Posted on: JULY 2012
The Jordan Valley, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, has the potential to be the breadbasket of any future Palestinian state.
However, the persistent expansion of Israeli settlements and other restrictions on Palestinian development have made life extremely difficult for Palestinian communities. New plans to increase the land, water, and infrastructure available to Israeli settlements will further aggravate this already serious situation. Unless the international community takes action to reverse Israeli government policies and practices, the prospects for the future establishment of a viable Palestinian state, living side by side with Israel in peace and security, look dangerously remote.
Summary
The Jordan Valley, located in the eastern part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), makes up 30 per cent of the West Bank (see Map 1 on page 7). Requisitions and expropriations of Palestinian land by the Israeli authorities continue to destroy the livelihoods of Palestinians living in the area and, unless action is taken, there are strong indications that the situation will only get worse. The Israeli government recently announced proposals and policies for the expansion of settlements, which, if implemented, will further threaten the living conditions and human rights of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley, undermining efforts to bring peace and prosperity to the OPT and Israel.
Unequal Access
Only 6 per cent of the land in the Jordan Valley is currently available for Palestinian use and development. While the Israeli settlements there have developed modernised agribusinesses that produce crops for high-value export to the European Union (EU) and international markets, Palestinian farmers – most of whom are smallholders – face restrictions that severely hamper their ability to sell their produce locally, regionally, or internationally.
Development is further constrained because Palestinian families and businesses, and even EU donors and aid agencies, find it nearly impossible to gain permits to build homes, toilets, wells, animal pens, or other vital infrastructure for local communities. Less than 1 per cent of “Area C” (the 60 percent of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli control where nearly all of the Jordan Valley is located) has been planned for Palestinian development by the Israeli Civil Administration, and 94 per cent of permits have been rejected in recent years. Essential structures built without development plans and hard-to-obtain permits are frequently demolished in contravention of international law.
It is estimated that if Israeli restrictions on Palestinian development were removed, an additional 50 sq/km of the Jordan Valley could be cultivated, potentially adding $1bn a year to the Palestinian economy, or 9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Unfair Advantages
Successive Israeli governments have stated that the Jordan Valley is essential to Israel‟s security, and continue to encourage the development of civilian (mostly agricultural) settlements that are illegal under international law. Today, 37 settlements in the region are home to 9,500 Israelis, with the settlement authorities (or „Regional Councils‟) currently controlling 86 per cent of the land.
Settlements are supported by substantial Israeli government subsidies and incentives (e.g. for housing, education, water, and transport). Israeli settlers also receive favourable access to transport linkages and to national and international markets. One Israeli economist has estimated that the Government of Israel spends $24,650 per settler each year on various subsidies and grants to Israeli settlements across the OPT. Between 2000 and 2006, the average grant per capita to Israeli settlers in the West Bank was approximately 57 per cent higher than the average expenditure per capita for Israeli citizens inside Israel.
In contrast, Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley receive no subsidies from either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the Israeli Government. Instead, they and their small-scale farming and herding businesses face additional costs due to Israeli-imposed restrictions on travel and the transportation of goods in and out of the Jordan Valley. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) has estimated that additional transportation costs incurred by transporting Palestinian farm produce via routes that avoid the most problematic Israeli checkpoints amount to $1.9m annually. As well as increased transport costs, Palestinian farmers have to pay for water that is brought in by tankers, making their produce much more expensive and therefore less competitive than that of Israeli settler farmers.
Palestinians across the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) also face systematic and discriminatory policies that restrict their freedom of movement, their access to land, water, and markets, and their ability to build infrastructure to support their livelihoods. In addition, many Palestinians, left with few alternative ways to earn a living, work on settlement farms and are denied their labour rights.
The development challenges and the denial of human rights faced by Palestinian farmers have been compounded, until recently, by a lack of donor investment in the Jordan Valley and other parts of West Bank „Area C‟. As the EU Heads of Diplomatic Mission report states: „The Palestinian state-building project is in effect partly limited to the fragmented and isolated “islands” of Areas A and B [where the PA is able to operate], in the “ocean” of contiguous Area C.‟
The cumulative effects of Israeli government restrictions and a lack of donor and Palestinian investment mean that the poverty levels of Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley are almost double those in the rest of the West Bank. Combined with persistent human rights abuses, this is forcing many Palestinians to leave their homes in search of jobs, security, and essential services.
Deteriorating Prospects
Unless action is taken now, there are strong indications that the situation will deteriorate further. Recent years have seen a significant rise in construction of Israeli settlements, violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians, and demolition of Palestinian buildings and other structures such as cisterns, solar panels and animal pens. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said in a speech in January 2012 that the Government of Israel would sign „a permanent agreement [with the Palestinians] only if it includes Israel‟s remaining in the Jordan Valley…‟. Eight months earlier, the government announced that the amount of agricultural land allocated to Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley was to be more than doubled. In March 2012, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, approved a budget allocating $2m for additional settlements in the Jordan Valley and Binyamin District. These decisions represent part of an alarming negative trend whereby land, resources, and livelihoods in the Jordan Valley are being systematically denied to Palestinian communities in order to expand settlements.
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Source:
https://www.oxfam.org
