A new film offers a devastating portrait of Israel's stranglehold over Palestinian water resources The simple figures are stark enough. The three million Palestinians who live in the West Bank only have access to 15 per cent of the water contained in the aquifers beneath their territory. And of that, they have to buy half from Mekerot, the Israeli national water company. The remaining 85 per cent goes to keep six million Israelis in the comfort to which they have become accustomed. So, in effect, it is Israel which controls how much, and when, the Palestinians can drink. The result is one of the least well-known, and most devastating dimensions of the last four decades of military occupation. The consequences in terms of underdevelopment, health, hygiene, and daily humiliation, are graphically illustrated in a new documentary film by Palestinian-Israeli filmmaker Rima Essa and former Al-Ahram Weekly journalist Peter Snowdon. Drying up Palestine was made for Ramallah-based NGO House of Water and Environment, and is composed almost entirely of first-person testimony, as ordinary people describe and demonstrate the inconvenience and indignity which Israel's water imperialism inflicts upon them. The structure of the film follows the history of the occupation itself. It opens with the drilling of the first deep wells within the West Bank in the mid-1970s, to feed the earliest agricultural settlements being established in the Jordan valley. And it closes with the impact of the wall not only on access to existing wells and springs, but also on the future development potential of an independent Palestinian economy. Along the way, we encounter wells deep inside Palestinian territory which are totally controlled by Israel, and which can remain unrepaired for months when their pumps break down; a military prison built on Palestinian land, whose untreated sewage is dumped directly into the springs which supply the neighbouring village; a refugee camp whose residents have been reduced to stealing water from Israeli pipelines, at considerable risk to themselves; and the settlers who live beside them, and whose own antisceptically Western lifestyle suffers only one drawback -- the stench that comes from the drains of their less fortunate "neighbours". The message of the film is bleak, but the tone is never desperate or violent. Deliberately eschewing the spectacular, the filmmakers offer a portrait of Palestinian society which is far-removed from the sensationalism of Western news reporting, whether pro-Palestinian or pro- Israeli. Neither victims nor terrorists, the people we meet may not have names, but in each face, each voice, we can read the countless tiny acts of daily resistance which make up an individual life under occupation. Their witness is confirmed at the end by the authority of external experts -- in particular, by two UK professors who have worked in the region for many years -- but what we remember most are not the facts and figures which are cited, or the different claims which are made, but the accumulation of patience and resilience in the face of an almost overwhelming adversity. No one deserves to live like this, but these people do, and their resistance has only made them more human. After playing the international festival circuit from Boston to Kuala Lumpur, Drying up Palestine is now being serialised on the web. For more information, and to catch the latest episode, go to www.dryinguppalestine.org.
