Pittsburgh says no arm manufacturers welcome

Pittsburgh, PA – On October 10, the Pittsburgh BDS Coalition led hundreds into the streets to speak out against Howmet Aerospace, a locally headquartered company manufacturing aircraft parts for Lockheed Martin. The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement works to isolate Israel for the crimes it is committing in Palestine.

Coming just a day after the announcement of a new ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the Pittsburgh organizers didn’t think for a moment about letting the Palestine solidarity movement settle down. “Just because there might be a new ceasefire doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly okay to sell Israel military jets,” said a member of the Pittsburgh BDS Coalition. “Now is the time to keep up the pressure!”

The event got going with a powerful speech by a representative from the Pittsburgh University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, who spoke to the exhaustion and rage which so many around the world feel watching the Zionist Entity commit genocide in Palestine, with the support of Western Imperialism.

Other speakers included members of PSL, the Our Streets Collective, 50501, the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee, the East End Food Co-op labor union, and Jewish Voices for Peace.

Protesters marched down Penn Avenue behind a large banner reading “Howmet kills,” chanting slogans calling on the company to cancel its contract with Lockheed Martin. Upon reaching the Howmet headquarters, three cardboard models of the F-35 jet, which Howmet manufactures parts for, were smashed in front of the building.

The protest kicks off a week of action against Howmet, which the Pittsburgh BDS coalition has been organizing with other groups around the country. Although Howmet has locations in a dozen states across the US, they are not well-known as a component of the military industrial complex. The Pittsburgh BDS Coalition has been working to fix this by reaching out to anti-imperialist groups near other Howmet locations, several of which plan following Pittsburgh’s example with their own actions across the next week. The week of action also coincides with the international BDS campaign against the F-35 fighter jet, which many European socialists are participating in through shipping boycotts.

Although only 16% of Howmet’s business is dedicated to defense contracts, the fact that it manufactures highly specialized titanium parts makes it a crucial part of the F-35’s production chain – especially as the company has spent years buying up specialized factories to grow and maintain its monopoly on titanium aircraft parts. As the Pittsburgh BDS Coalition sees it, if a popular campaign were to succeed in pressuring Howmet to drop the Lockheed Martin contract and rely on the other 84% of their business instead, it would deal a serious blow to the continued production of the IDF’s favorite fighter jet.

#PittsburghPA #PA #AntiWarMovement #Palestine