“Human rights report details water crisis in West Bank” (CR, Aug.7) states that “… the chronic water shortage is due in large part to Israel’s discriminatory policy in distributing the joint water resources in the West Bank.” In other words, while illegal Israeli settlers are filling their swimming pools, Palestinians barely have enough drinking water. Each year, Israel steals more Palestinian land and water in the West Bank, while maintaining its deadly siege and collective punishment on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
When the late Pope John Paul II visited the Holy Land in 2001, he identified the root cause of the violence in the region to be Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians. The whole world, except for Israel’s puppet government in Washington, condemns the Israeli occupation and calls for a just, two-state, Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.