SOUTH LEBANON: Israel is stealing Palestinian water
Recent reports have highlighted the acute water shortage facing Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Bethlehem in particular - and noted that the average Israeli settler consumes six times more water than the average Palestinian. This is despite the latter's rights to the sources as the original owner of the land, albeit an owner who is denied access by the Israeli military occupation. Water use by colonial settlers includes filling and topping-up their swimming pools as well as garden sprinklers for immaculate lawns.
Close observers of the settlement process will realise that confiscation of water sources has always been a priority for the Israeli colonisers. It was in this context that in a document written in 1941 David Ben Gurion, the Zionist leader and Israel's first Prime Minister, said that the waters of the Jordan River and the Litani River [in present-day Lebanon] must be included in the borders of the future Jewish state for it to survive.
