Which Side Are You On?

In San Francisco–Dockworkers Refuse to Cross Picket Line to Unload Israeli Ship 20. Jun, 2010

Activists singing "Which Side Are You On?' sums up the protest.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters picketed at the Port of Oakland, in California, on Sunday hoping to delay an Israeli cargo ship from docking, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Police estimated that more than 500 demonstrators gathered early Sunday morning at Berth 58, where a cargo ship operated by the Israeli Zim shipping company was scheduled to dock. The crowd dispersed around 10 a.m. but around 200 protesters returned in the afternoon when a second shift of dockworkers were scheduled to work.

The demonstration was staged to protest Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"Our objective was to boycott this ship for 24 hours, and we succeeded in doing that," said Richard Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition, one of the groups that organized the protest. {more}

This protest gives us the opportunity to take a look at a bit of the past history of Zim Shipping. The 9/11 connection.

That a company moved from one place to another is not news, it happens all the time.

But for a company partially owned by the state of Israel to move out of the WTC one week before the attacks and forfeit $50,000.00 in broken lease fees is news.

And where has Zim moved part of its operations to?

O’Neill’s FBI colleague, Mike Dick, aggressively investigated this Israeli ring before and after 911 . But like O’Neill, he soon found himself removed from his duties on the orders of the then-head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Michael Chertoff. Dick was very suspicious when Israeli movers quickly moved Zim American Israeli Shipping Company out of its 10,000 square feet of office space on the 17th Floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The partially Israeli state-owned firm forfeited a $50,000 security deposit when it terminated its lease and vacated the building one week prior to 911. According to a non official cover (NOC) CIA source who worked with Dick, Israeli movers moved explosives into the 17th Floor office space after Zim moved out.

After 911, Dick as well as the CIA NOC were harassed by their superiors on orders “from above.” Those orders came from Chertoff. Dick was first relieved of his primary counter-espionage duties, eventually sent to Pakistan to investigate the kidnapping of  Wall Street Journal  reporter Daniel Pearl, and eventually buried in a desk job at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC.

September 4, 2001: Israeli Company Moves Out of WTC

The Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co. moves their North American headquarters from the 16th floor of the WTC to Norfolk, Virginia, one week before the 9/11 attacks. The Israeli government owns 49 percent of the company.
[VIRGINIAN-PILOT, 9/4/2001]

More than 200 workers had just been moved out; about ten are still in the building making final moving arrangements on 9/11, but escape. [JERUSALEM POST, 9/13/2001; JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, 10/18/2001]

The move leaves only one Israeli company, ClearForest, with 18 employees, in the WTC on 9/11. The four or five employees in the building at the time manage to escape. [JERUSALEM POST, 9/13/2001]

One year later, a Zim ship is impounded while attempting to ship Israeli military equipment to Iran; it is speculated that this is done with the knowledge of Israel. [AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 3/29/2002]
{more - Goon Squad}