There is a long history of the Israeli state stealing Palestinian water and then claiming it is “greening the desert”. Now with a lead taken by its Finance Minister it is threatening to seize ancient water reservoirs near Bethlehem. Since he made an explicit threat in May to “erase” the agreements that confirmed Palestinian ownership of Solomon’s Pools more than 30 years ago, Israeli settlers and troops have stepped up their presence around the spectacular site.Under the second Oslo Accord of 1995, Solomon’s Pools was made part of the wider Bethlehem area classified as Area A, under Palestinian civil and police control. The division of the West Bank into areas A, B (Palestinian civil and Israeli military control), and C (full Israeli administration) was intended to be a halfway stage to eventual Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory and the creation of a Palestinian state. The present Israeli government is steamrolling this agreement that was like the whole Oslo “process” made in bad faith.
Subak is the water-sharing cooperative that has governed Balinese irrigation since the ninth century. For more than 1,000 years it has linked springs to field to family, but that chain is breaking. Corporate tourism is breaking this pragmatic sharing system. According to the Bali national land agency, the island has lost more than 6,500 hectares (16,061 acres) of rice fields in the past five years, a decline of more than 9%. Rice fields are not only income – they are water infrastructure. A paddy slows runoff, stores water and recharges the aquifer below. When it is sealed under concrete, that function is permanent. Bali recorded 16 million tourists in 2024 four times its permanent population. Tourism consumes over 65% of Bali’s fresh water. In southern Bali, where development is concentrated, groundwater extraction has pushed aquifers beyond sustainable levels in many areas, according to research by local hydrologists. Coastal wells are turning brackish as seawater moves inland to fill the void.
The Cycladic Greek island of Paros is an island with a water problem, and yet is preparing to host another pharaonic project A hotel complex – “which was so lacking from the island” – will occupy an area of 28,000 sq.m., and will have 46 pools, in the “Boutima” location where the water shortage is more acute.
In the past month floods have caused death and destruction in the country of Bangladesh and the whole West African region are responsible for only o/4% and 1.8% respectively of global carbon emission. Meanwhile in Europe Water levels of the Danube river which crosses the continent from Germany to the Black Sea fell to their lowest since 1996 over the weekend in Rumania, prompting irrigation restrictions for farmers and partially disrupting shipping and tourism along its banks. Romania’s state water-management agency said the level at the Romanian entry point of Europe’s second-longest river was 1,700 cubic metres of water per second on Sunday, against a July average range of 4,700 cubic metres per second. Close by in Hungary tourist ships were stranded on the river close to Budapest.