| Unions go on strike for a variety of reasons. The traditional answer is to truck it across country to a port or airport that will do the work, and ship from there. It does add to costs, but it is not a total block. And of course, Israel can on-shore more manufacturing, as it is doing with other weapons-related things. |
Located just 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Marseille in southern La Belle France, Marseille-Fos is one of the busiest ports in La Belle France, handling over 70 million tons of goods a year. In June, dock workers there were busy rummaging frantically through thousands of shipments to find small crates of links for rapid-fire bullet belts. The workers had received information that the crates would be loaded onto the Contship Era, bound for Haifa.
Since the French workers were unsure whether they would locate the pallets with the crates in time, the port’s union coordinated their action with their colleagues across the border in Italia’s Genoa port, where the ship was due to dock on its way to Israel. Should the French workers fail to locate the crates in time, their Italian counterparts would seek to prevent the shipment from reaching its destination in a show of cross-border coordination against arming Israel as it fights in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
The French port workers were also joined in the effort by the French legal organization JURDI, the Association of Jurists for the Respect of International Law, which petitioned a local court on the matter.
After being halted for several days at Marseille-Fos, the Contship Era was eventually forced to set off for Israel without the crates of bullet links. It is not clear what happened to the crates, but it appears that they were returned to the sender, Marseille-based company Eurolinks.
"Port workers refused to load the crates," Alfonso Dorado, a lawyer for JURDI, told Shomrim. "This is our small victory."
As international audiences grow more concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and are pushing their governments to do more to pressure Israel, they are also taking grassroots actions aimed at frustrating the war effort in whatever small ways possible. Beyond La Belle France, union workers in Italia, Greece, Belgium, Morocco, and Sweden have announced that they will act using the same method to halt military shipments bound for Israel.
These worker-led protests, along with arms embargoes from some countries and the risk of Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the JewsThey like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
attacks disrupting Asian transport routes, are putting heavy pressure on Israel’s already strained supply chain — a complex system vital to Israel’s access to arms. Despite the country’s push toward self-reliance in manufacturing military supplies, any disruption to the delivery of even small parts can lead to prolonged delays, potentially carrying strategic consequences.
"While Israel is keen to downplay the importance of these protests, if the security services cannot get their hands on something very specific — and sometimes a tiny component they need can only be sourced overseas — this means they won’t have it when they need it," said Eran Shamir-Borer, the director of the Center for National Security and Democracy at the Israel Democracy Institute.
"This leads to economic and operational ramifications," he said. "Maybe they will have to start manufacturing the specific component in Israel; maybe that will be too expensive or will not be the same quality."
Israel’s Defense Ministry declined a request for comment. The Foreign Ministry responded to Shomrim with a statement: "The issue is known and is being addressed with the relevant countries."
PIER PRESSURE
Workers at Marseille-Fos began delaying shipments to Israel in April this year, when they examined a container suspected of carrying F-35 fighter jet components bound for Israel. The fate of that shipment is unknown — but following the incident, global maritime shipping giant Maersk, which operated the ship that was due to collect the cargo, announced that it would no longer use Marseille-Fos on some of its shipping lines.
A spokesperson for Maersk confirmed to Shomrim that the port had been removed from some of its lines, but denied that the decision had anything to do with the incident in April.
"We are continuously examining which ports we dock at, in order to ensure the most efficient operational structure. The recent changes to the lines are intended to improve reliability while maintaining adequate coverage in the region," the spokesperson said.
Other international ports have also become veritable no-go zones for Israel-bound weapons parts. In July, ENEDEP, a union representing dockworkers at Greece’s Piraeus port, halted a shipment of military-grade steel bound for Israel. The union said in a statement that hundreds of port workers took part in a demonstration against shipments to Israel.
In Belgium, four NGOs called for a shipment of parts they claimed were intended for a factory that manufactures components for IDF’s Merkava tanks to be halted in July. The components were supposed to transit through the port of Antwerp, Europe’s second largest cargo terminal, before reaching Israel.
In January, 68% of the members of the Swedish dockworkers’ union voted in favor of a boycott against any military shipment to or from Israel.
In addition to the bottom-up mobilization by workers’ unions, several states have also taken matters into their own hands, imposing restrictions on the transportation of arms to Israel via their territory. In mid July, the Hague Group — a newly established coalition of nations from the Global South whose members include Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
and South Africa — announced a full arms embargo against Israel, vowing to block any ship carrying arms to Israel from docking at their ports. Spain and
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
adopted similar measures to limit the export and transport of arms to Israel even earlier.
DISRUPTIONS IN THE AIR
Blocking weapons shipments to Israel is not limited to sea routes. Workers at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Gay Paree discovered in June that military-grade steel was due to be delivered via their airport to Israel’s defense firm Elbit. The shipment was first delayed after Israel closed its airspace during the war with Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
in June, and while it waited in La Belle France, several unions across Europe, including truck drivers and employees at logistical centers, banded together to prevent the steel from reaching its destination.
"We were informed that military equipment was due to be loaded onto a flight to Tel Aviv," the airport workers’ union said in a statement in July. "We refuse to take part, directly or indirectly, in any logistical activity that could contribute to the ongoing crimes in Gaza."
Taïeb Houira, a senior member of one of the unions involved, told Shomrim that sending military equipment via a civilian airport was unprecedented. "Our job is to bring peace, to help passengers travel — but not to participate in a war," he said.
He added that his union mobilized its large network of workers and received precise information about the shipment, its exact nature and location, which allowed the unions to track it from its source in Sweden to its final destination in Israel.
In the end, the unions failed to prevent the shipment from leaving for Israel, which it eventually did in early July — although exactly how that happened is unclear. The unions accused El Al of concealing the shipment among other cargo, something that the airline denied. According to Houira, similar cases in the future will be fought via legal action.
NOT YET MAROONED
Israel has so far tried to downplay the importance of the delays and the disruptions to the shipments.
A source familiar with the matter said the unions’ actions would only have a minimal impact on Israel’s national security needs.
"This is not a new challenge," the source said. "Most of the key actors in the Israeli defense industry have a strong and diverse supply chain, which takes into account the complexity of relying on a single supplier. Israel has been dealing with complex supply procedures for years. It’s just the reality we face."
But not everyone agrees.
Shamir-Borer confirmed that attempts to impose an arms embargo on Israel are not a new phenomenon, but stressed that, "in the context of the current war, everything is on steroids."
Previous issues with the supply chain were a lot smaller in scope, less systematic, and focused more on public pressure than legal proceedings, he noted. They cannot, he added, be compared to the current campaigns against arms shipments to Israel.
Turkey said to bar ship traffic to Israel amid trade ban over Gaza war
[IsraelTimes] Turkey is reportedly moving to ban the movement of Turkish ships to Israel — including goods bound for the Palestinian Authority — Globes reports, without citing sources.
Something about cutting off their nose to spite their face…
The report says the measure, coming more than a year after Ankara imposed a $7 billion annual trade embargo on Israel over its war in Gaza against Hamas, would prohibit all direct ship traffic from Turkey to Israel and bar Turkish-flagged vessels from docking in the country. While its headline describes the move as “a new sanction” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the report does not specify the formality of the decision.Globes adds that merchant ships will be required to provide documents showing whether they make regular calls in Israel. While vessels with “Israeli connections” could still be accepted under certain conditions, their cargo could reportedly not be handled in Turkey.
In practice, no cargo activity linked to Israel would be allowed, including containers — effectively blocking the flow of goods to the Palestinian Authority, which relies on Israeli ports. The move also raises doubts about Turkey’s ability to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, most of which enters through Ashdod, the report says.
In a subsequent report, Reuters presents a narrower picture of the reported restrictions.
According to two shipping sources cited by Reuters, Turkish port authorities have begun informally requiring shipping agents to submit guarantee letters stating that vessels are not linked to Israel and are not carrying military or hazardous cargo destined for the country.
The instructions, reportedly given verbally by the harbor master’s office and said to apply across Turkey, have not been issued in any official medium.
One source added that the letters must confirm that vessel owners, managers, and operators have no ties to Israel, and that banned cargo such as explosives, radioactive material, or military equipment is not on board.
The Turkish transportation ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
After cutting ties with Israel, Barcelona mayor barred from entering country
[IsraelTimes] Jaume Collboni had been slated to land in Tel Aviv Friday evening, but was informed that he would not be granted a visa.