Water has served not only as a vital resource to humans, but also as the cause of conflict in certain regions, Tami Shor told a group of 12 Boston University students on Tuesday.
Students listened as Shor, a member of the Israel Water Authority spoke of the importance of water in relations among Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
Shor discussed Israel’s water sector, the sources of water in the region, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
“A lot of Israel’s water is not from natural resources,” Shor said. “Israel reuses 72 percent of its water.”
Because of a lack of natural resources, Shor said water has been a source of contention in certain regions. The Golan Heights, a territory Syria also claims, has water, which increases each nations desire for the land.
The presentation, hosted by BU Students for Israel, is part of the Israel Peace Week campaign to educate students about peace efforts and other facts involving the nation.
Shor also said the Gaza Strip faces water problems.
“There is a pipe [from Israel] to Gaza, but the valve is closed,” Shor said. “In the past, the Palestinian Authority would not agree to buy the water from Israel and [treat the water] because they did not want to lose power in the negotiations.”
The Palestinian Authority at one point received money to help them treat their water, but did not use the funds for that purpose, Shor said.
“The United States and parts of Europe stopped sending money after the Hamas victory,” she said.
Students for Justice in Palestine member Kareem Chahayeb said in a phone interview that there is not enough water in the West Bank and that the Israeli government “stole” the water.
“The reality [of the water in Israel is] far different from what’s being portrayed,” Chahayeb, a CAS junior, said.
BUSI members said they feel differently.
“The bottom line is Israel guarantees water to the Palestinian Authorities through the Oslo Accords that were signed in 1993,” Goldberg said. “As soon as the peace treaty was signed with Jordan, Israel has transferred since 1994 and will continue to transfer 50 million cubic meters of water to Jordan every year. So when the Palestinians are ready to make peace with Israel, Israel will be more than willing to transfer water.”
However, members of both groups said they agree that the lack of water is a serious problem for the Palestinians.
“People in the West Bank are living with under 20 liters of water a day. Which is terrible,” Chahayeb said.
“The Israeli people and the people of Palestine, it’s a tragedy really,” said CAS sophomore Sarah Close. “They’re being denied access to basic human rights including the same water privileges that Israelis have. I think the problem is more with the government.”
“It’s the first day of the week but today has been really successful, we engaged a ton of students and tried to educate people throughout the day about Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan,” Goldberg said.
In a letter to the editor published in The Daily Free Press Tuesday, CAS junior Kristen Martin said Israel stole water from the Palestinians and destroyed Palestinian capacity for water. Martin also said BUSI attempted to “whitewash” Israel’s image, while ignoring international law and human rights organizations. She did not attend the presentation.
CAS junior Alex Alpert, vice president of BUSI, said Martin’s decision not to attend the presentation showed that she generalized rather than made “accurate” conclusions.
“As an Israeli, I think there’s a generalization of what our opinions are,” Alpert said. “The fact that [Martin] didn’t come here and actually attend our event and listen to us, just shows that they were making no effort to actually make conclusions that are accurate, because they are not even hearing the other side.”
Matt Goldberg, BUSI president, said Israel Peace Week is designed to educate students about what Israel’s global efforts towards peace.
“[It is] especially focusing on the Jordanians, as we talked about tonight and what Israel has done around the world globally to promote peace whether it be being the first field hospital in Haiti or donating aid to countries after the tsunami,” Goldberg, a CAS sophomore, said.
Chahayeb said he understands why Israeli Peace Week exists, even if it isn’t a stance he supports.
“This campus has people from all different walks of life,” he said. “In the end they’re going to have an event that promotes Israel.”
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One day, the Daily Free Press will spell my damn last name correctly…just one day.
Thank you again Daily Free Press for another impeccably biased article!
Despite Students for Israel’s continued attempts to distract, it is blatantly clear to me that Israel’s continued destruction of water infrastructure, usage of the occupied territories as a chemical dumping ground, imposition of devastating water restrictions, and diversion of the Jordan River are by no means attempts to make peace. I don’t deal with “sides,” I deal with facts. The letter to the editor I submitted yesterday was based on facts compiled from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, two internationally respected and nonpartisan human rights organizations.
I tried to make it clear in the letter yesterday that I disagree unequivocally with Students for Israel’s attempts to whitewash Israel’s image. I am unwilling to attend events that make me complicit in this act. Until Students for Israel pursues events and distributes information in line with international law and international human rights organizations, I will most likely not attend their events.
I’m sure BUSI considers your absence an absolute tragedy, Kristen.
Speaking of how unbiased Human Rights Watch is, did you know the founder of HRW, Robert Bernstein, has publicly criticized that organization for having lost the “important distinction between open and closed societies,” and in particular for HRW’s disgustingly imbalanced coverage of human rights abuses in the Middle East, where HRW writes innumerable reports on Israel while ignoring Israel’s neighbors, of which “remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent.” Mr. Bernstein has, in fact, founded yet another human rights organization, Advancing Human Rights, in order to focus more closely on closed societies, which have no way of self-regulating. In contrast, Mr. Bernstein points out that Israel “is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world,” all of which together create a society which can regulate itself and deal with abuses.
In short: your sources are not unbiased and neither are you.
The critique that Bryan brought up is two years old – in fact, if anybody digs up the archives of the Freep from possibly March 2010, they will find an advertisement saying the same thing. Of course, the critique is absolutely irrelevant.
The reason it is absolutely irrelevant is because first, Human Rights Watch is a well respected human rights organization with a proven track record all over the world, and this is acknowledged by journalists, academics, news organizations, and a lot of other people. They do a lot of great reporting on human rights abuses in other countries in the Middle East that have autocratic regimes and rules, some of which, I should point out are very strongly supported by Israel and the US. The Mubarak dictatorship was one of them, for instance. The fact that their founder criticizes them means almost nothing – it’s like saying that the person who was instrumental in founding MIT said that the institution’s instruction in the sciences is below par. That says nothing about whether or not MIT is actually lacking in science instruction – it’s just one person’s opinion. In order to make a judgment on the state of science education in MIT, we would need multiple opinions from experts on the issue, and then we can perhaps comment. In the case of HRW, it is pretty clear that experts consider them to be a great human rights organization.
The main reason why the critique of HRW is absolutely irrelevant, though, is the fact that usually, in most cases, for a report to be used as fact, it has to be verified by multiple sources working independently. And in this case, for the “sharing,” or rather stealing of water, the facts have been verified independently by HRW, Amnesty International, the Israeli human rights group B’TSelem, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, etc.
Kristen – because your article was so well balanced right? At least this article has facts whereas yours was merely fictitious talking points. Nicely done, Becca.