A new way to embitter Palestinian lives (Ha'aretz editorial)

[Violet_Crumble]

Settlers in the occupied territories are converting springs and other water sources into memorials and tourism sites.

Settlers in the occupied territories have found a new way to embitter Palestinians' lives: converting springs and other water sources into memorials and tourism sites, as Zafrir Rinat reported in yesterday's Haaretz. As if it were not bad enough that Palestinians have no access to most of these springs since they are barred from using roads near the settlements, Israeli flags now fly over these water sources and they are walled off by fences and guards.

"Over the last two years there has been great development in the tourism field, and as part of the development program by the Tourism Ministry and the council, fouled springs are being turned into pleasant tourism sites ... and opened to the general public," the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council wrote in one of its publicity brochures.

But they aren't open to the entire public. The whitewashed language used to justify the new venture is only a prelude to this statement: "For obvious security reasons, and due to the terrorist attacks that have occurred in the past, the Israel Defense Forces do not allow Arabs access to springs near the settlements."

This is the time-honored system for abusing the Palestinians and driving them off their lands, under the settlers' dubious orchestration. First they set up a settlement (which is ostensibly legal ) or an outpost (which is illegal even by Israeli standards ). Next, the IDF, which is committed to ensuring the settlers' safety, refuses to allow Palestinians to travel in that vicinity.

But even this is not enough for the settlers, so they create provocations. For their takeover of the springs does not just deny the Palestinians access to water sources; it also, and primarily, creates a violent provocation. Putting up a sign that erases a spring's Arab name and invents a Hebrew name to replace it, or destroying an ancient building and putting up a memorial in its place in an attempt to create an exclusive Jewish settler memory, are provocations solely for the sake of provocation.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-new-way-to-embitter-palestinian-lives-1.326217

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Related thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x338809

[Tripmann]

2. Can't wait to read about how posting this story is part of a campaign to delegitimise israel.....

[aranthus]

3. I think you'll have to wait a long time.

But then you knew that already.

[Tripmann]

4. Really? While we're waiting I can just link to where you do exactly that in another thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=337622&mesg_id=338793

:)

We can all have a good look at that while you explain how this latest atrocity is being used to demonise israel.

[oberliner]

5. That poster has no messages in that thread you linked to

Am I missing something?

[Violet_Crumble]

6. That's another poster, not aranthus, doing it...

Aranthus doesn't tend to carry on like that, from what I've seen. What they're guilty of is something I'm also guilty of at times, which is assuming because they don't do something, it means no-one else does as well...

[LeftishBrit]

8. ?? Aranthus wasn't even on that thread at all.

[Violet_Crumble]

10. He wasn't, but the point remains that he was wrong when he said it doesn't happen n/t

[Tripmann]

12. Apologies guys, had two tabs open at the same time and scrambled my eggs.

[azurnoir]

7. But this can not be true after all we have told that the only water problems the

Palestinians in the West Bank have is they are either too lazy, ignorant, or corrupt to build the waste water treatment necessary for adequate water, and everyone including the World Bank is "out to get" Israel, of course some details are left out but really who cares

[LeftishBrit]

9. The RW settlers are a menace

'The ministry would do better to reconsider the costs and benefits of this project and remove its aegis from the settlers' disruptive behaviour'

Agree.

[azurnoir]

11. we'd wait with "bated" breath except that

death from asphyxiation is the most likely and probably only outcome