In your report ‘New Pinkham Way row’ (Times Series, April 14) you said: “A leading Tory councillor has accused some residents of leading an anti-Semitic protest against a group tendering for the Pinkham Way waste contract.”
So I was exposed. I am the “anti-Semitic” campaign against Veolia.
And this is how the story goes. On February this year, I wrote to Cllrs Coleman and Cohen asking them to drop Veolia from the tendering process for the North London Waste Authority because according to the UN Human Rights Council, Veolia is “in clear violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions” regarding its activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Veolia has been building a light rail tramway system linking West Jerusalem to illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, which will cement Israel’s hold on occupied East Jerusalem and tie the settlements even more firmly into the state of Israel.
I wrote to the councillors that Veolia’s “behaviour constitutes active involvement in breaches of the Geneva Convention, and that Section 23(4)(e) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 gives the power to exclude an operator that “has committed an act of grave misconduct in the course of his business or profession”.
I also wrote that “it is the long-held position of successive British governments that Israeli settlement activity is illegal”.
Cllr Coleman response to this letter was a barrage of insults.
He was then marched without further ado to Barnet standards sub-committee for breaching the code of conduct.
The sub-committee decision was to refer the councillor to the monitoring officer for further investigation, which is still going on.
So now you have it. A confession from an “anti-Semite”.
Ron Cohen
Queens Avenue, Finchley
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