{"id":251187,"date":"2016-06-21T19:41:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T19:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/israels-water-siege-of-palestinians\/"},"modified":"2016-06-21T19:41:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T19:41:38","slug":"israels-water-siege-of-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/israels-water-siege-of-palestinians\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s Water Siege of Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"253.1466913466\">\n<p>Neocon domination of the U.S.\u00a0foreign policy establishment has foreclosed\u00a0serious debate over Israel\u2019s strangling control of Palestinian water resources and what that\u00a0means for the future of that ghetto-ized population, as Chuck Spinney explains.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-19920\"\/>By Chuck Spinney<\/p>\n<p>Access to water is one of the most fundamental and least discussed issues underpinning the Israeli \u2013 Palestinian conflict (as well as the recurring pattern of Israel\u2019s conflicts with Syria and Lebanon).\u00a0Control of the West Bank\u2019s water resources is intimately tied into the growing pattern of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, if left unchecked, Israel\u2019s inevitable annexation of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/West_Bank_Areas_in_the_Oslo_II_Accord\"><u>Area C<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(60 percent) of the West Bank (thereby formalizing the Gazification of Areas A &amp; B). Water resources are also intimately woven into pattern of destruction in Israel\u2019s siege of the Gaza ghetto.<\/p>\n<p>Most Americans remain unaware of water\u2019s central importance in this conflict. Yet a fair and equitable solution to this issue is a necessary albeit not sufficient condition for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms that do not sow the seeds for future conflict.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3550\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" readability=\"35\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Palestinianseparationwall.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3550\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Palestinianseparationwall-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Graffiti on the Palestinian side of Israel's &quot;separation wall&quot; recalls the words of John F. Kennedy in decrying the Berlin Wall with the words in German, &quot;I am a Berliner.&quot; (Photo credit: Marc Venezia)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Palestinianseparationwall-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Palestinianseparationwall.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3550\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Palestinianseparationwall-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Graffiti on the Palestinian side of Israel's &quot;separation wall&quot; recalls the words of John F. Kennedy in decrying the Berlin Wall with the words in German, &quot;I am a Berliner.&quot; (Photo credit: Marc Venezia)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Palestinianseparationwall-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Palestinianseparationwall.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Graffiti on the Palestinian side of Israel\u2019s \u201cseparation wall\u201d recalls the words of John F. Kennedy in decrying the Berlin Wall with the words in German, \u201cI am a Berliner.\u201d (Photo credit: Marc Venezia)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The parameters of the water question in the Jordan River Valley have been long understood, if ignored, by American policy makers (see the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jordan_Valley_Unified_Water_Plan\"><u>1955 Johnston Plan<\/u><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/environment.yale.edu\/publication-series\/documents\/downloads\/0-9\/103elmusa.pdf\"><u>Johnston Plan Revisited<\/u><\/a>).\u00a0 Indeed, in its current context, these parameters reach back to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/jsource\/History\/zoparis.html\"><u>Feb. 3, 1919 Zionist proposal<\/u><\/a> to the Versailles Peace Conference for a Jewish national home (do a word search for \u201cwater\u201d and think about the implications of the highlighted text).<\/p>\n<p>More generally, the history of access to water in this region reaches back to the dawn of civilization and the creation of agriculture.\u00a0The Jordan River drainage system (along with Lebanon\u2019s surface water systems) together with the aquifers in the highlands of the West Bank (and Lebanon) connect the two wings of the Fertile Crescent stretching from the Nile River system in the&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/06\/21\/israels-water-siege-of-palestinians\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neocon domination of the U.S.\u00a0foreign policy establishment has foreclosed\u00a0serious debate over Israel\u2019s strangling control of Palestinian water resources and what that\u00a0means for the future of that ghetto-ized population, as Chuck Spinney explains. By Chuck Spinney Access to water is one of the most fundamental and least discussed issues underpinning the Israeli \u2013 Palestinian conflict (as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}