Victory as Veolia pulls out of its remaining contracts with Israel

August 2013 (from the now defunct Wembley and Willesden Observer

 Brent Palestine Solidarity members and supporters will be pleased to hear that Veolia is pulling out of all its contracts in Israel. We fought a campaign against Veolia getting a multi-million Brent Council Public Realm contract in the latter half of 2013 LINK  because of its activities in the Occupied Territories and provision of infrastructural support for illegal settlements.

We lost that battle but our campaign made many more people aware of what was happening in Israel and the Occupied Territories and added to Veolia's embarrassment.

This is the message from the PSC Campaigns Officer:

We’ve got some fantastic news.

Veolia has just announced that it is completely pulling out of its contracts with Israeli apartheid! This is a huge victory for solidarity with Palestine and the BDS movement and sends a clear message to other companies – doing business with Israel risks your reputation and profit.

The campaign against Veolia notched up major successes with Veolia losing major contracts. The pressure from campaigns like ours was too much and today they announced they’re selling the Light Rail shares too! That means Veolia has completely withdrawn from Israeli apartheid, exactly what our campaign wanted them to do.  

So we just wanted to say thank you.

A victory like this only happens because of the people involved. This couldn't have happened without you. We’ve won because of the dedication of PSC activists and supporters, all of the other campaigners we work with in the UK, in Palestine, and people around the world.

When I spoke to Sarah Colborne, our Director she agreed, “this victory is thanks to years of hard work from activists and campaigners in the UK joining together with people around the world to stand up for Palestinian rights. This just shows that when we act together for justice we can achieve great things.”

Thank you for everything you do.

Today we’ve shown that we have the power to stop companies who choose to put profit over human lives. We have succeeded in ending the devastating effect Veolia was having on Palestinian lives. I hope you’ll join me in standing in solidarity with other struggles against Veolia across the world. We’ve won against Veolia in Palestine, let’s make sure we connect Veolia’s actions in Palestine with what it’s doing in other countries.

By being part of our campaigns, like the one against Veolia, you are supporting justice and equality, and standing up against racism and occupation. You have helped to win this campaign and grow our movement and we can’t thank you enough.

We’ve stood up to a powerful corporation and won. So enjoy the success and take the bank holiday to celebrate. Then let’s use that energy to win the ultimate campaign for a free Palestine!

Rachel Diamond

Campaigns Officer

We can only win campaigns like this because of donations from people like you.