Tuesday, July 08, 2008

I've been talking about water quite a bit lately, undoubtedly because I find it impossible to drink enough in this heat. For the village of At-Tuwani, water is a huge issue. That's why I wanted to highlight this article, "Israel's Discriminatory Water Policies." It gives a great little overview of what's going on and why water has become such an important issue.

At-Tuwani, of course, is one of the 220 towns and villages that are not connected to a water network. The village is dependent on wells and cisterns, making it extremely vulnerable to droughts, like the one we are currently experiencing.
I'm reading: Tweet this! Posted by j_in_palestine at 2:50 AM

3 comments:

Josh Jones said...

I agree that this is a big issue, but I was surprised at how the article you linked to failed to highlight some of the Israeli malpractice over water supplies.

For example, villages who have their own water supply often have acces to their own springs cut, or the Israeli settlers will dig deeper wells alongside the existing ones, redering them near useless.

One family of farmers I visited in Al Farisaya had been using the same well for six decades, but recently the IDF came and cut up all the pipelines.

The family were told they were 'illegaly using Israeli-owned water supplies'. This is despite the fact the farmers have documentation showing they own the well.

It is for reasons like this I am disappointed to see the article you link to says the following:

To aggravate matters, Palestinian farmers hook up unlawfully to the water networks in Palestinian communities in Oslo-designated Area C. Israeli authorities, which are charged with enforcing the law in these areas, do not to put an end to the theft.

It seems the article fails to highlight a known a human rights abuse.

9:35 AM
Anonymous said...

Hi. In case you wonder who is reading your blogs, I am. Along with a friend I was a guest of the CPT in Tuwani one night in April and went on school patrol the next morning. In that one night and morning I learned a lot and ever since have felt involved with Tuwani. Glad you mentioned the IMEMC appeal. I read that site daily & pass on news to others. This is just to let you know that your reports are read & passed on.
Liz

3:05 AM
j_in_palestine said...

Thanks for putting that out, Josh. you're really correct - I guess that I didn't read that article nearly carefully enough. I think you're description, "fails to highlight a known a human rights abuse," is the least of the problems with that quote. B'tselem is normally very good, but sometimes they really blow it, in my humble opinion.

8:02 AM

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