Colonisation in East Jerusalem

Natalie 20/3/11


Testing the new trams in Jerusalem

Jerusalem was our first stop, before setting off for the Jordan valley. Right outside the walls of the old city we saw our first sight of a Jerusalem light rail tram system. The Jerusalem light railway system is currently doing trials, so running the trams empty, but the trams are due to start to operate for real from about late April. The service, which is not of course a service for the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, will be taking trams through east Jerusalem to the illegal Israeli settlements. For more information on the campaign against Veolia, the multinational involved in running the Jerusalem light rail system, see  http://www.bigcampaign.org/veolia/

 The route of the trams has been laid with grass, and it appears that there are nowater shortages in Palestine, since the grass over whcih the trams will run has water sprinklers running all day.




Watering the grass along the tracks of the new tram system

 Although we stayed the night in East Jerusalem, we noticed that the palestinian run shops that we went into to buy food, stocked almost exclusively Israeli goods. This included fresh fruit and vegetables in Carmel Agrexco, EDOM and MTEX boxes, all of which are involved in the agricultural colonisation of the Jordan Valley, where we are headed. It was virtually impossible to buy fruit, humous or water which was not Israeli. This was the economy of the occupation in action for small shopkeepers, struggling to make a living, but in practice contributing to the profits of the very occuaption which oppresses them.