Now, It's "The Independent" That's Full of Sh*t

A while ago, I blogged about Johann Hari of The Independent and claimed that he was "full of sh*t".

His claim there was that it was Jewish "settlements" that are responsible for the contaminating of the underground water of Judea and Samaria.

CAMERA counters:

CAMERA responded to her anecdotal defense by providing unequivocal data showing that the raw sewage problem in the West Bank was overwhelmingly of Palestinian origin. Confronted with these facts, Ms. Hayman fell back upon the primacy of The Independent's political narrative which holds Israel as an illegal occupier. In her final response to CAMERA, Ms. Hayman stated:

Johann Hari's column chose to focus on the untreated sewage emanating from the settlements he believes "there is a qualitiative difference between Israeli settlements, constructed illegally, pumping untreated sewage towards the occupied population, and a collapsing Palestinian Authority being unable to treat its own sewage partly because it exists under military occupation." A columnist – who is clearly flagged up to readers as writing an opinionated take on the news – is perfectly within his rights to do this. The facts he offered were accurate; his opinions and choice of emphasis are his own, as any reader can see, and as they should be for an op-ed writer.

According to her logic, only Israeli settlers deserve approbation for polluting the land since, in The Independent's opinion, the settlements are illegal. And Israel's military occupation absolves the Palestinian Authority of any responsibility to provide adequate sewage treatment. Despite the billions in aid provided by foreign donors, the Palestinian Authority has made limited investment in sanitation infrastructure. Nevertheless, the Independent condemns Jewish settlements alone for the problem.

There's much more there.

The Facile Fisk

Robert Fisk, that is. In The Independent:-

This Easter, the 92nd anniversary of the Rising, it is intriguing to look at the parallels that connect Ireland and the Middle East. The "Black and Tans", whom Churchill supported when they took their revenge on Irish civilians in 1920, were later sent – again with Churchill's support – to Palestine, where they became the "British Gendarmerie" and continued their reprisals against Arab and Jewish civilians to considerable effect. Decades later, John Hume (Ireland's only living statesman) wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel and "Palestine" should take a page out of Ireland's Good Friday Agreement. It was all about compromise, he said.

He was wrong. Israel's settlements on Palestinian Arab land in the occupied territories were as illegal as the Protestant settlements and the dispossession of the Catholics in 16th-century Ireland.

Well, here's my response:-

In a facile attempt to draw a link between Ireland and Israel, Robert Fisk suggests that "Israel's settlements on Palestinian Arab land in the occupied territories were as illegal as the Protestant settlements and the dispossession of the Catholics in 16th-century Ireland" (Mar. 23). Illegality cannot apply to this instance.

In the first place, Arabs invaded the area of Palestine, a country they never have quite managed to refer to in Arabic, adopting the Latin corruption of Philistine from the Roman conquerors. Their presence as interlopers begins in the 7th century, some 2000 years after the Jewish migration to the country which, until their arrival, was but a collection of feudal kings of perhaps ten different populations groups. It was under the Israelite monarchy that the land was united.

In the second place, the highest international legal authority of the time, the Supreme Council of the League of Nations, acknowledged the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute their homeland in all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in a series of decisions during 1922-23, the land mass having been whittled down by British imperial interference. That is the land area the Israel government administers at present.

If there is any true parallel, it is the underground resistance of the Irish that encouraged Jews to seek their independence from the British occupation, eventually forcing England to give up her Mandate.