Who’s the dirty one now?

Before you read the following post please keep in mind there is no racist intent only an attempt at accurately depicting the situation on the ground. Thanks.

            A common stereotype of Jews has been the dirty Jew; well I would like to clarify this error. It is the other half of the Semites which is dirty, and by dirty I mean downright disgusting. Pick an Arab village, anyone and go in. The first thing you notice before even entering is the garbage already littered outside. Trash bags, grocery bags, shopping bags, and we are probably lucky no to find body bags, but by the smell there has been one there for a while. As you enter the first line of houses you see the amount of garbage grow exponentially. There are now smashed cans, bottles, paper products of all kinds, and god knows what floating around. The coating can be so thick you can’t see the floor or grass anymore.

            The smell is at times insufferable. People live with sheds stuffed with animals right next to the house, and at times the animals are in the house too. The stench attaches its self to the people too; when you meet them outside their village the stink follows them. I kid you not when I say even blindfolded I could tell who lives in the village just by the smell. The worst of the smell comes from the burning of their garbage. The smell is that of all things putrid mixed with the horrid stench of smoke, and not any smoke but the smoke of any all things chemical and cancerous. This smell at times can bring ones stomach to want to expel all its contents.

            The worst smell though is the copper scrap yards. These illegal scrap yards located in village centers, capitalize on the high value there is on copper and the difficulty to recycling it from old appliances and air conditioning units. They strip all the wiring from the units, most of it covered in rubbers and plastics and burn it releasing all the chemicals, a horrid cancerous stench, and in the end masses of copper they can sell for a nice profit. The supposed fine for this act is 50,000 shekel, but who is going to give it to them? The PA will not, and we do not have the time or resources to deal with this, so all suffer from another smelly Arab enterprise. The Arabs really do what they want in Judea and Samaria most of the time.

            The great comparison one must make here is between the settlements. A Jewish one is easy to spot, it’s clean, orderly with a set layout usually in straight lines, and fenced in most of the time. Arab villages are just like I described till now, dirty, smelly, and disorganized with people building whatever, wherever, however they want where they want. Even a simple look at an aerial photograph lets one see the stark difference.

            As for why the Arabs live this way let me rule out some “possibilities.” Some people like to try and blame us the Jews, who else really? They say the Arabs refuse to take services from the Israeli’s, yet trash collection in all the villages here is done by the Palestinian Authority. They don’t want their own people to collecting the trash? Who will then the French? If this trash/smell problem was only in a few locations one might be able to claim it’s a problem in those areas, but this problem exists also in Wadi Ara, a long stretch of Israeli-Arab villages in the lower Galil. This problem exists in Eastern Jerusalem where the Jewish quarter is clean and orderly and the Arabs have trash piled stories high under signs saying “please do not dump garbage here.” Seen it with my own eyes. Then you have all of the villages in our areas as well. I leave conclusions to you; I merely point out Israel is not at fault and this is a systemic problem pointing to an internal systemic problem. Frankly my objection today to the peace process is Greenpeace. How could we entrust to anyone land we know they are going to trash and pollute. Pity the land for god’s sake! (No pun intended). Oh and before you yell Dirty Jew please take a whiff of yourself first.      

The Occupation

My Unit has come to a new phase, we have moved from training to deployment and are now deployed to the Judea area, south of Hebron. I at times may seem short on details, I am sorry but this is an open blog and not everything can be published to the world.

The first thing I want to note is the security fence running in our area. Some have smeared it as a wall, and while yes parts are walls they are the minority and by far. We have one kilometer of wall on over 40 kilometers of fence, and it is separating a very problematic village from a well used road, where in the past there have been shots fired at and stones throwhow bor
n at civilian cars. Today still they attempt at throwing rocks over the wall at civilian cars, but always fail. The fence is there because of Arab misbehavior, and terror, and no other reason.

Next I would like to note how the world has been pressuring Israel to cease building in Judea and Samaria. This pressure comes from the Arab claim it violates the Oslo accords which state neither side will try and change facts on the ground. The Arabs claim Jewish building does this. But then so does Arab building, and they do so and with gusto. I was told to learn a navigation for a foot patrol in a village, with a map 3 years old. I told my officer I will learn but the map and reality are not going to be connected. I was right, the village had been so changed in 3 years I could barely find my way from point to point.

Finally I want to discuss how boring this work can be. Most of the last week was spent on static roadblocks, in the cold. During the day I could go a half hour with not a car going by. On a six hour shift at night I could see only 5 cars, with 3 hours between cars. But these long periods of boredom are broken by moment of adrenaline and excitement. The precious hours of sleep broken by a wake up when two Arabs broke into a settlement. The mad sprint to ones vest, helmet in hand an vest still half open to the armored car, strapping everything in place on the way. Breathing a sigh of relief when while still on the way we are told they were caught and we are to stand down.