Will beaches recover from tar spill?
Not yet clear how much oil remains in water, sediment and seabed
When Israel’s beaches turned black two months ago, the country faced a massive ecological disaster: the oil slick off Israel’s coast polluted the waters, and storm currents deposited 750 tons of tar along 160 km. of coastline.
As the “Tar in the Storm” incident wreaked havoc on its beaches, Israel jumped into action to remedy the effects of the Tier-2 level pollution, with experts tackling environmental, financial, and political repercussions of the oil spill.
Concerns were raised at a webinar held last month on changes caused by oil spill pollution featuring a panel of international researchers of the previous major oil spills Deepwater Horizon, Ixtoc-I and Exxon Valdez.
Biologist Dr. Steven Murawski from the University
of South Florida presented some key questions Israel must address: is the seafood safe to eat? Is it safe to swim and use other natural resources? How fast will oil go away? What marine resources will be affected, and for how long?
How will coastal communities be affected in the shortand long-term? Are we better prepared for the next oil spill (which will occur)?”
Is the seafood safe to eat? The Health Ministry declared Israel’s fish and seafood safe to eat on March 9 after sampling fish species over the course of a month.
“There weren’t any fish deaths, and we didn’t see any contaminants in their tissue,” explained Dr. Peleg Astrahan, an organic chemist at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute. The IOLR sampled water and fish throughout Israel’s coast over many days and found no concerning levels of pollutants.
There is still a danger that small amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons from the spill will become more concentrated as they make their way up the food chain. While there is no evidence of immediate damage to sea life, IOLR will continue to conduct surveys on fish and marine species in the case that this occurs, said Astrahan.
else for the same reasons.
Nicole Grubner, 32, who made aliyah eight years ago, is due to give birth in 10 days. Her parents applied for entry permits to Israel through an Israeli consulate in Canada and were turned down several times. They also applied directly to the Permits Committee but their request was rejected there, too.
Neither Grubner nor her partner have any first-degree relatives in Israel, and she said that she feels scared by the prospect of giving birth and becoming a mother for the first time without her parents by her side.
“A birth is a physically and emotionally challenging experience, especially when becoming new parents,” she said. “It’s frustrating and scary to go through a life-changing event without support or assistance, and it’s disgraceful that the government is preventing people from having immediate family to help them at such times.”
IN ANOTHER case, the daughter of a 95-year old Israeli citizen who made aliyah 18 years ago has had her requests for an entry permit rejected repeatedly. The woman’s granddaughter, Mandi, who is also an immigrant to Israel, told the Post that her grandmother, who declined to be named, has experienced ill health over the last two months and recently spent the night in a hospital emergency ward due to breathing difficulties.
Her grandmother now needs surgery to replace her aortic valve, and is scheduled to go into the hospital on Monday for the procedure.
The woman’s daughter, who lives in Australia, has made five separate requests from the Permits Committee of the Population and Immigration Authority for an entry permit into Israel to see her elderly mother, the first of which was on March 16, all of which have been rejected.
In response to one of those applications the committee said: “Your request does not reflect a humanitarian need or a special personal need that justifies granting approval of your request.”
Mandi said her mother provided all the necessary documentation, including a letter from the surgeon performing the surgery, and a letter from Stein’s family doctor attesting to the importance of Stein’s daughter being present before and after the procedure.
“It just seems that there’s no humanity,” said Mandi, adding that her family is desperate for the government to change its policy regarding emergency situations.
“I can’t even imagine the pain my mother is going through,” Mandi said. “I myself have had sleepless nights about it. It’s heart-wrenching to think you can’t go and see your mother, when next week she might not even be here any more.”
IN ANOTHER case, Javah Levy, a 20-year-old immigrant from Spain, is scheduled to get married next month.
Both Levy’s parents and those of her fiancée, who also made aliyah from Spain, have applied several times for an entry permit to attend their children’s wedding, but have also been turned down repeatedly time after time.
Levy said they may hold the wedding in Spain to accommodate their parents, but noted that all of her grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends now live in Israel, and they would not be able to attend the wedding abroad. She said this was a terrible dilemma.
Levy added that with the May 6 wedding date rapidly approaching, and the likely need of their parents to quarantine on arrival, they now have only some 10 days to decide where to hold the wedding.
“It’s really frustrating – you make aliyah because its your country, but without knowing the language and without having a home,” she said. “But when you get married you at least want to have your parents there. It’s very sad for everyone. Weddings are celebration, but I don’t want to remember all my life that no one danced with me and I got married alone if we have to go to Spain to be married, or on the other hand, to marry without my parents.”
The Post is familiar with more cases where the parents of pregnant women about to give birth and couples about to get married have been denied entry into Israel.
Former MK Dov Lipman, who has been working for months to help both Israelis and relatives of Israelis caught in such situations to get into Israel, condemned the approach.
“We have forgotten what it means to be a Jewish state,” said Lipman. “Actually to be a human state. I support rules to prevent the spread of corona, but at this point we have all the technology and resources to make sure that it doesn’t spread. And not allowing parents to come to their children’s weddings, or to help with their daughter’s with childbirth, is inhumane.”
Lipman said he had called on the government to immediately create a mechanism to address the crisis.
The Population and Immigration Authority said in response that the criteria for applying for entry permits were “transparent to everyone,” and were published online.
“The decision whether the request meets the criteria or not lies with the members of the committee and not the applicant or journalists,” the authority said. “The policy of the government is still for limited entry for foreign nationals into Israel, and the committee is acting in accordance with it.”
Lipman labeled the response “a disgrace,” and said it demonstrated “all that can be wrong with government. That is not a humane response. Where is the heart? Where is the soul? Where is the caring? Where is the recognition that people are suffering for no reason now that there are vaccinations? I don’t accept this, and no one should. I and others involved won’t rest until we get this policy changed.”
“I am not blinded by titles of kingmaker,” he said. “I don’t want to be part of a bloc on the Right or Left. I am my own bloc.”
Abbas said he was stretching out his arm toward coexistence within Israel. He made a point of not mentioning the Palestinians.
“What unites us is stronger than what divides us,” he said. “The time has come for listening
to others.”
Netanyahu’s allies in the Religious Zionist Party have vetoed a government that relies on Abbas and Ra’am. But Abbas said he had no problem with them.
“I have not ruled out anyone,” Abbas said. “My approach is what can be done, not what can’t.”
Religious Zionist Party MK-elect Itamar Ben-Gvir said he had not changed his views: Ra’am’s connection to the Islamic Movement that supports Hamas cannot be forgotten, and Abbas cannot make himself into a “Teddy bear.”
“A coalition relying on Ra’am would be the end of the Right,” Ben-Gvir warned.
Lapid met on Thursday with Joint List heads Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi and discussed ways to form a new government that would prevent Netanyahu from building a coalition with Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
“The three discussed a range of painful issues affecting the Arab community, especially the scourge of violence, and possible solutions,” a Yesh Atid spokesman said. “They agreed to continue discussions to explore the options available to change both the current government and Netanyahu’s policies, and to bring about real change.”
Five of the Joint List’s six MKs are expected to endorse Lapid for prime minister. Balad head Sami Abou Shehadeh has announced that he and his party would not support anyone.
“Balad has not found any of the candidates to be close to the party’s platform, equality and a country for all of its citizens,” Abu Shehadeh said.
• The final error was going too far in campaigning for the rightwing Religious Zionist Party. He needed Bezalel Smotrich’s party to cross the electoral threshold, but did not need it to get six seats plus the one he reserved for them on the Likud list.
Now, it is Smotrich and his allies who are ruling out Ra’am, which could prevent Netanyahu from forming a government.