The next climate conference (COP 31) will take place in Antalya, Turkey, in November 2026, with the preparatory meetings being held in Bonn from June 8 to 18. There, civil society groups will present proposals to combat the climate catastrophe—this year, with a particular focus on opposing so-called “false solutions” (which are typically capital-intensive technological measures). One such measure is the Green Blue Deal between Israel, Jordan, and Palestine.
EcoPeace Middle East is a unique organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists. Its primary objective is to foster collaborative efforts to protect the region’s shared natural heritage. In doing so, the organization aims both to drive sustainable regional development and to create the necessary conditions for lasting peace in the region.
Since its founding on December 7, 1994, water has been a central theme of its work. EcoPeace conducts educational outreach (offering programs for children, youth, and educators) and maintains eco-parks in all three countries.
The Palestinian EcoPark is an environmental education center located in Al Auja (AEC); as recently as 2017, EcoPeace was still speaking enthusiastically about the water spring. On April 6, 2024, Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich personally oversaw the seizure of the Al Auja spring by settlers. Since then, they have controlled the water; previously, the community of Al Auja had always been the guardian of the water. Since January 25, the neighboring village of Ras Ein al Auja has been wiped out, and more than 600 people have been displaced; while Haaretz has reported on this, EcoPeace remains silent on the matter on its website. Palestinians perceive this as a catastrophe—a continuation of the Nakba dating back to 1948—and as a struggle for their very existence.
(Photo Credit: btselem.org)
Initially, EcoPeace was affiliated with Friends of the Earth and was known as Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME). During the Second Intifada (starting in 2000), they established the objective of playing a leading role in peacebuilding through grassroots initiatives—implemented via dialogue, confidence-building measures, and cooperative activities—that focus on shared cross-border resources intended to directly benefit the people. Their “Good Water Neighbors” program was launched in 2005 and was subsequently evaluated as a success in 2015.
Good Water Neighbors
“Good Water Neighbors” signifies that communities situated along the respective borders of Jordan, Israel, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories cooperate with one another on water-related issues.
In the case of Wadi Fukin—a Palestinian village situated along the border with Israel—it is evident today that the program has succeeded in fostering dialogue between individuals from Wadi Fukin and Tsur Hadassa, and has brought about temporary environmental improvements. However, it has failed to prevent the neighboring (illegal) settlement of Beitar Illit from continuing its relentless expansion (now home to over 64,000 residents), from allowing its sewage to flow downhill into Palestinian fields, and from causing an increasing number of wells in Wadi Fukin to run dry. Meanwhile, Tsur Hadassa is also expanding—as an illegal settlement—beyond Israel’s pre-1967 borders and onto the lands of Wadi Fukin. In her 2017–18 doctoral dissertation, the Italian scholar Anita de Donato demonstrated just how controversial the “Good Water Neighbors” project is on the ground, and established that it is by no means leading to an end to the occupation or to a lasting, just peace.
Kisan, South of Bethlehem: Israeli and Palestinian access to water (copyright Helga Merkelbach)
Within the FoME organization, disputes arose over the argument that cross-border cooperation would fail to dismantle Israeli hegemony or bring an end to the occupation; consequently, it was argued, no genuine peace would be achieved—but rather, on the contrary, resistance to the occupation would be placated and the state of occupation normalized. The NGO subsequently continued its work under its current name: EcoPeace Middle East.
Friends of the Earth (FoE) has been affiliated since 2008 with the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON—FoE Palestine), which was founded in 1996. PENGON takes a clear stance against the occupation: A central objective of PENGON is to ensure that the Palestinian environment is viewed within the context of the occupation. Therefore, PENGON advocates for environmental efforts to go hand in hand with social justice concerns, and for social, economic, and cultural rights to be integrated as part of environmental protection and defense. PENGON places particular emphasis on international awareness-raising, advocacy, and mobilization, and focuses on South-South cooperation to support its efforts.
However, EcoPeace Middle East is the NGO that receives international backing and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 (together with Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun). This is likely due primarily to the continued Israeli leadership of Gideon Bromberg, whose tenacious lobbying—in keeping with EcoPeace’s “top-down” principle—has established him as a well-known and recognized representative of EcoPeace among local stakeholders, foreign politicians, at the EU and UN levels, and at international conferences. The Palestinian and Jordanian branches are led by two qualified young women who deliver outstanding presentations in their advocacy work, yet who, for their part, have not—at least not yet—attained the same level of public recognition.
The “bottom-up—top-down” strategy initially centered on efforts to prevent the demise of the Dead Sea. The water level of the Dead Sea has been dropping ever since water began being diverted from the Jordan River—via the National Water Carrier (1964) and originating from the Sea of Galilee—to supply households, agriculture, and industry across Israel from north to south.
In 1967, Israel issued a military order prohibiting Palestinians from drawing water from the Jordan River (a ban that does not apply to Israeli settlers). Through its occupation of the Golan Heights, Israel today controls two of the Jordan’s three headwaters—the Dan and the Banias; furthermore, since August 2024, the Israeli military has not withdrawn from southern Lebanon, where the third headwater, the Hasbani, flows. Israel’s war in Lebanon—ongoing since October 7, 2023, and having intensified in parallel with its attack on Iran beginning February 28, 2026—has resulted in the displacement of the population from southern Lebanon. Southern Lebanon is increasingly being razed to the ground and remains under Israeli occupation. Consequently, the third headwater of the Jordan River has also come under Israeli control.
View across the Jordan Valley toward Jordan, featuring an extensive restricted area and prohibited access to the Jordan River (Copyright: Helga Merkelbach)
The Green-Blue Deal
In 2020, the three directors of EcoPeace published “A Green Blue Deal for the Middle East.” Since 2000, Israel had been suffering from increasingly frequent and severe droughts; consequently, in 2005, it opened its first seawater desalination plant in Ashkelon. This was followed by additional plants in Sorek, Hadera, Ashdod, and Palmachim, which together meet approximately 80% of Israel’s drinking water demand. Sorek II is currently under construction, with the goal of doubling water production capacity by 2030. These facilities require vast amounts of energy to operate—energy that Israel initially generated using imported coal. However, since the discovery of the major Tamar (2009) and Leviathan (2010) gas fields off the coast, electricity has been generated using natural gas. Based on this context, EcoPeace formulated its “Green-Blue Deal” in 2020: Jordan, whose population consists of more than 50% refugees, suffers from extreme water scarcity. These refugees include Palestinians displaced during the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 war, as well as Syrians and Iraqis. Israel blocks the return of Palestinian refugees (despite the provisions of UN Resolution 194 of 1948) and permits no non-Jewish immigration or asylum whatsoever. The EcoPeace Deal proposes that Jordan produce solar energy (green) and supply it to Israel in exchange for water (blue).
In the 1994 peace treaty, Israel pledged 50 million cubic meters of water per year to Jordan. In 2021, Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed upon the “Green Blue Deal,” a proposal put forward by EcoPeace: The UAE would construct solar power facilities in Jordan, which would then supply solar energy to Israel; in exchange, Jordan would receive an additional 50 million cubic meters of water. This water is sourced from the Jordan River and its tributary—the Yarmouk—which flows through Jordan; at a later stage, it is also to be supplied by seawater desalination plants. Manal Shqair demonstrates that this water is, in fact, water that Israel—through its occupation of the Golan Heights (and, consequently, of the majority of the Jordan River’s tributaries)—had diverted from the Sea of Galilee exclusively into Israeli territory. In other words, Israel, through war and conquest, had deprived Jordan of its water and is now selling it back to them.
In 2024—amidst the war in Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023—EcoPeace updated the Green Blue Deal to include Gaza and the West Bank. The plan involves utilizing the reverse flow of the National Water Carrier to sell 90 million cubic meters of water from Gaza—sourced from a planned large-scale facility with a capacity of 200 million cubic meters—to Jordan. In return, electricity generated by Jordanian solar parks is to be transmitted to the West Bank and Gaza via PENRA (the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority) in Jericho.
To save the Dead Sea and the Jordan River, EcoPeace proposed supplying the Sea of Galilee with desalinated seawater from the Israeli coast. The entire ecosystem of the dried-up Kishon River was restored in this manner, transforming it into a natural recreational area. Mekorot initiated a “National Carrier Reverse Program,” shifting the flow of water from its traditional north-to-south direction to a south-to-north one; to supply Israeli consumers—particularly those in Jerusalem—water pipelines had to be constructed running from west to east, and pumping stations installed. Previously, the natural gradient had largely sufficed for transporting water from north to south. The “5th Waterline to Jerusalem” project involved the construction of Israel’s longest tunnel: a steel-lined conduit with a diameter of 2.6 meters, situated within a 3.9-meter-wide excavated tunnel. This project was commissioned by MWC (Mekorot, Israel’s National Water Company) and awarded to the Austrian firm Strabag International, at a value of 178.8 million Euros. Following a construction period spanning from 2016 to 2022, desalinated water flows from the coast to Jerusalem.
To date, the implementation of EcoPeace’s ideas has done nothing to alter the fact that Palestinians have been permanently deprived of the water beneath their feet and the water from the Jordan River. Producing water in seawater desalination plants has more than secured the drinking water supply for Israelis while simultaneously restoring damaged river systems. Palestinians and Jordanians remain dependent on purchasing what is effectively “Israeli” water—water that is physically delivered by Israel and Mekorot. It is highly probable that only foreign and Israeli investment can provide the necessary tools to realize the “Green Blue Deal”; that the state-owned water company, Mekorot, will retain control and capture the profits; that water will be commodified, with access to this commodity regulated by price or market forces; and that control over the water will not rest with those on whose land it flows or beneath whose land it exists as an aquifer.
The Commodification of Water and the Perpetuation of Systemic Dependencies
All in all, this constitutes a profitable technological project that serves to reinforce—rather than alleviate—the dependency of the Jordanian and Palestinian people. Moreover, it leaves the reality of the occupation entirely unchanged.
Due to its world-leading innovations and management expertise in the fields of water conservation, recycling, desalination, and drip irrigation, Israel is widely regarded as a global water superpower. Consequently, the country has transformed itself from a water-scarce desert nation into a largely water-secure state—one that exports its expertise and technology worldwide, offering solutions to global water crises. This narrative, however, conveniently overlooks the fact that the Negev Desert has historically not been a priority for economic development, and that for a long time, Israeli agriculture was concentrated primarily in the north, situated on the water-rich lands of the territories conquered in 1948. Since 1967, the aquifers located in the West Bank have been kept under Israeli control and withheld from the Palestinian population. Only fixed and limited quantities are (re)sold to the Palestinian people, while abundant water supplies are made available to Israel and its illegal settlements. This access enables settlers to produce agricultural goods—some of which are even available in Europe—that are not labeled as products of (illegal) settlements, but rather bear the label “Made in Israel.”
EcoPeace Middle East has explicitly linked two themes that remain almost entirely neglected at major global climate summits: peace, and climate/environmental protection.
Through its Water-Neighborhood Program, EcoPeace has brought Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians into direct contact with one another; in doing so, the organization has undoubtedly begun to challenge entrenched narratives and may well have set an example of what reconciliation work could look like following a final peace settlement. – At this juncture, it tends to entrench the status quo: the theft of Palestinian water to ensure an optimal Israeli water supply, rather than the realization of the human right to water.
The Blue Green Deal was initiated through an official agreement between Jordan and Israel. The aspect of peace, however, is not addressed in this context. This is due, not least, to the fact that representatives of EcoPeace—in order to maintain lines of communication with, and thus influence over, government circles (both domestic and international)—do not explicitly speak out against the illegal occupation, and certainly do not call for pressure to be exerted on the Israeli government.
Thus, while EcoPeace Middle East has indeed been able to influence the Israeli government with its proposals regarding water, it has done nothing to alter Israel’s occupation of—and control over—the Palestinian territories (and, by extension, their water resources). On the contrary, in addition to the direct rule maintained through military force, it has created a systemic dependency that would remain difficult to dismantle even after the establishment of a politically free and independent Palestine: water would remain a commodity, regulated according to market-based principles.
For the upcoming climate conference (COP 31), it would be crucial to bring into focus the nexus between war, occupation, and militarization on the one hand, and climate change, the environment—and, above all, water—on the other. However, false solutions—such as those currently proposed by EcoPeace and embraced by Israel and the international political community—must be strictly rejected; for, as is evident in the West Asian region, they neither foster peace nor avert the climate catastrophe; on the contrary, they serve only to exacerbate existing conditions.
