Publications

Conclusion

Table of Contents

The past nine years have witnessed a paradigm shift in relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. After decades of tension, which resulted in the inability to cooperate over water resources, the Middle East peace talks transformed the dialog and the relationship between these two long time adversaries towards peace. Through its two-track structure, the peace talks have facilitated the ability to address both sensitive political issues through bilateral negotiations while including a channel for less formal multilateral negotiations to focus on regional issues.

The Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources, despite having relatively few plenary meetings, opened up an invaluable channel for addressing water issues in a less politically tense environment. By keeping the focus of the multilateral negotiations on regional issues and emphasizing the technical rather than the political component of water issues, the working group on water resources fostered new perceptions of old problems around water. The working group on water has successfully engendered trust and better working relationships over water between the Israelis and the Palestinians where none existed before. Although it was not designed to find a solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians over water, the working group on water has produced a more cooperative atmosphere which hopefully can promote an environment for a solution over water that is acceptable for both groups to take shape.

Article 40 of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement broke new ground through its temporary arrangement for managing their joint water resources. The implementation of the agreement has shown that these two groups can cooperate over water. Several positive accomplishments have developed through the implementation process, namely the creation of the Palestinian Water Authority, the Joint Supervision and Enforcement Teams and strong support of the international community. Along with these successes, one of the principle problems with the current institutional arrangement has been that it has reinforced the power imbalance that exists between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over water. Because most of the proposals for new water projects going before the Joint Water Committee are from the PA, the consensus-based decision-making process of the JWC has effectively given Israel veto power over water projects in the West Bank. With this issue in mind, one problem for further research is to how to design policies and mechanisms for joint water management which take account of the effects of past power imbalance.

With the ongoing support of the international community, lessons learned from the implementation of Israeli-Jordanian water agreement and the interim Israeli-Palestinian water agreement, and the recent research projects explicitly focusing on joint water management structures for Israel and the Palestinians, a future final water agreement between these two groups has a wealth of experience and knowledge to draw from in designing a system that satisfies each of their needs. The season for peace is now.