Amnesty International: Israel curbing water to Palestinians

"Lastly, all modern, developed 21st century societies use much more water than developing societies" But usually all modern, developed 21st century societies use water resources from their own territory ...

doris there is a water crisis in the whole middle east the yemen syria and jordan have practically no water at all! iraq is complaining about turkey damming the euphrates and egypt is complaining about less water coming down to the nile . if israel stops sending water to jordan ther might be more water for their own arabs !

CBK: "Anyway as all the land West of the Jordan is Israel`s I do not see how Arabs can make any claims on Israel`s water supplies?" The Palestinians are under an Israeli military ocupation. They are, without a doubt, "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions. The occupying power is under a LEGAL obligation to provide for the essential needs of the protected persons who have come under their control, and that definitely includes "water". You may as well claim that Israel has the right to put plastic bags over their heads to stop them breathing all that zionist air.....

What will happen to poor Israel when the Palestinians get their own state and turn off the water to Israel? Another war started by Israel maybe?

Impossible. Amnesty Int'l is anti-semitic

Time for Pals to spend some of the aid billions on recycling etc especially in area A &B where they are in charge and the vast majority live Qassams do not help their cause infrastructure does.

Israel has to import 99% of its oil from the outside world. If Israel play games with the Palestinians by squeezing its water supplies, than the outside world can do the same to Israel by cutting off its oil supply.

Israel created this water shortage by its un-lawful expansion and punitive policies in the territories and it has both an international responsibilty and a moral responsibility to stop guzzling down Palestinian water and short changing them. How cruel & unkind Israel has gotten. Where are the voices of outrage? Dutch

water comes from multiple sources. Time Pals used some of the aid billions for recycling and desalination particularly in area A&B which is where the vast majority of them live.

A democratic society allows people like you plenty of space to criticise. Which part of the water has Palestinian written on it?

Israel is located west of the blue line, the water is to the east. Taking water from the neighbours in a desert environment is a genocidal act. Better stick to bottles (glass).

The Jerusalem Post has an article that clearly explains why this "hit piece" is wildly inaccurate and biased. Typical Amnesty International on Israel, conclusions first, and then cherry pick for supporting facts while inconveniently ignoring any non-suportive facts!

the mid east is running out of water due to the population explosion ! jordan and syria have no water the yemen has no water iraq is being deprived by turkey !. even egypt has problems as the source of the nile is drying up slowly and the source countries are taking more!

"Lastly, all modern, developed 21st century societies use much more water than developing societies" But usually all modern, developed 21st century societies satisfy their needs with the resources of their own territories ...

It is interesting to see people pointing the finger at water practices in Gaza while the Israeli government refuses to allow the supplies needed to address the issue into Gaza. (Oh, and comparing data on water consumption in countries like Canada and the US, where the majority of the population, and industry, is located in areas of abundant fresh water is a little misleading. How about using the figures from Australia)

The Amnesty report tells us nothing new. It has been known for years that Israel is stealing Palestinian water. Israeli response to such reports is typically the big lie. The government seems to believe that shouting denials at maximum volume will somehow convince. It doesn't, any more than does their rssponse to the Goldstone Report.

Israel is world famous in water managment they invented drip systems for agriculture and help developping seawater desalination plants to convert sea water to potable water a tecnology the saudis are using to this day.the israelis created a system that delivers water from the north to the south.All these measures show that they were aware of the importance of water and took action in order to confront a shortage of water ,what have the palestinian done to improve their water situation ? did they build with the generous moneis they got from the E.U water treatment plants ? NO!!! they prefer to spend in the armed strugle which took them nowhere.that is the reality and even amnesty can not dispute this.

Arabs want all the water they can waste but do not want to pay for it or build any infrastructure. Its not uncommon to see hoses running in Arab towns as the water goes into the sewer and to see Arabs illegally tapping into water mains to steal water. Anyway as all the land West of the Jordan is Israel's I do not see how Arabs can make any claims on Israel's water supplies?

Water is biased -- it runs to the lowest point. This happens to be Israel. Now c'mon, water is one of the main reasons Israel stays put on the West Bank.

.in retaliation for the rockets launched against us,Israel should have cut the water flow and eletricity to them.Would cost much less materially and in bad propaganda.Since Hamas took control of Gaza there was no more reason to sell them anything.Water and energy should have been used as strategic weapons against them from the moment they continued to shoot rockets.A shortage of these services for a long time would have a devastating effect on their support of Hamas,and could lead to their overthrow in a violent uprising. .But as allways,israeli politicians are unable to use their brains.Olmert and Barak,these two supreme examples of brickheads can"t think of anything else but a military operation. .No more water being sold to Gaza would mean now 1.5 millon less consumers and Israel wouldn"t be in the water crisis it is now.

If Israel would give Palestinians the amount of water Amnesty is demanding from it then the aquifer where this water comes from will be empty in less than 2 years. If Palestinians now have little water then (if Israel would follow AI demads) they will have none.

1. The amount of population a country has is not relevant when you are speaking about how much water per head the country uses. 2. There is a good case to be made that they would have more agriculture if they had enough water. If you don't have enough water for your people, it limits what you can use for agriculture.

Israel has been pumping water from the OPT for years. Already Bassam Shaka'a, the former mayor of Nablus who was maimed by the "Jewish Underground", complained that Israel prohibited his town from drilling for water West of the city. It was in the late 1970s.

"...fresh water per capita in Israel approximately four times that of WBG [WestBank and Gaza]" "joint governance rules and water allocations established under the 1995 Oslo interim agreement, still in effect today, fall short of the needs of the Palestinian people" Shock Horror! Is world banking now controlled by left wing Palestinian sympathizers too? http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/WESTBANKGAZAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22145826~pagePK:1497618~piPK:217854~theSitePK:294365,00.html

Stealing Palestinian water then selling it back to the Palestinians. What was the stereotype those Republicans in North Carolina was talking about again?

trying to kill this story. Wonder why? Regev is only used these days if there is something really serious going on. Usually we get a nice looking Israeli girl in a pony tail telling us Israel is a modern democratic society built on western values and men only sidewalks.

#13. Water consumption increases with population growth and extreme draught. So, the allocation of water has to be adjusted to current realities.

Regarding the canard of Israelis using much more water than Palestinians. Sorry, it doesn’t wash, so to speak. A study produced by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences along with their Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli counterparts ten years ago, found little difference between water consumption in Israeli and Palestinian urban areas. “Per capita water use for urban Palestinians reaches a maximum of 100 cubic meters a year, similar to Israeli use.” The study suggests that low figures for rural Palestinians “is likely to increase with improvement in the level of living.” More telling, however, is the report’s finding that “water losses unaccounted for [theft or leaks] in the [Palestinian] distribution network” reach 55 percent[!] Lastly, all modern, developed 21st century societies use much more water than developing societies. “The United States and Canada are the highest per capita water users in the world,” according to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, “…per person usage is more than 2.5 times that in Asia or Europe, and over six times that in Africa.” Cross the border into Mexico and per capita water usage drops by two-thirds.

because obviously Amnesty International is completely biased. Obviously Israel does more than it share to provide water to palestinians. Obviously the palestinians themselves are to blame for the shortages!

Let me see if I understand this: Israel is obligated by treaty to supply water to a people who deny their right to exist as a national entity (both the {PA & Hamas) and who hurdle thousands of missiles in their direction and should it then follow that Israel should trade water for missiles?

Yarkon-Tanninim Aquifer: 320 MCM to Israel and 20 MCM to the Palestinians. Nablus-Gilboa Aquifer: 116 MCM to the settlers only. The Eastern Aquifer: 40 MCM to the settlers and 60 to the Palestinians. Summary: 475 MCM from the West Bank for Israelis and 80 MCM for the Palestinians.

This isn't exactly surprising. Israel has been taking most of the water supplies from the West Bank for years, and charging the Palestinians for most of the water they are allowed to have. In fact, there's a compelling argument water is a major reason why Israel wants the West Bank. One thing the report mentions that this article skipped is that the land cut off by the Israeli barrier just happens to cover most of a major aquifer. The other is the destruction of Palestinian home rainwater tanks and collection systems. (Oh, and the reason Israelis use so much water per capita in the West Bank? Partly agriculture - which is a major use of the land taken in the West Bank - and partly stuff like swimming pools. While Palestinians may not recycle as much water as Israelis, they don't get through nearly as much in the first place, partly due to more water-efficient crops.)

It's four times more water per person, you fool.

for Caesarea... nice swimming pool at the resort/hotel.

Former Ambassador Yoram Ettinger recently published the results of a detailed population analysis. "An audit of births, deaths, school and voter registration and migration documentation from Israel and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics...exposes a 66 percent distortion in the current number of West Bank (or, Judea and Samaria) Arabs: 1.55 million and not 2.5 million, as claimed by the Palestinian Authority...Inflated numbers have provided the Palestinians with inflated international foreign aid and inflated water supply by Israel."

AI are terror backup supported organization, suppose to be charge as terrorist organization the kies are part of their policy, take care better of muslims 55 countries without human rights war and wars ruled by clans. No arabs no wars cheap energy

Has Lieberman been given a job more suited to his level of talent? It seems this morning that basically only pro-Israeli posts are allowed on the water report and on the report about poor old Abbas being discredited by Israel. Go away Lieberman. Let us have our old censor back who actually allowed occasional criticism of Israel.

If you factor out agriculture you'll find that the numbers look quite different. Israel does restrict water supplies but beyond the politics (and water is politics) the truth is that what little water is currently available within the Arab controlled areas is allocated by their leaders along tribal lines and used generally for personal aims without collective care. Raw sewerage and trash seem to be openly dumped everywhere (I saw it first hand in Gaza on my first trip there in the early '80s so its NOT new). Projects to better manage water, waste and develop more efficient agriculture have been well funded and training grants for education abroad are abundant. One word sums it up: corruption. I have met some good scientists but the "middle eastern system" means that ability or formal education mean nothing compared to clan, mafia and politics. The funding and resources disappear into the cracks, systems don't get used and projects are left half-completed to rot and decay.

This is down right criminal ...

the real name is amnesy!

Pals are Lazy takes Israel is facing a severe water problem So is the world Others trying to solve problem Pals take take take Blame Blame Blame

It is obviously through the fact that they use statistic with Arabic number like 300 for Jews and only 70 for Palestinians.If Amensty would use the Jewish way to number,the Ghemetria system,all will be opposed.

c.m.! Amnesty works for terrorist arab regimes that fund them! of course they would distort the truth in irder to get more funds from these arab regimes!

you can pretty much rest assured that whatever they 'find' is prejudiced against Israel, every time. I can't recall one good thing they've ever said about Israel, can you?

Where do the think all the food is grown that feeds the palestinians? Most of it in the Dan region, the rest in the Galilee & Jordan Valley. Obviuosly Israel is going to be using much more water because it's an industrialized nation that feeds itself. No palestinins are dying of thirst, yet this does't stop them from stealing water.

QUOTE: "Israel's water authority said those numbers were misleading because they took into account internal distribution and did not compare total water consumption. It said the total figures were 408 liters per day for Israelis and 287 liters for Palestinians" Where did these figures come from? Certainly n ot from my water bill; I wish I were allowed 408 meteres a day (I'd bottle the excess and sell it to homeless and poor people(I'm sor4ry, I ment GIVE it to homelelss people). Amnesty, Wake up!

Americans use 2 times more petroleum than EU citizens, and they pay a price for it. probably The Gazans with their high birthrate did not anticipate ? and if you only think about war, there is no room for developing water plants. Of course Israeli's use more water with all their agriculture and feeding the Palestinians.

The Palestinians are not the only people affected by the water restrictions, Israel is surrering a severe water shortage also, and . Istaeli citizens are affected to the point that there are restrictions on the usage of water, being allowed a very small amount of cubic meters for a family of 2, and a drought tax on any excess above the amount fixed by the municipality. Don't cry our dear Palestinian neighbors who want to through us into the Mediteranian!

Not on the west side. We would have given them some of our water, but not while they try to murder us and steal our land.

Israel is facing a water severe water problem. While Israelis are going to be fined for above water consumption if they go over quota, I do see this affecting the West Bank Palestinians who do not obey such laws and do not pay their bills. Israelis pay up and are brought to court , Palestinians in the West bank ignore such stuff. Who pays the bills? this is a false allegation ( coming from Amnesty a political pro palestinian group who cares. Show us the evidence of this please. facts.

How did they get the 300 liter/day figure? Assuming someone is taking two showers per day and use let's say five liters for his own consumption, how do we get to the 300 liter figure?

there's four times more israelis than palestinians, it's normal that Israel consumes four times more water than the Gaza strip.

Sadly, misappropriation of the scarce water resources has been Israeli policy for years. This is surely wicked. Is there any humanitarian conscience left?

Next time, Amnesty should look at the water recycling data--Israel uses 90% recycled water for agriculture and over 50% recycled water for industry, while the Palestinians recycle... nada, not a single liter. Just another instance of the Palestinians shooting themselves in the foot because doing "the right thing" (which they're committed to do in the Oslo Accord anyway) because it MIGHT benefit Israel, too. One more proof that the Palestinians are world-class losers.

Hw about printing: "Israeli gov reducing water supply to its Jewish citizens"...its true. Or how about printing: "Jordanian Gov reducing water supply to Palastinians in capital Aman to 2 hours aday"...thats true too?