The ISM website has posted an article about a protest held today by locals in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. The protest was against the presence of 11 Israeli chemical plants that have been located there and that have been linked to spiking rates of cancer in the area.
Tulkarem, with a population of 62,000, is located in the northern part of the West Bank, lying west of the city of Nablus and east of the Israeli town of Netanya. The city makes up just five percent of the West Bank’s population, but accounts for 20 percent of all cancer cases, according to the report. And the article offers a glimpse into why this might be:
The protest against Israel’s chemical plants have been continuous since Gushiri Industries, a manufacturer of pesticides and fertilizers, first arrived in Tulkarem in the mid-1980s. The plant used to be located in the Israeli city of Netanya, only 12 kilometers away. However, a 1982 Israeli court order said the company was violating pollution regulations, making the company relocate to the West Bank’s Area C, which is under full Israeli control. The court order came after a complaint filed by Israeli citizens.
In other words, the Israeli citizens in Netanya sued to have the plant shut down so that it wouldn’t be operating near their homes and endangering their health or the health of their children. Finding that Gushiri was indeed violating pollution regulations, a judge ruled in their favor. The plant shut its doors and moved to Tulkarem. Were the courts and other Israeli officials satisfied with this resolution of the situation? Apparently so.
The following comes from Wikipedia’s article on Environmental Racism:
Environmental racism is placement of low-income or minority communities in proximity of environmentally hazardous or degraded environments, such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decay. While there are competing views as to an exact definition, the interplay between environmental issues and social indicators are key to its understanding.The primary contention issue in the definition is intent. Some definitions hold that only intentional discrimination against minorities in issues regarding the environment is what constitutes environmental racism, while others focus on the presence of unfavorable environmental conditions for minorities, intentional or not. A significant factor in creation of effective environmental segregation is the fact that low-income communities lack the organization and political power to resist introduction of dangerous technologies, as well as greater mobility of richer citizens away from areas falling into industrial and environmental decline.
If there’s any doubt in your mind as to whether the degradation of Tulkarem’s environment came about as a result of “intentional” pollution, perhaps the next paragraph from the ISM story might help clear that up:
Since the arrival of Gushiri Industries, ten other chemical plants have located nearby, the last one in 2007. The location of these plants have caused many local farmers to lose most of their land and contributed to unemployment and poverty in the area. Hence, many local Palestinians have been forced to work at these chemical plants, as the Israeli corporations are taking advantage of the low labor costs and the non-applicability of Israeli labor laws in Area C.
That’s a total of 11 toxic chemical plants, all Israeli-owned, all located in a Palestinian city with a population of just 62,000 people. I’m not a legal expert, but I’m guessing it probably would qualify as “intentional” environmental racism, at least by any reasonable standard of jurisprudence.
So what does all this mean in practice? What’s it like to be a local living in the city of Tulkarem? Here’s a bit more from the ISM story:
A representative from the Palestine Technical University (PTU), which neighbors the Gushiri chemical plant to the south and the Apartheid Wall to the west, said today that the smell is “unbearable” after 3 pm, which explains why most residents of Tulkarem always keep their windows shut. Residents living near the factories have also developed health issues including asthma, reduced lung capacity, skin ailments and eye infections. This is especially true for elementary students.Additionally, it has been estimated that approximately 300 dunams, i.e. 300,000 square meters, of agricultural land is contaminated by emissions from the factories.
And finally, the article informs us of this:
The global civic organization Avaaz is currently running a campaign named “A child’s cry: Stop poisioning Palestine’s schools” to help stopping the chemical plants in Tulkarem. By signing a petition on their website, you can help putting pressure on the EU, their biggest market, to apply their strict(er) environmental regulations and impose an import ban on these factories.
This would, of course, be the same Avaaz which is campaigning for the imposition of a no-fly zone in Syria, similar, presumably, to the one set up in Libya in 2011–the sameorganization, by the way, whose founders have been described, by at least one critic, as “imperialist pimps of militarism.”
Why would a group campaigning for “humanitarian intervention” in Syria be launching an advocacy campaign for Palestinian children in Tulkarem? What purposes are served? Perhaps they feel it helps give their organization “legitimacy”–something which, of course, the country of Israel forfeited a long time ago.
The only thing that can be said with any certainty, is that the present government of Israel has no intentions of ending its occupation. There simply are too many profitable advantages from continuing it, having a convenient place to dump toxic waste being but one.
By the way, the protest today took place outside the Gishuri plant. And how do you think it turned out? Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and shot one man in the abdomen with a rubber coated steel bullet. You can go here to read the full story.
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