Tag: BDS

Dexia Israel stops financing Israeli settlements

Martijn Lauwens | ‘Israel colonises, Dexia finances’ Campaign

12 June 2009

The Belgian-French financial group Dexia has announced it will no longer finance Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories through its Israeli branch Dexia Israel. This is the result of a months-long campaign in Belgium, supported by NGO’s, political parties, local authorities, trade unions and other organisations. Dexia’s management states that financing Israeli settlements is indeed against the bank’s code of ethics and it will stop giving loans due to this.

A Belgian bank financing Israeli settlements

In 2001 Dexia Group buys the Israeli bank Otzar Hashilton Hamekomi and renames the bank Dexia Public Finance Israel. Just like other Dexia subsidiaries, Dexia Israel is specialised in financing municipalities and other local authorities.

It takes until October 2008 for a few Belgian solidarity groups to discover that Dexia Israel is not only financing regular Israeli municipalities but is also granting loans to illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories. In a document of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), the director of Dexia Israel, Mr. David Kapah, confirms that the bank has indeed granted credits to seven settlements and three regional authorities in the occupied Westbank between 2003 and 2007.

This ‘smoking gun’ evidence entails the start of a fast growing campaign in Belgium. United under the slogan ‘Israel colonises, Dexia finances’, the campaign knows its first successes. In the following months petitions are being launched, MP’s are being questioned and local actions are being started up. Very important is the support of local Belgian authorities such as municipalities and provinces, as they hold a vast amount of shares in Dexia Group.

Today the action platform consists of 61 Belgian organisations, gathered over 4000 signatures and got 29 local authorities to sign a resolution. They all demand that Dexia breaks off its relations with the settlements and stops financing the occupation immediately.

Dexia: ‘Guilty, but we won’t do it again’

For several months the Belgian government and the Dexia management never really responded to the demands of the action platform. However as the campaign started to get more media coverage and the pressure started to rise, something changed. On May 13, the activists of the campaign were able to voice demands at the annual shareholders meeting of Dexia Group in Brussels.

In response, Jean-Luc Dehaene, chairman of the board of Dexia and former Belgian prime minister, admitted that the bank has been extending loans to Israeli colonies. He stresses however that, since September 2008, there has been no additional financing of these or other colonies.

Dehaene declared no new loans will be granted to the settlements. He added that the credits and loans to the settlements which are granted before are in runoff and will not be prolonged any longer; neither will they be replaced by similar loans.

Dehaene: “In the past, Dexia Israel granted 5 million Euros of loans to the settlements, this was only 1% of the total budget of Dexia Israel. The loans to the Jerusalem municipality are not included in this amount, as Dexia Group feels that Jerusalem is not contested territory.”

However, East Jerusalem belongs to Palestine. Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in June 1967, and extended Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration to this part of the city. In response the Security Council adopted resolution 252 that it “[UN Security Council] Considers that all legislative measures by Israel, including expropriation of land and properties thereon, which tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status”.

In 1980 Israel declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, including East Jerusalem. The same year the UN Security Council adopts resolution 476 that the Security Council “Reconfirms that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.

Dexia’s financial support to the municipality of Jerusalem can be considered as support to the colonization of East Jerusalem.

Dehaene also states that the activities of Dexia Israel do not belong to the core-business of Dexia Group anymore, adding: “Don’t be surprised that at one point, Dexia Group will sell Dexia Israel”.

The campaign has been fruitful already, but this is not the end.

According to Mario Franssen, spokesperson of the action platform, the campaign will continue until Dexia has officially declared -and provided the proof for- a full stop of settlement funding, including the disputed loans to Jerusalem. Franssen explains that the action platform is not yet satisfied, but these concessions from Dexia are a good start. “We are still demanding a full and immediate stop of all connections between Dexia and the colonies. Dexia is guilty of financing the occupation, and this has to end”, Franssen added.

Veolia likely to abandon rail project

Abbas Al Lawati | Gulf News

9 June 2009

Dubai: One of the two transport companies facing a lawsuit in France for their involvement in a controversial Israeli rail project in occupied East Jerusalem has reportedly planned to withdraw from the project.

French company Veolia Transport is considering the sale of its five per cent stake in the Citypass consortium which is tasked with building the occupied Jerusalem rail link, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. The other French company involved in the project is Alstom Transport.

The paper cited observers attributing the move to pressure on the company in Europe and the loss of potential revenue due to its involvement in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

When completed, the Jerusalem Light Rail is expected to link occupied Jerusalem to Jewish colonies in the occupied West Bank that are considered illegal under international law.

A spokesperson from Veolia said the company could not confirm or deny the reports in Haaretz.

Ambassador Hind Khoury, former Palestinian minister of Jerusalem affairs and representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in Paris, whose office was involved in taking Veolia and Alstom to court with advocacy group Association France-Palestine Solidarité, welcomed the move but said it was premature to call it a victory.

“This is certainly a positive development and a success, but we can’t declare victory while the infrastructure of this tramway sits on occupied Palestinian land,” she said.

Hind attributed the reported withdrawal to “a change in the international political climate” led by a new US administration “that respects international law”.

She said that it was time to put pressure on Alstom to abandon the project “because it plays a bigger role in the tramway”.

Veolia and Alstom had been under mounting pressure by advocacy groups to abandon the project in occupied Jerusalem. European companies have in the recent past refrained from investing in or giving contracts to both companies.

Omar Barghouthi, founding member of the Palestinian civil society Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign, said the movement’s pressure in the Derail Veolia and Alstom campaign “played a key role in denying Veolia major contracts, totalling about $7 billion [Dh25.6 billion], in Sweden, Britain and France”.

“Alstom will feel lonely now as the remaining French company that is still complicit in the colonising project of the Jerusalem Light Rail. But they will not withdraw unless, like Veolia, they are made to pay a heavy price that their shareholders cannot swallow,” he added.

Alstom spokesperson Eric Lenoir said the company was not thinking about withdrawing from Jerusalem Light Rail project. He added that the controversy over the project had never been brought up in any tenders Alstom Transport has been involved in, a number of which are in Gulf states.

When contacted by Gulf News, Sylvan Hijazi, Alstom’s president in the Gulf, said he could not comment.

Alain Gresh, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, said that Alstom is now going to be “exposed” as pressure for the project was previously concentrated on Veolia.

He said, however, that companies withdrawing from the project are unlikely to publicly admit to giving into pressure.

“This decision can boost the BDS movement in France and Europe,” he said.

The Palestinian National Authority has since 2005 been trying to push France to intervene in order to stop the two companies’ involvement in the project, and has more recently been asking Arab states to get involved.

Gulf News reported earlier that the Palestinian foreign ministry was in talks with Saudi Arabia to withdraw a $1.8 billion civil works contract awarded to Alstom for the Haramain Express railway linking Makkah and Madinah.

Barghouthi said his movement hopes that states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have granted Alstom contracts, will take action against it.

Supermarkets may face action on Israeli labels, say lawyers

Afua Hirsch | The Guardian

7 June 2009

Retailers including UK supermarkets may be at risk of prosecution for misleading consumers by selling goods from the Palestinian Territories under the label “West Bank”, lawyers have warned.

Fruit, wine and cosmetics originating from illegal Israeli settlements are among the goods that lawyers representing Palestinian interests argue are regularly being wrongly labelled, so that buyers might conclude they are actually produced by Palestinians. In a separate issue, they say illegal settlements are also wrongly benefiting from preferential trade agreements with Israel, which are meant only for goods from inside its pre-1967 borders.

“The use of the expression ‘West Bank’ may in many cases fail to give the consumer the full picture,” said barrister Kieron Beal from Matrix Chambers. He added that in other cases, “where goods have come from the occupied Palestinian Territories they should not be labelled as having their place of origin as Israel”.

The warnings come as government proposals for implementing new EU rules on product labelling, which make it illegal to deceive consumers, are expected within a month. Departments including the Office of Fair Trading, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have been grappling with the issue. Under UK law it is already illegal to present food products in a way which is “likely to mislead”, while European rules include strict measures requiring accurate “country of origin” information to be given.

Concerns about consumers being misled have been compounded by claims that Israeli exporters have benefited from preferential trading terms that allow goods from inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders exemption from import duties.

“It is a breach of the agreement for settlement goods to be imported as Israeli products getting preferential tariffs,” said Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford. “The labelling of herbs sold as ‘West Bank’ [for example] seems to me such an abuse. It is up to UK customs authorities to enforce the origin rules.”

“[Officials] should consider referring the matter to the anti-fraud office of the European commission,” said Sarah Macsherry, a lawyer at Christian Khan solicitors and member of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, a UK-based group.

HMRC denied that goods from the Palestinian Territories could take advantage of the system. “Any claim to Israeli preference which is accompanied by a proof of preferential origin indicating production [in a location] brought under Israeli administration since 1967 is immediately refused,” a spokesman said.

But officials are concerned about the issue. “The department is aware … that the location shown on the proof of origin may be that of a head office in Israel, when the goods concerned may have originated in a settlement,” HMRC said.

Jerusalem rail operator jumps ship, Tel Aviv group isn’t even responding

Ha’aretz

8 June 2009

The light rail projects for Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are both facing difficulties. In a body-blow to the future Jerusalem light rail, the French company Veolia, which was supposed to run the train system after its construction, is abandoning the project.

Moving on to Tel Aviv, the city can’t even get a response to the compromise it offered MTS, the consortium supposed to build an urban train system, in order to settle issues in dispute. It’s waited a month and gotten no answer, causing not a little consternation in government circles.

As for the Jerusalem system, Veolia not only wants out of running the future train; it’s trying to sell its 5% stake in Citypass, the light rail consortium.

In recent days Veolia has been sending feelers to the Egged or Dan bus consortiums, to potentially replace it as project operator.

Any change in the ownership structure of Citypass, or in the identity of the project operator, requires the permission of the state. Also, the attempt to add Egged to the consortium could arouse opposition at the Antitrust Authority.

Veolia has had to contend not only with the delays and difficulties in building the light rail project itself, but with political pressure at home as well. Two months ago a French court heard a lawsuit by a pro-Palestinian group, demanding that the light rail project be halted.

The organization based itself on an article in French law that allows the court to void business agreements, signed by French companies, that violate international law.

The political pressure on Veolia has been mounting in another direction. According to various reports abroad, the French firm had been losing major projects in Europe because of its involvement in the Jerusalem job. Observers claim that’s the real reason Veolia opted out.

Also, for two years the Jerusalem project has been held up by battles between Citypass, the city of Jerusalem and various ministries. (The disputes even include whose fault the delays are.)

Last week the spat between Citypass and the state reached a new low, after the group admitted it couldn’t meet the new deadline for the Jerusalem light rail project. It expects to run nine months behind schedule, the consortium said. The state then accused the business consortium of deliberately dragging its feet and of effecting “a hostile takeover of the streets of Jerusalem.”

Sources in Israel’s transportation sector called Citypass’s announcement “chutzpah,” on the grounds that it and the state had agreed on a new schedule only a year earlier. And that was a month after an arbitration process during which the new schedule was ratified.

In response to Citypass’ announcement, the state contacted the arbitrators accompanying the process, asking them to enforce the franchise agreement and force Citypass to finish the works as set in the new schedule, by September 2010, “finally restoring normalcy to Jerusalem.”

The state also asked for permission to stop paying Citypass, including the upcoming installment of NIS 32.5 million.

Citypass can meet the agreed-on schedule, the state insists: “This isn’t inability to complete the project on time. At most it’s a crude attempt to squeeze more money from the state,” wrote the state in its letter to the arbitrators. “[Citypass] already advised the state and the arbitrators that it doesn’t intend to finish the works on time, but it doesn’t settle for words: It is making sure to work at a pace that assures it won’t meet the agreed-on deadline for completion.”

In summation, the state accuses Citypass of making life in Jerusalem intolerable.

Citypass denies the allegations, which it called “absurd,” and claims the state is indulging in baseless legal gambits in response to the lawsuit Citypass filed against it because of the delays.

Sources in the know suspect that the delays ruined the project’s business model. The cost of the works grew, and there were delays in the transfer of state funding for the companies involved in the project, while the companies needed the money to return their own loans. The upshot, if so, was heightened tensions between the partners in Citypass, mainly between equipment provider Alstom, operator Veolia and the Israeli contractor Ashtrom.

After some changes, the partners in Citypass are Ashtrom (27.5%), Alstom (20%), Polar Investments (17.5%), Israel Infrastructures Fund (10%) and Veolia (5%).

The Jerusalem project involves building eight lines. Only the first one has passed the tender process, which Citypass won. The line is supposed to start in Pisgat Zeev, pass along Jaffa Street and end at Mount Herzl. The cost of that line alone is projected at NIS 2.4 billion. The state is providing NIS 1.4 billion.

Royal Ontario Museum proceeds with unlawful exhibit

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

7 June 2009

Dear Friends,

Later this month, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) will be showcasing artifacts illegally seized by Israel in 1967 after it occupied East Jerusalem. In cooperating with the Israel Antiquities Authority to import and exhibit the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ROM would be in violation of Canada’s obligations under UNESCO legal conventions and protocols, and its own obligations as a member of the Canadian Museums Association (CMA).

Please click here to send an email to officials at the ROM, the CMA as well as provincial and Federal party leaders.

More Info

The Dead Sea Scrolls were largely excavated from Qumran (see map below) in the West Bank between 1947 and 1956 by the Palestine Archaeological Museum with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the École Biblique Française. The Scrolls were in East Jerusalem until 1967.

Map of Qumran

As a signatory to the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954), as well as the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970), Canada cannot import cultural property from an occupied territory, and must, if it can, take the cultural property into custody and return it to the competent authorities of the territory previously occupied at the end of hostilities. The Palestinian Authority objects to the exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls because they were illegally obtained.

The CMA sets out in its Ethical Guidelines that museums “must avoid even the remotest suspicion of compliance in any illegal activity,” and that “museums must guard against any direct or indirect participation in the illicit traffic in cultural and natural objects; this may include natural or cultural objects that are: stolen; illegally imported or exported from another state, including those that are occupied or war-stricken; illegally or unscientifically excavated or collected in the field.”

Considering its legal obligations, the ROM should not under any circumstance import the Dead Sea Scrolls until they have been returned to the competent authorities in the West Bank.

Warmest thanks,

The CJPME Leadership
CJPME Website