We are already accustomed to seeing the media bashing Israel when it comes to the palestinian Arabs, and especially Gaza. We are also accustomed to seeing them come out with puff pieces to highlight Gazan ingenuity or to otherwise distract the world from realizing it is essentially a terrorist enclave.
In this spirit, the Abu Dhabi’s The National News have come out with this video about a Gazan dude finding environmentally friendly ways to dispose of old tires:
Note how they blame the accumulation of tires on the so-called “Israeli blockade.”
Leaving aside the fact there is also an Egyptian blockade on Gaza, the accumulation of tires is not due to any blockade. The real reason is actually mentioned in China’s Xinhua coverage of the story (which does not even mention the “blockade”):
Inside his small workshop in the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip, Midian Helles spends hours every day recycling broken car tires and turning them into eco-friendly tools.
“I have succeeded in recycling thousands of broken car tires into artificial grass for playgrounds, making use of wasted tires for organic farming, and utilizing those tires’ metal components to produce various electrical tools,” said the 27-year-old Palestinian.
Helles came up with the idea of recycling car tires two years ago when he saw some Palestinian youths burning car tires at the eastern fence of the coastal enclave in protest against the Israeli troops’ presence.
“I was shocked by the large number of damaged tires that were set on fire during protests. I wondered where did they get those tires,” Helles said, as he put a car tire onto a milling machine.
Helles, who completed his geology degree at a university in Gaza in 2016, then made the decision to search for the origin of the tires and ways to dispose of them safely.
After months of in-depth research, Helles found that only 10 percent of broken car tires could be recycled into park seats and children’s toys, while 90 percent are usually burned or buried.
Having realized that both the burning and burial of wasted car tires pollute the environment, the young man made the decision to launch a tire recycling business that would tackle his unemployment, support his nine-member family, and fulfill his ambition to protect the environment.
That’s right. Palestinian Arabs have been stockpiling them to cause a huge nuisance at the border fence, while damaging the environment. Here’s a reminder as to how that looks:
