YouSaid · the spoken record

Majdalani

lines on the record

15

first

2019-04-29

most recent

2022-01-19

sittings or episodes

2

sources

un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “Failure to act now will only deepen existing Palestinian water and food insecurity, poverty and frustration. The difficult realities on the ground in the occupied West Bank and Gaza contribute directly and indirectly to unrest, with security implications for all in our region. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has indeed identified our region as a climate hotspot. We have a strong interest in acting now and see an opportunity to do so. We call on the Security Council to consider our model of a Green Blue Deal for the Middle East to be a practical and attainable path towards achieving climate security and water diplomacy. We believe that climate issues need to be an integral part of the Middle East peace process, in order to advance the two-State solution within the 1967 borders.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

2. “The Oslo Accords from the mid-1990s still govern the water-allocation status between Palestinians and Israelis, where Israel takes the lion’s share of natural water resources. The failure to make progress in the peace process means that Palestinian water rights are not yet met from shared aquifer sources and the Jordan River. Water issues remain, together with refugees, borders, illegal settlements and the status of Jerusalem, which will have to be resolved as a single package. Natural population growth and economic development have only increased Palestinian water needs, forcing the Palestinian Authority to purchase large quantities of desalinated water from Israel, at an average cost of 250 million shekels annually, putting additional pressure on the fragile Palestinian economy.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

3. “If only I could entice members of the Council to visit Yatta, the third largest community in the West Bank, where water supply is as little as 30 litres per capita per day, which is far below the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization. Water insecurity is most severe in Area C, where the military occupation still impedes access to water and electricity. In Gaza, the situation is even more dire, where 97 per cent of aquifer water for domestic water supply is of a quality not suitable for human consumption. During the long summer months, Palestinian families need to strictly control how much water they consume and purchase water from water trucks at prices 10 to 20 times the cost of municipal water, leaving the family with very little to live on in terms of food and other basic needs.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

4. “Our simulation game benefits decision makers, activists, journalists and others for second-track discussions on water and energy security. Our Impact Investment programme is supporting several green businesses, all led by local entrepreneurs, with elements of cross- border cooperation and knowledge transfer. We have advocated and helped raise investments worth over $500 million for Jordanian and Palestinian water and sanitation infrastructure projects that address local and cross-border environmental concerns. The water crisis in Palestine is the result of the political conflict, poor infrastructure, internal management issues, and now climate change.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

5. “Thanks to the Governments that support our work, including Sweden, the United States of America, Germany and others who sit in the Security Council, we witness the importance and quick returns of our work on the ground. Our educational programme is creating a cohort of young leaders, skilled professionals and creative individuals who understand their own national realities and interests and are eager to cooperate with their neighbours to find solutions. During the past four years alone, we have reached out to 40,000 students, young professionals and teachers. Our virtual-reality platform, which we created with the help of young Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian engineers, is recognized as a useful educational tool by various prestigious institutions for higher-education programmes on water diplomacy.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

6. “Our call for a Green Blue Deal for the Middle East could turn the region from a source of disturbing news into a recognized positive model for climate diplomacy and cooperation. The Deal proposes creating regional linkages and healthy interdependencies by the exchange of renewable energy and water. It also promotes taking proactive steps towards rehabilitating one of the most recognized water bodies in the world, the Jordan River, and the sustainable development around the entire watershed by initiating green businesses and jobs. The Deal addresses Palestinian water rights within a revised framework that is different from the all-or-nothing approach, with a view towards bringing water to every Palestinian home at no cost to Israel’s water security.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

7. “Following the United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow, our hope is that world leaders will walk us down a path that comprises serious steps towards greater opportunities, not just to build back better, but to build forward towards the best possibilities. I appear before the Security Council today as part of an extraordinary and brave group of Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli environmentalists. Together with my counterparts, Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director, and Yana Abu Taleb, Jordanian Director, we are leading EcoPeace Middle East, an organization committed to the principles of justice, peace, dignity, prosperity for all and the well-being of our shared environment and planet.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

8. “Ms. Majdalani: I am a mother of two. I relate to the helpless feelings of Gazan parents seeing the heartbreaking images of children being rescued during this week’s flash floods in Gaza and of others taking shelter under homes with roofs made of plastic sheets. Children in Gaza my daughter’s age are growing up in a reality that no child in the world should experience: shortages of water, long dark, cold nights without electricity or fuel, wars, and close to 15 years of blockade that have resulted in medical and food insecurity. Added to this now are the catastrophes of climate change. Yes, we see it with our own eyes, today in Gaza, affecting the lives of 2 million people. We as humans, activists, professionals and decision makers have a compelling obligation to prevent further humanitarian and environmental crisis.”

   2022-01-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8950 (2022) · source

9. “While most of the world is fearful of a 2°C increase in average temperatures, the Middle East is concerned about a 4°C increase. Building on the examples I have presented, we come here with a powerful message to our own Governments and to the members of the Security Council. We together face a common threat due to conflict and climate-induced water scarcity. Climate change does not differentiate between the stronger and weaker side of the conflict. Action is needed today. A reassessment of assumptions, a rejection of unilateralism and an effort to advance cross-border water cooperation is needed as a matter of national and regional stability and security.”

   2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source

10. “The impacts of climate change over the past decade have further brought to the fore the importance of our argument and the urgency for policy change. The past 20 years have witnessed recurring drought, the deepest droughts in our recorded history. They have contributed to wider cross-border implications on increased water scarcity, political instability and increased refugee and humanitarian crises in our region. If no immediate action is taken against the Gaza crisis today, the international community should be ready for more refugee boats. As a civil society organization, during our latest conference we were able to convene senior representatives from our three Governments, who all agreed that climate change presents itself as a threat multiplier in relation to our water security.”

    2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source

11. “For the very reasons I have just mentioned, EcoPeace has designed an integrated master plan for the Jordan Valley, which could turn around a valley of poverty and despair into one of shared prosperity for all communities from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, based on principles of sustainable development and equal opportunities and in the framework of the two-State solution along the 1967 borders. EcoPeace has advocated that solving water issues cannot wait. We argue that water issues and obtaining Palestinian water rights can no longer be delayed owing to a failure to agree on all other final-status issues. The terms and mechanisms set out in the Oslo Accords on transboundary water and wastewater management are today failing Palestinian, and even Israeli, sustainable development needs.”

    2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source

12. “Amin visited the Baptism Site with EcoPeace more than 50 years later, and he was in total shock. The mighty river he recalled had become a trickle. Like other refugees and residents, when Amin and his family look at the Jordan Valley they see a complex political reality that works against even their basic needs. Restricted access to water, the confiscation of land for the expansion ofillegal settlements and talk of a looming annexation of Area C makes them even more determined not to give up on a better future.”

    2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source

13. “EcoPeace revealed to the public that the Ashkelon desalination plant, which provides 15 per cent of the drinking water in Israel, has been intermittently closed due to the pollution carried by the currents from Gaza beaches towards the north. That is a big lesson to us all: water and the environment know no borders or boundaries. The demise of the Jordan River is another example of the environmental cost we pay for the broader Arab- Israeli conflict. Amin, the father ofan EcoPeace activist, lived his childhood on the banks ofthe Jordan River. He remembers its waters as being clear and fast-flowing. His family used to fish and pump water from the river to irrigate their fields. Following the occupation of the West Bank, in 1967, Amin and his family lost access to the river's banks and to their rightful share of its waters.”

    2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source

14. “After more than 12 years of blockade, consecutive wars and loss of life, including children, and the failure of internal Palestinian reconciliation, a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip is happening right now, right before our eyes. Rather than be negligent, Gidon and I are here before the Security Council, together with Yana, the Jordanian Director of EcoPeace Middle East, as part of a dedicated team that refuses to allow our children and our environment to remain hostage to the conflict. We are here to impress upon members that water and climate security issues are critical for a better future for all the people in our region. While politicians can speak of a disengagement policy, the fact is that we cannot disengage from our shared environment.”

    2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source

15. “Ms. Majdalani: On a hot summer day in 2017, the family of a 5-year-old boy, Mohammad, decided to escape the harsh realities of Gaza by going to the beach. His parents did not realize that the nearby stream flowing into the sea was full of raw sewage. Later that evening all of Mohammed's family fell terribly ill; within 10 days Mohammad was dead. A virus attacked his brain after he swam in polluted waters. As we speak today, 97 per cent of the Gaza's groundwater is not suitable for human consumption, and 30 per cent of illnesses in Gaza are from waterborne pathogens. With an average of four hours of daily power supply, wastewater facilities fail to operate, daily emptying the equivalent of 34 Olympic-sized swimming pools of raw sewage into the Mediterranean Sea.”

    2019-04-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8517 (2019) · source