It is useful to have lots of stupid laws. It makes people feel powerless and frustrated. It means the police can always find excuses to persecute you.
The technicalities of the individual laws are not important. It’s the psychological effect of the whole body of laws on a people.
The US does the same thing. People need to push back. Hard.
Rainwater collection laws in the US are based on conservation and fair allocation of a scarce resource.
In places that don’t have scarcity, you actually have the opposite issue, where drainage might be restricted or mandated to prevent issues from harming your neighbors.
I can’t build a dam on my property because it might flood my neighbor. People in the southwest can’t collect water at will because it might dry out their neighbors.
This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Water prevented from reaching the ground in watersheds means groundwater doesn’t get replenished. Now maybe a house here and there collecting rainwater isn’t a problem, but what about Nestle? The law should allow reasonable rainwater collection by individuals or family households while preventing theft of water from a region.
It is useful to have lots of stupid laws. It makes people feel powerless and frustrated. It means the police can always find excuses to persecute you.
How many laws does the US have again?
Nothing in his comment says that the US is not an example of this strategy 🤔
Well an estimate from 2008 put it at upwards of 4,000 just as federal crimes. Not to even touch on state matters ,tax, civil affronts, etc.
If we don’t know the exact number, then it’s too high. Lol
- me, complaining about the Acceptable Use Policy I had to sign at work.
Given the context, this seems more evil than is probably intended.
There are laws about collection and storage of rainwater all over the world unrelated to genocide. Water falling from the sky is the source of aquifers, lakes, and rivers that are important for everyone.
The problem here is that the Palestine people aren’t being given control of their water.
Yeah there are good reasons to limit or prevent rainwater collection in order to preserve necessary river systems or agricultural areas etc.
However I highly highly doubt anything good faith is going on here.
The context is very straightfoward. It is an occupied territory. The occupier claims ownership of natural ressources in the occupied territory. This is typical imperialist behaviour and illegal under international law.
https://youtu.be/QZkSRlIs9o0?si=l7jYk8g92oIS4t3b
The evil part is having laws like this and then filling in their water sources with concrete.
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To add what others said (like Israel making up rules for Palestine), the people of Palestine are being attacked and their infrastructure targeted. It is pretty evil to destroy the water supply and then say: “but you can’t get it elsewhere :)”.
I don’t think this is necessarily the case here, but laws like this are often an attempt to offer the appearance of legitimacy to acts of violence (i.e. “yes we imprisoned them but they broke the law!”).and who better to claim ownership over the rain falling on palastinian soil than the israeli government
i dont think you can justify this stuff, at best make it sound slightly less evil
Water for agricultural and domnestic use usually is fed back to the water cycle, though.
Watering my veggies is distinct from e.g. building a dam, or something.
You could, though, for example, set up a large collection system for water that would normally be fed into a tributary that other farmers are using downstream for irrigation. A company with enough resources to collect and bottle rainwater for profit across a large area that would otherwise feed into aquifers could bleed a small farming community dry.
I wouldn’t call that “domnestic or agricultural” use anymore.
Right, it’s just that not all rainwater collection is inherently domestic or agricultural, and that’s why some places (ostensibly, at least) have laws restricting it, with the goal being to keep it feeding into the water cycle and not shipping it elsewhere.
Read the highlighted text in the post again, please.
I didn’t miss that part, I’m just saying that usually that’s not why laws like this are created. The stated intent of this one is likely something about protecting fragile aquifers and the real intent is gradual genocide.
AFAIK, there is no such laws in Europe. I know for parts of USA and Israel. Correct me if I am wrong.
No such laws in Russia. And it seems no such laws in Poland. No for Ukraine, no for Belarus, Kazahstan even has some bonuses if you collect rainwater, Latviya has some bonuses too.
You are definitely wrong. I work in municipal development and a developer retaining water on site beyond what is necessary to offset their increased impervious cover is something that’s highly discouraged and restricted.
Water need to go to the rivers and aquifers, and damming it up for private use is a real problem.
There are laws about collection and storage of rainwater all over the world unrelated to genocide.
I never seen them before. Too much rainwater is a problem, but not collecting it.
It’s illegal for me to have rain barrels off my gutters. I wanted them to use the water for my garden. I’m not in any area with existing water shortage or drought issues either.
It can be actually. People upstream of water sources - often wealthy people with land but sometimes a collective of local farmers - build dams or retaining ponds to save the water for themselves and on a significant scale can limit the amount of water that goes downstream.
It makes more sense to limit the amount of water collected than to outright banning it tho.
Sometimes.
I work in municipal development and how rainwater is handled is a huge part of my job. It usually comes down to whatever the developer wants is bad.
They either want to collect all water and essentially deny it to everyone else so they can sell it, or they want to pave over everything and refuse to detain stormwater and flood the neighbors.
It’s not at all the same thing as Palestinians wanting water for food and crops, but a lot of the time these laws start out as something sensible before being used as a weapon.
What do you mean by “makes more sense”?
Oh I think it’s meant to be just as evil as it looks.
I don’t even… how do you prevent that?
Guns and bombs usually do the trick
The usual way?
What’s the usual way of stopping someone from collecting rain water?
Destroying cisterns being built to store this rain water for communities it would appear
Fines/violence, usually.
It’s actually not uncommon to have laws that restrict gathering rain water in many places. Lots of US states do as well. If water is collected locally on a mass scale, it messes with water tables/rivers/lakes/etc.
Forbidding it when a place doesnt have otherwise dependable water infastructure is inhuman however.
I imagine the ban on rainwater collection is from before the war, and I imagine there are similar laws in Israel.
There’s lots to be mad at the Israelis for doing. We don’t need to make things up. This article on water in Gaza makes a good point:
A graphic representation of the unfair restrictions is that while many Jewish settlements have swimming pools, Palestinians in “Area C” of the West Bank are not allowed cisterns for collecting rainwater.
As soon as I saw it the post, I was like guaranteed its going to be Area C.
it messes with water tables
Everything messes with them. EVERYTHING. Mostly wells.
Killing them
How are you gonna hide a water cistern?
“Rain is the property…”
Wow.
It’s illegal in some states as well.
I remember learning about this while having This Old House playing in the background.
Here’s a map of the regulations for each state (currently the heaviest looks like it is restricted by volume and/or medium of collection) https://www.energy.gov/femp/rainwater-harvesting-regulations-map
The United States does the same thing all over the Southwest. Rural people will tell you.
It might be the same as Canada where you only can with a permit just to be sure people aren’t drinking mold water
I’d guess it’s for droughts
isn’t the point there that shit is super dry and if you leech the water in the wrong places the ground can’t handle it?
There’s a difference between needing a permit to collect rainwater because the water belongs to everyone, and being forbidden from collecting rainwater because the water belongs to an oppressing party.
But hamas collect the water and then make bombs to attack for no specific reason.
Should have added /s at the end. [Differentiating intentions is really hard these days]
Water bombs. They launch kegs full of water to bankrupt Israel water companies.
What is water? H2O. What does the H stand for? Hydrogen. Ever heard of hydrogen bombs?
Still think Hamas (which is all Palestinians, UN officials, and doctors in hospitals, obviously) just want water do “drink” and “not die of dehydration”?
Hamas has banned the digging of wells since 2021. I don’t see how they would permit the harvesting of rainwater, even if there weren’t Israeli legal regulations in place (which seem to be on par with many other countries’ laws). That plus their systematic dismantling of working water infrastructure for rocket parts has had it’s effects.
Source?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/027/2009/en/
pp. 2–4, 15, 28, 34, 39–50, 63, 68.
Great source! Phrased differently - can’t build a cistern without a permit - but they are certainly painted as right a-holes about it. Thanks for the source!
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F’ed up.
