Israelis and Palestinians sign major water deal

The deal was negotiated by Jason Greenblatt, the US envoy to the region, who said he welcomed the agreement

The Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority have signed an agreement over water, with the US broker of the deal describing it as “a harbinger of things to come”.

The deal, which was announced at a press conference this morning, will see the sale of 33 million cubic metres of water to the Palestinian Authority from Israeli desalination plants, which are among the most advanced in the world. Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza will receive water from the deal.

The parties also signed an agreement regarding a proposed 137 mile pipeline between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, in an effort to replenish the latter body of water, which has suffered severe shrinkage in recent years.

In a rare show of political agreement, the deal was praised by representatives of the Israeli government, the Palestinian Water Authority and the Yesha Council, an umbrella group of municipal councils for Jewish West Bank settlements.

The deal was negotiated by Jason Greenblatt, the US envoy to the region, who said he welcomed the agreement, noting that earlier in the week the Israelis and Palestinians had joined together for the launch of a new electrical sub-station in the West Bank city of Jenin.

“This agreement is an example of the parties working together to make a mutual beneficial deal,” he said.

“I am proud of the role the US and international partners have played in helping the partners reach this deal, and I hope it is a harbinger of things to come”.

Water distribution has been one of the most contentious elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. West Bank residents can only carry out water-related projects, such as  extraction from the aquifers, with the permission of the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee, which was established under Article 40 of the 1995 Oslo Accords. However, Israel suspended its involvement in the committee for six years, a hiatus that was only resolved in January 2017. During that time, many Palestinian water projects remained on hold.

Palestinians also need permits from the Israeli Civil Administration before embarking on any water works in Area C of the West Bank, a measure that does not apply to the Israelis.

Israel releases Nazi Eichmann’s execution plea papers

Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, protested his innocence in a final plea against his death sentence, newly released papers show.

Eichmann told Israel’s president that he had only followed orders and was not responsible for “the unspeakable horrors” carried out against Jews.

Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War Two.

Israel released the papers on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Eichmann was convicted in Jerusalem and hanged in 1962.

Marking the publication of the hand-written documents, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said: “Not a moment of kindness was given to those who suffered Eichmann’s evil – for them this evil was never banal, it was painful, it was palpable.

Image copyrightIsraeli President’s Office

“He murdered whole families and desecrated a nation. Evil had a face, a voice. And the judgement against this evil was just.”

The papers reveal that Eichmann believed the Israeli judges who oversaw his trial had “made a fundamental mistake in that they are not able to empathise with the time and situation in which I found myself during the war years”.

He attempted to absolve himself of blame, telling Israel’s then-President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi: “It is not true… that I myself was a persecutor in the pursuit of the Jews… but only ever acted ‘by order of’.”

Eichmann, who played a key role in the 1942 Wannsee Conference at which the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jewry was planned, spoke in his appeal of the “unspeakable horrors which I witnessed”.

“I detest as the greatest of crimes the horrors which were perpetrated against the Jews and think it right that the initiators of these terrible deeds will stand trial before the law now and in the future,” he wrote.

However, he added: “I was not a responsible leader, and as such do not feel myself guilty.”

Eichmann was captured by Israeli intelligence agents in 1960 in Argentina, where he was living as a fugitive, and smuggled to Israel, which put him on trial.

His plea for clemency was rejected and he was hanged in Ramle prison.