The West Bank's Water

Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Summer, 1978), pp. 175-179
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine
Studies
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176 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
1978. Both focus on the West Bank
villages of Bardala and Tal al-Baida. The
first, by Barbara Smith, was entitled
"The Politics of Water on the West
Bank."
"Arab water rights, said an official
from the Israeli Water Authority, are as
safe as if they were in the Bank of
England. Given what has happened to
sterling in the past year, his comment
may have been more apposite than he
intended.
"The West Bank depends largely on
its underground water supplies. Israel,
since it occupied the territory in 1967,
has dug some 20 water wells and created
a water network that is admired as one
of the most advanced and intensive in
the world. Indeed, one of the reasons
given by those Israelis who argue that
the West Bank should remain permanent-
ly part of Israel is that one third of
Israel's water supply comes from the
West Bank's underground reserves.
"But this sophisticated and costly
water system does not serve the local
Palestinian inhabitants. Worse, it is steal-
ing water from them. Several Arab vil-
lages which relied on spring water are
finding their springs going dry; the water
level in other villages has dropped below
the reach of the Arab pumps. And there
is very little the Arabs can do about it.
"Take Bardala, a small hill village five
miles west of the Jordan river and ten
miles south of Beit Shean. The thousand
or so people who still live in Bardala
(some 400 fled across the Jordan after
the 1967 war) depend on a well in the
valley below. In 1968 the Israelis built
their own well to serve a nearby settle-
ment; this well is much deeper than the
Arab one and very close to it. In 1973
Oxfam built a reservoir above the village
to help with irrigation and to save the
women from their long hot trudge up
the hill with water pitchers on their
heads. This reservoir worked for two
years, but by 1975 the water level had
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dropped to such an extent that the
reservoir went dry. It has not been used
since; the women again carry water up
from the valley.
"But for how long will there be
water to carry? Oxfam's wasted reser-
voir is the least of the villagers' troubles.
In the same year when that went dry,
the water level in summer dropped
below 18 metres-the depth of the Arab
pump. The Israeli water authority sug-
gested to the village mukhtar [president]
that Bardala should be connected to the
Israeli supply. When he and the other
village elders said that they would prefer
to deepen their pump, the official from
the water authority apparently agreed to
finance this instead. The pump was
deepened by six metres to 24 metres.
The water flowed again.
"But in the meantime two things
happened. First, as Israeli water consump-
tion increased, the water level dropped
yet again. The Arabs have an adequate
supply at present; when summer comes
they will not. Second, according to the
mukhtar, the Israelis have not paid the
Israeli ?10,000 ($1,000) that it cost to
lower the pump. So the villagers do not
know what to do. They would be all
right if they could lower the pump to
40 metres but they do not have access
to that sort of money. The Israelis have
not so far given any Arab villages per-
mission to dig new wells, except for
drinking water. So, when the well goes
dry, the people of Bardala suppose that
they will have no alternative but to
connect their village to the Israeli sys-
tem. As a farming village, they cannot
survive without adequate water. But
they are reluctant to take a step that
will make them wholly dependent on an
Israel which, they believe, has shown
itself wholly untrustworthy.
"A nearby village, Tel al-Baida, is an
even more obvious victim of the same
Israeli well. Its springs have been
reduced to muddy ponds, last summer its

trees started to turn yellow and to die.
The village leaders have accepted that
they must be connected to the Israeli
system. They have been told, they say,
that this will happen only when their
spring is quite dry, as opposed to nearly
dry.
"Bardala and Tal al-Baida have al-
ready lost their water. Other villages are
threatened. Farther south in Awja, for
instance, an Israeli well has been dug
right next door to a natural spring; it is
only a matter of time, the experts say,
before the spring goes dry. Nor is it
only villages: the town of Ramallah, for
instance, has lost its main source of
water-the spring at Ain Samiya-and is
now largely dependent on Jerusalem for
its water supply. The political conse-
quences are clear: it makes it even
harder than it already is to envisage a
future in which Jerusalem and Ramallah
are in different countries.
"The Israelis claim to have helped the
West Bankers by passing on their tech-
nical skills in irrigation. And this is not
untrue; some West Bankers, for instance,
are profiting from the use of drip irriga-
tion learnt from Israeli farmers. But this
by no means compensates for the great
fear of West Bank farmers that they are
losing their most precious resource-
water-to Israel and that to save them-
selves they must become part of an
Israeli system that looks alarmingly per-
manent."
Similar themes were developed by
Paul Quiring, Programme Director for the
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in
Jerusalem, in testimony on September
12, 1977 to the International Organiza-
tions Subcommittee of the US Congres-
sional Committee on International Rela-
tions. As the relief and development
agency of the Mennonite and Brethren
in Christ churches in North America, the
MCC has administered a number of
projects on the West Bank ranging from
irrigation to the establishment of a
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VIEWS FROM ABROAD 177
secondary school. Quiring discussed the
effect on the area of Israeli settlements.
"The contest created by Israeli settle-
ment over resources is not limited to
land; it also involves the availability and
control of water. By their location, set-
tlements are in direct competition with
Arab villages for the West Bank's limited
water resources. This is a particularly
important issue with regard to the settle-
ments built in the Jordan Valley region,
where agriculture for both Palestinian
villages and the settlements depends
upon the availability of irrigation water.
As Israeli settlements in this area are
based upon. agriculture and utilize large
areas of land, correspondingly large
volumes of water are used to make
agriculture viable in the region, which
receives approximately four inches of
rain a year.
"In order to meet such water needs,
the settlement authority in cooperation
with Mekorot-the Israeli National Water
Authority-undertook new hydrological
surveys which revealed exploitable water
resources in the occupied territories. Ac-
cordingly, Mekorot has drilled a mini-
mum of 14 new wells inside the West
Bank since 1968 which provide water
for the domestic and irrigation require-
ments of the Israeli settlements. In ad-
dition to such new settlements, four
wells owned by 'absentee' owners are
being used to provide irrigation water
for land cultivated by Israeli settlements.
Water pumped by both newly drilled
wells and those controlled by t'he Cus-
todian for Absentee Property is used
exclusively by the Israeli settlements and
has not been made available to Pales-
tinian farmers.
"The development of such wells for
the Israeli settlements must be seen
against the backdrop of water develop-
ment in the Palestinian sector. I am
aware of no Palestinian villages or indivi-
duals on the West Bank which have been
permitted to drill new irrigation wells
178 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
since 1967. Mekorot has, however, al-
lowed six new wells to be drilled for
domestic purposes. This lack of water
resource development and the confis-
cation of wells on 'absentee' property
means that there are fewer wells provi-
ding less water for Palestinian agriculture
in the Jordan Valley today than were
available on the eve of the 1967 war.
"A second concern arising from this
water policy involves the impact which
these new Israeli wells have on neigh-
bouring Arab wells and springs. In the
Jordan Valley region the need for water
by Israeli settlements has led to the
drilling of six wells which are in close
proximity to other wells and springs
(developed before 1967) which supply
domestic and irrigation water for Pales-
tinian villages and towns. At the spring
which supplies water for the village of
Awja, two wells have been drilled im-
mediately beside the spring's headwaters.
Water from either of these pumps is
used to irrigate crops cultivated by the
neighbouring settlement of Yativ. At the
valley of Fasayil, two deep wells have
been dug within several hundred metres
of the spring of Ain Fasayil which irri-
,gates land cultivated by a Palestinian far-
mer. Water from these two pumps sup-
plies the domestic and agricultural needs
of the settlement of Phatza'el. Up in the
hills of the western Jordan Valley, dril-
ling operations have just been completed
on a well located a short distance from
the spring of Ain Samiya which is the
sole water source for the West Bank city
of Ramallah.
"While it is theoretically possible for
such wells and springs to operate side by
side without affecting one another, we
are advised by numerous hydrologists
that the long-term effects of such a
policy will be detrimental to the output
of the pre-1967 Arab water sources-par-
ticularly in an area such as the Jordan
Valley, where water is limited.
"One location where the impact of
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this well-drilling practice is clearly visible
is in the northern Jordan Valley villages
of Bardala and Tal al-Baida. When in
1968 the Israeli settlement of Mehola
was established near the above two vil-
lages, Mekorot advised the settlement
authority that the drilling of a planned
well to supply water for the settlement
would adversely affect the five wells and
springs used by neighbouring Arab vil-
lages. Fully aware of this report, the
well was dug. Until 1970 little effect
was registered. However, in 1970 villages
from Bardala, Tal al-Baida and Kardala
began reporting a decline in the output
of their springs and a lowering of the
water level in their wells.
"Prior to 1970 the central spring in
the village of Tal al-Baida supplied 80
cubic metres of water per hour. By
summer of 1976 the output of the
spring had declined to five cubic metres
of water per hour. As of today, the
villagers and their livestock must wade
into a semi-stagnant pool to obtain
drinking water.
"The consequences of this situation
are readily visible. Villagers reported an
increase in diseases related to the unsani-
tary drinking water conditions. Village
orchards previously watered by the
spring have now turned a faded yellow.
The villagers have no recourse other
than to petition the military governor-a
process which as yet has brought them
no relief from their problems. At the
neighbouring settlement of Mehola an
Israeli settler summarized the moshav's
water resources by saying, 'The Water
Authority tells us we are lucky; we have
as much water as we need.'
Mekorot is well acquainted with the
problems of these two villages. In res-
ponse to an inquiry by our organization
to assist Bardala and Tal al-Baida, I was
informed that Mekorot predicted that
the wells and springs of the vicinity of
the settlement of Mehola would dry up
as a result of heavy pumping from the

Israeli well. Because of this it was Meko-
rot's intention to compensate these vil-
lages by connecting them to the settle-
ment's water network.
"The people of Tal al-Baida and
Bardala do not wish to become depen-
dent upon the Israeli water authority or
an Israeli settlement for their water. The
villagers view with suspicion a settlement
whiclh was built in part on land confis-
cated from their village and whose pump
has now nearly eliminated their own
source of water. If the villages will have
the opportunity to take water from the
Israeli pump, as Mekorot promises, the
villagers will accept only because they
have no alternative.
"Mekorot's advance knowledge of the
potential impact of the Israeli wells sug-
gests that the settlement authority has
been and remains very much aware of
how such settlements affect their sur-
rounding environment. The response is
to allow the neighbouring villages to
take water from Mekorot-in exchange
for forfeiting their own rights. Such fine
distinctions are not lost on the people
of Baruala and Tal al-Baida. The villagers
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VIEWS FROM ABROAD 179
recognize that in their dependence on
the settlement for water they are, in
fact, fully dependent upon the gener-
osity of the settlement for their live-
Lihood and existence.
"The construction of each settlement
invariably produces an impact on the
indigenous population of the West Bank.
In some cases the impact is easily mea-
surable-either in terms of acres of land
or metres of water. In other cases it is
more subtle-loss of land or loss of a
future. At best the impact will be dis-
ruptive; at worst it will help turn a
people out of their land. While the
physical impact of the settlement can be
minimized, its overall consequences
cannot be eliminated.
"Increasingly, West Bankers recognize
settlements as the most threatening con-
sequence of the occupation. Whereas the
occupation intended to govern, the set-
tlements seek to transform. Regardless
of their location, size or stated purpose,
West Bankers regard such settlements as
little more than a euphemism for the
theft of their land and political future."