Hydro-Apartheid and Water Access in Israel-Palestine: Challenging the Myths of Cooperation and Scarcity

In this paper Messerschmid goes into details and inspects the different ways in which Israel controls water resources in Palestine through many means. They argue that this domination over water resources is accomplished through a combination of ‘coercive hard power’, ‘softer bargaining power’ and ‘ideational discursive power’, where as Israel can use its hard power to take what it wants, disguise this power through coopetition and a velvet glove, and spread the myth that Palestine is historically a water poor region to legitimize its actions. The author also argues that the Oslo accords helped institutionalize this control and disguised domination as cooperation, especially through the creation of the Joint Water Committee, where Palestinians have absolutely no bargaining power and the dynamics favor Israel and Israeli demands with no recourse for the Palestinians.