by Lauren Samuel
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/30/water-crisis-gaza
Water is a human right. It is crucial for health, dignity, prosperity, and most importantly, life; every human being deserves unbounded access to this natural resource. Unfortunately, this is not the case throughout our globe. As a member of Students for Justice in Palestine, I feel it is important to recognize that the “justice” we strive for certainly extends to and encompasses environmental justice.
The 1995 Oslo II Accords between Israel and Palestine established the injustice of disproportionate access and control of water, with Israelis having far better access to water and sanitation and leaving Palestinians with severe water shortages. This systematic, oppressive control is not a myth, a philosophical dispute, or a debate of statehood. Instead, this blatant discrimination that is resulting in the constraining of a human right as natural and necessary as water.
Through bureaucratic laws and enforcements, Israel managed to maintain and control 94 percent of the Western Aquifer for their purposes. Israel extracts over 80 percent more water than regulated by the Oslo II Accords. There has been a resulting decrease in water access by Palestinians between 1999 and 2007, instead of the expected increase. Furthermore, Israel is over-extracting the water from the Aquifer and, according to the World Bank, is extremely close to causing “irreversible damage” to this resource.
Source: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/7886/gaza-water-confined-and-contaminated
Some sources have stated that each day the average Israeli uses over four times the amount of water as the average Palestinian. Such asymmetry, set side by side with other policies of occupation and apartheid is not surprising. Israel’s control of water sources in the West Bank, and its inhibition of Palestinian access to water and sanitation is a byproduct of an unjust system of oppression.
Wherever you feel like you “stand” on the Israel-Palestine “conflict” (though in this author’s opinion, calling it such a term is an injustice to the Palestinian struggle), these facts are out in the open, proving the injustice to be clear as day. As Tufts students we may feel far away from these issues, but really we are complicit. As citizens of a country that provides more aid to Israel, the world’s third largest military, than to all of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined, we are paying to facilitate this occupation. If you feel like American funds should not be spent facilitating environmental injustice and environmental racism, then educate yourself further and stand up against this flagrant disregard of environmental justice, human rights and humanity.
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