A Water Acknowledgment
On Palestine's Critical Water Needs
A note: At the time of this writing, we are bearing witness to a genocide. Palestinians are being murdered. People are being displaced. Many don’t have access to fresh water. Hospitals are bombed. Bodies are lost and unidentified. So much of it is being circulated digitally and so many have not had a moment to grieve.
This water acknowledgement below was first written back in 2002 as part of a self-guided research practice and the open water residency that I organized as part of my Culture Hub Fellowship. At a time where I am at a lost for words, this re-appeared to me. As a fluid work based upon water’s invitation to listen listen listen, it has been re-shaped for today. It is messy and in process, as is my learning.
A water acknowledgement;
To name, that which is or has been ignored by self, by some.
A promise to embody the principles of love, the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing self & another. A commitment to care.
My words here are not enough. They are only disembodiment made known. Here I stand trying to move beyond my water & land wounds, initial wounds created from the violence of colonialism, capitalism, and racism toward something else. These wounds shall not drive me to re-enacting more violence. No. They must propel me elsewhere because there is no other option but to imagine + do the somatic and magical work of envisioning freedom, which includes freedom for the people in Palestine, Congo, Tigray, and everyone else demanding their right to live in the face of genocide.
to set the scene…a return to a dream…
water appears to me daily.
my body is suspended in a vast oceanic space held up by nothing but shear will & love. supported because the ocean chose to, chose to hold me. supported because I trusted her to.
& perhaps this dream replayed countless times in my mind because of a combination of grief/fear/adoration.
despite childhood swim lessons, I still cannot swim.
others say it’s impossible to forget once you’ve learned.
either I never learned or I have forced myself to forget.
or rather, I am afraid to remember.
colonizers know, that he who controls water, controls people.
they acknowledge land and water by force,
invoking false language and infrastructure of ownership to justify murder and theft.
water cannot be owned, she will always evade permanent capture.
she is a free being made to bear witness to imperial violence,
which she will never forgets.
Water is freedom.
Water is yielding but all conquering.
And will always win.
This watery acknowledge began in an apartment on stolen land on the Lenape Territory, colonially known as Brooklyn, NY. For three years, I have lived on this land mostly unfamiliar with its waterways and liquid stories. In all the day dreams envisioned before my move here, somehow I never imagined the role water would play in my life.
East of me is a body of water whose name is derived from Yameco (beavers so-called Jamaica Bay) and is not too far from a few beaches I have visited. On the other side of me is Prospect Park Lake (a body of water made by humans) and the East River.
I am surrounded by water and want to know all their many names and their stories. I want to thank water for its teachings around collective nourishment and interconnected stories.
as wherever you find yourself, all water, regardless of the name, is connected and yet the way it expresses itself is unique.
As part of my water acknowledgment, I am learning more about the water (all water bodies which include the people)of Palestine. West Bank borders the Jordan River and the Gaza strip touches the Mediterranean Sea. The Jordan River is a "trans-boundary resource, shared between Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. And water resources in the Gaza strip are limited as from the early 70s, Israel began constructing dams and diversion schemes on parts of their water resources, which significantly reduced access to water. In fact, a large part of Israel’s extension of control has been through consolidating power over all water resources and water infrastructure and now there has been no natural surface water in Gaza since the early 2000s which has created a dependency on Israel.
“In November 1967 the Israeli authorities issued Military Order 158, which stated that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. Since then, the extraction of water from any new source or the development of any new water infrastructure would require permits from Israel, which are near impossible to obtain. Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation continue to suffer the devastating consequences of this order until today. They are unable to drill new water wells, install pumps or deepen existing wells, in addition to being denied access to the Jordan River and fresh water springs. Israel even controls the collection of rain water throughout most of the West Bank, and rainwater harvesting cisterns owned by Palestinian communities are often destroyed by the Israeli army. As a result, some 180 Palestinian communities in rural areas in the occupied West Bank have no access to running water, according to OCHA. Even in towns and villages which are connected to the water network, the taps often run dry.” (From Amnesty International 2017 article).
Water resources have become even more minimal with Israel cutting off access in response to the Hamas attack. Even before this current genocidal action, there was a crisis. According to the United Nations, more than 95% of water from one of the coastal aquifers in Gaza is undrinkable and now with low access to electricity and fuel, the water treatment facilities are barely working.
Cutting off access to clean water is a commitment to ensuring death. If people don’t die from bombings, diseases will spread rapidly as will dehydration issues. Even in the event of ceasefire, these conditions need to be changed.
I encourage anyone who reads to also think through a water acknowledgement.
an attempt at a score for creating your own…
+ Understand where you fit it amongst the web of things. Where are you from? Where are you now? What is your relationship to the lands you are on? And the bodies of water?
+ Where does the water you drink come from? Map it out for yourself.
+ Learn the names of the bodies of water around you. What humans and other-than-human beings have a close relationship with them? What are the current water laws and dynamics that control access to it?
+ Learn about the ongoing relationship between Palestine and Israel’s Occupation of both land and water.
Here are more resources:
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), and the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) Issue a joint Press Release on the Occasion of World Water Day; on March 22th, 2021
Palestine Water Strategy document written back in 2012! This has been an ongoing issue.
Al Jazeera Mini Documentary: Is Israel Weaponising Water in Palestine?