From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 04 2002 - 21:48:15 MDT
There are 4 urls. I will paste them together for quick online access:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story665.html
(this url contains tables and facts that I am unable to format for email)
http://www.mideastfacts.com/media_myopia.html
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/970906/1997090606.html
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0204a/israelwater.html
***
<read further for the snipped versions)
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story665.html
"Palestine was a destitute place until Israelis made its desert bloom"
Posted on NOVEMBER-7-2001
This myth, about Palestine and its people, was concocted by the Zionist
leaders to legitimize and romanticize the "return" of the "exiled Jews" to
the "Promised Land." As it will be proven below, it is not only that this
myth has no factual or even scientific legs to stand on, but also what used
to be a Palestinian desert in 1948, is still a desert now, and most likely
it will be a desert for a long time too.
After examining the Israeli and Lebanese agricultural production (based on
the CIA's online Worldfact Book), it may surprise the reader that both
countries a have similar production level, considering the facts that
Lebanon's arable land, total area, and population sizes are about half of
Israel's.
<snip>
[Mermaid notes]I dont know how to format the tables...there are some
interesting figures about 'the desert that bloomed'. A read of the url can
be interesting.
http://www.mideastfacts.com/media_myopia.html
<snip>
Most Casual Myth-Dropper: To Veteran New York Times Correspondent Henry Kamm
On April 21, writing from Jerusalem, he led a story with the following
sentence: "Israel, having made the desert bloom, a proud early achievement,
is now counting the costs of its remarkable development in agriculture."
The myth that Israelis "made the desert bloom" obviously lives on, despite
overwhelming and still accumulating documentary evidence that long before
Jewish settlers began arriving in any significant numbers early in this
century, Palestinian farmers had already been making the desert bloom, with
a flourishing agriculture and a substantial export of fruits and vegetables.
<snip>
[Mermaid]Wars will be fought over water..not for land.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/970906/1997090606.html
[Mermaid notes]This article seems to be dated 1997...during 'peace time'
Water crisis: Whose hand is on the tap?
Palestine, Politics, 9/6/1997
It all sounds like living in the Arctic Circle, but with a different system.
There, they have six months of night and six months of day. Here, in many of
the West Bank towns, they receive water for six months and then remain
without water supplies for another six months. The Bethlehem and Hebron
areas, south of Jerusalem, are the most affected by the unjust distribution
of water between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in their surroundings.
The control is in Israel's hands. The underground wells supply water without
any limits to the Israeli settlements but lesser quantities go to the
Palestinian towns and villages in the area. Israel blames the water
infrastructure in the Palestinian territories. But it ignores the fact that
it controlled the area for the past three decades since the June 1967 war
and did nothing to repair that infrastructure. Besides, when setting up the
infrastructure for the settlements' water supply, not only were the
Palestinian territories ignored, but work is even done in such a way that
the vast majority of water goes directly to the system that supplies water
to the Israeli settlements, giving them top priority and leaving the
Palestinians down at the bottom of the list.
According to official estimates, Bethlehem district, for instance, needs
some 700 cubic meters per hour. Yet what Israel pumps through the water
system for the area is no more than half of that amount. In Jewish
settlements surrounding Hebron and Bethlehem, the settlers have enjoyed the
luxury of having swimming pools, green lawns and gardens and even the chance
to wash their cars daily outside their homes. But for the overwhelming
majority of Palestinians living in the area, water shortage is so serious
that they have to fetch alternative sources, whether through buying tap
water from Israelis or collecting water from the nearest wells in the area.
Financially-stable Palestinian families can afford to buy water from
whichever source is available. They also can afford to buy huge water
reservoirs on their roofs and fill them with water almost anytime. For them
water shortage is a matter of inconvenience. For others, it is a matter of
survival. Needy families or those families with limited income rely on their
children or wives to ride their donkeys or their bicycles, if they are lucky
enough to afford one, to go to the nearest well for water.
Yousef, a 10 year old child, spends most of this day shuttling on his donkey
between his house in Al Khader village and the water spring in Artas
village. The trip takes him some two hours. "In the beginning I enjoyed
doing it. If felt like a new way of entertainment. But now I am so bored
doing the same thing every day and sometimes more than three times a day,"
said Yousef, dressed in old shorts and a Coca Cola T-shirt. Besides, he
added, traffic is heavy on the main road out of Bethlehem towards Hebron. "I
often have to fight with my donkey to steer him back to the sidewalk. I want
neither of us to be run over by one of those cars driving along the road,"
he said.
Mahmoud Jaafari of Dheisheh refugee camp is 68 years old. He remembers how,
as a kid, he used to do almost the same job for his father. Today, he too
goes to the well in nearby Artas village to collect some water. "So many
things have changed in the last four decades except for the water problem. I
am still living in the thirties searching for every drop of water to drink
while Jewish settlements in the surroundings havemuch more water than what
they need."
Rizeq Yaacob is an employee of the Palestinian Water Commission in the
Bethlehem district. Before the PNA was proclaimed in 1994, he had worked
with the Israeli civil administration's water department. His job is to
monitor water distribution in his district. As such his duty, almost on a
fortnight basis, is to open up some water taps and close others. In other
words, if the eastern parts of the district receive tap water, the western
side will have to wait for its turn two weeks later. "There is a serious
shortage of water in the area," admitted Rizeq, noting that his job is to
try and partially satisfy the residents of the area "otherwise none will
receive water at all."
Despite his efforts and those of his department, Yaacob has failed. The rare
amounts of water supplied to the Bethlehem district had forced some houses
to stay unhooked to the water system for quite some years. Some families
said they had not received water for at least two years. One family said no
tap water has run through their pipes for more than five years and that they
have finally dropped the hope of being hooked up to the system.
This family now relies on water it buys from different sources. According to
Rizeq, the settlers consume more water in one hour than the Palestinians do
in one day. Statistics that were published two years ago said Palestinian
water consumption is 35 cubic meters per person per year while that of the
settlers is 106 cubic meters. Water, along with borders, status of
settlements, refugees and the question of Jerusalem, are all issues that
were left for deliberations between the Palestinian National Authority and
Israel in the final status talks.
The Palestinian spokesmen blame Israel for trying to determine the shape of
the final status by means of introducing unilateral steps that would affect
each of those outstanding fields. As far as the water crisis is concerned,
Palestinians are not allowed to dig new wells in their areas because of
Israeli fears that subterranean water resources might be affected. But the
real purpose, Palestinians argue, is Israel's intention to keep its hand on
the taps. "Whoever's hand on the tap can control the fine details of other
people's daily life. Israel is imposing a general siege on the PNA areas and
allows herself to decide how many glasses of water Palestinians are allowed,
or rather unallowed, to drink," said Mahmoud Jaafari.
<snip>
MORE:
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0204a/israelwater.html
Water Is Root Of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
READ
intro to MONITOR series, "The Politics of Water"
(ENS) -- The Israelis and the Palestinians each blame the other for the
violence that is consuming the region with renewed ferocity. Each side sees
itself as the victim. The convoluted conflict which has its origin in
Biblical times is created in part by the arid nature of the disputed lands.
Dwindling water resources increasingly affected by pollution, agricultural
and industrial use and population growth, have elevated the strategic
importance of water in the region. The water issue is at the root of the
struggle over territory.
Israel is made up of five million Jews and one million Palestinians. The
West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are inhabited by 2.5 million
Palestinians.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) complains that Israel controls the
sources of water and one third of West Bank inhabitants have only
intermittent water supplies. Israel has complete control over water
resources in the West Bank and uses 82 percent of the underground water, the
PNA says.
Palestinians in the West Bank are charged three times as much per unit of
water as Israeli settlers.
The Israeli newspaper, "Ha'aretz," reported that more than half a million of
the Palestinian inhabitants in the West Bank have not consistently received
water for more than two months.
The yearly Israeli consumption of water is 12 million cubic meters. The
Palestinian National Authority says "this 12 million cubic meters is the
percentage of deficiency that cities in Gaza lack."
The Palestinian daily consumption of water is 35 to 50 liters per capita,
while the daily consumption of the Jewish settlers is 280 to 350 liters per
capita.
Both sides rely for water on the West Bank Mountain Aquifer, which straddles
the demarcating border of the disputed West Bank territory. It currently
provides a third of Israel¹s water supply and 80 percent of Palestinian
consumption.
Despite being the most important source of long term water for Israel, use
of the Aquifer has not been implemented to the fullest extent possible.
"Israeli officials, while cognizant of the growing water crisis, fear
Israeli dependency on potentially Palestinian controlled water sources,"
said Ilan Berman and Paul Michael Wihbey of the Institute for Advanced
Strategic and Political Studies, a Jerusalem based think tank.
Due to the shortage of water in the Israeli-Palestinian common resources,
the local authorities, the municipality, and the Palestinian Water Authority
have been obliged to periodically transfer massive water pipes from certain
areas in order to supply others.
Tahir Nasir Eldin, director general of the Palestinian Water Authority in
the West Bank, told the "Ha'aretz," newspaper that in the summer months
Macarot Israeli Water Company reduces the supply of water to the Palestinian
areas and the settlements.
For instance, the 300,000 inhabitants who live in Hebron need 25,000 cubic
meters of water daily. However, Macarot supplies this area with 5,500 cubic
meters only.
The 180,000 inhabitants of Bethlehem need 18,000 cubic meters of water daily
during the summer, but they get only 8,000 cubic meters.
Bethlehem residents must buy water from the citizens who are connected to
the Israeli lines. These citizens fill their tanks in the few days when they
have water, and conserve it for the days when they will not have any water.
The 1993 Oslo Accord requires the Israeli government to continue its control
over the Palestinian water resources, and that they decide the amount of
water that can be used.
According to the agreement, the Palestinian National Authority can supply
water tanks separate from the ones they currently share with the
settlements. However, the PNA says, "the Americans are funding most of the
expense of these water tanks, and as a result have delayed this project for
many long years."
READ
UN offical charges Israel uses food, water as weapon of war
On July 23, 2001, the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) West Bank & Gaza Mission transferred legal title for water
infrastructure in the West Bank valued at $75 million to the Palestinian
Water Authority. USAID's West Bank Water Resources Program, which began in
June 1996, has enhanced the availability and quality of water for more than
300,000 Palestinians.
Phase I of the program financed four major production wells and a water
transmission system in the Bethlehem-Hebron area, as well as a water
transmission system for 11 villages in Jenin. These structures, all of which
had been in operation for more than a year, were the subject of the legal
transfer.
Still, the PNA says, Jenin residents do not have the water they need, and
were grateful to accept 150,000 liters of water given to them by Jewish
peace activists.
Nasir Eldin asserts that the Jewish settlements obtain their full water
needs from the common Israeli-Palestinian water lines.
But an Israeli expert who prefers not to be named said that the reduced
supply of water to the Palestinian areas takes place when most or all of the
water pipes that lead to them are closed.
On the contrary, another expert in the Israeli Water Authority said that
they don't close the water pipes, and that the shortage of water which the
Palestinians face results from high consumption.
He claimed, "We are responsible for the drinking water supply and the
current amount of water is enough. We have no intention of reducing the
water which the Palestinians get in order to transfer it to the
settlements."
Environmental experts say Israel has only itself to blame if its taps run
dry. All three of Israel's main water sources ‹ the Sea of Galilee, a
coastal aquifer and the West Bank Mountain Aquifer shared with the
Palestinians ‹ are dangerously depleted.
Israeli water experts fear that those three sources have gotten to the red
lines past which there is a danger they will be irremediably contaminated by
salt deposits.
An Israeli Water Commission spokesperson said Israel itself suffers from a
water shortage because of low rainfall. "Israel and the Palestinians both
have a problem of water," she told the Jordan Times on December 7, 2000. "As
for consumption," she said. "It's a way of life. If you take the numbers,
it's true they are not using the same amount. "But it's not that they are
asking and we are not giving."
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said 215,000 Palestinians in more
than 150 villages are not connected to running water, and that Israel has
discriminatory allocation. "At a time when the Israeli public debates
whether to water the lawn or wash their car, Palestinians suffer from a
shortage of water to meet their most basic needs," B'Tselem said in a
statement.
Nasir Eldin said that the reasons for the fatal water crisis which the
Palestinians are enduring are overpopulation, the high standard of living of
the settlements, the illegal waste of water for agricultural use, and
Israeli negligence in maintaining the water tanks in the West Bank for more
than 40 years, which has led to the loss of 11 percent of the total amount
of water.
Even the Multilateral Water Resources Group, created in 1992 as part of the
peace process negotiations, has failed to get the parties to move toward
agreement on water sharing.
The Oslo Accord allows the Palestinians to dig a number of wells. However,
not all of them are working. Nasir Eldin says, "What is left for the
Palestinians is an observant conservation of the drinking water, and proper
organization for the distribution of water. I don't have any good news for
the Palestinian people, and we don't expect to have a solution for the
current situations this summer."
"We are in a very bad situation," then Palestinian Water Authority Chairman
Nabil Sharif told a water conference in September 2000. "Unless the United
States will do everything possible to convince the Israelis, at the end
there will be no real peace if there is no water. If there will be no water,
I don't think any agreement of peace will live more than two or three
years."
<snip>
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