Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land
Salt Lake City, Utah http://www.ujphl.org/
Action:
Please tell the organizers of the Western Governor's Association Conference that Israel is not a model of sustainable water usage and regional cooperation!
Some background- The annual Western Governors' Association Conference (http://www.westgov.org/), meeting in Park City, Utah, this year, (June 14 thru 16), has invited Israeli Professor Eilon Adar to speak on "Managing Water in a Changing World", including water practices in Israel.
Given Israel's long history of unilateral confiscation of Palestinian and regional water resources and discriminatory allocation of those resources, UJPHL believes an Israeli speaker closely tied to Israeli governmental policies will not present the whole picture when talking about Israeli water policies; therefore, any such speaker would make a poor choice to inform our state governors about water management in a changing world.
Please join UJPHL in letting the conference organizers and our Western Governors know how you feel about this issue.
To read more about Israeli policies and to review sources of information, the letter sent by Frances ReMillard, director of Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land to the conference organizers and governors is posted on the UJPHL website: http://www.ujphl.org/
Sample Letter:
Dear
I am pleased to learn that the focus of the upcoming Western Governors' Conference in Park City, Utah is "developing regional and global strategies for addressing the intertwined issues of energy, climate change, and water." This is an issue that is critical not just for the Western United States, but for the entire nation and the world.
I understand that one of the invited speakers is from Israel, Professor Eilon Adar of Ben-Gurion University, on a panel titled: Managing Water in a Changing World, during which “Governors and invited guests will discuss policies and technologies to address water use in an era of declining water supplies due to climate change.”
As an activist for peace and justice in Israel-Palestine, it is very concerning to me that the conference has invited a speaker closely tied to Israeli government policies to help inform our state governors about water management.
While Israel does have a reputation for managing water to “make the desert bloom”, the Palestinian people have paid a heavy price for Israel’s water use.
The United Nations and human rights organization reports show that Israel has seized control of almost all the Palestinians’ groundwater in the West Bank for distribution to Israel proper and illegal Jewish settlements, and currently follows a policy of taking more than its fair share of water from the Jordan River. It has also been found that Israel has ongoing practices of dumping wastewater and raw sewage onto Palestinian lands, over-pumping from wells along the Gaza Strip, and uprooting olive trees.
These ongoing Israeli policies do not seem to represent environmentally sustainable practices or regional and global cooperation in water usage.
As a concerned U.S. citizen, I would ask that the Western Governor’s Conference choose a more appropriate speaker, who can better inform our leaders about balancing sustainable water usage with the needs of all the surrounding human communities.
Sincerely,
Name
Address
E-mail letters to:
Western Governors’ Association Conference Organizer, Chris McKinnon cmck@westgov.org
The governor (Jon M. Huntsman Jr.) and lieutenant governor ( Gary R. Herbert) of Utah can be contacted at the website: http://www.utah.gov/governor/contact/index.html and comments can be posted there. Note that Mr. Huntsman was recently given a post in the Obama administration as ambassador to China.
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