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POPSWater Policy in Israel and Palestine - There's Enough Water for Both The increasing difficulties with water availability, concludes the hydrogeologist, result from Israel using the majority of water resources for agricultural purposes, although this sector today represents a very small portion of the Israeli economy. Despite this, the Israeli state remains unswervingly committed to the Zionist foundation myth, which regards the promotion of agriculture as a central tenet in the Jewish settlement of Palestine. Messerschmid, in turn, sees the priorities of Israeli water policies as fundamentally flawed, leading to a wasteful use of the precious resource. Large areas of land, for instance, are still intensively watered even during conditions of very high temperatures, although most of the water immediately evaporates. The Palestinians, by contrast, do not even have the amount of water at their disposal that was promised in the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. Deutsche Fassung