Home truths on Palestinian water issues you haven’t heard from the BBC

Readers will no doubt recall that last month the BBC News website elected to amplify the president of the European parliament’s unfortunate promotion of the Palestinian Authority’s water-related propaganda during a speech made in the Knesset. 

As has been the case in past reports relating to the same subject, no satisfactory attempt was made to provide BBC audiences with concrete information on the much politicised topic of water but the article did promote six-year-old unsourced figures supplied by a politically motivated NGO.

Recently the Times of Israel published a piece written by Professor Haim Gvirtzman who, in addition to being a professor of hydrology at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University, is also an advisor to the Israel-PA Joint Water Committee. Professor Gvirtzman reveals some home truths not only about the water situation in the PA-controlled areas, but also in the Gaza Strip and in the wider region and his article is well worth reading in full.

It takes less than ten minutes to drive from the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s offices to the campus where Professor Gvirtzman’s department is located. In other words, it would not be too much of a stretch – should the BBC choose to open that tap of information for its audiences – for one of that bureau’s correspondents to produce some accurate and impartial background reading on the topic rather than opting for the continued promotion of politically motivated myths.

Related Articles:

BBC jumps on EU’s water politicisation bandwagon

Another ‘stealth’ correction on the BBC News website

BBC’s “Obstacles to Peace” do not hold water – part 1

BBC’s “Obstacles to Peace” do not hold water – part 2

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