Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Can you blame them?

"The reason the Palestinians avoid the water from a station in the nearby village of Al-Jalameh is that it smells of chlorine. So deep is the mistrust of Israelis that they fear it might have been contaminated, and would damage their children's health.

"We assured them that water from the Al-Jalameh station is being constantly tested and that its quality is definitely better than that of the water from the agricultural wells," says Mizyed. "But they would not believe us. They said the water could be contaminated in the time gaps between one quality test and another. They would ask us to guarantee water provided by the Israeli company was safe. But of course we could not guarantee."" (Thanks Marcy)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of when I was traveling in Kenya and a Kenyan woman, head-nurse in a big hospital, asked me, out of the blue when I as chatting with her and her sisters, 'what contraception do you use?' I truthfully answered 'the pill', and wondered at their surprised reactions. When I asked, they said 'well, we thought the pill was intended to make African women infertile.'

There also, can you blame them?