Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Shehadeh Sewage

The Plight of the Palestinian Olive Tree is up at the New York Times' 'Views From Around the World' Latitude blog.


Its by Raja Shehadeh, datelined Urif, West Bank.

His accusation is "it was inevitable that at some point Jewish settlements in the West Bank would endanger even the trees."  And he expands with these details

...Jewish settlements were first...situated mainly on uncultivated land. But more was soon needed...olive trees became a major casualty of this expansion...Tens of thousands of olive trees have been uprooted...the head of the local olive farmers cooperative, Abdel Fatah el-Safadi, who is in his 50s. He told me that about 250 acres of village land had been made inaccessible because of the separation fence. He also said that local farmers were often attacked when they tried to pick olives or care for their trees, and that settlers nearby had burned down or otherwise vandalized their trees.
...the village of Marda, just south of Urif...it, too, is up against the settlers who live nearby — and who dispose of their sewage in the village’s olive groves...

The comments I left there:

Of course, this is but one-side of the reality and even that is a bit biased.  Here in the Shiloh Bloc area (home to 10 communities and over 8000 Jews - with not one Arab being dispossessed) we have planted hundreds of dunams of olive trees, established the Meshek Achiyah olive oil production plant which provides 12% of all Israel's domestic oil needs as well as several hundreds of dunams of vineyards that together with other vineyards in the Binyamin Region of Samaria, none of which intruded into private Arab land, is producing tens of thousands of bottles of wine, many brands winning prizes across the globe.  This land is good for all who love it and if the Arabs would recognize that we Jews do belong to this land and we have done so for 3000 years, there will be coexistence, and shared efforts and maybe even peace with no killings and no terror, a reality that will overcome politics and fundamentalist theology.

And, I should point out, not only have Arabs damaged, uprooted and hacked olive trees planted by Jews on land we Jews own but that olive tress have been used as cover for Arab terror ambushes who have shot and killed Jews as they drove by on the roads and at other times, used the trees as cover for infiltrating Jewish communities.

There's always a second side to a story.

As for sewage, besides pointing out that local Arabs consistently refuse to cooperate with planned joint projects to prevent environmental disaster, I could have said his blog post was....

Naw.

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They're up:





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