From: sadia elter [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:45 PM Subject: Israeli Environmental Terrorism in the Holy Land
01:01 02/23/2010
Israeli Environmental Terrorism in the Holy Land
Image removed by sender.
The Zionist establishment has proven that in the Holy Land, nothing is
sacred.
By Tammy Obeidallah
Israelis have duped much of the Jewish and Christian religious communities
into accepting their claim to Palestine is based on a belief that the land
is holy-that their spiritual and emotional connection to this land reaches
across millennia. Yet through the willful decimation of natural resources
along with its native inhabitants, the Zionist establishment has proven that
in the Holy Land, nothing is sacred.
With respect to the nearly 800,000 Palestinians that were forced to flee
their homes upon the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Jewish State's
wanton destruction of the environment in their absence merits condemnation
as well. The land once known as Palestine began suffering detrimental and
irrevocable changes in the early 1950s when Israel's fledgling government
drained the wetlands surrounding Lake Huleh, north of the Sea of Galilee,
for a housing project. Once the lake was dry, the Palestinian Painted Frog
that inhabited the wetlands became extinct. The last reported sighting of
the small amphibian was in 1955. Today, many other species are facing
extinction due to Israel's gross disregard for the environment.
Israeli fish farming is killing off coral reefs in the Red Sea, threatening
unique species of fish and other marine life. According to coral ecologist
Dr. Yossi Loya, five million fish are bred in cages each year without
permits, a $20 million per year industry protected by the Israeli
agriculture lobby. Coral reefs in Aqaba and along the Sinai Peninsula
continue to thrive, as Jordan and Egypt do not permit large scale fishing
off the Red Sea coast.
Meanwhile, Israeli corporate greed is threatening another natural wonder,
the Dead Sea. At a 2009 regional conference to address the dramatic decrease
in Dead Sea water levels, it was determined that industrial development
would need to be abated. Israeli company ICL Fertilizers/Dead Sea Works
responded by increasing potash production in their Dead Sea facility by 30
percent.
Zalul, an Israeli watchdog organization monitoring the effects of industrial
dumping reported that 500 million tons of raw sewage are discharged into the
Mediterranean Sea annually. Israel's Ministry of the Environment issues
licenses to the culpable corporations, effectively granting permission to
dispose of waste in such a manner.
In addition to industrial waste, the municipalities of Acre and Ashdod have
no properly built sewage treatment facilities, contributing to Mediterranean
Sea pollution. In the Tiberias municipality, seven beaches along the Sea of
Galilee were closed in 2007 after Israeli Health Ministry officials found
double the allotted amounts of fecal bacteria in the water.
While Israeli citizens have been adversely affected by the government's
failure to adopt responsible policies, Israel's inherent environmental
racism and wholesale environmental terrorism against Palestinians and
neighboring countries are far more sinister. In the West Bank, illegal
outposts and unauthorized settlements pump sewage into rudimentary pits. The
village of Deir Sharaf served as a dump for Israeli settlers until 2005,
despite its close proximity to underground wells on which tens of thousands
of Palestinians depend for drinking and sanitation.
Wood-coal factories in the town of Ya'abad emit rank smoke, choking
residents. The same industry exists in Egypt where workshops were moved out
of town. Such a solution is an impossibility in occupied Palestine, as the
area outside city limits is under full Israeli control.
In a 2009 report, Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din cited 69
complaints of olive groves being damaged or destroyed during the past four
years. Twenty-seven such incidents involving the destruction of hundreds of
trees occurred between January and October 2009, despite a statement from
the Israel Defense Forces that the olive harvest had passed "quietly." Not
only are the centuries-old olive trees vital to the livelihood of
Palestinian villagers, they possess an almost spiritual quality so the loss
to farmers is tantamount to losing members of their immediate families.
It is worse still in Gaza. Even before the Israeli blockade, Palestinian
fishermen were prohibited from sailing more than five kilometers out to sea,
rendering the immediate coastal area devoid of fish. The Israeli military
routinely destroyed wells serving refugee camps. International Solidarity
Movement member Rachel Corrie wrote of sleeping in front of the wells with
fellow activists to prevent their destruction before she was murdered by an
Israeli bulldozer driver in March 2003.
Israel's 2006 bombardment of Lebanon damaged the Jiyeh power plant serving
southern Lebanon, resulting in a 15,000 ton oil spill that devastated local
fishermen along with the ecosystem. During that same time, millions of
dollars of infrastructure was destroyed in Gaza, exacerbating problems with
water supply and sanitation. Due to the Israeli siege, international
agencies were prevented from entering Gaza to repair the damaged wastewater
treatment facilities, resulting in the March 2007 disaster in the village of
Umm Naser when a sewage reservoir burst its banks, destroying 200 homes. Two
elderly women and three children were killed.
Along with the human toll, farmers suffered massive losses to their
livestock during Israel's assault on Gaza from December 2008-January 2009.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that 35,000 cattle,
sheep and goats, as well as one million birds and chickens were killed.
Animal carcasses, along with chemical agents used by the Israeli army,
contaminated the water. Farmers report that the chemical-laden water now
dehydrates crops.
Israel continues to raze farmland, irrigation piping, homes, greenhouses and
wells along a buffer zone along the Gaza side of the internationally
recognized "Green Line." Anyone found within this Israeli-imposed no-man's
land risks being shot. At least 13 Palestinian civilians have been killed
and 39 injured in border regions in and outside of the buffer zone last
year, including women and children.
The true stewards of Palestine cultivated their land from ancient times
until it was stripped away from them when Israel was established. Since
then, Zionist immigrants have raped the land, poisoned the waters, polluted
villages and decimated the native population. Determining who has the real
spiritual and emotional connection to the Holy Land is as simple as
comparing the landscape of Palestine prior to 1948 to the ever-expanding
wasteland of today, yet another casualty of Zionist aggression and greed.
- Tammy Obeidallah contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
*** exposing the hidden truth for further educational research only ***
CAVEAT LECTOR *** In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. NOTE: Some links may require cut and paste into your Internet
Browser. Please check for daily real news posts and support the truth!
(sorry but don't have time to email all posts) at
<http://tinyurl.com/33c9yr> http://tinyurl.com/33c9yr or
<http://groups.google.com/group/total_truth_sciences/topics?gvc=2>
http://groups.google.com/group/total_truth_sciences/topics?gvc=2 ; You can
also subscribe to the multiple daily emails by sending an email to
<mailto:[email protected]>
[email protected] ; free book download:
<http://www.lulu.com/content/165077> http://www.lulu.com/content/165077 ***
Revealing the hidden Truth For Educational & Further Research Purposes only.
*** NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security
Agency (NSA) may have read emails without warning, warrant, or notice. They
may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no
recourse, nor protection.......... IF anyone other than the addressee of
this e-mail is reading it, you are in violation of the 1st & 4th Amendments
to the Constitution of the United States. Patriot Act 5 & H.R. 1955
Disclaimer Notice: This post & all my past & future posts represent parody &
satire & are all intended for intellectual entertainment only. To be removed
from the weekly list, please reply with the subject line "REMOVE"
_____
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"total_truth_sciences" group.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/total_truth_sciences<<image001.jpg>>
