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| Israel-Palestine |
| Israel lays claim to Palestine’s water |
| 2004-05-27 |
10:15 27 May 04 Israel has drawn up a secret plan for a giant desalination plant to supply drinking water to the Palestinian territory on the West Bank. It hopes the project will diminish pressure for it to grant any future Palestinian state greater access to the region’s scarce supplies of fresh water. Under an agreement signed a decade ago as part of the Oslo accord, four-fifths of the West Bank’s water is allocated to Israel, though the aquifers that supply it are largely replenished by water falling onto Palestinian territory. The new plans call for seawater to be desalinated at Caesaria on the Mediterranean coast, and then pumped into the West Bank, where a network of pipes will deliver it to large towns and many of the 250 villages that currently rely on local springs and small wells for their water. Israel, which wants the US to fund the project, would guarantee safe passage of the water across its territory in return for an agreement that Israel can continue to take the lion’s share of the waters of the West Bank. These mainly comprise underground reserves such as the western aquifer, the region’s largest, cleanest and most reliable water source. For Israelis, agreement on the future joint management of this aquifer is a prerequisite for granting Palestine statehood. Global funding The first public hint of the plan emerged earlier in May in Washington DC. Uri Shamir, director of water research at the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, told the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations that the desalination project was "the only viable long-term solution" for supplying drinking water to the West Bank. Shamir told New Scientist this week that the project could be complete in five to seven years. "The plant will be funded by the world for the Palestinians. Israel will not be willing to carry this burden, and the Palestinians are not able to." But other leading hydrologists contacted by New Scientist point out that desalinating seawater and pumping it to the West Bank, parts of which lie 1000 metres above sea level, would cost around $1 per cubic metre. "The question is whether an average Palestinian family can afford it," says Arie Issar, a water expert at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Sede Boker, Israel, who helped green the Israeli desert a generation ago by finding new water sources in the region. "It would be foolish to desalinate water on the coast and push it up the mountains when there are underground water resources up there, which cost only a third as much." Tony Allan of King’s College London, a leading authority on Middle East water, agrees: "Pumping desalinated water to the West Bank is not the best technical or economic option." But the project is being supported by Alvin Newman, head of water resources at the Tel Aviv office of USAID, the US international development agency, which would fund the desalination project. "Ultimately it’s the only solution," he said in an interview with New Scientist. Unusual cooperation Water supply is one of the few areas where cooperation between Israel and Palestine has survived the current intifada. Every day on the West Bank, Palestinian engineers help repair and maintain Israeli water pipes, and vice versa. But Palestinian water negotiators are deeply uneasy about the plans being drawn up on their behalf, especially if they involve abandoning claims to the water beneath their feet. "We cannot do that. We don’t have the money or the expertise for desalination," Ihab Barghothi, head of water projects for the Palestinian Water Authority, told New Scientist. No "money or expertise." A common refrain throughout the region. Yet, no one thinks it unwise to continue attacks against those who provide it on a regular basis. Might be time to withdraw some "expertise" and see how long it takes for dehydration to set in. Palestinians badly need more water. Under the Oslo agreement they have access to 57 cubic metres of water per person per year from all sources. Israel gets 246 cubic metres per head per year. And in the nearly 40 years that Israel has controlled the West Bank, Palestinians have been largely forbidden from drilling new wells or rehabilitating old ones. The region’s sources of water are the West Bank aquifers; the river Jordan, which rises in the Golan Heights and flows into the Sea of Galilee, where it is largely tapped by Israel; and the coastal aquifer, an increasingly polluted reserve of underground water that extends south to the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip. It’s a well! ... It’s a tunnel! ... Tastes great! ... Less filling! Sewage effluent Over the years, Israel has developed a good reputation for using water efficiently, and in the 1980s it began recycling sewage effluent for irrigation. In 2004, Israel signed a deal to buy water shipped by tanker from Turkey. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip depend almost exclusively on small wells tapping the coastal aquifer. As the water table falls, the aquifer is becoming increasingly polluted by salt water from the sea. UN scientists say Gaza will have no drinkable water within 15 years. Too bad it’s 15 years. A shorter time table might improve their attitude. Despite earlier efforts to develop desalination, the Israel government only decided to invest heavily in the technology in the past four years. Some, including Israeli liberals and Palestinian optimists such as Barghothi, believed that once Israel began desalinating seawater for its own use it would be prepared to relax its grip on the West Bank aquifers. But now it appears that Israeli water planners see desalination as a means of retaining control of those aquifers. Resource control, a concept entirely lost upon the Palestinians as they squabble about olive groves. Inability to examine the big picture can really damage your long term viability. The desalination plant to supply the West Bank would parallel a similar US-funded reverse osmosis plant to fill taps on the hard-pressed Gaza Strip. The scheme has already been approved and funded, but is currently on hold because of continuing conflict in Gaza. Taken together, the two schemes would leave an independent Palestine more dependent on desalination than almost any other nation in the world. MEMO TO PALESTINIANS: Keep up with the terror attacks and you will find yourselves in possession of a resource-free zone (i.e., homeland), if you ever even get one. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #12 The Palestinians are a ruined people. Rather than coexist with the Israelis, they fled. The Israelis have paid for their land both in dollars and in blood, wars in 48, 56, 67, and 73. The Palestinians have no more right to Israel than Christians do to Constantinople and all the other lands conquered during the flood tide of Islam. They have been kept in camps for over 50 years because none of their arab brothers will take them in. Generations of enforced idleness, subsidized by the UN, have rendered them incapable of supporting themselves. Education built around the Koran has rendered them incapable of bettering themselves. Right now they exist dependent upon the kindness of strangers. Beggars should be more polite. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-27 11:37:11 PM |
| #11 Combat evil- but you don't have to make your hatred twist you the same way that it has twisted them. Curious, one of my pet dislikes is people who ascribe their motivations to me and the Left is particularly prone to this. When I advocate killing Arabs which I occasionally do, it is not because I hate them - as some of you realize I find their irrational lunacy hilariously funny a lot of the time - it is an entirely rational solution to a problem. To me it's like culling crows when they become to much of a nuisance. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-05-27 10:08:19 PM |
| #10 A lot of you who post on this website feel that terrorists have forfeited their human rights as a result of their homicidal, genocidal, and indecent actions. Uh, yeah, they have. That, and the creed that they live by, that we will convert or die. They've made it into a life-or-death struggle: freedom and reason and science versus the cruel, stagnant, twisted legacy of a seventh-century madman. We don't wish the Palestinians themselves any harm, just the bastards who do the killing. And yet, there seem to be an awful lot of them who want to kill us. It's hard sometimes to figure out which ones are the enemy, you know? As for that lecture, if you remember it the same way I do, then you will recall that I did make the effort to put that aside - but then she talked for half an hour about how the entire thing was Israel's fault. The information itself is solid, yes, but it's the way they interpret it that's the problem. They're not talking about working with Israel - they're just staying the whole thing is the Jews's fault. Fact is, that intifada has devastated the land that would have been given to a Palestinian state. The Palestinians started it. Yes, the Israelis have done a lot of well-known demolitions, but that's a far cry from the bombing campaigns we saw in, for example, World War II. Israel could be doing a lot worse. And while we're on the subject, no doubt the Germans complained when Berlin was bombed - but then again, they'd started the war, hadn't they? As horrible as that may have been, they brought it on themselves, and the world didn't have much sympathy for the men who did it - though in the case of the Palestinians, those leaders are called "martyrs," and their deaths are mourned and the assassinations themselves condemned. Yet these men are, if anything, more perverted and twisted than Hitler ever was. But I digress. Remember that after WWII was over, we helped Germany rebuild. I don't doubt that we'd be happy to do the same thing here - but only if they let us. And it was said here perfectly the other day - by Virginian, I think, that there is no moral equivalence in the case of us judging their actions versus them judging us for not converting. He said apostasy is not a threat to life, it is a threat only to belief. A set of beliefs of itself cannot kill anyone. I'm taking it a bit out of context here, but it still works. Theirs is a threat to life. Ours is simply a choice that they don't agree with. The two situations simply cannot be compared. |
| Posted by: The Doctor 2004-05-27 9:47:50 PM |
| #9 The USD1 per cubic meter delivered seems about right. Tampa Bay is building the world's largest membrane-based desalination plant, to be ready by the end of this year. It promises water costing just US$1.75 per thousand gallons, or 39 US cents per cubic metre. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-05-27 8:29:14 PM |
| #8 The money quote seems to be - Under the Oslo agreement they have access to 57 cubic metres of water per person per year from all sources. So Israel is sticking to an agreement and the Paleos don't want to. Hardly news! BTW, the New Scientist has pulled the article. I assume becuase this is just a politicized hatchet job. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-05-27 8:04:26 PM |
| #7 about $60 a month in San Diego, which gets our supply imported from the Colorado River (heavy on dissolved solids BTW - I invest in LimeAway for the faucet heads) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-27 7:34:11 PM |
| #6 I attended the same seminar with the Doctor- he came in prejudiced from the get-go and was too busy point out the flaws in a couple sentences to grasp her whole picture. The information here is solid- however, I interpret it differently. Some things that are wrong have been done to the Palestinians, such as a reduction of their water supply below recommended international water consumption levels, and the dumping of toxic waste on the "Palestinian" soil (ie, the little corner of Israel the Palestinians have been shoved into). Something should be done to allow the Palestinians a decent water supply, regardless of their terrorist actions. A lot of you who post on this website feel that terrorists have forfeited their human rights as a result of their homicidal, genocidal, and indecent actions. They, likewise, believe that you have forfeited your human rights by not converting to Islam. It's easy to wish death on a whole culture because (whether or not it is a majority)-some wish to kill you and your children. Wishing to kill them, their children, and their entire culture serves no purpose. Combat evil- but you don't have to make your hatred twist you the same way that it has twisted them. |
| Posted by: Curious 2004-05-27 7:05:55 PM |
| #5 I do not like it. Here is the money quote: "The plant will be funded by the world for the Palestinians. Israel will not be willing to carry this burden, and the Palestinians are not able to." But other leading hydrologists contacted by New Scientist point out that desalinating seawater and pumping it to the West Bank, parts of which lie 1000 metres above sea level, would cost around $1 per cubic metre. 1. The world funding this means the US. The hell with that. We have enough obligations and burdens. The answer is NO. 2. According to the New Scientist figure of $1/cu metre, he cost of water is about $0.0038/gallon, delivered. I cannot believe this figure. The Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska has a residential rate that comes out to about $0.005/gallon delivered, or about $0.009 for water and sewer. I cannot believe that reverse osmosis treatment will be that cheap. Where will they get the cheap energy to run the plant and the pumps. The real cost of this will be from 2 to 10 times the "advertized" cost. And dealing with the Paleos and how well they keep their word is another part of the equation. I would not touch this with a 10 ft pole, and I certainly would not want our government involved with our tax money. We better watch appropriation bills in congress so we do not wake up some day with a sore fiscal behind, so to speak. Frank G., fellow CE, what is the cost of water for a residence in San Diego? |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-05-27 4:48:34 PM |
| #4 Californians understand very well that water is life. The availability of water is the primary constraint on the number of inhabitants. Managing water resources in a desert requires careful planning, high technology, and self-restraint, none of which are the Palestinians capable of providing. Even if the Israelis magically disappeared and the Palestinians were able to confiscate everything the Israelis had built. Within a few years Palestine would look like Zimbabwe. The Palestinians are artificially supported by UN provided food and money. If they had to support themselves, famine would quickly reduce their population to a level that could be supported by subsistence farming and the ever-present seething Palestinian mobs in the UN supported towns would starve. The Arab tendency to reproduce as rapidly as possible without any thought of how they can support their children is going to smash into a combination of donor fatigue and their total inability to organize anything more sophisticated than death squads. They won't be able to blow themselves up fast enough to keep the population within sustainable limits. Lack of water and lack of food just might do what the IDF chooses not to. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-27 4:17:10 PM |
| #3 At first I wondered why Israel didn't just build the desalnization plants for their own water needs and let the Pals have the Jordan river. Then I realized the desalinization plants would be targets in that scenerio but if they provided water for the Pals the Islamofascists would be less likely to blow them up (less likely, not unlikely). |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-05-27 4:03:31 PM |
| #2 There was a Palestinian woman who came to my college last semester to talk about this. Half of her presentation was on how it was all Israel's fault; took half an hour before she even got to the technical stuff. She kept referring to the "second intifada" getting in the way, and when I asked whether the Palestinians were causing their own problems, she mumbled something and quickly moved on. Maybe Israel's worried about their water being poisoned? |
| Posted by: The Doctor 2004-05-27 3:44:12 PM |
| #1 How about, you build a wall and the paleos can find their own g*ddamn water. Assuming you can build a well with dynamite, of course. |
| Posted by: BH 2004-05-27 3:07:46 PM |