What will Dalia do when her shower runs dry?

One evening, when Dalia Itzik was washing the dishes, the water ran out. By then Ronit Tirosh had already spent three days in her shower waiting for the water to come back so she could rinse out the shampoo. But worst is that the Kadima Knesset members have to draw drinking water from the well in the Knesset courtyard.

It will be moving to see actress Renana Raz appear in Kadima's commercial, her skin peeling as she explains how she hasn't watered her face in a month because she can't afford to pay the "violent, unjust" tax, as Itzik has called it.

"What do we want? To shower, wash dishes and drink water." Some slogan. How about "Dry out the Kinneret, not the garden"? Or "Desertify the orchards, not the lawns"? Ooh, how about "Better desiccated than alienated"?

Say that Benjamin Netanyahu, no small populist himself, agrees to fold and cancel the "drought tax." The water level in the Kinneret will fall below the black line. The coastal aquifer will become salinated to a degree that will kill the lawns anyway, and the mountain aquifer will disappear entirely. For what purpose? For the rich to continue watering their lawns for pennies?

Don't think Itzik has no solutions: "Build an infrastructure reservoir, in the form of desalination plants. We asked for drought tax revenues to be earmarked for desalination but were refused."

Ah. Kadima would have accepted the drought tax if its revenues were to be used to build desalination facilities. Then Itzik would agree to turn off her dishwasher and draw water from the well in the yard.

The problem isn't money for desalination, it's the glacial pace of building the plants. At the minimum, including publication of tenders and planning, it takes three years. In 2012 there will be water for all, perhaps. But it won't be cheap. It will be expensive. Very, very expensive.