There are over 230,000 Palestinians, most of them living in villages, who do not have access to piped water. This problem, and awareness of it, has existed for years. It is more surprising to learn that in Israel there are an estimated 100,000 people, most living in unrecognized villages, who are similarly deprived.
How is it possible that in a region not without resources – the Israeli economy is booming and the Palestinian Authority has had access for over a decade to substantial aid funds – the basic human right of access to clean water has not been extended to such large numbers of Palestinians and Israelis?
Disadvantaged Palestinian and Israeli villages do have springs and wells providing water. However, in summer months many of these run dry, and residents are forced to turn to water supplied by tankers. This water is expensive (at least three times the cost of piped water) and often contaminated. Villagers try to compensate by using as little contaminated water as possible, but the effects on hygiene and health are evident.
There have, of course, been efforts to improve the situation. During the last 20 years, organizations in the West Bank such as the Palestinian Hydrology Group, World Vision and Anera, have worked to provide alternative sources of water to those disconnected from the central system. The Palestinian Water Authority and its Israeli counterpart have worked together with Mekorot – the Israeli company responsible for water distribution in Israel and much of Palestine – to link a number of communities to the central system. These efforts have not been enough. The problem remains.
While it would not be cheap to link all Israeli and Palestinian villages to a central water system, it is hard to believe that lack of funds have prevented the necessary progress. While there are many competing demands for development funds in the region, projects which can rely on the political will of the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority can be expected to find the resources they need. Providing water to rural communities in the region has not become a priority.
Part of the reason may be that communities lacking legitimate water supply are often difficult to reach and lack political clout.
There may also be a tacit assumption in official circles that limited water resources will be overstretched if piped to all the communities currently without. While this is a possible scenario, the answer to a limited supply must not be the continued exclusion of hundreds of thousands of people from clean water. Officials can help provide clean, potable water to those in distress by digging new wells, building new pumping stations, making full use of desalination, importing water from water rich countries, and increasing recycling of grey water for agricultural purposes.
So the question remains: why, if water is available, technological difficulties not insurmountable, and funding likely to be available, is the problem not being tackled with more urgency?
There is, of course, no single answer. The most evident reason is the basic instability of the region and its many political and social tensions, which present challenges to those working on practical problems such as water supply. There are also lingering suspicions on the Palestinian side that Israel wishes to maintain control of water supply for security reasons, and is not really interested in improving the situation. However this may be, such explanations fall short of a complete answer.
In Israel, the communities that lack piped water are nearly all from unrecognized Arab villages to which basic services are denied. Here the problem is purely a socio-economic one. These are typically villages which Israel had hoped to move to other locations. The Israeli government is reluctant in these cases to provide any services that might lead to the development of a permanent infrastructure, which would make these communities more difficult to remove. The logic of such an argument does not recognize the protracted nature of the dispute over unrecognized villages. While national and local authorities wrestle with this problem, the people living in the communities continue to be deprived of the basic right of water, as they have been for decades.
In Palestine, plans to provide water to remote communities are continually frustrated by violence, which precipitates closures, prevents the free movement, and hinders practical work on the ground. Palestinian sources claim that these problems are exacerbated by the negative attitude of the Israeli authorities dealing with water, while Israeli experts claim that the various Palestinian authorities hinder positive action with their inefficiency. There is no doubt that in Palestine donors are discouraged by the lack of progress, often choosing to support projects perceived as more glamorous than painstaking provisions to supply water.
Lack of effective cooperation between the various parties involved is undoubtedly a cause of difficulty. While all recognized Israeli settlements in the West Bank have piped water and Arab villages nearby do not, it would seem that the same pipes used for supply to settlements could also provide water to nearby villages. Such a solution would require a heretofore unprecedented coordination between the two sides.
The Palestinian and Israeli Water Authorities need to look again at this problem and work together to find a solution. With enough will, they can work with donors to employ local and international expertise to help solve the problem effectively and economically.
Perhaps a special committee should be created; one composed of all important stakeholders, and focused not on writing a report on the problem, but on taking action to resolve it.
It is a testament to the desolation in the region that so many people there live without clean water. Resolution is in the interests of both Israel and Palestine, and most of all in the interest of those who struggle each day to find clean water to drink.
The Israeli and Palestinian directors of the two water authorities should take the lead now that the Joint Water Committee is meeting again. They can use their strength and energy to deal with this sad state of affairs. If they do, they will demonstrate that Israelis and Palestinians can work together for the good of all. It is a scandal that thousands of people suffer unnecessarily, that they are deprived of their basic human right to drinkable water.
This is the first of a series of newsletters designed to draw attention to matters of joint concern to Israelis and Palestinians in the field of environment and water. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org. Source: Israel/Palestine Centre for Research and Information, November 2007 Newsletter, www.ipcri.org
