But the Italian firm Pizzarotti remains a partner in the project

JERUSALEM - Get off that train. If diplomacy is the longest distance between two points, as Decourcelle once said, in Berlin they have decided that, sometimes, it is best that the two points not be connected at all. The Merkel government commands, the German railways comply: they will no longer participate in work on Israel's high-speed rail line that in 2017 will connect Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, crossing the Green Line and traversing for 6 km the Palestinian territories. Too many protests, the Minister for Transport, Peter Ramsauer closed the matter: the project violates the Geneva Convention because it passes through an area occupied by the military and creates an embarrassment for European policy, which calls for those areas to be returned. Forget the contracts for the electrification and communications systems: Deutsche Bahn's withdrawal comes after months of pressure from NGOs in Europe and Israel, and after the Parisians of Veolia and an Austrian group had already closed up shop.

"A politically problematic project, " the Germans define it. Work began in 1995, promising to transport, in less than an hour, 7 million people a year (almost all of Israel), and it was immediately contested. No one doubts its utility in a country congested by road transport, though some doubt its legitimacy: the railroad crosses the Latrun enclave, the Cedars Valley and the villages of Beit Surik and Beit Iksa, near Israeli settlements. "An unacceptable path," says Merav Amir, who leads the protests, "because the train will never be used by Palestinians, but will use their land, which has been confiscated illegally. Once they have excavated 530mila cubic meters of Palestinian soil, it will be resold to Israelis to build new illegal settlements."

Twenty kilometers of tunnels, five bridges, two billion dollars invested. And perplexity for the haste in the construction: a few weeks ago, Haaretz reported that dozens of workers risked death when a tunnel collapsed, and now some Israeli companies are considering pulling out.

French, Austrians, Germans, Israelis... And the Italians? A contract for 4 km of tunnels was awarded to Pizzarotti of Parma, colossal construction firm famous for having drilled the Gotthard Tunnel. Diplomatic sources point out that there had been warnings of potential disputes. A senior UN official suggests that "it is better to withdraw, before having problems." And an online campaign has been launched: "We're calling on all Italian mayors to exclude this company from contracts," says former MEP Luisa Morgantini, one of the campaign's animators. In Parma, they are stunned: "We are astonished to find ourselves involved in these protests," says Michele Pizzarotti, son of President Paolo. "We are not the project leaders, we entered into the Israeli high-speed rail as mere executors of a project designed by others, which has already been modified by the Israeli Supreme Court. We had no idea there were complications with the peace process. Also because the railroad could connect Ramallah and be used by Palestinians, and in our construction sites we provide work to Arab technicians and workers." The German withdrawal does not change anything: "Leave the project? Not only would that be a disaster for us, because we have already invested 70 million in machinery, but it would also be pointless: the work would continue just the same via our Israeli partner."

Source: Corriere della Sera
Translation by the Italian Coalition Stop That Train