Petition signed by over 4000 people and endorsed by trade unions, public water movements and the mayor of Naples. Palestinian civil society groups call for respect of obligations under of international law.
In a matter of days, the No ACEA-Mekorot campaign has collected more than 4,000 signatures on a petition (http://chn.ge/1jmWN8X) against the memorandum of understanding signed December 2, 2013 between ACEA, the multi-utility controlled by City of Rome, and Mekorot, Israel's national water company. The campaign has been endorsed by more than 50 organizations including the FIOM-CGIL trade union, ARCI, the Italian Forum of Water Movements and the Rome Public Water Committee. Among the individual endorsers, the Mayor of Naples Luigi De Magistris, Luisa Morgantini, former Vice President of the European Parliament, Haidi Gaggio Giuliani, mother of Carlo Giuliani, and former senators Giovanni Russo Spena and Vincenzo Vita.
The promoters of campaign underscore Mekorot’s role as the executive arm of Israeli policies appropriating Palestinian water sources and denying the right to water in the occupied Palestinian territories, as documented by international, Palestinian and Israeli organizations.[1] In 1982, the Israeli military authorities "transferred" all Palestinian water infrastructure to Mekorot, which practices a systematic discrimination in the distribution of water, reducing and limiting water supplied to Palestinians in favor of Israel’s illegal settlements and intensive agriculture, creating a system of "water apartheid" in the region. The daily per capita consumption of Israeli settlers is day 369 liters [2] while that of their Palestinian neighbors is 73 liters, below the minimum amount recommended by the World Health Organization (100 liters).
Vitens, the largest water supplier in the Netherlands, on advice from the Dutch government, recently interrupted a cooperation agreement with Mekorot, citing its commitment to international law as the reason. Similar moves were made recently by a number of European companies in order to avoid ties with Israeli settlements, including the Dutch pension fund PGGM, Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark, and the Norwegian state pension fund.
A letter signed by Palestinian civil society organizations working on issues of water, agriculture and the environment recalled the legal obligation of states and their institutions "not to provide recognition or assistance to Israeli violations of international law," reiterating that the "proposed collaboration between ACEA and Mekorot amounts to a violation of that legal obligation."
Campaigners point out that this initiative, just as others around the world calling for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS), is aimed at applying increasing pressure on the Israeli government to respect international law. 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.
The campaign against the agreement between ACEA and Mekorot, which has strong support from Italian movements for public water involved in the struggle against the threatened complete privatization of ACEA, plans to continue initiatives in the coming weeks pressuring the City of Rome and ACEA not to proceed with Memorandum of Understanding with the Israeli company Mekorot.
Contacts:
No Committee ACEA Agreement - Mekorot
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Notes:
[1] Jad Isaac & Jane Hilal (2011): Palestinian landscape and the Israeli––Palestinian conflict, International Journal of Environmental Studies, 68:4, 413-429 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207233.2011.582700
[2] Amnesty International, Troubled Waters: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water (2009)
OCHA, How Disposession Happens (2012)
Human Rights Watch, Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2010)
Al Haq, Water For one People only: Discriminatory Access and ‘Water-Apartheid’ in the OPT (2013)
Who Profits, Il coinvolgimento della Mekorot nell'occupazione israeliana (2013)
B'Tselem, The Water Crisis (2011)