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About BDS Italia
BDS Italia is a movement supporting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel's occupation and system of apartheid until Israel respects international law and human rights, comprised of associations and groups throughout Italy that endorse the 2005 call from Palestinian civil society. The BDS movement supports equal rights for all and is therefore opposed to all forms of racism, fascism, sexism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, ethnic and religious discrimination.
Although most of the content of our web site is in Italian, this section contains articles, press releases and action items in English.
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A number of workmen on the new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem express train line were saved from death when a tunnel they were working on collapsed over a month ago.
For weeks before the incident, the contractor on the A1 rail line to the capital and the company supervising the work on behalf of Israel Railways debated the questions of expanding the support mechanism for the tunnel roof with steel arches, and of who would pay for the additional work. In the end, nothing was done and a 15-meter-high chimney in the ceiling gave way.
The contractor's employees, who anticipated the danger, fled before the collapse and were not injured.
The rail project, which is well behind schedule, will now be delayed for many more months.
Such collapses are not that uncommon, especially on complex engineering projects such as the 820-meter tunnel being dug for the new line in the Arazim Valley, outside the city. But this was the second collapse in two months, because the supports were inappropriate for the type of rock in the tunnel.
Leggi: Way off track / Fast train to Jerusalem will have to wait
In Italy, "Stop That Train" launches a campaign calling on Pizzarotti & C. SpA to withdraw from the construction of the Israeli high-speed railway crossing the occupied Palestinian territories. The German Ministry of Transport defines the project as "potentially in violation of international law."
The Italian Coalition "Stop That Train" recently met with Pizzarotti & C. SpA, a private company from Parma involved in the construction of a new Israeli railway that would allow Israeli commuters to travel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in just 28 minutes. In particular, Pizzarotti is involved in Section C, which crosses the internationally recognized borders of Israel and penetrates the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank.
The A1 railway is the largest infrastructure project the Israeli government has undertaken in the last ten years and for 6.5 km cuts through the occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in further confiscation of land and putting at least three communities at risk, including the villages of Beit Surik and Beit Iksa.
While Israel's planned fast train that connects Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a quick 28 minutes will be welcomed by weary commuters, it spells further land confiscation from villages bordering the ever-irrelevant Green Line.
The website WhoProfits.org, has been focusing its pressure and attention on the Italian based construction company, Pizzarotti & Co. since they joined Israel's development project to build a fast train connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, cutting through Palestinian land.
According a report published by whoprofits.org last year, the railway will lie on 6 kilometers of Palestinian land and have destructive consequences for three Palestinian communities that border the official—if disregarded—boundary between the Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. While on the one hand the train further blurs the line between the two countries, on the other it reinforces the segregation between Israelis and Palestinians: the train will be exclusive for Israeli citizens.
Leggi: Palestine Monitor: Focus On Israel’s Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Fast Train
The expropriation of Beit Iksa land is intended to serve passengers from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv while the villagers would not benefit.
The Supreme Court told the state yesterday not to expropriate land belonging to the Palestinian village Beit Iksa for the railway line to Jerusalem until all parties are heard.
Last month Haaretz reported that the former head of the Civil Administration signed an expropriation order for 50 dunams of Beit Iksa’s land for railway construction work.
This runs contrary to a High Court of Justice ruling from December 2009 on Route 443, stipulating that land belonging to West Bank Palestinians may not be taken over for the benefit of Jews or Israelis alone, but must serve the local residents as well. The High Court instructed the Israel Defense Forces to open Route 443 to Palestinian drivers as well as Israeli ones.
Leggi: Haaretz: Supreme Court gives villagers chance to skirt rail line
The project to develop the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv high-speed rail line, also known as the A1, dates back to 1995. It has since undergone alterations and suffered setbacks due to the opposition from Israeli society, concerned over the damage the train line would cause to local communities and the environment, leading several companies to withdraw.
The route was therefore changed and, despite making it longer, will now run through the areas close to the armistice line of 1949 (the “Green Line”) and the enclave of Latrun, and will go through an extensive area located within the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, home to Palestinian communities, including many refugees from 1948 and 1967.
The rail line will not only damage the environment (something not tolerated by the Israeli population and now imposed on the Palestinian population), but also constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, in that it runs for 6.5 km through the occupied West Bank, in violation of International Human Rights Law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the exploitation of land by the occupying power. Israel has instead expropriated Palestinian land in order to build permanent structures destined to meet the exclusive needs of its civilian population. Once completed, the A1 will provide high-speed rail services between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for Israelis commuters only.
Former Civil Administration head signed order expropriating 50 dunams from West Bank village for rail line connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Former Civil Administration head, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, signed an order expropriating 50 dunams from a West Bank village for the rail line connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, just two days before stepping down from his post on November 3.
According to the document, Mordechai was convinced the expropriation was done for public good and that the user of the land would be in a position to compensate the property owners.
Part of the strip of land, 20 dunams, will be used to build a tunnel for the train, and 30 other dunams will serve to prepare the ground for the construction. At the end of the construction, the land will be cleared and return to its original use.
The fact that the rail line connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will pass through the West Bank is causing legal problems. An in-house opinion at the Justice Ministry does not permit the expropriation of land in the West Bank for the benefit of settlers or of Israel without it also benefitting the local population.
Leggi: Despite court ruling, IDF took Arab land for train line
Occupied Palestinian Territory, 16 December 2010 – Israel’s A1 high-speed train project designed to connect Jerusalem and Tel Aviv violates international humanitarian law and human rights law. The A1 rail project forms a component of Israel’s ongoing plans to cement its regime of occupation, colonial rule and apartheid over the Palestinian people, particularly in the occupied West Bank. It constitutes yet another step in the implementation of Israel’s policy of forced population transfer (ethnic cleansing) which has displaced and dispossessed Palestinians, denied refugees their UN-sanctioned right to return and to receive reparations, and prevented the Palestinian people as a whole for over 60 years from exercising its inalienable right to self-determination.
Private business and (partially) state-owned companies are involved in this unlawful rail project. Among those involved are the Israeli firm, Amy Metom Engineers and Consultants, and foreign companies, such as Pizzarotti C.S.p.A., DB International, HBI Haerter, AB Plan, Parsons Brinkerhoff, Deutsche Bahn and Moscow Metrostoy. The involvement of governments and private companies in this project despite its blatant illegality constitutes complicity in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the largest and most representative civil society coalition, calls upon people of conscience and civil society institutions everywhere to engage in BDS campaigns against the state of Israel, as well as Israeli and international corporations involved in and/or profiting from the illegal A1 rail project.
Leggi: Derail Israel’s Unlawful A1 Train Project – End International Complicity
The A1 rail project constitutes yet another step in the implementation of Israel’s policy of forced population transfer (ethnic cleansing), which has displaced and dispossessed Palestinians for more than 60 years.
Israel’s A1 train project is planned to cross the lands of the Palestinian village of Beit Iksa, a community with approximately 2000 inhabitants located in the occupied West Bank, less than 10 km from Jerusalem and right next to the 1949 ceasefire line between Israel and Jordan, which then controlled the West Bank.
Israel’s AI rail project will result in the unlawful expropriation of land and means of subsistence from a Palestinian population who has already been victim to massive dispossession and displacement by Israel in the past:
Leggi: Palestinian refugees and Israel’s A1 rail project – example of Beit Iksa
Peace activists have strongly criticized a planned high-speed rail line in Israel that will cut through the West Bank and deprive Palestinian communities of land. A subsidiary of Germany’s national rail operator apparently helped plan the line, and critics claim they must have known about the controversial route.
Germany’s state-owned national rail operator Deutsche Bahn is a world leader in railway technology, and other countries often call on German expertise when planning their networks. But the involvement of a Deutsche Bahn subsidiary in a controversial planned high-speed line in Israel, which cuts through the occupied West Bank, could prove embarrassing for the company.
The high-speed rail link is set to connect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, reducing travel time between the two cities to just 28 minutes. The planned route would solve one of the country’s biggest transport problems: The current stretch takes 90 minutes and is little used, while highways between the cities often experience massive traffic problems.
Leggi: German Rail Under Fire for Controversial Israeli Project
BEIT IKSA, West Bank — A high-speed train between two major cities seems like a must for a developed nation. But Israel’s long-awaited, $2 billion Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway is turning into a potential political nightmare after planners moved parts of the route into the West Bank.
The route dips twice into the war-won territory, at one point as a short cut and at another to appease Israelis who objected to tracks in their backyard.
Critics say that violates international law because the construction has seized occupied Palestinian land and won’t serve West Bankers.
The Palestinian self-rule government will “resort to all legal and possible diplomatic methods to try to end this violation of Palestinian rights,” spokesman Ghassan Khatib said. He called on foreign companies to withdraw from the project.