The Middle East is likely to plunge into a serious humanitarian crisis due to depletion of water resources, unless remedial measures are introduced urgently, says a new report [1]. The Strategic Foresight Group prepared the report, “The Blue Peace”, with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and input from almost 100 leaders and experts from Israel, the Palestine Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
The report assesses the principal challenges linked to the trans-border management of resources. At present a factor of division and tension, water harbours the potential of becoming an instrument of peace and cooperation. This emerges as the report’s central thesis. Subsequently, it compiles a list of ten recommendations, calculated in the short, medium, and long terms, which are aimed to lead to pragmatic solutions.
The Israel Defense Force’s Civil Administration destroyed a Palestinian village Monday morning that had earlier been cleared out when its water supply was cut off. The IDF demolished about 55 structures in the West Bank village of Farasiya, including tents, tin shacks, plastic and straw huts, clay ovens, sheep pens and bathrooms.
These structures served the 120 farmers, hired workers and their families who lived in the Jordan Valley village. The Civil Administration said they had declared the area a live fire zone and posted eviction orders for 10 families in tents on June 27. “Since no appeal was filed in the following three weeks, and given the danger posed by the location of the tents, they were removed,” they said in response.
Since 1967, Israel has prevented Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley from growing, whether by cutting off their water supply, declaring large areas as live fire zones or banning all construction.
The families had recently been forced to leave the village when the Israeli authorities cut it off from its water sources, said the popular committees’ coordinator in the valley, Fathi Hadirat.
The villagers were forbidden to use the water wells the Mekorot Water Company had dug in the area.
Nations fight over water, especially when access is threatened. Egypt and Sudan have counted on the abundance of the Nile’s life-giving flow but now upstream nations want to keep more of the abundance for themselves. Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda are asserting their rights to more of the river’s relentless flow. Washington needs to intervene to forestall hostilities between the countries.
A new 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, now signed by most of the key upstream abutters, would give all riparian states (including the Congo, where a stream that flows into Lake Tanganyika is the acknowledged Nile source) equal access to the resources of the river. That would give preference to large scale upstream energy and industrial, as well as long-time agricultural and irrigation uses. However Egypt and Sudan have refused to sign the new agreement despite years of discussions. Egypt, which is guaranteed 56 billion of the annual flow of 84 billion cubic meters of Nile water each year, hardly wants to lose even a drop of its allocation. Nor does Sudan, guaranteed 15 billion cubic meters.
Egypt has declared the continued surge of the Nile waters a “red line’’ that affects its “national security.’’ There is discussion in Egypt about the use of air power to threaten upstream offenders, especially if Ethiopia becomes too demanding.
Robert I. Rotberg directs Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and is president of the World Peace Foundation
Source: Robert I. Rotberg, Boston Globe, 02 Jul 2010
Talks aimed at adopting a water management strategy for the Mediterranean failed due to a row between Israel and Arab countries over a reference to the Palestinian territories, participants said.
“Unfortunately we can not reach an agreement,” French secretary of state for European affairs Pierre Lellouche said at the end of the 4th Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Water in Barcelona where the body is based.
The conference aimed to reach an agreement on a strategy for managing fresh water in the Mediterranean to ensure equal access to the non-renewable resource and prevent the issue from becoming a source of conflict in the future.
But a reference to “occupied territories” in a proposed draft text prevented the approval of a final accord event though delegates were in agreement on 99 percent of the technical issues related to water management”, said Lellouche.
The head of the body, Jordan’s Ahmad Masa’deh, said he was saddened by the failure to reach an agreement at the conference because it “casts doubt on the future of the Mediterranean Union.”
The union groups all 27 EU member states with countries in North Africa, the Balkans, the Arab world as well as Israel in a bid to foster cooperation in the region.
“My disappointment is matched only by my hope, this structure is irreversible,” said Lellouche, adding the body is a “fundamental project for peace in this region and it has not lost any validity”.
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau rejected responsibility for the failure of the talks and blamed Arab nations instead.
“We wanted to concentrate solely on the problems of water and avoid entering into political themes. But Arab League nations lapsed into pure propaganda and made political declarations against the state of Israel,” he said.
The issue of access to water is of crucial importance for the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin.
Over 180 million people in the region already lack water and over 60 million people face chronic shortages, according to Mediterranean Union experts.
International organizations say Israel’s water supplies fall short of Palestinian needs, but also that the Palestinians have failed to set up the infrastructure and institutions needed in the water sector.
Source: Daily news Egypt, 14 April , 2010
In a new report [1], Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies. Israeli authorities said the report “distorts the truth” and that it reflected Palestinian propaganda.
These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.
“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. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.
In their new report [1], Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water. Uzi Landau, Israel’s minister of national infrastructure, called the report “a lie” and said it reflected Palestinian propaganda. “Despite Israel’s severe water crisis, Israel transfers large quantities of water, greater than it is obliged to according to the [Oslo] agreement.”
Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.
While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.
In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.
Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.
In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.
[...] In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.
[...] To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.
[...] Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them. It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.
Vegetable crops and irrigation network being uprooted by an Israeli army bulldozer in Jiftlik, Jordan Valley, 11 March 2008. Photo: Amnesty International
[...] In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.
[...] In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.
“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources,” said Donatella Rovera.
In a separate feature “The day the bulldozers came…“ read how Israeli army bulldozers destroyed rainwater cisterns, that were built in 2006 as part of a European Union-funded project, in the village of Beit Ula, north-west of Hebron.
Israeli reaction to Amnesty Report
The Israel Water authority said the report “distorts the truth” and that Israel “holds up its end of the Oslo agreement regarding water sharing”.
Uzi Landau, Israel’s minister of national infrastructure, called the report “a lie” and said it reflected Palestinian propaganda. “Despite Israel’s severe water crisis, Israel transfers large quantities of water, greater than it is obliged to according to the [Oslo] agreement.”
A different perspective: a Palestinian and Israeli mayor are building a water bridge
Canadian-Israeli enviro journalist Karin Kloosterman has a more positive story to tell. One where the Mayor of Gaza is co-operating with one from a nearby Israeli city, so Gaza City can build its own water treatment facility. An international meeting in Brazil in July 2009 was lined up so the two could meet, Hams refused to let the Mayor of Gaza from leaving the Strip.
Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem did attend the event, however, and they signed their names on the water works plan, without the consent of Hamas officials.
Expected to cost more than $50 million, the plant will be modelled on the eight-year old water treatment facility in Ashkelon. Gaza will receive the blueprints and Israeli specialists.
A water rights battle over the historic Tigris and Euphrates rivers simmered on [03 September 2009] as Iraq and Syria appealed for increased water flows to cope with severe drought but Turkey said it was already too overstretched.
Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said Turkey’s southeast region was also suffering from low rainfall and drought but the country was still releasing more water than it was legally obligated to its neighbors out of humanitarian concerns.
He said Turkey was releasing on average 517 cubic meters per second instead of the required 500 cubic meters per second, sacrificing its own energy needs in the process.
Turkey is advocating using water more efficiently and sustainably through joint projects instead of increasing water flows.
The meeting was called to discuss setting up joint stations to measure water volume at the rivers, as well as exchanging more information about climate and drought and creating joint education programs for more sustainable water management.
Drought-stricken Iraq has accused its upstream neighbors Turkey and Syria of taking too much from the rivers and their tributaries. The rivers’ low water flows are caused in part by the construction of dams in Turkey and Syria.
Turkey’s Environment Minister Veysel Eroglu said in opening remarks that Turkey was sacrificing energy production to release water from dams and alleviate water shortages downstream.
Nader al-Bunni, Syria’s irrigation minister, said his country was also letting more water flow into Iraq than required by agreements.
“We understand Iraq’s need for more water and we are letting 69 percent of the waters in the Euphrates for the bretheren people of Iraq. We have increased the amount from 58 percent to 69 percent,” he said.
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) calls on the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to replace the failed Joint Water Committee (JWC) with a new joint water management structure. FoEME calls on the Quartet led by the new Administration of US President Barak Obama to focus on the dire Palestinian water economy as a matter of urgency and help the parties replace the JWC with a new institution that empowers both sides as equal partners.
“It is time to replace the failed mechanism of the Joint Water Committee, established under Oslo, with an institution where Palestinians and Israelis are true partners in both water supply and management responsibilities,” said Nader Khateeb, Palestinian Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East.
As earlier reports of FoEME detailed and the latest World Bank report highlighted, the Joint Water Committee has failed the interests of both peoples, not providing the water quantities needed to Palestinians and not protecting shared Israeli/Palestinian water resources from large scale pollution.
“The irony is that due to the water crises, following 5 consecutive years of [drought], pollution largely from Palestinian sources poses an ever increasing threat to the declining shared water reserves,” said Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East. “A key problem with the JWC is that it has disempowered the Palestinians from being able to take responsibility for water management. The Palestinians receive so little of the shared water, that Israelis must ask themselves, what incentive do Palestinians have to protect shared water from pollution?” he added.
In 2008, FoEME released a Model Water Agreement that called for the replacement of the Joint Water Committee with a new body where equivalent powers and responsibilities would lie with both sides covering all shared water resources.
As the World Bank report highlights the present structure of the JWC gives virtual veto power just to the Israeli side on all shared water issues.
“After 15 years of JWC failure, the results have proven to be catastrophic. It’s urgent to free the water sector and water needs of both peoples from the conflict”, continued Nader Khateeb, FoEME Palestinian Director.
Israel and Syria are holding indirect peace talks in Istanbul through Turkish mediators. This marks the first official confirmation that contacts have resumed since 2000. The two governments said they had declared their intent to conduct these talks in good faith and with an open mind, with the goal of reaching a comprehensive peace. Peace with Syria would require Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has occupied ever since.
[...]
The main point of contention concerns a narrow strip of land along the Sea of Galilee, which Israel wants to keep to ensure its control of vital water supplies. On the ground, this gap is just several hundred meters. The sticking point is Syria’s demand for land reaching the northeastern shore of the inland sea.
“The key issue between Israel and Syria is first and foremost the strategic importance, from an Israeli perspective, of the Golan Heights”, said David Newman is a Professor of Political Geography and a Senior Research Fellow at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. “Second most important issue is the water issue, because much of Israel’s water sources in a region of scarce water, and it’s coming in from the Golan, and there’s no question that Israel would want to negotiate a very serious water-sharing agreement or some sort of water agreement with Syria if the Golan Heights were to be returned as part of an agreement”, Newman added.
See (video) and read more (transcript): Real New Network, 22 May 2008
According to reports in the Arab media, while the previous discussions in May were of a general nature, the next round of talks starting in June will focus on the details of four separate issues of a possible peace accord: borders, security aspects, water and normalisation.
Mrs Sondes Kamoun has been appointed as Director General of the Tunisian Office of Planning and Hydraulic Balance. She succeed to Fethi Lebdi. Mrs Kamoun has been for several years the coordinator of EMWIS National Focal Point for Tunisia.
In the framework of the GIZ AGIRE programme, a wokshop held on 9 and 10 May brought together 35 representatives from Morocan water basin agencies, Ministry water department, consultancy companies and EMWIS. After extensive sessions dedicated to sharing of knowledge on past and ongoing developments, the participants outlined an action plan to support informat […]
The Middle East is likely to plunge into a serious humanitarian crisis due to depletion of water resources, unless remedial measures are introduced urgently, says a new report [1]. The Strategic Foresight Group prepared the report, “The Blue Peace”, with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and input from almost 100 leaders and experts from Israel, the Palestine Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
