Resource Wars: Land for Peace?

Land access and water rights are intertwined

Having settled the landscape, we had to secure access to freshwater. The level of access depended on our perceived security need.

In the Levant, the “land” was hard to define.

To Israel, the territories conquered in 1967 were "disputed" and not "occupied".

Any final peace agreement would require Israel to relinquish land. .

Peace with Egypt focused minds. I

n 1978, Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai had secured peace with Egypt. Israeli planners therefore needed to delimit the borders with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians, and map the land that they country can afford to return without compromising security and water supply.

The key issue was peace with the Palestinians

Regarding the Palestinians, Israeli planners mapped the land their country could afford to return without compromising security and water supply. To Israeli strategic planners, “there can be no security arrangements”, unless Israel did “all it can to safeguard its existing water assets in the territories”. Those hydrostrategic concerns are “a more decisive reason for territorial claims than traditional military security issues” [73].

They soon established “maximum withdrawal lines”.

They were based on two plans: (1) a military-mobilization scheme, the “Allon Plan”, and (2) the “Schwarz-Zohar” report that mapped the West Bank’s hydrostrategic territory.

The result was a combination of both plans. .

Following the 1990’s and the recommendations of the "Schwarz-Zohar" report, hydrological studies delimited West Bank aquifers in three sectors, depending on their "pumping potential".

In Sector "A", around Hebron, as well as from Ramallah to Mount Gilboa, pumping is either impractical or too costly. Sector "B" had "low pumping potential"; the average thickness of aquifers is less than 200 m, and soil permeability is too low. Sector "C" had "high pumping potential"; average thickness of aquifers can reach 600 m, and soil permeability is higher

Then came the “Security Barrier”.

Its construction follows the water.

It began in 2000, effectively formalizing those divisions.

By 2005, 55% of the territory of the West Bank were under Israeli control, in particular the zone "C" areas.

While those “facts on the ground” guaranteed more than a quarter of Israel’s water needs, it reduced any possible Palestinian state to a confetti of dried up Bantustans.