In response to Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine’s annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” Students for Israel are hosting “Israel Peace Week” consisting various events meant to counter Israel’s perpetually diminishing international reputation. I am simultaneously troubled and amused by the first event of the week, “Water for Peace,” in which Tami Shor of the Israel Water Authority will erroneously attempt to link Israel’s total control of water resources in the occupied territories to a peaceful resolution. In an attempt to whitewash Israel’s image, Students for Israel completely ignores the legitimacy of international law, human rights organizations and facts on the ground. To put it frankly, their attempt to reconcile Israel, water and peace is simply laughable.
Israel’s dominance over the water supply in the occupied territories is well documented by various international organizations. According to Amnesty International, Israel’s diversion of the Jordan River for its own consumption has left nearly 200,000 Palestinians without running water and other Palestinians with the harsh imposition of rationing and water outages. In an October 2010 article for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, Norah Barrows-Freidman explains that while “Jewish Israelis enjoy . . . neighborhood swimming pools, unfettered access to clean drinking water, state-of-the-art sewage treatment,” Palestinians “brace and prepare each time the weather heats up and the antiquated wells dry up.” In Gaza, the situation is far worse as the result of an intense siege with almost 95 percent of the coastal aquifer being contaminated by water born diseases and access to West Bank water transfers completely prohibited. In addition, the systematic targeting of water treatment facilities during the Gaza Massacre, as described by the 2009 Goldstone Report, has left Gazians without any viable water treatment system.
Meanwhile, illegal Israeli settlers use far more water than the Palestinian population. According to Amnesty International, Israel’s citizens use four times as much as the average Palestinian or 300 liters per day per person, while some Palestinians subsist on less than 20 liters. The Apartheid Wall (Israeli West Bank barrier) further diminishes Palestinians’ access to the Jordan River and Mountain Aquifer in violation of international conventions, according to Human Rights Watch. Additionally, large quantities of garbage and chemicals have been illegally dumped in the West Bank, further contaminating some of the few underground aquifers not stolen by Israel.
It strikes me that anyone reading anything posted by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or a number of other human rights organizations would come to the same conclusion that I have: Israel’s theft of water and destruction of Palestinian capacity for water sufficiency are a continual source of instability in the region. These actions are an affront to human rights, representative of the growing apartheid regime and are far from “peaceful,” as Students for Israel has claimed. I encourage fellow students to question the symbolic use of water in Students for Israel’s campaign before picking up a water bottle in the GSU today and to examine for themselves the true nature of “Israel Peace Week.”
-Kristen Martin
CAS 2013
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And think: all the Palestinians have to do to change all this is promise to stop trying to kill the Israelis. Since 1967, that offer has been on the table.
This is an amazing article and very informative. I was surprised at how extensive Amnesty and Human Rights Watch had documented evidence of Israeli Water theft. Just wanted to say thanks for opening my mind.
For all the talk about how there are a few swimming pools in Israel, one should really look into the WATER PARK that was built in gaza, which HAMAS burnt to shreds. It is the middle east, there is a lack of water, and Israel, does in fact need water to survive. But if you would like to be well informed, you have to look at who oppresses their own people. As Hamas said they are no longer occupied. If you care so much about the Palestinian people it is not Israel you should be reprimanding, it is their own leadership.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5NmRkaIt4
Observer, the fact you spew the same old stereotypical, racist, and overused crap makes the prospects for peace less and less. You know what you just said is not true at all, and you should apologize for making such disgusting comments and virtually labeling Palestinians as sub-human. You sound like a colonist – congratulations.
More than 6000 Palestinians have been killed compared to 1000 Israelis since 2000. This is, of course, not even taking into account the fact that Palestinian acts of aggression come as a reaction to the expanding occupation and Israeli acts of aggression, whereas Israeli acts of aggression are perpetrated in order to expand the occupation, and crush any form of Palestinian resistance to it.
“More than 6000 Palestinians have been killed compared to 1000 Israelis since 2000.”
And it is Israel’s fault that they invest in protecting their own people by building underground bunkers in basements to protect themselves from Kassams? Every Kassam is aimed at at least one civiian. How many Kassams were launched since 2000?