Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

Water is the Palestinians’ most precious resource.  Control of the water supply, land confiscation and house demolitions, as well as the violence of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and of the settlers, make it clear that Israeli policy is to coerce the Palestinians to vacate the land and to delegitimise their existence. Palestinians cannot trust the Israeli authorities or judiciary to grant them redress.

• Israel has taken sole control of the Mountain Aquifer, the West Bank’s principal water supply and is taking around 80 per cent of it to supply  the illegal settlements and Israel itself.

• The IDF prohibits Palestinians from harvesting rainwater by destroying their cisterns.

• Palestinians are forbidden from drilling new wells or rehabilitating old wells without permits from the Israeli authorities. Such permits are difficult and often impossible to obtain. Even pipelines connecting wells to Palestinian towns and villages require Israeli permits.

• The IDF controls access to the roads which water tankers must use to deliver water to those Palestinian villages not connected to the water network. Many roads are closed or restricted to Palestinian traffic, causing delays or forcing the tankers to make long detours, which significantly increase the price of water.

• Palestinian families have to buy their water from the Israeli water company Mekorot which makes Palestinians pay a price 4 times higher than that charged to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

“There is no reason for Palestinians to claim that just because they sit on lands, they have the rights to that water.”

– Mr. Katz-Oz, Israel’s negotiator on water issues

• When supplies of water are low in the summer months, the Israeli water company Mekorot closes the valves which supply Palestinian towns and villages so as not to affect Israeli supplies. This often means that Israeli settlers have their swimming pools topped up and lawns watered, while Palestinians living next to them, on whose land the illegal settlements are built, do not have enough water for drinking, washing and cooking.

• The average Israeli settler now uses around 400 litres of water a day, twenty times more than many of their Palestinian neighbours have to survive on.

• The Military Orders issued by the IDF soon after it first occupied the area, which gave control of Palestinian water resources to Israel, remain in force today.  (Military Orders 92 and 168 of June and November 1967, and Military Order 291 of December 1968)

• In Madama village 50km north of Jerusalem, settlers from the Yizhar colony have repeatedly vandalized the villagers’ only source of water. They have poured concrete into it, vandalized the connecting pipes and even dropped disposable diapers and other hazardous waste into the springs. The settlers routinely attack villagers trying to repair the water source.

• 90 per cent of tap water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption because it is contaminated by sea water and sewage.

• Under international law it is illegal for Israel either to expropriate the water of the Occupied Palestinian Territories for use by its own citizens or to expropriate it for use by illegal Israeli settlers.

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Originally published for Liberal Democrat Conference 2010

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• The settlements are illegal under international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 49) specifically prohibits  the occupying power from transferring its citizens to occupied territory.

• The illegal status of settlements has been confirmed by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

• Settlements are Jewish colonies built on land seized during the 6-Day War in 1967. The largest, such as Betar Illit and Ma’ale Adumim, have over 33,000 residents.  Due to the extensive network of settler roads which Palestinians are forbidden to use and restrictions on Palestinians accessing their own land, Israeli settlements effectively fence off more than 40 per cent of the West Bank.

• Many of the settlers are far-right religious Zionists who believe they are “redeeming the land”. Their aggression towards Palestinians includes setting fire to cars, destroying crops and uprooting olive trees. These actions are often intended to harrass Palestinians into leaving their homes and farms.

• Such attacks against Palestinians and their property are frequently assisted and protected by the Israeli military and can be carried out with complete legal immunity.

• Palestinians, subject to military law, are denied the legal rights given to settlers, who are subject to Israeli criminal law. This apartheid system of law is itself illegal.

• In the Old City of Hebron settler violence is notorious.  Settlers, guarded by the Israeli army and civilian police, routinely attack the Palestinian inhabitants of Old Hebron and vandalize their property. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has characterized some of these attacks as ‘pogroms’.

• Approximately half of all Palestinian injuries from settler violence each year since 2006 have been made up of children, women and the elderly over 70 years of age. (Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs  – OCHA)

• Settlements divide the West Bank into cantons, so that the Palestinians are increasingly forced to live in isolated enclaves. These ‘facts on the ground’ are designed to destroy any chance of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.

• Demolition of Palestinian family homes accompanies illegal settlement building in occupied East Jerusalem. At least 230 Palestinian structures have been demolished in East Jerusalem and Area C [where Israel has full administrative control] since the beginning of this year, displacing 1100 Palestinians, including 400 children. (OCHA)

• This Judaization of East Jerusalem is for the stated purpose of expanding the Jewish character of the city and guaranteeing its indivisibility.

• There are currently 479,600 settlers living illegally in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Peace Now – June 2009)

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Originally published for Liberal Democrat Conference 2010

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