A central narrative of Zionist colonial myth-making posits that before the foundation of the state of Israel, Palestine was an unpopulated infertile wasteland and the efforts of Jewish settlers “made the desert bloom”. In fact, Palestine had a vast established agricultural system, dating back at least 10,000 years, which is being systematically destroyed by ongoing colonisation.
The theft and appropriation of Palestinian water sources are fundamental to Israel’s settler-colonial project, and are used as an ongoing tool of oppression in Palestinian territories. Water sources are taken by force and diverted for domestic and agricultural use, particularly in illegal Jewish settlements. Meanwhile, settlers and the Israeli military routinely destroy Palestinian water infrastructure. A military order from 1967 prohibits Palestinians from building new infrastructure and maintaining existing infrastructure without a permit.
Human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Council, have denounced Israel’s system of water apartheid.
Israel’s state-owned water company Mekorot was established in 1937. Since then, it has played a key role in the theft of Palestinian water resources and the systematic violation of the right to water. The Israeli army handed it control of water infrastructure in the West Bank in 1982, and since then it has operated as the Israeli government’s executive arm for the control of water in occupied Palestinian territories.
Mekorot supplies about 90% of Israel’s drinking water and has almost total control over water distribution in the West Bank and Gaza, overseeing an unequal water allocation regime.
Even before Israel’s all-out attack on Gaza in October last year, about 95% of Gazans did not have access to clean water and the average water consumption in the West Bank is only 82 litres a day per person — lower than the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily minimum of 100 litres. Meanwhile, Mekorot provides an almost-unlimited supply of water to Israeli citizens, who use about 247 litres a day per person.
Mekorot profits from occupation and the manufactured water shortages by selling stolen water back to Palestinians at 10 times the prices it charges other Israeli water corporations.
Mekorot has expanded its operations internationally, exporting the knowledge and technology developed through appropriating Palestinian water sources, while marketing itself as an innovator in water administration. The company’s global expansion facilitates the privatisation of water in countries such as Mexico, Morocco and Cyprus, and helps finance the water apartheid system in occupied Palestinian territories.
The "Fuera Mekorot" (Get Out Mekorot) campaign emerged as a grassroots mobilisation in response to Mekorot’s expansion into Argentina. Fuera Mekorot organiser Gisela Cardozo, who is also part of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, spoke to Green Left’s Ben Radford about the campaign against Mekorot’s presence in Argentina and in solidarity with Palestinians.
***
What are some of Mekorot’s activities in Argentina?
Even though Mekorot has tried to establish itself in Argentina’s provinces since 2008, it gained significant momentum in 2022 with the mediation of the Federal Investment Council [a federal agency that promotes and finances projects in Argentina] — which facilitated and acted as a third party in the agreements that Mekorot signed with different provinces, mainly to develop masterplans for water management.
[Mekorot] has signed agreements with 10 provinces that we know of, and there are two more [Santiago del Estero and Santa Fe] where the relationship is not entirely clear. Something that characterises this company is its low profile; it does not show what it’s doing. We found out about many of the contracts through media reports.
The provinces that have signed contracts are Río Negro, Neuquén, Chubut, Santa Cruz, Mendoza, San Juan, La Rioja, Catamarca, Jujuy and Formosa.
How did the Fuera Mekorot campaign arise?
[After the agreements] first became public in 2022, [Fuera Mekorot] originated partly as a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaign against the state of Israel, under the Argentine Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, of which many organisations, including the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights that I represent, have participated in for many years.
We are organisations that also form part of BDS Argentina, and within the committee we take part in campaigns related to BDS.
So, on the one hand, there was a specific interest in Mekorot. On the other hand, there were assemblies for water rights in various provinces working on the human right to water from a territorial perspective. [They] also started to become aware of Mekorot and learn about its history.
[T]his campaign emerged ... from the convergence of interests among social organisations, civil society, human rights organisations and unions, which perhaps had not been in dialogue before, but were united from different places by Mekorot’s presence. The campaign brought together environmental and water rights perspectives and those of solidarity with the Palestinian people within the framework of BDS campaigns.
Could you tell us about the campaign?
Initially, and also because of the difficulties we have in accessing information, one of the tasks involves communicating what Mekorot is and why we do not want it in Argentina or other parts of the world. Another task is to request reports from the various [provincial governments], because the management of what they call “natural resources” falls under the province’s jurisdiction.
Although the nation, through the CFI, facilitated the signing of these agreements, each province signs its own contracts with Mekorot. We’ve done a lot of work to request information, with few results.
Therefore, one of our ongoing priorities is to access that information, such as how much money is paid to Mekorot for something that Argentina already has the capacity to carry out, like water management masterplans.
So, it’s not just specific projects we oppose, but rather the presence of this company in our water management due to its history and also in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Have there been any victories?
When Mekorot tried to establish itself in Buenos Aires province ... due to a strong campaign [in 2011] the tender process fell through. For us, this is an important precedent that allows us to think of ourselves as a campaign that has the possibility of stopping this company.
At the same time, we understand that Mekorot is proposing the management and administration of water in all the provinces that have the potential for mining development, which is not a coincidence. There is a relationship between large-scale water extraction and mining.
The Fuera Mekorot campaign is also coordinating with other countries ... and learning about the experiences with Mekorot in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. We talk with these other countries in Latin America to share our experiences and broaden the campaign.
How is Fuera Mekorot linked to the global BDS movement?
The Argentine Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian People typically coordinates BDS campaigns, such as sports boycotts like “Don’t Go” [a campaign in 2018 calling on the Argentine national football team to boycott its friendly match in Israel], as well as cultural BDS, like when we managed to stop [Uruguayan actress and singer] Natalia Oreiro from performing in Israel. The Fuera Mekorot campaign stems directly from a large BDS group in Argentina that works with all the organisations in the Argentine Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
More concretely, we try to raise awareness about why we’re opposed to Mekorot’s presence in Argentina, which has to do with their proposal to change provincial water laws and codes that will favour the privatisation and commodification of our water rights. They also propose reorganising the location and purpose of water infrastructure to favour a select few, such as large-scale mining interests.
This company views water not as a human right, but as a commodity to be bought and sold, where economic values override people’s rights.
Another issue we highlight is that having Mekorot managing water would ultimately result in higher water prices and the investment costs being borne by users. This is what Mekorot brings [and] what they know how to do, which they demonstrate every day in Palestinian territory.
[Follow Fuera Mekorot on Facebook and Instagram. This interview was translated from Spanish.]