Well poisoning is the act of malicious manipulation of potable water resources in order to cause illness or death, or to deny an opponent access to fresh water resources.
Well poisoning has been historically documented as a strategy during wartime since antiquity, and was used both offensively (as a terror tactic to disrupt and depopulate a target area) and defensively (as a scorched earth tactic to deny an invading army sources of clean water). Rotting corpses (both animal and human) thrown down wells were the most common implementation; in one of the earliest examples of biological warfare, corpses known to have died from common transmissible diseases of the Pre-Modern era such as bubonic plague or tuberculosis were especially favored for well-poisoning.
Additionally, well poisoning was one of the three gravest antisemitic accusations made against Jews during the pre-modern period (the other two being host desecration and blood libel). Similar accusations were also made of Koreans living in Japan in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. In both cases the accusation was never substantiated, but did lead to wide-scale persecution and pogroms against the group so accused.
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008) |
Well poisoning has been used as an important scorched earth tactic at least since medieval times. In 1462, for example, Prince Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia utilized this method to delay his pursuing adversaries. Nearly 500 years later during the Winter War, the Finns rendered wells unusable by planting animal carcasses or feces in them in order to passively combat invading Soviet forces. [1]
During the 20th century, the practice of poisoning wells has lost most of its potency and practicality against an organized force as modern military logistics ensure secure and decontaminated supplies and resources. Nevertheless, German forces during First World War poisoned wells in France as part of Operation Alberich. [2] A few religions have laws condemning such scorched earth tactics. Most notably Islam, in its scripture, dictates that water-bodies may not be poisoned even during a battle and enemies must be allowed access to water.[ citation needed ]
Israel poisoned the wells and water supplies of certain Palestinian towns and villages as part of their biological warfare program during the 1948 Palestine war, including a successful operation that caused a typhoid epidemic in Acre in early May 1948, and an unsuccessful attempt in Gaza that was foiled by the Egyptians in late May. [3]
In the late 20th century, accusations of well-poisoning were brought up, most notoriously in relation to the Kosovo Liberation War. [4] [5] [6] In the 21st century, Israeli settlers have been condemned due to accusations in the Occupied Territories. [7] [8] [9]
Despite some vague understanding of how diseases could spread, the existence of viruses and bacteria was unknown in medieval times, and the outbreak of disease could not be scientifically explained. Any sudden deterioration of health was often blamed on poisoning. Europe was hit by several waves of Black Death (often identified as bubonic plague) throughout the late Middle Ages. Crowded cities were especially hard hit by the disease, with death tolls as high as 50% of the population. In their distress, emotionally distraught survivors searched desperately for an explanation. The city-dwelling Jews of the Middle Ages, living in walled-up, segregated ghetto districts, aroused suspicion. [10] An outbreak of plague thus became the trigger for Black Death persecutions, with hundreds of Jews burned at the stake, or rounded up in synagogues and private houses that were then set aflame. With the decline of plague in Europe, these accusations lessened, but the term "well-poisoning" remains a loaded one that continues to crop up even today among anti-Semites around the world.
Walter Laqueur writes in his book The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day:
There were no mass attacks against "Jewish poisoners" after the period of the Black Death, but the accusation became part and parcel of antisemitic dogma and language. It appeared again in early 1953 in the form of the "doctors' plot" in Stalin's last days, when hundreds of Jewish physicians in the Soviet Union were arrested and some of them killed on the charge of having caused the death of prominent Communist leaders... Similar charges were made in the 1980s and 1990s in radical Arab nationalist and Muslim fundamentalist propaganda that accused the Jews of spreading AIDS and other infectious diseases. [11]
Allegations of well poisoning entwined with antisemitism have also emerged in the discourse around modern epidemics and pandemics such as swine flu, Ebola, avian flu, SARS, and COVID-19. [12] [ better source needed ]
In his address to the European Parliament on 23 June 2016, in Brussels, Palestinian Authority president and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas made an unsubstantiated allegation, "accusing rabbis of poisoning Palestinian wells". [13] This was based on false media reports saying Israeli rabbis were inciting the poisoning of water of Palestinians, led by a rabbi Shlomo Mlma or Mlmad from the Council of Rabbis in the West Bank settlements. A rabbi by that name could not be located, nor is such an organization listed. [14]
Abbas said: "Only a week ago, a number of rabbis in Israel announced, and made a clear announcement, demanding that their government poison the water to kill the Palestinians ... Isn't that clear incitement to commit mass killings against the Palestinian people?" [15] The speech received a standing ovation. [13] [14] [16] The speech was described as "echoing anti-Semitic claims". [16] A day later, on Saturday 26 June, Abbas admitted that "his claims at the EU were baseless". [17] [18] Abbas' further said that he "didn't intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world." [19] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in reaction, that Abbas had spread a "blood libel" in his European Parliament address. [19] [20]
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had been issued earlier that day, and a military coalition of Arab states entered the territory of Mandatory Palestine in the morning of 15 May.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict in the Levant. Beginning in the mid-20th century, it is one of the world's longest-continuing conflicts. Key areas of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security and water rights, as well as Palestinian freedom of movement and the Palestinian right of return.
The history of the State of Palestine describes the creation and evolution of the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–1949 Palestine war and the Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refugees live in or near 68 Palestinian refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 2019 more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees were registered with the United Nations.
Mahmoud Abbas, also known by the kunya Abu Mazen, is the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 2004, PNA president since January 2005, and State of Palestine president since May 2005. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected chairman in 2009.
Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and unarmed soldiers.
The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
Greater Israel is an expression with several different biblical and political meanings over time. It is often used, in an irredentist fashion, to refer to the historic or desired borders of Israel.
Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The Arab–Israeli conflict is the phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between various Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s.
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.
During the 1948 Palestine war in which the State of Israel was established, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the total population of the territory Israel captured fled or were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators.
The modern borders of Israel exist as the result both of past wars and of diplomatic agreements between the State of Israel and its neighbours, as well as an effect of the agreements among colonial powers ruling in the region before Israel's creation. Only two of Israel's five total potential land borders are internationally recognized and uncontested, while the other three remain disputed; the majority of its border disputes are rooted in territorial changes that came about as a result of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, which saw Israel occupy large swathes of territory from its rivals. Israel's two formally recognized and confirmed borders exist with Egypt and Jordan since the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty and the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, while its borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories remain internationally defined as contested.
Following are timelines of the history of Ottoman Syria, taken as the parts of Ottoman Syria provinces under Ottoman rule.
In 1948, more than 700000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Mandatory Palestine's Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias and, later, the Israeli army during the 1948 Palestine war, following the Partition Plan for Palestine. The expulsion and flight was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba. Dozens of massacres were conducted by Israeli military forces and between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Village wells were poisoned in a biological warfare programme and properties were looted to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning. Other sites were subject to Hebraization of Palestinian place names. These activities were not necessarily limited to the year 1948.
Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War against the Palestinians is a 2010 collection of interviews and essays from Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé that examine Israel's Operation Cast Lead and attempts to place it into the context of Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The book was edited by Frank Barat, who had conducted his first e-mail interview on the subject with Chomsky in 2005, as a result of his joint dialogue with Chomsky and Pappé, previously published as Le Champ du possible, which forms the heart of the work.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a book authored by New Historian Ilan Pappé and published in 2006 by Oneworld Publications.
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict. During the war, the British withdrew from the territory and the State of Israel was established, leading to it being known in Israel as the War of Independence.
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people that espouses self-determination and sovereignty over the region of Palestine. Originally formed in the early 20th century in opposition to Zionism, Palestinian nationalism later internationalized and attached itself to other ideologies; it has thus rejected the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the government of Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Palestinian nationalists often draw upon broader political traditions in their ideology, examples being Arab socialism and ethnic nationalism in the context of Muslim religious nationalism. Related beliefs have shaped the government of Palestine and continue to do so.
The Nakba is the violent displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe the events that took place during the 1948 Palestine war, as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel throughout the Palestinian territories.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), Maariv, 13 July 2004, retrieved from Wayback Machine on 18 August 2008.