Palestinian children in Dar al-Hatab. (Photo: Getty Images)
Alternative Water Forum 2012 – The Marseille Declaration
22 March 2012
‘We commit to take action in solidarity with Palestinian human rights, including the human right to water.’
Occupied Palestine – For years, the United Nations Human Rights Committee and other UN bodies have found Israel to be in violation of Palestinians human right to water and sanitation as part of normal reviews of Israel’s compliance with human rights treaties ratified by Israel.
In 2010 the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council passed resolutions, which together reaffirm “that governments have the primary responsibility for the realization of all human rights, including the right to water and sanitation.”
Yet Israel’s violations of Palestinians human right to water and sanitation are only increasing. Between 2009 and 2011, Israel demolished 57 rainwater harvesting cisterns and 40 wells Palestinians depend on for their livelihoods. Military destruction of Palestinian water infrastructure is both a direct violation of the human right to water and a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Average household water consumption of Palestinians connected to a network is less than half the World Health Organization’s minimum recommended daily allowance and 1/6 of average Israeli household consumption. Some of the poorest families are paying half of their income on water.
Israel’s obstruction of Palestinian water and sanitation development has prevented Palestinians from developing additional quantities of water agreed upon as part of the Oslo “peace process” and has forced Palestinians into a state of dependence upon purchasing Palestinian water from the Israeli national water company Mekorot. Mekorot cuts supply to Palestinian communities in order to maintain unhindered service to Israeli colonies in the West Bank.
Israel’s illegal Wall through internationally recognized Palestinian land stands to cut Palestinians off from areas that would yield an addition 90 million cubic meters annually. Compare this amount to Palestinians total current water supply in the West Bank, which is just 180 million cubic meters, including water purchased from the Israeli national water company.
The siege on Gaza prevents the entry of spare parts, materials and energy needed for the day-to-day functioning of the water and wastewater networks, and obstructs much needed development of these systems. The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict found that Israel intentionally targeted and destroyed wells, pipes, wastewater facilities, water reservoirs and the main power station. More than 90% of water produced from municipal wells in Gaza is unsuitable for human consumption. Since 2005 Israel has damaged or destroyed more than 300 wells in a “buffer zone” unilaterally imposed by Israel inside of the territory of Gaza. According to international water law Gaza has a right to an equitable and reasonable share of water from the Coastal Aquifer, including from those portions within Israel.
Israel has only newly begun allowing wastewater treatment projects in occupied Palestinian territory. After years of delays, including the murder of an on duty worker, projects in Gaza are now being implemented since Israel detected untreated and partially treated sewage released into the sea from Gaza at the Ashkelon desalination plant (12.5 kms, or 7.8 miles, directly north of Gaza). For fifteen years following Oslo, Israel directly obstructed the development of wastewater treatment facilities in the West Bank using first bureaucracy and then its military. Israel paid one contractor a 1-million shekel settlement admitting Israel was at fault when the military shut down a wastewater treatment project after it was fully permitted. Neighborhoods of Palestinian citizens of Israel often have poor sewage infrastructure despite paying equal or greater taxes than other Israeli citizens. A number of Israeli colonies release untreated sewage into Palestinian communities.
The Israeli regime of institutionalized discrimination of Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza constitutes apartheid under the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded in its most recent session in Cape Town, South Africa, that, “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid.” A recent French parliamentary report condemned Israeli policies in withholding water from Palestinians as “apartheid”.
Israel’s violations must be seen within the context of the 1948 Nakba, the systematic expulsion and denial of the internationally recognized right of return of the majority of Palestinians from their homes. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, thousands of ancient springs, cisterns, wells, wadis and river streams have been illegally appropriated from Palestinians. Israel has also modified the hydrological character of the land it occupied, e.g., the drainage of Buheirat el Huleh (Hula Valley) by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in the 1950s, and the diversion of the lower Jordan River waters, contributing to the dramatic shrinking of the Dead Sea. Just this month, Israel demolished the Bedouin village of Al Araquib in the Negev Desert a 36th time in order to allow the JNF to plant a forest and “green the desert.”
We launch this declaration calling upon global citizens of conscience to take action for Palestinian water rights as members of the global water rights movement are organizing to resist the corporatization of our common water heritage. We launch this declaration here in Marseille, France, home to the World Water Council, the corporate think tank and lobby group founded by multinational corporations and the World Bank. As the World Water Council convenes the 6th World Water Forum promoting the privatization of water and sanitation services, we call out the corporate members of this Council for profiting from the privatization of water and sanitation services globally – and in particular we call out the transnational French corporation Veolia for also providing sanitation services to the illegal Israeli settlement of Modin Illit which is colonizing Palestinian land, for illegally dumping garbage from Israel in the occupied Jordan Valley, and for profiting from apartheid transportation services that serve illegal colonies while denying Palestinians service. Our struggles are intricately linked. As we resist corporate and state profiteering from human rights violations in Palestine, we are resisting discrimination in access to water and promoting global water justice.
From Cochabamba, Bolivia to Palestine, we affirm the need for popular resistance to hold states and corporations accountable to a respect for human rights. Today as Palestinians are risking what is left of their land and their homes and the trickle of water that they are able to currently access in order to demand that they be recognized as human beings with human rights, we know that we must take concrete action to support the growing movement demanding an end to Israeli impunity for human rights violations, including the human rights to water and sanitation.
Given the abject failure of world government to hold Israel accountable for its persistent violations of international law, including the right to water, Palestinians have called for people of conscience around the world to implement boycotts of, divestment from and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, inspired by the international nonviolent struggle that succeeded in ending apartheid in South Africa. The pillars of the movement are based on international law and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people with a goal of achieving freedom, justice and equality for all irrespective of race and creed.
As global citizens in an increasingly interconnected world it is imperative that we take action in our communities to protect the human rights of our brothers and sisters globally.
With the goal of holding Israel accountable so that Palestinians have their rights to water restituted and achieve self-determination with their full set of rights, we, activists for water justice, declare our support for the Palestinian-led BDS movement. In particular we pledge to:
• Oppose the corporate expansion of the Israeli national water company, Mekorot, into international markets, Mekorot being one of the key instruments in denying Palestinians their water rights
• Boycott Israeli agricultural produce, campaigning to exclude Israeli agricultural companies (e.g. Mehadrin) from access to foreign markets and expose their role in the takeover of Palestinian land and water resources
• Support the Stop the JNF campaign and educate others about JNF’s “greenwashing” of Israeli crimes
• Boycott and divest from Veolia, the largest privatizer of public water supply in the world, and a main profiteer of Israeli apartheid
• Call for government sanctions on Israel, in particular, the end of all water-related cooperation agreements
Organizational Signatures:
LifeSource – Palestine
Escuela del Pueblo Primero de Mayo – Cochabamba, Bolivia
Fundacion Abril – Cochabamba, Bolivia
Centre for Civil Society Environmental Justice Project – Durban, South Africa
Socio-economic Rights Institute of South Africa
Ecological Movement of South Africa
Focus on the Global South -Thailand, Philippines, India
General Union of Palestine Students, Aix-Marseille
Union Démocratique Arabe en France
Le Réseau Palestine Bouches-du-Rhône
Jordan Valley Solidarity
Middle East Children’s Alliance
Stop the Jewish National Fund
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
KRuHA, people’s coalition for the right to water – Indonesia
Individual Signatures:
Marcela Olivera – Cochabamba, Bolivia
Oscar Olivera – Cochabamba, Bolivia
Blaine Grinder – Tsillqot’in Nation
Jacki Dugard – visiting senior fellow, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand
Liz Marshall – Toronto, Canada
Irene Bonilla – Guadalajara, Mexico
Susan Koppelman – United States / Palestine
Pilar Esquinas – P.C. Canal Isabel II, Madrid
Daniela del Bene – Forum Italiano Movimenti Per L’Aqua and Cevi Italy
Marco Iob – Forum Italiano Movimenti Per L’Aqua/Comitato Italiano Contratto Mondialle Del L’Aqua
Jon Arrizabalaga – Ingenieria Sin Fronteras, Madrid
Steve Fisher – United States / Mexico
Pancho Ramos Stierle – Oakland, California, Earth
Shir Hever – Germany/Israel
Lina Isma’il – Palestine
Zayneb Alshalalfeh – Palestine
Colin Miller – Oakland, California
Prof. Uri Davis –- Jaffa
Donna Oakes – New York, United States
The Marseille Declaration for Palestinian water rights, it is a LifeSource initiative organized at the Alternative World Water Forum, which took place in Marseille, 2012.
This is a central issue. Water is of course scarce in the Middle East, but Israel chooses to live a “western” life-style with large per-capita water consumption — including lawns and swimming pools in some cases — and can hardly claim to be in water shortage. Israel is said to use 80% of the West Bank’s aquifer’s annual outflow. (I don’t know if this aquifer is being recharged as fast as it is used.)
It appears that the Gaza aquifer is intermixed with sea water, presumably from being excessively “mined” both by Gaza and by Israel. If the population in Gaza is too high for the available water, then the people should be allowed to return to their homes before the 1948 expulsions/exile. They are deliberate exiles, but the deliberation is Israel’s, not their own. As people begin to die from lack of clean water, it is a crime on Israel’s part — deliberate murder (IMO).
These war crimes have been ongoing for a long time, they are an affront to human dignity and something the International community should feel ashamed of, almost as much blame should be directed at the Palestinian leadership who have been negotiating and policing their own demise, they have misunderstood the nature of Zionism even when confronted with those facts on the ground , when will it sink in that these are all deliberate Israeli policies to drive out Palestinians from the Land of Israel, and that all these offers of talks are simply a ruse to buy time to finish the ethnic cleansing. ENOUGH OF THESE TALKS, GO STRAIGHT TO THE ICC.
Great article.
Some things:
• An engineer friend of mine says that “Mother Nature is a hard-hearted bitch with a sick sense of humor.” The prevailing summer currents in the eastern Med flow from Sinai up past Gaza and right along the whole Israeli coast. So not only are the various desal plants affected, but all the beaches as well. Publicizing the releases of untreated sewage would do more to insert doubt into the Israeli “Occupation. What Occupation?” obliviousness than 10000 rockets. Israel couldn’t bomb or assassinate their way out of that self-inflicted predicament. They’d actually have to do something positive (which you indicate they might be doing, finally). Darkly poetic.
• Israel is building a berm along parts of the Gaza border to collect rainwater before it goes subsurface. They are consciously causing the collapse of the Coastal Aquifer in Gaza. Criminal.
• The restriction of fuel and power into Gaza means that individual Gazans can’t even distill or otherwise purify their own drinking water. They are forced to drink brackish (mix a couple tablespoons of salt in a gallon of water and try it for a day) or nitrate-laden water on a regular basis. The UN report on reconstruction in Gaza details what this means for human health (i.e. bad, kidney failure, blue-baby syndrome, etc.). Again, criminal.
• All this to provide a Euro-style lifestyle for Israelis. There isn’t enough water to do that. Never was. It’s a desert for a reason. A holistically criminal concept.
• When you say Mekorot is expanding into international markets, does that mean that Mekorot is contemplating selling water outside of Israel? Or does that mean that they are trying to be involved in water development projects elsewhere?
• Last I read, Israeli-drilled well depth in the Western Aquifer was around 500-600m. That’s terribly deep for water wells. That indicates that the WA is close to being played out. At some point the WA (the major source for ’67 Israel and the settlements) will start to become brackish, as the Coastal Aquifer is in Gaza. Looking forward, is there any sign that Israel is doing anything other than drilling deeper and destroying Palestinian cisterns (selfishly improving recharge) to alleviate its own coming and completely foreseeable water crisis?
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@pabelmont The aquifers are not recharging. Palestine and Israel are in a drought and have been for some years. Lake Kinneret is almost at the so-called “black line” where the level is so low that it can no longer serve as a source for the National Water Carrier. The Jordan River is dry about halfway through its course. Meanwhile Bedu communities are razed to make way for [more] Trees (and/or settler communities w/pools) in the Negev. Etc., etc., etc. (You know the drill…)
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Israel is running out of water. Water is going to be the big equalizer in this conflict. Lack of it is going to cause a lot of un-ignorable (by the world) suffering in Palestine (and a lot of darned inconvenience in Israel). Human and Political Israel seems incapable of making the adjustment to avert the coming crisis. Geologic Palestine and Israel will almost certainly force the issue of a political resolution.
Again, great article, and glad you connected it to BDS. This is the kind of direct and specific linkage of personal action to root-level problem that can get people fired up.
This may cause major problems already there to come to a head eventually, there seems to be a shortage of level headed people in governments all over the place controlling every aspect..look at what obama signed back into effect plus added to it “during economic collapse or crisis” to it. it is making “slavery comeback” now into effective law in USA. I mention this because if the people of the USA knew or …they would opose these & other atrosities. There seems to have been a re-conditionioning from logical mindset in the % of Americans whom are in denial about how bad things everywhere can get quickly, then they will take notice afterwards of all the worlds people whom are deprived from basic human rights, they are “free” & always shall be. With all the money spent in the hostile takover of the middle east, people would have bought & sold property of Palestine several times over with out all the death, imagine that..a simple transaction x many + no deaths, enemies= logic
I am waiting for the Israeli independence or uprising like in Syria etc or will it be the Palestinians or people brought in to invade & plunder the Palestinians? or is the mindset there too programmed already passed reality of stealing land, water, murder? society is now insanity with control of the worlds most powerful weapons of all types..slowly breaking. I am in disbelief over the laws bing reinstated & added to, why are they planning what are they planning? And this is why “nothing” will ever come of easy in the Palestine issue or even the USA possible aparthied soon to take hold after an implosion in the economy here. fema now with brigades,100’s of thousands of plastic four body liners at thousands of fema death camps. Scary that 1947 will repeat itself & include everyone but the slaves picked from the 99% & above. water, food, safe shelter will be a world problem soon of epic preportion at this rate of nwo takeover where banker own every aspect of whom ever is left afterwards.