In a  meeting organised by the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), members of the Knesset coalition parties and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council met to discuss the water shortages on the West Bank. The meeting was also attended by Israeli and Palestinian water officials.

Context of the discussion: the Oslo Agreements

In the discussion, Fadel Kawash, the Deputy Palestinian Water Commissioner, stated that Israel was not fulfilling its commitments as they were agreed on in the Oslo Accords (Annex 3, appendix 1, article 40 of the Interim Agreement). In this Agreement, Israel states that "on the basis of good-will" certain arrangements were made until a final solution is negotiated. It also recognises the Palestinian rights on West Bank water but there will be no implications of this rights. Further, the future needs of the Palestinian on the West Bank are estimated on 70 to 80 million cubic meters a year (par. 3), but there is no indication about how long this ‘future’ will be. For the direct needs, the Palestinians on the West Bank would receive an extra 23,6 million cubic meters for domestic use (par. 7). Additional water will be sold at real cost price, transport and production costs included (par. 9).

This Interim Agreement of 28 September 1995 started a period of negotiations that should lead to a Final Status, a solution for the Palestine question. The Palestinian Council received certain competences in a limited area of the Palestinian Territories. In these areas, the Palestinian Authorities are obligated to protect the aquifers under the West Bank and Gaza against overexploitation and pollution. The Palestinians can administer their own water in the areas where the Israeli military transferred civil authority to the Palestinian Council.

No solution for a sustainable peace

Since the war of 1967, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are governed by Israeli military commanders. The existing laws were replaced by a system of Military Orders by which Israel took control over life in the Occupied Territories. Military Order 92 (15 August 1967) transferred the authority over the water resources of the West Bank to the military commander of the area; private owners and communities lost control. Military Order 158 (19 November 1967) forbids the construction of new water infrastructure without license. A functionary appointed by the military commander is responsible for these licenses. He also has the power to annulate older licenses. There is no appeal possible against his decisions. Military Order 291 confiscated all the water resources and placed them under the Israeli Water Law of 1959. The water resources become public property and could be used for the benefit and development of Israel. (D. CAPONERA, p. 177; S. ISSA & G. DE BRUIJN, Existing water laws; UN, Water resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, p. 39; A. WOLF, The impact, p. 105).

A part of the water from the West Bank reaches Israel in a natural way. The remaining part of the resource is used by Jewish colonists on the West Bank or transferred to Israel by pipelines. Palestinians were prevented from increasing their water use and didn’t get permission to modernise their existing wells. The result was an imbalance in water use: Israel used in 1993 nearly 80% of the mountain aquifer under the West Bank, leaving only 20% for the Palestinians (H. SHUVAL, p. 94). Israelis could consume three times as much as the Palestinians on the West Bank. The Jewish colonists even consumed more (calculations based on H. AWARTANI, A projection, p. 15). This is still the actual situation after the Interim Agreement because the additional water for the Palestinians is only a marginal correction of the imbalance.

A proposal for sharing the water

In an IPCRI publication, Professor Hillel Shuval of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem proposed some principles for equitable water allocation of the water resources shared by Israel and the Palestinians. His point is that every inhabitant of the region should have a minimal amount of 125 cubic meter a year at his disposal, required for domestic use and a minimum of social life. Starting from this Minimum Water Requirement (MWR), he  calculated the amount of water that would be necessary to meet the demands of the whole population of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The amount of water that is left after the MWR is distibuted could be subject of discussion between Israelis and Palestinians.
Shuval also calculated that there would be not enough water to meet the MWR of the Israeli and Palestinian population in the year 2020. This makes the discussion about the partition of the remaining water irrelevant because there would not be any water to fight for.

No provisions are made in the Interim Agreement to come to this kind of a fair or equitable sharing of the water resources. The Agreements also don't take any measures to prevent severe water shortages in the very near future.

The same old discussion goes on

The IPCRI report shows that there seems to be no sign of change in the traditional position of Israel towards the Palestinian water claims. When we take a look at the argumentation of the Israeli Water Commissioner Meir Ben Meir, we can make the following remarks:

• Ben Meir accuses the Palestinians of stealing water.

Nevertheless, Israel is violating international law ( the IV Geneva Convention) by preventing the Palestinians to use the water under their territory. Even the Security Council took position against Israel’s water policy in the Occupied Territories (UN, Water resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, pp. 68-69).
• Ben-Meir also said the Israel "cannot devide the deficit of water" with the Palestinians.

This indicates there is no way that Israel will redistribute more water or decrease the amount it takes from the West Bank resources. A positive note is that he refers to the need of an agreement to share water based on the principle of "equality for humanitarian needs", but he rightly raises questions about the scarce possibilities to reach this goal: where does this water come from, who will pay for it and for the investments and, in the first place, how to reach such an agreement. Even then the Palestinians will be in the worst position: they have to buy extra water (instead of receiving a fair part of the existing resources?).
• Ben Meir rejects the idea of a desalination plant owned by the Palestinians themselves.

Of course, from his point of view it is better to keep the Palestinians dependent on Israeli water facilities and Israeli goodwill: Israel must keep the hand on the tap.

Brief remarks about some points the working group agreed on:

• "The Palestinian Water Authority and the Israeli Water Commission must work on establishing a system whereby data and figures can bee agreed upon and presented together."

This is already included in article 40 of Annex 3 of the Interim Agreement.
• "The Israeli Water Commission will look into the possibility of immediately pumping additional water from Gush Etzion at a rate of 400 cubic meters for hour to the Hebron region to relieve the immediate shortage."

This is on a population of 150.000 people some 64 liter a day for each person. Is this a permanent arrangement, or only temporary to meet the most urgent needs?
• "If the Palestinians can provide funds (from a donor country) the Israeli Water Commission will positively review a plan for laying a new pipeline from within the Green Line to add additional water to the Hebron region".

The Palestinians will remain dependent on Israeli infrastructure for future development.

This report shows clearly that water is asignificant consideration in Israeli policy of colonisation of the Palestinain Territories. colonisation policy. It needs water from occupied territory to support Jewish colonies on the West Bank and to maintain a water-intensive agriculture. According to Israeli figures from of the Central Bureau of Statistics, nearly 2/3 of Israel’s water (64%) is spent on agriculture - even with the use of watersaving techniques like drip irrigation or water reclamation - although Israel’s economy depends for less than 3% on agricultural output. When Israel looses its grip on the West Bank, it looses control over the resources, especially when Palestinian farmers start to irrigate their crops on the same level as the Israeli farmers do now (in 1994 Palestinians irrigated 11% of their field crops and Israel irrigated 45% in 1995 - figures from the Palestinian and Israeli Statistical Bureaus). The problems of transferring more territory to the Palestinian Authority is not only a matter of direct security but also a matter of water. This explains the conditions that are connected to further redeployment of the Israeli army; the abandoned territory must be turned into a natural reserve, to prevent Palestinian farming.

Ideological and political factors more than practical concerns are bind Istraeli intransigence with regard to the sharing of water resources with the Palestinians. It will take more than a stroke of a pen under a peace agreement to change this.

References

• H. AWARTANI,  A projection of the demand in the West Bank and Gaza Strip 1992-2005, in: J. ISAAC, H. SHUVAL, Water and peace in the Middle East. Proceedings of the first Israeli-Palestinian Academic Conference on Water, Zürich, Switserland, 10-13 December 1993, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 1994, pp. 9-32.
• D. CAPONERA, Principles of water law and administration: national and international, Rotterdam, Balkema, 1992, 260 p.
• The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Washington, D.C. September 28, 1995.
• Israelian Central Bureau of Statistics, agricultural statistics.
• Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, agricultural statistics.
• H. SHUVAL, Proposed principles and methodology for the equitable allocation of the water resources shared by the Israelis, Plaestinians, Jordanians and Syrians, in: N. AL KHATIB, K. ASSAF, E. KALLY, H. SHUVAL, A proposal for the development of a regional water master plan, Jerusalem, IPCRI, 1993, pp. 150-174.
• S. ISSA & G. DE BRUIJN, Existing water laws and regulations in Palestine, LAW- The Palestinian Society Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment.
• UNITED NATIONS, Water resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territories: prepared for, and under the guidance of the Committee on the existence of the inalenable rights of the Palestinian people, New York, UN, 1987, 111 p.
• A. WOLF, Water for peace in the Jordan River watershed, in: Natural Resources Journal, 33, 3, 1993, pp. 797-839.