The political economy and ecology of water: A contribution to rewrite the history of the Arab -Israeli struggle

This study investigates two interrelated aspects of the Arab-Israeli struggle. The first aspect is the discursive formations as expressed in historiography and the second is the ecological aspect as expressed in the water issue. Using political-economy, this study demonstrates that both aspects may be explained in terms of a sole causal aspect, namely capital accumulation.;Two main theses constitute the core of this study. First, the different historical narratives of the Arab-Israeli struggle are discursive expressions of the mode of capital accumulation and the structure of class struggle. That is, each narrative is seen as a quest for a particular mode of capital accumulation and as an expression of the class structure. Therefore, each historical narrative is historically situated in order to explain its social origins as well as explain its arguments. Second, the water crisis is a product of both the social and the ecological systems. However, the primacy in this formulation goes to the social system. It is, therefore, a prerequisite to resolve the problem focusing on the social system.;This study historically situates the struggle, the different historical narratives, and water crisis through a suggested thesis on the development of capitalism in Palestine in order to distinguish between causal aspects of the struggle and water crisis on one hand, and their phenomenal expressions on the other hand. The thesis on the development of capitalism in Palestine is constructed upon the notion of periodization of capitalism in Palestine, which is seen to have gone through discreet periods of development. Each period is distinguished with a particular class formation and a particular regime of capital accumulation that shaped the development of the struggle and created and shaped the water problem as well.;Using a political economic approach that combines both "Historical Materialism" and the "Raw Materials' Perspective", this study investigates the two theses in detail. The main historical narratives are analyzed and historically situated. The analysis of the water problem is explained in terms of both the ecological and social origin. Unequal access to water and unequal distribution, together with the ecological dimension of the problem (i.e., unavailability) are analyzed as a consequence of the social system in general and the code of distribution in particular.;Furthermore, the ecological aspect is perceived primarily as an outcome of the social system itself (i.e., intensive irrigation as a consequence of the capitalization of agriculture). The current water problem is used in this study as an exemplar of inequality, which represents the driving force in history and in the history of the Arab-Israeli struggle.;Water, this study argues, has become a new arena of social inequality that is taking place across class lines. Water distribution, both in terms of quality and quantity, is an essential element of the development of the Arab-Israeli struggle in the sense that it represents from the beginning an arena of inequality, hence an additional driving force of the conflict other than labor exploitation and market control.