ISRAEL'S MEKOROT WATER COMPANY AND THE JABER IRRIGATION PIPES

Twice this past summer, on July 6 and July 11, I traveled with a Christian Peacemaker Team colleague to the Beqa'a valley to view water irrigation pipes which had been destroyed by Mekorot, the national water company of Israel. Atta Jaber called the Hebron CPT Office to report that Mekorot Water Company was destroying plastic irrigation pipes at family gardens. The Jaber family has a long history in the Beqa’a valley. The Jabers have been on their deeded property for over 400 years. Mekorot employed young Palestinians to cut the water lines. Mekorot accused the Jabers of stealing water by tapping into lines which supply the nearby settler communities of Harsina and Kiryat Arba. According to Jonathan Cook (1), “Israel controls 80 per cent of the West Bank’s water sources, and diverts most of that supply to its own citizens, inside Israel and the settlements.” Three million West Bank Palestinians use only 250 million cubic meters per year (83 cubic meters per Palestinian per year) while six million Israelis use 1,954 million cubic meters (333 cubic meters per Israeli per year). Palestinians are left with a fifth of the West Bank’s water. More than 200,000 rural Palestinians, most living in Area C under Israeli control, have no running water at all and have to buy water from Israeli tanker-trucks. (2) Cook reports that Palestinians consume far less than the 100 liters each “…recommended by the World Health Organization as the daily minimum.” (3) Atta Jaber believes that the water which flows to the Beqa’a valley comes from an aquifer in the West Bank. He said “Palestinians should not have to pay for what is already their own.” Jaber is familiar with the United Nations Covenant which establishes that under international law it is illegal for Israel to expropriate the water of the Occupied Palestinian Territories for use by its own citizens, and doubly illegal to expropriate it for use by illegal Israeli settlers. (4) Jaber believes that if their gardens fail, the empty dunams of land will be declared unused, or abandoned, and settlers will claim them.
Photos of the events
http://cpt.org/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=23678

1 Jonathan Cook. disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair. New York. Zed Books, 2010, p. 122.
2. ‘The lights of Netzarin’, Ha’aretz, 7 November 2003
3. Ibid. Cook, p. 122.
4. Article 1(2) of the 1966 United Nations Human Rights Covenants proclaims: “All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based on the principle of mutual benefit and international law. .

The Illogic of Jewish Settlements

The buzz which accompanies Israel's stance against a Palestinian state underscores it's obession with demographic and security threats. Yet, Israel continues to establish new settlements in the West Bank. This seems illogical and even suicidal. If a single state emerges out of Israel and Palestine, it will not be a Jewish state. Within a few years the population of Palestinians inside the West Bank, Gaza and Israel will outnumber Jews.