Sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander

In December of 2006, the Israeli Environment Ministry took some considerable (and justified) pride in being able to announce that

pollution in Israel's Mediterranean waters has dropped considerably in recent years.

A ministry report released [December 18, 2006] shows that the quantity of pollutants that flowed into the sea between 1998 and 2004 have been reduced considerably. ...

The ministry attributes the reduction in pollution to the enforcement of anti-marine pollution legislation and tighter supervision, as well as the redirecting of sewage pipes that had been flowing directly into the sea.

There was still a lot of sewage being dumped into the sea and "severely polluted beaches," but there was clear measurable progress.

Which makes it bitterly ironic that Israeli behavior towards Palestinians in Gaza is making the pollution of the Mediterranean worse.

Millions of liters of sewage have been released over the past three months into the Mediterranean Sea from the Gaza Strip, according to a new United Nations report[, says Haaretz (Israel) on Friday].

According to the report, an estimated 50-60 million liters of waste have been pumped into the sea. This was done in an effort to prevent an overflow of sewage in residential areas.

Normally, the sewage is pumped to prearranged sites for treatment, but the shortage of fuel in the Gaza Strip has caused disruptions in the supply of electricity. These shortages, lack of sufficient quantities of chemicals necessary for treating sewage, and spare parts, has led the Gaza officials to pump the waste into the sea.

The water in the area is dark brown and smells, and fishers say the sewage has killed much of the fish.

Officials in the Gaza Strip said there were also concerns that the pumping station in the Zeitun area would not be able to handle the sewage that had accumulated and the treatment pools would overflow.

Such an overflow happened before, in March, with terrible results: An earth embankment around an overfull sewage reservoir collapsed,

spewing a river of waste and mud that killed at least five people and forced residents to flee from a village in the northern Gaza Strip

in the face of what one Gaza official called a "Palestinian tsunami."

There, the blame was placed on the lack of a sewage treatment plant which was not built because of security issues. Here, however, there is a sewage treatment plant. It just lacks the power and parts to work effectively. And the cause, bluntly, lies not in Gaza but in Jerusalem.

The treatment plant requires constant electrical supply, and the OCHA [UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] report calls on Israel to lift its restrictions on fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip.

OCHA says that unless electricity can run continuously it is impossible to make regular use of the sanitation equipment in the Strip.

The UN is also calling on Israel to allow the transfer of materials and spare parts that are necessary to upgrade the sewage system, and which would allow the construction of three modern sewage treatment stations in the Strip.

The bottom line is that one set of Israeli policies, intended to benefit Israelis, has made the Israelis' coast cleaner. And another set of Isreali policies, intended to oppress of Palestinians, has made the Palestinians' coast dirtier and generated dangers to their health, their environment, and their food supply (i.e., the fish).

I grew up being taught, and believing, that the Israelis were the white hats in the region. But it has been some time since outside of certain individuals, I've been able to find any hats not stained with the blood of others and splattered with the defecation of the wearer's own hatred.