13.1.04
Water in the Mideast
A Guardian article looks at the issue of water in the Middle East, particularly with regard to Israel/Palestine.
A Guardian article looks at the issue of water in the Middle East, particularly with regard to Israel/Palestine.
...it is the Palestinians who are paying the price. Under the Oslo peace agreement, Israel retained overall control of water from the West Bank. The Palestinians now regret the deal. "The defect is in the Oslo agreement," says Amjad Aleiwi, a hydrologist at the Palestinian Water Authority. "The fact is we can't even drill a well without approval from Israel, while they pump all the water they like into the settlements."An often underappreciated problem in the Middle East.
More than 80% of water from the West Bank goes to Israel. The Palestinians are allot ted just 18% of the water that is extracted from their own land. Palestinian villages and farmers are monitored by meters fitted to pumps and punished for overuse. Jewish settlers are not so constrained, and permitted to use more advanced pumping equipment that means the settlers use 10 times as much water per capita as each Palestinian.
