As Israeli settlements thrive, Palestinian taps run dry. The water crisis reflects a broader battle
apnews.com
The struggle for water access in this strip of fertile land reflects a wider contest for control of the West Bank — and in particular the Jordan Valley, which Palestinians consider the breadbasket of their hoped-for future state and Israelis view as key to protecting their eastern border.
“People are thirsty, the crops are thirsty,” said Hazeh Daraghmeh, a 63-year-old Palestinian date farmer in the Jiftlik area of the valley, where some of his palms have withered in the bone-dry dirt. “They’re trying to squeeze us step by step,” Daraghmeh said.
"There are none so blind, as those who will not see."
We're dealing with drought and water restrictions in the US, too. Is it because we're genocidal lunatics who hate citizens of certain states?
The real complaint here isn't that the Palestinians are going thirsty. It's that they aren't getting enough water to farm?
I'm not quite sure what Palestinians thought was going to happen when they rejected peace offer after peace offer, and turned instead to non-stop terrorism.
Did they think Israelis were going to say: "oh, sure, you're constantly launching thousands of rockets at our kids, but hey, let us spend a ton of money upgrading your infrastructure for you."
Palestinians are vastly outmatched militarily, so for decades they've had exactly two options: make peace with Israel on their terms, or keep doing terrorism, and hoping that they'll get international sympathy when Israel retaliates, and that international pressure will force Israel to ... accept a peace treaty that leaves Israel with indefensible borders and an influx of Palestinian citizens that would use their vote to turn Israel into a Jew-hating Muslim theocracy.
At a certain point, you'd think Palestinians would start caring more about their kids' futures than their hatred of Israel.
If they'd accepted peace under the offer made during the Oslo Accords, they would have had their own state for about 30 years now, with the ability to grow an economy, manage their own infrastructure, etc.
Palestinians signed both Oslo accords and neither accord created a Palestinian state ... so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
For those who don't want to read a whole article:
The Oslo Accords were a cycle of negotiations and agreements. With every round, it looked like they were getting closer to an agreement.
In the end the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat killed the negotiation at camp David. He would not budge on several issues, but key among them was "right of return".
Essentially "right of return" would instantly give full citizenship and voting rights to a vast amount of fantastic anti-Jewish Arabs, who would very shortly thereafter have been able to vote Israel out of existence by turning it from a democracy into a Muslim theocracy. And like all other Muslim theocracies, they would have been terrible if not genocidal to their Jewish citizens.
Arafat not only quit the peace process, he declared a "second antifada" ... meaning a new call for the most foul terrorism: blowing up school buses, ambulances, targeting Jewish children for death, etc.
A bit later when Arafat died, we found out WHY he killed the peace process: while his people were impoverished and suffering, Arafat himself was hoarding nearly A BILLION DOLLARS in what was supposed to be humanitarian aid money for this people.
Arafat stopped the piece process because war was allowing him to retain power, and grow his obscene wealth.
Ok colonizer.
It’s wild to me how anti-Palestine the other comments are. Like somehow Palestinians are the terrorists in this scenario when Israel is the one with US backing.
Had an old now-former friend try to show me videos of Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, while attempting to demonize them. I responded with like 5 videos of Israeli soldiers being needlessly cruel to both kids and adults. The conversation ended right then and there.
The propaganda runs deep. Fuck the colonial mindset.
The Israeli Security Minister literally has multiple hate speech convictions and a terrorism conviction and notoriously had a Framed photo of a Jew nationalist mass murderer in his living room. He also lives in an illegal settlement.
Palestinians are the terrorists because they literally are the terrorists.
As in, they deliberately target civilians, often specifically CHILDREN for death.
Is there misconduct in the Israeli army? Absolutely. But that is WORLDS apart from adopting a government POLICY of targeting children.
I think Israel has shown extraordinary restraint given that the Palestinians have been actively trying to murder their children for DECADES, including electing a government that had the GENOCIDE of Jews as part of their written charter.
I don’t agree with any of the religious drivers in the scenario, and I definitely don’t agree with targeting children at all, but this is also retaliation for having their land and homes stolen and decimated for decades. You can’t paint an animal into a corner and not expect it to bite you. We’re talking about an army backed by the country with the biggest military budget in the world, vs people that don’t even have a roof over their heads or crops because the aforementioned army has forcefully taken them away. The only outcome of that kind of scenario is going to be desperation and violence.
So if they’re considered the only terrorists in this scenario, they were forced into that role. These 2 sides could simply share the land like sane people, but religion has yet again become the wedge.
Think of it this way:
It's indisputably evil what the United States did in stealing land and commiting genocide against the Native Americans. (I'd argue that Israel's founding was far more just, but let's say for a moment that it was equally horrific).
So, if today, Native Americans were launching thousands of rockets from their reservations, targeting civilians, targeting kids, and saying they won't stop until we give them California, New York, New England, half of Washington DC, AND adopt a political reform that will inevitably lead to dissolving democracy and replacing it with a theocracy...
What the hell would you say the solution to that is?
At what point would you say to the Native Americans, "what happened to you was a tragedy, but the reality is we're so far down this road it will never be undone. We need to find a way to move forward with that shared reality"?
Because that's the situation in Israel.
The Palestinians are demanding (with no leverage) that Israel adopt a peace deal that would destroy Israel's form of government and their ability to defend themselves from hostile nations (which they are surrounded by).
Israel will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do that. They can't. It would be governmental malpractice to do it.
So what, they are just supposed to let the Palestinians launch thousands of rockets at them ... out of guilt?
There's only ONE way this ends: Palestinians admit that they lost. It might not be fair. It might not be justice. But it is REALITY.
And then they need to take the best peace deal Israel is willing to offer.
... this is the reality they walked away from 20+ years ago.
That's an entire generation of Palestinian children growing up in an incredibly shitty situation.
Meanwhile, Israel said "fuck this", built an iron dome defense system, built a border fence, and have economically thrived.
They can literally keep going like this indefinitely. And as time goes on they only get more and more bitter at the Palestinian terrorism. So they keep leaning harder and harder on hardliner politicians, who say "well, if Palestinians are going to be our enemies no matter what, why shouldn't we just take and take and take?
You do know that the native Americans absolutely fought the United States every step of the way right. They used to scalp captured americans, hang them from trees burn down their towns. You'd also know after they were forced to surrender due to the colonizers overwhelming power, and signed treaties, the colonizer constantly broke the treaties, and slowly but surely took every scrap of their native lands. Then thet forcibly moved them to some of the most desolate lands in the US and stole their children to civilize them from their barbarian ways. And today, the once thriving native tribes are forced to live on reservations that have some of the most extreme poverty in the United States.
Correct. And my question to you is: if they were launching thousands of rockets at civilians, and all the other things I mentioned above... what do you do? That's Israel's situation.
You just minimized the genocide of Palestinians by Israel as the 'misconduct inthe Israeli army'.
See, that's just a profoundly ridiculous take.
Israel is by most accounts a nuclear power, and their conventional military is one of the strongest in the world. If they were committing genocide it would have been over and done decades ago.
The Palestinian population is growing, not shrinking.
There are plenty of Palestinians who are Israel citizens, and they enjoy all the same rights and privileges as any other Israeli citizen, including the ability to hold office in government.
There's only one side of this conflict that is hell-bent on genocide: Palestinians. They elected a government that had GENOCIDE of the Jews in their written charter. We're just very fortunate that they don't have the ability to carry out their desires.
You are ignoring reality. and until you decide to see it, no one can make you see it.
One of is. That's for sure.
I'm just describing the reality of the situation.
I'm talking about this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1997/04/04/arafat-killed-oslo/bad28d70-60f4-49ab-af6e-708bd94d933d/