Palestinians Walk for Water Justice in the Jordan Valley

[JstaRebel 48]

On 22 March 2013, World Water Day, the Freedom Bus joined with Jordan Valley Solidarity, E-Wash and Palestinians from across the West Bank, in a solidarity walk through communities in the Jordan Valley. Our aim was to raise awareness about unequal water allocation and the accompanying social and economic impact upon Palestinian communities living in the Jordan Valley.

Under terms negotiated in the Oslo Interim Agreement, Israelis are allocated four times more water from the shared West Bank mountain aquifer than Palestinians.

In addition, the Israeli Civil Administration (which governs Area C communities, including the Jordan Valley) refuses to grant permits to Palestinian farmers for the construction of cisterns used for rainwater collection. Cisterns that are built without permits are frequently demolished by the Israeli authorities. The high cost of tankered water has also reduced the ability of communities to pay for essentials such as food, health care, and education for their children. Unequal allocation of water, together with illegal land confiscation and settlement expansion, has allowed the Israeli agricultural industry to develop and dominate in the Jordan Valley whilst driving Palestinian inhabitants to the very edge of a viable existence. For farmers and herders in particular, the pursuit of traditional livelihoods has become increasingly difficult.

The walk set off from the small hamlet of Mak-Hul and ended in Ras Al Akhmar. There was a constant military presence during our walk. Throughout the day we heard people talk about the disparity between the Palestinian communities and the Israeli settlers, who are monopolising all the water resources and agricultural potential of the land in the Jordan Valley.

We held a Playback theatre performance in El Haddidya, gathered on dust plain next to some wheat fields, with rolling hills in the background. But this landscape has another story. It is used by the Israeli Defence Forces as a military training area and it is not unommon to hear gunshots and military planes flying overhead. This community is directly next to Roi settlement, which is fully equppied with water, electricity and sewage facilities, whereas people El Haddidya live in tents and are unable to even build basic dwellings on their own land. Even tent structures here are in danger of being demolished. We heard stories from people in the community about the hardships of their life under military occupation in the valley.

At one point during the performance, a group of people appeared on the horizon and came walking over the hill towards us. It was a group from the communities in the South Hebron Hills, which is also in Area C and faces similar problems, who had travelled to show their solidarity with the people in the Jordan Valley. After the Playback performance, the community served a beautiful lunch for hundreds of people. They brought out armfuls of bread and pots of lentil soup.

Suddenly, in the middle of lunch a huge sandstorm started. It was a fierce storm, which turned the sky dark with clouds of dust. We decided to continue our walk, and descended into the valley, but the storm quickly intensified. We had to wrap our heads up in scarves and battle through strong wind and dust blowing into our faces.

As suddenly as it had begun, the storm stopped. We stopped next to a dry riverbed and in front of a yellow water tanker, Fidaa, a hakawati storyteller, told a traditional story about water, accompanied by Hassan and Rami from Toot ‘Ard. It was a reminder that there is a deeply rooted Palestinian cultural tradition that transcends the daily brutalities of the occupation, and gives strength to resistance here.

An event like this, where people come together to hear stories and see situations first hand, engages all of our senses. This means our understanding of the situation is not purely intellectual – we listen, taste, and feel a piece of the daily reality of life in the Jordan Valley, with all its hardship and struggle. This visceral experience stays with us, mobilising us, and informing our own activism and solidarity when we return to our own countries. When all the statistics, facts and figures are forgotten, we will remember the stories we heard here and the faces of the people we have met. These encounters will sustain us as we take the struggle beyond Palestine.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Israel monopolizes Palestinian water sources - it diverts 73% of water from aquifers in the West Bank into its own national water system, and diverts another 10% to the illegal settlements. Palestinians are allotted just 17% of their own water. If they need more, they are permitted to buy their own water back from Israeli companies, at exorbitant rates.

[JstaRebel 48]

Israel monopolizes Palestinian water sources - it diverts 73% of water from aquifers in the West Bank into its own national water system, and diverts another 10% to the illegal settlements. Palestinians are allotted just 17% of their own water. If they need more, they are permitted to buy their own water back from Israeli companies, at exorbitant rates.

Indeed.. The water that IDE makes is also quite expensive... They have been loosing more and more market share in the world desalination industry because there are so many more affordable ways to desalinate water. I can't see that there would be much of an aquifer in the area and if mismanaged, it could cause it's demise..

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

We had a discussion in an older thread which went into many specifics about the water issues... this is from part of it:

Water has been a crucial issue in this conflict – it’s one of the main points to be negotiated along with the status of Jerusalem, final borders, the settlements and the refugees. Control of water was at the root of the 1967 war.

As you well know, water resources are limited in this land, much of which is arid or semi-arid. Surface water comes from the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee (also known as Lake Kinneret or Lake Tiberius.) And there are 3 main aquifers in the area that supply ground water:

According to international law, most of the water sources in the area are considered international resources -- they’re supposed to be shared by Israelis and Palestinians according to the principles of “equitable and reasonable use.”

However, in practice, what happens is neither equitable nor reasonable.

The Jordan River

The Jordan River is the only permanent river in the area which provides surface water. 80% of its basin is located in Jordan, Israel and Palestine, the rest is in Lebanon and Syria. Jordan gets about half its water from the Jordan River, while Lebanon and Syria each use a small amount -- it provides about 5% of each of their total water usage. Since 1967, Israel has been taking the rest – water that had historically supplied Palestinians. Currently, about 1/4 of the water consumed in Israel comes from this source.

Immediately after the 1967 war, Israel seized the Jordan River headwaters, destroyed 140 Palestinian water pumps in the Jordan Valley, and diverted the water to its National Water Carrier. It has denied Palestinians usage of this water ever since.

The diversion of that water has had a huge impact. Back in 1953, the Jordan River had an average flow of 1,250 million cubic meters per year at King Hussein Bridge. By 1998, that flow was down to 200 million cubic meters, and the water quality was poor. This is one of the main factors drying up the Dead Sea.

Aquifers

There are 4 main ground water aquifers in the area – the first three (along with their recharge zones) are the largest, and are situated mostly in the West Bank:

* The Mountain Aquifer System, also known as the Yarkon-Tanninim Aquifer (1)-- Israel takes 340 million cubic meters annually; Palestinians are limited to 20 million cubic meters a year.

* The Nablus-Gilboa Aquifer System (2) -- Israel pumps an average of 115 million cubic meters a year, while Palestinians are restricted to 25 million cubic meters -- even though it supplies a densely populated Palestinian area, including the cities of Nablus and Jenin.

* The Eastern Aquifer System (3) -- this lies entirely within the West Bank and was used exclusively by Palestinians until 1967 when Israel began to tap it, mostly to supply illegal Israeli settlements. Israel takes about 40% of this water – 40 million cubic meters a year, while Palestinians take 60 million cubic meters.

* The Coastal Aquifer (not included on the map below, but shown in purple on the first map titled "Where the Water is") – this is a smaller and more shallow aquifer which is located in and around Gaza and supplies its 1.5 million residents. This aquifer used to be partly recharged by the Wadi Gaza which flowed from Hebron down to the coast in the winter, but Israel stopped its flow.

Israel gets 1/4 of its water from these West Bank aquifers -- taking more than 80% of this water, which had traditionally supplied West Bank Palestinians.

Controlling the water

After the 1967 occupation began, Israel moved to limit Palestinian water consumption -- putting caps on how much water could be pumped from existing Palestinian wells, and prohibiting the digging of new wells or the rehabilitation of old ones. Israel then began to exploit two new water resources which it had not controlled before 1967 -- the Eastern Aquifer in the West Bank and the Coastal Aquifer in Gaza -- diverting water from these sources to its illegal settlements (which of course are still being built and expanded in the West Bank.)

Overall, per capita, Israelis receive about 5 times more water than Palestinians -- Israelis get an average of 92.5 gallons per person per day, while Palestinians in the West Bank get an average of 18.5 gallons per person per day. (According to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Health Organization, the minimum quantity of water recommended for household and urban use is 26.4 gallons per person per day.)

Not all Palestinian communities are connected to the municipal water network – some rely on wells. But during times of drought, Israel often shuts off water to Palestinian towns so that Israeli supplies remain unaffected, and Palestinians must either turn to nearby wells or have it trucked in by water tankers. (Many of the water sellers are actually illegal Israeli settlers – essentially they take the Palestinians’ own water and then sell it back to them at inflated prices.) And the frequent military closures impede or prevent the flow of people and traffic, making it difficult to get water from neighboring towns.

Gaining control of West Bank water sources is one of the strategic reasons that Israel has continued its attempts to expand its borders in that direction.

Here is a map of the West Bank. Israel is marked in yellow; the West Bank is in white. The illegal Israeli settlements and other areas in the West Bank that the Israeli army has seized or ordered off-limits to Palestinians are marked in orange. Remember – all of the white and orange areas are in the West Bank – the land that Israelis are not supposed to be occupying or settling.

And here another map that shows the major settlements and the path of The Wall (what Israel calls its "security fence"):

Note the large concentration of settlements in the areas of the Mountain Aquifer and the Eastern Aquifer. Israel continues to expand these settlements and their satellites. Note the path of The Wall, jutting deep into Palestinian land at strategic points along the Mountain Aquifer area. This settlements and The Wall are parts of Israel’s calculated move to try to retain control of those aquifers even if there is a peace agreement – Israel wants to “change facts on the ground” so it might permanently annex much of these areas into Israel’s territory.

Now take a look at population. Upwards of a million Palestinians were forced from their homes before and during the creation of the State of Israel, which currently has a population just under 7.3 million, a large number of them immigrants. Under present Israeli policy, any Jew from any country in the world may immigrate and settle in Israel -- this is an additional 12 to 14 million people who are being strongly urged to move to Israel. The Israeli government realizes that with its current water policies, its land simply will not sustain this level of population.

One of Israel’s ideas has been to ask the U.S. to fund a desalinization plant at Caesaria – but not to serve Israelis. Instead, Israel’s idea is that this water be pumped up into the mountains of the West Bank to supply the Palestinian villages and towns that currently rely on the aquifers there, in return for a signed agreement that would allow Israel to continue taking the lion’s share of the West Bank's aquifer water. Now this desalinated water, which Palestinians would be obliged to buy from Israel, would cost them three times as much as much as the water from their own aquifers. The obvious question -- why Israel doesn't drink its own desalinated water and leave the Palestinians' water alone ?

Irrigation

As far as irrigating crops – actually Israel does quite a lot of it. But Palestinians don’t – they don’t have enough water to spare for that.

Palestinian agriculture in the West Bank is predominantly rain-fed -- 94% of the cultivated area is not irrigated. Gaza uses some irrigation, but all together Palestinians irrigate a total of only about 11% of their cultivated lands.

In contrast, Israel irrigates more than 50% of its cultivated land, and uses 8 times more water on irrigation than Palestinians do. Part of this, as mentioned, is due to Israel's inappropriate choices of crops. But even more shocking, Israel is using about 53% of its drinking-quality water for agriculture.

Water Conservation

In the 1960s, Israel was receiving worldwide acclaim for its advances in water-saving farming technologies. Unfortunately, this type of research ground to a halt after Israel gained control of the water in the occupied Palestinian lands.

Without any alternatives, Palestinians (especially those not connected to the water network) have adopted very water-efficient lifestyles. Look at any Palestinian town (or Jordanian town) and you will see the water tanks on the roofs to collect water during the winter rains – often enough to supply a water-thrifty family for months. And many Palestinian farmers are using a simple system of earth filters to recycle the water they use for cooking and cleaning – they filter the water through a series of ponds built on descending levels, and by the time the water gets to the bottom, it’s clean enough for agricultural use.

Israelis could adopt many of these simple, cost-efficient techniques to save water without drastically changing their lifestyles. But they have yet to do so.