Water distrubution!

In the The Jerusalem Post the article tittled “Water Authority: Amnesty Didn’t Consult Us Over Critical report” written by Ehud Zion Waldoks provides a few points that required the use of conceptual analysis. The Israel and Palestinian governments are having difficulties dividing up the water resource that are shared between their land. Due to this concern, both the Water Authority and Amnesty International were involved in the debate. Here are a few points I would like to highlight the idea of conceptual analysis:

“Revoke all outstanding orders for demolitions and prohibit further demolitions of water facilities” (Waldoks, 2009)

The phrase above taken from the article is the final recommendations the Amnesty International suggests. The keyword that is of focus is: Demolitions. By using this word I think the Amnesty reporter is referring to the illegal wells and pollution that the Palestinians cause damage to. However in another perspective the word could also refer to the continuous debate the two counties (Israel and Palestine) are having over the water. Due to this the problem it must come to an agreement so future arguments will not occur. As you can see the word can have two different meanings all together; the word demolition in general means explosives. This can cause misunderstanding to the meaning of the phrase, since no explosives or weapons were mentioned in the article.

The second term that conceptual analysis is required is: Outstanding orders. The Amnesty reporter could have meant a few things. The first meaning of what the reporter is trying to convey is that both groups (Israel and Palestine) have disagreements and need to be worked towards an agreement. For this reason the reporter has referred to it as outstanding orders seeing as the agreement is the first step towards any change between the two groups. Another meaning the reporter could be relating is the actions taken by the Palestinians to illegally obtain water. This term could also be misunderstood because in the context of the phrase it does not say what is outstanding. There could be many outstanding issues between the two groups. When using the term outstanding the phrase could refer to anything of importance that is occurring. Since the phrase does not refer to anything important it could be easily misunderstood.

The idea of a conceptual analysis is the understanding that if a certain condition is not met it can affect the condition that is being applied to be applied improperly or perhaps misunderstood. However if the condition is met, the condition will be applied with clarity. Just like the example that was chosen, the condition was that: all outstanding orders must be demolished. Without understanding what the reporters definition of those words can lead to confusion or misunderstanding of what he/she is attempting to do. Therefore conditions must be clearly constructed to define its meaning with words that may be misinterpreted.

Reference:

Waldoks, Ehud Z. "Water Authority blasts Amnesty on report." Jerusalem Post. Jerusalem Post. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. .