Earlier this week, this was the headline Israel, Palestinians said back to full

Question

Earlier this week, this was the headline Israel, Palestinians said back to full West Bank security cooperation. Despite the chronic failure of past efforts, many still hope for resolution, because it beats the alternative. There's probably more in the media on the Israeli-Palestinian issue than on global climate change. Israelis, and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, live in an area not much larger than New Jersey. They are linked, however uncomfortably, by their shared environment. There's even been some progress on joint solutions to environmental problems—see, for example,Israel, Palestine and the environment. i. Describe three environmental problems they face, other than those described in the preceding article. Include some problems they face separately, and some they face jointly. Your descriptions should be about one solid paragraph each, so that someone unfamiliar with the issues, such as your new boss from the quiz, could understand them. ii. Discuss, in detail, one of the three problems you described above in terms of environmental systems—where and in which sphere does the problem originate, in that region? Which other spheres are involved, from origin of the problem to the ecological and/or human health effects?

Explanation / Answer

The World Health Organisation suggests that 100 litres per person per day is a minimum requirement for every human being on the planet. The average Israeli enjoys a domestic supply of 280 litres per day, while a Palestinian on the West Bank gets on average only 60 litres. The problem is less one of availability of water than one of decades of overpumping by the Israeli water authorities. They use deep wells that affect the long-term quality of the water and lead to the traditional, shallower wells used by Palestinians drying up. Chronic overpumping along Israel’s coastal plain means that the water table has dropped and the void is being fi lled by seawater and, increasingly, by wastewater.1 Since the West Bank was occupied in 1967 the Israeli authorities have taken control of most of the water resources there: they have prevented Palestinians sinking any new wells, while allowing the illegal settlements a water supply that provides them with swimming pools and lawnsprinklers. Some Palestinian communities are reduced to buying back what is rightfully their own water from the adjacent settlement.

Tons of rubbish are taken daily by lorry from Israel to the Occupied Territories, to avoid the strict environmental laws that control operations within Israel. One major dumping ground is Shuqbah, a village of 5,000, not far from Ramallah. According to the Deputy Director of the Palestinian Environmental Authority, Jamil Mtoor: “For several years Israeli companies have been dumping solid and hazardous waste there.” He added: “The subsequent burning of toxic waste including items such as x-ray films releases carcinogens into the environment, and this has affected the population, with many people developing asthma and related illnesses.” The Environmental Authority claim that carcasses of thousands of chickens infected with the avian flu virus were dumped near Nablus and that they have also uncovered 500 barrels of insecticide near Hebron, in the south of the West Bank. The disposal sites used by the Palestinian population of the West Bank have often been blocked off or closed by the Israeli military presence and by the segregated road system (UN report, 28 March 2007). If a site is located near an illegal Jewish settlement then it risks being closed by the Israeli military. The largest West Bank landfill of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, was closed and restrictions imposed on finding an alternative: the resulting build-up of garbage in residential areas threatened the health of nearly 100,000 people.

As part of Israel’s economic colonisation of the West Bank, vast industrial complexes are being created, largely on Palestinian land — contrary to international law. Palestinian workers can be employed at less than the minimum wage in Israel, and health and safety standards are poor. The Occupied Territories are an especially attractive option for industries considered toxic or undesirable in Israel. It has been estimated that there are over 200 such factories inside the West Bank, including: aluminium, leather tanning, textile dyeing, batteries, fibreglass, plastics, and other chemical industries of which the Palestinians receive the poisons but see no financial return.

Israel’s nuclear programme is shrouded in mystery. The country’s leaders have always refused to confirm or deny its existence, but satellite photography shows a heavy-water reactor and plutonium reprocessing facility at Dimona in the Negev Desert in southern Israel, built in 1963 with French assistance. Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician employed in the plant, was jailed in 1988 for 18 years for revealing details of the programme. He published pictures and detailed descriptions of the interior of the reactor, estimating Israel’s arsenal at 200 weapons, including enhanced-radiation (neutron) and even hydrogen bombs. The US-based Center for Defense Information and the UK-based Jane’s Defence Weekly have published information on the probable types and quantities of Israel’s nuclear arsenal and its capability of delivering warheads by land, sea and air. Israel does not allow visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and is not a signatory to the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Environmental and health issues related to the nuclear programme are naturally difficult to investigate, but a number of Israeli families have filed charges against the Israeli government and the reactor’s administration, demanding compensation for the death of workers at Dimona, due to radiation exposure. Precise figures for cancer victims in the wider community are not known, but around Hebron, to the east of the Negev, increased rates of cancer have been reported, together with a higher sterility rate than elsewhere in the West Bank. Similarly, over the border in southern Jordan the authorities report a much higher incidence of cancer than in more northern areas of the country. The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of burying nuclear waste near to Palestinian towns. In 2005 it stated that Israel had buried 80 tons of nuclear waste 300 metres from the West Bank city of Nablus in the north and was continuing to bury waste in Hebron

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse E
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.