As any Melbournian can tell you, we don't need another reason to hate Connex, the company flogging us a sub par public transport system. We're kept waiting by delayed trains, before having our faces squashed into someone else's armpit in overcrowded carriages, while gangs of hired thugs try to whack us with hefty fines. But Connex's French parent company, Veolia Environnement, is up to something far more reprehensible.

Veolia is currently constructing a "Jewish-only" light rail system to link up illegal West Bank settlements with Jerusalem, further dividing Palestinian communities that are already split with "Jewish-only" roads and the so-called "security barrier".

And Connex is going all out to back Veolia's involvement in Israeli apartheid. Just ask practising artist Van Thanh Rudd, who says he's used art to attempt "to broaden the campaign for the liberation of Palestine". Rudd is not a racist Israel supporter like his uncle, the Prime Minister. His latest artwork features in Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance, a group showing of political art in Melbourne. Rudd's installation piece entitled Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine, includes a stone placed on a small pedestal. Surrounding the stone are two framed texts - one states the rock's origin (occupied East Jerusalem), and its use value (thrown at an IDF tank), the other links Veolia and French business partner Alstom in their complicity in oppressing the Palestinians.

Rudd's artwork has provoked an angry response from Connex and the ultra‑reactionary Anti Defamation League (ADL). Connex is threatening legal action over the work, scrambling for justifications such as defamation and slander. Their threats include "breach of copyright" over the artist's use of a generic sans serif font, and astoundingly, a complaint about the choice of colour scheme - apparently you need Connex's permission if you want to use blue and white!

The ADL have also threatened legal action and are attempting to intimidate Platform Artists Group (who are hosting the exhibition) by accusing the artist-run collective of supporting "racism". They've also had the gall to suggest that another artist's work in the exhibition be removed so ADL's "side of the story" can be shown. As if we are not repeatedly bombarded with Israel's "point of view" from our government and the mainstream press! Sorry ADL, you'll have to apply months in advance and compete for an exhibition place like all the other artists.

Left-wing Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky illustrates the role the ADL has come to play today:

"The ADL has virtually abandoned its earlier role as a civil rights organization, becoming ‘one of the main pillars' of Israeli propaganda in the US... These efforts, buttressed by insinuations of anti-Semitism or direct accusations, are intended to deflect or undermine opposition to Israeli policies..."

As long as the racist state of Israel exists, its opponents are continually going to be labeled "racist" and "anti‑Semitic" whether they are or not. The disingenuous and contradictory allegations by Connex and the ADL equate genuine anti-racists like Van Thanh Rudd with actual racists and anti-Jewish sentiment. However, just like the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa, which helped bring an end to the white supremacist regime, we need to throw our unconditional support behind the Palestinian resistance in the face of Israel's apologists - and stand up to threats like those from Connex and the ADL.

Recently, the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in Stockholm successfully managed to stop Veolia's contract being renewed. Connex's Melbourne contract runs out at the end of this year and we can only hope that  they suffer a similar fate.

Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance runs until March 27 at Platform, below Flinders St Station, Melbourne - http://platformartistsgroup.blogspot.com/