Earth Equity News

Israelis Bring Green Power To West Bank Village. By Tia Goldenberg, AP, October 9, 2009. "Residents of a West Bank village with no electricity have been helped out of the darkness by unlikely benefactors -- a group of Israelis who installed solar panels and wind turbines to illuminate the Palestinians' makeshift homes…It was this lack of basic services that drew the physicists from Comet-ME, a group of pro-peace Israeli scientists and activists, to this dusty, desolate area. Now the entire village of 300 people has access to power that is reliable, free and green. Villagers have no access to phone lines, but the power allows them to charge their cell phones…'The communities here are in deep poverty. The project is targeted to help them make more revenue from their own work,' said Noam Dotan, an activist and physicist with Comet-ME. Comet-ME says it seeks to use renewable energy to empower Palestinian communities like this one, which is among the poorest in the West Bank. The West Bank, home to some 2.5 million Palestinians, is controlled by the Israeli military, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority governing some areas. Some 300,000 Israeli settlers also live in the territory. The Palestinians want to make the West Bank part of their future state."