The Living Waters of Palestine & Israel—text

the photos in the exhibit (which is based on the slide show, The Hydropolitics of Palestine & Israel)

Not exactly all waters living, some dead, like the Dead Sea where nothing lives and the level is shrinking due to water diversion from the Jordan River. Some waters disputed, many think stolen, like a major portion of the various aquifers. But clearly a substance reflecting the political reality in the region.

I try to show a large gamut of water: beauty, purity, filth, preciousness, abundance, majesty, archetypal qualities, life giving qualities, political power--a plethora of meanings.

Since about 1985 when I began a series of photo projects about water--the Charles River, Boston Harbor, Quabbin reservoir, Connecticut River, while expanding into other parts of the world like Alaska, California, and South Africa--I've been intrigued by water and how best to photograph it.

My major mentors, W. Eugene Smith and Dorothea Lange, both of famed photojournalist achievements, did not photograph water directly. But another mentor, Minor White, did, and it is to all three that I'm indebted for their teachings.

Now, working on a project about Israel-Palestine (3 journeys in the last 3 years, with another planned for fall of 2007), I concentrate on water. And hope to show you, the viewer, something of what I perceive in that sorely troubled land. That land and its people have much potential, and to that potential I dedicate my work.

Thou art a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and flowing streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; Blow upon my garden, that the spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his precious fruits.

--Songs of Solomon, 4:12-16

--Skip Schiel, May 11, 2007

It is necessary that the water sources upon which the future of the Land depends should not be outside the borders of the future Jewish homeland.   For this reason we have always demanded that the Land of Israel include the southern banks of the Litani River, the headwaters of the Jordan and the Hauran Region from the El Auja spring south of Damascus.  

--David Ben-Gurion, Israel's former prime minister, 1973

People generally regard 5 June 1967 as the day the Six-Day War began.   That is the official date.   But, in reality, it started two-and-a-half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan.

--Ariel Sharon, the general in charge of the 1967 war, and former prime minister

Confiscation of almost all West Bank wells was one of the first military orders of the occupation and until 1982 the military controlled West Bank waters.   Now, the Israel water company, Mekerot, is in charge.   Management has deeply discriminated against Palestinians and has been wasteful of water when it concerns Jewish settlements.   No new Palestinian wells have been permitted for agricultural purposes since 1967 and very few for domestic purposes.   Israel has set quotas based on 1968 usage of how much water can be drawn by Palestinians from existing wells. When supplies are low in the summer, Mekerot closes the supply valves to Palestinian towns and villages, but not to the illegal Israeli settlements.   Settlers continue to fill swimming pools and water lawns while Palestinians lack water for drinking and cooking.   Furthermore, settlers receive heavy subsidies for water to promote agriculture while Palestinian farmers pay the same amount for irrigation water as for drinking water.   Twenty-five percent of West Bank Palestinian villages are not connected to water service.   When tensions are high and closures common, it is almost impossible for water tankers to enter Palestinian areas and for villagers to get to nearby wells.  

--Marie Kennedy, "Israel's War for Water"

According to most estimates, Israel uses 73% of the water available from West Bank aquifers, West Bank Jewish settlers use another 10% and West Bank Palestinians are left with 17%.   Israelis get about 350 liters of water per person per day while Palestinians get 70 liters--less than the 100 liter minimum standard of the World Health Organization.   About a quarter of all of Israel's water comes from the Western Aquifer and over a third comes from the Jordan Basin.   The occupied West Bank sits on top of 90 per cent of the replenishment area feeding the Western Aquifer, which flows underground from the highlands of the West Bank to the lowlands of Israel.   A separate Palestinian state on top of the Western Aquifer would give them upstream claims to the lion's share of this water.   Israel would have downstream water rights, but those rights would be like Mexico's water rights to the Colorado River.   And, if the eastern border of a Palestinian state was along the Jordan River, Palestine would have downstream water rights to the Jordan.   Such considerations no doubt led former Agriculture Minister Rafael Eitan to declare that relinquishing control over water supplies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories would "threaten the Jewish state."

--Marie Kennedy, "Israel's War for Water"

The route of the wall matches that of water resources, the latter being conveniently located on the Israeli side.

--Elisabeth Sime, a director of CARE International in the Gaza Strip and West Bank

The aquifer is under the most fertile lands in the West Bank, thus water usage in the area is closely tied to agriculture.   Inaccessibility to the lands because of the Wall will deem these lands dried and useless in just a few seasons; the agricultural sector will first diminish and then wholly disappear.   This major creation of facts on the ground will make the lands, by force, unused and the then request by Palestinians in any negotiations for water for the area will be argued by Israel as baseless.  

--Abdel Rahman Al Tamimi, Palestinian Hydrology Group, Stop the Wall in Palestine

The Coastal Aquifer, Gaza's only natural freshwater supply, was at one time providing about 18% of Israel's water.   Serious overpumping from this rather shallow aquifer has allowed salt from the Mediterranean and other nearby saline aquifers to be introduced.   Salting, along with pollution from pesticides, fertilizers and fecal matter (the latter mainly from the refugee camps, most of which have no proper sewage control) have rendered the this water unfit for drinking in many areas and citrus, the traditional main crop of Gaza, is highly salt-intolerant and is becoming infeasible.   One wonders to what extent the lack of potable water figured in Israel's decision to pull out of Gaza.  

--Marie Kennedy, "Israel's War for Water"

After the 1967 war, Moshe Dayan, Israel's defense minister during the war said that Israel had achieved "provisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of those with Lebanon."   Both David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan at various times advocated Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and the Litani.   Over the years, the Litani River has continued to be in Israel's sights.    It's difficult to know what role water played in Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and again this year.  

During the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000, rumors abounded but were never substantiated that Israel was diverting water from the Litani River.   What is known is that Israel prohibited the sinking of new wells, seized all technical documents relating to the Litani and in the barrage of 1993 drove hundreds of thousands from their homes in southern Lebanon.   And, in 2006?   In a final hard push, the day before the cease fire went into effect, Israeli ground forces advanced to the banks of the Litani.   Again, hundreds of thousands of refugees were driven from their homes.   Israel destroyed vast portions of the water infrastructure of Southern Lebanon, including the Litani Dam, the major pumping station on the Wazzani River and the irrigation systems for the farmland along the coastal plains and parts of the Bekaa Valley.   As quoted in the LA Times (8/22/06), UNICEF water and sanitation specialist Branislav Jekic said, "I have never seen destruction like this....   Wherever we go, we ask people what they need most and the answer is always the same:   water.   People want to move back to their communities.   But whether they stay or not will depend on the availability of water."

--Marie Kennedy, "Israel's War for Water"

All quotes from Marie Kennedy, "Israel's War for Water," are in the fall 2006 issue of Progressive Planning . She is professor emerita of community planning at the University of Massachusetts Boston.   She is on the Planners Network advisory committee and the editorial board of Progressive Planning and edited a special issue on water.

Sarah and Hagar

I am calling you oh Sarah

to reach you from afar

this is your sister Hagar

calling through the centuries

Here is my son Ishmael

your sister's son alive

we share the sons of Abraham

Oh yes I am your Sarah

I remember you Hagar

your voice comes through the distance

a cry upon my heart

It was I who cast you out in fear and jealousy

yet your vision survived the wilderness

where spirit first was sown

But it wasn't 'til my Isaac lay under the knife

that I recognized your peril

the danger to your life

I tremble now Hagar

for our peril's still the same

we will not survive as strangers

two peoples one tribe

we must speak each other's name

We must tell each other's stories

make each other strong

and sing the dream of ancient lands

where both of us belong

we must hear the prayers

to reach our destiny that all of our children

may call this land their home.

--Linda Hirschorn

Recorded on audiocassette by Linda Hirschhorn on More Than Luck and a Prayer (1985, 1997) and on her 2003 CD album, Heartbeat, described on the Web at http://www.vocolot.com/linda.html

In Germany

In Germany they first came for the communists and I didn't speak up--because I wasn't a communist

Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up--because I wasn't a Jew

Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up--because I wasn't a trade unionist

Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up--because I wasn't a Catholic

Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.

--Pastor Martin Niemoeller

An early supporter of Hitler, by 1934 Niemöller had come to oppose the Nazis, and it was largely his high connections to influential and wealthy businessmen that saved him until 1937, after which he was imprisoned, eventually at Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. He survived to be a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. His poem is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the dangers of political apathy, as it often begins with specific and targeted fear and hatred which soon escalates out of control.