BDS Italy press release
False attribution of Jerusalem as Israeli capital scrubbed from World Expo 2015 web site
Following the press release by BDS Italy, the designation of Jerusalem as Israel's capital has been removed from the website for the World Expo 2015 that will take place in Milan next year. (See below before and after images)
Last week, with the publication of country profile pages for Expo participants, BDS Italy condemned this fraudulent attribution, pointing out that Israel is the only country in the world that recognizes Jerusalem as its capital.
According to UN Resolution 181 of 1947, Jerusalem was established as a corpus separatum governed by a special international regime. In 1967, in blatant violation of international law, Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem following the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Consequently, embassies in Israel, including those of Italy and the European Union, are located in the Tel Aviv area.
Expo 2015, which in "granting" Jerusalem with the status of capital of Israel underwrote Israel's illegal acquisition of territory by force, has now chosen to remove the field "capital" from all country profiles for world fair participants in an attempt to obfuscate the illegal context in which Israel operates. In addition, Expo 2015's institutional partners, the Italian Ministry of the Economy, the Lombardy Region and the City and Province of Milan, have a legal obligation not to recognize and to take measures to put an end to Israeli violations of international law, which go well beyond the occupation of East Jerusalem.
In just the past few days, Israel, under the pretense of a manhunt for the three missing settlers, has killed 6 Palestinians, wounded dozens, arrested over 400 without charge, closed entire cities and areas, raided thousands of homes and organizations and bombed Gaza in an act of collective punishment. All this as Palestinian prisoners begin their 61st day of hunger strikes in protest of Israel's policy of "administrative detention", which sees them held without charge in Israeli prisons.
And while Expo 2015 offers Israel a global showcase to promote itself as a country at the forefront in agriculture research and water resource management, the facts tell a different story, one of land grabs and water theft.
According to the Israeli organization Kerem Navot, since 1997 Israeli settlement agriculture in the West Bank has increased in area by 35 per cent, exceeding by 50 percent the built up area in settlements and represents a new form of land grabs and occupation requiring fewer resources than housing construction. Palestinian agricultural land, instead, has diminished by one third. In 2012, a UN report revealed that only one in four Palestinian families is food secure due to the occupation and restrictions on movement of people and goods imposed by Israel.
As for the "management" of water resources, Israel illegally extracts water from Palestinian aquifers, destroys Palestinian water infrastructure and denies access to Palestinian water sources, creating a system of water apartheid with policies that Amnesty International has defined as a means for forcing Palestinians to leave their land.
Expo 2015, which has already "distinguished" itself for rampant speculation and corruption, as well as the hypocritical appropriation of terms such as "sustainable development" and claiming to help "feed the planet", is now lending itself to an image campaign aimed at normalizing the brutal reality that Israel is able to maintain thanks to the impunity afforded it by world governments and international institutions. With the failure of the international community to hold Israel to account, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is working to end to this impunity and guarantee Palestinian rights.
BDS Italy
Before:
After:
