The governing body of the L.A. teachers union has weighed in on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, voting Wednesday to support a congressional effort to block the sale of more than $20 billion in U.S. weaponry to Israel on the grounds that American-supplied arms were being used against civilians.
The United Teachers Los Angeles union vote calls for California Sens. Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler “to pledge their support” for a government action called a “Joint Resolutions of Disapproval,” which, according to its sponsors, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), would halt the sales of specific armaments to Israel. The issue is expected to be taken up after the Senate reconvenes in November.
UTLA’s stated goal is “to promote a peaceful solution to the expanding war in the Middle East in line with our March 2024 call for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.”
Union materials prepared for a board of directors meeting, which were obtained by The Times, state the rationale for taking such a stand: “the arms named have been used in violations of U.S. and international law, indiscriminately killing large numbers of civilians, many of them children.”
The rationale also asserted why it was appropriate for UTLA to take up the matter.
“As educators, we have watched for one year as Israel has decimated the education system for current and future Palestinians, destroying every university in Gaza and forcing children to attend school in refugee camps or not at all,” the document explaining the union’s rationale for the resolution states.
The union did not immediately release the vote tally, but it passed easily among those members of the union’s House of Representatives who attended the virtual meeting, sources said. UTLA’s House of Representatives is its official governing body.
On Oct. 7, 2023, a Hamas-led attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage. More than 42,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have died in Israeli retaliatory attacks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and the ongoing war has brought on a humanitarian crisis and left the territory in ruins.
“It is our duty as educators to speak up for the protection of education and all young people and their families, especially when it is our tax dollars fueling this destruction and our government providing the arms,” according to the rationale provided to the board of directors, which the union said was not provided to members of the House prior to its vote.
