que un granjero pueda horadar un pozo sin que vengan los militares israelíes a cerrárselo al día siguiente;
3. What About Palestinian Consumption?
In the period from 1967 to 1995 West Bank Palestinians increased their domestic water use by 640%, from 5.4 MCM to 40 MCM (Judea-Samaria and the Gaza District – A 16 Year Survey 1967 – 1983, Israel, Ministry of Defense, 1983; Arnon Soffer, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict over Water Resources,Palestine-Israel Journal, Volume 5, No. 1, 1998). By way of comparison, in the same 28 year period Israeli domestic usage increased by just 142 percent (Statistical Abstract of Israel 1996, V47).
This huge jump in Palestinian consumption was possible only because Israel drilled or permitted the drilling of over 50 new wells for the Palestinian population, laid hundreds of kilometers of new water mains and connected hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns to the newly built water system (Background - Water, Israel and the Middle East, Israel Foreign Ministry 1991; Marcia Drezon-Tepler, Contested Waters and the Prospects for Arab-Israeli Peace, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2,April 1994).
Palestinian sources broadly confirm this picture. For example, Taher Nassereddin, Director General of the West Bank Water Department, has stated that:
[Palestinian] consumption for domestic purposes has increased as a result of population growth and that there were no severe restrictions on drilling new wells for these purposes (Taher Nassereddin, Legal and Administrative Responsibility of Domestic Water Supply to the Palestinian, in Joint Management of Shared Aquifers, 1997).
It is important to note, however, that for political reasons some Palestinian villages and towns refused to be hooked up to the new main water system, and may therefore not have a reliable water supply today. And, because those towns that did connect to the new system refused to contribute to thesubsidization fund, Palestinian consumers pay a much higher direct cost for water than do Israelis. Of course, because Israelis pay for water twice – directly plus into the subsidy fund – total costs are roughly equal. Thus, as reported in Audubon Magazine, the West Bank town of Marda:… like many West Bank villages and towns, had refused to hook up with the Israeli water system in the early 1980's, when Israeli officials offered them the chance. Doing so, the politicians felt, would legitimize the Israeli occupation. Even the villages that did hook up refused to pay into the Israeli water (Bruce Stutz, Water and Peace. Audubon, September 1994).
4. Israel Supplies Water to the Palestinians, Jordan, and Lebanon
Contrary to charges that Israel uses Arab water, the reality is the reverse: Israel has supplied, from itsown sources, large amounts of water to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, to the Kingdom of Jordan, and to a number of villages in South Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Jordan has not supplied the West Bank with any water since 1967, despite its obligation, under international legal guidelines, to supply 70-150 MCM annually.
Israeli Water to the Palestinians More than 40 MCM annually is pumped within Israel and piped over the Green Line for Palestinian use in the West Bank (Haim Gvirtzman, 1998). The Ramallah area alone, through its independent Palestinian water utility, receives more than 5 MCM annually from Israeli sources (Jerusalem Water Undertaking.
www.jwu.org).
In addition, Israel also supplies more than 4 MCM annually to the Gaza Strip through the Kissufim Line of the National Water Carrier, serving the Palestinian localities of El-Bureij, Moazi, Abason, Bani Suheila and Khan Yunis (Statistical Data on Gaza Area and Jericho, Israel Foreign Ministry, June 1994).
Israeli Water to Jordan
Under their peace agreement (Treaty of Peace Between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Annex 2, Water Related Matters, October 26, 1994) Israel agreed to supply, or arrange for the supply of, an additional 55 MCM of water annually to Jordan. Until the development of new desalinization plants, all of the additional water is coming directly from Israeli sources (Jordan Times, 25 August 1999). In recent years Israel has supplied Jordan with 75 MCM annually, or roughly 20 MCM more water than was agreed upon (Israel-Jordan Relations, Israel Foreign Ministry, October 26, 1998).
Israeli Water to Lebanon
Ten otherwise dry Southern Lebanese villages receive 600,000 CM of water annually from wells within Israel. A ten-inch pipe, for example, runs from Israel to the Lebanese village of R'meish (Arnon Sofer,The Litani River: Faction and Fiction, Middle Eastern Studies, October 1994: Aaron Wolf, Water for Peace in the Jordan River Watershed, Natural Resources Journal, Summer 1993; Aaron Wolf, Hydrostrategic Territory in the Jordan Basin: War and Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations, conference paper, 1996).
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