{"id":3997,"date":"2013-09-01T09:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T06:09:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-05-30T21:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T18:44:16","slug":"haaretz-smoke-and-trash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2013\/09\/haaretz-smoke-and-trash\/","title":{"rendered":"Haaretz: Smoke and trash (By Amira Hass)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear friends, <\/span><\/p>\n

Reminds me of a past issue that I helped our mayor at the time write about:<\/span><\/p>\n

Settlers and Trash, by MAYOR WALID HAMAD (November 06, 2002)<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The issues just keep getting recycled…<\/p>\n

Add the politics of trash to the matrix of occupation,<\/p>\n

Sam<\/p>\n

— <\/p>\n

\nHaaretz<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

\nSmoke and trash || <\/span>Palestinian town left
\nreeking due to bureaucratic gap<\/h1>\n

\nIn an unusual display of environmental
\nsensitivity, <\/span>Israel<\/span>‘s Civil Administration shuts down El Bireh’s
\nlandfill; the city responds by emptying its garbage trucks around town. <\/span><\/h2>\n

By Amira Hass<\/a> <\/span>|
\nAug. 31, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
An ad-hoc garbage
\ndump in El Bireh; the official site’s closure did not come as a surprise. <\/span><\/em><\/span>Photo by Emil Salman<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Garbage cans are overflowing and emitting a nauseatingly
\nsweet smell, and in some of them there are flames at night that shoot off
\nembers in all directions. There are piles of smoking refuse at the sides of the
\nroads and in the various neighborhoods. That is the look and the odor of El
\nBireh these days, where a garbage war is being waged.<\/p>\n

In the days following the closure of the El Bireh landfill by the Civil
\nAdministration on August 7, the municipality trucks still collected garbage
\nfrom about 800 containers around the city but tossed it into open areas and
\nwadis at the edges of the built-up areas. Unemployed young men showed up
\nimmediately and set fire to the piles, so that it would be easier for them to
\nremove iron and other metals from the waste.<\/p>\n

The neighbors responded to the double nuisance by blocking the paths to the
\nimprovised dump sites with tires and rocks to make it harder for the
\nmunicipality\u2019s trucks to reach them. They found an unexpected ally: the Israel
\nDefense Forces. Because the improvised dumping sites are near the settlement
\nPsagot and the Beit El checkpoint, soldiers and bulldozers were sent into the
\nEl Bireh municipal area \u200f<\/span>(although it
\nis defined as Area C, which is under Israeli security and civil control\u200f<\/span>) to impound the municipality\u2019s trucks and
\nto pour dirt on the wreaking piles, whose smoke rose and reached the homes of
\nPsagot.<\/p>\n

Midweek, after the soldiers had confiscated the fifth truck, garbage
\ncollection from the streets stopped \u200f<\/span>(another
\ntwo trucks were being repaired). In the garbage war it is waging, the El Bireh
\nmunicipality expects the Palestinian Authority and residents to understand that
\nthe closing of the site is not a municipal failure, but a reflection of the
\nbroader political reality of the relations between occupier and occupied.<\/p>\n

The Civil Administration decided that for reasons of environmental
\nprotection, the El Bireh waste-disposal site should be closed, even before the
\nconstruction of a modern and safe alternative, which has been under discussion
\nsince 1999. The municipality petitioned the High Court of Justice against the
\nclosure order, through attorneys Shelly Dvir and Yuri Gai-Ron. The legal
\nprocedure and the negotiations between the parties postponed implementation of
\nthe closure by a year and a half, from January
\n 1, 2012, to this month. The closing did not come as a surprise to
\nthe municipality, although that is the impression one gets from its press
\ncampaigns.<\/p>\n

On February 7, the High Court justices wrote that with the consent of the
\nparties, the site would continue to operate until August 7, and during that
\nperiod the use of one of the alternatives dictated by Civil Administration
\nexperts would be arranged: transport of the garbage either to a private
\nPalestinian dumping site in Jenin or to the one in Abu Dis, which is itself
\nabout to be closed because it is hazardous.<\/p>\n

From the start, the El Bireh municipality claimed that it doesn\u2019t have the
\nmoney for transport and for the dumping fees, that, according to an initial
\ncalculation, would eat up about a tenth of its budget \u2212 which itself runs some
\nNIS 60-70 million annually.<\/p>\n

With the PA in financial distress, and its principal donors suffering
\nfinancial crises of their own, it was hard for El Bireh to consider taking on
\nthis extraordinary expense. And apparently there were some people in the
\nmunicipality who hoped that a miracle would postpone the decree. This has also
\nbeen the most difficult period in the history of this city, in terms of
\nadministration: The decision to close the site \u200f<\/span>(first announced at the end of 2011\u200f<\/span>) came when the municipality and the local council were headed
\nby elected Hamas officials. In February 2012, the PA disbanded the elected
\ncouncil, but it wasn\u2019t until the end of last year that local elections were
\nheld, in which the Fatah slate won, and the new council only started to realize
\nwhat was going on.<\/p>\n

The El Bireh waste-disposal site was built in 1978 in Wadi Shikhan. It
\ncovers some 70 dunams \u200f<\/span>(about 17
\nacres\u200f<\/span>), most of it private land owned by city
\nresidents. In 1981, the settlement of Psagot was built on a summit that
\noverlooks all of El Bireh and in some parts is only a few meters away from its
\neastern neighborhoods. The disposal site is situated about one kilometer
\nnortheast of the settlement. According to the interim agreements that were
\nsigned in 1995, the site is within Area C \u2212 territory that is under Israeli
\ncivil and security administration.<\/p>\n

Since the outbreak of the second intifada, 13 years ago, the road to the
\nsite has been blocked to Palestinians by a military gate, with the IDF and the
\nCivil Administration restricting entry to garbage trucks to a few hours a day.
\nFences, roadblocks, locked gates, military patrols and settlements \u2212 all have
\nbecome the impassable eastern boundary of El Bireh and its residents, although
\nmuch of their land is to the east of it.<\/p>\n

Bureaucratic maze<\/strong><\/p>\n

The closing of the site demonstrates the bureaucratic maze created by the
\ninterim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, a
\nsituation that has in the meantime become permanent: The IDF remains the
\nsovereign in the entire area of the West Bank, and as such it has shed
\nresponsibility for the welfare of the Palestinian residents and instead imposed
\nit on the PA \u2212 with its consent.<\/p>\n

The PA has the authority and ability to fulfill this responsibility only in
\nseparate enclaves that account for less that 40 percent of the West
\n Bank. In over 60 percent, Israel
\nmaintains the civil authority to build, demolish, close or open new ecological
\nfacilities or prevent their construction. That is how Israel
\ncan order closure of a Palestinian waste-disposal site or delay the
\nconstruction of a new one without having moral or budgetary responsibility for
\nthat. Even if the residents know this, for them the municipality is still the
\n\u201caddress\u201d at which to direct their anger.<\/p>\n

But the Civil Administration had good reason for ordering the closing of the
\nsite, as proven by an opinion it submitted to the court on January 14, written
\nby Einat Bronstein of the Environmental Protection Ministry. Her conclusion is
\nunequivocal: \u201cThe site constitutes a focus for serious and continuing pollution
\nof the environment. The site is operating without any environmental protection
\ninfrastructure and constitutes a potential of active pollution of the environment
\nfor many years, by releasing polluting gases into the air and introducing
\npollutants underground …\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out that the judges preferred this official opinion to an opinion
\nbrought by the petitioners, written by Daniel Morgenstern, an economic and
\nenvironmental consultant. He wrote at the end of 2011 that the operation of the
\nsite should be permitted for another three years, until the opening of a
\nproperly regulated alternative.<\/p>\n

The closure order is a testimony to the progress that the Israeli
\nauthorities have made in their environmental awareness. In its response to El
\nBireh\u2019s petition, the state declared that the site built by the El Bireh
\nmunicipality \u201cis operating unlawfully and without planning arrangements.\u201d What
\nit neglected to mention, however, is that it was constructed during a period
\nwhen not a stone was moved without the knowledge and approval of the military
\ncommander \u2212 during a period when the IDF, and later the Civil Administration,
\nwere theoretically responsible for Palestinian residents\u2019 welfare and issues
\nsuch as planning and environment. Those are the authorities that permitted
\nPsagot to bury its garbage, starting in 1982, in the unregulated site. They are
\nalso the authorities that in the early 1990s allowed the settlements in the
\nMateh Binyamin Regional Council to inter their garbage at a site that was
\noperating \u201cunlawfully.\u201d From 2003 to 2010, the Civil Administration also
\npermitted Modi\u2019in Illit and Givat Ze\u2019ev to transport their refuse there.<\/p>\n

In 2010, El Bireh buried 13,380 tons of waste at its site, as compared to
\n29,478 tons interred by the settlements. The settlements paid fees to the
\nSamaria Town Association for Environmental Quality, which, starting in 2003,
\nbecame the acting administrator of the site and hired the operations
\ncontractor. El Bireh municipality officials say that from the start, the site
\nwas designated for the city\u2019s garbage, and not for the substantial amount of
\nadditional waste that was forced on it.<\/p>\n

One of the riddles that remained unsolved during the legal discussion is
\nrelated to the fact that on February
\n 27, 2011, the Civil Administration was still suggesting an
\nexpansion of the site, although already then there was awareness of the
\nenvironmental damage it was causing. It was decided at the time that a team
\nfrom the Samaria Towns Association for Environmental Quality would prepare an
\nexpansion plan that would make its operation possible until the opening of the
\nmodern and environmentally friendly site, and implementation of an advanced
\nrecycling plan in the settlements. The municipality claims that the moment they
\nexpressed reservations due to the proximity of the proposed expansion to the
\nhomes of El Bireh \u2212 the threats to close the site began, and were in fact
\ncarried out.<\/p>\n

The justices also preferred the Civil Administration\u2019s position to that of
\nthe Towns Association, as reflected in its reply to the El Bireh petition. \u201cThe
\nCivil Administration refrained throughout recent years from intervening in the
\nadministration of the site apparently because professional environmental groups
\nin the Civil Administration backed the Associations\u2019 in the administration of
\nthe site,\u201d wrote attorney Rina Avenchik, representing the association. \u201cThe
\nreservations of the Civil Administration regarding the plan submitted by the
\nassociation to continue the use of the site on a temporary basis for the El
\nBireh municipality and the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, is therefore
\nsurprising …\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharon Ahdut, spokesman of the Towns Association, told Haaretz that \u201cin our
\nopinion, too, the site is not environmental \u200f<\/span>(especially with regard to polluting ground water\u200f<\/span>), but we claimed that as long as the Palestinians have no
\nbetter alternative, it should continue to operate, while it is rehabilitated
\nwith Israeli funding \u200f<\/span>(which could
\nhave been increased\u200f<\/span>), since El Bireh didn\u2019t have money to pay
\nfor the interment. Rehabilitation after the cessation of that process can and
\nshould be done with external funding. We sent a proposal to the head of the
\nCivil Administration to build a facility for sorting the waste and treating it
\nusing the MBT \u200f<\/span>(mechanical-biological treatment\u200f<\/span>) method \u2212 anaerobic \u200f<\/span>+ aerobic digestion in closed containers to produce energy and
\ncompost [a German method] that can be built at the site itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the association\u2019s inspections, the site in Jenin that the Civil
\nAdministration dictated as an alternative for El Bireh\u2019s waste is neglected in
\nterms of environmental operation. Like the municipality, the association thinks
\nthat transportation to that site would itself not be environmentally friendly
\n\u201cin terms of the energy cost of the transportation and in terms of the
\ndispersal of pollutants.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the garbage is rolling around in the streets of El Bireh.
\nOne night firefighters were summoned: In their frustration, supermarket
\nemployees had set fire to the contents of the overflowing garbage container and
\ndidn\u2019t notice that it was standing directly beneath a high-tension wire. One of
\nthe municipality employees shouted over the phone at the person responsible:
\n\u201cYou could have incinerated not only the container but the entire city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the
\nTerritories responded to an inquiry from Haaretz with the following statement:
\n\u201cIn protest of the High Court ruling and the closure of the site that operated
\nillegally, and without the required permits, for many years, the Palestinians
\nbegan to burn their own garbage there, thus exacerbating the environmental
\ndamage. This hurts both the Palestinian and Jewish populations in the area. In
\nlight of this, the Civil Administration has been active in conducting talks and
\nmeeting with PA officials and representatives of the El Bireh municipality, in
\nan attempt to come to an arrangement and to an end to the protests, and also in
\nenforcing the regulations. The latter includes impounding various equipment as well,
\nincluding four garbage trucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/weekend\/week-s-end\/.premium-1.544449<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear friends,  Reminds me of a past issue that I helped our mayor at the time write about: Settlers and Trash, by MAYOR WALID HAMAD (November 06, 2002). The issues just keep getting recycled… Add the politics of trash to the matrix of occupation, Sam — Haaretz Smoke and trash || Palestinian town left reeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[391,535,1613,775,977,1401,1605,1606,778,779],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-3997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-al-bireh","tag-amira-hass","tag-and-settler-colonialism","tag-civil-administration","tag-haaretz","tag-hamas","tag-israeli-settlements","tag-settlers","tag-trash","tag-waste-dump"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"

Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n

A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n

He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7803,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997\/revisions\/7803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3997"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}