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Selections from the Press SELECTIONS FROM THE PRESS This section includes articles and news items, mainly from Israeli but also from international press sources, that provide insightful or illuminating perspectives on events, developments, or trends in Israel and the occupied territories not readily available in the mainstream U.S. media. YOUSEF ABU SAFIEH, “THE RADICAL than Palestinians. The contrast between TRANSFORMATION OF PALESTINE’S the indigenous Palestinian community ENVIRONMENT,” AL JAZEERA ENGLISH, 2 and the Israeli settler community is MAY 2012 even more extreme in the Jordan Val- ley. According to a recently released Nowhere is the relationship between study conducted by Ma’an Develop- environmental protection and social ment Centre, the Israeli government justice displayed more clearly than be- provides settler farms in the valley with tween Israel and the occupied Palestin- large quantities of water, while only 37 ian territories. The Israeli government percent of Palestinians report that suf- takes great care to guarantee that its cit- !cient water is even available to them. izens enjoy the bene!ts of a clean and The Ma’an report also found that Israeli comfortable environment. The opposite water companies have been charging is true in the occupied West Bank and Palestinians 11 times more for water Gaza, over which Israel has maintained than residents in neighboring Israeli ultimate control for almost 45 years. settlements. There, Israel has instituted an ex- ploitative regime that disregards the needs of the local population and ig- Water Wars nores the occupier’s responsibility as a The Israeli government also turns a custodian of the environment as stipu- blind eye towards the actions of the set- lated by the Geneva Conventions. This tlers. The UN’s Of!ce for the Coordina- is particularly evident in how Israel tion for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) distributes water, permits the environ- recently revealed that Israeli settlers mentally destructive behavior of Israeli have forcefully seized dozens of springs, settlers and prevents Palestinian devel- the single largest water source for irriga- opment on the land it directly controls. tion and a substantial source for water- A recent report issued by the French ing livestock for Palestinians, and have Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee turned them into tourist attractions and stated, “Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on swimming pools. Most of these springs the West Bank use more water than the are situated on private Palestinian land. 2.3 million Palestinians that live there. Israel not only exploits Palestine’s In times of drought, in contravention of resources, it also pollutes and destroys international law, the settlers get prior- them. According to a paper published ity for water.” by the Applied Research Institute–Jeru- According to B’Tselem, an Israeli salem (ARIJ) in the International Jour- nongovernmental organization, Israelis nal of Environmental Studies, “Israeli consume up to 242 liters of water per colonies are sited on hill tops and they person every day. Due to restrictions often allow the generated wastewater imposed by Israel, Palestinians consume to run untreated into nearby wadis [val- just 73 liters per day on average (and as leys] and Palestinian agricultural lands, little as 20 liters per day in some areas), which results in the pollution of these dramatically less than the 100 liters that lands.” the World Health Organization recom- Water in affected areas has become mends as the minimum quantity for ba- unsuitable for drinking, and Palestin- sic consumption. ian farmers are unable to cultivate their Israeli settler communities use even crops. Further, a report published in more water than their counterparts in the Palestine-Israel Journal explains Israel proper, consuming over !ve times that a number of polluting factories Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. XLI, No. 4 (Summer 2012), pp. 93–105, ISSN: 0377-919X; electronic ISSN: 1533-8614. © 2012 by the Institute for Palestine Studies. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: jps.2012.XLI.4.93. JPS4104_08_Selections from the Press.indd 93 09/08/12 10:51 AM 94 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES were moved from Israel proper into the demolition orders against the installa- West Bank due to carcinogenic chemical tions, arguing that they were built with- emissions and protests from the Israeli out permits. According to data from public: OCHA, Israel denies building permits “A pesticide factory in Kfar Saba [Is- to Palestinians in Area C 94 percent of rael] which produces dangerous pollut- the time. ants has been moved to an area near The siege of Gaza has made the en- Tulkarem [West Bank]. The Dixon vironmental situation there even more Gas industrial factory, which was lo- dire than in the West Bank. Israeli con- cated in Netanya, inside Israel, has also sumption from wells surrounding Gaza, been moved to the Tulkarem area. The and water scarcity enforced by Israel’s solid waste generated by the factory is blockade that has forced over-pumping burned in open air.” within Gaza, have begun to cause the Unlike Israeli citizens, Palestinians intrusion of seawater into the coastal have no effective political recourse aquifer on which Gazans rely. against the presence of industries that In addition, Israel’s assault on Gaza endanger their health. Palestinians are at the end of 2008 destroyed much of unable to stop Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s waste management capacity their environment because the occupa- and left the tiny costal strip with huge tion denies them the sovereignty critical mounts of toxic waste. The fact that Is- to maintaining a sustainable presence rael has prevented critical waste man- on the land. Sixty-two percent of the agement infrastructure from entering West Bank is designated as Area C, Gaza since 2007 has greatly exacerbated meaning that it is under direct Israeli this problem. Today, only 5 percent of military control. water available in Gaza is suitable for The ARIJ study cited above states drinking, according to B’Tselem. that “around 80 percent of the solid There is no point in denying it: Is- waste generated by the [Israeli] colonists rael’s occupation is the signi!cant cause is dumped at dumping sites located of the pollution and radical transforma- within the West Bank.” Furthermore, tion of the Palestinian environment. the Israeli chemical and military indus- The occupation and its policies are tries have both dumped hundreds of the antithesis of Earth Day, an occasion thousands of tons of hazardous waste that was celebrated by people around in the West Bank, a clear violation of the world this month. When Earth Day the Basel Convention, of which Israel arrives next year, Palestinians hope to is a signatory. The Palestinian leader- celebrate it as responsible custodians ship is powerless to prevent this, even of their own country. That will only though many of these dumping sites be possible if we !nally put an end to constitute severe health and safety haz- Israel’s occupation. ards to nearby Palestinian cities and communities. [Dr. Yousef Abu Sa!eh is chairman of the Environment Quality Authority of Environment in Crisis Palestine.] Israel also uses its domination of Palestinian land to prevent Palestin- YAEL LERER, “THE ANDALUS TEST: ians from building sustainable infra- REFLECTIONS ON THE ATTEMPT TO structure. A joint Palestinian-Israeli PUBLISH ARABIC LITERATURE IN HEBREW,” NGO [nongovernmental organization] JADALIYYA, 16 MAY 2012 [EXCERPTS] recently partnered with a German aid agency to build small, reliable solar and Should a visitor from another planet wind generators for the impoverished happen to arrive here and look around Palestinian community in the Israeli- at the reality between the Jordan River controlled south Hebron hills (since the and the Mediterranean Sea without the Israeli government refuses to recognize usual lenses of distortion, she would this community, it has failed to provide see that in Israel/Palestine—the land it with electricity as per its obligations stretching from the river to the sea under the Geneva Conventions). The which has been under one rule for over Israeli government has recently issued forty years—almost half the population JPS4104_08_Selections from the Press.indd 94 09/08/12 10:51 AM SELECTIONS FROM THE PRESS 95 is Palestinian Arab and Arabic is their land’s people. Nor does she manage to mother tongue, as well as that of nearly get her to believe that Israel is not in half of the Israeli Jewish population. Europe. Should our guest distinguish—as does It was into this reality, and its repre- the Israeli Central Bureau of Statis- sentations, that Andalus Publishing was tics, as well as the Israeli academy and born. But when I launched a publishing media—between Israeli citizens and oc- house that would specialize in translat- cupied Palestinian subjects, she would ing Arabic literature into Hebrew, I had !nd that within the category of “Is- the impression that this reality was go- raeli citizens,” the majority is of Arabic- ing to change. It was in the late 1990s, speaking (and to a large extent reading on the eve of the second intifada, and and writing) origin. Our guest would despite my critique of the so-called likely notice that Israel is located in the “peace process,” I hadn’t altogether in- heart of the Arab world and that each ternalized my own criticism. and every one of its neighboring coun- Prominent Palestinian intellectuals, tries is Arab. including the late Edward Said and for- Out of a desire to familiarize herself mer Knesset Member (MK) Azmi Bis- with local culture, our guest might walk hara, now in exile, feared that the Oslo into a nearby bookshop, where she process would lead to the formation of would expect to !nd books in Hebrew Palestinian Bantustans and the consoli- and Arabic—the two of!cial languages dation of Israeli Apartheid.
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