Analysis
Israel’s Mekorot weaponizes water in foreign deserts – now in Patagonia
The Israeli company is responsible for continuous violations of human rights in Palestine, where the Israeli monopoly over water resources – or, to put it another way, its water theft – is one of the weapons being used to weaken the resistance of the Palestinian population.
Israel has bought all of Patagonia's water. It did so through its National Water Company (Mekorot), the Tel Aviv-based parastatal multi-utility company that now manages 80 percent of Palestine's water resources. But what is Mekorot?
If one browses the company's website, one will find a perfectly manicured celebration of the myth of Israel's founding, describing how Mekorot built “the first water plant in Israel’s arid south … to make the desert bloom.”
“Everything that Mekorot does is for the Israeli people: the family at home, the farmer in the field, the worker in industry,” it claims. Of course, one need not bother to try to search the website of these benefactors for even a hint of the existence of the Palestinian people.
Since its foundation in 1937, 11 years before the birth of Israel, Mekorot has shown a strong impulse to expand outside its borders, offering cutting-edge management and technical solutions to all the world's governments and private companies engaged in projects requiring intensive water use in “hostile” environments – that is, not only on account of the arid conditions of the land, but also because of the impact said projects have on the local population.
The signing of the Abraham Accords on August 3, 2020 between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States permanently removed all barriers to the cross-border expansion of Mekorot, which has now become the most important company governing water infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, after signing deals with Bahrain and Jordan. Other contracts have been signed with Azerbaijan, Morocco, Singapore and, in Europe, with France and none other than Italy.
Italy has been deeply involved with Mekorot, with the controversial agreements between the Israeli company and the multi-utility companies IREN in Reggio Emilia and ACEA in Rome. Thanks to the outraged protests of the committees protecting public water, these agreements for a so-called “strategic partnership” were no longer renewed.
The Israeli company is responsible for continuous violations of human rights in Palestine, where the Israeli monopoly over water resources – or, to put it another way, its water theft – is one of the weapons being used to weaken the resistance of the Palestinian population. The same water that is sold to settlers for three shekels per cubic meter costs Palestinians thirty shekels (about €7.50). A settler in the Occupied Territories has access to a supply of 400 liters per day, while a Palestinian is limited to 60 liters. One should recall that the minimum stipulated by the World Health Organization is 100 liters.
How exactly Mekorot got across the ocean and gained a foothold in Argentina, and what its plans are for the South American continent, is a story that must be told. The door was opened for the Israeli company with an agreement made in 1982 with the military junta in power at the time. The fall of the dictatorship the following year in the aftermath of the Falklands War put a freeze on Mekorot's expansion into Argentina. But everything changed with the arrival of Javier Milei to the presidency and the subsequent approval of the Large Investment Incentive Scheme Plan (RIGI). Thanks to the unconditional support of the government in Buenos Aires, the company now holds in concession the water resources of 13 of the 23 provinces that make up Argentina. As it happens, these are all provinces in the Cordillera, the area richest in springs and rivers.
One of the first legislative acts of “President Chainsaw” was to incentivize foreign investment through the RIGI by eliminating all tax on the profits of companies that make investments of over $200 million. It wasn’t just a total sell-out to corporations, as the opposition parties have denounced: it was a real gift to multinationals.
The sectors affected by the RIGI are infrastructure, oil, energy, forestry and, above all, mining. All are sectors with enormous water consumption. For just one example: to obtain half a gram of gold, one has to grind a ton of rock and put it through a process called “cyanidation” that involves arsenic and other pollutants.
Then the products have to be washed with tons of water, which is later dumped into rivers. It is also no coincidence that many of Patagonia's landowning “lords,” including the Treviso-based Benetton family, have abandoned the wool and livestock industry to capitalize on the more lucrative mining market by investing in the controversial Compañia de Tierras Sud, which controls almost all of Patagonia's open-pit mines.
At this point, Mekorot's mission seems clear: to find the necessary water resources for the industry and, at the same time, to suppress the protests of the local populations. Exactly as it does in Palestine.
From the perspective of the anarcho-capitalist Milei, the approval of the RIGI is a textbook chainsaw attack against rights. The plan allows for a total lack of transparency on the agreements signed with Mekorot and allows for ignoring the legal requirement of conducting a public consultation on projects that have a major impact on the environment and the health of citizens. In addition, the RIGI grants legal immunity to multinational extractive companies for harm to the public or the environment and refers all disputes to a private arbitration firm based in London.
As a finishing touch, Milei also authorized the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, to set up a special “Productive Security Unit” with the task of silencing all voices opposing the bulldozers of the extractivist companies. The result has been the criminalization of all resistance by the indigenous peoples of Patagonia, amid arbitrary arrests, trials and violent searches carried out by the military among local communities. All the blame for forest fires and river pollution is being pinned on the Mapuche, who are still persisting in defending Pachamama, the sacred Mother Earth, who gives life to all of Creation.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/patagonia-acqua-avvelenata on 2025-04-08