When the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee (STL-PSC) joined a protest to stop St. Louis city from signing a consulting contract with Veolia Environmental Services, the distant Palestinian-Israeli conflict suddenly became part of a local issue.

That’s because Veolia, a multinational French company, also has operations in the West Bank, which STL-PSC wants to spotlight and bring to an end. The committee calls its campaign “Dump Veolia.”

This effort is part of a larger boycott, divestiture and sanctions (BDS) campaign to call attention to Israeli control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the Six-Day War in 1967. STL-PSC has launched other visible protests recently, such as when Israel retaliated for rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza. 

STLPLC’s website (www.stl-psc.org), states three aims regarding Israel:

• End occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall

• Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality

• Respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

If City Hall should decide not to issue a four-month, $250,000 consulting contract to Veolia to study its water infrastructure problems, STL-PSC can claim that it helped to head off the contract. After being put on hold, the contract is due for review by city’s Board of Estimate and Apportionment sometime this spring.

STL-PSC members can argue, regardless of the real reason the contract didn’t go through, that it raised issues regarding the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its use of Veolia’s services there.  

Introducing the faraway conflict into City Hall’s decision-making process has alarmed Batya Abramson-Goldstein, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

“In no way does this advance the peace I hope is desired. This is bringing in the Middle East with all its complexities. There are a lot of grievances against Veolia on other grounds.”

It also troubles Andrew Rehfeld, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. The BDS movement, he said, “undermines the idea of Israel’s self defense and the legitimacy of the state of Israel.” He added that the federation takes no position of how the Israelis and Palestinians will resolve the conflict.

Kat Logan Smith, director of environmental policy for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, has a large dossier on Veolia that contains complaints and contract cancellations from Indianapolis, Rennes, France, and Gabon, in West Africa.

Based on a review of Veolia’s record, she said, the company is “bad.”

“If you’re going to have someone look at your water system, they’re not the company you’d hire,” she said. “They have a pattern. They will find deficiencies, and we know St. Louis has an old water infrastructure.”

The group’s argument is that Veolia has a troubled track record, which is reason for City Hall to back away from a consulting contract. 

Abramson-Goldstein argues that the committee’s objections to Veolia’s contract with Israel on the West Bank delve into a complex situation whose nuances may be hard for many people here to appreciate.

Furthermore, she charges STL-PSC has an ulterior motive: to undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a nation state.

“The committee is making allegations as a way of delegitimizing Israel,” she said. “It’s one sided and destructive of the peace process. This is an attempt to blame Israel exclusively. It gives hope to those who don’t want peace and does not deal with issues like the terrorist infrastructure.”

Three STL-PSC members the Light contacted say they are focused on Veolia’s logistical support for Israel’s continuing occupation of the West Bank. Two are Jewish from St. Louis and a third has family in Ramallah in the West Bank. That city is the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank under the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Jeff Ordower is a supporter of STL-PSC and Jewish Voice for Peace. He’s a member of Shir Hadash, a Reconstructionist congregation. He said he visited Israel in 2007, as well as the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Hebron and Bethlehem. 

“I don’t think we [taxpayers] should be doing business with corporations that are profiting from the occupation,” Ordower said. “As Jews here in the states, we are involved in the conflict.”

He added that he does not know how such divisive issues as secure borders, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements in the West Bank will be resolved, but “of course there should be a state of Israel.

“I think they are practical, pragmatic people,” he said, referring Palestinians and Israelis. “It troubles me to see what is going on.”

Michael Berg is another STL-PSC supporter.  He said the committee “believes in equal rights for all people and ethnicities in Palestine-Israel.

“We have no position on whether there is one state, two states or three states,” Berg said, adding that the STL-PSC is part of a larger non-violent movement.“The Palestinian Gandhi is everywhere. There is non-violent resistance to Israelis taking [Palestinian] homes, bulldozing olive groves and profiting off the occupation.”

He said he does not like Israel acting in what he considers “in my name, in all of our names, so I am compelled to take action.” 

As for the charge of STL-PSC wanting to delegitimize Israel, Berg said: “Israel is doing its darnedest to delegitimize itself.” He cited other conflicts that once seemed unsolvable—in Northern Ireland, South Africa and the American South 70 years ago – that eventually have been settled to a large extent.

Referring to Israel’s Law of Return for Jews, Berg said: “I can return there in a heartbeat and become a citizen. I have friends who can trace their heritage back hundreds of years but cannot return there.” 

Sandra Tamari, a spokeswoman for STL-PSC, said the group meets twice a month as a project of the St. Louis Instead of War Coalition.

She said her father is from Ramallah. When she flew into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport last year to attend a family wedding, she said, the Israelis detained her and would not let her attend the ceremony in Ramallah.

“My family are 1948 refugees,” Tamari said. “We cannot return to our homes in what is now Israel.”