Real and ideal water rights: The prospects for water-rights reform in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank

Abstract

The ideal water contract for a heterogeneous population of users is a prioritized right that is fully vested and fully tradable. A set of tradable, prioritized rights contracts will span the same space as the Debreu contingent commodities. Therefore, they lead to a competitive equilibrium that is Pareto optimal. Equal sharing of water shortfalls does not have this property_ Existing water policies in Israel and the Disputed Territories are not characterized by an efficient set of water contracts. The system misallocates water over both time a.nd space.Current policies are driven by strategic and ideological objectives. With peace, reform of water policies will become politically feasible. The paper concludes with a proposal for a new water-allocation system.

Water, externality and strategic interdependence: a general equilibrium analysis

“…This paper focuses on water use by one country as an externality to another in an environment where one country is relatively more endowed with capital, so that its comparative advantage lies in manufacturing, while the other's lies in agriculture. Water consumption in the area including Israel, Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank and other countries/regions has been outstripping currently sustainable water supplies, resulting in a drop in water tables and the in®ltration of seawater into aquifers (Berck and Lipow, 1994). As countries in the area have dierent population, technologies, as well as levels of economic development, the co-operation on transboundary water resources become especially dicult (Kindler, 1997).…”

Groundwater management: Waiting for a drought*

“…Systems such as these may be able to address water scarcity efficiently, but they do not solve the problem of optimal water extraction during a drought. More elaborate systems of tradable water rights, which span all possible states of nature, have the potential to account for the problems with droughts if the rights are extended to cover all possible future markets (see, e.g., Berck & Lipow, ; Brewer, Glennon, Kerr, & Libecap, ; Hanah & Stryjaski, ; Zilberman & Schaenguld, ).…”

Water scarcity as a window of opportunity for a peacful settlement in the Middle East. (c2011)

“…Logically, however, it is the control of territory that is essential for the foundation and establishment of statehood. As Berck and Lipow (1994) For the founding fathers of the Jewish State, attaining control of the land in Palestine was only one major challenge. A much bigger challenge, however, was to establish a sense of statehood among the Jewish immigrants, to promote their permanent connection to the land, and to reinforce the permanent Jewish presence on the ground against the demographic threat represented by the fact that the territory was shared by local Arab Palestinian populations and neighbored by other hostile Arab states and nations to the south, north and east.…”

“…De-Shalit (1995) moreover adds that agriculture and agricultural activity were transformed into fundamental ideological symbols that literally defined the Jewish state and society for most of the twentieth century and for several decades immediately after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Berck and Lipow (1994) argue that the importance of agriculture in the Zionist ideology was essentially driven by the Israeli-Arab struggle, pointing out that cultivating and irrigating the land were the only effective means by which the Zionist movement could reinforce the bond between the settlers and the land in a politically and demographically hostile environment. Kartin (2000) identifies three specific strategic objectives that justified the unusual emphasis of the Zionist ideology on agricultural activity as a defining factor in the history of the Jewish state.…”

“…Another important principle and objective of Zionism is the need to settle Jews in the land of Israel permanently with close connection to the land. Also of relevance is the Israeli policy of universal military conscription which is based on the notion that the entire Israeli society should be prepared for war with its hostile neighbors at all times (Berck & Lipow, 1994;Kartin, 2002).…”