Judea and Samaria are integral parts of the Land of Israel from the environmental point of view as well.
The Environmental Protection Ministry is of the same opinion, and they are taking appropriate decisions.
The concept that Israel west of the Jordan River is part of one geographical and environmental unit is also held by the experts in the Environmental Protection Ministry, who decided to apply the decision not to set up garbage dumps, which, until now, was applied only within the Green Line, in Judea and Samaria as well.
The Green Now organization, which served an appeal to cancel a German initiative to establish a garbage dump near Rimonim, asserts that regarding the issue of environmental quality, it is impossible to set up artificial borders and that the aquifers and local water sources impact the entire region.
“It is not clear why, in the first place, the Environmental Protection Ministry accepted a fiat from Germany to set up wast disposal areas in Judea and Samaria while in Israel and Germany, such things have been unacceptable for years, since this method is obsolete, uneconomical and harms the environment. The time has come for the environment of Judea and Samaria to be treated like the rest of Israel, because the environment has no artificial borders”, says Atty. Tomer Israel, a member of Green Now.
Atty. Israel speaks of German attempts to harm Israel’s sovereignty in Judea and Samaria during the legal hearing on the appeal that was served against the dump. It was when the Germans demanded to set up a garbage dump intended solely, according to them, for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria and specifically not the Jews of Area C, which is under full Israeli authority. The insistence to set up the Palestinian garbage dump in Israeli territory and not allow the Jews also to use it was perceived, during the hearing, as a German effort to deny Israel’s sovereignty over the area.
The Sovereignty Movement has held the position for some time that in the environmental aspect as well, it is impossible to enforce an artificial and illogical partition between Judea and Samaria and the other parts of the Land of Israel. Experts who have expressed their opinions to the movement’s co-chairwomen, presented data on the transfer of pollution in the streams and aquifers that flow from the mountain ridge to the coastal plain. And in the absence of orderly legislation, enforcement and Israeli sovereignty, the continual harm and neglect by Arab citizens and the officials of the Palestinian Authority are causing environmental damage that impacts on the entire Land.