Government slams French water 'apartheid' report

[vminfla]

The Foreign Ministry slammed a French legislator’s report on the country’s “apartheid” water policies as “venomous,” inaccurate and strewn with anti-Israel propaganda.

“The systematic evading of simple facts that are available for verification within the field indicate the blatant bias of the author,” a ministry spokesman said.

Not only does Israel does not take away water from the PA, it actually supplies the neighboring government with much more than it is required to under the Oslo Accords, the ministry continued. Meanwhile, the spokesman explained, Palestinians are actually abandoning their own commitments by perpetuating pirated well-drilling all over the region.


“It is just the opposite of apartheid,” he told the Post, stressing that since Israel gained control over the area from Jordan, it had connected more than 700 villages to running water.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=254047

Who knew that the cheese eating surrender monkeys were so blatantly biased

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. Two questions for you:

1) How much water per capita do settlers in the West Bank receive?

2) How much water per capita do Palestinians in the West Bank receive?

[vminfla]

3. Israel has fulfilled all of its obligations according to the signed water agreements with the PA

In 1967, only four Palestinian towns were connected to a running water network. In March 2010, 641 of 708 Palestinian communities, which include more than 96% of the Palestinian population, were connected to running water, while in Jordan and Syria, most towns and villages are not. In Amman and Damascus, water distribution takes place only once or twice each week.

The Palestinians claim that the water consumption of the average Israeli is four times greater than that of the average Palestinian. However, in 2006, water consumption was 170 cubic meters per person per year for Israelis and 129 for Palestinians. According to the PA, roughly 33.6% of their water leaks from internal pipelines, compared with 11% in Israel.

The Palestinians have violated their part of the agreement by refusing to build sewage treatment plants (despite available international financing). Raw sewage discharged from Palestinian communities flows freely in many streams in the West Bank.

http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS94.pdf

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Two questions for you:

1) How much water per capita do settlers in the West Bank receive?

2) How much water per capita do Palestinians in the West Bank receive?

[vminfla]

7. Asked and answered

http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS94.pdf

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. Sorry, I missed the link.

Anyhow, looking at it briefly before I go to bed, three observations:

1) He claims the Palestinian population is 1.4 million. This is strong evidence that the rest of his figures may well be bullshit too.
2) He carefully excludes a large chunk of Israeli water consumption.
3) Even having carefully cooked his figures, he's forced to admit that there's a 25% discrepancy.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

16. I'm afraid you're talking to a dead man. nt

[2ndAmForComputers]

18. w00t!

My first kill!

[Crunchy Frog]

21. Really? Yayyyyy!!!!!

I really miss the old tombstone.

[Shaktimaan]

23. ???

In 2006 there were around 1.4 mil Palestinians in the west bank. What figures are you using? (And is it strong evidence that your other figures are also bullshit?)

The Israeli population number used was over 7 mil. which is about right. Who was excluded? A 25% discrepancy is significantly different than the 500% noted in another post in this thread.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. Between 1.8 and 2.5, probably nearer the upper end of that.

1.4 seems to be a long way off the end of figures given by responsible sources, and well into "hardcore hasbara" territory.

[Shaktimaan]

29. What are your sources?

My source was wikipedia quoting the world bank. (They are hasbara? I never knew.) According to them the population was about 1.5 in 2006.

In December 2007, an official Census conducted by the Palestinian Authority found that the Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) was 2,345,000.[35][36] However, the World Bank and American-Israeli Demographic Research Group identified a 32% discrepancy between first-grade enrollment statistics documented by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)’ 2007 projections,[37] with questions also raised about the PCBS’ growth assumptions for the period 1997-2003.[38] Several media outlets have suggested that PCBS data inflate the 2007 census figures by 30%, contradicting both the Palestinian Ministry of Education's enrollment data and actual emigration growth documented by Israeli Border Police, which in 2006 observed 25,000 Palestinian Arabs emigrating from Palestinian Authority-controlled territories.[39] These data sets suggest that the Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank in 2007 was approximately 1.5 million.

[azurnoir]

27. Here 2010 figures 2,271,855 Palestinians living West Bank

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html

keep in mind 96% of that number or 2,180,980 are crowded into 38% of the land area while Israeli's numbering around 296,700 live in 62% of the land area

and I would wager the water allocation is every bit as equitable

[Shaktimaan]

30. That doesn't make sense.

If Israeli settlers live in 62% of the land then your numbers add up to 100%. People live on every square inch of the area? What about the dead sea?

And Israel did not close down villages, relocating Palestinians, squeezing them all together or anything like that. Your numbers make zero sense. Where are you even getting them from? Settlements take up about 5% of the west bank. So where is this 62% coming from?

[Jefferson23]

8. Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of water

27 October 2009
Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.

These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027

[Shaktimaan]

34. a trickle?

If Israel's population is 7.5 mil using 80% of the water and Palestine's is 2.5 mil using 20% then that is only a difference of 20% per capita. But since this is only talking about the aquifer water it only includes West Bank Palestinians really, so it's less.

And according to your stats in some places the Palestinians can lose 20 or 30% of that water due to leaky pipes... Jenin was 34%!!!! They should probably fix their pipes and then they'd face less of a water shortage.

[Jefferson23]

2. The cheese eating surrender monkeys? Please elaborate. n/t

[bemildred]

4. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese-eating_surrender_monkeys

The term enjoyed considerable popularity in rsponse to the French lack of enthusiasm before the Iraq war.

[Jefferson23]

5. Ah, and all that Freedom Fries bullshit too, I see. thanks bemildred. n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Did you see this? It explains a lot...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=275144&sub=trans

[Scurrilous]

15. "...non-ironic fan of Chuck Norris."

[Jefferson23]

17. I had not, thank you Violet. n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

35. It explains a lot...

That person was trolling Politics 2012, and having seen the alert on the post that was the final straw, it's not a strange banning comment at all.

There's been plenty of DUers banned, some of them having been here for years, without any posts being hidden. The vagaries of juries isn't any indication of anything. For example, I alerted on an extremely anti-Muslim post, which a jury left standing, but Skinner stepped in, deleting the post and banning the poster. That person also hadn't had any posts hidden at DU3...

[Jefferson23]

10. The Gap in Water Consumption between Palestinians and Israelis

The discrimination in utilization of the resources shared by Israel and the Palestinian Authority is clearly reflected in the figures on water consumption by each population. Daily per capita water consumption in the West Bank for domestic, urban, and industrial use is some 73 liters. In areas in the northern West Bank, consumption is much lower. In 2008, per capita daily consumption was 44 liters in the Jenin area and 37 liters in the Tubas area.

There is a huge disparity between Israeli and Palestinian consumption. Per capita water consumption in Israeli towns is 242 liters and in local councils, 211 liters. In other words, per capita use in Israel is three and a half times higher than in the West Bank.

The World Health Organization and the United States Agency for International Development recommend 100 liters of water per capita per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption. This amount includes, in addition to domestic use, consumption in hospitals, schools, businesses, and other public institutions. Palestinian daily consumption is one-third less than the recommended quantity.

Statistics

Population of the West Bank Not Connected to a Running-Water Network, by District*

http://www.btselem.org/water/statistics

[shira]

12. B'tselem claims discrimination. Please...

The water libel

A recently released official French report that blames Israeli “apartheid” water policies for Palestinian water problems was angrily rejected by Israel, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman noted that the “systematic evading of simple facts that are available for verification within the field indicate the blatant bias of the author.” But the French report was (unsurprisingly) not the first one to falsely accuse Israel of depriving the Palestinians of water that is rightfully theirs.

In October 2009, Amnesty International made similar charges in a report that was poetically entitled “Troubled Waters.” Israel responded to the allegations by pointing out that the Amnesty report “ignored Israeli data, papers and reports, although they contain verifiable facts presented with total transparency. This questionable approach, which consists in systematically disregarding Israeli material while relying exclusively on Palestinian allegations, raises doubts as to the real intentions of the report’s authors and of the organization itself.” The Water Authority also provided a detailed response refuting Amnesty’s claims.

By now, there is also a new study by Professor Haim Gvirtzman, a hydrologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University, who highlighted how ridiculous the charge of “apartheid” was by pointing out that since 1967, Israel had connected more than 700 Palestinian villages to running water. Or, to quote the statement by Israel’s Water Authority:

more...
http://warped-mirror.com/2012/01/20/the-water-libel/

[Jefferson23]

19. There ya go, anyone interested can read your link

and mine. Good luck.

[azurnoir]

24. I dunno' I think the sources being used here speak volumes

for the cause that they defend Warped MIrror PJ's Media, Volokh Conspiracy, Hurry up Harry..........

[Jefferson23]

31. Agreed, that is why I wished her good luck.

[Shaktimaan]

32. what do you mean?

Neither are particularly trustworthy sources I guess. The Jerusalem Post is a legit newspaper, but it is just a blog on there. B'tselem has an unfortunate history of getting some of their stats extremely wrong. Or was that Peace Now?

[Jefferson23]

36. I wished her luck, meaning, no one has control over which source

will be accepted or not by an given individual. All one can do is put it
out there on a political forum..I have no delusions any Pro-Israeli poster
here will change their minds. That is not why I participate here.


So neither are particularly trustworthy, according to you..since when..what am I missing here?

I am not aware of Peace Now having a report such as this on the water issue., but perhaps
that is the group you have it confused with..I don't know.



You, 2007: I think it says that your source,

first off, is crappy. B'tselem is a trustworthy pro-palestinian resource. I don't agree with them on everything, but I trust their motive which is important.
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=171886&mesg_id=171976


You, 2012: snip*B'tselem is a fair organization. And they freely admit that they exist to criticize Israeli actions in the hopes of making them better. This is a noble goal and unlike Amnesty they do a good job of looking at those actions within the greater context of the conflict at large.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=2314

[Crunchy Frog]

22. The "water libel"?!? I think I've just about seen it all now.

[shira]

13. The devastating truth about water and Palestinian statehood

On June 15, 2011 The Jerusalem Post published an article about the Palestinian water crisis, written by the head of the Palestinian Water Authority, Dr. Shaddad Atilli.

In his article, Atilli wrote that Israel’s ‘discriminatory policies’ are to blame for the lack of water in Palestinian society. He claimed that Israel uses the Joint Israeli Palestinian Water Committee (JWC) to veto and delay Palestinian water projects. He also wrote that Israel illegally exploits 90% of the shared water sources.

Furthermore, he claimed that because of the Israeli theft of water and the destruction of water wells and treatment plants, people realize that the two-state solution is rapidly fading.

His libelous article, full of distortions, outright lies and false accusations, was yet another proof of the PA’s intransigence.

Recently our organization, Missing Peace, obtained authentic papers documenting meetings of the Joint Israeli Palestinian Water Committee (JWC), and correspondence between Colonel Avi Shalev, head of the International relations branch of COGAT, and Dr.Atilli. These documents paint an entirely different picture.

Contrary to Atilli’s outrageous accusations, the Palestinian Authority has been sabotaging the two-state solution by preventing the development of an independent water infrastructure for the future Palestinian state.

more...
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=235772

[LeftishBrit]

14. 'Cheese eating surrender monkeys'??? You think THAT isn't blatantly biased?

[Ruby the Liberal]

20. Member is no longer with us.

See Violet's link upthread.

[gaelic]

33. Colonys in West Bank Boast Lush Pools

Gaza desalinization plant was a threat, so was bombed by IDF.