UN-Truth

Here, we are told, there are other problems that are bigger, more important, more pressing than pollution and the environment. “Politics”, for example, is both the explanation of what is wrong, and of why we can do nothing about it.

Yet, every hour of every day, the problem is growing.

Who do Palestinians think is going to clean up after them?

Why can’t Palestinians take care about their garbage, and throw it away properly?

Here, in Jerusalem, the conventional Palestinian wisdom is that the “municipality” — that is, of Jerusalem, Israel — refuses to come to Palestinian areas because (1) they discriminate against Arabs, (2) have an enormous disdain for Palestinians, or (3) are afraid of Palestinians.

The municipality takes our money (Arnona, the municipal tax), but refuses to provide us services, many Palestinians say. A few Palestinians say: we pay Arnona, but we refuse to ask the municipality for services, because we may be accused of “collaboration”.

In the meantime, the landscape of Palestinian areas is littered — littered — with garbage. It is, I am sorry to have to say, disgusting.

Our efforts to conduct an informal poll about this, it must be reported, have resulted in more resentful or sullen silences than useful answers.

You can just imagine the confused and very annoyed reactions I’ve gotten when I ask, provocatively, “Who do Palestinians think is going to clean up after them, their Mothers?”

In a local shop, I said no thank you, I don’t need a plastic bag for my purchases — and I was told, with the best of intentions — that it was unseemly for a lady to walk around with her purchases, without a plastic bag. So, I will do what I did in Geneva, which is to carry my own bags when I am going shopping. Except for when I forget.

Large parts of the urban and suburban Palestinian landscape is littered with blowing plastic bags — mainly blue, or black — mainly in the hot and arid days of summer.

Plastic bags are caught in the branches of trees, and remain there.

Workmen who came to my new apartment would open packages of supplies — and then throw them on the floor of my apartment. I was supposed to pick up after them! Could they really have no idea how insulted I felt? Well, no, explained one friend — if they were working in the home of a rich person, they would do a terrific clean-up after themselves. So, it is an issue of respect, as I suspected.

And so, as suspected, this garbage problem is a real manifestation of a general lack of respect …

A real and effective political struggle would have to deal with this. And the real liberation of Palestine will have to have a real struggle against throwing garbage everywhere, without picking it up!

It is noticeably cleaner in the West Bank than in East Jerusalem and its suburbs.  (Of course, it is  clean in West Jerusalem.  But Israel does have quit a lot of pollution issues –particularly untreated sewage, and not only along its Mediterranean coast…

A friend who lives in Beitin village, just outside Ramallah (but now a 45-minute drive away, rather than the 3-minute drive it always was before, because of Israeli blocked roads to protect the growing Israeli settlement of Beit El) said that the municipal council leader has lead a three-year, but eventually successful, campaign against garbage littering in their village. He went to the Mosque, eventually, and made numerous speeches with explanations. After a three-year campaign, there is now progress. But there are still problems, she reports — school children buy small bags of chips after school, and just disdainfully throw the bags right on the ground. (As if they were some big pashas, with slaves to pick up in their wake.) Still, the overall problem is nevertheless reduced. “My sister-in-law used to throw her household garbage (very loosely wrapped in a store’s plastic bag, so that it would splatter on impact) OFF THE ROOF! [n.b., this was 2.5 stories up, above the street.] It was my Mother (the sister-in-law’s Mother-in-law) who changed this, by shouting at her every morning to clean up her garbage”.

Of course, the Mother-in-law has to be progressive, and convinced, as is Umm Tamim …

I just spotted this, on the blog Aquacool, being written by a “transplanted” Palestinian-Jordanian now living with her husband and son in Tunisia: “One can still see people throwing garbage out their car windows; a study showed that Arabs alone throw away around 25 billion plastic bags on daily basis!…”

The Aquacool post continues: “One can also easily spot water leaking from street pipes, or water flowing out water hoses. Little is actually being done to reduce pollution levels, let alone stop it. Not to mention the sad fact that relatively few Arab countries provide recycling services, and in those few countries only few people do actually use those services, and among those only few do it correctly. But it has to be said though, that the attention recycling is getting has been growing over the years. Taking the country I live in currently, Tunisia, as an example, 3 years ago, I looked really stupid when I used to separate my plastic waste from the rest of my garbage, since there were no recycling services provided to the public. Now the project that started 2 years ago as a contest to spread awareness has turned out to be a big success and there are plastic-waste containers almost everywhere now for the public to comfortably fill with plastic waste. That’s besides the brochures that are being given away for free from many shopping centers and stores to spread awareness and give tips to citizens on how to reduce waste, save energy and recycle … As for other Arab countries, many is being done to spread environmental awareness, and I’m sure you can find info on other blogs of any country you choose. It’s to be noted though, that the Arab Environment Day took place yesterday, its theme was: ‘Secure Management of Chemicals’.” See Aquacool’s post on Environment Action Day in the Arab World here.

According to an email I received last week, though my subscription to the Jerusalem Post, there will be an “International Clean-Up” day — in Israel — in 22 October. Apparently, this is an exclusively “Israeli” event, without any reaching out to the Palestinians [I am sure to be told that it would be naive, or worse, to even think of such a thing]. The email inviting me (as someone who has registered on the JPost website) to participate says that “This major environmental event is held under the auspices of Clean Up the World Organization”.

Is the Palestinian territory not part of the world?

OK, it is true that KKL (the initials of the Hebrew words for Jewish National Fund, JNF), which holds all Jewish-owned land in Israel/Palestine, is not organized to be sympathetic to Palestinian interests, claims, or anything else.

But, environmental problems do not stop where lines may be drawn on the map.

Last year, some 100,000 Israelis participated in the International Clean-Up Day event across Israel — surely they must understand that!

Of particular interest is the mention, in the email announcement of this year’s “Clean Up the World” event on 22 October, that “This year KKL-JNF is expanding its Clean-Up Day program and is also eco-pioneering: for the first time in Israel garbage bags that are eco-friendly both for the environment and for humans will be used commercially”.

In an area that is literally invaded and occupied by garbage bags, an eco-friendly bag is a real innovation for improvement.

The email announcment says that “These efforts are made possible through generous assistance from JNF-Australia and JNF-USA, whose contributions augment the on-going assistance of the Pratt Foundation of Australia, the Day’s original sponsor”.

OK, so where is the PLO’s environmental team, with its members in Australia and the USA, who could contribute to this cause? The not-yet-established PLO environmental outreach team could also, probably, solicit contributions from the Pratt Foundation of Australia, couldn’t it?

Eco-friendly garbage bags could be a real contribution to the cause.

Filed under: Environment, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians