Soccer Dad

Sewage treatment rant

Sewage Flood Kills 4 In Gaza
Cesspool Rupture Underscores State Of Public Works

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 28, 2007; Page A10

The Palestinian Authority has since been hampered financially after most foreign donors cut off aid to the government following the January 2006 election of Hamas, an armed Islamic movement. Roads, power plants and waterworks across the 140-square-mile strip are deteriorating rapidly. Many are already in tatters.

While the Washington Post reports that a report about Gaza's infrastructure is two years old, the blame for this is limited to the single paragraph pointing to the cutoff in aid to the PA as the culprit for the sewage spill. (Never mind that more money reached the PA in 2006 than in 2005.)

The New York Times didn't have its own report but carried an AP report that gives a bit more information.

A 2004 United Nations report warned that the sewage plant was at maximum capacity and that flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was built. It said the effluent lake was a breeding ground for mosquitoes and waterborne diseases, posing a serious health hazard.

Efforts to build a new waste treatment plant were repeatedly hampered by fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. Stuart Shepherd, of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that since the report was published, international money for a new plant had been secured but construction could not proceed because the area was too dangerous.

Umm Naser is about 300 yards from the border with Israel in an area where Palestinians have frequently launched rockets into Israel, and Israeli artillery and aircraft have fired back.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, blamed the international sanctions imposed on the Palestinians after the Hamas victory in elections in January 2006 for the condition of the infrastructure in Gaza. But Mr. Shepherd said the Umm Naser project had not been affected by the boycott.

That's interesting. The boycott didn't affect this humanitarian project. Did anyone tell Scott Wilson?

Reuters places all the blame on Israel.

Local authorities have scant resources. Since the Islamic militant group Hamas came to power a year ago, Western donors have halted direct assistance to the Palestinian government and Israel has frozen most tax revenues.

Hamas said the cut-off in international aid "prevented the government from improving and developing the necessary health and humanitarian services."

An internal World Bank document, obtained by Reuters, said the plant and reservoir were built on high ground, putting the "surrounding area under an imminent threat of possible flooding."

The governor of north Gaza, Ismail Abu Shammala, said the problems started 15 to 20 years ago while Gaza was under direct Israeli occupation.

He said Israeli military operations since the pullout in 2005 and internal Palestinian violence over the last year made it harder to make improvements.

Simply Jews tells us to connect the dots

A brief google shows that complaints about the lack of sewage processing are dated way before the last elections in Palestinian territories that brought about the cutting of foreign aid. No, the problem was known and clear to all. It is just that the powers that be in Gaza could not care less about the well-being of their subjects, when the first and foremost action item on their agenda is to get more and more arms to kill the hated Jooz.

And thus there is a line of business burgeoning in Gaza that has a direct impact on the issue of sewage treatment: the rocket science. You see, to build one Qassam rocket you must have about 2m of pipe. Multiply 1000 (which is roughly the number of Qassams launched on Israel) by 2m and you shall see how the dots connect. Clearly the iron will of the terrorists makes the sewage treatment even more of a pipe dream.

Elder of Zion linked to an article showing that the choice of pipes or missiles was not figurative, but literal.

On February 9, the Shin Bet arrested Amar Zak, 37, at the Erez Crossing. During his interrogation, Zak confessed to purchasing metal pipes from Israeli companies and then selling them to Hamas and other terror groups for the manufacture of Kassam rockets, fired almost daily at Israel. In 2006, 1,700 rockets were fired at Israel.

The pipes that were sold to Zak were intended for civilian use, and specifically for the construction of a sewage system in the Gaza Strip.

The Shin Bet arrested Zak after it received numerous reports in 2006 according to which hollow pipes made in Israel were being used in Gaza to manufacture Kassam rockets as well as shoulder-launched missiles.

Cox And Forkum showed the tradeoff in Cesspool. Dry Bones Blog has an appropriate cartoon too.

In Gee, this is predictable, Daled Amos has the succinct version of events. More comments at Israelly Cool! and Dr. Sanity.

UPDATE: Another relevant post (h/t Carnival of the Insanities) at the Business of America is Business who concludes

The last half of the last sentence holds the key for the Hamas government on this issue and maybe others : "make changes when the agencies... come up short" or you may come up short in your next performance review, i.e. election. Clearly, many of your constituents have a keen eye for BS and are in no mood to put up with it.

I don't know if I agree with the conclusion. Hamas was lionized by a media proclaiming them to be the party of good or effective government. Now that that's been demonstrated false, they'll go back to the old but effective "let's destroy Israel mode."

Blogdigger tags: Gaza, Sewage, Media Bias, Israel, Hamas.