https://www.pengon.org/writable/uploads/Briefing%20on%20Mekorot%20-%20FP9.pdf

Mekorot is the Israeli state water company. It has monopoly control over all water sources in the occupied Palestinian territory and diverts most of the water to illegal Israeli settlements, leaving Palestinians with chronic water shortages. UN reports have criticised Mekorot’s role in Israeli violations of international law, in particular its deep and clear participation in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian land.

Mekorot since the 1950s is running Israel’s national water carrier and is responsible over a single integrated water management system that includes as core areas of water supply the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. This implies that any of Mekorot’s operations affects the entire system and makes ‘differentiation’ as mandated by EU policies and international law impossible. 

Despite this, Mekorot continues to participate in EU funding projects. This completely ignores and runs counter to the repeated calls of the European Parliament, MEPs and civil society for the EU Commission to ensure that “no settlement-related activity can benefit from any EU cooperation programme such as Horizon 2020”.

The technology developed and made available with EU funding risks being applied by Mekorot to maintain the large part of its operations that are illegal activities in Israel’s settlement enterprise. 

This shows the failure of the application of the 2013 guidelines in effectively achieving Israeli accountability for its violations of international law and human rights and with this the failure of the EU to comply with its obligations under international law. 

In order not to aid and abet the Israeli settlement project, we recommend the European Union to immediately exclude Mekorot from FP9 and all other financial instruments. 

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