, 
or perhaps the docking facilities were inadequate for the huge ship, but 
it turned back and returned to the open sea. At the time of this report, 
it has still failed to declare a new destination and arrival time.

This is a huge victory for the Vancouver coalition, undoubtedly costing 
Zim enormous sums in fuel, delays, and having to carry excess cargo to 
unintended destinations, impeding the other operations. It also 
continues the string of Block the Boat actions at ports on the US west 
coast that began with the August picket in Oakland, California of 
another Zim ship that ended with similar results.

Let's all congratulate Vancouver and encourage ports all over the world 
to refuse Israeli ships and ships from Israeli companies. Customers will 
have to think twice about using an Israeli line for their cargo, as 
delivery becomes less certain. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a 
world wide campaign against Zim and all other Israeli shipping, until 
Israel reconsiders its policy of blocking all shipping to and from Gaza.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org


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