West Bank mosque fire ‘was most probably arson’: BBC
Holy books were also destroyed in the mosque fire
A West Bank mosque which was gutted by fire on Monday was most probably attacked by arsonists, Israeli fire-fighters say.
Officials believe arsonists broke into the mosque in Lubban al-Sharqiya, near Nablus, and set it on fire using paper.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has accused Jewish settlers of starting the fire, warning the attack could jeopardise peace talks due to begin.
Initial reports said an electrical short circuit may have caused the fire.
“The investigation showed in most probability that this was a case of arson,” the spokesman for Israeli fire service in the West Bank Capt Jacky Binyamini told the BBC on Thursday.
“It is important to note that the investigation was carried out in full co-operation with investigators from the Palestinian fire fighting services,” the spokesperson said.
A report by the fire-fighters is expected to be submitted to Israeli police on Thursday, reports said.
The investigation ruled out the possibility that there was an electrical short circuit that caused the fire, Israel’s Yehdiot Aharanot newspaper reported.
Israeli police say the investigation is still under way, and the cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
Abbas’ warning
The mosque is close to three Jewish settlements.
The attack came as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell returned to the region, attempting to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
“This criminal attack threatens efforts to revive the peace process,” said Mr Abbas in a statement earlier this week.
He pointed the finger of blame at Israel, adding that “the Israeli army protects the settlers”.
Hamas, which is opposed to peace talks with Israel, has said the mosque attack is “the first fruit of the pointless negotiations,” Reuters reported.
Israel had warned Palestinians in the West Bank that there is a risk of local settlers attacking homes in the area after the Israeli army demolished houses in a settlement near Nablus, Palestinian officials say.
The West Bank has seen a series of attacks on mosques in recent months.
Last month, another mosque in the village of Huwara near Nablus was vandalised by Hebrew graffiti. Palestinian residents blamed activists from three nearby Jewish settlements.
In January, Israeli police arrested settlers as part of investigations into an arson attack on a West Bank mosque in 2009.
Video: Ameer Makhoul, Omar Said -Israel lifts gag order on new arrests: The Real News Network
In the past two weeks the Israeli internal intelligence agency, the Shabak / Shin Bet, arrested two prominent Israeli activists in the middle of the night. The men are well known leaders of Palestinian organizations inside Israel but were arrested and prevented the right to see counsel under emergency regulations, akin to those Palestinians in the occupied territories are subjected to. The men were arrested under secret evidence and a gag order was issued to the Israeli press regarding their arrests. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to the men’s relatives, the legal organization representing them, and to one of them, prior to his arrest last week.
EDITOR: BDS takes hold in Israeli mainstream circles!
It is rather amazing how quickly the changes are taking hold. Akiva Eldar is explaining why botha the boycott and buying Palerstinian products is crucial. This was totally impossible a year ago!
Buy Palestinian products: Haaretz
By Akiva Eldar
Tags: Israel news Israel settlements Salam Fayyad
Suppose some Palestinian group managed to set up a new settlement on land abandoned by refugees of the 1967 war in the Jordan Valley. What would your average Israeli patriot have to say about an Israeli contractor who agreed to build it, or about Jewish workers clambering on Palestinian scaffolds? What an outcry we’d hear from the Israeli right about such traitors! Never fear, our forces would never allow the uncircumcised to fix even a peg in the occupied territory under absolute Israeli control (some 60 percent of the West Bank ). The imagined scenario of Jews building homes for Palestinians was created only for the sake of discussion – specifically of the protests in Israel against the ban recently imposed by the Palestinian Authority against Arabs working in the settlements.
It takes no small amount of audacity to threaten the Palestinians with harm to their economy if they refuse to continue building Israeli settlements on their own land. Only we are allowed to threaten boycotts every Monday and Thursday against countries that dare to criticize us. After all, we, as is well known, have the monopoly on patriotism. Remember the treatment the Etzel and Lehi underground militias meted out to Jewish girls who went to bed with British soldiers?
“Buy Israeli goods” is an important ethos – with emphasis on the word “Israeli.” Many Israelis, including this writer, and peace-seekers all over the world boycott products made in the settlements. But if Palestinian factory workers dare leave their jobs in the Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank, the president of the Manufacturers Association, Shraga Brosh, says he’ll make sure that the government closes off the Haifa Port to Palestinian goods.
The entire world, with our American friends at the forefront, insists that the beefing up of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem cannot be reconciled with the “two states for two peoples” solution. How can the Palestinian leadership be expected to stand by idly while 25,000 Palestinian workers put a stamp of approval on the occupation through their own labor and the sweat of their own brows? Just as the Paris Protocol – the economic agreement between Israel and the PA – does not obligate Israel to employ Palestinian workers in Kfar Sava, neither does it prohibit the Palestinians from imposing restrictions on Arabs working in Ariel.
The commotion over the PA’s economic campaign against the settlements indicates, more than anything else, how the colonialist mindset has been branded into Israeli consciousness. The protests over the threatened loss of the hewers of wood and drawers of water shows how hard it is to shake off the master-servant attitudes that have taken root over the last 43 years. The gap between the economies of Israel and the occupied territories, the security restrictions on entering Israel and movement within the territories, and the discrimination in favor of Israeli goods, have all forced the West Bank’s labor force into the settlements. The settlers have also become dependent upon this asymmetrical relationship between themselves and the natives: Why should they accommodate Chinese workers on their holy land if they can get cheap Palestinian laborers who go home at the end of the day.
If the government of Israel were genuinely interested in the partition of the land, it would follow in the PA’s footsteps and cut itself off from the settlers. In addition to freezing construction in the settlements, it would cancel the special benefits enjoyed by the industrial zones in the territories, which attract greedy entrepreneurs. Instead of encouraging settlement beyond the Green Line, the Israeli government would promote legislation for compensating those settlers willing to come home. Instead of hiding behind the self-righteous claim that it is providing livelihoods for thousands of indigent laborers, let the government open the Israeli markets to more goods and workers from the territories.
Meanwhile, what will happen to the workers who the Palestinian Authority will compel to leave the building sites, fields and factories that the settlers have established on the Palestinians’ land? Who is going to feed the tens of thousands of families whose breadwinners will lose their jobs? The Palestinian economics minister, Hassan Abu Libdeh, has promised that before the boycott regulations go into effect, the government of Salam Fayyad will help those who work in the settlements to find jobs within the PA. The boycott of settlement produce, he says, has already increased the consumption of goods manufactured by Palestinian plants as well as the demand for local labor.
The economic divorce of Palestinians from the Jewish settlements is an important step toward divorce from Israel’s occupation policies. Buy Palestinian.
Gideon Levy: Israel’s security measures? Don’t make me laugh: Haaretz
Has anyone ever heard of a supporter or benefactor of the most extremist of settlers being deported?
Gideon Levy
Who says Jewish humor has disappeared from Israel? Who says that even the state’s shadowiest organizations don’t enjoy occasional moments of levity, in between carrying out assassinations and foiling conspiracies? Israel’s ongoing fascistization, isolation, nationalism and militarism don’t make for much comic relief. So listen to what Barak Ravid reported in Haaretz on Thursday.
A Spanish clown – it sounds like the start of a joke – lands in Israel. Not just any clown, but Spain’s greatest, Ivan Prado. He expected to sail through passport control – a Spanish citizen, even a clown, needs no security authorization to enter the democratic State of Israel – claim his bags of tricks and continue to Ramallah.
He had planned, this joker, to establish an international clown festival in Ramallah, of all places. It was the mistake of a lifetime, a truly mad idea. First, what use do the Palestinians have for clowns from other countries? They have quite enough of their own, thank you. Anyway, what do they have to laugh about in Ramallah?
In the blink of an eye one of the Shin Bet’s finest appeared, a true guardian of Israel, to take this jester in for questioning about his links to “terror groups.” Prado, silly clown that he is, refused to answer. The Shin Bet agent (a clown of lesser renown ) apparently believed he had been chosen to save the day.
To make a long story short, after six hours of waiting miserably at Ben-Gurion International Airport Prado was informed by an Interior Ministry official, “You’re being expelled. Get on the first flight to Madrid, where there’s room for jokers like you.” With that, Prado transmogrified into a prophet of the apocalypse. After landing in Spain he began denouncing Israel to the local press, comparing the Palestinians’ plight with that of the Jews in wartime Poland. Just what we need, more Polish jokes.
The Israeli embassy in Madrid sent an urgent communique to Jerusalem: asking “What did you do?” The Foreign Ministry replied curtly, “security reasons.” Rage spread through the embassy, which sought a more substantive response with which to counter questions from the Spanish media, sure that a clown’s deportation for “security reasons” must be some kind of joke. But the Shin Bet security service and the Defense Ministry did not bother to reply. “The man declined to provide complete information to the security people, especially in regard to his links with Palestinian terror organizations,” the Shin Bet told Haaretz in response to a request.
A textual interpretation: Prado, as understood by the omniscient Shin Bet, clearly has links with terror groups, otherwise he wouldn’t want to establish a clown festival in Ramallah. Worse, he refused to speak about those links. Which “terror groups”? Islamic Jihad or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades perhaps? Al-Qaida? Iran’s Quds Force? What links? Was the clown considering transferring Spain’s vast stockpiles of laughter to hostile elements? Joke bombs to the jihadists? A devastating punch line to Hamas? “You can laugh,” a Foreign Ministry official said afterward, “but the incident has already caused serious damage to Israel’s image abroad, which only increased when Israel failed to provide a serious explanation.”
Prado is not alone. Were the story not so inane, grotesque and infuriating we might hurt ourselves laughing. But dozens of foreign visitors have been similarly expelled in the past few months because they were suspected of sympathizing with the Palestinians – a grave offense indeed. These are people of conscience who came to express support for the Palestinians but were foiled by the airport’s thought police. The Jewish-American historian Norman Finkelstein was expelled for supporting a one-state solution to the Mideast conflict and believing that Israel has turned the Holocaust into an industry. But had he requested a new immigrant document he would have to receive one immediately, in accordance with the Law of Return. But to come to visit and dare to criticize? Send him back to America.
Likewise, three Swedish activists for a Jewish-Palestinian educational group were recently expelled, as was an American journalist who had worked for years for the Palestinian news agency Ma’an. Has anyone ever heard of a supporter or benefactor of the most extremist of settlers being deported? Please – don’t make the Shin Bet and the Interior Ministry laugh.
Dershowitz: Jews initiate legal terror against Israel: IOA
Dershowitz accused anarchist Jewish linguist Noam Chomsky of creating a hostile atmosphere among many groups in the United States and in its academic campuses. They are creating a narrative which always presents Israel as a Nazi occupier, he said, while shutting their eyes to facts contradicting those same claims, like the ties between Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during World War II.
IOA Editor: At no time did Noam Chomsky refer to Israel as a “Nazi occupier.” As the record amply shows, “Israeli occupier” is sufficiently cruel. Linking the Jerusalem Mufti to Hitler does not logically contradict (one way or the other) any characterization of the Israeli occupation. On the Mufti-Hitler issue, see Gilbert Archer: Why Holocaust Denial Is on the Rise in the Arab World.
Dershowitz’ desperately warped arguments are interesting: “legal terror,” for example. As a prominent lawyer, one would expect him to appreciate that “terrorism” is generally understood to mean “violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal… and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)” (Wikipedia). This definition is sufficiently broad to cover both the bombing of Gaza residential neighborhoods and the blowing up of Tel Aviv buses. On the other hand, legal challenges, unpleasant as they might be to the receiving party, are designed to be countered and resolved, in a civilized manner, in a court of law – something which an army of Israeli lawyers, and international supporters like Dershowitz, are working hard to block.
On “Delegitimization:” Conveniently, Israel’s ‘supporters’ equate criticism of Israeli actions — mostly, directly connected to the Occupation, and the Occupation itself — with denial of its right to exist. This is an old Hasbara trick: You criticize us, you’re really saying Israel has no right to exist. Left out of the discussion is “The right to exist as what?” As an occupying state? An Apartheid state? The term “delegitimization” is actually turned on its head: It is the Israelis who are attempting to delegitimize their critics by calling them “delegitimizers,” trying to blur the distinctions between “delegitimizers” and anti-Semites, consistent with old Israeli propaganda practices: If you criticize us, you’re either an anti-Semite — and Dershowitz’ reference to Nazism is designed to do just that — or you’re a sick, “self-hating” Jew. Chomsky, Finkelstein, and this writer, born to Jewish mothers, must be the latter.
For more on the important question of legitimacy of the state, and how it applies to Israel and other nation-states, see Noam Chomsky, Gilbert Achcar: On the Legitimacy of the State.
Two Israeli Arabs arrested on suspicion of spying, contact with Hezbollah: Haaretz
Gag order lifted on news that Omar Said, a member of the Balad movement, and Amir Makhoul, director general of an Arab charity, were detained by the Shin Bet security service.
The military censor on Monday lifted a gag order on news that two Israeli Arab political activists were arrested last week on charges of spying and contact with a foreign agent from Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Omar Said, a member of the Balad movement, and Ameer Makhoul, director general of the charity Ittijah (Union of Arab Community-Based Associations) were detained by the Shin Bet security service and police anti-terror squads.
Makhoul was arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning, Said on April 24.
Reports of the arrests circulated widely on unofficial websites and blogs but government censors had banned the Israeli press from reporting them until the gag order was lifted late Sunday night.
Sayid was detained and his house was also searched, police said. The activist, who also practices alternative medicine, has been questioned by police on several occasions over trips abroad in the past few years.
At around 3:00 A.M. on Thursday, armed security forces raided Makoul’s home in Haifa.
Makhoul’s brother Assam, a former MK for Hadash, said the family had no details of the investigation but they suspected authorities had singled out the activist because of his campaigns against the government’s “racist and discriminatory polices” against Israeli Arabs.
The veteran activist is well-known among Arab charities and NGOs and is a regular participant in conference on discrimination in Israel and abroad and has been a virulent critic of government policy.
Unofficial sources say Makhoul was in contact with a number of foreign activists, some with links to groups classified by the government as terror organizations.
Hussein Abu Hasin, a lawyer who has handled several cases of spying charges, told Haaretz that espionage laws in Israel were so wide-ranging that an internet chat or telephone conversation with anyone in an ‘enemy state’ could lead to prosecution.
“The use of these laws has become draconian,” Hasin said.
The arrests have sparked outrage among Israeli Arab organizations and rights groups, who claim that activists disappear from their homes in the middle of the night. They also accuse the courts of being at the beck and call of security services, who often bar suspects from visits with lawyers or from obtaining legal counsel.
Late last week, Israeli Arab rights groups, including Adallah, a center that promotes rights for Arabs in Israel, petitioned a Petah Tikva court to lift the gag order in the case. Adallah also plans to petition the High Court over the general matter of gag orders, in an effort to challenge the policy by which the orders are issued.
A mass rally is planned for Monday night in Haifa to protest the arrests of Said and Makhoul.
EDITOR: Nice Guy Obama plays the tune
After all, he is a nice guy, he even wants a Palestinian state… But what can he do, being the leader of a small and insignificant nation like the US, in the face of the Israeli might? Not much, apart from contiuing to finance the settlements and Israel’s economy, which he and his predecessors have done since 1967… you have got to laugh, but it’s not that funny, of course.
To Abbas he says how much he wishes to support a Palestinian state, just a week after he explained that his support of Israel will never stop. Work this one out.
Obama to Abbas: I am committed to creation of Palestinian state: Haaretz
U.S. president vows to hold both sides accountable for steps that ‘undermine trust’; Quartet welcomes launch of proximity talks as ‘significant’ step toward direct negotiations.
Tags: Israel news Middle East peace UN
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged commitment to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state and vowed to hold both Israel and the Palestinians accountable if either side takes actions that “undermine trust” during U.S.-mediated talks launched this week.
In a telephone conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama welcomed the beginning of indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and reiterated his strong support for the two-state solution.
The U.S. leader also urged both parties to “negotiate seriously and in good faith and to move from proximity talks to direct negotiations as soon as possible,” the White House said.
Obama expressed during the conversation his appreciation for Abbas’ recent gesture by appearing on Israeli television, and urged the president to prevent any acts of incitement or de-legitimization of Israel from the Palestinian people.
Earlier Tuesday, the Quartet of Middle East peace-brokers also urged Israel and the Palestinian Authority to pursue the proximity talks in “good faith” to prepare for full-fledged negotiations on settling their conflict.
The group welcomed the first round of talks held on Sunday with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
“These talks are a significant step toward direct, bilateral negotiations and comprehensive peace in the Middle East,” the quartet said in a statement issued at UN headquarters in New York. The group is composed of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.
The statement said that comprehensive peace is based on the establishment of an “independent and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its neighbors.”
“The quartet calls on all concerned to promote an atmosphere conducive to the talks and to act on the basis of previous agreements and obligations,” the statement said.
The U.S. government said Sunday that the first round of talks ended with “serious and wide-ranging” compromises from both sides.
The two sides had taken “steps to create an atmosphere that is conducive to successful talks,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in a statement.
Netanyahu: Iran trying to provoke war between Israel and Syria: Haaretz
Israel seeks peace and has no intention to attack its neighbors, despite false rumors, the prime minister says.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that Iran is trying to provoke war between Israel and Syria, during a visit to a Northern Command training base.
“Israel has no intention for war, and this is an effort to spread lies in order to create regional tension,” Netanyahu said.
“We want stability and peace,” the premier continued. “Israel seeks peace and has no intention to attack its neighbors, despite false rumors.”
Responding to a question about Tuesday’s meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Netanyahu said that Israel would welcome any steps toward the resumption of peace talks, including those with Syria.
Netanyahu said, however, that peace talks must take place without preconditions. “The path to peace is through negotiations, and that is our intention with the Palestinians and with the Syrians.
Medvedev arrived in Syria late on Monday, shortly after meeting President Shimon Peres, who said in Moscow that Israel did not want war and did not intend to escalate tensions along its borders.
The visit is seen as part of diplomatic endeavor to decrease tensions between Syria and Israel, as well as a defiant message from Syria to Washington, in the wake of rising tensions over an Israeli accusation that Damascus had provided the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah with Scud missiles.
Both Syria and Lebanon have dismissed the allegations as “lies.”
Lieberman dismisses Arab threat to boycott Mediterranean summit: Haaretz
European diplomats said the threat constitutes an intensification of the boycott Arab countries have imposed on contact with Israel’s foreign minister.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday dismissed threats by Arab leaders to boycott next month’s summit of European and Mediterranean countries if he attended the event.
Lieberman said he would travel to the early June summit of the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona, despite the threats.
“I intend to, and I will, be there,” Lieberman, 51, told Israel Radio. “We’re not forcing ourselves on anyone and we’re not forcing anyone else to come.”
A failure to show up would be “a slap in the face” of host-country Spain, he said.
“No one can dictate to us what team or which delegation Israel should send,” he continued. “We’re not boycotting anyone and whoever doesn’t come – that’s his problem.”
The Union of the Mediterranean was initiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to improve cooperation between European Union member states and countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It would also help solve conflicts, not least that in the Middle East.
The threat to boycott the Barcelona summit, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to attend, was initiated by Egypt and Syria. They have informed both their Spanish hosts and France, which co-chairs the sponsoring organization, the Union for the Mediterranean, that Arab leaders will stay away if Lieberman shows up.
The summit was scheduled for June 8 in Barcelona by virtue of Spain’s rotating presidency of the European Union.
Netanyahu has already confirmed his attendance, and Lieberman had been expected to join him.
European diplomats told Haaretz that the threat to boycott the summit constitutes an intensification of the boycott Arab countries have imposed on contact with the Israeli foreign minister, given that Netanyahu, not Lieberman, is heading the Israeli delegation. They added that there is disappointment and even anger in Europe over the Arab countries’ stance.
Senior Israeli officials confirmed the threat of a boycott. “The Arabs are not prepared to be in the same room with Lieberman, or to take the risk that they would have to be photographed with him or shake his hand,” said one.
The feeling at the Foreign Ministry is that the Arab threat could lead to the summit either being canceled entirely or convening at a lower level, with officials of ambassadorial rank only. If this is the result, it would be seen as a humiliation not only for Spain and France, but for the European Union as a whole.
A Spanish diplomat who is in charge of preparations for the Barcelona summit visited Israel several days ago and met with the Foreign Ministry’s director general for Western Europe, Naor Gilon, to brief him on the threat by the Arab states. Gilon told the Spanish representative that Israel would not be dictated to by the Arab countries with regard to Lieberman’s participation in particular or the composition of the Israeli delegation in general.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos, who will arrive in Israel Tuesday to receive an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is expected to discuss the matter in his talks with Netanyahu. Moratinos will then go to Damascus Wednesday night and meet with President Bashar Assad in an effort to convince the Syrian leader to lift the boycott threat. If Assad agrees to participate, Egypt is considered likely to forgo its opposition as well, and to be followed by the other Arab countries.
In addition to the heads of the 27 EU member countries and their foreign ministers, Spain is slated to host the leaders of all the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, including Israel, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, in addition to Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Major victory for pro-Palestine boycott campaign: Dublin City Council passes anti-Veolia motion: Indymedia Ireland
national | rights and freedoms | news report Monday May 10, 2010 23:44 by Kevin – IPSC info at ipsc dot ie
Dr David Landy of the IPSC welcomes the vote as a significant development
The international Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement today scored a major victory as Dublin City Council passed a resolution calling on the City Manager not to sign or renew any contracts with French multinational Veolia[1] – the operators of the LUAS who have also tendered for the Metro North project[2]. Veolia operate Israeli rail, bus and waste services in the illegally occupied West Bank, making them complicit in Israel’s contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Indeed, Veolia has a direct involvement in building the infrastructure of apartheid in Israel/Palestine.
IPSC anti-Veolia vigil outside Dublin City Hall this evening as the vote was being taken
The resolution, tabled by Cllr. Joan Collins (People Before Profit), was passed by unanimously at the sitting of Dublin City Council this evening (May 10th 2010) and is an important statement of solidarity with Palestine by the elected representatives of a European capital city. This solidarity mirrors the deep empathy that exists throughout Irish society for the Palestinian people and the widespread revulsion at the behaviour of the apartheid Israeli state.
Commenting on the motion’s passage, Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) chairperson Dr David Landy said: “This is a monumental victory for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The passing of this motion represents the elected representatives of a European capital city clearly standing up and saying ‘No’ to companies that collaborate with Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinian people. It is doubly welcome coming as it does on the same day that Israel was scandalously accepted into the OECD.”
Dr Landy continued: “Furthermore, this is just the latest in a string of such defeats that Veolia has suffered as a result of their active participation in Israel’s apartheid policies – victories for the BDS movement have been seen in Sweden, Holland, Australia, Iran, France and elsewhere in Ireland. The IPSC once again urges Veolia to heed the Palestinian call for BDS and divest now from its Israeli operations in the occupied Palestinian territories. However, until it does so, the IPSC will continue to campaign for Veolia not to be granted contracts in Ireland.”
“The IPSC will now be working with other local councils to ensure the passage of similar motions nationwide[3]. The IPSC will also now step up the pressure on the Rail Procurement Agency, which is responsible for awarding the highly lucrative Dublin Metro North contract. The city of Dublin has spoken loudly and clearly, and it says no to collusion with Israeli apartheid. The RPA should listen carefully – the Palestine solidarity movement is not going to quietly stand by while such companies are given Irish taxpayers’ money. It’s not on.”
Dr Landy concluded: “Finally, on behalf of the IPSC, I would like to thank all of the councillors who supported this motion, not least People Before Profit’s Cllr Joan Collins whose motion it was. I would also like to thank everyone who contacted their councillors in support of the motion, and those who came out on the many demonstrations and actions over the past three months that the IPSC held in the run up to this momentous vote.”
Details of Veolia’s illegal operations in occupied Palestine can be viewed on the IPSC website: http://www.ipsc.ie/veolia
[1] The full text of the motion reads as follows:
Dublin City Council recognizing
1. That Veolia is a leading partner in the consortium contracted to build a light railway system linking Israel to illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem
2. That the Irish government and the U.N does not recognise Israel’s annexation and occupation of East Jerusalem and have repeatedly stated their views that the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank contravene international law
3. That Veolia’s involvement in the project is in contravention of the UN’s stated demand that Israeli settlement activities and occupation should not be supported;
This Council calls on the City Manager not to sign any new or renew any existing contracts with Veolia as it would be in contravention of the wishes of this council. Galway and Sligo city/county councils have supported similar motions.
Cllr Joan Collins
[2] Veolia is set to merge with Transdev, who are one of the two final tenderers for the Dublin Metro North contract. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100505-703713.html
[3] Dublin City Council is the third Irish council to pass such a motion, following on from Sligo and Galway.
Related Link: http://www.ipsc.ie
IPSC supporters making their voices heard outside tonight’s meeting