Friday, July 29, 2016

The Dry Facts of My German Radio Interview on Our Water Problem

Last Friday, I was recorded for an interview on the water problems out here in Samaria and specifically Shiloh.

It aired three days ago here.

I learned the German for "settler" is siedler.



Me at our neighborhood emergency water supply

EG wrote to me that

I think that they distorted what you said. After you stated that the water infrastructure goes back to the Brit mandatory days, it seems to me that the female narrator translated your words or conveyed your words in a very distorted manner, or she [or the ARD staff] did not intend to translate what you said correctly or incorrectly.

In a five minute clip, with an interview with two other persons, both by the way, pro-Arab, it is difficult to feel that all you said or the gist of what you intended to get across does get to be heard.

This snippet (via Google Translate) is an example:

The Palestinians should stop being so ideological to argue and help to solve the practical problems.

What I had also told the reporter in that section is that the Arabs refuse to cooperate with environmental issues of pollution, sewage treatment and updating the water pipe infrastructure because no matter what the political resolution, the water has to be preserved and the land has to be protected.

Why don't the Arabs cooperate?  Wouldn't coexistence improve chances for peace or at least a lessening of the hostility that exists? 

There's also a bit in there previously on how fast we get help.  The water exists, even if there are temporary shortages.  So, who is at fault, Israel or the slow-responding or non-responding Palestinian Authority? Or their steadfast refusal to work together on a common problem?  Non-recognition doesn't help them.

Unfortunately, that message of mine didn't air.

Oh, and by the way, we've been requested to severely restrict water use since last night.

^

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Here's what ARD says and commented what you said after having a "water expert" declare the situation one of Israeli Apartheid:

Shilo is a Jewish settlement. 25 kilometers away from Salfit. 400 families live there. They have water shortages as well. But the settlers normally get help very fast. If need be the military comes once a day and pumps drinking water into the high water tower which feeds the village.
„It’s frustrating when they [the IDF] pump too much water into the tank. If it runs over the water trickles into the soil unused. We say we don’t need so much water, stop it. But they keep pumping.” (Yisrael Medad, speaker of the settlement Shilo)
Yisrael Medad openly admits that the settlers need more and more water because the settlements are growing and they conduct agriculture. He raves about the wine from the vineyards around Shilo. For him the problem are the old and too small water pipes:
“THere’s enough water. But we need better infrastructure for the Israeli settlements as well as the Palestinian villages. I don’t know how the situation is in Salfit but in Hebron the plumbing is from the time of the Mandate, so from the 1940’s.” [Yisrael Medad, speaker of the settlement Shio]
Die Israeli government should renew the pipes, demand the settlers. And: The Palestinians should stop to argument ideologically and help to solve the problems.
But the new water plumbing in the occupied land west of the Jordan is a political issue. With every step supporting the settlers the Israeli government undermines an eventual two state solution which Israeli prime minister Netanyahu at the very least officially still is committed. [which is a phrasing that conveys doubts that this is the case]