Beit Surik and Stop the Wall thank Rho city council for condeming Pizzarotti for Complicity with Israeli Apartheid
For background on the issue, this is from a recent Press release from the Italian Coalition Stop That Train:On 30 November, the City Council of Rho, in the province of Milan, approved a resolution expressing “moral and political condemnation of Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A. for its participation in the project for the construction of the A1 Jerusalem – Tel Aviv railway”.Pizzarotti is a contractor for the Israeli project for the new A1 high-speed railway that will connect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The new railway cuts through the occupied Palestinian territories for 6.5 km in clear violation of international law and human rights, including illegal Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land in the villages of Beit Iksa and Beit Sourik. In addition, the logistics center and road network for the massive tunnel boring machines and the transport of material from the tunnels excavated by Pizzarotti are causing the destruction of ancient olive groves and agricultural land recognized by the Israeli Supreme Court as a “fundamental resource for subsistence” for the communities. Art. 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying power from destroying real or personal property except in cases of absolute military necessity. Read more
The municipal council of Beit Surik, a village in the Jerusalem district of the West Bank, wrote the following letter to thank the City Council of Rho for their solidarity:
To whom it may concern, AS municipal council of Beit Surik we are writing to express our deep gratitude to the decision of the municipal council of Rho to morally and politically condemn the Italian company Pizzarotti for their continued involvement in the Israeli A1 train project.We declare our objection to the proposed route of the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv train line, which passes through land belonging to the village of Beit Surik, in the district of Jerusalem in the West Bank.The proposed route of the train line passes through agricultural land that even the Supreme Court of Israel ruled necessary to be preserved as part of Beit Surik for the wellbeing of the village population as part of a ruling regarding the construction of the Apartheid Wall on our land.This train line will bring inconvenience and suffering to the village in terms of the lost land and in noise pollution, without any benefits, as the train is to connect areas that village resisdents with West Bank ID cards are not allowed to enter.Beit Surik was successful in challenging the route of the apartheid wall that surrounds the village, when the Supreme Court of Israel “ordered that the route of sections of a wall in the area of Judea and Samaria ("the West Bank") be changed in order to avoid unnecessary hardship to the local Palestinian population.” (http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,ISR_SC,,ISR,,4374ac594,0.html)
The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall) also wrote a letter to express their gratitude to Rho's City Council. The letter can be dowloaded here.