Love of the Land: Lancet Study Blames Palestinian Wife-Beating on Israel

Lancet Study Blames Palestinian Wife-Beating on Israel

Big lies now pass for top-of-the-line academic, scientific work

Dr. Phyllis Chesler
pajamasmedia.com
25 January '10

It’s official. Britain’s premier medical journal Lancet has been completely Palestinianized. It no longer bears any relationship to the first-rate scientific journal it once was. Perhaps Lancet is no longer a standard-bearer but has become a follower in the global movement in which standards have plunged, biases have soared, and Big Lies now pass for top-of-the-line academic, scientific work.

The post-colonial academy is itself thoroughly colonized by the false and dangerous ideas of Edward Said (please read my dear friend Ibn Warraq’s most excellent book Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism). However, I once believed that Said’s paranoid perspective had primarily infected and indoctrinated only the social sciences, humanities, and Middle East Studies. We now see his malign influence at work in a new article, just out today, by professors who work at the Department of Medicine at Harvard University; the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at Minnesota University’s School of Public Health; The Boston University School of Medicine; the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and at the School of Social Work and Social Welfare at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Their study is titled: “Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study.” And yes, they have found that Palestinian husbands are more violent towards Palestinian wives as a function of the Israeli “occupation”— and that the violence increases significantly when the husbands are “directly” as opposed to “indirectly” exposed to political violence.

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Love of the Land: Lancet Study Blames Palestinian Wife-Beating on Israel

Love of the Land: Amnesty Water Report Falsehood #5

Amnesty Water Report Falsehood #5

CAMERA/Snapshots
03 November 09

Page 12 of Amnesty's "Troubled Water" report alleges that Israel has almost entirely frozen development of water infrastructure in the Palestinian areas. The report states:

Under the new Israeli military regime imposed in the OPT, Palestinians could no longer drill new wells or rehabilitate or even just repair existing ones, or carry out other any water-related projects (from pipes, networks, and reservoirs to wells and springs and even rainwater cisterns), without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. In theory such permits for drilling or rehabilitating wells could be obtained after a lengthy and complicated bureaucratic process; in practice, most applications for such permits were rejected. Only 13 permits were granted in the 29 years from 1967 to 1996 (when the PWA was established), but all of these were for projects for domestic use only and they were not sufficient to make up even for the replacement of wells that had dried up or fallen into disrepair since 1967. . . .

The regime put in place by the Israeli army not only prevented the development of new Palestinian wells and infrastructure, but also limited the use and upkeep of existing ones. It prevented the rehabilitation of old wells. . . (Emphasis added)

First, Amnesty ignores significant development in infrastructure since 1995. As the World Bank states:

The water and wastewater sector [in the West Bank and Gaza] has come a long way since 1995:

* A capable national institution, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), has been built.

* The foundations for policy and operational coordination with Israel have been established;

* Several existing municipal distribution networks have been rehabilitated, new networks developed, and supplies improved; and several new wells have been drilled and many rehabilitated.

* Backbone primary network of bulk-water carriers are under construction in the West Bank and ready to be launched in Gaza;

* In Gaza not only have municipal networks and systems have been significantly upgraded, under an internationally recruited management contractor, effective managerial and operational systems have been established. . .

To be sure, the World Bank goes on to list more work that still needs to be done.

Second, what about Amnesty's claim that only 13 new wells were drilled from 1967 to 1995? As reported earlier by CAMERA here, during this period Israel drilled or permitted the drilling of over 50 new wells for the Palestinian population, laid hundreds of kilometers of new water mains and connected hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns to the newly built water system (Background: Water, Israel and the Middle East, Israel Foreign Ministry 1991; Marcia Drezon-Tepler, "Contested Waters and the Prospects for Arab-Israeli Peace," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 30, No. 2, April 1994)

Related: Amnesty Water Reports #1 #2 #3-4

Love of the Land: Amnesty Water Report Falsehood #5

Love of the Land: Amnesty Water Report Falsehoods #3, 4

Amnesty Water Report Falsehoods #3, 4

CAMERA/Snapshots
1 November 09

"Palestinian consumption in the OPT is about 70 litres a day per person," Amnesty's "Troubled Waters" report claims on page 3.

Again on page 10 Amnesty discusses Palestinians' per capita use of water, stating:

Palestinians have access to an average of no more than 60-70 liters per capita per day, and some survive on much less even than this, as little as 10-20 liters per person per day.

Neither statement about Palestinian water consumption includes a source or footnote, an oddity in this heavily sourced document. But it's clear why Amnesty chose not to cite aMarch 22, 2009 press release from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics marking World Water Day. The PCBS completely contradicts Amnesty's claim about per capita daily water use, stating:

Data [from the Water Statistics Report 2007] shows that the quantity of water supplied for domestic use in the Palestinian Territory was 175.6 MCM in 2007, and that the daily allocation per capital of the supplied water for domestic use in the Palestinian Territory was 135.8 (liter/capita/day). It reached only 46.6 (liter/capita/day) in Tubas Governorate. (Emphasis added.)

In other words, the official Palestinian figure for water consumption is double the figure that Amnesty cites!

In another disparity between Amnesty and official Palestinian figures, Amnesty claims (page 10):

The total amount of water available to Palestinians from these various supplies [Jordan River, various aquifers, and water purchased from Israel] in recent years has been a maximum of some 170-180 MCM/Y, which reportedly fell to a mere 135 MCM in 2008, for a population of 2.3 million.

In contrast, the aforementioned Water Day PCBS press release states:

According to the Water Statistics Report 2007 the annual available water quantity in the Palestinian Territory was 335.4 MCM in 2007.

If Amnesty's figures aren't coming from official Palestinian sources, where do they originate? We will be happy to examine any theories.

Related: Amnesty Water Report Falsehood #2, Amnesty Water Report Falsehood #1

Love of the Land: Amnesty Water Report Falsehoods #3, 4