They'd rather die of thirst than recognize Israel's legitimacy
Jonathan Tobin has a must-read commentary on why Israel's
brilliant solution to its water crisis won't
promote peace with the 'Palestinians.'
Only a few years ago, Israelis were concerned about the question of
how they could continue to grow their first world economy with a growing
population in a country where there simply wasn’t enough water. What
followed was a major investment in technology and enactment of sensible
policies about water use that led to this startling fact. As the Times
states, “More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households,
agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.” Though water is
expensive, the prospect that the country will run out is gone. In a
region that is in desperate need of Israel’s expertise, you would think
this development would lead to better relations with the Palestinians
and the Arab world. But what is missing from the Times’ story
is the fact that there is little sign of any interest in cooperation on
the part of Israel’s antagonists. As much as they ought to take
advantage of the Jewish state’s advances, such concerns are always
secondary to their main priority: fighting Israel.
The story of how Israel revolutionized its production and use of
water is another proud chapter in the country’s history. In the past
couple of decades as attacks on Israel’s legitimacy have multiplied, we
haven’t heard much about Jews making the desert bloom. That old line
about the rebirth of this old land under the care of a returned people
has been treated as an outdated cliché by biased journalists who
preferred story lines that reinforced the libels about Israel being an
apartheid state. That theme was also part of the narrative about water.
To the extent that water has been mentioned much in the news, it
generally served as another point of attack as Palestinian claims that
Israel was “stealing” their water in the West Bank was often reported as
fact rather than a political talking point. As even the Times notes in
its feature, Israel continues to supply the Palestinians with more water
than it is required to do under the Oslo Accords. Israel shares the
mountain aquifer that runs through the West Bank with the Palestinians.
But the Palestinians position is that they are entitled to all of it,
not just their share.
The underlying problem of that discussion has
always been the assumption that all of the territory is “Palestinian
land’ to which Israel has no legitimate claim. But even if you think
Israel ought to cede much of that territory if the Palestinians are ever
willing to make peace, the problem with this argument is that the Arabs
still don’t recognize Israeli rights to any water except the sea into
which they have been trying to push the Jews ever since they began
returning to their ancient homeland.
It might make sense for Israelis and Arabs to cooperate about water.
But if water remains an issue that exacerbates the conflict rather than
solving it, it’s not because the Israelis aren’t willing to share their
expertise or even some of the water they are desalinizing or treating
for further use. It’s because water, like economic development, has
always been beside the point to Palestinians and other Arabs and
Muslims.
Read it all.
Gee - where have I heard
something like that before?
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, desalination, drinking water, Kineret, New York Times, Palestinian economy, sea water, wastewater treatment, water, water shortage
As California thirsts, Israel beats its water crisis - permanently
When I was in the US two weeks ago, I was told that in California, it's forbidden to flush your toilet unless someone has had a bowel movement in it. Meanwhile, here in Israel, we have resolved a water crisis that threatened us with a
perpetual drought.
A
hefty tax was placed on excessive household water consumption,
penalizing families with lawns, swimming pools or leaky pipes. So many
of Mr. Zvieli’s clients went over to synthetic grass and swapped their
seasonal blooms for hardy, indigenous plants more suited to a semiarid
climate. “I worried about where gardening was going,” said Mr. Zvieli,
56, who has tended people’s yards for about 25 years.
Across
the country, Israelis were told to cut their shower time by two
minutes. Washing cars with hoses was outlawed and those few wealthy
enough to absorb the cost of maintaining a lawn were permitted to water
it only at night.
“We
were in a situation where we were very, very close to someone opening a
tap somewhere in the country and no water would come out,” said Uri
Schor, the spokesman and public education director of the government’s
Water Authority.
But that was about six years ago. Today, there is plenty of water in Israel. A lighter version of an old “Israel
is drying up” campaign has been dusted off to advertise baby diapers.
“The fear has gone,” said Mr. Zvieli, whose customers have gone back to
planting flowers.
As California and other western areas of the United States grapple with
an extreme drought, a revolution has taken place here. A major national
effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater
has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even
during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli
households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.
...
The
turnaround came with a seven-year drought, one of the most severe to
hit modern Israel, that began in 2005 and peaked in the winter of 2008
to 2009. The country’s main natural water sources — the Sea of Galilee
in the north and the mountain and coastal aquifers — were severely
depleted, threatening a potentially irreversible deterioration of the
water quality.
Measures
to increase the supply and reduce the demand were accelerated, overseen
by the Water Authority, a powerful interministerial agency established
in 2007.
Desalination
emerged as one focus of the government’s efforts, with four major
plants going into operation over the past decade. A fifth one should be
ready to operate within months.
Together, they will produce a total of
more than 130 billion gallons of potable water a year, with a goal of
200 billion gallons by 2020.
Israel
has, in the meantime, become the world leader in recycling and reusing
wastewater for agriculture. It treats 86 percent of its domestic
wastewater and recycles it for agricultural use — about 55 percent of
the total water used for agriculture. Spain is second to Israel,
recycling 17 percent of its effluent, while the United States recycles
just 1 percent, according to Water Authority data.
Read the whole thing. Part of the problem was that although Israel was the
world leader in desalination long before 2008, all of our desalination plants were
being built abroad. I'm glad to see that the government has turned things around.
Someone named "Netanyahu" has been Prime Minister since 2009. But don't expect him to get any of the credit.
Labels: desalination, drinking water, Kineret, sea water, wastewater treatment, water, water shortage
The truth behind the 'Palestinian' water supplies
It's been nearly two weeks since
Dumkopf Schulz came to the Knesset and repeated as fact 'Palestinian' lies about Israel stealing 'Palestinian' water. Since then, there has been very little authoritative written about the water situation. Now, there is a report out that explains
why the 'Palestinians' have less water than Israelis.
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.
There's much more.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: drinking water, Palestinian Authority, water shortage
This really stinks
The 'Palestinians' are
polluting the ground waters in Judea and Samaria with untreated sewage because their own sewage treatment is inadequate or non-existent, and they refuse to allow their towns to be hooked up to the same sewage lines as the Jewish towns in the area.
Almost 90 percent of sewage from Palestinian towns in the West Bank
flows into the environment untreated, contaminating the groundwater and
162 kilometers of streams, according to a report prepared by the Israel
Parks and Nature Authority. A lack of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation
has impeded solutions to this problem.
The
report, prepared for the Environmental Protection Ministry and the
Civil Administration in the West Bank, is based on water samples taken
from various locales in 2012. It found that some 50 million cubic meters
of sewage flow into the environment from Palestinian towns every year.
Only 5 million cubic meters go to treatment plants, some of which are
substandard. This affects Israel as well as the West Bank, since the
polluted streams flow into Israel.
The
city of Nablus exemplifies the problem. It has 126,000 residents, as
well as many olive presses that produce extremely toxic wastes. It has
no treatment plant (though one is now being built), so most of the
waste goes into the Nablus Stream. From there, about a third seeps into
the groundwater of the mountain aquifer, a major source of drinking
water for both Palestinians and Israelis. The rest flows into the
Alexander Stream in Israel.
Tul
Karm’s waste treatment plant broke down last week, as it does several
times a year, sending untreated sewage into the Te’enim Stream, and from
there to Israel.
“This is an area in which we invested great effort
cleaning up and repairing damage caused during the winter,” said Nissim
Almon, head of the Sharon Drainage Authority. “Now all that work is
gone.”
But
the worst problem, according to the report, is Hebron, which has nearly
170,000 inhabitants. Its waste includes toxic runoff from industries
including stonecutting and leatherworking. More than 80 of the city’s
100 stone-cutting plants send their waste into pirate drainage pools,
from which it flows into the Hebron Stream and then to Israel. Waste
from the Hebron area alone has contaminated around 43 kilometers of
streams.
I guess if you cut off your nose to spite your face, you can't smell the stench anyway.
But if the 'Palestinians' cannot cooperate on this, what makes anyone think they will cooperate on any kind of security arrangement that could make a 'two-state solution' workable?
Labels: drinking water, Judea and Samaria, Palestinian water infrastructure, wastewater treatment
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, July 24.
1) Candid Egyptian Camera
A number of bloggers have written about the MEMRI video of Egyptian actors appearing on a TV show under the pretext that it's an interview with a German TV station. Then it slips that it is really an Israeli TV show and the subjects fly into rages over the deception. In the end each one is told that it was all a joke and the hosts and producers are all good Egyptians and Muslims and all is well.
Elder of Ziyon offers an interesting contrast.
I was struck by this exchange between the first actor and the hostess. In his rage the actor, a beefy middle aged man, decked the hostess, a slight young woman. (Unsurprisingly, she did not appear to be amused by his reaction.)
You brought it upon yourself. Why did you fall so quickly?
Iman Mubarak: You hit me so hard.
Ayman Kandeel: It was just one slap.
Iman Mubarak: You see what can happen to the interviewer?
Amr ‘Alaa: People, let’s have a round of applause for Iman.
Ayman Kandeel [to Iman Mubarak]: After the show, come to my car with me. I’ll put some lotion on your back.
Iman Mubarak: I don’t want anything.
I assume that the first line here is from Ayman Kandeel, the actor. But it's pretty incredible that he comes on to her so blatantly, though given what we know of abuse of women in Egypt it's not all that surprising. (Though the offer of the massage wasn't an attack, it shows a lack of regard for the hostess as a person.)
2) Syria by the sea
Two weeks ago Jonathan Spyer wrote in an extensive overview, The Sovereignty of Violence of the civil war in Syria:
In Idleb, the army controls the main highways, but the troops now rarely venture too far away from the main road. In the open areas and in the villages, armed men wait to strike at cumbersome, unsuspecting patrols.
It is a cruel, ugly and brutal conflict. Assad, aware that the walls are closing in, is employing his sectarian thugs in what looks like a systematic attempt to clear out non-Alawis from the Latakia Governate in the north-west. He appears to be creating a stronghold of Alawi population, which will form a safe zone and baseline for his side in the sectarian civil war now under way in Syria.
His forces routinely butcher civilians. Whole families in Taftanaz, in Idleb Province. Children in Houla. These are only the examples that the news media or researchers managed to reach. This is a regime steeped in blood.
Yesterday, Lee Smith offered a similar assessment:
As Tony Badran, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has documented, the regime seems to be waging a campaign of sectarian cleansing in order to carve out a rump state along the Mediterranean coast, reflecting the geographical contours of the traditional Alawite heartland, with its capital in Latakia. The regime has lost the -hinterland and may be on the verge of losing Damascus, but it is still counting on survival. If Assad can’t have all of Syria, then he and his Russian and Iranian backers will console themselves with an Alawite state on the Mediterranean. The Obama administration should ensure that this doesn’t come to pass.
In related news ... following up on a report that Michael Ledeen noted last week, Michael Rubin asks Where in the World is Qasim Suleimani?
Perhaps the IRGC doth protest too much. Suleimani, who during the past three years or so has built up quite a personality cult in the press despite being the head of a shadowy organization, has yet to be seen in public since the explosion, either in Syria or Iran. Should Suleimani, the mastermind of so many suicide bombs and terrorist attacks, perished in one himself, it is hard not to see an element of divine justice at play.
Suleimani's death is, by no means, confirmed. But his absence gives credence to the earlier reports that he was in the room that was bombed.
3) The Washington Post vs. Rogge the rogue
An editorial in the Washington Post, The IOC’s missed chance to honor Munich victims, takes the IOC's Jacques Rogge to task:
The Munich massacre was not just an Israeli tragedy; it was an Olympic tragedy and a world tragedy. Forty years after the awful event, the fallen athletes deserve to be remembered at Friday’s opening ceremony, in front of 80,000 spectators and an estimated 4 billion TV viewers worldwide. Mr. Rogge’s priorities do no credit to the Olympic movement.
Though the New York Times has reported on this travesty, its editors have not (yet) seen fit to criticize Avery Brundage's despicable heir.
4) Libels, libels everywhere nor any drop of truth
In Lies like Water, David Weinberg publicizes a recent study:
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, has been reduced over the last 40 years and is now negligible. The Palestinian Authority currently consumes 200 million cubic meters (mcm) of water every year, with Israel providing more than 50 mcm of this – which, under the accords, is more than Israel it supposed to provide a full-fledged 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 PA employs no sustainable development practices when it comes to water usage. It has done nothing to preventing massive leaking in its domestic pipelines, nothing to implement conservative irrigation techniques, and nothing to recycle sewage water for irrigation.
Labels: drinking water, Egypt, London Olympics, Middle East Media Sampler, Munich Olympic massacre, Palestinian Authority, Soccer Dad, Syrian uprising, water shortage
University of Johannesburg cuts ties to Israel
As of April 1, the University of Johannesburg is officially
joining the BDS movement by ending its relationship with Ben Gurion University (Hat Tip:
Russel H).
But the fierce moral urgency of supporting the 'Palestinians' could yet leave South Africa without drinking water. Ben-Gurion University however had been working with UJ on finding a method to clean algae that has infested South Africa's drinking water.
The severing of ties meant the project was likely to come an end, leaving UJ without access to BGU's extensive water expertise.
"There has been quite a lot of scare mongering that if the partnership breaks, South Africa will be confined to bad water quality," Habib said.
"The quality of our water is suffering because we are not spending the type of money on cleaning water that we need to, and not employing skill sets required.
"We can deal with acid rain water in the region if we are prepared to spend money."
...
Habib said individual professors from UJ would be allowed to keep up existing partnerships with BGU.
"That is something for individual academics to determine, but it depends on whether BGU allows this or not."
UJ's severing of ties with came amidst talk of steep water tariff increases and a warning South Africa could run out of water within the next ten years if nothing was done to supplement water resources.
The Environment and Conservation Association has said that by 2015, 80% of South Africa's fresh water would be so badly polluted that no purification process in the country would make it fit for consumption.
The impending disaster that would be created by acid mine drainage, as well as by sewerage and industrial pollution, had on many occasions been brought to the government's attention, with no positive results, the association said.
Someone please tell me that the academics here will at least return the favor and let them drink sea water. Maybe they can even import it from Gaza. Yasser Arafat tried it and said it was pretty good.
Heh.
Labels: Ben Gurion University, drinking water, sea water, University of Johannesburg
