Brussels – Belgian civil society wants to prevent taxpayers’ money from supporting the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians, from the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip to apartheid in the West Bank. In the crosshairs of a number of human rights groups, supported by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, is a multibillion-dollar contract awarded by the national public railways to a Spanish company that does business with the Israeli occupation economy.
At a press briefing, a coalition of non-governmental organisations based in Belgium today (26 August) reiterated its commitment to prevent the SNCB/NMBS, the group that owns the federal railways, from going ahead with the awarding to the Spanish Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) of a €3 billion contract for the purchase of 600 wagons. CAF was first designated as the winner of the tender last February: it was then suspended in April and subsequently reconfirmed in July.
The appeal launched by Al-Haq Europe, Intal, Vrede vzw and 11.11.11 is simple: public money must not end up in the pockets of a business that with its activities in the occupied Palestinian territories fuels what the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, calls the Jewish State’s “economy of genocide“, based on ethnic cleansing, destruction, land theft, and ultimately the systematic violation of human rights and international law.
Being involved in the construction and maintenance of a tram line connecting occupied East Jerusalem with illegal settlements in the West Bank since 2019, the NGOs argue, the Basque company should be excluded from the tender. “You cannot sign a contract with a company that is deeply involved in occupation politics,” notes Willem Staes of 11.11.11.
Staes and his collaborators explain that Belgium, as an EU member state, supports the two-state solution, but that Brussels’ economic links with the illegal Israeli colonies constitute, de facto, a violation of the country’s legal obligations. SNCB, according to their complaint, did not incorporate any analysis of CAF’s respect for human rights and international law into the tender process. A failure that could constitute “grave professional negligence” for the federal railways under Belgian law.
The four civil society organisations have initiated a legal action against SNCB before the Council of State, Belgium’s highest administrative court, which is expected to discuss the matter next week and issue a ruling within three weeks. They justify this non-ritual procedure with the need to create “a crucial precedent for holding public institutions accountable for their economic links with companies involved in serious human rights violations,” as jointly stated by the associations.
Also Albanese reiterated the centrality of the concept of responsibility, applying it on two distinct but related levels. On the one hand, the public responsibility, for which it is necessary to hold political decision-makers and institutions accountable for their links with entities that are guilty of such heinous crimes.
“The duties of states and the responsibilities of companies are two sides of the same coin,” argues the lawyer. CAF itself, she recalls, is already present in the UN database where companies whose business fuels Israeli violations, including segregation and forced displacement, are recorded. The Basque company, it claims, “is a key actor” in the efforts for the “permanent annexation of Palestinian land.”
Albanese denounces as “shocking” the immobility of world governments, unable to field “a robust political response” to Israel. Starting with those of the Twenty-Seven, which, after more than 22 months of quasi-scientific extermination (coupled with an artificially orchestrated famine, as certified by the UN), remain divided even over a mild measure such as the partial suspension of Horizon+ funds for Tel Aviv.
Initiatives such as that of the Global Sumud Flotilla—perhaps the largest transnational mobilisation ever, to break the siege of Gaza and get humanitarian aid into the Strip—are important, she says, “but it is the responsibility of states” to react in a structural manner. “The EU and its member states cannot interact with Israel as if nothing were wrong,” she urges, pointing out how the Jewish state “went much further” than South Africa in the apartheid era, which rightly ended up in the crosshairs of international sanctions and boycotts.
On the other hand, the UN rapporteur renewed the call for individual citizen responsibility at a time in history when remaining silent is now an act of complicity. And it suggests three levels of action that each person can take autonomously: informing oneself about Palestine, with a historical perspective and without stopping at the current situation; putting pressure on one’s own government through protests and demonstrations; and finally, putting pressure on companies and businesses through boycotts and ethically conscious buying and consumption habits.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
