Trump to Palestinians: surrender and we’ll give you a pretend ‘state’ and water too
The ‘two-state solution’ is a term of infinite rhetorical staying power that these days signifies practically nothing.
Democratic candidates continue to cling to the term even as President Trump reveals its essential hollowness by affixing the label to the 181-page ‘deal of the century’ crafted by his son-in-law and entitled ‘Peace to Prosperity – a Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People.’
To see just how farcical the Trumpian ‘two states’ are have a look at the map of the sadly diminished ‘future State of Palestine’ that resembles a splotchy Rorschach test pockmarked with 15 ‘Israeli Enclave Communities’ (a list which is ‘not inclusive’).
The plan presents Palestinians with a toxic brew of insults and bribes, and consigns them to an apartheid existence in which their aspirations for meaningful self-determination are wholly sacrificed to Israel’s security concerns.
The sleight-of-hand nature of the plan is laid bare by the scant discussion about the issue of water, as Keith Johnson points out his recent Foreign Policy piece entitled ‘The Big Missing Piece of the Kushner Plan: Water.’ After describing how “access to water has for decades been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and many regional tensions more broadly” and how central it was to the Oslo negotiations, Johnson finds it telling that it is only “allotted a single paragraph” in the ‘Political Framework’ of the White House plan.
Here is that paragraph (Part A, pg. 29):
“The parties recognize mutual water rights and agree to equitably share existing cross border water sources and cooperate in making additional sources available through existing and emerging technologies. Shared aquifers will be managed for sustainable use to prevent impairing the groundwater quality or damaging the aquifers through over-extraction. Hydrological and climatic conditions, among other factors, will be considered when managing extraction. The parties will prioritize investing in desalination and other emerging technologies to produce substantial additional quantities of water for all uses and jointly seek to provide easily available, reasonably priced water to both parties. The parties agree to also focus investment in wastewater treatment and wastewater recycling and reuse to control and minimize pollution of the shared ground-waters. The parties will work together in good faith to manage the details with respect to water and wastewater treatment issues.”
Given that the thrust for domination of Palestinian and regional water resources lies at the heart of the Zionist project from its earliest years, and since under the plan Israel will annex outright the water-rich areas of the West Bank including the Jordan Valley, it is difficult to see how such “good faith” collaboration and equitable sharing will be achieved.
But if Palestinians behave themselves they will eventually be rewarded by being able to access a ‘Peace to Prosperity Master Fund’ provided by the international community to repair some of the damage Israel has done during its colonization and occupation of Palestinian land.
The ‘Economic Framework’ (Part B) offers the regional enticement of $50 billion spread over a 10 year period earmarked for Palestinians (nearly $28 billion), Jordan (more than $7 billion), Egypt ($9 billion) and Lebanon ($6.5 billion).
The funds would be used to “double the potable water supply per capita available to the Palestinians” in addition to providing them with “at least 16 hours of electricity per day within a year.”
And there’s more. Israel’s beaches would finally be protected from Gaza’s raw sewage with funds allocated to build new wastewater treatment facilities “putting an end to the ongoing public health risk posed by untreated wastewater”. Some new desalination plants would also be constructed, existing wells would be rehabilitated and farmers permitted water for irrigation.
In short: the Trump plan transforms water from a weapon used to force Palestinians off their land to a bribe.
Nancy Murray, member of the Alliance
