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The Jordan Valley Solidarity campaign warns of new Israeli colonialist action which is aimed at reclassifying land surrounding the Dead Sea as “state land.” As state land the Dead Sea is entitled to what is known as the “council of colonies” in the Jordan Valley. This act has been used as a tool through which the occupation in the Jordan Valley is maintained and further land acquired for the colonialists.

There are 37 illegal Israeli colonies in the Jordan valley, these colonies control around 1200 square km, which account for 50% of the total land in the Jordan valley. The purpose of the new plan is to circumvent the fact that the Dead Sea area is currently considered an “historical legacy and international tourist area” – a classification that curtails development in the region. This reclassification of the Dead Sea and the land around it to the status of “state land” means that the occupation authorities would be able to set up new colonies and developed Israeli tourism in the area.

Colonial schemes have been in place since Israel occupied the Jordan Valley in 1967. Israel has rented the shores of the Dead Sea to colonial tourist companies and other private companies to extract metal, and Israeli potash factories are one of the key factors contributing to low water levels in the Dead Sea. Israel has also proceeded to transfer most of the water to the south of Palestine in a known plan to “turn the Naqab (Negev) desert to a paradise on the earth.” The policy has had an inverse effect in the Jordan Valley, where fertile agricultural land has been turned into desert, destroying wildlife, nature and the fabric of Palestinian society in the valley. Segments of the Palestinian population who once lived on the river banks of the Jordan River have disappeared from the valley, and much of the tourist industry in the city of Jericho has been wipe out. Instead of looking for ways to develop the tourism sector and revive the lives of the people in Jericho Israel’s goal has been only to preserve the Dead Sea, starting projects to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

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Israel’s new plan for the Jordan Valley is one of the most dangerous plans yet. If applied, this plan will annex new land to Israeli colonies, consolidating Israel’s control over the borders of the West Bank and crippling the Palestinian economy in the Jordan Valley, which relies on agriculture and tourism.