3- Heated arguments rage about the rights to the mountain aquifer. Israel, and Israeli settlements, take about 80% of the aquifer’s flow, leaving the Palestinians with 20%.

Kolumn 9: Your response shows me that a nerve has been hit and this must indeed be an important issue. This is a real question and it has nothing to do with monetary costs.

I actually thought you were asking a real question but you just wanted a reason to spout off propaganda. If I wanted to do that I could too have told you that Israel is suffering from droughts and that the Kinneret is at a certain level and the Dead Sea is at this other level and that desalinization is expensive, and that the water issue is an existential one but silly me, I actually provided you an objective answer. The water resources are not that important and their total replacement cost is $250M/year. Spin it any way you want, but in the future I’ll make sure to ignore your BS questions.

I have followed up on the water issue in Israel and I’m learning a few things:

1- Water is indeed considered as a national resource of utmost importance. Water is vital to ensure the population’s well-being and quality of life and to preserve the rural-agricultural sector. Israel has suffered from a chronic water shortage for years. In recent years however, the situation has developed into a crisis so severe that it is feared that by the next summer it may be difficult to adequately supply municipal and household water requirements. The current cumulative deficit in Israel’s renewable water resources amounts to approximately 2 billion cubic meters, an amount equal to the annual consumption of the State

2- The Arab-Israeli dispute is a conflict about land – and maybe just as crucially the water which flows through that land.

3- Heated arguments rage about the rights to the mountain aquifer. Israel, and Israeli settlements, take about 80% of the aquifer’s flow, leaving the Palestinians with 20%.

4- The Palestinians say they are prevented from using their own water resources by Israel, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to buy water from the government at inflated prices.

5- Israel allocates to its citizens, including those living in settlements in the West Bank between three and five times more water than the Palestinians.

“It is unmentioned because it isn’t a very high priority” ? It looks like the exact opposite.

I guess I’m going to have to follow up elsewhere since this subject seems to be very much a high priority item for Israel.

I suspect the High Court will not void verifiable deeds because similar deeds have been involved in the sale of land within Israel. To void the deeds in one place could create a legal precedent for voiding them elsewhere, causing much confusion. The Court has shown no interest in stopping the vanguard settlements as such.

You can google for ‘water resource map west bank’ for other maps.

Settlements don’t have significant value in securing water resources because aquifers cover very large territorial areas.

I would have thought that you would at least momentarily celebrate the ethnic cleansing of Jews, but I suppose some people aren’t going to be happy until the Palestinians celebrate the ethnic cleansing of all the Jews from the Middle East.

As for ‘its power will one day run out’, this is another veiled vague future threat that is absolutely meaningless. If Israel’s power one day runs out then it will likely disappear regardless of whether Maale Adumim exists or not. As such, much like the rest of the article, you are really saying nothing.