Seattle Seminar Addresses Israeli-Palestinian Water Negotiations

by Elaine Kelley

Problems of water distribution in the Middle East were discussed at the Greater Pacific Northwest Regional Middle East Seminar, held May 4 at the University of Washington in Seattle. The event happened to coincide with the scheduled opening of final status negotiations in Taba, Egypt, on May 5 between Palestinians and Israel on pivotal issues remaining in the Middle East peace talks, among them the issue of water.

Abdallah Abu Eid, a visiting professor of International Law from Al-Najah University in Nablus on the West Bank, and Alwyn Rouyer of the Political Science Department at the University of Idaho presented their research in “A Panel Discussion of Water in the Context of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process.”

Noting that water is inseparable from the other issues of land, settlements, boundaries, security and Jerusalem that were to be negotiated at Taba, Professor Abu Eid cited increasing “water pressure” on negotiators. “Land and water are interlinked politically and by law,” he said, noting that Israel achieved its domination of West Bank water resources following the 1967 occupation by promulgating military laws prohibiting Palestinians from drilling wells on their land, and imposing controls on licensing, pricing and consumption.

He stated that only by applying international humanitarian law to the water accords would progress be made in the negotiations. A hindrance to such progress is the fact that data on the water have been collected and held in secrecy by the Israelis, who claim water to be a national security concern. On these grounds Israel denies the public access to water data collected from decades of scientific studies.

Professor Abu Eid described his experiences in trying to obtain accurate data on water resources and consumption from the Israel Center for Research in 1991. After being promised the information by the director, the professor said he later was refused access. He was told he must first obtain written permission from the Minister of Defense and from the Minister of Agriculture, permission that the professor was certain would not be given.

“Water is an essential issue, a scarce commodity more expensive than petrol,” the professor explained. Based upon his own research he determined that “Israelis take 80 percent of the water from West Bank aquifers.” The water is pumped illegally from equipment on the Israeli side of the Green Line for Israeli uses.

On the West Bank, he said, Jewish settlers pay one-third of the rate that Palestinians pay for water. Based on 60 percent unemployment on the West Bank, and a Palestinian per capita income which is only 24 percent of Israeli income, the actual cost of water for Palestinians is 12 to 15 times more than for Israelis, Professor Abu Eid said. He said that Israelis have demonstrated increased willingness to cooperate with Palestinians in developing a limited resource. He maintained, however, that, “Negotiating water with the Israelis is like the person who steals your car and doesn’t want to give it back, but instead says ‘Come, my friend, let us make a company for trading in cars.’” He pointed to a map of the West Bank and the Jewish settlement of Ariel where residents enjoy swimming pools while people in his hometown of Nablus just a little north of Ariel, “sometimes go 20 to 30 days without drinking water.”

Professor Alwyn Rouyer, who spent an academic year as a visiting scholar at Birzeit University on the West Bank, cited Israeli expressions of willingness to resolve Palestinian water rights. However, he added, “Israel recognizes Palestinian water rights but says the meaning of this will be discussed at the final status talks.”

So far, he said, there are indications that Palestinian water rights as understood by Israelis do not include sharing existing resources or curtailing Israeli water consumption. Cooperation on water issues instead has been confined to the area of development and management of new water sources, primarily through increased drilling for new wells on the West Bank, construction of desalinization plants along the Mediterranean coast, sewage treatment of wastewater for agriculture, leakage prevention, and extraordinary means for bringing water from Turkey via pipelines through Syria and Jordan and transporting a million cubic meters (mcm) of water at a time in bags floated from Turkey to Israel.

Professor Rouyer illustrated his talk with overhead maps showing the three main sources of water for the entire area shared by Palestinians and Israelis: the Jordan River basin, aquifers on the West Bank, and aquifers along the coastal plain. A politically significant point is that Jordan basin waters on the West Bank are drawn from the Hasbani River in southern Lebanon and the Banias River in the occupied Golan Heights, which feed the Upper Jordan River. This means that Israel depends on rivers and watersheds almost completely inside Syria and Lebanon. The Dan River in northern Israel also is part of the Jordan basin axis and provides Israel with water flowing into Lake Galilee. Yet, according to Professor Rouyer, the richer of the two aquifers, the mountain aquifer which is 95 percent inside the West Bank, is almost totally consumed by Israelis. “Israel consumes 80 to 90 percent of the mountain aquifer’s water,” he pointed out.

Existing water resources are being polluted, exhausted and overexploited, mainly by irrigation for agriculture, Professor Rouyer said, but this is not the major problem. “While overexploitation and the need to find new sources of water are major concerns, especially in Gaza, the crucial political problem is not scarcity but inequity,” he said. He explained that of the roughly 2,000 mcm of water available yearly to both Israelis and Palestinians, “Israeli water policies have restricted consumption by Palestinians in the West Bank to between 110 and 125 mcm per annum,” or approximately 6 percent of the consumption by Israelis.

The final status talks between Israel and the Palestinians are scheduled to continue for the next three years. Professor Rouyer believes that a successful outcome rests on an active role in the negotiations by the United States. Israelis and Palestinians agree there must be equitable allocation of water, but their interpretations of what is equitable vary. Rouyer interviewed Israeli Foreign Ministry official Yusef Ben-Dor, who served as coordinator of the Israeli delegation to the multilateral peace talks on water resources under the Peres administration. “For us, it is obvious that if the Palestinians do not have enough water, we shall not have peace,” Ben-Dor told him. Whether that understanding will guide the Israeli negotiators sent by the incoming Netanyahu government remains to be seen.

SIDEBAR

The Pacific Northwest Middle East Seminar

The annual Pacific Northwest Middle East Seminar is an opportunity for educators to share current research and recent experience in Middle East countries with one another and with students. Ellis Goldberg, Director of the Middle East Center of the University of Washington, introduced the presenters and their full day of lectures covering a number of topics of interest to students of the Middle East.

In addition to the panel on water by Professors Abu Eid and Rouyer, Karim Hamdy and Laura Rice of Oregon State University shared information on a conference they attended in Tunisia in December 1994 on women and development called "Women, Literacy and Education in the Middle East: A Comparative Assessment."

Professor William Cleveland of the Department of History at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia offered his current research on the life of George Antonius, an Egyptian of Lebanese origins and author of The Arab Awakening. Cleveland said that this model study of the Arab national movement had a major influence during the 1940s and '50s and was "the most influential book in modern Arab history."

Scott Noegel, a Hazel D. Cole Fellow in Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, presented the "Descent of Ishtar," his video depiction of the ancient Babylonian fertility goddess.

Other presenters included Jean Campbell of the World Affairs Council in Portland, Oregon and Jon Mandaville, professor of history and director of the Middle East Studies Center at Portland State University who gave a slide show on their trip to Oman and the United Arab Emirates last year. Also, Shapur Shahbazi, Professor of History at Eastern Oregon State College, lectured on "Women of Ancient Iran: An Art-Historical Documentation."