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<div class="legend"> <span class="credit"></span><big><big><b>Israeli
settlers use six times more water than Palestinians — new report</b></big></big><br>
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<div class="submitted"> <span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2013-04-08T12:21:15+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username" xml:lang=""
about="/users/adri-nieuwhof" typeof="sioc:UserAccount"
property="foaf:name" datatype="">Adri Nieuwhof</span> on Mon,
04/08/2013 - 12:21<br>
<small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/israeli-settlers-use-six-times-more-water-palestinians-new-report">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/israeli-settlers-use-six-times-more-water-palestinians-new-report</a></small></small><br>
</span> </div>
<div id="file-24735"
class="file file-image file-image-jpeg media-element file-full"
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<p>Israeli settlers in the West Bank consume six times as much water as
Palestinians living nearby, the human rights organization Al Haq has
found. </p>
<p>In a <a
href="http://www.alhaq.org/publications/Water-For-One-People-Only.pdf">new
report</a> released today, the organization exposes how Israel operates
a system of water apartheid. Palestinian communities are strangled by
Israel’s water policies through unlawful exploitation and appropriation
of water resources, confiscation and destruction of water
infrastructure and restriction of water supply, it says.</p>
<p>Al Haq concludes that Israel’s water<a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/apartheid"> apartheid</a>
policies are based on three pillars. The first pillar concerns the
distinction between two racial groups. The second pillar consists of
the policies and practices that facilitate the segregation of the
population into different geographical areas. The third pillar rests
upon the use of “security” laws to “justify” inhuman acts against
Palestinians.</p>
<p>It is important underscore that Israel’s water policies are part of
an institutionalized system of domination and oppression.</p>
<h2>Two distinct groups</h2>
<p>The first pillar of water apartheid requires the distinction of two
groups, which is a core element of the crime of apartheid. The first
group are the Palestinians who over the years have been unwillingly
sub-divided into Palestinians citizens of Israel, Palestinians living
in the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinian refugees living in exile.
All are Palestinian, because of their identity as the indigenous people
of historic Palestine. In addition, their right to self-determination
is internationally recognized.</p>
<p>The second group is composed of Jewish-Israelis, meaning “Israelis
with Jewish identity,” an official category imposed and monitored by
the State of Israel. It recognizes a person as a member of the global
Jewish community, thereby granting certain rights, such as residency.
The Basic Laws — the closest thing that Israel has to a written
constitution — distinguishes the group as “Jewish nationals.” While
Palestinians living in Israel can be citizens, nationality of Israel is
reserved for Jews.</p>
<h2>Segregation</h2>
<p>Israel has used the distinction between the Palestinian and
Jewish-Israeli groups to segregate the population into different
geographical areas — the second pillar of water apartheid. Inside
Israel, the distinction is used to grant citizenship to only those
Palestinians who remained inside Israel after 1948. At the same time,
Israeli citizenship is granted beyond its territory to all Jews,
regardless of their geographical location, personal history or
affiliation to the territory.</p>
<p>In the West Bank, the segregation policies have resulted in two
parallel and unequal societies. A privileged Jewish-Israeli settler
society lives in illegal colonies with good conditions, including an
uninterrupted, abundant supply of water. By contrast, the indigenous
Palestinian society is denied most of its basic rights, including
sovereignty over its own water resources.</p>
<p>Palestinians are forcibly confined to land-locked enclaves with
minimum water resources available. As a result, Palestinian communities
are strangled and cannot fully develop as a group: denying such
development is considered an inhuman act under the UN’s 1973 Apartheid
Convention. The commission of inhuman acts against the subordinate
group is the second core element of the definition of apartheid.</p>
<h2>Strangulation</h2>
<p>In its report, Al Haq provides extensive information about how
Israel’s discriminatory water policies lead to the strangulation of
Palestinian communities. For example, water apartheid policies result
in huge differences in water consumption. For example, the consumption
of over 500,000 <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-settlers">Israeli
settlers</a> in the West Bank is about six times higher than that of
2.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem.)</p>
<p>Moreover, the Palestinian average water consumption of 73 liter per
capita per day does not reach the minimum consumption level of 100
liters recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Israelis
living inside Israel use about 300 liters and Israeli settlers in the
West Bank use 369 liters each per day. </p>
<p>By September 2011, around 313,000 Palestinians were not connected to
a water network. And about 50,000 Palestinians from 151 communities had
to live on less than 20 liters each per day, an amount WHO recommends
for “short-term survival” in emergency and disaster situations.</p>
<p>In occupied East Jerusalem, more than 50 percent of the Palestinians
living there — around 160,000 people — do not have legal water
connections because Israeli law does not allow it, mainly because the
required housing permits are not issued. Furthermore, some Palestinian
areas on the eastern side of the Israel’s wall in East Jerusalem have
been excluded from the boundaries of the city. This has left the
residents of Beit Iksa, Kufr Aqab, and Shuafat refugee camp with no
access to municipal services, including water and sanitation.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/jordan-valley">Jordan
Valley</a>, water apartheid policies have resulted in extreme
differences in water consumption between settlers and Palestinians,
ranging from 700 liters per day in the settlements of <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mitzpe-shalem">Mitzpe Shalem</a>
and Qalya to a meager 22 liters for Palestinians in the village of
al-Hadidiya.</p>
<p>The 1.6 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip depend for their
natural water supply solely on the Coastal Aquifer next to the Strip.
But as a transboundary water resource, Gaza has to share it with
Israel, which has access to other water resources. However, the Gaza
Strip can use only one quarter of total extractions from the Coastal
Aquifer.</p>
<p>A responsible use of shared transboundary water resources requires
coordination, something which Israel refuses. As a result, the water
quality in the Gaza Strip has progressively deteriorated due to
over-extraction and pollution of the Coastal Aquifer. The deterioration
is also partly due to Israel’s policy of denying construction materials
for wastewater treatment plants and other water-related infrastructure
into the Gaza Strip. Therefore, about 90 to 95 per cent of the water it
supplies is unfit for human consumption. It is estimated that the
quality of water in the Coastal Aquifer will continue to deteriorate
and may become unusable by 2016, when, in the absence of any
alternatives, the Gaza Strip could become unfit for human habitation.</p>
<h2>Institutionalized oppression</h2>
<p>The third pillar of Israel’s water apartheid rests upon its
“security” laws, policies and practices. The water policies and
practices are integrated in an institutionalized system of
Jewish-Israeli domination and oppression of the Palestinians as a group
— thus amounting to a system of “water apartheid.”</p>
<p>For example, by occupying the West Bank (including East Jerusalem)
and the Gaza Strip in the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/1967-war">1967 war</a>,
Israel increased its direct control over water resources in the region
with nearly 50 percent. Immediately after the war, the water system for
the West Bank and Gaza was integrated into the Israeli system through a
series of military orders which are still in force today. Israel
declared the banks of the lower Jordan River a closed military zone,
denying access to Palestinians.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the construction of Israel’s wall in the West Bank has
given Israel control over 28 agricultural wells. </p>
<h2>Demolitions</h2>
<p>Israel has caused extensive damage to Palestinian water
infrastructure during military attacks on the Gaza strip. For example,
during Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009, about 919 water
wells, 229 irrigation pools and 243 water pumps were destroyed. Since
2005, more than 300 water wells have been destroyed in the so-called
buffer zone.</p>
<p>In 2011, Israel demolished over 20 water wells, around 35 <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/water-cisterns">cisterns</a>,
and around 10 water tanks and springs in the West Bank (excluding East
Jerusalem). At the same time, Israel confiscated 45 water, sanitation
and hygiene structures in the same area. The water infrastructure was
indispensable Palestinian rural and herder communities. In 2012,
Israeli forces demolished at least 32 water structures took place
between January and October.</p>
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