The definitive history of the US labor movement’s complicity in Zionist settler colonialism, and a call for today’s labor militants to organize in solidarity with Palestinians.
US trade unionists are often told to keep quiet and remain neutral on Palestine because “Palestine has nothing to do with unions” and “weighing in” only distracts from struggles for better working conditions.
No Neutrals There makes a timely and critical intervention against that pervasive sentiment by recounting the history of the US labor movement’s century-long involvement in the struggle for Palestine. Scholar Jeff Schuhrke convincingly demonstrates that unions in the United States have never been silent or neutral on the question of Palestine. In fact, they have played a key role—in the initial Zionist colonization of Palestine, the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948, supporting US foreign policy commitments to Israel, and the ongoing suppression of the Palestinian liberation movement.
In his compelling telling of this history, Schuhrke conclusively shows that US unions helped build and maintain the state of Israel, and also shines a light on important exceptions to this rule: instances of US labor solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle that point the way forward for today’s labor movement.
Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University. He is the author of Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade. His writing appears frequently in Jacobin, In These Times, Jewish Currents, and Labor Notes.
ISBN: 9798888904961
Publication date: October 28, 2025
Introduction
Chapter 1: Laying the Foundations
Chapter 2: Holocaust and Nakba
Chapter 3: Bonding with Israel
Chapter 4: Strained Friendship
Chapter 5: Intifada
Chapter 6: Labor for Palestine
Conclusion
“Schuhrke’s unspooling of American unions’ international machinations is impressive and concise. No Neutrals There is a unique and revealing look at one facet of America’s deep relationship with Israel.“
—Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review
"By assembling a record of misdirected solidarity — solidarity with the coloniser rather than the colonised — Schuhrke shows how betrayal can be organisational, structured, and bureaucratised...His book is both an indictment and a summons, calling on workers — and on all of us — to recognise that the struggle for Palestine is inseparable from the struggle for justice."
—Yahia Lababidi, The New Arab
"Finally, a book on the direct engagement of U.S. labor unions with the Israeli government, including huge investments of American worker pensions in Israeli bonds. This book exposes conflicts of interest and the tensions between the rank and file workers and the compromised Union bosses. Fresh material throughout about this continuing taboo subject." —Ralph Nader, CounterPunch
“Jeff Schuhrke repudiates the Zionism of AFL-CIO 'leaders,' and argues that workers should support Palestinian efforts for liberation...This book is excellent, deserves wide attention, and this work, plus his Blue-Collar Empire, has put him in the top rank of today’s labor historians.”
—Kim Scipes, Countercurrents
"Schuhrke’s sweeping and accessible book offers a detailed history of U.S. labor’s century-long alliance with the Zionist movement and the State of Israel, examining the forces and developments that built and sustained that alliance as well as those that opposed it. This is a critical resource for organizers within both the U.S. labor and Palestine solidarity movements as they work to strengthen efforts to build an anti-militarist labor politics that can win justice for workers and oppressed people both at home and abroad."
—Derek Seidman, Truthout
“The book is incredibly timely and impressively detailed. Schuhrke proves his worth as a historian by telling a meaningful story about U.S. labor with a lesson to be learned.”
—Samantha Cooney, UE News
"A needed resource for international trade unionism. In order for us to propel and grow the labour movement we need clarity in a time of deliberate obfuscation...Schuhrke’s book explains how labour officials have sabotaged solidarity towards Palestine under the guise of 'neutrality' while continuing to support Israel. This book helps every reader understand how we got to where we are, and how we move forward in our organizing for solidarity with the people of Palestine."
—Aminah Sheikh, Spring Magazine
"For anyone who still believes that the labor movement can be a moral force, No Neutrals There is required reading. It reminds us that neutrality is a luxury of the comfortable, and that solidarity, if it means anything, must cross the checkpoints."
—Hossam El-Hamalawy, 3arabawy
"Schuhrke invites today’s labor activists to re-think union internationalism and stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers and unions, as part of a broader working-class internationalism... A well-researched and timely book." — Joseph Jamison, Marxism-Leninism Today
"No Neutrals There tells the shameful story of how U.S. labor leaders supported and helped fund the century-long Zionist project of colonization, occupation, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. But it is also a history of labor anti-Zionism, Palestinian labor politics, and the promise of working-class internationalism. There are no neutrals under colonialism and genocide, just as there are no neutrals in the class struggle."
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
“No Neutrals There is a vital and unflinching account of the deep entanglement between the US trade union movement and Zionist settler colonialism. It dismantles the myth of union neutrality on Palestine and exposes the cost of silence. This book is a critical resource for all workers organising toward genuine internationalism and justice.”
—Rafeef Ziadah, co-author of Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine
“Jeff Schuhrke's book is a damning indictment of the way American trade unions betrayed Palestinians by aiding the colonization of their homeland. This soul-searching journey is needed so that American trade unions, and the Western Left as a whole, can help to rectify a historical injustice that is a century old. This book covers an untold history that needed to be exposed for the sake of the struggle for freedom in Palestine.”
—Ilan Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
"Historian Jeff Schuhrke—author of the “go-to” book on US labor and foreign policy during the Cold War—explains why the AFL-CIO and other US unions’ elected leaders have long provided unquestioning support for Israel. This despite the fact that the global working-class watches in horror as millions of Palestinians starve and believes they deserve what all humans want: peace, equal rights, and justice. To understand the contradiction at the heart of US foreign policy, read Schuhrke’s book."
—Peter Cole, author of Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area
"When some American unions began to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, they were widely criticized in the political mainstream for venturing beyond their proper domain. This crucial, illuminating book shows that nothing could be further from the truth. The US labor movement has been entangled deeply with Zionism since long before Israel's establishment."
—Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America
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