Water abounds - but not for drinking by Amira Hass

Currently, there are five Israeli water projects awaiting completion to transport 7.75 million cubic meters of water a year from west of the Green Line to about a dozen settlements east of the Green Line, from Kiryat Arba in the south to Avnei Hefetz in the north.Senior officials in the Civil Administration say they have worked hard during the past year to convince the Palestinians to connect the pipes of some 65 villages to the pipes that will carry the water to the settlements.

A decision was needed from the highest levels because officially, the PA views involvement with the new settlements as a legitimization of Israel's "illegal activity." It also sees it as giving a helping hand to altering the status quo of the territories outside the sphere of final status agreements: a blatant violation of one of the Oslo accords' main clauses.

Because of the severity of the water shortage in the territories, some Israeli officials were surprised that those in the Palestinian Authority would sacrifice the public welfare for the sake of political slogans.

But in the end, the need to mitigate water problems in the territories overcame the symbolic Palestinian protest: after all, the Israelis would lay the pipes to the settlements with or without Palestinian approval.

To sweeten the medicine, the Palestinian Authority decided this would be a temporary measure until 2003, when they plan to re-evaluate connection to the Israeli water system, according to environmental and political circumstances at the time. But in reality, this is a compromise, forced upon the Palestinians by reality.

With or without permission from the Authority, Palestinians work at the settlements, use the bypass roads, buy gasoline at gas stations in the settlements. There are even some Hebronites who buy alcoholic beverages in the city's Jewish populated Kiryat Arba. But this story of water speaks volumes about the Israelis. The pipes are big enough to carry water for larger towns than just the settlements. But the pipe's dimensions were set before the Palestinians agreed to hook up to the system, so it is clear the planners tried to satisfy the Jews.

The 7.75 million cubic meters of water represent 6 percent of the current water consumption of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. All this shows that concerning water, Israel has proved once again that it knows how to make long term plans.

For Palestinians, this ability to plan ahead is symbolized by every road that links east to west and on the way, cuts villages from their farmlands and prevents towns from growing. It is also manifested by water and sewage pipelines, uprooted trees and welcome signs at the entrance to an anonymous cluster of mobile homes stuck on a hilltop declaring the arrival soon of "two storey houses."

The Foreign Ministry has endless numbers of explanations as to why these are not violations of the Oslo accords, that forbid any change in status quo. The fact that the settlements were illegal, according to the Geneva Convention, has never been taken very seriously.

The reality is that Israel fast continues to create a unified infrastructure for the entire country. But this is not just intended for Jews. It results in the side effect of slicing up the Palestinian territories, while allowing the Jews to pat themselves on the back for making provisions for the Palestinians.

Thanks to the carve up of the land, the Palestinian infrastructure and its geopolitical space, will now be fragmented and inferior to that of Israel. It seems that much of Israel's planning activity has been concentrated on the eastern side of the Green Line, not just since Oslo, but since the end of the 1960s. According to this logic, even if it is labeled a permanent arrangement, the country will remain whole for the Jews, while at best, the Palestinians will receive leftovers.

The planners in the Civil Administration assume the Palestinian leadership will have no choice but to accept the reality of the land's carve up, just like it agreed to the bypass roads and the link-up of villages to the water system. They believe that as long as they can declare a state when it is all done, they will give in to anything.

Published in Ha'aretz on Wednesday, August 11, 1999