YoriYanover Published: February 26th, 2014
The Palestinians refuse to build water
treatment plants, and sewage flows out of Palestinian towns and villages
directly into local streams, thereby polluting the environments and the aquifer
and causing the spread of disease.
The Palestinians refuse to build water
treatment plants, and sewage flows out of Palestinian towns and villages
directly into local streams, thereby polluting the environments and the aquifer
and causing the spread of disease.
The Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon against the State of
Israel, states a new report titled The Truth Behind the Palestinian Water
Libels (PDF), issued by Prof. Haim Gvirtzman from the Begin-Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies. You'll find an online version here. Gvirtzman is a professor
of hydrology at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University and a
member of the Israel Water Authority Council. He is also a long-time advisor of
the Israel-PA Joint Water Committee.
According to the report, the PA is more
interested in reducing the amount of water available to Israel, polluting
natural reservoirs, harming Israeli farmers, and sullying Israel’s reputation
around the world than truly solving water problems for the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians are not interested in practical solutions to address
shortages; rather, they seek to perpetuate the shortages, and to blame the
State of Israel. If you're a Jewish news junky, you'll no doubt recall the rude
and misinformed allegation by European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who
said, from the Knesset podium, mind you, that the amount of water available to
the average Israeli unfairly overwhelms the amount of water available to the
average Palestinian.
The gaps are significantly smaller than what was suggested
by Herr Schulz, but, according to the Prof. Gvirtzman report, the main issue
that should be discussed – and has not been sufficiently analyzed – is: What
are the causes of Palestinian water supply problems? Today, the Palestinians
consume some 200 million cubic meters of water per annum in Judea and Samaria,
Prof. Gvirtzman reports. The Palestinians could easily raise that amount by at
least 50 percent, without any additional assistance or allocation from the State
of Israel. His short answer: Water shortages in the Palestinian Authority are
the result of Palestinian policies that deliberately waste water and destroy
the regional water ecology.
The Palestinians refuse to develop their own
significant underground water resources, build a seawater desalination plant,
fix massive leakage from their municipal water pipes, build sewage treatment
plants, irrigate land with treated sewage effluents or modern water-saving
devices, or bill their own citizens for consumer water usage, leading to
enormous waste. At the same time, Prof. Gvirtzman continues, they drill
illegally into Israel’s water resources, and send their sewage lowing into the
valleys and streams of central Israel. In other words, the Palestinian Authority
is using water as a weapon against the State of Israel.
It is not interested in
practical solutions to solve the Palestinian people’s water shortages, but
rather perpetuation of the shortages and the besmirching of Israel. Here are
some of the things the PA is either failing to do, doing ineptly, or
intentionally preventing: The Palestinians do not bother fixing water leaks in
city pipes. Up to 33 percent of water in Palestinian cities is wasted through
leakage. Permits were granted to the Palestinians by the Israel-PA Joint Water
Committee, for some 40 sites where they can drill into the aquifer in the
eastern Hebron hills region, and the international community has offered to
finance the drilling of every site. But the Palestinians have preferred to drill
wells on the Western Mountain Aquifer, the basin that provides groundwater to
the State of Israel.
Instead of solving the problem they have chosen to
squabble with Israel. The Palestinians refuse to build water treatment plants,
despite their obligation to do so under the Oslo agreement. Sewage flows out of
Palestinian towns and villages directly into local streams, thereby polluting
the environments and the aquifer and causing the spread of disease. The
Palestinians absolutely refuse to irrigate their agricultural fields with
treated sewage effluents.
By comparison, more than half the agricultural fields
in Israel are irrigated with treated waste water. Some Palestinian farmers
irrigate their fields by flooding, rather than with drip irrigation technology.
Flooding fields causes huge water evaporation and leads to great waste, up to
50% higher water consumption. The warlike strategy adopted by the Palestinian
Authority regarding water explains several additional realities, according to
Prof. Gvirtzman: Illegal drilling of wells: As of 2010, the Palestinians had
drilled about 250 unauthorized wells into the Western and Northern Aquifers, in
violation of the Oslo agreements.
Since 2010 the number of unauthorized wells
being dug has continued to rise at an alarming pace. This has caused a
reduction in the natural discharge of water in the Beit Shean and Harod
valleys, forcing Israeli farmers to reduce their agricultural plantings.
Ultimately, says Prof. Gvirtzman, the State of Israel has been forced to reduce
its pumping at the Mountain aquifer from 500 million cubic meters per annum in
1967 to about 400 million cubic meters per annum today.
Besides higher produce
prices, Israeli consumers also subsidize their Palestinian neighbors'
unregulated water consumption. Most West Bank and Gaza residents and businesses
do not pay the PA for the water they use, in either their homes or fields.
There are simply no water meters on pumping wells and no water meters at the
entry to most homes, so it is impossible for the PA to measure the amount of
money owed by individual consumers. This, of course, leads to widespread water
waste.
People who don’t pay for their water usage have no motivation to
conserve. Meanwhile, the Palestinians purchase about 50 million cubic meters of
water from Israel’s Mekorot water company each year, but the Palestinian
Authority does not pay for this water directly. Instead, the State of Israel
pays Mekorot, and then deducts the costs of the water from the customs and tax
monies that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority at Israeli
ports.
However, Prof. Gvirtzman points out, it must be noted that the
Palestinian Authority pays Mekorot for just 80 percent of the actual cost of
the water it consumes. Negotiations to raise water prices have dragged on for
more than 10 years, and Israel has given up many times.
About the Author: Yori
Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and
worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the
US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service,
Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published
Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in
the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and two fun books in
English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption,
and How Would God REALLY Vote.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/0/?print
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/0/?print
Yori Yanover
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/
Yori Yanover
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/
Yori Yanover
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/
Yori Yanover
Published: February 26th, 2014
The Palestinians refuse to build water treatment plants, and sewage
flows out of Palestinian towns and villages directly into local streams,
thereby polluting the environments and the aquifer and causing the
spread of disease.
The Palestinians refuse to build water treatment plants, and sewage
flows out of Palestinian towns and villages directly into local streams,
thereby polluting the environments and the aquifer and causing the
spread of disease.
Photo Credit: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash 90
The Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon against the State
of Israel, states a new report titled The Truth Behind the Palestinian
Water Libels (PDF), issued by Prof. Haim Gvirtzman from the Begin-Sadat
Center for Strategic Studies. You'll find an online version here.
Gvirtzman is a professor of hydrology at the Institute of Earth Sciences
at the Hebrew University and a member of the Israel Water Authority
Council. He is also a long-time advisor of the Israel-PA Joint Water
Committee.
According to the report, the PA is more interested in reducing the
amount of water available to Israel, polluting natural reservoirs,
harming Israeli farmers, and sullying Israel’s reputation around the
world than truly solving water problems for the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians are not interested in practical solutions to address
shortages; rather, they seek to perpetuate the shortages, and to blame
the State of Israel.
If you're a Jewish news junky, you'll no doubt recall the rude and
misinformed allegation by European Parliament President Martin Schulz,
who said, from the Knesset podium, mind you, that the amount of water
available to the average Israeli unfairly overwhelms the amount of water
available to the average Palestinian.
The gaps are significantly smaller than what was suggested by Herr
Schulz, but, according to the Prof. Gvirtzman report, the main issue
that should be discussed – and has not been sufficiently analyzed – is:
What are the causes of Palestinian water supply problems?
Today, the Palestinians consume some 200 million cubic meters of water
per annum in Judea and Samaria, Prof. Gvirtzman reports. The
Palestinians could easily raise that amount by at least 50 percent,
without any additional assistance or allocation from the State of
Israel.
His short answer: Water shortages in the Palestinian Authority are the
result of Palestinian policies that deliberately waste water and destroy
the regional water ecology. The Palestinians refuse to develop their
own significant underground water resources, build a seawater
desalination plant, fix massive leakage from their municipal water
pipes, build sewage treatment plants, irrigate land with treated sewage
effluents or modern water-saving devices, or bill their own citizens for
consumer water usage, leading to enormous waste.
At the same time, Prof. Gvirtzman continues, they drill illegally into
Israel’s water resources, and send their sewage lowing into the valleys
and streams of central Israel.
In other words, the Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon
against the State of Israel. It is not interested in practical solutions
to solve the Palestinian people’s water shortages, but rather
perpetuation of the shortages and the besmirching of Israel.
Here are some of the things the PA is either failing to do, doing
ineptly, or intentionally preventing:
The Palestinians do not bother fixing water leaks in city pipes. Up to
33 percent of water in Palestinian cities is wasted through leakage.
Permits were granted to the Palestinians by the Israel-PA Joint Water
Committee, for some 40 sites where they can drill into the aquifer in
the eastern Hebron hills region, and the international community has
offered to finance the drilling of every site. But the Palestinians have
preferred to drill wells on the Western Mountain Aquifer, the basin
that provides groundwater to the State of Israel. Instead of solving the
problem they have chosen to squabble with Israel.
The Palestinians refuse to build water treatment plants, despite their
obligation to do so under the Oslo agreement. Sewage flows out of
Palestinian towns and villages directly into local streams, thereby
polluting the environments and the aquifer and causing the spread of
disease.
The Palestinians absolutely refuse to irrigate their agricultural fields
with treated sewage effluents. By comparison, more than half the
agricultural fields in Israel are irrigated with treated waste water.
Some Palestinian farmers irrigate their fields by flooding, rather than
with drip irrigation technology. Flooding fields causes huge water
evaporation and leads to great waste, up to 50% higher water
consumption.
The warlike strategy adopted by the Palestinian Authority regarding
water explains several additional realities, according to Prof.
Gvirtzman:
Illegal drilling of wells: As of 2010, the Palestinians had drilled
about 250 unauthorized wells into the Western and Northern Aquifers, in
violation of the Oslo agreements. Since 2010 the number of unauthorized
wells being dug has continued to rise at an alarming pace. This has
caused a reduction in the natural discharge of water in the Beit Shean
and Harod valleys, forcing Israeli farmers to reduce their agricultural
plantings.
Ultimately, says Prof. Gvirtzman, the State of Israel has been forced to
reduce its pumping at the Mountain aquifer from 500 million cubic
meters per annum in 1967 to about 400 million cubic meters per annum
today.
Besides higher produce prices, Israeli consumers also subsidize their
Palestinian neighbors' unregulated water consumption. Most West Bank and
Gaza residents and businesses do not pay the PA for the water they use,
in either their homes or fields. There are simply no water meters on
pumping wells and no water meters at the entry to most homes, so it is
impossible for the PA to measure the amount of money owed by individual
consumers. This, of course, leads to widespread water waste. People who
don’t pay for their water usage have no motivation to conserve.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians purchase about 50 million cubic meters of
water from Israel’s Mekorot water company each year, but the Palestinian
Authority does not pay for this water directly. Instead, the State of
Israel pays Mekorot, and then deducts the costs of the water from the
customs and tax monies that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian
Authority at Israeli ports.
However, Prof. Gvirtzman points out, it must be noted that the
Palestinian Authority pays Mekorot for just 80 percent of the actual
cost of the water it consumes. Negotiations to raise water prices have
dragged on for more than 10 years, and Israel has given up many times.
About the Author: Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age
17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he
has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com,
USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas),
and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a
colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the
late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and two fun books in English: The
Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How
Would God REALLY Vote.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/0/?print
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-pa-weaponizing-water-against-israel/2014/02/26/0/?print
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