Bay Area Groups Call for End of Military Shipments to Israel From Oakland Airport

Hundreds of protesters rallied in Oakland on Thursday to call on local officials to end the shipment of military cargo to Israel through the city’s airport.

The group waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “Oakland Airport, drop your cargo! We demand an arms embargo!”

A report from the Palestinian Youth Movement last month found that at least 280 shipments of military cargo had flowed through the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport via FedEx this year. The shipments appear to include parts for the F-35 fighter jets and almost all shipments were destined for Israel’s Nevatim Air Base, where the country stations its F-35s.

Dozens of other organizations have joined in demanding an end to the shipments since the report’s release, the coalition said.

“We were shocked to learn that our very own airport here in Oakland has been serving as a major hub in the supply chain of military cargo being shipped straight to Israel, military cargo that has been directly used in massacring Palestinians,” said Mohamed Shehk, with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center Action. “This is unconscionable and unacceptable.”

Organized labor has also joined a coalition, led by the Palestinian Youth Movement and AROC Action, to pressure city leaders to block the shipments.

United Auto Workers member Renee Coe announced that the union’s region 6, which represents some 120,000 workers in various fields including manufacturing and higher education across the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii endorsed the coalition’s efforts.

“Our members join our union because they want a dignified life. They want dignified jobs,” Coe said. “Working people need free healthcare, safe schools, lower rents and healthy communities with strong public infrastructure. We don’t want our taxes to pay or our public infrastructure to be used for murdering children in imperialist wars.”

“People of Oakland, across faiths and religions, have steadily raised calls for the end to Israel’s violence against Gaza, and have been advocating for elected officials across California to do their part to stop arming Israel,” said Rev. Jeanelle Ablola, with the California-Nevada Philippine Solidarity Task Force.

“It is the call of our faith to love our neighbor, to support those targeted and oppressed by dominant powers and to do what we can to make peace based on justice rather than a false peace based on military domination and subjugation,” Ablola said.

A few members at Thursday’s protest unfurled a large banner which read “KILLER CARGO OUT OF OAK. ARMS EMBARGO NOW.”

Kaley Skantz, the airport’s public information officer, told KQED in a statement that OAK is “legally required to accommodate federally authorized air traffic, including air cargo arranged by the U.S. government and/or private air cargo providers, including FedEx.”

“FedEx has a long-term ground lease with the Port of Oakland and is the largest air cargo carrier operating at the airport,” Skantz added. “All of FedEx’s flight and loading operations are carried out by FedEx employees directly in areas that FedEx exclusively controls.”

The calls for action come as Israel’s military has begun a new offensive in Gaza City. Bombings have destroyed several high-rise buildings and killed dozens, NPR reported. 

A report released this week by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has also accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. The commission joined the list of groups, including two human rights groups within Israel, accusing the Israeli government of genocide, which Israel denies.

So far, Oakland City Council members have not responded to questions about shipments passing through OAK.

A spokesperson from Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee’s office told KQED: “Mayor Lee values Oaklanders’ voices when residents speak to global issues locally. Our office has asked the Port to verify the facts on this and to get back to the office with details.”

Lee was famously the only member of Congress in 2001 to vote against a bill authorizing widespread use of military force in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.