Heavy Breathing in Ashkelon
Not every activist in and around Israel is focused on questions of religion or military hegemony. Some are concerned with a different sort of power: the kind that comes from coal.
From a ship in the Mediterranean to a protester scaling a government ministry building in Jerusalem, Greenpeace activists have set their sights on Israel as part of a multinational "Quit Coal" campaign. (New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand were previous targets.) Last month, the Israeli coast guard arrested a multinational party of 14 activists from the Greenpeace vessel "Rainbow Warrior," after they entered a restricted harbor area in Ashkelon and painted their slogan on a coal ship unloading there.
The beachy but gritty southern city of Ashkelon is where the Israel Electric Corporation plans a new coal-fired power plant beside an existing one. Pollution from the...