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Call for Boycott against Connex and Alstom |
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Saturday, 26 November 2005 |
Stop International Support for the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem!
The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign calls upon citizens, NGOs and civil society groups to stand up and demand the immediate cessation of the involvement of French companies Alstom and Connex in the expansion of settlement infrastructure around Jerusalem.
The companies form part of a consortium that won a 2002 tender put out by Israeli authorities for a light rail transportation project amounting to around 500 million euros. The companies will be responsible for operation and maintenance for the next 30 years. In August of this year, the project got the go ahead from War Criminal Ariel Sharon who stated at a signing ceremony:
" I believe that this should be done, and in any event, anything that can be done to strengthen Jerusalem, construct it, expand it and sustain it for eternity as the capital of the Jewish people and the united capital of the State of Israel, should be done." The Occupation’s Mayor Uri Lupolianski described the light rail to be "the fulfilment of Psalm 122".
The path of the light rail incorporates a number of Jewish settlements around East Jerusalem, built on stolen Palestinian land. It will ensure the contiguity of these settlements into the central areas of the city and provide them with a vital transport link. The project plays a key role in sustaining the settlements and ensuring they became a permanent fixture upon Palestinian land. The project, a private-public partnership (PPP) between the Israeli Occupation government and the consortium, is hinged upon the willingness of international business groupings to provide a huge injection of capital. In turn the French companies will reap significant profits and dividends over a thirty-year period, money stained with the blood and misery of Palestinians currently being expelled from Jerusalem.
Locked behind an eight-meter high Apartheid Wall, Occupation roads and checkpoints, Palestinians face a fresh wave of ethnic cleaning from their lands as they are shut into desparate and miserable Bantustans not just in Jerusalem but also across the whole of the West Bank.
The rail project is nothing more than the most cynical attempt of the Occupation Forces to bolster the Judeaization of Jerusalem and it must be stopped now. The complicity of these companies in the further colonialism of our land is illegal, contrary to the Geneva Convention, and against our rights as Palestinians to a presence in the capital of Jerusalem.
Even PA President Abbas and the Foreign Minister Mr al-Qidwa brought the issue up with French President Chirac last week during a visit to Europe. Chirac has promised to look into the issue but has stated the project will not change the position of East Jerusalem. This fails to detect the realities implied by this project that will add to the isolation and disparate nature of Palestinian neighbourhoods, and allow the continued domination of the city by Zionist settlers.
We make the call for European citizens of conscience to put pressure on President Jacques Chirac and the French government to demand that they force an end to Connex and Alstom involvement in projects that contravene international law and work against our rights as Palestinians to exist in our capital. We call upon our supporters in all the countries where Connex and Alstom operate, to use all forms of popular pressure, protest and boycotts against them, until they end their support for the Israeli project to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem.
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