Water, water everywhere but not a drop of truth by B'Tselem - by Elder of Ziyon

...B'Tselem is not interested in truth. But this is how it raises all that European funds so it can give salaries to people like Yellin. Truth becomes a burden when you need to pay for your own swimming pool.

Elder of Ziyon..
22 June '16..








Yesterday, B'Tselem tweeted:

B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم @btselem
While Palestinians suffer from severe water shortage, settlement swimming pools are full http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.726132 … pic.twitter.com/W8KRq9hylW
8:21 PM - 21 Jun 2016
138 138 Retweets 43 43 likes

The link goes to a Haaretz article by Amira Hass where Palestinians complain that settlements get all the water and none go to their communities in Judea and Samaria.

The Haaretz article didn't mention swimming pools once.

One person pointed out to B'Tselem public relations director Roy Yellin that Palestinian swimming pools happen to be full:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The West’s Israel Obsession and Its Palestinian Victims

...In short, in numerous cases where the West could use its leverage over the PA to better the lot of ordinary Palestinians, it has refused to do so, because it only cares about Israel’s actions. And thus the biggest victims of the West’s Israel obsession have ended up being not Israelis, but the Palestinians themselves.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
18 February '15..

I’ve written frequently about how the West’s obsession with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians helps perpetuate global misery by diverting attention from people in far greater distress (think Syrians or South Sudanese). Yet this obsession also perpetuates suffering among the one group it’s ostensibly supposed to help–the Palestinians. Three Jerusalem Post reports over the last week show why.

One warned that a leading Palestinian hospital is at risk of closure because of a $30 million debt. A major reason for this debt is that for years, the Palestinian Authority has failed to pay Mokassed Hospital for many of the patients it treats. This isn’t because the PA lacked money; it has ample funds to pay generous salaries to thousands of terrorists sitting in Israeli jails. Rather, it’s a matter of priorities: On the PA’s scale of values, paying terrorists for killing Israelis is evidently more important than paying doctors for healing Palestinians.

Almost 40 percent of the PA’s budget consists of foreign aid, with the vast majority coming from Western countries. The West is therefore uniquely placed to pressure the PA to alter its spending priorities. But it has never tried to do any such thing, because it only cares about what Israel does or doesn’t do.

Thus one factor that has recently exacerbated Mokassed’s problems has elicited worldwide condemnations: Israel’s withholding of tax revenues from the PA over the last two months in response to the latter’s egregious violations of the Oslo Accords, including joining the International Criminal Court. Yet even if Israel handed over that money tomorrow, there’s no reason to think the PA would suddenly start using it to pay Mokassed when it never did so in all the years before Israel halted the transfers.

In short, pressuring Israel won’t actually solve the problem; only pressuring the PA would do that. But since the West doesn’t care what the PA does, Palestinian patients will continue to suffer.

Lies, Falsehoods and the Truth Behind the Palestinian Water Libels

...The sum total of the situation described (below) is that the Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon against the State of Israel. It 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.

Prof. Haim Gvirtzman..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 238..
24 February '14..





EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 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, they drill illegally into Israel’s water resources, and send their sewage flowing into the valleys and streams of central Israel. In short, 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.

A significant public debate has been sparked by the assertion of European Parliament President Martin Schulz that the amount of water available to the average Israeli unfairly overwhelms the amount of water available to the average Palestinian. The main issue that should be discussed – and has not been sufficiently analyzed – is: What are the causes of Palestinian water supply problems?

The discussion must be informed by the following basic facts:

1. The Oslo agreements grant the Palestinians the right to draw 70 million cubic meters from the Eastern Mountain Aquifer (ground water reservoir). Yet this water resource is not currently being capitalized on by the Palestinians; the waters spill untapped underground into the Dead Sea. As per the Israeli-Palestinian agreement, some 40 sites were identified for drilling into this aquifer in the eastern Hebron hills region, and permits were granted to the Palestinians by the Israel-PA Joint Water Committee. Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, the Palestinians have drilled at just one-third of these sites, despite the fact that the international community has offered to finance the drilling of all sites. If the Palestinians were to drill and develop all these wells, they could have completely solved the existing water shortage in the Hebron hills region. 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.

2. The Palestinians do not bother fixing water leaks in city pipes. Up to 33 percent of water in Palestinian cities is wasted through leakage. Upkeep on the Palestinians’ urban water infrastructure has been completely neglected. By comparison, leakage from Israeli municipal water pipes amount to only 10 percent of water usage.

3. 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. Despite the fact that donor countries are willing to fully fund the building of treatment plants, the Palestinians have managed to avoid their obligations to build such facilities. (Only over the past two years has Israeli pressure moved the PA forward a bit on this matter.)

4. 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. Irrigating Palestinian agricultural fields with recycled water instead of fresh water would free up large amounts of water for home usage. This would greatly reduce the water shortage in many places.

5. Some Palestinian farmers irrigate their fields by flooding, rather than with drip irrigation technology. Drip irrigation, as practiced in Israel, brings water directly to the root of each plant, thereby reducing water consumption by more than 50 percent. Flooding fields causes huge water evaporation and leads to great waste.

6. The international community has offered to build a desalination plant for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have refused this gift. A desalination plant could completely solve the Gaza Strip’s water shortages. The Palestinians refuse to build this plant because they claim they have the right to access the fresh groundwater reservoir in Judea and Samaria, and they are prepared to suffer until they realize this dream. In the meanwhile, Gaza residents suffer from severe shortages of water.

These basic, undeniable facts are extremely important because they have wide-ranging consequences.

The water libel, one step removed from the blood libel

...The purpose of this war, like all previous ones, is to roll back the great achievement of Zionism – the establishment of a sovereign state for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. The strategy of this war is to associate Israel and Zionism with all that is evil in our world, so that one day the physical the destruction of the modern state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people will not seem like a great loss, and maybe even be a blessing.”

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
24 February '14..



Quote of the day: the water libel

“To many Israelis, the allegations about water are one step removed from blood libel. Water is a sensitive issue and is deeply symbolic, especially in the Middle East. […]

Had Martin Schulz [the president of the European Union Parliament, addressing the Israeli Knesset] checked the facts, and wanted to bring up this issue in a serious and constructive manner, he could have said: ‘There is a difference in water usage between Israelis and Palestinians of about 2:1. I am aware that part of this is due to different levels of economic development, that a share of it is due to mismanagement by the Palestinian Authority of the water systems, and another due to the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However, I think that given the important symbolism and sensitivity of water in this region, and the technological advancement of desalination and water re-usage, in which Israel is a world leader, Israel could and should go above and beyond the official agreements it signed with the Palestinian Authority, even more than it already does now, to provide Palestinians with more water.’

Such a paragraph in the speech would not have raised such criticism, but is also would not have created such intense media coverage. Could this be the real reason that Schulz preferred to not check his facts? Could it be that he knew that provocative allegations would create a greater stir than level-headed analysis that highlights the complexity of the situation? For many Israelis, Schulz’ act in the Knesset represents a dangerous and slippery slope, where even those who support Israel are willing to believe the worst about it, and lend their credibility to voicing problematic allegations against it.

Lies, False Accusations, the EU and its Parliament President

...Mr. Schulz, many Israelis are asking why, just a short time after the catastrophe that befell our people on European soil, the president of the continent's parliament has come here using figures plucked from sources that paint Israel in the same light as the Third Reich. Unlike you, I checked the facts, and I ask: Is it true?

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
13 February '14..

The alleged figures presented by EU Parliament President Martin Schulz are patently false. Actually, they are very far from the truth. Since 1967, quality of life for the Palestinians has risen exponentially -- and that includes the water amount. We can only imagine what would have been had they remained under Jordanian rule.

Schulz could have checked the figures, but instead he chose to adopt the false narrative wielded by anti-Israel organizations. NGO Monitor (an Israeli nongovernmental organization that keeps tabs on human rights NGOs in the Arab-Israeli conflict) has pointed to the Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group, a coalition of political organizations and U.N. agencies operating in the corridors of the European Union. EWASH consistently accuses Israel of "causing water insecurity among the Palestinian population," and strongly urges European countries to "reconsider the economic relations with Israel."

Not at all coincidentally, the EU, of which Schulz is the head of parliament, supports this political warfare and funds several of these organizations. The exalted peace Schulz speaks of does not coincide with the 100 million euros received by Israel and the Palestinian Authority every year -- almost all of which comes directly from European governments and is earmarked almost entirely for strengthening NGOs fighting against Israel under false claims to delegitimize it in the world.

As the years press on, it becomes more evident that the EU's appeasement toward the Palestinians -- in congruence with its subversive approach toward elected Israeli governments -- leads to the continuation of the conflict and terrorism. With the money lining the pockets of Palestinian officials and which support the international fight against Israel, the Palestinians have no reason to compromise on anything. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Martin Schulz are doing the job for them.

‘Water Apartheid’? - A consistent anti-Israel narrative, but simply not backed up by the data

...while, proportionally, “settlers” use a bit more water per capita than Palestinians – Palestinians consume roughly 4 times more total water than Israelis “settlers” in the West Bank.

Adam Levick..
CiF Watch..
11 August '13..

Harriet Sherwood published a report in the Guardian on Aug. 8 about a new Palestinian city being built near Ramallah (Rawabi rises: new West Bank city symbolises Palestine’s potential) which will eventually be home to 40,000 residents. The new city of Rawabi is being built by the Palestinian conglomerate Massar International and the government of Qatar, and will, Sherwood informs us, be a hi-tech center which will boast “shopping malls…landscaped walkways, office blocks, a conference centre, restaurants and cafes”.

However, though we’ve at times praised her modest improvements covering the region, and her tendency to provide a bit more balance to her previously one-side stories, Sherwood still has journalistic tick which continually betrays her sympathies and biases, even in otherwise unproblematic reports. A case in point is the following passage from her Aug. 8 story on Rawabi.

Water has been another huge challenge, both for construction and to service the finished buildings. Israel controls almost all water supplies; 600,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem consume almost six times as much water as 2.7 million Palestinians.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!.

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Palestinian Authority Lies like Water, Again and Again.

The Palestinian Authority considers water and waste as weapons against Israel, not as areas of cooperation with Israel. As a result, it wildly wastes water and pollutes Israel with sewage, while stealing water from Israel’s wells and pipelines and running around the world falsely accusing Israel of inequitable and discriminatory water policies.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
12 July '13..

It comes back again and again: The canard that Israel is denying West Bank Palestinians water rights negotiated under the Oslo Accords. Haaretz returns to the issue every once in a while with stories about water supply disruptions in the Palestinian Authority, Israeli confiscation of Palestinian water tanks in the Jordan Valley, or Palestinian Water Authority reports about “disproportionate” water allocations to settlements.

You have to read the fine print to discover that illegal Palestinian tapping into Israel’s water lines and massive Palestinian water wastage are the causes of the problem. You have to study the issue in depth to discover that it is not Israeli “occupation policy” but Palestinian political resistance against joint water management and cooperation – that is responsible for the slow development of the Palestinian water sector. The PA considers water and waste as weapons against Israel, not as areas of cooperation with Israel.

For much too long, Israel has failed to respond in detail to Palestinian accusations of Israeli “water apartheid” which are ubiquitous in the UN and NGO world. Only recently has the Civil Administration and the Israeli Water Authority, along with one of Israel’s top hydrologists, Prof. Haim Gvirtzman, begun to fight back with properly documented counter-claims.

The newly-released studies show clearly that that Israel has fulfilled all of its obligations according to the agreements it signed in 1995 with the Palestinian Authority (and in fact has exceeded them), while the Palestinians are wasting tremendous amounts of water while refusing to utilize modern water conservation or sewage treatment methods.

In an exceptional study published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Gvirtzman shows that large differences in per-capita consumption of natural water between Jews and Arabs that existed in 1967, when the administration of Judea and Samaria was handed over from Jordan to Israel, have been reduced over the last 40 years and are now negligible. He thoroughly refutes Palestinian accusations of inequitable and discriminatory Israeli water policies.

Water management as a weapon in Arab-Israeli conflict

The glass is arguably half empty, but also half full. 
Either way, there's no doubt someone was paid 
to fill it, and that money has gone somewhere. 
Where?

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 February '13..

Last summer, we wrote here about a campaign of allegations against Israel by, and in relation to, the terrorist regime in Gaza. The immediate trigger was a troubling essay published in Australia by the local correspondent here for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Ruth Pollard. We made efforts to engage her in discussion about it but got no response, and eventually resorted to publishing a rejoinder (entitled "Muddying troubled waters") to her claims in a different Australian paper. See "5-Jul-12: Needed: Bridge over troubled Gazan waters". Her own editors declined to consider publishing our op ed, but were kind enough to offer to pass it along to the letters editor down the hall.

Now there are some startling revelations about the exploitation of the water issue. They appear in a Jerusalem Post article by the well-connected freelance writer, Yochanan Visser. See "How water became a weapon in Arab-Israeli conflict" in yesterday's Jerusalem Post. The whole piece is worth reading if, like us, you believe that an understanding of who is and is not doing intelligent things with water is a key to understanding who does and does not want peace and a decent life for all the people living in this neighbourhood.

(Continue)

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Israel vs. Palestinian Authority - Air and water have no borders

Emily Amrousi..
Israel Hayom..
03 August '12..

While Israel watches every drop and forces its citizens to conserve water, the Palestinian Authority is reveling in a wet paradise: Dozens of illegal drilling holes are pumping water out of our common underground well; thousands of makeshift pipes redirect stolen water from Mekorot, Israel's leading water agency; their tap water (that's right, tap water — 96 percent of Palestinians have running water in their homes, in cities and in rural villages, they don't need to carry it in bottles) flows freely — and no one ever gets a water bill, nor is any type of payment collection even attempted. While orchards in the Sharon region are being uprooted because of the water shortage, half a mile away, beyond the Green Line, a carefree agricultural system flourishes.

This description, which is completely true, sounds just awful. We have grown so accustomed to thinking of our neighbors as eternally miserable that any claim that they are stealing water burns our ears, as if we have accused them of poisoning wells. I attended an Environmental Protection Ministry conference this week titled "Border-Crossing Environment," and it turns out that, at least from an environmental perspective, misery is actually the lot of the Israeli “occupier.”

Palestinians tell a good story about how Israel is stealing water from them. They display a thirsty, decrepit old man standing near a dried-up well, but even they have to smile every time this lie is repeated. Before the terrible Israeli occupation they were using a primitive water system based on ancient aqueduct systems and wells. This system supplied only 17 billion gallons per year, mostly for agricultural purposes.

In 1967, Israel occupied the territory and set up the infrastructure for the country's national water carrier, used modern drilling systems, connected cities and villages, and what do you know — the Palestinian water supply tripled to 47 billions gallons annually. This is on top of the illegal Palestinian drilling. Every time our friends in Jenin pump a little more water, the water level in the Jezreel Valley goes down.

Steal it, waste it, but still complain? It's PA crying time again.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
19 July '12..

It comes back again and again: The canard that Israel is denying West Bank Palestinians water rights negotiated under the Oslo Accords. Just last week Haaretz regurgitated the issue with a story about water supply disruptions in eastern Jerusalem, and another story about confiscation of water tanks in the Jordan Valley. You had to read the fine print to discover that illegal Palestinian tapping into Israel's water lines were the cause of the problem.

For much too long, Israel has failed to respond fully to Palestinian water claims against Israel, which are ubiquitous in the U.N. and NGO world. Only recently has the Civil Administration and the Israeli Water Authority, along with one of Israel's top hydrologists, Professor Haim Gvirtzman of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University, begun to fight back with properly documented counter-claims.

The newly released studies show clearly that Israel has fulfilled all of its obligations according to the agreements it signed in 1995 with the Palestinian Authority (and in fact has exceeded them), while the Palestinians are wasting tremendous amounts of water while refusing to utilize modern water conservation or sewage treatment methods.

In an exceptional study published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Gvirtzman shows that large differences in per-capita consumption of natural water between Jews and Arabs that existed in 1967, when the administration of Judea and Samaria was handed over from Jordan to Israel, have been reduced over the last 40 years and are now negligible. The Palestinian Authority currently consumes 200 million cubic meters of water every year, with Israel providing more than a quarter of this. This is more than Israel is supposed to provide to a full Palestinian state under a final settlement arrangement.

Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority claims that it suffers from water shortages in its towns and villages due to the Israeli occupation, and it cites international law in support of its claims. These claims amount to more than 700 million cubic meters of water per year, including rights over the groundwater reservoir of the mountain aquifer, the Gaza Strip coastal aquifer and the Jordan River. These demands amount to more than 50 percent of the total natural water available between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Gvirtzman refutes these claims and points to the real problem: The Palestinian Authority employs no sustainable development practices when it comes to water usage. It has done nothing to prevent massive leaking in its domestic pipelines, nothing to implement conservative irrigation techniques, and nothing to recycle sewage water for irrigation.