[sustran] News from Israel Meeting

[Charlie Richardson]

I'm very interested in the message below, and interested also in the 
A SEED list mentioned.  Does anyone have an email address for Ecopeace
Middle East Environmental NGO Forum, and the address of A SEED?


SUSTRAN Resource Centre wrote:
> 
> This came from the  A SEED Europe Transport Mailinglist
> 
> -
> From: ecopeace at netvision.net.il
> Date: Sun, 2 Aug 98 16:08:41 PDT
> Subject: Press Release - Transportation Issues
> To: ecopeace at netvision.net.il
> 
> From:  EcoPeace Middle East Environmental NGO Forum
> 
> PRESS RELEASE
> August 2, 1998
> 
> Media Roundtable Meeting on Highways and By-Pass Roads.
> Tel-Aviv, July 30, 1998.
> 
> On  July 30, 1998 in Tel-Aviv,
> EcoPeace, the umbrella organization of Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian
> and Egyptian environmental NGO's organized a lunch seminar on the
> issue of Israeli - Palestinian transport. Guest speakers Dr. Yaacov
> Garb, post doctorate fellow of the Hebrew University, and Dr. Jad
> Isaac, Director General of the Applied Research Institute in
> Bethlehem, harshly criticized current trends in transportation
> planning and policy.
> 
> Dr. Garb declared that Israel is at a transportation crossroads. "Over
> the last decade the country has been embracing the kind of mass-
> motorization trends that other advanced countries are, belatedly,
> coming to regret and attempting to reverse. The number of vehicles
> on the country's roads are dramatically on the rise while the use of
> public transport is rapidly declining."
> 
> Dr. Garb commented that the next 5 years were crucial to shape Israel's
> transport future. "Because car- based transport competes with more
> sustainable alternatives for funds, passengers and land use paterns,
> investments made over the next 5 years will shape Israel's transport
> future." Road No 6, the Trans-Israel Highway was cited as a critical
> example of misplaced priorities.
> 
> Dr. Isaac in his presentation, documented the use of roads and
> transport policy as a tool of Israeli occupation of the West Bank
> and Gaza. "The By-Pass roads are creating a salad out of the West
> Bank, isolating Palestinian towns and villages from one another and
> creating for Israel both an internal and external security belt.
> Instead of integrating Israeli and Palestinian transport, the
> Israeli policy is to create transport apartheid on the roads." Many
> of the By-Pass roads are accessible to Israeli yellow plate cars
> only and Palestinian cars are categorically excluded from entering
> Israel. "Palestinians now associate new roads with an attempt to
> create political boundaries, with confiscation of land, with demolition
> of houses and with fragmentation of their future state."
> 
> During the discussion that followed, all participants agreed that only
> an integrated Israeli/Palestinian transport network would satisfy
> environmental and efficiency demands. The current policy of highly
> weighted towards road-building, whether Highways in Israel or By-
> Pass roads in the West Bank was recognized as totally contrary to
> both peoples' interests.