Yesterday, 10 activists gathered at the Port of Tampa to protest Zim, an international shipping company based in Israel that regularly sends ships to the port.
The local Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter led the event, pointing out that Zim often deals in Israeli manufactured military technology, armaments, and logistics equipment, and accounts for about 30% of Israel’s economy.
“This protest is an opportunity to tell people that opposing Zim’s operations can help save Palestinian lives,” said Laith Abdel Hader, SJP member.
The demonstrators spoke of the United Nations claim Israel is violating international law and is complicit in human rights abuses through its occupation of Palestine. They led several chants about the occupation and the crowd shouted along.
Zim’s ships come into the Port of Tampa several times a month, said SJP members, who were being watched by several Hillsborough County Sheriff’s officers. The officers had established a cone perimeter around the protesters to warn them from entering the roadway that leads to the entrance of the port.
CL contacted Zim’s media department to ask what they are shipping to Tampa and who they are shipping it to, along with if they have a response to the protester's claims, but did not receive a response.
Ayman Salhab with SJP said that they believed a Zim ship is scheduled to arrive at the port on Friday afternoon around 3 p.m. He said that the main concentration of the protest was not necessarily what exactly is in Zim’s cargo, but that any profit made by the company helps support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
“It personally affects me, because myself, my family, and our people are displaced from our homeland by Israel’s actions,” Salhab said. “We shouldn’t have to continue to watch our people suffer.”
Salhab, Hader, and other SJP members have been going to the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) building in downtown Tampa at 6 a.m., when the workers gather, to explain the plight their people face. They’ve had heart-to-heart conversations and many longshoremen have identified with the issues Palestinians encounter.
“Ultimately, it’s really in the hands of the dock workers,” says Salhab. “They can choose not to participate in Israel’s crimes against humanity.”
The SJP protest was titled “Block the Boat” on a flyer, which traditionally involves using direct action such as forming a picket line at a port entrance to make it harder for a ship to dock or be unloaded. But this protest was more geared at speaking to dock workers—many of whom were leaving work—and explaining why SJP protesters think they shouldn’t be complicit in Zim’s operations.
Across the world, “Block the Boat” protests have occurred in the name of stopping Zim shipping. From the early 2000s until now, protests around the world have disrupted Zim shipments from being unloaded. In South Africa, Italy, and San Francisco, dockworkers have refused to unload Zim’s ships.
Where protesters have been successful in affecting Zim’s operations, there have often been coalitions that formed between activists and unions, which brought out large numbers of people to the demonstration.
Though Thursday’s gathering was small, there were members of several groups who were in alliance with SJP, such as Students For a Democratic Society (SDS), Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and The Party For Socialism and Liberation.
SDS and SJP are currently calling on the University of South Florida to divest from Israeli business dealings and U.S. corporations that help displace Palestinians. The group is also giving support to the “Block the Boat” campaign.
The activists say this is just the beginning, and there will be more actions to come.
“It’s great that more people are getting involved,” said Simon Rowe, SDS member. “It’s important to make sure that our community is not supporting the oppression of the Palestinian people.”
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This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2021.