The impact of Israeli settlement and settlers on Palestinian land and water resources is one element in a broad relationship of inequality and dependency established and promoted by the occupation during the last quarter century. While there have been anecdotal enquiries into specific examples of this phenomena—for example, Palestinian construction labor at an Israeli settlement or the effects on an adjacent Palestinian community of sewage produced by a settlement—there have been no studies that focus on the overall economic effects of settlements themselves, singly or collectively, on Palestinians. Nevertheless, some data is available that offers a broad insight into the nature and scale of the impact of settlements on Palestinian land and water resources.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is essentially a contest for control of the region’s resources, principally land and water. To the extent that these assets are used by one antagonist, occupation has been structured so that the other loses.

Settlements have long represented an Israeli intention to remain permanently on the land and to control its destiny, necessarily at the expense of Palestinians. Without settlements, as Israelis have long acknowledged, they would be merely an « occupying » army. The implantation of civilian Israeli colonies is, therefore, the primary obstacle to Palestinian self-determination.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are currently located in Area C, which is under exclusive Israeli control and which comprises 72 percent of the West Bank. Israel similarly controls approximately 15 percent of the Gaza Strip. In the Golan Heights, the Syrian population of 17,000 is clustered into five small villages abutting the Syrian-Lebanese border. The 32 Israeli settlements control 80 percent of the plateau. One-quarter of the entire Golan—315,000 dunams—is grazing land controlled by‚ ‚settlers.

Assessing the precise effect of the loss and reallocation of Palestinian lands to Israeli settlements is difficult. The World Bank, in a draft of its September 1993 study, « Developing the Occupied Territories—An Investment in Peace, » notes:

Confiscation of Palestinian land has enabled Israel to proceed with the construction of settlements and related structures in various areas of the West Bank that were traditionally considered to be wilderness zones. Most important among these are the eastern slopes and the central part of the West Bank which once housed a variety of wildlife and provided a winter grazing ground for livestock and recreation for the local population. . . .

Similarly, building agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley has gradually deprived the Palestinian inhabitants of these areas of their richest soils and water wells. A similar situation has developed in the Gaza Strip where settlements have encroached upon fertile inland and coastal areas. The Israeli settlement program was not accompanied by adequate and proper environmental considerations. None of the settlements have developed sewage treatment plants. Sewage is often allowed to run into valleys even if a neighboring[Palestinian] village is threatened. The sewage system of the settlements on the eastern hills and slopes north of Jerusalem has contaminated fresh water supplies for drinking and irrigation of Palestinian areas up to Jericho.

Agricultural Land

In 1967, 2,300 sq km of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under Palestinian cultivation. In 1989, that figure had been reduced to 1,945 sq km, or 31.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Agriculture comprised 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 1966, the same percentage as in the 1980-85 (pre-intifada) period. By 1994, the percentage had decreased to less than 15 percent. In 1966, the agricultural sector provided employment for 55,000 Palestinians, or 43 percent of total employment, whereas in the 1980-85 period, there were 40,000 people employed in the agricultural sector, comprising 24 percent of employed Palestinians. In 1993, the percentage of employed persons working in agriculture was 22 percent.

These gross indicators do not lead to specific conclusions regarding the effect of settlements on agricultural employment or production or land under cultivation, because settlements are only one of a number of variables that must be considered when assessing these trends.

However, there are specific regions, such as the Jordan Valley, where a direct link can be established between the loss of Palestinians’ agricultural opportunities and Israeli settlements.The confiscation of agricultural lands and their transfer to settlements result in the loss of agricultural income and employment, although this has never been quantified beyond anecdotal reporting. Contamination by sewage also directly affects Palestinian agriculture in the region around Kiryat Arba and elsewhere. There are also unquantified economic and environmental costs associated with Israeli-owned industries in the occupied territories, such as a recycling plant for used motor oil, stone quarries, and other plants where harmful and toxic by-products are produced.

Water

Access to water, rather than a scarcity of land, remains the greatest obstacle to Palestinian agricultural development. For Israel, water has been a vital precondition for achieving its fundamental challenges—the creation of a vibrant economy to sustain an increasing Jewish community. Without an adequate supply of water, the concept of massive Jewish immigration and settlement would be imperiled, and without immigration and settlement Israel’s leadership fears for its future. Water, settlement, and security have thus become complementary pieces of Israel’s security outlook.

According to a 1992 report for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by Miriam Lowi, « almost the entire increase in Israeli water use since 1967 derives from the waters of the West Bank and the Upper Jordan River. »

Israel, however, is in the midst of a water emergency. Even with the resources conquered in 1967, it is pumping more water from its aquifers than nature can replace. And in the West Bank, not only is Israel exploiting water for its own population in Israel and the occupied territories, amounting to 15 percent of total consumption, it has also prevented the Palestinian community from increasing its water use to barely 20 percent beyond the amount used in 1967—and only for personal use, not for agriculture and economic development.

Since the beginning of bilateral and multilateral negotiations earlier this decade at Madrid, Israel has sought to protect its continuing control over this resource in the West Bank, which was described by Israel’s state comptroller in February 1993 as the « principle reservoir of drinking water for the Dan region, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beersheba, » and the « most important long-term source in the [national] water system. »

The water requirements of Israel’s settlements are a small segment of this larger mosaic of Israeli exploitation of the water resources in the occupied territories.

At a time when settlers were barely 10 percent of the population in the West Bank (1987), Palestinian consumption totaled 115 million cubic meters (mcm), while settler consumption equaled 97 mcm. A 1993 report by Peace Now noted that « the Jewish settlers’ per capita irrigated areas are seven and thirteen times larger than the areas accorded to Palestinians for irrigation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank respectively. »

A November 1992 report by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), « Israeli Obstacles to Economic Development in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, » notes that lack of water has forced Palestinian farmers to remove tracts from cultivation and that the digging of new, deep wells for settlements, particularly in the Jordan Valley, has caused subsequent shortages for Palestinian farmers.

Industrial Pollution

Approximately 160 Israeli-owned industrial concerns are located in the West Bank. For Israeli industrialists, the West Bank has, at least in one sphere, enjoyed a comparative advantage over Israel. Environmental regulations on soil, air, and water quality, and restrictions on industrial development generally, have been far less comprehensive and much less assiduously enforced compared with Israel. Combined with state-subsidized incentives for Israeli businesses to locate to industrial parks in and near settlements, the relative laxity of environmental enforcement and monitoring has led to the location of a number of « dirty » concerns to the occupied territories. Factories posing an environmental risk generally use wet processes in packaged food manufacturing, metal coating, and textiles.

The Shomron Municipal Environmental Association (SMEA), a governmental body established by settlements in the northern part of the West Bank to monitor and improve environmental quality, acknowledges that « waste water effluents from these plants and from nearly 100 residential communities in our region, if not properly treated, pose a threat to the groundwater quality in the region. In addition, industrial air emissions and noise generation can be problematic at some factories. »

Forty-five businesses operate in the industrial park of Burkan, adjacent to the settlement of Ariel. Most are engaged in the production of fabrics and plastics for export. Palestinians complain that industrial waste generated in the industrial park is dumped on Palestinian land.

« The owners of these factories escape the tighter rules on health and the environment inside Israeli itself, to work on the West Bank, where they get tax breaks, » explained Khalil Suleiman, an environmental expert from al-Najah University in Nablus. In addition to Burkan, Palestinians have complained about the operation of industrial facilities at Ariel, Karnei Shomron, Kiryat Arba, and Kadumim. Of particular concern is the effect of industrial development on the quality of groundwater, which Palestinian investigators have found to be « significantly more polluted » near settlements than elsewhere.

The settlement of Kiryat Arba has been identified by Palestinian investigators as « the main source of pollution in the Hebron area. » A tile factory located in the settlement industrial area at one time flushed its waste water through the sewage system, which resulted in numerous problems. The city of Hebron successfully petitioned the court to stop this practice. Now the waste water is trucked off in tanks and dumped on a Palestinian field. The water contains high levels of calcium carbonate, increasing the already high pH level of the land.

The Case of Geshurei Industries

Geshurei Industries, a manufacturer of pesticides and fertilizers, was originally located in the Israeli town of Kfar Saba. Concern about the environmental effects of the factory—on land, public health, and agriculture—resulted in an Israeli court order in 1982 closing the plant.

Since 1987, the factory has been operating across the Green Line, in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, where there are effectively no controls on waste disposal or air pollution. Other Israeli industrial polluters, including those working in asbestos, fiberglass, pesticides, and flammable gases, also relocated to the Tulkarem area. According to a recent report by a Palestinian non-governmental organization, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAWE), factory pollution directly affects 144 dunams of prime agricultural land and « causes substantial damage to the public health. » The Israeli court has ordered some remedial action, including compensation to affected farmers, but the plant remains in operation.

The Society’s report notes the following effects of the Geshurei factory operation : the decay of a majority of trees and other vegetation around the plant; the settling of chemical dust and residue and a liquid substance that leaves a calcium-like deposi on the land and vegetation, causing a decrease in field and hothouse agricultural production; the prominence of sodium and salt factory by-products in soil samples of land found to be non-arable, both of which are prominent consequences of waste-water contamination of agricultural land; the discovery of sulfamic acid, a starting material for a herbicide used as a non-selective weed killer, in groundwater samples from the area surrounding the factory.

The report also notes that « this is clear evidence of polluting groundwater through leakage of chemicals, and proof of the improper disposal of wastes and by-products. »

LAWE documented « a very high ratio of health-related problems among farmers and people living around the factory, including severe headaches, itchy eyes, spastic and chronic coughs, and bronchial asthma. » The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has recently noted that « the public health of the community has not been well-documented due to decades of military occupation and direct conflict, suggesting that environmentally related health problems may be more pervasive than currently estimated. The long-term impact on soil and groundwater has similarly received inadequate attention. »

Tulkarem’s agricultural land has historically been a significant factor in the local economy. As a consequence of the harmful effects of Israeli-operated industry around Tulkarem, agricultural profits were reduced by 21.5 percent between 1992 and 1997, according to LAWE. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture estimates that 17 percent of Tulkarem’s agricultural land has been affected by pollution originating at the six Israeli concerns located in the Tulkarem area. Three of the factories sit on what Palestinians claim to be waqf land. Other sites are claimed by private Palestinian owners. Several factories are located less than 100 meters from residential housing.

Settlers have been implicated by Palestinians in what Palestinians term « pesticide attacks, » in which settlers destroy cultivated fields by spraying chemical pesticides during the agricultural season. LAWE notes that in one incident in the village of Ptarmus Ayya, settlers sprayed crops of vegetables, cereals, and olive trees in this fashion.

Dumps

Hundreds of sites for the disposal of trash are located in the occupied territories, including dozens that are unauthorized. There are 246 sites in the West Bank north of Jerusalem alone. Most of the sites are simple and primitive with few if any environmental safeguards, and none is used exclusively by settlements or Palestinian communities. SMEA acknowledges that « sites are improperly maintained, generating odors and smoke which are a nuisance to neighboring residents, as well as posing a threat to groundwater quality. »

A site in Jiyous, near the northern West Bank town of Kalkilya, is typical. Sited on 12 dunams, 200 meters from the river bed that serves as a source of drinking water for the village of Azoun, the site opened in 1990 and is administered by Palestinians under the direction of SMEA. It is used principally by the settlements of Karnei Shomron, Kadumim, Tzofim, and Ma’ale Shomron. SMEA is now being pressured by Israeli trash contractors to permit them to use the dump for trash generated in Israel, after the Israeli dump they had been using was closed by the government. Residents of Azoun complain of an epidemic of flies in summer and of smoke wafting into the village when trash is burned. They claim that 200 olive trees have been damaged by smoke.

Sites such as the one at Jiyous are attractive trash disposal options for Israeli communities. With disposal costs three to six times greater in Israel, sites in the West Bank offer many Israeli towns a closer, cheaper alternative to dumps within Israel proper.

Israel conducted a Geographic Information System (GIS) study in 1996 as part of an effort to develop a master plan to establish priorities to improve and to consolidate the system of trash disposal in the West Bank. Israel’s plan for trash disposal in the West Bank is being devised with no official or informal Palestinian participation.

Quarries

There are literally thousands of stone quarries on the West Bank, supplying 80 percent of the material needs of Israel’s construction sector. Many of these stones are used in settlement construction. Israeli concerns operate six West Bank quarries. Most of these quarries have operated for years, but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has also considered the siting of new quarries in Palestinian-controlled areas, run in partnership with Israeli companies.

One of these, at a controversial site in Wadi al-Teen—an important natural grazing area that supports livestock farmers in neighboring Palestinian villages—was to be the new site of a quarry whose operators are relocating from sites in Israel.

The Applied Research Institute—Jerusalem, a Palestinian environmental group, notes in their report, « Wadi al-Teen Quarry and the Systematic Expropriation of Palestinian National Resources, » that « the construction of a quarry at Wadi al-Teen will undoubtedly bring environmental degradation, threaten the bio-diversity and wildlife in the area, close off major natural grazing and agricultural areas, and deprive Palestinian farmers of run-off water used for irrigation. Furthermore, the plan will adversely affect the living environment in neighboring Palestinian villages due to dust and other types of air pollution. Most important, this project allows Israel to exploit Palestinian stone, the main natural raw material in the West Bank. »

The public outcry over plans to establish a quarry at Wadi al-Teen has recently forced the PA to reconsider the project.

« What is the PA planning to tell those who demonstrated against settlement activity in Wadi al-Teen, » asked Palestinian Legislative Council member Hassan Kreisheh before reconsideration was announced.

« How can we tell Israel to stop building settlements when we are granting them even more land to establish quarries? »

Many quarries are located in close proximity to Palestinian residential areas. The clouds of dust produced in the quarries pose certain health risks. Palestinians charge that those residing near such enterprises suffer from increased levels of asthma and acute bronchial infections.

Settlers have organized to prevent the operation of quarries near their residential areas. Together with Palestinians, they have filed a unique, joint appeal to oppose the creation of a new stone-crushing site in the village of Dura, near Hebron.

Obstacles to Settler-Palestinian Cooperation

The mitigation of environmental problems in the occupied territories, including those caused by the existence and expansion of settlements, is viewed by some Israelis as a forum for joint Israeli-Palestinian action. Yet Israeli environmental planners in the territories continue to view Palestinians as junior partners at best. Palestinians, for their part, are willing to cooperate with Israeli communities within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, but they refuse as a matter of principle to participate in joint efforts with settlers. « Our feeling—in fact, it’s more than a feeling, » explained the director of the settlers’ Judea Towns Association for the Environment, « is that the Palestinian Authority is not interested in cooperating with us. » In Hebron, to cite one example, the Palestinian municipality refuses to participate in a waste water treatment scheme in which some of the treated water will be used by Israeli settlers.

Rafael Eitan, Israel’s minister of environment, recently warned that « if the Palestinian Authority doesn’t answer our request for cooperation we will carry out the projects essential to protect the environment in Israel and the residents of the territories ourselves, and I will act to deduct the costs from the money forwarded by the government to the Authority. »

Palestinians recognize that, even without taking the settlements into consideration, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have myriad environmental problems. « Environmentally speaking, » explained Imad Attrash, director of the Children for the Protection of Nature in Palestine, « I am very depressed. We have problems with pollution, sewage, industrial zones situated in residential areas, as well as disposable diapers. »

The prevailing sentiment among Palestinians is to treat the environmental implications of settlement expansion as a political issue, one related to the continuing Palestinian refusal, particularly on a popular level, to concede the principle of joint action with settler and settler-oriented institutions.

Source: http://mondediplo.com/focus/mideast/question-3-2-2