200 Protesters Flood Maersk’s Manhattan HQ to Demand End to Military Shipments

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Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

Roughly 200 protesters occupied the lobby of Maersk’s Manhattan headquarters on June 11 to demand that the multibillion-dollar shipping conglomerate stop sending military cargo to Israel amid the genocide in Gaza. The intergenerational, multifaith coalition — organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement and Jewish Voice for Peace — poured through the revolving doors of a Midtown East skyscraper around 11 am, then peeled off their outer layers to reveal black T-shirts emblazoned with the phrases “Hands Off Gaza,” “End the Siege,” and “Stop Starving Gaza.” Chanting, clapping, and unfurling banners, activists sat down in a circle on the marble floor, a sign reading “Maersk Arms Embargo Now” at their center.

A report by the Palestinian Youth Movement, released last month, found that Maersk plays a critical role in supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel. Maersk has shipped the wings for every Israeli F-35 jet since at least March 2022, and the weapons have been used to carry out Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza — flattening schools, hospitals, refugee camps, and more.

“What the report has shown is that, without Maersk, the F-35 as a weapon would not be possible,” Naye Idriss, an organizer with Palestinian Youth Movement, told Truthout. “Maersk’s role in facilitating the genocide is not an accident. It’s a choice to accumulate profit off the genocide of our people in Gaza.”

Maersk’s New York office usually enjoys a low profile, tucked away inside an unmarked corporate building. Wednesday’s event made the company’s complicity in the Gaza genocide visible. Passersby stopped to peer into the lobby windows and snap photos, while businesspeople on lunch break grumbled as they encountered the crowd.

The protesters also highlighted the urgent need for food and aid to be let into Gaza amid Israel’s air, land, and sea blockade, which humanitarian groups say is illegal under international law. According to the United Nations, three-quarters of Gaza’s population is currently experiencing “emergency” or “catastrophic” levels of food deprivation, and 57 children have died of malnutrition since Israel tightened its blockade on March 2. On June 9, in a move that sparked widespread condemnation from the international community, Israel seized a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid ship carrying 12 advocates and journalists, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

“People in Gaza go for food and they’re shot — and it’s not about Hamas, it’s about wiping out the Palestinians and taking over their property,” said Jane Hirschmann, a 79-year-old grandmother who attended the action with her adult daughter. Herself a daughter of Holocaust survivors, Hirschmann has been protesting for Palestinian liberation for more than a decade, including co-organizing the first U.S. aid boat to Gaza as part of an international Freedom Flotilla in 2011.

“The Holocaust was not televised, but this is being televised every single day,” said Hirschmann. “Every day we see how many babies are killed, how many children are dismembered.… People have to rise up, and we have to say, ‘No more. This can’t happen.’”

Shortly after noon on June 11, police officers began arresting protesters in the Maersk lobby and hogtying their wrists. Organizers estimate that around 70 people were arrested altogether.

Idriss told Truthout that the organizers believe that their demands to Maersk are within reach. “Contracts with weapons manufacturing companies and shipping weapons components are not the majority of Maersk’s profits,” Idriss said. “There have already been a lot of achievements, whether that’s Spain responding to our report and preventing Maersk ships from docking, or major protests happening in the Netherlands in response to our research, or workers in Morocco taking to the ports to say, ‘We will not allow Maersk ships to dock here.’”

After the protest, Hirschmann posed a series of questions: “Can you imagine if Maersk decided not to be part of the supply chain and not to send the parts needed to kill Gazans? What if countries around the world decided to divest from Israel and not support the genocide in Gaza? What if countries around the world demanded that the border be open and the supply trucks come through?”

“If all of this would be put in place, Israel would have to stop this,” she said. “They would have to end this genocide.”