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Jordan: Abbas offers Abdullah the Kiss of Death : Comments
By David Singer, published 13/7/2011Jordan’s King Abdullah is clearly worried about the future direction of his country - if developments over recent weeks are any indication.
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Whilst waiting for your evidence that Israel steals water from the Palestinians ...
Annually over 40 MCM (million cubic meters) of water from sources within Israel is piped over the Green Line for Palestinian use in the West Bank
In addition, Israel still sends Gaza another 4 MCM of Israeli water annually through the Kissufim Line of the National Water Carrier, serving the Palestinian localities of El-Bureij, Moazi, Abasan, Bani Suheila and Khan Yunis (Statistical Data on Gaza Area and Jericho, Israel Foreign Ministry, June 1994).
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)
Palestinian agriculture flourished after 1967 because Israelis introduced drip irrigation and other modern agricultural techniques.
Prior to 1967, of the 430 Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, 50 had access to running water. By 1992, an influx of capital and infrastructure from Israel had increased the number to 260.
The 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 (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)
Taher Nassereddin, Director General of the West Bank Water Department, stated:
[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 Palestinians, in Joint Management of Shared Aquifers, 1997)
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