UCL Action for Palestine

On Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd of September, four civil society organisations intervened before the Belgian Council of State, demanding the exclusion of the Basque company CAF from the National Railway Company of Belgium (NBMS/SNCB)’s €3 billion contract to replace more than 600 trainsets. CAF is deeply complicit in Israel’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid, as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has recently affirmed. During the hearing, the lawyer defending the NMBS/SNCB dismissed UNSR @FranceskAlbs, academics and civil society in saying: “for a number of NGOs and academics, it is easy to summarily execute a company without a fair trial. But we cannot do that. Nor can we do so on the basis of a report by some lady who happens to have ‘UN’ on her letterhead.” CAF is operating in Israel’s illegal colonial settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory through its expansion of the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR) in violation of international law. Granting the contract to CAF would make NMBS/SNCB itself complicit in normalizing and whitewashing Israel’s regime of unlawful occupation, racial segregation, and apartheid. If CAF doesn’t face serious consequences for its criminal complicity, other corporations will follow. If we win, we set a precedent for accountability — in Belgium and beyond.