“Israel's planned annexation of West Bank aquifers will perpetuate high Israeli water-consumption levels while denying basic Palestinian needs, and will dim any hope for a viable Palestinian state and for peace”. Fareed Taamallah, a peace activist, the coordinator for the Palestinian Central Election Commission for the district of Salfit in the West Bank writes in reaction on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent visit to Washington. President Bush declared Olmert's "convergence" plan "bold." For Palestinians, however, it is disastrous, because it will annex much of the West Bank's water and fertile land to Israel.

Under Olmert's plan, Israel aims to keep the two main Palestinian West Bank aquifers: the lower Jordan River basin in the east, and the eastern mountain aquifer, trapped behind Israel's wall in the west. This will force Palestinians to depend on Israel for water, preserving the status quo, a dramatically unjust division of water resources.

Source: Fareed Taamallah, The Nation, 9 Jun 2006