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WATER DIPLOMACYviolence, loss of hope and trust and that it must speakto the immediate concerns of people. While FoEME’sseries of policy papers on protecting the MountainAquifer from sewage and solid waste pollution reflectthe continued top-down advocacy work carried out atthis time, the idea of complementing these top-downadvocacy efforts with bottom-up community-led activismwas born sometime during this interim phase. Bycoincidence, when funding was finally secured forthe Good Water Neighbors project in late 2000, thenew cross-border community-based effort was almostcancelled with the outbreak of all-out violence in 2001.Funders believed that cross-border efforts were nolonger viable. However, FoEME was able to convincefunders that community-level cooperation was possibleand the project was launched in early 2001, initiallyinvolving 11 communities – five Palestinian, five Israeliand one Jordanian.The inception of the Good Water Neighbors projectmarked the beginning of the third phase of FoEME’swork and launched the process of consolidating its waterdiplomacy. The organization had realized that in orderto remain relevant, it had to complement its top-downapproach with grass-roots actions undertaken throughdialogue, confidence building and cooperation activitiesfocused on actual cross-border resources that coulddirectly benefit people. The project was designed to raiseawareness of the shared water problems of Palestinian,Jordanian and Israeli communities, and harness residentsand municipal staff to the task of changing reality on theground. Based on identifying cross-border communitiesand utilizing their mutual dependence on shared waterresources as a basis for developing dialogue and cooperaterm‘peace process’ itself was associated with negative connotationsof increased violence and preserving the status quo. The ensuingchanges in political conditions, public opinion and national moodamong the three peoples have cast FoEME into a period of greatturmoil both internally and externally. The overdevelopment thathad been proposed by the governments was now seen as a pipedream, not within reach and no longer politically relevant. FoEMEitself was increasingly being condemned and attacked as an armof this failed peace effort. In what can be seen now as a transitionperiod lasting until 2001, FoEME began focusing on how therenewed conflict was holding the need to more fairly allocate sharedwaters hostage to the lack of advancement of the peace process.As part of this change, FoEME started to use its experience inaddressing cross-border water issues to shape a coherent water diplomacydesigned to implement adaptive methods of joint managementand allocation of shared waters, thus transforming shared watersfrom a source of conflict into one of cooperation. This approach wasbased on the understanding that all parties involved in the regionshould be convinced that water is a flexible resource, and that “byusing processes and mechanisms to focus on building and enhancingtrust, even countries in conflict can reach agreements that satisfytheir citizens’ water needs and their national interests”. 2FoEME’s early work on the issues of sustainable development ofthe Dead Sea can now be seen as an important milestone in theshaping of the organization’s water diplomacy during this interimperiod. The need for cross-border cooperation to create a holisticvision for a shared natural resource for the sake of the medium andlong-term interests of the three peoples has remained a basic principleof its work on all shared waters in the region – albeit now asa challenge to create in the midst of continued occupation, conflictand violence. But even prior to the outbreak of the Second Intifadain 2001, FoEME understood that medium and long-term interestswere not sufficiently relevant in the midst of ever-increasingImage: FoEMEImage: FoEMEFoEME’s community projects and advocacy efforts brought mayors from Israel,Jordan and Palestine to an event in the Jordan River, with a clear and joint messageto their governments: “Rehabilitate the Jordan River!”FoEME’s “Good Water Neighbors” project brings neighbouringPalestinian and Israeli Mayors to sign on an MoU to cooperate overshared water issues[ 29 ]