The hydraulics of Holocaust

Roger Harrison | Arab News

JEDDAH: Jordan was one of the first countries in the world to sign a water agreement, which it did twice with Israel, first in 1953 and again in 1987.

Al-Naser’s words appear prophetic, but the facts of the case — that Israel has severe water stress and cannot draw sufficient water from aquifers within its borders — is not news.

Much of its underground water, as much as 37 percent — is saline tainted as the Mediterranean Sea gradually seeps eastwards into the country. This has forced Israel to look outside its borders for supplies. West was the obvious direction.

First came the Tiberius project, a system of canals that took water from the River Jordan and reduced its flow by 90 percent to water the Negev Desert and found an agricultural export industry. Simultaneously, this destroyed the Palestinian farming industry and reduced swathes of the population to wage earners dependent on income from employment in Israel or penury.

Then came the Golan Heights. Promoted as a military risk to Israel who occupied it and still refuse to return the area. The Golan Heights have an aquifer beneath which supplies about 15 percent of Israel’s water. As much as 80 percent of Israel’s water is sourced outside its national borders.

Next came the settlements. New settlements never develop eastwards — only westwards. They follow the gradual recession of the aquifer into Palestinian territory. When settlements are built, immensely powerful pumps are installed to extract water for Israel’s use.

None of this is new, but with the publication of the Amnesty report on Oct. 26, at last it is news.

The report says that Israel is denying water to Palestinian residents on the West Bank and has brought the sewage and water systems in Gaza to crisis point.

Israel, the human rights group said, restricts availability of water in the Palestinian territories “by maintaining total control over the shared resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.”

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies,” Amnesty researcher on Israel and the OPT Donatella Rovera said in a report.

The three main natural water resources in the area are Lake Kinneret, the mountain aquifer and the coastal aquifer. The mountain aquifer runs almost entirely under the West Bank, and Amnesty slammed Israel for taking 80 percent of the water from the aquifer.

Water resources are one of the “negotiation issues between Israel and the Palestine Authority. Amnesty has called on Israel to divide up the shared water resources now and end discrimination against Palestinians in favor of settlers.

According to the report, Israelis use 400 liters per capita/day and the Palestinians only 70. The World Health Organization’s recommendation for the sustenance of a basic lifestyle is 100 liters per capita/day.

According to Israeli Water Authority, however, Israelis use 408 liters per day of fresh water from natural sources and Palestinians use 200 liters per day. While acknowledging the difference between these two amounts, the authority stressed that it was nowhere near as drastic as Amnesty has portrayed it.

However, according to the Water Authority, while Israeli access to water before 1967 was about 500 cubic meters per person per year, nowadays it is just 149 cu.m. per year, a drop of 70 percent. In contrast, Palestinian consumption has risen to 105 cu.m per person per year from 86 cu.m. in pre-1967. This is not unexpected as the measure of increased efficiency in the use of water simply reflects the value Israel places on a declining resource and the lack of availability for the technology to do the same for Palestinians due to lack of finance and sanctions imposed by Israel.

The Water Authority also stressed that it provides the PA with more water per year than the amounts stipulated in the Oslo Accords. It also said Palestinians routinely dug illegal wells and refuse to purify and reuse their sewage for agriculture. Instead, they dumped their sewage into the streams in the West Bank, causing massive pollution. However, the technology and finance is simply not available to the Palestinians.

But the Amnesty report pointed out that Palestinians are not allowed to drill new wells or rehabilitate old ones without permits from the Israeli authorities, which are often impossible to get. Moreover, many roads in the West Bank are closed or restricted to Palestinian traffic that forces water tankers to make long detours to supply communities not connected to the water network.

The Amnesty said between 180,000 and 200,000 Palestinians in the West Bank rural areas have no access to running water, while taps in other areas often run dry. Amnesty further charged that Israel routinely denied Palestinians permits to launch desperately needed water sanitation and infrastructure projects in the West Bank.

Shaul Arlosoroff, a leading Israeli authority on water acquisition and use, said Israeli restrictions in the West Bank are meant to protect an already taxed aquifer from over-pumping. The final recommendations of the Amnesty report call on Israel to stop violating the Palestinians’ human rights.

“Amnesty International calls on the Israeli authorities to urgently address the desperate need for water security in the OPT, brought about by their violations of Palestinians’ human rights,” the report reads.

“The Israeli authorities should immediately:

• Lift the restrictions currently in place which deny Palestinians in the OPT access to sufficient water to meet personal and domestic needs as well as to enjoy their rights to water, food, health, work and an adequate standard of living.

• Put an end to policies and practices which discriminate against Palestinians and confer privileges to Israeli settlers with respect to access to water in the OPT.

• Revoke all outstanding orders for demolitions and prohibit further demolitions of water facilities in Area C of the West Bank.

• Lift the blockade on Gaza and allow immediate entry to Gaza of spare parts and construction and other material and equipment needed for the repair, reconstruction and maintenance of the water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza.”

Amnesty also called on the Palestinian Water Authority to “take measures to maximize existing water resources, by prioritizing measures which reduce the unacceptably high water losses, and by establishing mechanisms to ensure that all the water delivered to consumers, whether through the PWA-controlled networks or via mobile water tankers, is safe and complies with WHO standards.”

Whatever the rights and wrongs, whatever political settlement the parties involved in the Israel-Palestine situation, nothing will be achieved until the question of water is resolved, for without it both sides face extinction.