Environmental champion, Congressman Casten, ignores Israel’s destruction of Gaza environment

 Environmental champion, Congressman Casten, ignores Israel’s destruction of Gaza environment

Congressman Sean Casten (IL 6) lists climate change/environment as his first issue for voters to view and his website. He closes by stating he’s “Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC), a group of more than fifty Members of Congress who are committed to protecting our environment.”

By flooding Gaza’s tunnels with seawater, Israel is polluting Gaza’s groundwater supplies with salt brine, destabilizing the ground sufficiently to collapse and kill Palestinian civilians who escaped Israeli and US bombs. Agricultural fields are transformed into salinized pits of mud. Damage inflicted upon Gaza’s aquifers has greatly diminished Gaza’s clean drinking water. Over a fifth of Gaza’s agricultural land has disappeared since the Israeli offensive. This fits neatly into Israel’s stated goal of making Gaza “unlivable.”

To save Gaza’s environment as well as its 2,300,000 Palestinians, Congressman Casten should join his 64 congressional colleagues in calling for immediate, full and complete ceasefire in Gaza. If he does not, he should remove environment from his congressional resume and resign as Vice-Chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition.

Ignoring; indeed enabling the destruction of Gaza’s environment is a disqualifier for Casten to tout his environmental credentials.