Cry Me A River of Sewage

The Gaza sewage lake, which is held back by an embankment that failed this past March, is causing concern that it is about to do the same again.

Maybe if the Palestinians spent more time on infrastructure repairs instead of launching rockets against Israel, they might not have to worry about sewage spilling through Gaza, killing people or causing untold misery for all in its path.

And once again, the New York Times' Steve Erlanger is spinning it as Israel's fault:

And yet a project to fix the problem is stalled by politics and conflict. Israel has declared Gaza “hostile territory” and is sharply limiting the kinds of goods allowed in.

The restrictions cover many ordinary items not considered essential to human life. But they also cover things like metal pipes, welding machines and the wire used to refurbish electric motors — things that Israel believes could have secondary use by the Hamas administration and the Palestinian gunmen who fire rockets toward nearby Israeli towns like Sderot.

Israel, obliged to protect its citizens, is trying to press Hamas both militarily and economically. It says it will now reduce supplies of diesel fuel, gasoline and even electrical power in response to recent rocket barrages.

But as Mike Bailey of the aid group Oxfam pointed out, the pumps that drive sewage treatment run on electricity and fuel, as do those that pull drinking water from the very aquifer the sewage treatment system was originally designed to replenish.

And as Oxfam doesn't point out - the Palestinians have machine tools to make and fashion pipes, but instead use them to make kassam rockets to attack Israel. Weapons that are designed to maim and kill Israelis who have every much as a right to live as those Palestinians who shouldn't have to worry about sewage lakes overflowing their banks and spilling into their communities.

In fact, the Palestinian terrorists used pipes meant for sewage projects to fashion rockets to be fired into Israel.

If the Gaza sewage lake again spills into Gaza, it is the fault of the Palestinians themselves - and no one else. They have only themselves to blame for this stinking pile in which they choose to inhabit. This is the future they've chosen for themselves. They chose unending war by picking Hamas. Hamas has chosen to ignore the infrastructure woes and instead pursue war with Israel (and with anyone less Islamist than they are). Israel has no obligation to provide anything to an enemy that seeks its destruction - though they do so out of a humanitarian bent that only extends the conflict and the misery on all sides.