bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 4 Volume 1
An Israeli View:
Things could get worse
by Yossi Alpher
Like so many of the issues that divide Palestinians and Israelis under
conditions of conflict, water has its urgent, seemingly intractable
short-term aspect, and its long-term solutions. The urgent issues don't seem
to have changed appreciably since bitterlemons.org last dealt with the
issue, just two years ago: Palestinian villages lack running water,
over-pumped wells in the Gaza Strip are producing dangerously poor quality
water, and the disparities between settler quality of life regarding water
and that of neighboring Palestinian villages cry out for rectification. The
situation is at its worst in summer.
As in the case of human rights and health issues, there is precious little
that can be done while decision-makers are preoccupied with security; the
path of the Israeli security fence, for example, has at times ignored
negative ramifications for Palestinian access to water resources. Meanwhile,
people of good will on both sides are devoting considerable effort toward
improving, in small but important ways, Palestinian access to water and
prevention of contamination of joint water resources by sewage runoff.
Indeed, at the "ground" level, water cooperation has survived the current
conflict remarkably well.
Yet no near term developments seem likely to create the
necessary stability in the Palestinian Authority and confidence among
donors, to enable long-term water solutions to be instituted. Indeed, the
growing sense of anarchy and lack of leadership among Palestinians in many
ways constitute a strong deterrent against constructive international
involvement in water or other areas of development.
Do the real improvements, then, have to await an end to the
conflict? Two years ago I argued that
Israel can and should not wait for peace in order to lay the groundwork for
its role in solving regional water problems. Israel has a Mediterranean
coastline where (in the long-term) large-scale desalination plants can be
built, and/or (in the shorter term) freshwater shipments from Turkey can be
offloaded. It has the technological know how and the capacity to raise funds
to create a large desalination infrastructure. It is currently making a
modest beginning in this direction, but only to supply anticipated Israeli
needs. If Israel were to build a 500
million cubic meter capacity water desalination infrastructure, it could
supply a portion of the water needs of Palestine (the West Bank, but also
Gaza until it can desalinate its own water), Jordan, and southern Syria. The
requisite pipelines, and a subsidy for the cost of the water (which would be
no higher than water pumped from wells), would almost certainly be financed
by an international community eager to help out. After all, at the time of
Camp David II (July 2000), Israel and the United States were seriously
discussing an American-led campaign to raise ten billion dollars precisely
for this purpose. Yet that vision was
supposed to be realized under conditions of Israeli-Palestinian peace. And
peace has receded further and further into the realm of illusion in the
course of the past four years. In the absence of peace--indeed, with no
leadership for peace in either Israel or Palestine, and no real external
leadership from the United States--and with unilateral separation
increasingly accepted by Israelis as the only feasible interim measure, it
appears doubtful that basic solutions for the region's water problems will
be undertaken in the foreseeable future.
Remember the schemes hatched by Middle East visionaries to
bring water from the Nile to Gaza and the Negev? To lay a peace pipeline
from Turkey via Syria and Lebanon to Jordan, Israel and Palestine and even
Saudi Arabia? The Med-Dead and Red-Dead pipelines or canals? These ideas
never got much traction even in the best of times. Today they can be filed
away for the most part as curiosities. The logic of the countries of the
Levant living at peace with one another and interacting on key
infrastructure issues like water has been sidelined.
Israel has the requisite infrastructure to cope with its
water shortages in the near term. The Palestinians, under conditions of
conflict, growing anarchy and possibly separation imposed by Israel, do not.
Yossi Alpher is coeditor of bitterlemons.org and
bitterlemons-international.org. He is a former director of the Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior adviser to
PM Ehud Barak. A Palestinian View:
Water and international law
Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet
forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its
specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about
the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers
and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the
region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at
ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org
and
yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
hagalil.com
17-08-2004 |