Another Victory for BDS Campaign

Slowly but surely the BDS movement, despite every effort of western “democracies” to stop it, is gaining ground in the fight for a free Palestine and peace and justice for Jew and Arab in the Middle East. The following article appeared on Alakhbar English website on October 28th 2011

Another BDS Victory: Alstom Loses US$10 Billion Saudi Contract Bid

http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/another-bds-victory-alstom-loses-us10-billion-saudi-contract-bid?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

 

The Saudi government had previously given phase one of the Haramain railway project to Alstom, a decision that was met with fierce opposition from the BDS movement.

By: Annabel Turner

Published Friday, October 28, 2011

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) National Committee is celebrating another success after the French corporation Alstom lost the bid for the second phase of the Saudi Haramain railway project — a deal worth US$10 billion.

“Following this massive loss for Alstom in the Saudi market, we hope that all Arab states will pass laws that exclude from public contracts any company or institution that is complicit in Israel’s violations of international law,” says Omar Barghouti, a leading member of the BDS movement.

He adds, “If the Norwegian sovereign fund can exclude three Israeli companies since 2009 over their involvement in Israel’s human rights violations, we hope Arab states, especially in light of the popular revolutions, will adopt similar guidelines, if not stricter ones. This is the most effective way to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and end Israel’s occupation, colonialism, apartheid, and denial of refugee rights.”

The contract for the Haramain rail project — which will connect the holy cities of Mecca and Medina to Jeddah and the King Abdullah Economic City — was awarded to the Saudi-Spanish al-Shoula consortium yesterday. The contract includes the construction of 450km of railway, supplying 35 trains, and managing the system for 12 years.

This is a significant victory for the BDS movement, and a tremendous loss for Alstom. The Saudi government had previously given phase one of the Haramain railway project to Alstom, a decision that was met with fierce opposition from the BDS movement because of Alstom’s complicity in the illegal construction of Israel’s Jerusalem Light Rail. The project, according to official Israeli statements, has the sole intention of “Judaizing Jerusalem.”

The Jerusalem transit line connects illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem and surrounding areas. It relies on the colonization of Palestinian land to support the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, while at the same time, it fragments and divides the surrounding Arab villages.

BDS campaigners have not shied away from pointing to the complicity of Arab states in the occupation of Palestine through their business dealings with Alstom and have asked the Saudi leadership to stop working with the French firm.

The BDS National Committee has systematically targeted Alstom since 2008 through the ‘Derail Veolia and Alstom’ campaign. News of this US$10 billion loss for Alstom adds to similar setbacks, including more than US$12 billion of losses Veolia incurred due to their involvement in the Jerusalem project.

It is alleged that the PLO also urged the Saudi government to withdraw from any further involvement with Alstom.

The Saudi authorities have not revealed the exact reason why they granted the second phase to the al-Shoula group, but a number of statements have been circulated that refer to “multiple factors” influencing their decision, suggesting that increasing political pressure is one of them.

The Saudi decision is in line with an agreement made by consensus at the Arab Summit held in Khartoum in 2006, which both condemned the Jerusalem Light Rail project and called on Alstom and Veolia to immediately halt construction of the railway. The Arab states also demanded that punitive measures be taken against them if they fail to respect their obligations under international law.

However, many Arab states continue to conduct business with Alstom. In Lebanon, the firm is responsible for the control center of the national electricity company (Electricité du Liban). Alstom is also involved in various multi-billion-dollar infrastructure and energy projects in the region, notably in Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. It is also being considered for a number of other major contracts, including a railway project in Iraq, which is worth an estimated US$1.5 billion.

The Godless U.N.

Jesus and the United Nations

In the theology of many Christian Zionists, the United Nations constitutes the very essence of the anti-Christ. The very embodiment of Satan’s plan to create an Israel-hating, one world, Godless empire bent on the destruction of God’s people and the thwarting of God’s plan of redemption. The United Nations, in their eyes, is run by a combination of atheistic Socialists, Islamic Jihadists (there is really no other kind of Muslim) and anti-Semitic Arabs. The United Nations mandate to help maintain peace, promote democracy and protect the rights of the vulnerable is a sham.

From this, one might imagine that the U.N. Charter is filled with blasphemies and calls for the end of Christianity and the imprisonment of all followers of Jesus, but one would be heartily disappointed to find such overt statements of the United Nation’s true agenda.

The United Nation’s obsession with Israel is proof enough of their Godlessness, or so it is claimed.
The real story of the U.N. is not exciting enough to maintain the interest of Christians who place their trust in Israel’s near divine role in the Christian Zionists version of God’s plan of redemption.

The United Nations was created to replace the failed League of Nations. The U.N. sought to create a world order where conflict, such as had just been experienced in World War II, would not happen again. The U.N. was not naive enough to believe it could stop conflict altogether, but that it could establish a world order where the basic motivations for war would be outlawed in the international community. The United Nations adopted three principles which were meant to prevent expansionism and colonialism: Inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war. Prohibition of the transfer of civilians of the occupying power to the occupied territory. Right of peoples to self determination. These principles are not remotely in conflict with the Gospel of Jesus.

In creating the State of Israel in 1948, the United Nations violated the right of the indigenous peoples of Palestine to self determination. The paradox of an Israel-hating United Nations which broke its own charter to create the state of Israel is not often remarked upon by Christian Zionists. The occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967 has violated the other two principles as has been acknowledged by the overwhelming majority of the international community. The regulations spelled out in the Fourth Geneva Convention pertaining to the treatment of civilians in occupied territories by the occupying forces, have been violated by the Zionist State in legions of well documented cases.

No doubt the United Nations obsession with Israel stems from the fact that the U.N. created the problem and hence feels that it is incumbent upon itself to find a solution. Israel’s demand that it is being picked on sounds very much like a student who continually disrupts the class and complains that the teacher “keeps picking on me!” With Israel continuing to violate the resolutions of the U.N., the U.N. has little option but to continue in passing more resolutions against the rebellious Zionist State.

Do Christian Zionists expect the United Nations to create resolutions based on Christian Zionist sectarian and incorrect interpretations of the biblical teaching about the relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Palestine? Normally Christian Zionists are happy to recognise the concept of Separation of Church and State in the national sphere, acknowledging history has clearly shown that such a separation is the healthiest arrangement for both institutions. When it comes to the situation of international law they become somewhat confused. International law can not be separated from religious dogma, they maintain.

The alleged control of the United Nations by Arab and Muslim countries is refuted by a simple look at the voting in the U.N. over resolutions concerning Israel. Only 21 Arab states exist and if we add to these the number of non Arab Islamic countries, we can see that the majority of countries in the United Nations are not Arab/Muslim. In 2002, a General Assembly resolution (‘Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine’) affirming Israel’s right to ‘secure and recognised borders’ as well as the Palestinian people’s right to an ‘independent state’ in the West Bank and Gaza passed 160 to 4. There are well less than 80 Arab/Islamic states in the United Nations. The 4 countries to go against this resolution were Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and the United States of America. The 2002 United Nations voting record on virtually every resolution concerning the Israel-Palestine issue was just as lop sided with the majority of countries supporting the resolutions going against Israel being non Arab/Muslim. The international consensus regarding Israel’s violations of international law has been extremely stable despite large scale geopolitical changes throughout the world in the last fourty years.

University of Cambridge scholar, Marc Weller, has shown that when comparing the case of Israel and the occupied territories with similar situations in Kosovo, East Timor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied Iraq and Kuwait, and Rwanda, Israel has enjoyed a virtual immunity from such measures as arms embargoes and economic sanctions which have been employed by the United Nations against member countries that have violated international law in a manner identical to that of Israel. See Norman Finkelstein’s, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, page xvii, for documentation of this study.

As a Bible believing, born again Christian I recognise that the United Nations is a fallible, human institution. However I see no reason to cast it into the realm of the anti-Christ and condemn its resolutions as anti-Israel and therefore anti-God. The United Nations created the State of Israel and has never advocated its demise. Its mandates contradict no part of the Gospel of Reconciliation as revealed in scripture.

Neither the United Nations, Islam, Christianity, Marxism or even National Socialism (an early stage of Hitler’s final solution came up with the idea of all the Jews in Europe could be transferred to one place in the world where they could live together away from the rest of the world) has any basic problem with the idea of a state of Israel, where Jews (in any number) can live. The only tradition in the world that forbids Jews to have a State of their own is, ironically, the Jewish tradition itself as articulated in the Oaths of the Talmud. See posting in this blog “Sacred Oaths”.

Craig Nielsen
ACTION FOR PALESTINE

Christian Zionist Theology and Zionism’s Colonialist Mythology

Theology and Colonialism in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

 

In order to understand the particular historical narrative concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict that is adopted by Christian Zionists, we must understand the theological context that underpins the basic presuppositions of the Christian Zionist worldview regarding the Zionist State of Israel. The historical narrative adopted by Christian Zionists regarding this conflict is virtually identical to the Zionist colonialist mythology of the State of Israel, with very few exceptions. The reasons for this marriage between the sectarian Christian theology of Christian Zionism and secular Zionist mythology is that this union is an absolute necessity for Christian Zionists in order for them to justify the unconditional support they give the State of Israel. Christian Zionists must contend that their support for the Zionist state in no way contradicts the obvious mandate, in both Old and New Testaments of scripture, for God’s people to care for the oppressed and marginalised. For Christian Zionists to adopt the narrative of the conflict as espoused by scholars like Pappe, Finkelstein and the Palestinian people as a whole, would force them to admit that their theological stance regarding the Zionist State of Israel has lead them to a position of supporting outright oppression and injustice. Adopting such a position would lead to a faith crisis of cosmic proportions and so all measures are taken to avoid it.

Christian Zionists maintain that non-Jews have no entitlement to the land of Palestine regardless of how long they may have occupied the land and in whatever number. An Arab majority presence in Palestine is completely irrelevant. Jewish people own the land of Palestine and have an entitlement to it by virtue of their Jewishness alone. Hence the dispossession of Palestinian Arabs from their land of birth is not a crime, it is completely just. Palestinian Arabs occupy the land “illegally” in the minds of Christian Zionists regardless of how long they have been there or how great a majority they have been at any one time in the past, present or may be even in the future.

When the brutal reality of Palestinian dispossession confronts Christian Zionists, they often resort to arguments that amount to “blaming the victim”. The brutality of Arab dispossession is entirely the fault of the Arabs themselves since they were unwilling to welcome the Zionists or leave the land of their birth if they could not tolerate the new arrivals. Resistance to the Zionists is clear evidence of both their unwillingness to subject themselves to the will of God as well as their in born hatred of Jews. Since no injustice has been committed against the Palestinians, that is not ultimately their fault, any real compassion or desire to advocate for their position is unwarranted and against the will of God. All that is afforded them is a weak sentiment of sympathy that is ultimately extinguished by the self assertion of Christian Zionists that all would have been different if they had only agreed to self-dispossession. A corollary to this position is that the Arab leadership are really the ones to blame for the circumstances of Palestinians, not the Israelis. Whatever spin is adopted by the Christian Zionists, the final judgment must, and of necessity be, one that portrays the Israelis as being in the end without basic fault. When Christian Zionists get “squeamish” about the obvious oppression and unfairness of a minority imposing their wishes on the majority, they once again resort to the Zionist colonialist mythology to come to the rescue.

This Zionist mythology has some basic elements that are vital to Christian Zionism.

1.                  The land of Palestine was basically vacant before the Zionist migrations.

2.                  The continuous presence of Jews in Palestine for thousands of years, underscores the Jewish people’s entitlement to the land over and above the wishes of other inhabitants of Palestine. Arab migration into Palestine is “invalid” when “compared” to Jewish migration. Migration to Palestine by Arabs confers no concept of rights to self determination regardless of when it occurred.

3.                  Arabs had no real interest in Palestine until the Zionists made it into a land of “milk and honey”. Arabs had done “nothing with the land”.

4.                  The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was “miraculous” and gave legitimisation before the world community to the entitlement of Zionists to Palestine.

5.                  The 1948 War of Independence was “miraculous” as was the ‘voluntary flight” of thousands of Arabs from the newly created Israeli state in that same year. Hence   there was no “ethnic cleansing” of Palestine. The Arabs left of their own free will and no foul was done to them by the Israelis as a whole.

6.                  All Israeli wars with Arab nations are therefore the result of pure anti-Semitism and have no basis in alleged injustices against Palestinians.

7.                  Arab nations have never wanted peace; they have deliberately sabotaged all attempts by the Israelis and their allies to create a lasting peace with the Palestinians.

8.                  The Six Day War of June 1967 was, once again, “miraculous” and evidence of the hand of Providence, legitimising the state of Israel’s existence.

9.                  Palestinian terrorism is entirely unprovoked and hence provides further evidence of their basic anti-Semitic tendencies.

10.              The Israeli state is under constant threat of annihilation.

This mythology (every single point has been thoroughly and rigorously refuted by Jewish and Arab scholars) perfectly deflects any criticism thrown at Christian Zionists for their unconditional support of Israel. Hence there are no embarrassing facts of history that would lend credence to the idea that Christian Zionist theology leads to an unbiblical ethical stance towards Palestinian Arabs. Israel is “squeaky” clean and so is Christian Zionist theology. Any errors are only minor and of no ultimate consequence. Christian Zionists can lie in their beds with the assurance that they are righteous and justified in their determination to see Arabs dispossessed in Palestine.

Colonialist myths are designed to justify the “entitlement” of the colonial power in taking land that is basically not theirs. The basis for this entitlement can be a conflation of religious and non-religious ideas. Crimes against humanity, committed by the colonialists, are covered up and written out of the history books. In my own case I can testify how, when it came to Australian history, I was not taught of the massacres and dispossession of Australia’s previous inhabitants. Only the courage, hard work and sacrifice of the white settlers and pioneers was worthy of mention.

Jewish people growing up in Israel are likewise not told of the ethnic cleansing that was an integral part of the creation of the state of Israel. Christian Zionists have a vested interest in promoting the colonialist mythology of Zionism over and above the version of events as told by the Palestinian Arabs who have lived in the land for centuries. The Christian supporters of Israel are therefore not even remotely dispassionate and unbiased when “analysing” the historical evidence pertaining to the history of the Zionist state of Israel. Their view of this history is fundamentally coloured by their theological pre-suppositions. Until they can remove these pre-suppositions, their view of events will always be suspect.

It has been my experience that the findings of Israeli and Jewish scholars that take into account the Palestinians perspective are much more reliable. They often do this at great personal risk. They are the ones labeled “traitor” and “self hating Jew”. They suffer all the same persecutions suffered by anyone challenging the colonialist myths of their resident nations or people’s. They are the “whistle blowers” of history. They span political and religious denominations. Their concern is not to validate sectarian religious doctrines or to help the ruling class with their project to indoctrinate their citizens with nationalist propaganda. Their research stands on its own merits.

CRAIG NIELSEN