Giordano

Reporting of Federici Studies Center

Thirsty Palestine

Having running water at home in the Palestinian Territories is not at all obvious or normal.

Neither in the West Bank nor in the Gaza Strip. For multiple reasons. Some testimonies from Bethlehem.

Observing the landscape around Beit Sahour, urban center east of Bethlehem, the cisterns on top of the houses allow Palestinian homes to be distinguished from buildings that are part of Jewish settlements. This is explained by the locals who every day deal with the problem of water shortage. The tanks on the houses are useful, Indeed, to conserve water or collect rain, but not all homes need it. In the West Bank, water is distributed differently from house to house, at a distance of a few meters from each other. To overcome the inconveniences of the water emergency, the population does its best, but the problem of resource management remains an open wound that shows no signs of healing, indeed it is "an obstacle to peace", as the BBC defined it.

According to the Palestinian Water Authority, il 95 percent of Palestinian water supplies are found in aquifers (there are three underground basins). Surface water, that could theoretically be available, instead it comes from the floods of the wadis (seasonal streams), from the possible desalination of the waters of the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. None of these resources, However, it is in fact usable by the Palestinians.

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Of Alastair Crooke
The Israeli earthenware vessel among the Western and Eurasian iron vessels
Source: Aurora site
The recent series of events leads Israel to retreat; the almeno, to a profound existential reflection, on the seventieth anniversary of the foundation. The depth of this rather anxious introspection became explicit in the discussion hosted by Yediot Ahronoth, the most important Israeli newspaper, among six ex-chiefs of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. The most direct eruption into this gloomy mood was the declaration to Knesset(parliament) according to which the population between Jordan and the sea was exactly balanced, 6,5 million on each side, between Israelis and Palestinians. Right, demographic equality would have occurred at some point, everyone knew it. It is therefore not a surprise; but it's a slap in the face of reality, nevertheless. These figures were published by the IDF and are therefore difficult to dispute. This moment of reality thus reduces the ability of certain Israelis to persist in the wishful thinking that the Palestinians are much less. This hugely symbolic twist is here, it has arrived. The question of what kind of state Israel will be is no longer theoretical. One of the six former directors of the Mossad, Pardo, answered the question what is it, according to her, the worst threat to Israeli national security?: “The worst threat, it is the fact that between the sea and the Jordan River there are almost identical numbers of Jews and non-Jews. The central problem from 1967 to date it is Israel, for the entire political leadership, it hasn't decided what country to be. We are the only country in the world that has not defined its borders. All governments have avoided it... If the State of Israel does not decide what it wants, in the end there will be a single state between the sea and the Jordan. This is the end of the Zionist vision“. Read More