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The water issue is one of the most critical issues in the Middle East, particularly in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Indeed, it is one of the causes of this conflict. Israeli plans in 1966, to divert the course of the Jordan River into Israel, constituted a major source of tension which culminated in the 1967 War. This war led to Israel's occupation of the rest of Palestine, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights. In fact one of the first attacks by the national forces against Israeli targets was on the Eilaboun tunnel which Israel had constructed to divert the Jordan River.

During the years of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel has pursued a policy of taking control of Palestinian water resources for use inside its own territory. Palestinian agriculture, the mainstay of the local economy in the Occupied Territories, has been severely hit as a result. Israel's continuing denial of the Palestinian people's rights over their water resources, in contravention with international law, will imperil any efforts at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A just solution to the water problem will be one based on cooperation rather than on Israeli control. And resolving the water crisis is one of the primary cornerstones in any attempts to reach a regional solution for sustainable use of the Middle East's scarce water resources.

 In preparing this study, JMCC has attempted to cover most of the issues and arguments in a comprehensive manner. After more than fifteen months of research it is our hope that this report will shed light on one of the most complex issues in the Middle East.

"Israel's water policy in the Occupied Territories is a natural sequel to its broader designs of colonising and ultimately annexing these territories. Water in the Occupied Territories, however limited, is largely the only natural resource Palestinian have. Any tampering with that wealth would necessarily frustrate their objective of establishing their own State and would render their claim to self-determination meaningless. "

UNITED NATIONS, 1992

"If the shortage of water becomes worse and worse and we can't solve it by peaceful means, then it will have to be solved by war. What other choice is there?"

ZVI ORTENBERG, Chair of [Israeli] Lake Kinneret Authority, 1991.

"The two sides agree to... cooperation in the Development Program prepared by experts from both sides, which will specify the mode of cooperation in the management of water resources in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and will include proposals for studies and plans on water rights of each party, as well as on the equitable utilization of joint water resources for implementation in and beyond the interim period."

Annex III, Protocol on Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation in Economic and Development Programs, DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES ON INTERIM SELF-GOVERNMENT ARRANGEMENTS, Washington DC, September 1993.

The conflict and problems over water in the occupied Palestinian territories, and in the Middle East as a whole, stem from three crucial factors: Israel's continuing occupation of Palestinian land and territorial expansion; the consequent political uncertainty in the wider Middle East which prevents joint management and accountability of largely shared water resources; and limited water resources themselves, which, in this semi-arid region, are vital for development and impinge on wider security issues for all countries in the region.

Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip in 1967, enabled it to control access to water resources and use water as a political weapon to realise wider political and economic objectives. Since 1948, the consumption of water in Israel has increased ten-fold. According to Palestinian economist Adel Samara, Israel's exploitation of renewable water resource is one of the most intense in the world, running at between 95-98 percent. Israel currently uses seven to ten times more water per capita than Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, and five times more per capita than its Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian neighbors. Israel's military conquests are integral to its control over the area's natural resources.

Israel's occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights gave it control of the tributaries flowing into the Jordan River, and its occupation of the West Bank gave it control of the Jordan Valley and the two major shared aquifers supplying water to the West Bank and Israel.

What has to evolve is `a better understanding of the shared but scarce water resources in the Middle East [as] fundamental to the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict'. There has, for example, never been a bilateral or multilateral water management agreement between the countries of the Middle East who are, to a large extent, dependent on each other for sustainable water resources.

Although almost all major water resources in the region are shared by two or more states, cooperation has been negligible or nonexistent. Nor has a joint commission ever been authorised to deal with allocation of, and disputes arising from, shared water supplies and their distribution; `In other words, Jordan, Israel, [the occupied Palestinian territories], Syria and Lebanon have yet to regulate the amount of water that each riparian state is entitled to'. The Jordan River basin, for example, connects three countries--Jordan, Israel and Syria--as well as the occupied West Bank.

They are to varying degrees dependent on water from the Jordan River, although Jordan, Syria and Israel have never formally agreed on each other's use of the river. According to water experts, by 1995, Israel and Jordan will have fully exploited their renewable water resources and will reach the stage of exploiting non-renewable water resources unless measures are taken quickly. And current rivalries may increase if Syria, for example, continues its development schemes on the upper Yarmuk River to construct a series of medium and small dams, eventually diverting up to 40 percent of the Yarmuk's waters, Jordan's access to the river, which it relies on to irrigate its side of the Jordan Valley as well as to supply water to upland urban centres including Irbid and Amman, will be reduced. Downstream resources currently utilised by Israel would also be affected.

Future cooperation and management of the region's water resources is contingent upon a halt to Israel's expansionist policies. According to a recent UN report, 67 percent of the water used by Israel comes from outside its 1948 borders (the `Green Line'), including 35 percent from the West Bank and tributaries of the Jordan River, and 22 percent from the Golan Heights.

Water could provide a basis for cooperation and joint management, laying a foundation for a lasting political settlement. According to Aric Issar, Professor of Water Resources at Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, although `the agricultural people believe that we can't let the Arabs have control of our [sic] water', the future of water use in the region lies in cooperation between Arabs and Israelis rather than conflict. Issar believes that resources `such as the Jordan [river], as well as underground water resources, have to be shared'. At a hearing of the US Congress House of Representatives Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East in June 1990, Professor Thomas Naff of the University of Pennsylvania warned that, `Israel, for some years, has been preventing Jordan from cleaning the intake of the East Gorem Main Canal, the national water carrier in Jordan.

When the Jordanians have gone out to clear out the rocks and silt, the Israelis have brought up troops and there have been exchanges of gunfire over the issue.' Israel has conducted similar activities in southern Lebanon: according to an article in Middle East International in 1990, `geological and topographical studies [of south Lebanon] were begun in 1983 and 1985. Israel began constructing aimed at diverting the waters of the Wazzani, on of the Litani's tributaries near the town of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon. There is increasing concern that Israel is merely waiting for the right political circumstances to implement these projects.' According to Thomas Naff and John Kolars, Israel is already diverting water from the Litani River, as well as the Hasbani River, which also rises in Lebanon. And, even before its occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, Israel obtained some 37 percent of its water supplies from the upper Jordan River, its tributaries and Lake Tiberias (which is supplied with water from the Jordan River).

Fundamental to access and use of all water resources is an awareness that the Occupied Territories and Israel are in a semi-arid region. Water resources are limited and becoming scarce. As these resources are exploited at increasingly unsustainable levels, the quality of remaining water resources worsens, reaching what is called the `red line'. Israeli hydrologist Schwartz warned in 1982 that the groundwater level in Israel and the Occupied Territories was just above the `red line'. Over a decade later no serious action has been taken. In terms of domestic supplies, water affects the quality of life. While Israeli settlers living on confiscated land in the Occupied Territories have abundant supplies of water for swimming pools and flower gardens, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face chronic water shortages, highly saline supplies and poor health as a result. Daily life involves collecting saline water some distance from people's homes which are surrounded by open drains. Sewage flows freely onto the streets where children play. The economic consequences have been severe. Whereas Israel has made `the desert bloom', this has been at the expense of Palestinians who, denied access to their own and shared water resources, have been prevented from developing their land and economy.

Future policies will have to take into account the true costs of water. Agriculture currently constitutes only 10 percent of Israel's total GNP, employs 6 percent of the labour force but absorbs 75 percent of Israel's total water consumption. The real cost of this water, however, has not figured in Israeli policies. Israeli farmers have been charged approximately one-third of the real costs of the water they use and are thus quite happy to grow water-intensive crops, ill-suited to semi-arid conditions. As a Jerusalem Post editorial complained, `the result is that the Israeli taxpayer subsidises to the tune of US$200 million per year the European consumer's purchase of Israeli produce'. Time will dictate the real economic cost of water: `It is cheaper to import bananas to Israel than to grow them. Oranges and grapefruits which are grown in Israel and are sold abroad, are essentially exported water. Israel can import oranges from Europe for less money than it costs to grow them here (if the farmers had to pay the real price of water).' The true costs of irrigation-quality water throughout the Middle East are hidden as water is subsidised in most countries `and especially so in Israel'.

This report focuses on Israel's policies and practices affecting the Palestinian population living under military occupation in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip (ie. the Occupied Territories). It does not include original research but brings together information from a wide variety of sources and presents different opinions and options for the future, reflecting contemporary debate on water in the current conflict. As with most research carried out in the Occupied Territories, we were often faced with widely conflicting, and at times inaccurate, data and information. However, we hope that the information included is of sufficient detail and accuracy to provide a useful overview of the water issue.

Chapter 1 outlines the distribution of resources in the Occupied Territories and Israel, and has short note on the situation in neighbouring Jordan, southern Lebanon and Syria. Having outlined the interdependence on not only surface supplies, but especially groundwater supplies,

Chapter 2 examines various international laws related both specifically and generally to water resources in the Occupied Territories and Israel.

Chapter 3 provides an historical overview of the current conflict and examines various agreements and attempted agreements which provide the background to today's discussions on water in the peace negotiations. Finally, Chapter 4 gives an outline of Israeli policies and practices affecting Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. It compares the consequences of severely discriminatory policies which control and affect Palestinian access to, and use of, water resources, to the situation for Israeli settlers.

Within the context of the recent peace agreement, the conclusion presents a summary of various proposals, both immediate and longer-term, which are being suggested from a range of sources. 

Discussion of the water issue has come none too soon. While the human cost has been all but ignored, the political cost of past water policies will have to be acknowledged and dealt with. The Israeli water company Mekorot recently drilled wells in settlements near Deir el-Balah where some of the best remaining good quality water in the Gaza Strip is located. This water is pumped in Mekorot pipes. None of it is sold to the local Palestinian population through whose midst the pipes pass.

Despite a multitude of international resolutions and declarations recognising Palestinian sovereignty and rights over their water resources, Israel's refusal to recognise these rights has had severe consequences for Palestinian access to, and development of, water resources. The human, social and economic costs of this discrimination must be clearly acknowledged and rapidly acted upon. 

Indeed, the water issue in the Middle East as a whole is critical and increasingly a source of tension and conflict, and may cause an escalation in the conflict unless regional agreement on shared water resources is reached.