[Marxism] Israel Dumps Garbage On Palestinians

["M. Junaid Alam" <mjunaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Talk about symbolism.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/560414.html


   Israel plans to dump tons of garbage in West Bank

_By David Ratner <mailto:ratner_d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Haaretz Correspondent

For the first time since 1967, Israel has decided to transfer garbage
beyond the Green Line and dump it in the West Bank.

The project was launched despite international treaties prohibiting an
occupying state from making use of occupied territory unless it benefits
the local population.

In addition, pollution experts say such use of the Kedumim quarry -
located in an old Palestinian quarry between the Kedumim settlement and
Nablus - will jeopardize Palestinian water sources.

The dump operators plan to deposit some 10,000 tons of garbage from the
Dan and Sharon regions every month in what was known as the Abu Shusha
quarry, the largest in the West Bank.

In the last few days trucks and bulldozers have been covering the
quarry's floor with brown soil to turn it into a garbage dump. Huge
semi-trailer trucks are to bring the Sharon and Dan garbage, which will
be amassed at the Hadarim garbage station near Tel Mond prison, to the
quarry.

The construction is being carried out by Baron Industrial Park, a
company jointly owned by the councils of Kedumim and Karnei Shomron and
the Shomron Regional Council. The Hadarim site is operated by D.S.H., a
private, Netanya-based garbage disposal company owned by the Valensi
family.

The initiative started out as an idea to rehabilitate a 15-dunam plot in
the quarry by filling it with building waste, junk and shredded tires.
It evolved into a huge project spread over dozens of dunams for
household garbage, operated as a private business and expected to yield
tens of millions of shekels.

Transferring Israeli garbage to the West Bank will be much cheaper for
D.S.H. than taking it to a site in Israel. Local and regional councils
pay NIS 90 to NIS 105 for removing a ton of garbage to a transit station
in Israel. They pay the dump some NIS 40 per ton for depositing the
waste and the transporter gets another NIS 30 per ton.

The profit is NIS 20 to NIS 35 per ton. But burying the garbage in the
Kedumim dump, according to an internal Baron Park document, will cost a
mere NIS 30 per ton, leaving a greater profit in the hands of the
entrepreneurs and operators.

Transferring the Israeli garbage to Samaria will bring the company a
profit of NIS 6 per ton, totaling some NIS 60,000 a month.

Israel's construction and operation of the Kedumim dump appears to be in
violating the international law, as it involves transferring garbage to
territory defined as occupied.

Second, experts warn that the dump would jeopardize the Mountain
Aquifer, one of the largest freshwater sources in Israel and Palestine.
This is because the dump, which was originally used for "dry waste,"
will receive and absorb household garbage with organic substances.

It is also unclear whether the procedures for constructing and operating
the dump on state land were carried out according to the law, or how
bulldozers are working at the site before a final construction permit
has been issued.

Why has the civil administration failed to take measures against Baron
Industrial Park for allowing D.S.H. - six months ago - to dump hundreds
of tons of garbage in the site in violation of the law and before the
Environment Ministry and Water Commission approved it?

West Bank sources say the reason for the civil administration's inaction
is that everyone is afraid of Daniella Weiss, the council head of
Kedumim, one of the owners of Baron Park.

The biggest mystery is how D.S.H., of all companies, was allowed to
build and operate a very profitable waste site on state land without any
tender being issued, as required by law.

The Kedumim dump will create an absurd situation. The West Bank is
filled with illegal Palestinian garbage dumps, which constitute serious
environmental hazards and jeopardize the groundwater, because the civil
administration refuses to let Palestinians build modern waste disposal
sites. The most modern dump being built there - the Kedumim dump - is
intended only for garbage from Israel.

"We are dealing with a double crime," says MK Yossi Sarid, former
environment minister. "On the one hand, Israel is preventing the
Palestinians from making use of the quarry and its resources, and in
exchange we are giving them the Sharon's garbage. I believe this is a
violation of international treaties."

Iche Meir, the director of the union of Samaria local authorities for
the environment, said the work had been done without the union's
approval and was illegal.

The civil administration issued an order to stop the work on the site
and Baron Park was instructed to move the garbage and start the
insulation work on the quarry floor again, as a condition for the
Environment Ministry's approval.

Haaretz has learned that although the environment minister has not yet
approved the work on the dump, and despite the civil administration's
order to stop the construction, the bulldozers are still working on the
site.

A civil administration spokesman commented that he was unable to provide
the answers to the legal issues, due to lack of time. He said the
Kedumim council head gave D.S.H. a permit to operate a garbage dump
before the plan was approved by the authorities and this is why the
civil administration ordered the work to stop.


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