Hydro-Apartheid and Water Access in Israel-Palestine: Challenging the Myths of Cooperation and Scarcity (chapter in "Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies")
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Author(s): Clemens Messerschmid
Date: 2014
Topics: Conflict Causes, Cooperation, Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Israel, Palestine
This chapter challenges the most enduring myths surrounding access to water in the Israel-Palestine context by tracing the main mechanisms and interests at work shaping water relations, and by contextualizing the conflict over control and access to water resources. It argues that when water is lifted from the purely technical sphere and analysed as a political issue, the stark asymmetry of power relations and discrimination in its supply is revealed. In fact, Palestinian society has had its water resources drained by Israel for decades — both bureaucratically and (when necessary) by force. This chapter is divided into six sections. Section one outlines the historical context and power relations that have shaped the hydro-political divide between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) into the present reality of an occupying power and a disempowered population. Section two explores Mark Zeitoun’s concept of hydro-hegemony, utilizing it to critique the myth of water ‘cooperation’ between Israel and the Palestinians — a myth that is illustrated by the creation of the Joint Water Committee (JWC) in 1996 after the 1995 Oslo-II Interim Agreement. Sections three and four move on to interrogate the most powerful myths in the Israeli discourse in this context — those of (physical) water scarcity and climate change — while exposing the fact that scarcity has been politically-induced.