The Primacy of Water in the Zionist Project

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/arabstudquar.38.4.0700
• Published date: 01 October 2016
• Date: 01 October 2016
• Pages: 700-708
• Author: Elaine C. Hagopian

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The Primacy of Water in the Zionist Project

Elaine C. Hagopian

Introduction

Zureik slams the door in the face of anyone who continues to believe in the mori-

bund “peace process with its still birth two states solution.” His comprehensive

review and evaluation of both the conceptual and political literature on Palestine

yields a powerful analytical paradigm and unambiguous analysis of the goals of

the Zionist Project: to conquer the territory and transform it demographically into

a permanent sovereign state for Jews. From its outset, the “Logic of Zionism” was

unrelenting in its drive to appropriate the territory and make every trace of

Palestinian human and material life disappear. He hammers this point across by

documenting the comprehensive array of brutal and bureaucratic methods and

tools used to conquer the land and to eliminate Palestinian Arabs, a process con-

tinuing today unabated.

Nonetheless, there is missing piece in this extraordinary book. It is the full

recognition of the saliency of water resources in the territorial and biopolitical

dimensions of his conceptual paradigm. Zureik does take note of the importance

of the territoriality of water resources in his reference to the work of Samer Alatout

(33-34, electronic copy) and biopolitically to its limited distribution (123, elec-

tronic copy), but he does not give water its full weightiness in the Zionist project

arsenal. For this reason, my essay focuses on exposing the historical primacy of

water to the success of the project. I will end with a general assessment of

Palestinian options to challenge and defeat Zionism.

From the beginning of Zionist fixation on Palestine, water resources played a

crucial role in Zionist strategy. The problematic for the Zionists was what land

area constituted the Palestine they sought to make the Jewish State. The 1919

(Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.) map the World Zionist Organization presented at the

Paris Peace Conference was not confined to what ultimately became the final bor-

ders of the formalized British Mandate (1923-1948, de facto, 1920-1948). Rather,

the Zionists defined Palestine basically by the water resources in and around that

area. Therefore, they sought to conquer, integrate, and control the territory on

which they were found.

The 1919 map included all of Mandated Palestine, the Syrian Golan Heights,

Southern Lebanon up to Sidon, a portion of the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River,

and a slice of the Sinai from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The water resources

included the aquifers in Palestine, the lush confluence of water resources in the

Elaine C. Hagopian is Professor Emerita of Sociology, Simmons College, Boston, MA, USA.