Israeli water company Mekorot under pressure regarding occupation complicity

Who Profits, a research project of the Israeli NGO Coalition of Women for Peace, has published a new mini-report on the involvement of Israel’s national water company Mekorot in the occupation of the West Bank.

The fact sheet details the ways in which Mekorot, a state-owned company supplying 90% of Israel’s drinking water, is deeply involved in the colonisation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including supplying water to settlements and “profit[ing] from Israeli control over a Palestinian captive market under occupation”.

Who Profits concludes that “Mekorot develops and maintains a water system, which strengthens Israeli control over the West Bank, favors settlers and ignores the basic needs and even mere presence of the local Palestinian population.”

The new factsheet comes hot on the heels of the decision by Dutch water giant Vitens to suspend its relationship with Mekerot due to its complicity in violations of international law. This is one of the first times a European public body has taken this kind of stance against a corporation involved in Israeli human rights abuses, and was duly applauded by the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The Israeli Foreign Ministry slammed Vitens’ decision as a “ridiculous” display of “moralism”.