In practice this means that Israeli settlers, living in illegal settlements on the West Bank, get their swimming pools topped up and their lawns watered while Palestinians living in villages next to them - on whose land the settlements have usually been built - can go without enough water for drinking and cooking.
Eitam said he was imposing the drilling ban because the Palestinian Authority (PA) is running a 'water intifada' against Israel by failing to build water purification facilities in the hope of polluting Israel's ground water. He added that the PA was 'enabling Palestinians, mainly in Areas A and B [under Palestinian and Israeli security control respectively, according to the Oslo peace accords], to carry out unauthorised drillings in order to steal water from the state of Israel'.
Palestinians say this argument is illogical and confused. The PA has effectively been destroyed by the government of which Effi Eitam is a member. In addition, money raised from Palestinians in the form of taxes, which should go to the PA, is being withheld by Israel. It is not clear how the PA is supposed to build water purification facilities under these conditions.
Why Eitam should think the Palestinians would want to pollute the ground-water resources when they too drink from them is also unclear. More importantly, the charge that Palestinians are trying to steal water from Israel and the settlements is, they say, verging on the ridiculous.
Eitam said he was imposing the drilling ban because the Palestinian Authority (PA) is running a 'water intifada' against Israel by failing to build water purification facilities in the hope of polluting Israel's ground water. He added that the PA was 'enabling Palestinians, mainly in Areas A and B [under Palestinian and Israeli security control respectively, according to the Oslo peace accords], to carry out unauthorised drillings in order to steal water from the state of Israel'.
Palestinians say this argument is illogical and confused. The PA has effectively been destroyed by the government of which Effi Eitam is a member. In addition, money raised from Palestinians in the form of taxes, which should go to the PA, is being withheld by Israel. It is not clear how the PA is supposed to build water purification facilities under these conditions.
Why Eitam should think the Palestinians would want to pollute the ground-water resources when they too drink from them is also unclear. More importantly, the charge that Palestinians are trying to steal water from Israel and the settlements is, they say, verging on the ridiculous.