H.E. Mr. Ophir Kariv:

That is also not true. The WHO marks a line of 100 l per day as the amount of water that is needed. Today, Palestinians enjoy something like 133 l and that will grow in the future because there is an infrastructure master plan for supplying water in Palestinian areas. We have to differentiate between the West Bank and Gaza because their situations are different and their infrastructure is different. The master plan Israel prepared and showed the Palestinians would provide almost 50% more water to the Palestinians daily than the Palestinians are planning for themselves.

There is something important that we have to understand here. Israel has enough water. Most of the water Israelis drink today is desalinated. We invested a lot in that. There is enough water and what we are going to do with the water we can put aside is help our neighbours. I mentioned global warming and the environmental effects. One of the major threats to our region is drought and the lack of water. This is a major cause of instability and destabilisation. We are aware of that and we know about it because it is our interest and we do not think people have to lack water. The Israeli policy and main view is to use our resources and the technology we developed and invested in to desalinate water in order to provide water to our neighbours who need it. That includes the Palestinians and Jordanians. These are the immediate ones so that-----