The Talmudic adage "he who criticizes another's imperfection is guilty of the identical imperfection" found pungent significance this week when the so-called Palestinian Information Center (PIC) website preempted the findings of the Cities Association for Environmental Quality. The Cities Association had discovered a 19-mile long pool of sewage water stretching from the Arab city of Ramallah all the way to Israel's Modi'in Illit and the Palestine Center wrote an article accusing Israel of what is in reality the PA's environmentally damaging practices.
On Thursday, May 11th, at approximately the time of the discovery, the PIC website carried the following: "Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics revealed that Jewish settlements flood the West Bank with 40 million cubic meters of wastewater annually. The annual production of wastewater in the West Bank, however, is 34 million cubic meters."
It is unclear whether the intention is that "settlers" produce 6 million more cubic meters of wastewater than are in physical existence, or that the 420,000 Jews produce 6 million more cubic meters of wastewater than the close to 2 million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria or that the Israelis bring in wastewater to flood the area. Any way you look at it, it amounts to an almost Olympian achievement.
PIC continues: "In a report issued on the 69th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, the Bureau said that Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) intentionally try to damage the Palestinian environment with wastewater of illegal settlements in the West Bank."
Arab environmental destruction strategy is thus revealed and projected upon the Israelis in the very same sentence in which the "Nakba", the archetypal Arab cultural appropriation of the Holocaust, is mentioned.
"Only 10% out of 90% of wastewater in the West Bank settlements are treated. The IOA disposes 80% of untreated sewage in the Palestinian valleys," the report elaborated.
"The IOA also bans the establishment of wastewater treatment plants in the Palestinian towns," the report claims, laying the basis to excuse the 19-mile long pool of sewage, which was apparently the purpose of the PIC report in the first place.
The Israel Nature Authority has reported that almost 90% of PA sewage flows into the water system untreated. Israel has tried to help the PA solve the problem, but the PA refuses to cooperate with Israel. For example, the PA refused to connect Arab towns in Samaria to an Israeli sewage line because the line also serves several Jewish communities. It also nixed a proposed treatment plant that would serve both Arab towns and the Jewish city Ariel.