We already know that everything bad that happens in the territories, from Palestinian collaborator lynchings to malnutrition caused by Arafat’s embezzling is Israel’s fault. So it’s really important to be suspicious when something isn’t outright blamed on Israel, because that means that it’s sooooo clearly the Palestinians’ fault that not even the most creative conspiracy theorist can spin a convincing story.
In an article that concludes that we are approaching ”unavoidable conflict” because of Palestinian water shortages (what’re they gonna do? Attack Israeli civilians?), Mark Zeitoun uses a peculiar passive grammatical form:
The groundwater of the Gaza Strip is shallow and easy to pump but increasingly contaminated by untreated sewage and seawater.
You’d almost think that the groundwater is contaminating itself with untreated sewage and seawater. Well, unless you knew that untreated sewage and seawater don’t really have arms or legs or really any of the other human characteristics needed to contaminate groundwater. Then you’d probably suspect that Gaza’s groundwater has been trashed by irresponsible Palestinian over-pumping and the dumping of raw sewage on sand dunes. And of course, you’d be right.
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