[News] Palestine Solidarity Activists Block Boeing’s Doors to Stop Delivery of Bombs

[Anti-Imperialist News]

truthout.org
<https://truthout.org/articles/palestine-solidarity-activists-block-boeings-doors-to-stop-delivery-of-bombs/>
Palestine Solidarity Activists Block Boeing’s Doors to Stop Delivery of
Bombs
Ngakiya Camara, Kelly Hayes
November 6, 2023
------------------------------
[image: 2023_1106-boeing-1200x855.jpg]

This morning, over 75 youth activists blocked all entrances to Boeing
Building 598
<https://www.chamberofcommerce.com/united-states/missouri/saint-charles/aerospace-company/2004860620-boeing-defense-building-598>,
a major weapons manufacturing company located in St. Charles, Missouri.
Bringing together members from at least five different local and national
grassroots groups, the action aimed to disrupt Boeing’s delivery of more
than 1,000 bombs to Israel.

“Young people have decided not to wait on Biden and Congress — many members
of whom receive financial support from weapons companies, including Boeing
— and take calls for ceasefire into their own hands by physically blocking
the movement and shipment of bombs in a peaceful and nonviolent action
outside Boeing’s manufacturing plant,” the coalition announced in a
published statement.

The coalition occupying Boeing 598 is prepared to continue putting pressure
where it hurts on the companies that have threatened Black lives at home
and Palestinian lives abroad. They demand that Congress and Biden issue an
immediate ceasefire and end arms sales to Israel. “Until Congress blocks
the bombs, we will,” Rose Tang, an organizer with Boeing Arms Genocide
<https://www.instagram.com/boeingarmsgenocide/> who took part in the Boeing
blockade, told *Truthout. *

The coalition engaged in the direct action at Boeing is composed of members
from the national antiwar youth group Dissenters, as well as their
Chicago-based campaign group #BoeingArmsGenocide, the St. Louis Palestine
Solidarity Committee, the local St. Louis hub of the community-building
group Black Men Build, and the St. Louis grassroots coalition group Resist
STL.

Organizers used their bodies to physically block the three separate
entrances to the Boeing 598 bomb facility beginning at 7 a.m., before the
first workers at the plant arrived. The 35-foot-long banner that the
coalition held displayed the names of 1,300 of the more than 4,100
Palestinian children who have been killed in Gaza and read “We Mourn.”
Before holding a moment of silence, a Palestinian organizer with the
coalition read out the names of these 1,300 children over a megaphone.

After two hours of resistance and harassment by a Boeing employee — who
Tang told *Truthout* created a “Boeing Freedom” sign — the building’s
representatives announced that they would shut down
<https://twitter.com/wearedissenters/status/1721543202333667395?s=42&t=Cya4BkVOSwi4az0UgFj7Zg>
the third entrance to the facility where trucks and shipments enter and
exit. “That felt like a win to us because they weren’t sending out any
bombs today,” Tang told *Truthout.*

“Young people have decided to take calls for ceasefire into their own hands
by physically blocking the movement and shipment of bombs in a peaceful and
nonviolent action outside Boeing’s manufacturing plant.”

Boeing already fast-tracked
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-10/boeing-sped-1-000-smart-bombs-to-israel-after-the-hamas-attacks>
1,000 small diameter bombs to Israel on October 10 and still intends to
send more weaponry. In fact, Boeing seeks to speed up the delivery of as
much as 1,800 Joint Direct Attack Munition
<https://time.com/6331133/israel-gaza-biden-military-support/>kits — which
convert unguided bombs into GPS-guided weapons — from this Boeing 598 plant
located in St. Charles. According to former Assistant Secretary of State
for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper, the U.S. has already
committed <https://time.com/6331133/israel-gaza-biden-military-support/> to
sending Israel more advanced air and missile defense support, including
F-35 fighter jets, CH-53 heavy-lift helicopters, KC-46 aerial refueling
tankers, and air-defense missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome.

This comes after the Biden administration asked for an additional $14
billion for Israel
<https://www.npr.org/2023/10/31/1209644555/biden-s-plan-to-send-military-aid-to-israel-has-bipartisan-support-in-the-senate>
from Congress. This, of course, on top of requesting covert
<https://truthout.org/articles/biden-wants-arms-deals-with-israel-to-be-done-in-complete-secrecy/>
arms deals with Israel without oversight from Congress or the public. In
fact, the White House is currently asking for up to $3.5 billion for Israel
to purchase weapons from defense contractors and the military, “without the
spending having to be approved or even disclosed to Congress,” as Sharon
Zhang noted in *Truthout*
<https://truthout.org/articles/biden-wants-arms-deals-with-israel-to-be-done-in-complete-secrecy/>
.

“As taxpayers, we all have blood on our hands,” artist and Boeing 598
occupier Su Mac said in the coalition’s press release. “Congress must act
before they are etched into history books as complicit in a genocide the
country called on them to stop.”
[image: Organizers block the largest entrance to the Boeing 598 facility to
prevent people from entering the building.]Organizers block the largest
entrance to the Boeing 598 facility to prevent people from entering the
building.Courtesy of Dissenters

The success of weapons manufacturing companies like Boeing is predicated
upon the death and destruction of millions of people around the world,
including Palestinians. As of Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry
reports the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,000 in the last 30 days
alone, including more than 4,100 children.

Amid Israel’s genocidal campaign, weapons manufacturing companies have seen
a boom in profits. Since October 7, General Dynamics and Raytheon (now
rebranded as RTX) have seen their stocks surge by more than 10 percent
<https://jacobin.com/2023/10/raytheon-general-dynamics-gaza-israel-war-military-industrial-complex>.
RTX CEO Greg Hayes told shareholders in an earnings report
<https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/10/24/rtx-rtx-q3-2023-earnings-call-transcript/>that
fresh new contracts resulting from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza would mean
that, “across the entire Raytheon portfolio, [they’re] going to see a
benefit of this restocking.” The Israel Defense Forces’ bombardment, he
boasted, would be a bonus
<https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/u-s-weapons-makers-tell-investors-to-expect-big-profits-from-israel-war/>
on top of a potential increase in Department of Defense funding.
[image: The third entrance to the facility — where trucks and shipments
enter and exit — was shut down as a result of the blockade.]The third
entrance to the Boeing facility — where trucks and shipments enter and exit
— was shut down as a result of the blockade.Courtesy of Dissenters

RTX creates
<https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/u-s-weapons-makers-tell-investors-to-expect-big-profits-from-israel-war/>
the missiles used within Israel’s Iron Dome, and has been doing so since
2014. Lockheed Martin, which manufactures F-35 fighter jets
<https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/u-s-weapons-makers-tell-investors-to-expect-big-profits-from-israel-war/>,
is selling such jets for $120 million each, meaning that the new fighter
jets recently requested by the U.S. for Israel will boost profits even more
than the company’s initial $3 billion sale of 25 planes this past July.
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-buy-25-more-f-35-stealth-jets-3-bln-deal-2023-07-02/>
Lockheed Martin’s CEO boasted
<https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-taiclet_lockheed-martins-third-quarter-results-met-activity-7120047674371776513-ePry/?trk=public_profile_like_view>
about this boom on his LinkedIn page two weeks ago, stating that the
company’s third quarter results “met or exceeded [their] expectations
across the board.”

Now, several groups have taken to occupying these corporations in
solidarity with Palestinians. In California, hundreds of protesters
<https://www.newsweek.com/california-protestors-block-military-ship-leaving-israel-1840860?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1699043403>
organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center occupied the Port of
Oakland to prevent its Cape Orlando military vessel from delivering weapons
and military equipment to Israel. While the shipment from Oakland was
eventually shipped to its initial destination in the Port of Tacoma, this
morning, activists have also blocked
<https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/pro-palestinian-demonstrators-block-port-tacoma-delay-israel-bound-ship/EV7CEEL2XZG5PCPAFI3N6JH7N4/?outputType=amp>
this port’s entrance, preventing the Israel-bound vessel from departing.

Meanwhile, in Niles, Illinois, youth protested at the Woodward Manufacturing
<https://boingboing.net/2023/10/24/u-s-guided-missile-maker-goes-dark-on-social-media-after-gaza-photo-gets-circulated.html>
facility, which manufactures bombs and missiles used by Israel against
Palestinians. Activists who are part of the Tucson Coalition for Palestine
held a “die-in”
<https://news.azpm.org/p/azpmnews/2023/11/2/218049-anti-weapons-die-in-protest-blocks-raytheon-entrance-during-morning-commute/>where
they blocked off the entrances of RTX. In Massachusetts, Berkshire
Communists organized a demonstration
<https://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/local/pittsfield-general-dynamics-israel-hamas-palestinians-war-berkshire-communists-activists/article_ec204d1c-6ee4-11ee-8e1e-cb6121da994b.html>
consisting of about 100 people at General Dynamics’ weapons plant — the
second-largest employer in the area. Demonstrators held up a banner that
read: “Genocide: Brought to you by General Dynamics.” And activists with
Palestine Action US targeted
<https://truthout.org/articles/activist-group-targets-the-us-israeli-war-machine-in-massachusetts/>
the Cambridge, Massachusetts, office of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest
arms company.

Boeing already fast-tracked 1,000 small diameter bombs to Israel on October
10 and still intends to send more weaponry.

The action targeting Boeing in Missouri today is no different. Residents of
St. Charles recognize the horror that such weapons manufacturing companies
have inflicted on their own lives as well. After all, St. Charles isn’t far
from St. Louis, where protests in Ferguson swelled the streets following
the police-perpetrated murder of Michael Brown in 2014. It was after
Ferguson demonstrators documented
<https://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/ferguson-companies-supplying/> the tear gas
canisters used against them by police that Palestinians noted that they,
too, had been attacked by Israel in the West Bank with tear gas from
similar canisters.

In the interview that follows, Rose Tang, one of the activists who
participated in the direct action at Boeing today, offered reflections from
on the ground in St. Charles.

*Truthout: Can you tell us about yourself, your organization, and your
group’s relationship to the Palestinian struggle? *

*Rose Tang:* I’m a youth organizer with Dissenters. Dissenters is a group
of young people from across the country. It’s a national organization of
young people organizing against war and militarism, especially in the
United States. Dissenters stands in solidarity with Palestinians. Our youth
organizers across the country have been consistently organizing for a
ceasefire and to end the occupation and to end the siege on Gaza.

Today we are out here to demand that Biden call for an immediate ceasefire
as well as an immediate stop to the arms sale to Israel, including the
bombs that are being manufactured at the Boeing facility that we are
standing right in front of today.

*Can you tell us about today’s action?*

We have 75 folks out here today who have blocked all three entrances to the
Boeing facility in St. Charles. This facility has manufactured hundreds of
bombs over the past month, bombs that have been sent directly to Israel to
use in its genocide of Palestinian people, especially in Gaza. We have
blocked all three entrances for the past two and a half hours. Our group
has now heard word that Boeing made the decision not to send its employees
to work today. Employees have been told to work remotely.

“As taxpayers, we all have blood on our hands.”

In addition, [I have been told] all weapons shipments have been stopped
from leaving the facility today because our folks were blockading the
entrance where those shipments would leave from. Now, we’re just convening
at the main entrance, chanting in support of Palestinians and to end the
occupation, to end U.S. arms sales to Israel, and for Boeing to continue
being shut down.

People are chanting now about [our demands for Joe] Biden. We’ve been
asking for a ceasefire for many weeks. There’s been millions of people
demanding a ceasefire across the United States and the world. Biden and
Boeing won’t stop the flow of bombs, so we are coming to block it for them.
We have been using our bodies to physically blockade these entrances and to
prevent weapons from going out of the facility.

*Can you speak to the importance of targeting companies like Boeing right
now? Why is this action an important way to act in solidarity with
Palestine? *

Boeing is one of the top three weapons manufacturers in the country and
around the world. Students and individuals organizing with dissenters and
with many other anti-imperialist groups have been targeting these major war
profiteers. We call them war profiteers because that is what they are in
the business of doing.
[image: Youth organizers block the second entrance to the Boeing 598
Facility while chanting.]Youth organizers block the second entrance to the
Boeing 598 Facility as they call for a ceasefire.Courtesy of Dissenters

Boeing creates bombs, it creates drones and weapons, and it profits off of
them. It profits off of those weapons being used directly to kill people.
It profits from death and genocide. Profit is a huge element of this war
and this genocide. So, we are coming to target that.

*How should people who support this kind of action get more involved right
now? *

Folks can follow us on social media to hear about when actions are
happening and come out to support. Dissenters is at @WeAreDissenters. They
can also follow other groups that were involved in organizing the action:
St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee [@stl_psc], Black Men Build St
Louis [@blackmenbuildstl], the Boeing Arms Genocide campaign
[@boeingarmsgenocide] and Resist St. Louis [@resiststl].

*Can you talk about the visual elements of this blockade action and why
they’re important?*

One of the main visual points of this action is that we have a 35-foot
banner that lists the names of 1,300 Palestinian children. This really only
represents a fraction of the people that have been killed in Palestine over
the past month, a number [that] now exceeds 10,000. We are here to demand
action from our government, but also to mourn these lives lost, and we
believe that the best way that we can honor these people who have been
brutally killed by Israel is to immediately recognize their humanity by
stopping the arms sales and calling for a ceasefire.
We have to mourn by taking action. Everyone who lives in the United States
is complicit in this in some way because our tax dollars are funding these
attacks, and funding private companies like Boeing.

*Note: A correction was made to clarify that the banner with the names was
35 feet long, not 5 feet long.*
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