Politics and Water Management: A Palestinian Perspective

This chapter examines the notion that politics is a significant if not the prime factor that influences on-the-ground realities of water use, sanitation, and water resource development in Palestine. Israeli water politics in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) were based on the goal of controlling Palestinian land and resources and forcing Palestinians to leave the country. They were characterized by four main steps: to use military overpower and unilateral actions to set and create new on ground realities that constitute the new negotiating basis, to enact laws and military orders that will help strengthen control and oversee what was taken by military force, set policy on the future directions and actions to be taken to fulfill the main objective of controlling Palestinian land and resources and implement through the establishment of institutions that control on ground the forced new reality. Continuing the past and present Israeli approaches will result in serious harm to both people with different proportions and scales. To achieve a long lasting just peace between the two sides based on unified national rights, human values, and mutual living is the solution. A joint Palestinian Israeli water utility operating and serving both people along this line is considered to be a highly feasible option for resolving the water conflict.