Israelis Fume over President of EU Parliament's Water Remark
Israeli newspapers bristled on Thursday after the European Parliament president criticized the Gaza Strip blockade and suggested that Israelis received four times more water than Palestinians.
The spat, which erupted on Wednesday after the far-right Jewish Home party stormed out of parliament in protest during a speech by Martin Schultz, made the front pages of Israel's main newspapers.
Most commentators were furious about figures mentioned by Schultz over water usage.
"How can it be that an Israeli is allowed to use 70 liters of water per day, but a Palestinian only 17?" Schultz asked.
But he also admitted he had not had time to verify the numbers.
Shortly afterwards, Schultz criticized settlements as an obstacle to peace and warned that the Gaza blockade could "undermine, rather than strengthen, Israel's security".
This prompted a barrage of heckling from Jewish Home MPs, who then stalked out.
"Jewish Home demands an apology from the president of the European Parliament who repeated two lies fed to him by the Palestinians," Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett said of the water figures and denying there is a blockade on Gaza.
He denounced both assertions as "deceitful propaganda".
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waded in, accusing Schultz of being quick to cast blame without checking the facts.
"What was disturbing in Schultz's speech was the selective hearing that is becoming prevalent in many circles in Europe," he said in remarks published on parliament's website.
"These are figures which are not true. (Schultz) said he didn't check the figures but it didn't stop him from straight away casting blame."
The headline in the Israel HaYom freesheet, which is close to Netanyahu, read: "Shock in parliament over slander of Israel."
In an interview with German daily Die Welt published on Thursday, Schultz said he was taken aback by the tirade.
"The angry reaction from some parliamentarians in Jerusalem surprised me and made me concerned," he said, adding that he considered his Jerusalem address to be "pro-Israel".
"The people who disturbed my speech belong to a party of hardliners who answer each critical word that bothers them in this way."
Israel HaYom accused Schultz of choosing to use "false libel" provided by anti-Israeli groups.
Other papers published figures showing a completely different picture of Israeli-Palestinian water usage.
The spat prompted several NGOs to publish their own figures on water usage, with Friends of the Earth Middle East citing statistics from 2011 showing the ratio was close to four to one.
"The municipal water consumption per capita per day in Israel in 2011 was 250 liters, while among Palestinians in the West Bank, after taking into consideration an average loss of approximately 30 percent of the water -- due to theft and lack of infrastructure -- it was 70 liters," the group said.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem also said there was "discrimination in water allocation", with Israelis receiving "much more water than Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip".
According to the Israeli national water company, Mekorot, the average household water consumption in Israel is between 100 and 230 liters per person per day.
For Palestinians in the West Bank connected to the water mains, the average daily consumption is about 73 liters.
Those not connected to the network -- around 113,000 people -- rely on stored rainwater and water sold from tanker trucks, which is very expensive.
Typically, they consume less than 60 liters per person per day with shepherding communities in the northern Jordan Valley consuming just 20 liters, the group said.
Average consumption in Gaza is 70-90 liters per person daily, but the water quality is extremely poor, with 90 percent of supplies pumped there unpotable, according to World Health Organization standards.
Source: Agence France Presse
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