Israel's Stance

Israel has historically required large amounts of water for its influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants after its establishment in 1948. The country is in one of the aridest environments on earth and has to support not only the indigenous population but also the new migrants. Israel claims that the 1967 war was forced upon it by the imminent threat of hostile Arab countries and they had no intention to occupy more land or resources. However, the war's outcome left Israel occupying an area not far short of the territory claimed by the founders of the Zionist movement at the beginning of the 20th Century (at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 the Zionist delegation said the Golan Heights, Jordan valley, what is now the West Bank, as well as Lebanon's river Litani were "essential for the necessary economic foundation of the country. Palestine must have... the control of its rivers and their headwaters"). Israel claims the proportion of water it uses has not changed substantially since the 1950s.

 

Additionally, the Jerusalem Post, an Israeli news source, claims that Israel has "solved" its water shortage through constructing desalination and water-treatment plants while "the Palestinians started working on several water-treatment projects in the West Bank, but Attili says they had to stop because they ran out of money." Additionally, there have also been illegal actions on part of the Palestinian people such as illegal tapping into Israeli water lines. As the Jerusalem Post states "you have to read the fine print to discover that illegal Palestinian tapping into Israel’s water lines and massive Palestinian water wastage are the causes of the problem. You have to study the issue in-depth to discover that it is not Israeli 'occupation policy' but Palestinian political resistance against joint water management and cooperation that is responsible for the slow development of the Palestinian water sector. The PA considers water and waste as weapons against Israel, not as areas of cooperation with Israel."

 

Israel's stance essentially relies on the sovereignty of Palestine as a way to blame them for mismanagement of their own water resources. Israeli media claims that while Israel was so proactive to have already "solved" their problems, Palestine simply does not have the monetary resources, motivation, or cooperation levels to do so as well. However, Palestine does not have as much agency as this stance implies, as Israel still has to approve of its water management infrastructure construction plans.