The Golan Heights and water: The price of peace

Securing water sources has been an Israeli priority since its founding in 1948 and it remains a preoccupation today; the per capita consumption of water in Israel is eight times that of the Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, which accounts for 18 percent of Israel’s needs of drinking water. In 1950, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ben Gurion, declared that ‘Jews were fighting a battle for water and that the Jewish existence in Palestine was contingent on the outcome of such a battle’. Water from Syrian upstream sources flown down the Golan, is accumulated at the Sea of Galilee (it is also known as Lake Tiberias and Israelis call it Lake of Kinneret) before flowing further to the River Jordan.

The Golan Heights control the Kinneret, Israel's only lake and foremost water resource.

The area is a key source of water for an arid region. Rainwater from the Golan's catchment feeds into the Jordan River. The Golan Heights provides a third of Israel's water supply (see Map 3). The land is fertile, with the volcanic soil being used to cultivate vineyards and orchards and to raise cattle. The Golan is also home to Israel's only ski resort. Syria wants a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 border. This would give Damascus control of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee - Israel's main source of fresh water. Israel wishes to retain control of Galilee and says the border is located a few hundred meters to the east of the shore.

Three principal water sources barely suffice to supply the water requirements of the State of Israel: The Lake Kinneret catchment basin, which is the only surface source, and two underground reservoirs - The Mountain Aquifer and the Coastal Aquifer.
Severe water shortages are forecast for Israel with the growth of its population.

The Kinneret basin supplies Israel's "water bank" with about 1/3 of its total annual supply. The importance of the Kinneret basin water lies also in its quality, permitting its use for drinking and agriculture.

The struggle for the water continued for years and constituted one of the principal causes of the Six Day War. It should be stressed that most of the tributary streams flowing into the Jordan and the Kinneret originate on the Golan slopes. Only an Israeli presence in the basins of these streams can assure their continued flow to the Kinneret.

Topographic control by Syrians of the sources of the Banias, Dan and Hatsbani, with the Jordan river forming Israel's eastern border, may become the focal point of an existential danger to the State of Israel.

Israeli control of territory east of the Jordan, beyond the watershed line of the catchment basin guarantees that it will be impossible to "to press the water button" without "asking" the State of Israel.

Under international law it is illegal for Israel to expropriate the water of the Occupied Territories for use by its own citizens, and doubly illegal to expropriate it for use by illegal Israeli settlers (Article 1(2) of the 1966 United Nations Human Rights Covenants).

Israel allots 85% of the water resources in the occupied territories for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories.

Israelis receive five times as much water per person as Palestinians. In Gaza, the disparity is even more striking, with settlers getting seven times as much water as their Palestinian neighbors. Stated differently, on average, Israelis get 92.5 gallons per person per day, while Palestinians in the West Bank get 18.5 gallons per person per day. The minimum quantity of water recommended by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Health Organization for household and urban use alone is 26.4 gallons per person per day.