“The Histadrut are just an arm of the Israeli government, aren’t they?” This question, genuine and urgent, was put to me a few weeks ago at the Unite union’s annual conference by a former general secretary of a British trade union. We were standing in the lobby of the Grand Hotel in Brighton: I had just handed him a copy of The New Histadrut: Peace, Social Justice and the Israeli Trade Unions, a pamphlet I’d written for Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI).

No, the Histadrut is not an arm of the Israeli government. It is the Israeli TUC.

It leads the fight for workers’ rights and job security in Israel. It unites over 700,000 union members in one organisation regardless of religion, race or gender. It has organised Arab workers with full membership since 1959, and the super-exploited migrant workers since 2009.”

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