Currently Israel controls Palestinian water, what rights does Israel have to manage water crucially needed or the Palestinian people - Research Paper Example

Israel has the right to control Palestinian water, because Palestinian waters come from Israeli maintained aquifers. Despite Israel owning the land the water comes from, water is a negotiating tool to stop conflict in the region, howbeit ineffective. Finally the Palestinian main concern is not water, but the ongoing war against the Jews.
The Palestinian point of view is:
Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality, subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford," Amnestys Donatella Rovera said. (BBC)
However, the Palestinians do not want just water, but Israeli water. When Israel offered to build a desalination plant, Palestinian leaders refused.
Israel has recently reconfirmed its intention to implement the decision of the Local Israeli Assembly for Organization and Building to give a piece of land from the Hadera area to build a desalination plant for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority…The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) [...] states that the Palestinian side is unwilling to purchase water at such a high cost from sources that are on the Mediterranean Coast and Jordan River, knowing that this water in fact partially belongs to the Palestinians but is inaccessible for them. (EMIS)
If the Palestinians do not want water, what is their agenda? The agenda is Palestinians want to expel Jews from Israel. They believe that Israel should be Palestine, despite the military victories giving Israel more land.
Israel has granted Gaza freedom. The two state solution could work. However, Palestinians have a corrupt government that does not take care of their own water. For example:
The Gaza Strip is a very small area of land with a total area of only 360 square kilometers (roughly 150 square miles — ed.). It is underlain by a shallow aquifer, which is contiguous with the Israeli Coastal Aquifer to the north. Gaza is the “downstream user” of the Coastal Aquifer system, and hence water abstraction in Gaza does not affect Israeli water supplies…In addition, missile strikes and ground incursions have repeatedly damaged and destroyed pipelines, and maintenance personnel have been arrested, shot at, or even killed whilst trying to carry out repairs…Inadequate sewage treatment infrastructure and damage to wastewater and drinking water pipelines has allowed sewage water to contaminate drinking water supplies, leading to sharp increases in water borne diseases in many areas…Failure to control over-pumping has led to sea-water intrusion into the aquifer to the extent that, in 2003, only 10 % of the wells produced water of World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water standards. (Gray)
“Specifically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be attributed, to some extent, to disputes over the scarce and valuable water resources of the Jordan River basin and its aquifers” (Obidallah)
Palestinians with their conflict with Israel, poor management, and over population have made their rightful water source practically unusable.
Finally, Israeli water is from their sources. One source reports:
For another, Israel has never “helped itself” to water “beneath Palestinian lands.” Israel obtains roughly 50 percent of its water from the Sea of Galilee and the Coastal Aquifer, both of which are entirely within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Another 30 percent comes from the Western and Northeastern Aquifers of the Mountain Aquifer system. These aquifers straddle the Green Line separating Israel from the West Bank, but most of the stored water is under pre-1967 Israel, making it easily accessible only in Israel…Thus, even in the 1950s Israel used 95 percent of the Western Aquifer’s water, and 82 percent of the Northeastern Aquifer’s water. Today, Israel’s share of these aquifers has declined to 83 percent and 80 percent, respectively. That is, under direct Israeli administration the Palestinian share of these aquifers has actually increased…In addition, every year over 40 MCM (million cubic meters) of water from sources within Israel is piped over the Green Line for Palestinian use in the West Bank. Ramallah, for example, receives over 5 MCM. Israel sends another 4 MCM over its border for Palestinian use in Gaza. Thus, it is the Palestinians who are using Israeli water.
Palestinians want Israel to furnish water by claiming the Israelis are taking the water from a source in Israel territory.
Do the Israelis deny Palestinians water? Absolutely. The Israelis use heavy handed measures to deal all Palestinians hoping to root out terrorists. This only makes the Palestinians hate Israelis more. Israel should target terrorists, but try and work with civilian Palestinians. The terrorists influence the Palestinian public through terror, so the public backs the terrorists, making Israel take harsh measures against all Palestinians. It is a vicious circle.
The bottom line is both the Israelis and Palestinians will never agree on anything, including water, due to hidden agendas. Whether it is the rockets fired from Gaza to Israeli occupation, these two groups will always be at odd. That is just the way of life in Gaza, Israel, and the Occupied Territories.
References
BBC. Report: Palestinians denied water. 27 Oct. 2009. BBC. Online.
EMIS. “Palestine: water authority opposes construction of desalination plant.” 4 Mar. 2009.
EMIS. Online.
Gray, Alice. “Gaza faces new standoff over water rights.” Feb. 2007. Socialist Resistance.
Online.
Obidallah, Mohammed T. “Water and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.” November 2008. 2(2).
Central European Journal of International and Security Studies. Online.
Safian, Alex PhD. “Backgrounder: Does Israel Use “Palestinian Water?” 1 July 2001.
CAMERA. Online. Read More