A rather funny looking fish swims in the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias), oblivious of its predicament. Since the creation of the State of Israel, the numbers of this species have been dropping. The Musht, or more scientifically Talapia galilea, is a native fish of the Sea of Galilee. It is commonly known as Christ’s fish or Saint Peter’s fish. The Musht is widely associated with the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the Bible. What is not widely known is that the Musht could be considered an endangered species.
However, this article is not a simple appeal to save the Musht. There are issues of such importance involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict that they make the possible extinction of a single species appear almost inconsequential. The irony of the situation is that printing up “Save the Musht” T-shirts and launching a campaign for the fish may do more to raise awareness about Middle East issues than years of lectures and appealing for human rights.
Many people argue that environmental issues should not be a priority in the Arab/Israeli conflict, given the level of violence and loss of human life. What is not understood is that in reality political, social, economic and environmental issues cannot be compartmentalized. Mistreating the environment and mistreating people are often one and the same action.
......The environmental problems at the heart of the Palestinian/Israeli struggle are rarely exposed. Most people do not even know that Palestinian representatives (although only United Nations Observers) were present and active at the Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro last summer.
Zionists see Palestine as a wasteland and desert.
The wasteland paradigm was promoted by the World Zionist Organization in their slogan--coined to salve the conscience of anyone who might be queasy about uprooting a native population--that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land.” (Paradoxically, most promoters of this slogan were themselves secretly worried about what to do with the native population.)
The paradigm of the desert appeared in the Zionist claim that they “made the desert bloom.” By this one image they expunged the storied role of Palestine as the bread basket of the Middle East, that fragile, delicate ecosystem that fed the great empires of prehistory and history.
For the Zionist colonizers this duel image of wasteland and desert satisfied their ideological imperatives... Full story
Posts
