Thirsty for Justice: How Israel Deprives the Palestinians of Access to Water

Sunday, November 26, 2017 By Zak Witus, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42699-thirsty-for-justice-how-israel-deprives-the-palestinians-of-access-to-water

Last year, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota fought loud and proud against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, fearing that the pipeline's inevitable leaks could contaminate the tribe's main source of drinking water, the Missouri River. As many of us in the United States thankfully now recognize, this act of resistance by the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies constitutes only the latest chapter in the centuries-long struggle by the Indigenous peoples of this continent against the genocidal forces of settler colonialism. In fact, the fight by Indigenous folks for their water rights permeates the globe at this very hour. It extends to South America, Australia and to Israel/Palestine, where the settler colonial state of Israel, with the strong backing of the US, continues to systematically block Palestinians' attempts to access clean water.

The lack of potable water for Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories, and even within the state of Israel itself, is a full-blown health crisis. A person needs at minimum 120 liters of water per day, according to the World Health Organization, but an average Palestinian in the West Bank receives only 73 liters of water per day. As a 2009 World Bank report on water restrictions in the Occupied Territories put it, many Palestinian communities in the West Bank, particularly in the area under strictest Israeli control, "face water access comparable to that of refugee camps in Congo or Sudan." In the Jordan Valley, Israelis use roughly 81 times more water per capita than Palestinians in the West Bank, filling their swimming pools to the brim. In Gaza, the situation is even worse: the United Nations estimates that 96 percent of the water is unfit for consumption. By year's end, Gaza's only source of water, the Coastal Aquifer, will be depleted, and irreversibly so by 2020, when the UN projects that Gaza will be literally uninhabitable.

Like many humanitarian crises across the globe, the Palestinian water crisis didn't evolve naturally. As a matter of official policy and using great precision, Israel and the US have blocked every attempt by the Palestinians to develop and maintain sustainable access to water. In the West Bank, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, documents how Israeli authorities routinely confiscate and demolish Palestinian water infrastructure. Most recently, B'Tselem has reported on the Israeli Army and Civil Administration destroying rainwater cisterns, slashing pipes and seizing construction equipment, like welding machines. An extensive report by Amnesty International in 2009 shows that these cruel practices of the Israeli military and Civil Administration in the West Bank go back decades.

The Separation Wall, constructed and expanded by Israel in violation of orders by the International Criminal Court, stands as the biggest physical barrier to Palestinian realization of their water rights. Winding through Palestinian territory, the wall cuts off Palestinians in the West Bank from their wells and cisterns, as well as some of the choicest farmland in the area. Along the wall, the Israeli military arbitrarily declares wide swaths of land in the West Bank to be "closed military areas," further seizing the already meager patches of territory left to the Indigenous population.

In Gaza, now in its 10th year under the brutal Israeli blockade, residents cannot import any materials that they need to repair or improve their water network, which Israel has decimated during repeated assaults. The official UN fact-finding mission on the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict (codename Operation Cast Lead) found that Israel deliberately bombed water treatment and sewage facilities in Gaza for no other purpose than to inflict collective punishment on the residents of Gaza -- a major war crime. Subsequent reports by the UN and human rights groups found that Israel committed these same kinds of unjustifiable intentional attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in the 2014 conflict (codename Operation Protective Edge), severely damaging what little was left of Gaza's water and sanitation network.

Furthermore, these crimes were not the aberrant acts of a few rogue soldiers, but were the outcome of official Israeli policy. And we know so beyond a reasonable doubt based on two principal pieces of evidence. First, Israeli officials' explicitly stated before, during and after the conflicts that they would (and did) inflict collective punishment on the residents of Gaza. Israel's so-called Dahiya doctrine enshrines this strategy of total war (that is, war against civilians and civilian infrastructure, not just military targets) into official policy. Second, we can note, as the UN fact-finding missions did, how Israeli authorities refused to modify their strategy of indiscriminately shelling densely-packed residential areas over the course of the conflict, even after the high civilian death tolls and allegations of war crimes were mounting.

Besides massively and systematically destroying the Palestinian water system through direct violence, Israel also prevents Palestinians from maintaining or developing their network by bureaucratic means. After conquering the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel issued a series of military orders that gave the Israeli Army complete control over all water-related issues in the Occupied Territories and required Palestinians to obtain permits from the Israeli army in order to pursue any and all water projects. All unpermitted water installations would be (and were) confiscated or demolished. While in theory, Palestinians could still manage their water needs after a long and complicated bureaucratic process, in practice, Palestinians were hardly ever granted permits. According to B'Tselem, from 1967 to 1996, Israel granted Palestinians just 13 permits, and all these permits only covered domestic projects; in other words, they wouldn't even cover the work needed to repair existing wells and pipes, let alone expand the water network in order to serve the growing population.

In the 1990s, as a part of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization made a provisional agreement to "share" access to the Mountain Aquifer, a vast underground source of water beneath the West Bank and the easternmost parts of the State of Israel. This agreement, like most agreements made across steep power gradients, reflected the inequality between the negotiating parties, with Israel taking 80 percent of the water potential from the Mountain Aquifer and the Palestinian Authority taking the remaining 20 percent. Keep in mind that the Mountain Aquifer is the only source of water for the Palestinians living in the West Bank, because since 1967, Israel has prevented Palestinians from accessing the shores of the Jordan River. Israel, on the other hand, has many other sources of drinking water, including from the Sea of Galilee, the Coastal Aquifer, its water recycling system (the most advanced in the world by far) and its desalination facilities (also among the most advanced in the world). Nonetheless, Israel, being the unquestionably dominant player here, took the lion's share of the water resources between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Even worse, it was revealed eight years ago that Israel had in fact been over-extracting from the Mountain Aquifer at almost double the agreed-upon rate, drying up Palestinian wells while causing potentially irreversible harm to the aquifer.

Meanwhile, the old oppressive permitting regime continued, albeit through a new institution called the Joint Water Committee (JWC) that was meant to review permits for water-related projects. But, as the World Bank pointed out in its 2009 report, the name of this committee is a misnomer since the JWC "does not function as a 'joint' water resource governance institution" due to "fundamental asymmetries" between the Israelis and Palestinians. Amnesty International described the situation more plainly in its report, writing that, "The Joint Water Committee merely institutionalized the intrinsically discriminatory system of Israeli control over Palestinian resources that had already been in existence since Israel's occupation of [the West Bank and Gaza] three decades earlier." The World Bank and Amnesty International pointed out that between 2001 and 2009, about one-half of all Palestinian projects presented to the JWC were approved, compared to the near 100 percent approval rate for Israeli projects. Of the Palestinian projects approved by the JWC, those that touch on Area C of the West Bank (which most do, for geographical reasons) must obtain a second approval from the Israeli Civilian Administration, and this second approval process is done without public participation or representation by Palestinians. So, as much as one-third of water in the Palestinian water system is lost in leakages due to old and inefficient networks that can't be replaced or modernized because it's so difficult to obtain a permit.

In addition to the official state-sanctioned strangulation of Palestinians' water supply, settlers in the West Bank do their part through sabotaging Palestinian water infrastructure and resources. Amnesty International has reported on how settlers have destroyed Palestinian water pipes, poisoned rainwater cisterns and dumped untreated sewage into Palestinian springs. Recent reports show this pattern of settler violence against Palestinians and their allies continuing up to the present.

Significantly, human rights organizations have noted that, though these despicable attacks by settlers aren't officially state-sanctioned, the Israeli authorities rarely investigate them, so the perpetrators generally enjoy impunity, feeling free to continue terrorizing their Palestinian neighbors. It takes no stretch of the imagination to consider how Israel would treat Palestinians even suspected of such crimes, because we know that Palestinians even suspected of terrorism sink into the bowels of the Israeli prisons, never to be heard from again, while Israel demolishes the family homes of suspected violent resisters, letting Palestinians and the world know that Israel won't tolerate any resistance to its tyranny.

Lastly, we must remember that Israel can only deprive the Palestinians of water because the US allows it. In the past, when Israel committed massacres against Palestinians, or acted in other ways that US presidents didn't like, presidential administrations have occasionally threatened to cut off the flow of military aid, and in these cases, Israel eventually fell into line. But the flow of US military aid to Israel, roughly $3.1 billion per year (soon to increase to $3.8 billion annually), has continued unabated as Israel has condemned the Palestinians to die of thirst, in violation of not just international law, but US domestic law, which prohibits the sending of non-humanitarian aid to known violators of human rights, which Israel plainly is.

Water is one of the key components of life as we know it. If we allow our country to continue to green light Israel's dehydration of the Palestinians, we will be aiding and abetting all further deaths and illnesses that befall the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories as a result. Worse, if present trends continue, we will be responsible for yet another genocide against an Indigenous people.

Unlike past generations, many of us now recognize and regret how our nation nearly exterminated the Native people of North America. But what good is this retrospective shame if we don't act to prevent our country from exterminating another Native people, the Palestinians? The reality is, if we do nothing, the US, through our ally Israel, will surely repeat these darkest chapters of US history. We can't let that happen.

Washington's War on Poor Grad Students

Sunday, November 26, 2017 By Jill Richardson, OtherWords | Op-Ed

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/42712-washington-s-war-on-poor-grad-students

The Republican tax plan winding its way through Congress includes a special middle finger to the nation's graduate students.

It's a little bit wonky, so stay with me here. I'll explain how it affects me, since I'm an actual graduate student.

Going to grad school would've been entirely out of reach for me if I had to pay full tuition for my education. Getting a PhD takes at least five years and often more. I don't have a spouse, trust fund, or parents to cover my cost of living or my tuition.

If I had to pay for my own education, it would've been simply out of the question. This is hardly uncommon.

How many adults do you know can forego five or more years of income while simultaneously paying thousands of dollars in college tuition each year?

Since the answer to that question is "not many," universities employ graduate students as poorly paid labor in exchange for an education, health insurance, and a very low wage.

In my case, I've worked as a teaching assistant for the past three years while also attending classes at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Other students worked as research assistants. A lucky few got funding that allowed them to pursue their own research. The rest of us had to work.

Forbes mentions some magical places where graduate students are given stipends up to $50,000 per year. At Wisconsin, we weren't so lucky.

My take home pay was about $1,300 per month, nine months of the year. The other three months (summer) I got nothing. No, it wasn't enough to live on. I'm deeply in debt with student loans.

Then there's the matter of tuition. Graduate students like me often don't have to pay it.

If a school charges $20,000 per year in tuition but waives it for graduate students who work as teaching or research assistants, the new Republican tax plan wants to count that as $20,000 in taxable income.

You do the math: If a student is living on a tiny stipend and maybe some loans, how on earth can he or she afford to pay thousands of extra dollars in taxes?

You may not care about graduate students. It affects 3 million of us, but you may not be one yourself.

Odds are, however, that you're affected by graduate students. Graduate students do a lot of the grunt work in universities while working on their doctorate degrees. They teach students, do research, and develop new technologies.

And they go on to become professors and experts themselves.

Without graduate students, we won't have scientists. Every PhD scientist was once a graduate student.

Without graduate students, we won't have professors. If you have an associate's or a bachelor's degree, that was only possible because your professors were able to get a graduate education.

Gut graduate education in America and you'll gut education as a whole.

Ignoring Washington’s Role in Yemen Carnage, 60 Minutes Paints US as Savior

November 20, 2017

Adam Johnson

http://fair.org/home/ignoring-washingtons-role-in-yemen-carnage-60-minutes-paints-us-as-savior/

In one of the most glaring, power-serving omissions in some time, CBS News’ 60 Minutes (11/19/17) took a deep dive into the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and did not once mention the direct role the United States played in creating, perpetuating and prolonging a crisis that’s left over 10,000 civilians dead, 2 million displaced, and an estimated 1 million with cholera.

Correspondent Scott Pelley’s segment, “When Food Is Used as a Weapon,” employed excellent on-the-ground reporting to highlight the famine and bombing victims of Saudi Arabia’s brutal two-and-a-half year siege of Yemen. But its editors betrayed this reporting—and their viewers—by stripping the conflict of any geopolitical context, and letting one of its largest backers, the United States government, entirely off the hook.

As FAIR has previously noted (10/14/16, 2/27/17), US media frequently ignore the Pentagon’s role in the conflict altogether. Pelly did not once note that the US assists Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign with logistical support, refueling and the selling of arms to the tune of $400 billion.  The US also routinely protects Saudi Arabia at the UN from condemnation—a shield that may have vastly prolonged the war, given that it signals the support of the most powerful country on Earth.

Meanwhile, Iran’s involvement in the conflict—which, even by the most paranoid estimates, is far less than the United States’—is placed front and center as one side of the “war.” The conflict is framed in hackneyed “Sunni vs Shia” terms, with Saudi Arabia unironically called the “leader of the Sunni world” and Iran the “leader of the Shia world.” A reductionist narrative that omits that Sunnis have fought alongside the Houthis, and the fact that Saudi bombs kill members of the marginalized, mostly Sunni Muhamasheen caste, who are neither “led” by Saudi Arabia nor part of the “Shia world.”

This cartoon dichotomy is the extent of the context. Saudi Arabia is rightly singled out as the primary aggressor (though a dubious comparative body count of 3,000 killed by Saudis vs. 1,000 by Houthis is proffered that is far lower than the UN’s January 2017 estimates of 10,000 total civilians killed), but who the Saudis’ primary patrons are—the United States and Britain (and Canada, too)—is simply not mentioned. One would think, watching Pelley’s report, it was a purely regional conflict, and not one sanctioned and armed by major Western superpowers to counter “Iranian aggression.”

To compound the obfuscation, 60 Minutes doesn’t just omit the US role in the war, it paints the US as a savior rescuing its victims. The hero of the piece is American David Beasley, the director of the UN’s World Food Programme, the organization coordinating humanitarian aid. “The US is [the World Food Programme]’s biggest donor, so the director is most often an American. Beasley was once governor of South Carolina,” Pelly narrates over B-roll hero shots of Beasley overseeing food distribution.

Beasley, in his sit-down interview, bends over backwards to downplay Saudi responsibility, insisting at every turn that “all parties” are to blame:

You see it’s chaos, it’s starvation, it’s hunger, and it’s unnecessary conflict, strictly man-made. All parties involved in this conflict have their hands guilty, the hands are dirty. All parties.

The spin that the crisis is the fault of “all parties” is understandable from a US-funded de facto diplomat, charged with providing some cover for a major regional ally. But the premise that “all parties” are causing the famine is never challenged by Pelley. It’s taken as fact, and the piece moves on.

It’s part of a broader trend of erasing American responsibility for the conflict and resulting humanitarian disaster. The Washington Post ran an editorial last week (11/8/17) and an explainer piece Saturday (11/19/17) detailing the carnage in Yemen, neither one of which bothered to mention US involvement. American complicity in the war is so broad in scope, it merited a warning last year from the US’s own State Department they could be liable for war crimes—yet it hardly merits a mention in major media accounts. The war just is, a collective moral failing on the part of “all parties”—irrational sectarian Muslims lost in a pat “cycle of violence” caricature.

As momentum builds in Congress, animated by grassroots anti-war activists, to push back against the war and hold US lawmakers accountable, how the US contributes to the death and disease in the Arabian peninsula is of urgent political import. By erasing the US role in the war, CBS producers obscure for viewers the most effective way they can end the war: by pressuring their own lawmakers to stop supporting it. Instead, viewers are left with what filmmaker Adam Curtis calls “Oh, dearism”: the act of feeling distressed but ultimately helpless in the face of mindless cruelty—perpetrated, conveniently, by everyone but us.

'Paradise Papers' Reveal Tax Avoidance, Shady Dealings of World's Rich and Powerful

From multiple members of Trump's cabinet to the British Royal Family, document dump of offshore dealings shows how political leaders—joined by wealthy celebrities and the ultra-rich—shelter their assets, keep shady relationships secret, and game the tax systems of nations around the globe

By Jon Queally, staff writer

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/06/paradise-papers-reveal-tax-avoidance-shady-dealings-worlds-rich-and-powerful

Some of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people will be waking up on Monday to discover that some of their best kept secrets—how they hide their vast wealth and avoid paying taxes—are now being read about in newspapers across the world after the release of a trove of offshore legal and banking documents were leaked to journalists and published Sunday as a joint project called the 'Paradise Papers.'

"In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.

First obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the documents were then shared with scores of journalists and researchers associated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other media organizations, including the New York Times, BBC, and the Guardian.

"There is this small group of people who are not equally subject to the laws as the rest of us, and that's on purpose," said author and financial expert Brooke Harrington in response to the new insights about how these elites secretly manage their wealth.

As the ICIJ reports, the "trove of 13.4 million records exposes ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump's billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the offshore interests of the Queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world." According to the ICIJ, the documents show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers.

One offshore web leads to Trump’s commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping companythat has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.

At the center for the leak, explains the Guardian, is the law firm Appleby which has "outposts in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. In contrast to Mossack Fonseca, the discredited firm at the centre of last year's Panama Papers investigation, Appleby prides itself on being a leading member of the 'magic circle' of top-ranking offshore service providers."

But what exactly do the 'Paradise Papers' represent? This video explains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MkVV2hvuQdM