Water-Apartheid in the Palestinian Territories

The right to safe drinking water is recognised by the United Nations as a fundamental human right that is “essential for the full enjoyment of life and an adequate standard of living”. The UN calls upon all states to ensure that every person, “without discrimination”, has access to “sufficient, safe, accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use”.

Yet this is a distant reality for millions of Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip; instead they live with water that is contaminated, overpriced and chronically short in supply.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 95% of groundwater extracted from the Coastal Aquifer is so heavily contaminated it is “unfit for human consumption” according to UNICEF. After decades of over-exploitation by Palestinian and Israeli authorities, Gaza’s only aquifer has become severely depleted and susceptible to seawater and sewage contamination. Water shortages and widespread contamination are compounded by lasting conflict between Israel and Gaza’s de facto Hamas administration: in 2014 this conflict saw crucial water infrastructure targeted and destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Subsequently, Israel’s long-standing blockade on Gaza continues to restrict the entry of specialist materials needed to rebuild and repair this damaged infrastructure.

DESALINATION vs electricity

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the right of Palestinians to safe water is systematically undermined through an unequal water-sharing agreement with Israel: the 1995 Oslo II Accord. This agreement grants Israel exclusive control of roughly four times the Palestinian allocation of ‘shared’ water resources, despite Israelis and Israeli settlers comprising a vastly smaller proportion of the West Bank’s population. The disparity in water consumption is shocking: a 2013 report by local NGO Al-Haq found that 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank collectively consumed over six times as much water as 2.6 million Palestinians.

Moreover, a discriminatory permit regime enables Israel to prevent Palestinians from building and maintaining water infrastructure in the West Bank. Where building work has taken place without Israeli approval, authorities have demolished vital structures including basic latrines, water tanks and piping networks serving Palestinian communities.

Faced with chronic water shortages and widespread contamination, many Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank spend between 20-30% of their income purchasing overpriced water from Israeli water company Mekorot or other unregulated private vendors.

This is a hugely unjust situation.

 

Trump and US foreign policy in the Middle East

US foreign interests are, for the most part, bipartisan and both the Democrats and the Republicans have similar views with regard to the US’ main foreign policy objectives. Trump views Israel as a strategic ally in the Middle East as have the Democrats. The major difference is that Trump wishes to adopt a more isolationist approach, which could potentially mean a reduction in military aid to Israel. Donald Trump could challenge the long-standing pro-Israel bias in the US. Although he has promised to protect Israel, he boasts his skills as a negotiator and claims that the negotiations will require a certain level of neutrality.

It is unclear whether Trump’s remarks regarding minorities and Muslims in the United States would translate to any form of foreign policy that would be harmful to the Muslim Middle East. At worst, his disdain could translate into an uncompromising response by Trump to any defiance that threatened US interests in the region (note that earlier this year Trump pledged to send 30,000 US troops into Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS).

Blog post written by Marcus Lomax 19/10/2016

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Lord Stone responds to the Queen

Lord Stone of Blackheath spoke in the Queen’s speech debate on the government’s failure to embrace the Middle East peace Process. His remarks are interesting. He promotes the Arab Peace Initiative as well as endorsing the Two States One Homeland concept. He said:

Lord Stone of Blackheath Labour 5:05 pm, 23rd May 2016

My Lords, to continue on that theme, the gracious Speech made no mention of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, perhaps because it seems so intractable. I want to mention two new, ambitious but viable projects for reconciliation and ask Her Majesty’s Government for their involvement in them. The United Kingdom is in a unique position to move things forward, and it would be in our interests to do so.

The first is a movement called Two States One Homeland, which asks for the people of both sides to understand the narrative of the other as their genuine beliefs and accept them with compassion. Many Israelis now accept that the Palestinians believe that the 1947 declaration of the State of Israel was a Nakba to them—a disaster—and that the region is their homeland and they want consideration of their right to return. Many Palestinians are accepting that the Israelis believe that from biblical times the whole area was their homeland and living in parts of the West Bank is precious to them. They each regard the whole region as their homeland, but they know that they cannot live together as one comfortably in one state, so they agree to two states: a state of Israel, a state of Palestine and a confederation of these two sovereign states.

Two States One Homeland is a project currently on the move. The best international lawyers are agreeing to help the people on both sides to work out a constitutional settlement for each of the two sovereign states and jointly to create an overall constitution for the new confederation. International security experts and experts from both sides are deciding how the separate countries can run their own military and police forces and how, in addition, there will be a joint military and policing authority working across the two states.

On trade and investment, finance and currency, there is a team of Palestinians, Israelis and international corporations planning to invest in the region, particularly in the new Palestinian state. On the holy sites, rabbis, bishops and imams are working together with compassion and within their own golden rule to create a system whereby the sites are open for the benefit of all peoples, who are treated with due respect. There are groups working on this project on education, health and welfare and sustainability and ecology.

Secondly, alongside Two States One Homeland, there is a team in Israel and Palestine promoting a regional plan.The Arab peace initiative, the API, of 2002 was at the time an all-in-one, take-it-or-leave-it offer to which Israel did not respond. The new team presented in 2011 an Israeli peace initiative, an IPI, that accepts the API as a framework for Israeli-Palestinian regional negotiations. The IPI team is non-left and non-right—it is the pragmatic centre-thinking in Israel, with 1,800 prominent Israeli signatories, including ex-military and ex-security figures, diplomats, scholars, Middle East experts and business leaders. They have been talking for some time with the 22 Arab countries which we hope would support those projects. Together, they have developed a regional diplomatic proposal to resume negotiations, leveraging the API and the IPI. They are about to begin the development of a regional economic plan to invest tens of billions of dollars building infrastructure projects, agro-industry, water and energy plants, health and education establishments and new cities.

President al-Sisi of Egypt is on board. In a recent speech, he addressed Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation with courage and leadership. I applaud him and call on our Government to lend support. Let me quote a couple of sentences from his historic speech of only last week. He said:

“Egypt will be quite ready to play a sincere and responsible role to help set up a real opportunity for this cause … I say to the Israelis and the Palestinians that there is already a great opportunity for a better life, a better future for greater stability and real cooperation. Shall we seize that opportunity and move forward?”.

He has invited the leaders of both countries to come to speak to him and his people in Cairo.

The IPI team is also connecting Jordan, Palestine and Israel together with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and theUnited Arab Emirates. The aim is that this whole contiguous region, containing one-third of all the people living in the Middle East—150 million people—will benefit from work, welfare, health and education and human rights. We also have media partners who will act responsibly not by talking up war and killing in order to inflate their ratings but by reporting on the processes, described here, in informed, even-handed, compassionate and positive terms.

Would Her Majesty’s Government consider convening a meeting of leaders and experts, with whom we are working on all sides to develop these two concepts; to use our soft power, the British Council, in education at all levels; to help them to build universities with British standards; in health, to plan and build hospitals and systems; and to have UKTI encourage our business community to become involved in these developments and investments?

In 1947, the UN declaration was to form two equal entities; in 1967 there was a war, in which I was a volunteer, which broke that apart. Can we get together and make 2017, the 70th anniversary of the UN declaration and the 50th anniversary of the war of that split it, a year when we begin, collectively, to heal the rift?

New Plans underway to Re-launch talks on Two-state Solution

The following has just come in from a senior Board Member of the NCF:

When the Israelis and the Palestinians are not talking “peace”, the world or at least the Middle Eastern region is a more dangerous place. That may be a bit hard to swallow in view of the wars and civil unrest apparent in many Middle Eastern countries. But it is even true in Israel itself where the beginnings of a new Intifada or uprising have already begun with seemingly unplanned but nearly continuous stabbings or car rammings by Palestinians ranging from their pre-teens to octogenarians which are occuring on an all too regular basis.

While one does not condone these vicious assaults (and the even more brutal counter measures taken by the Israeli security forces as some kind of collective punishment), there is a distinct reason for them — the complete lack of confidence on the part of the vast majority of Palestinians that their dream of independence or even equality of status will ever be realized. Such frustration has turned to anger and resentment, and many of these youngsters are responding with the only weapons at hand — kitchen knives mostly.

Thus, it is heartening to hear that there is still support for a two state solution. Secretary of State John Kerry was certainly found this sentiment wanting when he spent a good deal of his personal energy and political capital on seeking to bring the Palestinians and the Israelis to the table. He failed, of course, but he should be applauded for at least trying to address this issue.

The Next Century Foundation (NCF) launched a new initiative based on application of the 2002 Arab (or Abdallah) peace plan in stages. It looks towards resolving some of the toughest decisions first (I.e., Jerusalem) and then move on to other matters down the road.

This proposal was launched in Washington and in Jerusalem last week. Discussion with the Palestinians and other interested parties including the Quartet are pending. As long as the U.S. will not recognize the value of the Arab Peace Plan, however, chances of a breakthrough appear dim. End Introduction

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“New plans underway to re-launch talks on two-state solution”

AL-MONITOR

By Uri Savir

29 February 2016

The Quartet (United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia) decision taken on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 12 is a landmark for the efforts of the international community to revitalize an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution process. The Quartet decided to compose a report that will outline the obstacles that today are preventing a renewed peace process as well as recommendations for restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The driving force behind the Quartet’s decision was the EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. An official close to the High Representative told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that there is a consensus within the EU that without a political horizon, the situation within the Palestinian Authority risks deteriorating, possibly leading to an armed intifada and even to the resignation of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Mogherini believes that, similarly to the case of the Iran deal, it is important to create an international consensus of the main powers for the sake of Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. In this way, the Quartet may become a mechanism that will bypass the Security Council and initiatives of individual countries such as the United States and France.

According to the official, the report will be prepared by envoys of the Quartet to the region and presented to the foreign ministers for a decision as to how to proceed. It will include a common analysis of the existing roadblocks for a peace process, and therefore will deal in detail with settlement expansion, land appropriation, incitement to violence and violence, both in regard to the Palestinian sporadic terror attacks in the past three months and to Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians.

The EU official said that the Quartet does not intend to blame any of the parties, but rather to analyze the situation in a balanced way in order to create a better environment for the renewal of a two-state process.

As to a formula on the renewal of negotiations, it will have to be negotiated by the foreign ministers of the Quartet, based on the recommendations in the report. Mogherini herself, according to the official, will consult in advance of the report with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas, as well as with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The EU sees the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 as a valid basis for future negotiations, but also recognizes the need for mutual land swaps in relation to the 1967 lines and for security arrangements to satisfy Israeli interests within a two-state solution.

While the decision on the report was reached in consensus, there is a diversity of views within the Quartet about the kind of policy platform to set for all future negotiations.

A senior State Department official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Secretary of State John Kerry is very much in support of the Quartet report. The United States will, in view of sharp European criticism of Netanyahu’s settlement policies, attempt to balance in the report what it perceives as excessively critical approaches toward Israel by the EU, Russia and the UN.

In the American view, the Arab Peace Initiative cannot be the main basis for future negotiations as it does not emphasize sufficiently the necessary security and anti-terror arrangements within a permanent status agreement.
The Obama administration, according to the official who is frequently in the region, is interested in creating a policy platform for a two-state solution for the post-Obama era. It will do so both within the Quartet and also in the form of US policy guidelines for a two-state solution. Various expressions of such guidelines are still being considered, including the possibility of an important presidential policy speech.

The Quartet decision is significant both in the short and long term. For the immediate future, it may give Abbas a political horizon to point to.

In regard to Israel, it may start a political debate over the value of the Quartet’s recommendations. In the long term, the mechanism — more than the specific recommendations — is of importance; it may be the beginning of a conflict resolution process on the Israeli-Palestinian issue by international consensus and not merely, as in the past, by the United States.

In all likelihood, a new platform for a two-state solution process can be realized only after the upcoming US presidential elections and after the two parties — Israel and the PA — have exhausted all other alternatives.