The Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network Sees UN Desk Study as Additional Step Backwards
Continued Failure on the Part of the United Nations towards the Palestinian People and International Law: The UNEP Desk Study
A 180-plus page publication, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Desk Study on the Environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories succeeds in neglecting the causal issues behind the large-scale environmental devastation that has, and continues to take place under Israeli occupation. The study, compiled by UNEP’s “Post-Conflict Assessment Unit”, a name perhaps indicative of the report’s outlook, was backed by the UNEP Governing Council in what UNEP calls “an historic decision”. PENGON is gravely concerned that the report quietly neglects the illegality of the Occupation while encouraging complicity with its institutions and practices.
The decision to prepare the study took place in February 2002, some one year ago, by the UNEP Governing Council. According to UNEP’s Executive Director, Klaus Toepfer, “The Governing Council requested the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to carry out a desk study as a first step in the implementation of this decision outlining the state of the environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and to identify major areas of environmental damage requiring urgent attention.” (Desk Study, p.4) Following Toepfer’s visit to the Occupied Territories, the Desk Study Team toured, in a number of missions, various areas, institutions and individuals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as meeting with Israeli government officials, ministries, and NGOs.
The Desk Study itself deals with a wide range of environmental issues, including water quantity and quality, wastewater, solid waste, hazardous waste, conservation and biodiversity, and environmental administration. The report summarizes: "The alarming, conflict-related environmental problems are adding to existing pressures on the environment, which include population pressures coupled with scarcity of land, weak environmental infrastructure, inadequate resources for environmental management, and global environmental trends such as desertification and climate change." This quote is one strong indicator of the approach taken by the study, in which the very by-products of Occupation and expulsion--namely land-theft, creation of refugees, control of resources and management--are separated from their very context.
The Desk Study asserts rightfully that land-use is at the heart of sound environmental management. This is of course directly connected to the control of land in the Occupied Territories. Few could disagree that no environmental assessment of the West Bank and Gaza Strip can be done without the inclusion of the Israeli settlements, which are at the heart of land confiscation, degradation and razing in the West Bank and Gaza, alongside the utilization of over 4 times more water per capita than Palestinians, and dumping untreated waste and hazardous waste, often in the very proximity of Palestinian villages and residential areas. Amazingly, and according to the UNEP Desk Study, “UNEP was not able to visit any Israeli settlements due to security constraints, and little information was provided on treatment of wastewater from settlements.”(Desk Study, p..50) No clarification of the so-called “security constraints” was made, even though the team traveled widely and extensively across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It can be safely assumed that the threat was either that of the settlers, and/or resistance by the Israeli government to an investigation.
Amidst the continued outcry of the dumping of hazardous waste by Israeli industries located in the West Bank, which have been linked to a number of diseases including cancer, the UNEP Desk Study, regrettably, “was not able to resolve these conflicting statements,” amidst continued Israeli denial of such life-threatening actions that has and continues to take place by at least 4 large industrial settlements.(Desk Study, p.82) Consistent with the team’s not having visited settlements, no visits to industrial settlements took place as well. At one point, the enormous issue of settlement waste was neglected by stating that, according to Israel, “Plans are reportedly underway for the wastewater from settlements currently untreated.”(Desk Study, p.56) Was this claim by Israel sufficient to move to the next point?!
Perhaps one of the major sources of pressure on the United Nations to conduct a study on the environment has been the widely covered Israeli military incursions, siege and closure of the past two years. What may be surprising to the reader is how little the destruction of the past two years, as well as their relationship to the Occupation and settlements that continued to expand during the Oslo process, actually received attention. Though a large amount of information exists from Palestinian organizations and institutions on the environmental damage of the past two years, UNEP made little reference in its study to these numbers, choosing instead to make infrequent, indirect reference to damage done by Israel.
The study also consistently uses language that marginalizes the Palestinian-gathered data, referring to such information as “alleged”, “potential”, “supposed”, and “reported.” Vague language in relation to Israeli measures is used in what seems to be an attempt to soften an accusatory tone and make the nature of the crimes incoherent. The causes of environmental degradation and large-scale human suffering are presented gently, while attention to them is ultimately diverted:
The UNEP team visited the UNRWA Jenin refugee camp in August and October 2002. In August, in the area where most Israeli military operations had been carried out, there was evidence of damage to sewerage systems in the camp, although it was not possible on either visit to obtain an accurate estimate of the extent of this damage. Where pipes had been broken, untreated sewage was forming small puddles and seeping directly into the ground. On the second visit, there was evidence that repair work undertaken by UNRWA had advanced.(Desk Study, p.55)
There are countless examples of inappropriate brush-over, such as with the issue of Gaza soil and groundwater pollution (with no reference to the fact that Gaza is the most densely populated place in the world, being populated with refugees that were expelled from what is today Israel), Depleted Uranium (of which PENGON provided the Desk Study team with a number of leads and resources on the issue) or that of the Separation/Apartheid Wall, which on the study’s list of recommendations received number 128, and in so stating the need to “Reconsider the ecological impacts of the separation wall” which “may have impacts like separating people from lands and wells”. In fact, the Wall is considered to be one of the most pressing environmental and human rights concerns today and could lead to the annexation of some 10% of the West Bank, including massive landlessness and unemployment. The crime of the Wall deserves much more than to be “reconsidered” and to say it “may” have the abovementioned impacts again denies what is already taking place on the ground.
Environmentally sound arguments by the Desk Study, like the recycling of car wrecks (of which PENGON would like to note there are additional hundreds due to Israeli tank and helicopter destruction) and the proper “clean-up” of radioactive components from Israeli helicopters, all of which are mentioned in the Desk Study, are strong examples of complicity with the Occupation. Perhaps the clearest, and at times only indication that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are in fact occupied is the report’s usage of the term “Occupied Palestinian Territories”, which after reading the report may seem to some as a form of lip-service veering away attention from the actual contents of the report. The UN, as Israel, continues to utilize the Oslo process and the Palestinian Authority as a chance to “have their cake and eat it too”, to call the territories occupied but to divert most of the responsibilities and international law that comes along with such.
In a number of points in the report, sympathy with Israel—and its occupation—is appallingly overt:
“Under current circumstances, the Israeli environmental authorities appear to have limited control over solid waste management within the Israeli settlements. On the one hand, recent cases have shown that some settlements overrule internal Israeli decisions (e.g. the Al Bireh situation); on the other hand, the ability to move around safely and to provide control and guidance is reduced. Consequently, the extent of uncontrolled solid waste disposal has increased. However, many of the sites now closed to Palestinians are still in use by Israelis (e.g. the Al Bireh site visited during the UNEP mission). Implementation of costly upgraded solid waste management solutions that comply with Israeli standards may be unrealistic in the present crisis situation.”(Desk Study, p.68)
PENGON looks skeptically at the report’s euphoric, and constant calls at Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, fearing that, above all, they continue the report’s and the UN’s trend at “sweeping under the carpet” Israel’s crimes and responsibilities. In fact, ignoring the overall issues promotes a continuation of the status quo, one that has at its core the continued Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, along side the frightening escalation of repression, human rights violations, land theft, and dispossession.
Since the outbreak of the second intifada, the access of municipal maintenance staff to solid waste dump has, at various times, been difficult or impossible, as a result of curfews, partial or full closures, and overall worker safety and security considerations. Israeli security measures have also created difficulties in obtaining spare parts…However, according to Israeli information, there are also cases where there is some cooperation, for example, sites operated jointly or where solid waste from Palestinian towns is disposed of at Israeli waste disposal sites (for example, the Adumim receives waste from several Palestinian municipalities).”(Desk Study, p.58) (note: Adumim is a settlement and the “cooperation” is with and/or through the Occupation military and government)
PENGON would like to state emphatically its concern at the worldwide trend of utilizing environmentalism as a tool to de-politicize what is at its core a political issue. Perhaps more appropriately stated, utilizing environmental issues outside of their context is not only counterproductive, but may be seen as serving particular interests that are ultimately harmful to the environment. Supporting Israel’s de facto policy of de-development in the Occupied Territories supports and encourages such a policy. In its sub-section on “Solid waste assembly, collection, transfer and transport,” the study sadly collaborates with the forcible poverty and unemployment of the population by recommending a “Door-to-door systems, or at least additional more dispersed manual collection, could still be a relevant solution in a situation with a large unemployed workforce. This system is active (using donkey and hand-carts) within some town areas and where vehicle access is limited.” (Desk Study, p.71) Palestinian unemployment and lack of mobility is a direct and forcible consequence of the Occupation and the intensification of the closure and siege of the past two years. Once again, the report ignores the causes, including why people cannot afford or cannot reach better dumping facilities. The Desk Study encourages a cynical “development” of the current desperate measures that have been established in order to rid of waste.
In perspective, and since the one year, between February 2002 and February 2003, needed for the study to be completed, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have seen countless military incursions, an intensification of the closure and siege policy, increased unemployment and poverty, severe restriction to movement and access to health care and education, lack of access to clean water, and the destruction and uprooting of some 150,000 trees.
PENGON was not surprised to learn from the Desk Study that UNEP’s mission to prepare this report had the backing of both the Israeli Ministry of the Environment and the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon. Having met, along with the PENGON members, the Desk Study Team a number of times and having made clear, both verbally and in writing , the major concerns facing the Palestinian environment, the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network looks skeptically at UNEP’s claim that "Our main hope for the region is that the conflict can be resolved and the suffering brought to an end. Environmental cooperation can be a tool in the peace process. Governments have asked us to act as an impartial moderator, when requested by both parties, to assist in solving urgent environmental problems with a view to achieving common goals. We are ready to do this".(UNEP Press Release, Feb. 7, 2003)
To read the UNEP Desk Study on the Environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, visit http://www.unep.org/GoverningBodies/GC22/Document/INF-31-WebOPT.pdf
Send your comments, etc. to the United Nations and UNEP:
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan
sg@un.org
ecu@un.org
UNEP Executive Director, Dr. Klaus Toepfer
klaus.toepfer@unep.org
UNEP Desk Study Team on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Chairman, Pekka Haavisto
pekka.haavisto@unep.ch
UNEP’s Division of Communications and Public Information, Eric Falt
eric.falt@unep.org
For more information please contact Jamal Juma' at PENGON: + 972-52-285610
Jerusalem, Palestine
www.pengon.org
outreach@pengon.org
