Inside the West Bank, Israeli settlements receive water to irrigate lush gardens and fill swimming pools.
Inside Israel there are still over one hundred Unrecognized Villages that over 100,000 Israeli Arab citizens call home. They pay taxes but receive NO sevices: NO electricity, NO water, NO schools, NO medical, NO roads and yet THEY PAY TAXES!
Immigrants in a New Land once rose up because the empires demanded taxes without representation.
International Law demands the occupiers provide for the basic needs of the occupied.
"The Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), nongovernmental organization, reports that there are .75 billion cubic meters of total groundwater potential in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are allocated only .25 billion cubic meters of that groundwater.
"The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100 liters of water per person per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption, but many Palestinian West Bank villages have considerably less. According to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, per capita water consumption for Palestinians in the West Bank is just seventy liters per person per day. In the nearby village of Kafr Ad-Dik, for instance, the allotment is but twenty-one liters per person per day. In contrast, Israel's per capita use reaches 350 liters per day.
"The Oslo II agreement, signed in September 1995, stipulated "the equitable utilization of joint water resources for implementation in and beyond the interim period." But in reality, this never happened. Instead, according to B'Tselem, a Joint Water Committee (JWC) was established to approve every "new water and sewage project in the West Bank. The JWC is made up of an equal number of representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. All its decisions are made by consensus, and no mechanism is established to settle disputes where a consensus cannot be attained. This method of decision-making means that Israel is able to veto any request by the Palestinian representatives to drill a new well to obtain the additions stipulated in the agreement." [IBID]
If allowed to become the new reality, Olmert's Convergence/ Containment/ Realignment policies of the West Bank and its aquifers will preclude all hopes for a viable Palestinian state and must be Internationally challenged.
Those who support justice -or even simply the enforcement of basic international humanitarian law - must go beyond raising awareness of the issue to directly confronting those whose acquiescence facilitates current repressive attitudes.
We the People of America are NOT being served when politicians only see terrorists and are blind to the fact that human beings in the land we Christians claim is Holy, in truth have lived under occupation for forty years and centuries of oppression from occupying forces.
Inside Israel there are still over one hundred Unrecognized Villages that over 100,000 Israeli Arab citizens call home. They pay taxes but receive NO sevices: NO electricity, NO water, NO schools, NO medical, NO roads and yet THEY PAY TAXES!
Immigrants in a New Land once rose up because the empires demanded taxes without representation.
International Law demands the occupiers provide for the basic needs of the occupied.
"The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100 liters of water per person per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption, but many Palestinian West Bank villages have considerably less. According to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, per capita water consumption for Palestinians in the West Bank is just seventy liters per person per day. In the nearby village of Kafr Ad-Dik, for instance, the allotment is but twenty-one liters per person per day. In contrast, Israel's per capita use reaches 350 liters per day.
"The Oslo II agreement, signed in September 1995, stipulated "the equitable utilization of joint water resources for implementation in and beyond the interim period." But in reality, this never happened. Instead, according to B'Tselem, a Joint Water Committee (JWC) was established to approve every "new water and sewage project in the West Bank. The JWC is made up of an equal number of representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. All its decisions are made by consensus, and no mechanism is established to settle disputes where a consensus cannot be attained. This method of decision-making means that Israel is able to veto any request by the Palestinian representatives to drill a new well to obtain the additions stipulated in the agreement." [IBID]
If allowed to become the new reality, Olmert's Convergence/ Containment/ Realignment policies of the West Bank and its aquifers will preclude all hopes for a viable Palestinian state and must be Internationally challenged.
Those who support justice -or even simply the enforcement of basic international humanitarian law - must go beyond raising awareness of the issue to directly confronting those whose acquiescence facilitates current repressive attitudes.
We the People of America are NOT being served when politicians only see terrorists and are blind to the fact that human beings in the land we Christians claim is Holy, in truth have lived under occupation for forty years and centuries of oppression from occupying forces.
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