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W
ater
D
iplomacy
tion on sustainable water management, the project today includes 28
communities (11 Palestinian, nine Israeli and eight Jordanian). When
originally launched, the Good Water Neighbors project struggled to
convince the 11 original participating communities that they would
benefit through the cooperative activities launched. Today FoEME
has more communities seeking to join the project than funds available
to enable their participation.
The project has also supported the expanding geographical reach
of the organization. Working in communities all along the borders
between the three peoples has brought FoEME to deal with water
issues relevant to all of the region’s shared water resources: the Dead
Sea, the Jordan River, cross-border creeks, and the Mountain and
Coastal Aquifers.
Having to deal with the conflicting and competing political,
economic and social interests that exist both within each community
and society and between cross-border communities and societies
has made this third era far more integrative than ever before. This
period reflects the very action-oriented approach of the organization
as it exists today, having to show concrete results and benefits on
an almost daily basis in order to maintain the trust of residents and
community leaders. During the last 12 years FoEME has success-
fully overcome the barrier of showing how communities can and
are presently able to benefit from the cooperative relations estab-
lished despite the continued conflict – politically, economically and
socially, often all interlinked.
Through the synergy created within its water diplomacy by combin-
ing top-down with bottom-up strategies, FoEME can today identify
a host of major achievements. One of its major successes has been in
placing the key regional issues of saving the Dead Sea and rehabilitat-
ing the Jordan River on the decision-making table. In recent years,
to a large extent as a result of FoEME’s efforts, the various water
agencies of Israel, Palestine and Jordan have started to recognize the
ecological, social, and economic importance of restoring the flow and
quality of Jordan River waters – the diversion and pollution of which
are primary factors in the demise of the Dead Sea. No less importantly,
FoEME is a leading advocate for the recognition of Palestinian rights
to Jordan River waters and the importance of the Jordan Valley for
the Palestinian state. The civil society water diplomacy of FoEME
has had a significant role in this change in perception, evident in
master plans and water plans now being prepared, with fresh water
flowing again from the Sea of Galilee to the river for the first time in
50 years, though still in insufficient quantities. Together with fresh-
water release, no less importantly, sewage is coming out with progress
made on sewage treatment plants on all sides of the Jordan Valley.
Furthermore, FoEME is starting to see the results of its advocacy
efforts impacting cross-border water management institutions. On 7
February 2013, for the very first time since the signing of the Jordan-
Israel Peace Treaty in 1994, the bilateral Israeli-Jordanian Joint Water
Committee discussed the rehabilitation of Jordan River.
Addressing water supply and sanitation issues has also been a
focus of the Good Water Neighbors project. FoEME has so far
leveraged over US$450 million invested or earmarked for the partici-
pating communities – primarily as investments in water supply and
sanitation projects, as well as in environmental education centers
and ecotourism projects.
The combination of top-down advocacy and bottom-up community-
based action, as the basis for FoEME’s water diplomacy, was built on
the understanding that cross-border cooperation at the community
level – between residents, professionals and municipal representatives
– is instrumental in the building of trust, which must be
the basis for conflict resolution. Moreover, since FoEME’s
community-led project is based on raising communities’
awareness of their mutual dependence as regards water
issues, and their self-interests in cooperating over water, it
is a powerful tool in changing reality on the ground. While
changing the parties’ perceptions of each other is no less
important to the creation of intercultural dialogue, empha-
sizing self-interests that, if fulfilled, would yield mutual
gains is a necessity in order to generate concrete action
and political will. FoEME’s community-based activities are
shaped to complement its top-down advocacy efforts by
creating and empowering this will among local residents,
in a way that would impact bothmunicipal representatives
and politicians, and influence the media and the broader
public’s opinion as a result.
The same understanding of the need to identify self-
interest advancing mutual gain is at the heart of FoEME’s
endeavours on the national level, to promote a final
Israeli-Palestinian Water Accord. Under the Oslo process,
solving water issues has been held hostage to the failure to
advance agreements on the other core issues of the peace
process. Current management of water resources shared
between Israel and Palestine – the principles of which
were partly laid by the Oslo II accords – is detrimental
to the interests of both parties. As Oslo II was signed as
an interim agreement and not a final status accord, the
arrangement for the joint management of the Mountain
Aquifer – the only shared resource the agreement has
dealt with – was meant to last for only five years. Due
to the defunct political process it is still in place 20 years
later, and failing to facilitate effective joint management
and allocation of shared waters. Palestinians are not being
supplied with water resources sufficient to their basic
needs, and Israelis and Palestinians together are witness-
ing the pollution of increasing amounts of shared waters.
Given the dire Palestinian need for more water availability,
Israel’s new water supply due to large scale desalina-
tion and waste water reuse and a joint need to deal with
untreated sewage, restarting negotiations with water as a
first priority makes economic, ecological and, not least
importantly, political sense. Israel is today a country with
excess water at its disposal, making the sharing of natural
waters more equitably no longer a win-lose situation for
Israelis. A final water accord could enable both leaderships
to present significant gains as it would greatly improve the
current living conditions of both peoples. For Palestinians,
it would increase freshwater availability in every home; for
Israelis, it would remove pollutants from rivers and creeks
that flow through its main cities.
FoEME has drafted a Model Accord delineating a possi-
ble mechanism to replace the current Israeli-Palestinian
Joint Water Committee, one which would facilitate
sustainable and equitable joint management and alloca-
tion of all shared water resources in the region. The idea
of a water accord as a potential breakthrough in the polit-
ical process is currently promoted by FoEME within the
region’s governments and the international diplomatic
community, as our latest effort in water diplomacy.