Editor's Note: We originally published this article on March 12, 2009. We are now updating and bringing it to the fore as it relates to current developments with the French builder, Veolia, also referenced among my comments below. - LMB

Israel's Racist Rail System.
Whom does it serve and who is paying for it?
(Update)

Israel's $2 Billion Dollar Rail System

Designed To Connect Small Remote Settlements In The West Bank

This Project Is Billed To American And European taxpayers

The Railroad Connects Remote Settlements To Jerusalem

Jerusalem's $2 Billion Dollar Rail System The French company Veolia are building a $2 billion rail system for the Israeli authorities for a light rail transportation project in Jerusalem. The path of the light rail incorporates a number of Jewish settlements around East Jerusalem, built on stolen Palestinian land. It ensures the contiguity of these colonies with the central areas of the city and provides them with a vital transport link. ASN, the Dutch bank, holds shares in the French firm, Veolia, whose subsidiary Connex Israel holds about 5 percent of the CityPass consortium.

The Route The project goes from Jerusalem to Ma’aleh Adumim, a large Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and from settlements in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley. The light rail project plays a key role in sustaining the settlements and ensuring they become a permanent fixture upon Palestinian land.

These Are Remote Settlements This system is planned for Israel's future expansion in Palestine. The current system is by any measure, "overkill" (no pun intended). The trains in this system runs 50 miles through the Palestinian nation to ten illegal Israeli settlements. And the largest of these settlements have 2,000 Jews living in them.

Who Lives There? The Israeli "settlers" built their towns on prime, stolen property that was "given" to them as a means of displacing Palestinians and establishing a spearhead in the Middle East for the US Empire. These settlements have 200 families, and 90% are on welfare. From the hilltops in Palestine, they have nothing to do but to harrass, beat and kill Palestinians.

Who Is Really Paying?

This Light Rail Project is being billed to U.S. and European taxpayers. Please consider the following, in context of a collapsing U.S. and E.U. economies and the growing loss of homes, jobs, health care benefits and public schools:

Also See: Palestine: Veolia whitewashes illegal light rail project

100 state-of-the-art $20 million dollar high schools could be built with the amount given to Israel for this new rail system. It would pay for 16,000 university scholarships to a good university. 20,000 homes could be built or foreclosures avoided. In the U.S., Amtrak runs at a deficit, providing poor service to a small part of the country and the U.S. doesn't have its own viable mass transit system. U.S. infrastructure, including highways, bridges and waterways are collapsing and in need of maintenance and repair.

This new Israeli rail system provides Zionist settlers safe passage among their illegal settlements and into Jerusalem. The blocking of roads between Palestinian cities, towns and villages will increase as the rail project progresses.

- Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic

Sources:

1. Intifada: Voice of Palestine
   
   
2. Wiki/Israel Railways/Expansion Plans
   
   
3. Railway-Technology.com
   
   "In 2004 the railway carried about 8 million tons of freight and 23 million passengers, a sixfold increase over the annual number of passengers it carried ten years earlier. Israel Railways forecasts that it will carry more than 60 million passengers in 2010 as a result of its expansion program."
   
   
4. All Business. A D&B Company
   
   
5. Subways.net
   
   
6. Wikipedia/Jerusalem
   
   
7. The Jeruslem Post
   
   
8. Railway Technology
   
   
9. Socialist World
   
   
10. Travel Israel
    
    
11. Israel Railways
    
    "Railways 2000 metropolitan system in progress will have lines to Netanya, Herzliya, Petah Tikva, Rosh Ha-Ayin, Hod Ha-Sharon, Kfar Saba, Lod, Rehovot, Ashdod, Rishon Le-Zion, Ben-Gurion International Airport, Modiin and Haifa and Nahariya in the North.
    
    "Government company authorized to establish a light train service within the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area connecting cities in the Dan region, including Holon, Bat Yam, Rishon Lezion in the south and Herzliya in the North."
    
    
12. Israel Transit (some photos)
    
    
13. The Civic Coalition for Defending the Palestinians' Rights in Jerusalem (Funding and Construction)
    
    
14. Wiki/Veolia Transportation
    
    
15. Orens Transit Page