BACKGROUND:

MAI (arabic: water) MAYIM (hebrew: water)

A documentary film that explores the Middle East conflict from within the context of the ecological need for water in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

"Israel has a water problem," writes Yedidya Atlas, senior correspondent and commentator for Arutz-7 Israel National Radio. Figures recently released by Mekorot, Israel’s National Water Carrier, show that in 2002 the national water inventory will be short 518 million cubic meters the required amount for implementing the (minimum) water supply program for the various sectors of the country. "Moreover," continues Atlas, "Israel has a growing population that maintains a modest level of western standard of living, where water (for bathing regularly, drinking freely, etc.) is not considered a luxury. Nonetheless, it should not be assumed that Israeli water consumption is extravagant; by Western standards, it is low." Since the 1960s, Israel has set the cutting edge for water conservation technology with world-class projects such as drip irrigation systems and recycled wastewater management. Recent figures show that Israeli average annual per capita municipal consumption is less than half of that of domestic consumption in southern California, for example – a region with similar climatic conditions.

"The problem is greatly complicated by the uneven distribution of water resources and by the lack of correspondence between political and hydrological boundaries," explains University of Texas geographer Ian Manners.

"In Israel, by some estimates, between one-half and two-thirds of the water currently used for irrigation and domestic and industrial purposes actually originates outside the country’s pre-1967 boundaries," reports Jessica McCallin (Grist Magazine). "In particular, the major aquifers that supply groundwater to municipalities and farms in Israel’s coastal plains are recharged through rainfall occurring over the West Bank. At present, Israelis receive five times as much water per person as Palestinians. In Gaza, the disparity is even more striking, with settlers getting seven times as much water as their Palestinian neighbors. Stated differently, Palestinians in the West Bank get 18.5 gallons per person per day. The minimum quantity of water recommended by the US Agency for International Development and the World health Organization for household and urban use alone is 26.4 gallons per person per day."

However, the problem reaches beyond simple questions of equity. The Palestinian Authority does not have adequate infrastructure to efficiently pump and distribute water to its citizens and has a record of wasting and/or destroying shared aquifer resources.

Water scarcity is a growing global problem. The World Bank reports that 300 million people live today in areas of serious to severe water shortage and that in 25 years the number will be three billion. Although the Middle East and Arab-Israeli conflicts headline world news, very little is reported about the respective ecological foundations. Within the context of water, MAI MAYIM seeks to understand how boundaries, political and geographical, in Israel and surrounding regions affect communities and peoples. The film serves as an interdisciplinary research project that will attempt to locate the links between water and society in ways that will suggest an alternative perspective to the region and the ongoing violence. In sharing the film between Israelis and Palestinians, and with the rest of the world, it can become a process of dialogue that inspires the development of new frameworks for understanding current and future impacts of globalization on the world’s most precious resource.

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