The West Bank: native water-resource systems and competition

The particular focus of the paper is upon the mounting competition between those who utilize traditional water systems and incursionist Jewish developments within one part of the occupied West Bank. While hydrological backgrounds are briefly considered, attention is given to both the physical and human consequences of such competition. Here particular concern is directed to the relatively large-scale entrapment of water by deep and deepening Jewish wells, including the traditional systems to the east and south-east of Nablus noted in the field study of October–November 1986. In any consideration of such changes cause-effect problems are particularly apparent. Here, however, the nature and importance of Military Order 158, which controls the further development and indeed the continuing utilization of West-Bank sub-surface water resources, are identified. The specific contribution of the research endeavours to stress that it is the human characteristics—political controls and management initiatives—rather than any of the innate physical features of the native systems that pose the major and mounting problems.