Hass’ Water Falsehood
Israel provides the Gaza Strip with 5 MCM of water
What’s a few million cubic meters of water to the crowded, dry Gaza Strip? Nothing, if you’re Amira Hass of Ha’aretz. In her Op-Ed yesterday, Hass falsified:
The reason [for brackish drinking water in Gaza] is an ancient one: overpumping because Gaza must make do with the waters from its aquifers alone. It is as if were to say to the residents of Be’er Sheva: make do with the water that flows nearby. The water resources in the rest of the country are not for you.
But Gaza does get some water from outside its own aquifers. For years, Israel has been providing the Gaza Strip with 5 MCM of water, and this supply has continued right through the disengagement, Hamas’ coup last summer, and Israel’s terming of Hamas “hostile territory,” a fact confirmed today by Shlomo Dror of the Civil Administration. Moreover, the fact that Israel supplies Gaza with water is regularly reported by Ha’aretz‘s own news writers.
As Amos Harel and Barak Ravid wrote Oct. 25, 2007:
The defense establishment is reportedly opposed to the idea of cutting the water supply to the Strip.
Aluf Benn wrote July 16, 2007:
Israel supplies electricity and water to the Gaza Strip, and Israeli officials told Israel Radio that the government is also prepared to send food if Hamas were to agree to receive it.
Amos Harel, Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid wrote Sept. 5, 2007:
We will set a price tag for every Qassam, in terms of cutting off infrastructures,” Ramon told Army Radio. “Hamas will … know this in advance. We will not continue to supply ‘oxygen’ in the form of electricity, fuel, and water while they are trying to murder our children.”
Hass herself very well knows that for years Israel has been supplying Gaza with several million cubic meters of water. As she wrote Sept. 1, 2005:
But even now, the PA is using only half of the 10 million CBM [sic] that the Oslo Accords allow it to purchase from Mekorot, in other words, from water sources outside the Strip.
Also, Abdel Zaanoun of the AFP reported Sept. 20, 2007:
Israel supplies over 70 percent of Gaza’s electricity and nearly all of its drinking water.
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