The Alliance Stands out--and Stands Up--for Water Justice in Palestine
As The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine gathered on March 22 to mark World Water Day 2017, prospects for water justice were as frigid as the weather.
In Standing Rock, North Dakota ‘water protectors’ were informed that oil would be coursing through the Dakota Access Pipeline that very week. In Flint, Michigan, residents had just learned that it would be years before they would be able to drink unfiltered tap water.
Thousands of miles away in the Gaza Strip, the general manager of the water utility announced that now more than 97 percent of the Strip’s water table is unfit for domestic use by Gaza’s 2 million residents. Doctors meanwhile reported a steep increase in the number of ‘blue babies’ because the water was so high in chloride and nitrates, and of patients admitted to hospital with kidney problems after being forced to drink polluted water.
Things are not much better in the Occupied West Bank, where Israel has this year been ratcheting up its destruction of the water infrastructure serving Palestinian farming communities.
With the swift approach of the year 2020 – when the UN has predicted that the Gaza Strip will be ‘uninhabitable’ - we must ratchet up our efforts to work for water justice, connecting the struggles here and in Palestine. Please join us!
