Founder of Breaking the Silence: Israeli settlers poisoning Palestinian water

[Igel]

9. Yes, no, and maybe.

1. There probably have been isolated incidents of well contamination. Is this policy? No. But it's easy to generalize and say "Israelis are doing this" and have that understood to mean "As a rule, Israelis are doing this" or "Israelis habitually do this in general." It's a fallacy of overgeneralization.

2. The report usually cited also includes examples of settlements where the sewage isn't treated and flows back down onto Israeli-cultivated lands. Many of these are illegal. They're not policy, they're not removed. They're a problem for all sides, and the government is, by and large, hamstrung.

3. The same report that's considered authoritative when it suits activists also found that the vast majority of well and groundwater pollution from untreated sewage results not from Israeli settlements but Palestinian villages without treatment plants or with broken treatment plants. This parallels the problems in Gaza, in which most of the problem is locally produced but only the part of the problem that can be attributed to Israelis really matters. We focus on a small part of the issue because they're outsiders and enemies instead of fixing most of the problem by owning up to their own responsibility. It's self-serving but ultimately just hurts the locals more than it hurts the enemy.

A lot of politics is the same. Brexit, for example. A lot of US politics. Nasty, that sort of principled non-self-reflexion.