Israeli and Palestinian land disputes
Water and land are essential for a nation to thrive. Ensuring that a state has access to enough resources can ensure that it thrives. On the other side, neglecting water resources to a nation can keep it down and without a viable way to build and sustain itself. Today in Palestine, Israel controls what was once Palestine's biggest water resource in the Jordan Valley of the Israeli occupied West Bank. Palestine is not much more than a disconnected group of settlements because of the poverty and lack of resources in the nation due to occupying Israel. Palestine for the most part must lease its farm land from Israel and does not have the monetary assets or resources to build itself into a stronger nation. It is Israel’s duty to provide an occupied territories people with adequate resources, pursuant to the Geneva Convention.
In 1947, following a partition plan written by the United Nation to terminate the British Mandate, Palestine was separated into two states, one Arab, the other Jewish. In 1948, Transjordan (now Jordan) captured the west bank of Palestine and was given the territory as part of a 1949 armistice agreement. In 1967, he Six-Day-War occurred and Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel held onto the land even against demands from Jordan for the territory to be returned. In 1974 Jordan stopped demanding the land back and in 1988 cut all ties with the West Bank and ceased to recognize it. In 1993, the Oslo peace accords resulted in the formation of the Palestinian National Authority, a formal governing body and representative of Palestine.
Today, 2.7 million people call the West Bank home, comprised of 2.1 million Palestinians and 500,000 Jewish settlers. The current Palestinian settlements are scattered and not well connected. Israel does not recognize a formal Palestinian government and therefore does not see themselves as occupying another territory, despite the international communities resounding denouncement of Israel for occupying so much of Palestine. Israel currently controls all of what is known as Area C, or the Jordan valley. According to a UN report, this area is 61% of the West Bank and is the most abundant with water and agricultural resources (HRW). Israel has appropriated 86% of this precious Jordan Valley land from Palestinian citizens to Israeli citizens. This land is used to created settlements, infrastructure, and agriculture, much of which is sold to the US and parts of Europe. The major reason why Palestine is so disconnected is that Israel controls the contiguous land in the West Bank, and leaves Palestinian settlements disconnected and lacking of resources.
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External links[edit | edit source]
sources:
- [“Post-2015 Development Agenda”, www.europe.undp.org. Web. 04 May. 2015.
“Seizure of springs by settlers greatly limits Palestinian access to water – UN report” UN News Center. Web. 04 May. 2015. Van Esveld,Bill. (2010) “Separate and Unequal: Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian Territories” Human Right Watch. Web. 04 May.2015.
Kramer, Annika (Dec 2008) “Regional Water Cooperation and Peacebuilding in the Middle East” Initiative for Peacebuilding. Web. 04. May 2015.
Helpdesk Research Report (Aug 2008) “Poverty Reduction Actors in the MENA Region” Governance and Social Development Resource Center. (www.gsdrc.org) Web. 02 May. 2015. Kemp, Walter (Sept 2013) “Cooperation from Crisis? Regional Responses to Humanitarian Emergencies,” International Peace Institute, Web. 02 May, 2015 Embid, A, (2008) “The Right to Water”, in Asit, K., Biswas, E. R., and Tortajada, C. , “Water as a Human Right for the Middle East and North Africa”, IDRC/Routledge. Web. 02. May 2015. Helpdesk Research Report. (Apr 2011) “Religious Identity and Inequality in the MENA region” Governance and Social Development Resource Center. (www.gsdrc.org) Web. 02 May. 2015. Sayigh, Y. (2007). 'Security Sector Reform in the Arab Region: Challenges to Developing an Indigenous Agenda', Arab Reform Initiative. Web. 02. May 2015. ]
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