Apartheid

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policy:
We have found 249 sites which Israel uses to bury its industrial waste
in Palestinian territory. Israeli forces have swamped fields with
sewage, ruined 1,745 hectares of productive agricultural land, and
pulled up 300,000 olive trees, palms and vines. 344
Some of the additional consequences of this include the loss of thousands of poultry
and livestock, as well as of water wells and of irrigation systems. The Israeli army had caused
further environmental deterioration of Palestinian land through the policy of demolition of
Palestinian homes.
According to Amnesty International, Israel destroyed 3,000 Palestinian houses in the
first three-and-a-half years of the Second Intifada. Most of the home demolitions were carried
out against innocent civilians, ‘…usually…without warning, often at night, and the occupants
are forcibly evicted with no time to salvage their belongings’. The human rights organization
also criticizes Israel for destroying Palestinian houses that are built without permits from the
Israeli state, since Israel ‘systematically’ denies Palestinians, including Israeli Arabs, building
permits in order to steal their land. 345
A remote-control variety of the Caterpillar bulldozer that destroys Palestinian homes
for the Israeli army has been developed by the Israelis with the aid of American technological
expertise and was reportedly first put to use in 2003. It was feared that the unmanned
bulldozers would cause even more damage than the manned ones have done so far –
especially to human beings. Bulldozers have killed several Palestinians and others, such as the
American peace activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed to death by a bulldozer while trying
to stop a home demolition in Gaza on March 16, 2003. 346
The Israeli army had also attacked the Palestinian Environment Ministry building in
Ramallah on three occasions since the Second Intifada began, according to Abu Safieh. Along
the same lines, the human rights organization, Miftah, noted that most Jewish settlements in
the Occupied Territories ‘have not developed sewage treatment plants; which implies that
sewage is often allowed to run into the valleys, threatening neighbouring Palestinian towns
and villages in terms of agriculture and health.’ 347
The position of an intermediate ethnic group – not indigenous, and generally not the
subject of as harsh oppression as the indigenous – is in the process of being taken up at
present. There are already hundreds of thousands of mainly blue- and pink-collar workers
from ‘third countries’ in Israel, many of them from Romania, Thailand, China and Lebanon.
Of course, they are not Jews, and therefore second-choice, though much preferred as
344
N.N.: Sharon Ruining Palestinian Environment - Minister, October 5, 2001. See also Rinat: Settlement
Sewage Kills Off 200 Olive Trees Grown by Palestinians, 2005. The Israeli state also stands accused of using
such methods against Arab citizens of Israel inside Israel, see N.N.: Adalah Continues to Seek Criminal
Investigation into ILA [Israel Land Administration] Following Further Spraying of Toxic Chemicals on Naqab
Crops, 2003.
345
Quoted in N.N.: Israel Razed 3,000 Homes Since Intifada - Amnesty, 2004
346
Rabinowitz: Remote-Driven Bulldozers Join Israeli Army Arsenal, 2003; Heller, C.: Israel to Get Remote-
Control Bulldozers--Institute, 2003. See also N.N.: U.N. Aide Warns Caterpillar Over Sales to Israel, June 16,
2004. In response to accusations by the UN human rights investigator, Jean Ziegler, that its bulldozers are used
to violate human rights, Caterpillar says its sales to Israel comply with U.S. law and are conducted through
Washington’s Foreign Military Sales Program. Home demolitions by the Israeli army usually come with about
ten minutes’ warning, only enough for Palestinian families to make sure that all residents get out of the home
safely – or not. See Johnston: Israeli Bulldozer Crushes Paralysed Man in Gaza Home, 2004. On the New York
Theatre Workshop’s cancellation of the production of ‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie’, a piece based on Corrie’s
diaries, a few weeks before opening, see Redgrave: The Second Death of Rachel Corrie: Censorship of the Worst
Kind, 2006.
347
See footnote 344, above; Miftah Fact Sheet, Israeli Settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
(Updated), 2002.