West Bank: The Palm Trees of Controversy
The peace plan unveiled by President Trump on January 28, 2020, proposes that Israel annex most of the Jordan Valley. Reactions have focused primarily on the disregard for international law that lies at the heart of this document (it should be noted that Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank has been condemned by several United Nations resolutions).
Julie Trottier, University of Montpellier
But it is also important to consider the economic context: if Trump’s plan is feasible today, it is largely due to the agricultural transformation that the Jordan Valley has undergone in recent years.
Israel occupied the West Bank during the 1967 war. On July 30, 1980, the Knesset passed a basic law annexing Jerusalem without granting Israeli citizenship to its residents. The map published as part of Donald Trump’s peace plan proposes Israel’s annexation of the part of the West Bank with the lowest Palestinian population. This provision allows for the annexation of the land without incorporating a non-Jewish population into the State of Israel.
The rise of date palm cultivation—specifically of the Medjoul variety—plays a key role in this process, as this agricultural transformation has been driving Palestinian residents out of the Jordan Valley for several years. A brief historical overview is necessary to explain the reasons behind this.
The Spread of Medjoul Palm Trees
Prominent families from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nablus had been purchasing land in the Jordan Valley since the late19th century. Sparsely populated before the 1948 war, the valley experienced a sudden population surge with the arrival of Palestinian refugees following the Israeli War of Independence. They provided an abundant labor force for landowners whose lands were irrigated by the Ein Sultan, Al Auja, and Fassayil springs.
After 1949, the valley thus found itself in a situation where many absentee landowners employed farm laborers who lived on their land. Sharecropping quickly became the primary form of land tenure. In other words, in most cases, farmers did not own the land they cultivated and on which they lived. They shared the harvest proceeds fifty-fifty with the landowner, a system known as “nos-nos” by the Palestinians.
The 1967 occupation triggered the exodus of many refugees to Jordan, but sharecropping persisted as the primary form of land tenure in the Jordan Valley—a phenomenon distinct from the rest of the West Bank. Israeli settlers who moved into the valley introduced the Medjoul date palm. This date variety grows only in an extremely dry and hot climate. The Jordan Valley is perfectly suited to it. Global demand for this fleshy date is so strong that its price remains inelastic in the face of increased production. Palestinian farmers followed the settlers’ lead starting in the late 1990s. Since then, the expansion of date palm cultivation has continued. Our research has shown that in 1999, 524 hectares were covered with date palms cultivated by the settlements and 25 hectares by Palestinians. By 2016, these areas had increased to 2,560 hectares and 1,584 hectares, respectively.
The Water Issue
Agronomists and economists generally approve of this agricultural transformation. On the Palestinian side, half of the land under date palm cultivation in 2016 had previously been desert, while the other half had been used primarily to grow crops for the local market. These crops—vegetables, grains, and bananas—generated little foreign exchange. Medjool dates, on the other hand, are exported with very high added value. Their contribution to GDP is incomparable to that of previous crops. Furthermore, a date palm requires little water for evapotranspiration—about one-third of what a banana tree needs. Date palms tolerate relatively salty irrigation water. In an arid environment, they appear to be the ideal crop rotation choice.
The Israeli government developed infrastructure to transport wastewater from the Jerusalem area, Ma’ale Adumim, and Bethlehem to a series of reservoirs and treatment plants scattered along the Jordan Valley. The settlements irrigate their date palms entirely with this wastewater. In contrast, Palestinian farmers, with the exception of a few hectares in Jericho, irrigate their date palms by drawing on groundwater. Demographic changes in the region mean that the supply of wastewater will increase in the future. Conversely, groundwater is becoming increasingly saline. Uncertainty regarding the future of their water supply constitutes the greatest risk facing Palestinian investors.
The interests of Palestinian agricultural businesses
On the Palestinian side, the expansion of date palm plantations is primarily driven by agribusinesses whose executives live in Rawabi, Ramallah, or Jerusalem—far from the Jordan Valley. This elite often studied at top American universities and speaks the language of the globalized elite. These executives are urging European donors to fund wastewater reuse projects in the Jordan Valley similar to those developed by Israel for the settlers.
At the same time, they understand that the least expensive and most technically reliable solution would be to connect to the Israeli sewage network. Is it any wonder that Palestinian business leaders were invited by the United States to the conference held in Bahrain from June 25 to 27, 2019? The United States did not discuss its plan with the Palestinian Authority but sought to ally itself with the Palestinian economic elites. Its economic plan specifies that it aims to “increase Palestinian farmers’ ability to shift their efforts toward higher-value crops and give them the opportunity to use modern agricultural techniques.” The projects outlined in this plan—such as cold storage facilities, wastewater networks, and “critical connections”—are clearly designed to support Palestinian date palm agribusinesses.
The negative effects of agricultural transformation
Our research has revealed several harmful effects of the introduction of date palms. While they are seen as a way to reduce water consumption in agriculture, they have had the opposite effect. For one thing, they require more water than the minimum needed for their evapotranspiration. They must be sprayed to prevent mold in February, for example. On the other hand, palm trees planted on previously unirrigated land have created a new demand for water. Finally, drip irrigation in an area with very little rainfall leads to soil salinization because the salt is never leached out. Over time, this renders the land barren. This does not bother agribusinesses, which do not buy their land but prefer to lease it for a period of 40 years.
Far more significant, however, is the impact of date palms on sharecroppers. Agribusinesses that introduce date palms are laying off sharecroppers. They hire seasonal workers for two months a year during the harvest. Agribusinesses fence off their plots, thereby preventing access to wild plants like khubbezeh, a highly nutritious variety of mallow that ensures food security for the poor. No one can live on the fenced-off land anymore. Previously, sharecroppers lived on the land they cultivated. They were self-sufficient in food. The shift to seasonal workers therefore causes sharecroppers to lose their food security, job security, and housing security. Our research has shown that between 1999 and 2016, at least 7,567 members of sharecropper families were displaced by date palm plantations—a significant population given the 51,410 inhabitants of the two governorates where dates are grown. The accelerated expansion of date palm plantations since 2016 has exacerbated this phenomenon.
Driven from their homes and left without economic activity for ten months of the year, tenant farmers and their families are being displaced from the valley by an economic process of agricultural transformation led by Palestinian agribusinesses, which are partly supported by European donors. Stripped of its Palestinian inhabitants, the Jordan Valley becomes a prime target for annexation by Israel, which can thus incorporate the land without incorporating a non-Jewish population.
Julie Trottier, Director of Research CNRS, specialist in the Palestinian territories, ART-Dev, UMR 5281, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.