Israel 1964-1982: "Water Wars" and territorial adjustments
As each state developed unilaterally, their plans began to overlap (see appendix I, maps 4 and 24). The resulting tensions helped lead to a cycle of conflict, which, exacerbated by other disputes, in turn led to war in 1967. Water also emerged as one possible strategic issue in the war in Lebanon in 1982.
A 1963 agreement between Jordanian King Hussein and Ya'akov Herzog, envoy to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, had spelled out an agreement on the allocation of the Jordan River water in return for Israeli acquiescence to US tank sales to Jordan (Kershner 1990, 11). By 1964, Israel had completed enough of its National Water Carrier for actual diversions from the Jordan River basin to the coastal plain and the Negev to be imminent. Although Jordan was also about to begin extracting Yarmuk water for its East Ghor Canal, it was the Israeli diversion that prompted President Nasser to call for the First Arab Summit in January 1964, including heads of state from the region and North Africa, specifically to discuss a joint strategy on water.
The options presented to the Summit were to complain to the United Nations, to divert the upper Jordan tributaries into Arab states (as had been discussed by Syria and Jordan since 1953), or to go to war (Schmida 1983, 19). A military assessment revealed that the Arabs were unprepared for this last option and might be incapable of defending their own river diversions, should they proceed (Stevens 1965, 76). However, the decision to divert the rivers prevailed at a Second Summit in September 1964, and the states agreed to finance a Headwater Diversion project in Lebanon and Syria and to help Jordan build a dam on the Yarmuk. They also made tentative military plans to defend the diversion project (Shemesh 1988, 38).
A two-stage plan, the first full formula for a campaign against Israel, was laid out:
The first stage would involve the diversion of the sources of the Jordan River and the establishment of an effective Arab defense force through the strengthening of the Arab armies. The building up of this (United Arab Command) force would take two and a half to three years, until late 1967 to early 1968. During this period, there would be no full-scale war with Israel.
The second stage would see, "... the liberation of Palestine from imperialism and Zionism." The commander-in-chief of the United Arab Command was ordered to prepare a detailed military plan for Israel's destruction which was approved at the Third (September 1965) Arab Summit. (Shemesh 1988, 39)
The Arab Diversion had its roots in a 1953 agreement between Syria and Jordan for the allocation of water diverted from the Hasbani and/or the Banias into a proposed dam on the Yarmuk. Syria would get three-quarters of the hydropower produced at a dam at Adassiye, and Jordan would get the water, "instead of it going to the Mediterranean, the Dead Sea, or the Jews" (interview, Haddad, November 1991).
An additional strategy was decided upon at the First Summit. The delegates agreed to establish a Palestinian entity to "carry the banner of Arab Palestine" (Stevens 1965, 76), and to mobilize the Palestinians themselves for the eventual "liberation of Palestine" (Shemesh 1988, 37). Yasir Arafat later combined this Palestine Liberation Army with his own Fatah and other groups to form the Palestine Liberation Organization (Cooley 1984, 15). Given its roots, it is not surprising that the nascent PLO's first action was an unsuccessful attempt to sabotage the Israeli National Water Carrier on 31 December 1964. As one associate of Arafat's put it, "The water issue was the crucial one. We considered our impact on this to be the crucial test of our war with Israel" (Dr Nabil al-Shath, cited in Cooley 1984, 15).
In 1964, Israel began withdrawing 320 MCM/yr of Jordan water for its National Water Carrier, and Jordan completed a major phase of its East Ghor Canal (Inbar and Maos 1984, 21). In 1965, the Arab states began construction of their Headwater Diversion Plan to prevent the Jordan headwaters from reaching Israel. The plan was to divert the Hasbani into the Litani in Lebanon and the Banias into the Yarmuk, where it would be impounded for Jordan and Syria by a dam at Mukheiba. The diversion was possible, in part, because of the two strips of land, at the Banias Heights and at el-Hama next to the Yarmuk, which Israel had lost in the fighting in 1948. The plan, to be financed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, was technically difficult and economically inefficient, with water to be pumped as high as 350 m. The diversion would divert up to 125 MCM/yr, cut by 35 per cent the installed capacity of the Israeli Carrier, and increase the salinity in Lake Kinneret by 60 ppm (United States Central Intelligence Agency 1962; Inbar and Maos 1984, 22; Naff and Matson 1984, 43).
Although a 1964 US State Department memorandum concluded that the Arab Diversion seemed "unlikely to cause large-scale hostilities" (US Department of State memorandum 1964), Israel declared the impending diversion as an "infringement of its sovereign rights" (Naff and Matson 1984, 44). To a visiting US delegation, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol declared that "Israel was not trigger-happy, but if it came to it, we would have to fight for our waters" (US Department of State memorandum 1965).
The United States had supported the Israeli Water Carrier within the Johnston allocations and had both opposed the All-Arab Diversion and expressed doubt that it would be completed - Lebanon had stopped work on the diversion project in July 1965 (Hof 1985, 36). It was made clear to Israel, however, that the United States "would oppose you if you take preemptive action" (US Department of State memorandum 1965). Nevertheless, in March, May, and August of 1965, the Israeli army attacked the diversion works in Syria. Partly because of the US warning, however, Israel tried to avoid a full-scale war, using long-range "sniping" with tanks rather than calling for artillery or the air force. This represented a new doctrine for the Israeli Tank Corps, which would lead to important lessons for the impending war (Argaman 1990) (see appendix I, map 25).
These events set off what has been called "a prolonged chain reaction of border violence that linked directly to the events that led to the (June 1967) war" (Professor Nadav Safran, cited in Cooley 1984, 16). Border incidents continued between Israel and Syria, finally triggering air battles in July 1966, and April 1967.
Even as tensions were leading to the following week's outbreak of the SixDay War, the US Departments of Interior and State convened an "International Conference on Water for Peace" in Washington, D.C., during 23-31 May 1967. Building on advances in nuclear energy and the possibility of inexpensive nuclear desalination, President Johnson had, in 1965, announced a "massive, cooperative, international effort to find solutions for Man's water problems, which he dubbed the Water-for-Peace Program" (cited in Skolnikoff 1967, 157). In the 1967 Conference, there were 6,400 participants from 94 countries, including Israel, Egypt (then the "United Arab Republic"), Jordan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia (United States Departments of Interior and State 1967).
In the same month, President Nasser, who had earlier formed the "United Arab Republic" with Syria, demanded the withdrawal of UN forces from the Sinai, announced a blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, cutting off the Israeli port of Eilat, and declared that "the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel." On 5 June, Israel attacked the airfields of Egypt, Jordan,
Iraq, and Syria. Six days later, the war was over and Israel gained possession of the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.
Aside from territorial gains and obvious improvements in geostrategic positioning, Israel had also greatly improved its "hydro-strategic" position (see appendix I, map 4). With the Golan Heights, it now held all of the headwaters of the Jordan, with the exception of a section of the Hasbani, and a commanding position over much of the Yarmuk, together making the Headwater Diversion impossible. The Mukheiba Dam was destroyed and the Maqarin Dam abandoned. The West Bank not only provided riparian access to the entire length of the Jordan River but also overlay three major aquifers, two of which Israel had been tapping into from its side of the Green Line since 1955 (Garbell 1965, 30). Jordan had once planned to transport 70-150 MCM/yr from the Yarmuk River to the West Bank; these plans, too, were abandoned.
In the wake of the 1967 war, former President Eisenhower, who, 10 years earlier, had sent Eric Johnston to the Middle East to negotiate a regional water plan, made public a new cooperation scheme that he, former Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss, and Alvin Weinberg, Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, had formulated and which they called simply "A Proposal for Our Time." Their plan called for three nuclear desalination plants - one each on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt and Israel, and one on the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan - producing a combined output of about 1,400 MCM of fresh water a year (roughly the usable flow of the entire Jordan River) as well as "an enormous amount" of electric power (Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Summary Report 1971; Strauss 1967).
Recently declassified documents show that an additional site was considered, at Gaza (Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Gaza Area 1970). At this site, a major consideration was the possibility of refugee resettlement, although sections of the report dealing with that aspect were excised from declassification (see appendix I, map 26).
As Eisenhower saw it, the availability of these new sources of energy and water would make possible entire "agro-industrial complexes," making an additional 4,500 km2 of barren land arable, and providing work and agriculture to help settle more than a million Arab refugees (Eisenhower 1968). The project, which would cost about US$1,000 million (in 1967 terms), would be funded by an international corporation set up for the purpose, and be supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, Eisenhower predicted that
... the collaboration of Arab and Jew in a practical and profitable enterprise of this magnitude might well be the first, long step toward a permanent peace. (Eisenhower 1968, 77)
In the summer of 1967, Eisenhower communicated his project to President Lyndon Johnson. On 28 July, the State Department announced the appointment of an interim Director of Water for Peace (Strauss 1967, 1008). On 14 August 1967, Senator Howard Baker from Tennessee introduced Senate Resolution 155, which read, in part:
Whereas the security and national interest of the United States require that there be a stable and durable peace in the Middle East; and the greatest bar to a long term settlement of the differences between the Arab and Israeli people is the chronic shortage of fresh water, useful work, and an adequate food supply;
Be it resolved that . . . (providing) large quantities of fresh water to both Arab and Israeli territories and, thereby, will result in -
- new jobs for the many refugees;
- an enormous increase in the agricultural productivity of existing wastelands;
- a broad base for cooperation between the Israeli and Arab Governments; and
- a further demonstration of the United States efforts to find peaceful solutions to areas of conflict.
As the 1960s came to a close, the PLO mounted an intensive guerrilla campaign against Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley. Israeli retaliation raids led to occasional conflict with Jordanian and Iraqi troops stationed in the eastern part of the valley. In April-May 1969, Israeli water authorities measured the Jordan River's base flow to be 686 mm below its average for that period. Suspicion that Jordan was over-diverting the Yarmuk may have combined with Israel's policy of holding the host country partly responsible for Palestinian attacks and led to two Israeli raids in June and August 1969, to destroy one of the most vulnerable targets in Jordan - the East Ghor Canal. The political rationale was that damage to the country's irrigation would pressure King Hussein into action against the PLO.
At the same time, the Jordanian Army, which saw too much latitude in PLO behaviour in Jordan, was putting pressure on the King in the same direction. Secret negotiations in 1969-1970 between Israel and Jordan, mediated by the United States, led to an agreement. Israel was persuaded that the drop in Jordan base flow was natural and Jordan would be allowed to repair the Canal. In exchange, Jordan agreed to adhere to the Johnston Plan allocations and "pledged to terminate PLO activity in Jordan" (Naff and Matson 1984, 55). In "Black September" 1970, the Jordanian Army expelled the PLO from Jordan. Estimates of the number of Palestinians killed in the process are as high as 5,000.
After the expulsion of the PLO, Jordan set out on a two-stage Jordan Valley Development Plan with Crown Prince Hassan, the King's 23-year-old Oxford-educated brother, taking charge (Cooley 1984, 19). The first stage, which included a small "King Talal Dam" on the Zarqa River, new irrigation networking, and catchments on several wadis, was built during the late 1970s, partially with US financing.
During the war between Israel and the combined forces of Egypt and Syria in 1973, water played only an incidental strategic role. Touring the Golan Heights with the then Water Commissioner Menahem Cantor in the fall of 1973, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan expressed concern that Israel's development of small-scale dams on the Golan Heights was proceeding so slowly. Dayan saw the strate gic potential of these dams as tank barricades against Syrian forces. Cantor cited budget limitations, and was given encouragement and budget to proceed more quickly. Dayan was scheduled to tour the sites again on Sunday 7 October, but the war broke out on the previous day. It is unclear how the dams performed in their strategic function (interview, Menahem Cantor, November 1991).
In the mid -1970s, water rationing in large Jordanian cities such as Amman and Irbid pointed to the need for a major water project. The 1975 "seven year plan" included "Stage II" - the revived concept of a large (486 MCM storage) dam on the Yarmuk at Maqarin. The dam would store winter run-off to provide irrigation water to the Jordan Valley, 20 MW of hydropower, and a more even downstream base flow year-round. The total cost of the project, as estimated in 1979, was US$1,000 million (S. Taubenblatt in Starr and Stoll 1988, 48).
The Carter administration became interested in the plan and in 1980 pledged a US$9 million USAID loan for development in addition to US$10 million that had previously been allocated. Also in 1980, Congress committed US$150 million over three years to the plan on one condition - that Israel, Jordan, and Syria resolve their riparian problems before funds would be appropriated. The dam would straddle the Syria-Jordan border and relations between those countries had been deteriorating throughout the 1970s. Downstream, Israel asked for an increase in its Yarmuk allotment from 23 MCM/yr to 40 MCM/yr, as well as an additional 140 MCM/yr for the West Bank (Davis et al. 1980, 11; Kahhaleh 1981, 46).
In 1977, Jordanian water officials approached their Israeli counterparts through US intermediaries and requested a high-level meeting to discuss rebuilding the low dam at Mukheiba. One meeting was held that year in a Zurich hotel with three ministerial-level representatives from each side present. Israeli representatives expressed approval of the dam, the northern side of which would abut on Israeli territory - a more even year-round flow would benefit both sides and agreed to further discussion on this and other regional water planning issues (unpublished minutes, 6 May 1977). In elections that year, however, the Israeli government shifted from Labour- to Likud-led for the first time, and the new ministers did not pursue the dialogue with the Jordanians. Direct ministerial negotiations were not held again on water issues except for a brief meeting in Jericho in 1985, although the "Picnic Table talks," on allocations of the Yarmuk River, continued at the technical level.
Water-related conflict between Jordan and Israel came close to breaking out two years later. In July of the drought year 1979, Jordan sought American mediation to gain Israeli permission to service the intake of the East Ghor Canal, which had been silting up. Days after having cleared the intake, Jordan charged the Israelis with replacing the rocks so that more water would flow downstream, and brought military forces up to the cease-fire line. The Israelis responded by mobilizing their own forces in the area. An armed conflict was averted only with urgent American mediation.
According to the Israeli officer responsible for that sector at the time, although initial preparations took on the scale of a full military operation, the discussions that followed the stand-off felt less formal. If, for example, an Israeli negotiator wanted to contact his Jordanian counterpart, he would simply shout across the river to the Jordanian forces and a meeting, usually taking place on the rocks in midstream, would be arranged (interview, October 1991).
Philip Habib was sent to the region in 1980 by the US State Department to help mediate an agreement. Although Habib was able to gain consensus on the concept of the dam, on separating the question of the Yarmuk from that of West Bank allocations, and on the difficult question of summer flow allocations - 25 MCM would flow to Israel during the summer months negotiations ran into difficulties regarding the winter flow allocations, and final ratification was never reached. The plan was indefinitely postponed late that year, but has very recently been revived by Jordan and Syria as the "Unity Dam."
One other conflict between Israel and Jordan was solved by technology and hydrology, rather than by the military. In 1983, a Jordanian well along the Yarmuk just across the border from Israel struck water with such force that a drilling rig 400 m high was toppled. Initial output of the well was close to 700 m3/h. Hoping that the aquifer was hydrologically connected on both sides of the Yarmuk, but fearing that, if it were, the Jordanians would deplete Israel's share, Israel launched its own drilling operation on its side of the river. Both sides would be disappointed: it turned out that the aquifers were not intricately connected, and the Israeli well produced only 200 m3/h, while the Jordanian well quickly lost most of its head and today produces only about one-third of its assumed capacity (press reports, February 1983; interview, Elias Salameh, November 1991).
Meanwhile, tensions were being somewhat reduced along other borders. In 1978, Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David peace accords - the first between Israel and an Arab country. At a meeting in September 1979 with Israeli newspaper editors, President Anwar Sadat discussed plans for a pipeline to bring Nile water to the recently returned Sinai Peninsula. "Once we bring it to Sinai," he asked, "why should we not bring some of this water to the Negev?" (Spector and Gruen 1980, 10). The offer was reiterated and elaborated upon in discussions with Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1981. Israel would be provided with 365 MCM/yr in exchange for "solution of the Palestinian problem and the liberation of Jerusalem" (R. Krishna in Starr and Stoll 1988, 32).
The offer was immediately rejected by almost all parties concerned. Prime Minister Begin objected to the quid pro quo, stressing that Israel would not trade its sovereignty over a unified Jerusalem for economic gain. Nationalists on both sides were also opposed to the idea: Egyptians did not want to share this vital resource with Israel, and Israelis did not like the idea of being vulnerable to upstream control. Israeli Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon is quoted as saying "I would hate to be in a situation in which the Egyptians could close our taps whenever they wished" (Spector and Gruen 1980, 10).
Interestingly, the strongest opposition to the offer came from another region entirely. Ethiopia, 2,500 km up river, charged that Egypt was misusing its share of Nile water. In a sharp retort, President Sadat warned against Ethiopian action:
We do not need permission from Ethiopia or the Soviet Union to divert our Nile water ... If Ethiopia takes any action to block the Nile waters, there will be no alternative for us but to use force. Tampering with the rights of a nation to water is tampering with its life and a decision to go to war on this score is indisputable in the international community". (R. Krishna in Starr and Stoll 1988, 33-34)
President Sadat was assassinated in 1981. Although technical and economic details of a Nile River diversion have since been developed (see, for example, Kally 1989; Dinar and Wolf 1991), the plan was never implemented except for a small irrigation diversion into the western Sinai.
In 1982, Israel for the second time mounted an operation against the PLO in Lebanon. The first time, during "Operation Litani" four years earlier, Israel had stopped its advance at the Litani River and, before withdrawing, had turned over portions of southern Lebanon to the South Lebanon Army under the command of Major Sa'ad Haddad. Haddad was reportedly to protect Israeli interests in the region, par ticularly defending against attempted Palestinian incursions through the area to Israel. In addition, the militia is reported to have protected the Jordan headwaters of the Hasbani by closing some local wells and preventing the digging of others. As a result, some or all of the 35 MCM allocated to Lebanon in the Johnston Plan now flows to Israel (Naff and Matson 1984, 49).
Israelis involved in these issues contest these reports. Israeli hydrologic records, for example, show that the flow of the Hasbani into Israel exceeded the average flow only three times in the last 10 years, during particularly wet years (stream gaugings, Israel Hydrologic Survey 1981-1991). More to the point, an officer in Israel's Northern Command, who dealt with Haddad extensively, claims that the Lebanese major made perfectly clear to the Israelis that "We will cooperate with you, but there are two subjects which are taboo - our land and our water" (interview, October 1991). Nevertheless, the then Chief of Staff Ezer Weizman (Chaim Weizmann's nephew) was berated by a member of the Knesset after the operation for not seizing the Litani: "Your uncle knew at the time the historic significance of the Litani," M.K. Cohen shouted (cited in Hof 1985, 24).
In the 1982 operation, the Litani was again the initially stated objective, but, by July, Israeli forces had surrounded Beirut. This war, as in 1967, had clear military and political objectives, and water may, again, have played a minor role.
The Litani River has a natural flow of about 700 MCM/yr. A dam at Qir'awn in the Beka'a Valley and irrigation and hydropower diversions completed in the mid-1960s reduce the lower Litani flow to 300-400 MCM/yr (Kolars 1992). This lower section, flowing within kilometres of the Hasbani and the Israeli border, historically had presented the possibilities of diversions in conjunction with the Jordan system. The Israeli Cotton Plan and the Arab Headwaters Diversion Plan envisioned water diverted into and out of the Jordan basin, respectively. In fact, even before 1982, Israel had carried out seismic studies and received intelligence reports on the feasibility of a Litani diversion (Naff and Matson 1984, 76). These reports concluded that a diversion would be economically unattractive and, in any event, would be politically infeasible until cooperation could be developed with Lebanon (interviews, Haim Paldi, October 1991; Menahem Cantor, November 1991).
After the invasion was launched by the then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, a 'water hawk" who had frequently spoken of seizing the Litani, Israel captured the Qir'awn Dam and brought hydrographic charts and technical documents relating to the Litani and its installations back to Israel (Cooley 1984, 22).
During the years of Israeli occupation from 1982 to 1985, several analysts developed and elaborated on a "hydraulic imperative" theory, which described water as the motivator for Israeli conquests, both recently, in Lebanon, and earlier, in the West Bank and Golan Heights (see, for example, Davis et al. 1980; Kahhaleh 1981; Stauffer 1982; Cooley 1984). The speculations for likely Israeli actions in Lebanon by proponents of this theory ranged from a simple diversion of the 100 MCM/yr available at the lower Litani to elaborate conjectures of a permanent occupation of the entire Beka'a Valley south of the Beirut-Damascus Highway, which (according to Stauffer 1982), along with a hypothetical destruction of the Qir'awn Dam and Marhaba Diversion Tunnel and forced depopulation of southern Lebanon, would allow diversion of the entire 700 MCM/yr flow of the river into Israel.
More is mentioned in a later section about this "hydraulic imperative" theory, which has already been critiqued on political, technical, and economic grounds (Naff and Matson 1984, 75-80; Wishart 1989, 14). The strongest rebuttal, however, at least with regard to Lebanon, comes from the fact that, despite method, more than eight years of opportunity, and (given a serious drought since the mid-1980s) ample motive, the Israelis are not now diverting the Litani River. However, the "Security Zone" that Israel retains since its withdrawal does still include the most likely diversion point at Taibeih. Moreover, former Technology Minister Yuval Ne'eman has mentioned in the past that, if the Lebanese ever cared to sell some of the Litani waters, "we could make good use of them in the Northern Galilee" (Cooley 1984, 25).
In the meantime, the opposite is true. Cut off from their water supply partly because of strained relations with Beirut, the villagers of Bint Jbil and five other villages in central southern Lebanon approached the Israelis for help in 1985. Israel, which since 1979 has had a "good fence" policy of influencing the residents of southern Lebanon in its favour with a combination of military and humanitarian aid, responded to the request for water by building a pipeline from a pump at Shtula, on the Israeli side of the border. Since that time, an average of 50,000 m3/month has flowed from Israel into Lebanon (Mekorot maps; interview, Avner Turgeman, December 1991).
Contents -
Previous - Next
1982-Present: Hydrologic limits and peacemaking
By the mid-1980s, each of the countries riparian to the Jordan River began to approach its hydrologic limits, and the potential for either conflict or cooperation took on new urgency, both in the region and abroad.
The fundamental tenet of ecologic systems is "Everything is connected to everything else" (Holling 1978, 26). An addendum, for those dependent on a watershed approaching the limits of available water, might be "Everything you do will affect someone else." As the riparians to the Jordan River watershed began to run out of hydrologic room to manoeuvre, this tenet became increasingly apparent.
In 1985, plans for a deep well near Herodian in the West Bank were made public. This project, funded by an American fundamentalist Christian group, would have brought 18 MCM/yr to both Arabs and Jews on the West Bank. Wary that the size and depth of the project might undercut their wells, some Palestinians had international pressure brought to bear on the Israelis and Americans involved, and the project was halted (Caponera 1991).
Meanwhile, the Syrians, who had lost access to the Banias springs in 1967, began a series of small impoundment dams on the headwaters of the Yarmuk in its territory in the late 1970s. By August 1988, 20 dams were in place with a combined capacity of 156 MCM/ yr (Sofer and Kliot 1988, 19) (see appendix I, map 27). That capacity has since grown to 27 dams with a combined storage of about 250 MCM/yr (Gwen 1991, 24; interview, Shmuel Cantor, December 1991). According to George Gruen (1991, 24), the Syrians have plans to expand this storage to 366 MCM/yr by 2010. These Syrian impoundments are in contradiction to their 1953 agreement with Jordan, which allocates seven-eighths of the water of the Yarmuk to Jordan in exchange for two-thirds of the hydropower from the planned Maqarin Dam (Caponera 1991, 10).
Because the Maqarin, or Unity, Dam was never built, winter runoff, most of which Jordan cannot now capture for use in its East Ghor Canal, flows almost unimpeded downstream to Israel. This situation has allowed Israel to use more than the 25 MCM/yr allocated to it from the Yarmuk by the Johnston accords.
Against this backdrop, Jordan in 1989 approached the US Department of State for help in resolving the dispute. Ambassador Richard Armitage was dispatched to the region in September 1989 to resume secret indirect mediation between Jordan and Israel where Philip Habib had left off a decade earlier. The points raised during the following year were as follows:
- Both sides agreed that 25 MCM/yr would be made available to Israel during the summer months, but disagreed as to whether any additional water would be specifically earmarked for Israel during the winter months.
- The overall viability of a dam was also open to question - the Israelis still thought that the Sea of Galilee ought to be used as a regional reservoir, and both sides questioned what effects ongoing development by Syria at the headwaters of the Yarmuk would have on the dam's viability. Since the State Department had no mandate to approach Syria, their input was missing from the mediation.
- Israel eventually wanted a formal agreement with Jordan, a step that would have been politically difficult for the Jordanians at the time.
With these developments during the 1980s, the United States, which had initiated both the Johnston negotiations in the 1950s and the water-for-peace process during the 1960s, became convinced anew of water's potential for conflict. By the end of the 1980s, comprehensive studies on the strategic aspects of water in the Middle East and the potential for conflict had been conducted by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (Naff and Matson 1984), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Starr and Stoll 1987; 1988), and the Israeli Foreign Ministry (Sofer and Kliot 1988); in addition, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East had held a hearing on Middle East water issues (US Department of State, House of Representatives, June 1990). Each concluded not only that the water resources of the region had great potential for conflict but also that, of the Middle East water basins, the Jordan presented the most likely flashpoint.
In the thinking of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
Water ignores artificial political boundaries; in an undeveloped environment it flows according to the terrain. When man - in order to make better use of water for himself - changes the natural distribution system' he also changes traditional use patterns. This can be extremely disruptive and upsetting to other riparian users. The result is often political conflict if not outright military action. Military factors are often the de facto determinants in resolving riparian relationships in the Middle East. (Personal communication, 3 July, 1991)
By 1991, several events combined to shift the emphasis on the potential for "hydroconflict" to the potential for "hydrocooperation."
The first event was natural. Three years of below-average rainfall in the Jordan basin caused a dramatic tightening in the water management practices of each of the riparians, including rationing, cutbacks to agriculture by as much as 30 per cent, and restructuring of water pricing and allocations. Although these steps placed short-term hardships on those affected, they also showed that, for years of normal rainfall, there was still some flexibility in the system. Most water decision makers agree that these steps, particularly regarding pricing practices and allocations to agriculture, were long overdue.
The next series of events were geopolitical in nature. The Gulf War in 1990 and the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a realignment of political alliances in the Middle East that finally made possible the first public face-to-face peace talks between Arabs and Israelis, in Madrid on 30 October 1991.
While the region was still in the throes of drought, water was mentioned as a motivating factor for the talks. Jordan, as has been mentioned, is squeezed hydrologically between two neighbours attempting to reinterpret prior agreements, but otherwise has no major territorial disputes with Israel. A researcher at the Middle East Studies Center in Amman therefore suggested that "Jordan is being pushed to the peace talks because of water" (interview, Mohammed Ma'ali, November 1991). Mohammed Beni Hani, the head of Jordan's water authority, is one of Jordan's 12 delegates to the peace talks. At the opening ceremonies in Madrid, Dr Haidar Abdel-Shafi, the head of the Palestinian delegation, included in his opening remarks a call for "the return of Palestinian land and its life-giving waters."
During the bilateral negotiations between Israel and each of its neighbours, it was agreed that a second track be established for multilateral negotiations on five subjects deemed "regional." These subjects included ecology, energy, economic cooperation, arms reduction, and - water resources.
With the opening of peace talks, the emphasis in international arenas quickly went from the potential for conflict over water to its potential as a vehicle for cooperation. Seminars and conferences were held throughout the early 1990s in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East on the possibilities for cooperation over water resources. The World Bank held a seminar on the topic, as did the US Department of State, and the Center for Foreign Affairs. Increasingly, both Arab and Israeli academics and policy makers have taken part together in these conferences.
Nevertheless, old patterns have been slow in changing. As part of the Global Water Summit Initiative, Joyce Starr, who two years earlier had organized a "water summit" for African states, attempted a similar summit in the Middle East, scheduled for November 1991. Despite early signs of participation on the part of several states in the region, and despite official invitations to 50 countries, including 22 Arab nations, from Turkish President Turgut �zal, Syria refused to attend if Israel were invited, and called for other Arab countries to follow its position. The US State Department suggested that, if Israel were not invited, the United States would not attend either. Faced with this impasse, the summit was finally cancelled (press reports, August-November 1991).
In Israel, at the same time, the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University asked two researchers (Yehoshua Schwartz, the director of Tahal, Israel's water planning agency, and Aharon Zohar, also at Tahal at the time) to undertake a study of the regional hydrostrategic situation and the potential for regional cooperation. The result, a 300-page document entitled Water in the Middle East: Solutions to Water Problems in the Context of Arrangements between Israel and the Arabs (Schwartz and Zohar 1991), was one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind. It examined a number of possible scenarios for regional water development, including possible arrangements between Israel and Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. Scenarios were included both for regional cooperation and for its absence. Evaluations included hydrologic, political, legal, and ideological constraints. The impacts of potential global climatic change were also considered. The study showed, in the words of Joseph Alpher, the Director of the Jaffee Center, "the potential beauty of multilateral negotiations" (interview, Joseph Alpher, December 1991).
Some of the findings of the study contradicted government policies at the time, however. In the sections on possible arrangements between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and Syria, maps of the West Bank and Golan Heights included lines to which Israel might relinquish control of the water resources in each area, without overly endangering its own water supply. The line in the West Bank, which was based on studies dating back to the late 1970s (as is discussed in the next section and in chapter 4), suggested that Israel might, with legal and political guarantees, turn control of the water resources of more than twothirds of the West Bank over to Palestinian authorities without threatening Israel's water sources from the Yarkon-Taninim (western mountain) aquifer (see appendix I, map 29). These maps contradicted the position of the Ministry of Agriculture, headed by Rafael Eitan of the right-wing Tzomet party. The Ministry's position was that, to protect Israel from threats to both the quantity and quality of its water, Israel had to retain political control over the entire West Bank. (The apparent contradictions in these positions are examined later in this chapter and in chapter 4.)
On 12 December, 1991, 70 copies of the report were sent throughout Israel for review, including copies to the Ministry of Agriculture. Calling the maps mentioned above "an outline for retreat," Rafael Eitan and Dan Zaslavsky (whom Eitan had recently appointed Water Commissioner) insisted on a recall of the review copies and a delay in the release of the report. In January 1992, the Israeli military censor backed the position of the Ministry of Agriculture and, citing sensitivity of the report's findings, censored the report in its entirety (interviews, Yehosua Schwartz, October 1991; Joseph Alpher, Aharon Zohar, December 1991; personal communication, Aharon Zohar, January 1992).
Entrenched positions notwithstanding, the two sides have continued to move towards cooperation with increasing momentum. In Jerusalem, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) began holding round-table discussions and simulated negotiations on water in December 1990. In October 1992, IPCRI cosponsored, with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Applied Research Institute in Bethlehem, the "First Israeli/Palestinian International Conference on Water."
On a larger scale, the first round of multilateral negotiations on water were held in Vienna in May 1992. At that meeting, each party agreed to compile a programme for regional development, which would then be examined in the United States for any commonalities that could be exploited to induce cooperation. This same approach is being taken by the World Bank, which commissioned similar studies from the states in the region. In conjunction with the peace talks, less-public and less-official dialogues, called the "Track 2 talks," have been held between Israelis and Arabs in the United States.
These breakthroughs in water talks may have repercussions on negotiations on other topics as well. In the words of Munther Haddadin, a Jordanian delegate, "Water seems to be leading the Peace Talks."
As in 1919, the peace talks of the 1990s have included the mutual impact of water on political decision-making. Seventy years of regional water development, however, have both heightened the political stakes of water issues and left less hydrologic room for manoeuvrability. However, given that an important political precedent has been set in Madrid - public face-to-face negotiations, the lack of which has precluded explicit cooperation in the past and given the lessons learned through 70 years of "hydrodiplomacy," a new potential for regional planning and cooperation may have been reached. One can hope that, after 70 years, the lessons have been learned.
Contents -
Previous - NextHydroconspiracy theories: The "hydraulic imperative," and "hydronationalism"
As mentioned in the introduction to this section on history, I have culled instances of water-related conflict and cooperation from the vast geopolitical forces at work in the region. If one were not wary of this fact, and in view of the extensive history of the linkage between Middle East water resources and strategic thinking, it would not be difficult to develop and "prove" a theory citing water as the motivating factor for regional conflict. Two historic themes that have found favour among some authors in academic literature and the popular press do just that. Both themes, the "hydraulic imperative," ("Israel's territorial conquests have actually been quests for greater water resources") and that of "hydronationalism" ("Israeli water security depends on retention of the entire West Bank and Golan Heights in perpetuity"), are described and critiqued more fully below.
The hydraulic imperative
Proponents of a "hydraulic imperative" theory - which describes the quest for water resources as the motivator for Israeli military conquests, both in Lebanon in 1979 and 1982 and earlier, on the Golan Heights and West Bank in 1967 - usually point to some combination of the following to support their argument for Lebanon (see, for example, Davis et al. 1980; Stauffer 1982; Schmida 1983; Stork 1983; Cooley 1984; Dillman 1989):
- Early Zionist lobbyists and planners, from Chaim Weizmann at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, through the Hays and Cotton plans of the 1940s and 1950s, have advocated inclusion of either the Litani River in Israeli borders or of Litani water into the Jordan watershed.
- The 1979 Litani Operation left Major Sa'ad Haddad to protect Israeli interests in southern Lebanon. Along with helping to prevent terrorist incursions, the South Lebanon Army is reported to have protected the Hasbani headwaters and the likely area for a Litani diversion project.
- In the early stages of the 1982 war in Lebanon, Israel "captured the Qir'awn Dam and seized all hydrographic charts and technical documents relating to the Litani and its installations." After Israeli withdrawal from the country, the "Security Zone" still leaves Israel in control of the area from Taibe and slightly north where a water diversion could be effected.
Many have been convinced that Israel is, in fact, diverting water from the Litani into Israel. According to John Cooley, "It was small wonder that the first Israeli diversion plans for the Litani have come into being" (cited in Sofer 1991, 6). More recently, Fred Pearce (1991, 39) described tensions in southern Lebanon, "where Israel is widely reported to be diverting the flow of the River Litani south into Israel," and Thomas Naff, who had sharply critiqued the hydraulic imperative in his 1984 study (Naff and Matson 1984, 75-80), has noted that
Although water may not have been the prime impetus behind the Israel acquisition of territory, as the "hydraulic imperative" alleges, it seems perhaps the main factor determining its retention of that territory. (Frey and Naff 1985, 76)
Professor Naff testified to Congress in 1990 that "owing to serious shortages, Israel is presently conducting a large-scale operation of trucking water to Israel from the Litani River ..." (US House of Representatives 1990, 24). He has since modified the contention to "water, it seems, was instead trucked to units of the Israeli-supported Lebanese Army of South Lebanon in the 'security zone' and, perhaps, to some Shi'i villages in the same area as a reward for their cooperation" (Naff 1992, 6). Lebanese diplomats, however, on hearing the original charges, were prepared to bring the matter to a UN Security Council resolution against Israel (press reports, September 1990).
Building retroactively on the Lebanon experience, Israel's conquests in 1967 also were included in the "imperative." It is clear that tensions between Israel and Syria over water since 1964 had contributed to the developments leading to fighting in 1967, that Israel was approaching its hydrologic limits, and that it made tremendous hydrostrategic gains in the war itself. Making the link between the three, it has now become common to claim that water resources were one of the strategic goals for Israel during the war. Many of the authors cited above make such claims, as does Peter Beaumont:
To avoid each of the states (Lebanon and Syria) controlling their own water resources, Israel invaded southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights of Syria in 1967. The pretext given was strategic reasons, but the control of the water resources of the area seems a more compelling and realistic reason. (Beaumont 1991, 8)
One might expand a conspiracy theory, if one were so inclined, to include information that has not yet appeared in the literature. For example, one might include the taking, by Israeli forces in the 1967 war, of the Awali town of Ghajar, at the junction of borders between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Ghajar had no strategic importance in the military sense in that it neither contained combatants nor was situated in a strategic position, but it does directly overlook the Wazzani springs, which contribute 20-25 MCM/yr to the Hasbani's total annual flow of 125 MCM/yr. During dry summer months, the Wazzani is the only flowing source of the Hasbani. Ghajar was the site of the projected dams for the 1964 Arab Diversion.
Moreover, after the 1979 "Operation Litani," engineers from Mekorot developed plans to divert from 5 to 10 MCM/yr from the Wazzani springs for irrigation in Shi'ite southern Lebanon and in Israel. To allow the project to flow on gravity alone, a slight northward modification of the Israeli-Lebanese border was considered (Khativ and Khativ 1988; interviews, Haim Paldi, Avner Turgeman, October 1991).
One might add the backgrounds in both water and security issues of many Israeli policy makers, dating back to the 1920s, as proof of a deep-rooted plan linking the two: Aaron Aaronsohn, who formulated Zionist borders for the 1919 peace talks, was both an agriculturalist and a spy against the Turks for the British; Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister during the 1967 war, was one of the founders of Mekorot, the Israeli water company; Moshe Dayan, Defence Minister during the war, was Agricultural Minister immediately beforehand; Ariel Sharon, Defence Minister during the Lebanon war, was also a Minister of Agriculture; Rafael Eitan, a recent Minister of Agriculture, is a retired Army Chief of Staff; and Nahum Admoni, current Director of Mekorot, is the retired Director of the Mossad, Israel's secret service. One would have to add, however, that in a country where every citizen does military service, axgenerals are found in any number of civilian roles, including those of the Mayor of Tel Aviv and the Director of the Archaeological Service.
As mentioned earlier, the hydraulic imperative has been critiqued for political and technical weaknesses by Naff and Matson (1984, 75-80), as well as on economic grounds by Wishart (1989, 14). Nevertheless, because a thorough analysis of the region's options for the future depends in part on a clear understanding of what has happened in the past, it is worth investigating the theory in greater detail. To examine the validity of the hydraulic imperative, two questions must be answered: was the location of water resources a factor in the military strategy of Israel in 1967, 1978, or 1982, and is Israel now diverting water from the Litani River?
MILITARY STRATEGY AND HYDROSTRATEGY.
It is occasionally difficult to distinguish between military strategy, defined concisely by one officer as "from where are they shooting and from where will we shoot back," and hydrostrategy, the influence of the location of water resources on strategic thinking. A river, for example, is also an ideal barrier against tanks and troop movements, and, as clear landmarks, rivers often delineate borders. High ridges, ideal for military positioning, are also often local watershed boundaries. Nevertheless, by examining the strategic decision-making of those involved in a particular event, some distinctions can be made.
In the events leading up to the 1967 war, it has already been noted in some detail how conflict over water resources between Syria and Israel contributed to tensions leading to the fighting. The war itself, however, started in the south, with Egypt expelling the UN forces in the Sinai and blocking Israeli shipping to Eilat. The Sinai Desert was the first front when war broke out on 5 June 1967, with the straits of Sharm-el-Sheikh the primary objective.
The hydrostrategic points over which Israel gained control during the war were on the West Bank, including the recharge zones of several aquifers, some of which Israel had been tapping into since the 1950s; on the Golan Heights, including the Banias springs, which Syria had attempted to divert in 1965; and, further south, at El-Hama and at an overlook on the proposed site of the Maqarin Dam (the former was controlled by Jordan, and the latter by Syria).
Before the war, and even in its first days, Israel had agreed not to engage in combat with Jordan, as long as Jordan did not attack. However, Jordan did launch several artillery barrages in the first days of the war, which opened up the West Bank as the second front (Sachar 1979).
Finally, despite attacks from Syria, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan was extremely reluctant to launch an attack on the Golan Heights because of the presence of Soviet advisers, and the consequent danger of widening the conflict (Slater 1991). For the first three days of the war, Dayan held off arguments from several of his advisers, including the Commanding Officer of the Northern Command, David Elazar, to launch an attack on the Golan Heights. Finally, a delegation from the northern settlements, which had often experienced Syrian sniping and artillery barrages, travelled to Tel Aviv to ask Dayan to take the Heights to guarantee their security. Only then, on 9 June, did Israeli forces launch an attack against Syria (Slater 1991, 277).
In the taking of the Golan Heights, the water sources mentioned above were incidental conquests as Israeli forces moved as far east as Kuneitra (see appendix I, map 28). Below the Heights, Israeli troops stopped directly outside Ghajar. They reportedly did this because, on Israeli maps, Ghajar was Lebanese territory, and Israel did not want to involve Lebanon in the war. Ghajar, it turned out, was Syrian - it had been misplaced on 1943 British maps. As Ghajar had been cut off from the rest of Syria during the war, a delegation had travelled to Beirut to ask to be annexed: Lebanon was not interested. Three months after the war, another delegation travelled to
Israel and asked that the village become Israeli; only then did Israeli control extend north through Ghajar (Khativ and Khativ 1988; interview, Gamal Khativ, October 1991). Only the village itself was included, however, and most of its agricultural land remained in Syria. Mekorot engineers did install a three-inch pipe for drinking-water for the villagers from the Wazzani springs, which, although literally a stone's throw from the village, was left under Lebanese control (interviews, Gamal Khativ, Haim Paldi, October 1991).
Extensive literature exists on the detailed decision-making on the events before, during, and after the 1967 war. What is noticeable in a search for references to water resources, either as strategic targets, or even as a subject for propaganda by either side, is the almost complete absence of such references. In International Documents on Palestine, 1967, a compilation of documents, statements, and speeches by Israelis, Arabs, Americans, and Soviets for all of 1967, the only reference to water is in a document submitted by Israel to the United Nations after the war, which includes mention of the successful resumption of water works in Jerusalem (Institute for Palestine Studies 1970, 327). InDecisions in Israel's Foreign Policy, Michael Brecher (1974) includes chapters on both "Jordan Waters," and "The Six Day War," but mentions no link. In a detailed study of the roots of the 1967 war, Walter Laqueur mentions that "in 1967, [water] was not among the major causes of Arab-Israeli conflict, certainly not one of the immediate reasons for hostilities" (Laqueur 1967, 50). Stein and Tanter (1980) do not mention water at all.
The same absence of documentation is true for Israeli reasons for launching operations in Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 (see, for example, MacBride 1983). As noted previously, Israel's ally in southern Lebanon, Major Sa'ad Haddad, had made clear to Israel in 1979 that water was a taboo subject. It was Haddad, too, who quashed Israel's plans in 1979 for a diversion of the Wazzani springs. Both Major-General Avraham Tamir, who helped to outline Israel's strategic needs in 1967 and in 1982, and an officer who acted as the liaison officer between Israeli and South Lebanese forces, have described in detail the military strategy of both the 1967 war and of the 1982 war in Lebanon, the former participant in his book A Soldier in Search of Peace (1988), and both in interviews (October and December, 1991). Again, mention of water is conspicuously absent, although the liaison officer acknowledges that plans were investigated, but never used, to cut water to Beirut to enforce a siege. Furthermore, although Israeli studies have been conducted on the possibility of integrating the Litani and Jordan watersheds, each concludes that such a project can proceed only with international (especially Lebanese) assent.
It should also be noted that, immediately after the wars in 1967 and 1982, strategic needs (none of which related to water) were spelled out by the Israeli government; these needs, if met, would result in Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory. According to Moshe Dayan, the Golan Heights were negotiable even without a peace treaty and, with such a treaty, so was the rest of the territory captured in 1967, except East Jerusalem (Slater 1991, 286290). The same strategy of holding conquered land as an inducement to peace talks was followed immediately after the 1982 war in Lebanon. In 1983, an Israeli-Lebanese agreement was signed that called for an Israeli withdrawal from all of Lebanon. The agreement was abrogated in 1984, however, and consequently Israel justifies its continued presence in the "security zone" (Tamir 1988).
Althought the official line of the Israel Army Spokesman is that "water is a political issue, not military" (personal communication, August 1991), the Israeli army planning branch, which Tamir developed, does have one officer whose responsibilities include evaluating the strategic importance of water resources. Both the officer with those responsibilities during the 1982 war and Tamir insist that water was not, even incidentally, a factor in the war. When pressed on the subject, Tamir replied:
Why go to war over water? For the price of one week's fighting, you could build five desalination plants. No loss of life, no international pressure, and a reliable supply you don't have to defend in hostile territory. (Interview, December 1991)
DOES LITANI WATER REACH ISRAEL?
While one of the most difficult tasks is to prove the absence of something, an extensive search for any evidence of a diversion or trucking operation has turned up nothing to suggest that any Litani water enters Israel at the time of waiting. My search took the following tracks.
First, it is clear that Zionist and Israeli plans for regional development have often investigated the possibility of integrating the Litani and Jordan basins. However, since 1944, all of these plans have concluded that such integration would be impossible without Lebanese approval. To gain such approval, some plans have included provisions for an exchange of hydropower for water, or even buying ex cess water outright. Recent studies also question the economics of a diversion: with 300 MCM/yr available below the Qir'awn Dam, only 100 MCM/yr would be available for export after considering the needs of southern Lebanon.
It should be mentioned that both Syria and Jordan have also expressed interest recently in diverting or buying Litani water. In fact, because of the proximity of the two watersheds - one with water surplus, the other overextended - it is hardly surprising that any number of plans have been put forward to integrate the two watersheds since a British plan first proposed the idea in 1918 (Dane and Benton 1918). The Lebanese position was (and continues to be) that rights to Lebanese water should be retained for future Lebanese development.
Second, reports of a secret diversion tunnel were investigated by UN forces, as well as by members of the international press, to no avail (Sofer 1991). Satellite photos (LANDSAT and SPOT), air photographs (Israeli Air Force), Mekorot maps, and field investigations (June 1987; June, October, December 1991), all show only the two water pipelines previously mentioned crossing the Lebanon-Israel border - a 3-inch pipe to the town of Ghajar and a 10-inch pipe from Israel into the Lebanese village of R'meish.
Third, hydrologic records show neither any unaccountable water in the Israeli water budget after 1978 nor any increases in the average flows of the Ayun or the Hasbani, the most likely carrier streams for a diversion. Because of three years of drought, on 14 October 1991 the Israeli Water Commissioner asked the Knesset to allow pumping of the Sea of Galilee below the legal "Red Line," the legal water level below which the entire lake is in danger of becoming saline. On the same day, a field investigation showed that both the Ayun and the Hasbani above the Wazzani springs were dry.
Fourth, a hypothetical trucking operation is even more difficult to prove or disprove. Both officials in Mekorot (interview, Avner Turgeman, October 1991) and Israeli officers responsible for southern Lebanon acknowledge that witnesses may have seen Israeli military water trucks in southern Lebanon. Each has suggested that the most likely explanation is that the trucks were carrying drinking water from Israel for Israeli troops stationed in the "security zone." Israeli military code, they point out, insists that soldiers drink water only from official collection points, all of which are in Israel.
An officer who has acted as liaison officer between Israeli and South Lebanon forces doubts that anyone saw Israeli trucks filling at the Litani, pointing out that the 20-ton "Rigs" that are used to carry water could not make the grade of the military road that leads away from the Litani, if the trucks were full (interview, October 1991). Sofer (1991, 7) has calculated that a cubic metre of water trucked from the Litani into Israel would cost about US$4-US$10, compared with about US$1.50 for a cubic metre of desalinated water.
Hydronationalism
The use of water resources to bolster political claims has not been restricted to questioning Israel's motives towards its neighbours. Nationalists within Israel have also claimed water as an overriding incentive for their political ends.
In August 1990, the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, headed by Rafael Eitan of the right-wing Tzomet party, took out full-page advertisements in the international press, subheaded "The Question of Water - Some Dry Facts." The advertisement described the hydrologic relationship between Israel and the West Bank and emphasized the danger to both water quantity and quality of territorial compromise. The advertisement concluded that Israeli control over the entire West Bank was necessary to protect Israeli water sources:
It is important to realize that the claim to continued Israeli control over Judea and Samaria is not based on extremist fanaticism or religious mysticism but on a rational, healthy and reasonable survival instinct.
Attacked for using Ministry funds for political purposes, the Ministry issued a five-page position paper expanding on the hydrologic argument and suggesting that Eitan was within his rights to publish the advertisement (see appendix III).
The questions raised by the incident go beyond the validity of the advertisement or the position paper, but rather point to one primary issue: how much of the territory over which Israel took control in 1967 will it view as necessary to retain to guarantee its water supplies? Although not as prevalent in the academic literature as the "hydraulic imperative," Israeli proponents of holding West Bank territory to control Israeli water resources are prevalent and cross political boundaries, as explored previously in this work in the section on Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. In order to allow for greater flexibility in negotiations, as is described in chapter 4, it is worth investigating the hydrologic validity of the claim.
As mentioned above, and in the previous section on history, several points have been identified by Israel historically as strategically important to its hydrologic security. On the Golan Heights, these include the Banias springs, El-Hama, and some strategic overlooks over the Yarmuk River and the Sea of Galilee. The West Bank is somewhat more convoluted.
As mentioned earlier, Israel has been tapping into the Yarkon-Taninim, or western mountain, aquifer since 1955. It also relies on two other aquifers that recharge on the West Bank - the north-east and the eastern mountain aquifers; the former discharges into the Jezreel Valley and the latter into the Jordan Valley. The three aquifers combine to provide about 30 per cent of Israel's water supply.
The claims of the Ministry of Agriculture cloud the issue somewhat by combining the three aquifers into one political argument. It is clear from examining hydrogeologic maps (e.g. Goldschmidt and Jacobs 1958; Weinberger 1991), for example, that, provided with an alternate source of water, Israel might be able to relinquish control over most of the eastern mountain aquifer without endangering its supply on the west side of the Judaean hills.
The western mountain aquifer is a more complex case, however, and most of the quotations used in the Ministry's position paper refer to this problem. Again, a historical perspective might be useful. In 1977, as Israeli Prime Minister Begin was preparing for negotiations with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, he asked the then Water Commissioner Menahem Cantor to provide him with a map of Israeli water usage from water originating on the West Bank (see appendix I, map 29) and to provide guidelines as to where Israel might relinquish control, if protecting Israel's water resources were the only consideration.
Because of the disparate depths to water for the western mountain aquifer in the coastal plain and in the Judaean hills (about 60 m in the plain, 150-200 m in the foothills, and 700-800 m in the hills) (Gold-Schmidt and Jacobs 1958; Weinberger 1991), and the resulting differences in the cost of drilling and pumping wells in these areas, Cantor concluded that a "red line" could be drawn, beyond which Israel should not relinquish control, north to south, following roughly the 100-200 mm contour line. This still left control over water on about two-thirds of the West Bank open for negotiations.
Some settlement plans for the late 1970s referred in part to this line, and about five settlements around Elkanna were reportedly sited in part to guarantee continued Israeli control of the water resources on its side of this "red line" (Pedhatzor 1989; State of Israel memoranda, April-June 1977) (see appendix I, map 30).
Israeli water planners still refer to this "red line" as a frame of reference (interviews, Zeev Golani, October 1991; Shmuel Cantor, December 1991), and inclusion of a discussion along similar lines was one of the reasons for the censorship of the 1991 Jaffee Center Study by the Minister of Agriculture, as mentioned earlier.
Conclusions
My purpose in this discussion has not been to enter into the fray of political charges on either side. Rather, I feel that it is helpful to agree on a common history before planning for the future. Furthermore, as I examine, later in this work, a series of possible negotiating scenarios, it is important to examine the hydrologic facts behind the bargaining position for each entity. I therefore offer some conclusions regarding the "hydroconspiracy" theories of each side.
First, water resources were not a factor in Israeli strategic planning in the hostilities of 1967, 1978, or 1982. By this I mean that the decision to go to war, and strategic decisions made during the fighting (including which territory it was necessary to capture), were not influenced by water scarcity or the location of water resources. The location of water resources was not considered to constitute a strategic position (except in the purely military sense), nor was it a factor in retaining territory immediately after the hostilities. In the mid-1970s, however, a narrow band of the West Bank did begin to be claimed as crucial to retain for hydrologic reasons. This is true also of the Banias springs, El-Hama, and some strategic overlooks on the Golan Heights.
Second, there is no evidence that Israel is diverting any water from the Litani River, either by pipe or by truck. In fact, since 1985, when central southern Lebanon lost its own water supply, an average of 50,000 m3/month has been piped into that region from wells in northern Israel.
Third, the claim that Israel requires the entire West Bank for its water security is not hydrologically sound. Israeli technical and government officials have, since the mid-1970s, developed a "red line" informed by the watershed boundary and population centres, as well as by security needs, beyond which Israel probably would not withdraw control of the water resources, even in the event of an exchange of "land for peace." This amounts to a narrow band of the most western part of the West Bank, drawn approximately along the 100-200 m contour line (see appendix I, map 29).
Contents -
Previous - NextConclusions: Historic summary and lessons for the future
In 1876, John Wesley Powell, the leader of the first organized expedition down the Colorado River, submitted his Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States to Congress. Among his observations on US settlement policies in the desert south-west was his belief, as described by Marc Reisner, that state boundaries were often nonsensical ... In the West, where the one thing that really mattered was water, states should logically be formed around watersheds ... To divide the West any other way was to sow the future with rivalries, jealousies, and bitter squabbles whose fruits would contribute solely to the nourishment of lawyers. (Reisner 1968, 49)
The same might belatedly be said about the national boundaries of the Middle East. The difference, of course, is that, in that region, conflicts between states have deep historical roots and are more often settled on the battlefield than in the courtroom.
The Jordan River watershed, with all its competing national and economic pressures, provides a clear example of the strategic importance of water as a scarce resource. What follows is a brief summary of the history of water conflict and cooperation between the riparians of the Jordan River, as presented in previous pages.
1915-1926. As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, the location of water resources, particularly the headwaters of the Jordan River, helped to influence the boundaries of the French and British Mandates, later the borders between Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
1930s and 1940s. As populations and economies grew against hydrologic limits, so, too, grew the dangers of conflict over water. In the 1930s and 1940s water was a focus of several reports that tried to determine the economic absorptive capacity of the land. These reports influenced British, Arab, and Jewish attitudes and policies towards immigration and land settlement.
1948-1953. Unilateral development, occasionally infringing on demilitarized zones, led to brief armed conflict between Syrians and Israelis.
1953-1955. Johnston negotiations. Eric Johnston, special envoy to US President Eisenhower, worked for two years to hammer out a water-sharing agreement between the riparians of the Jordan River. Although unratified for political reasons, the allocations agreed to by Arab and Israeli technical committees have generally held, with recognized modifications. Moreover, both Israel and Jordan agreed to send technical representatives to regular "Picnic Table talks" to determine day-today hydrologic operations. These talks, named for the site at the confluence of the Yarmuk and Jordan rivers where the meetings reportedly take place, have proved fruitful over the years in reducing minor tensions.
1964-1967. "Water Wars." Beginning with the Arab decision to build an AllArab diversion of the Jordan headwaters to preclude the Israeli National Water Carrier, and ending three years later when Israeli tank and air strikes halted construction on the diversion, this was a period of the most direct water-related conflict.
May 1967. Even as tensions were leading to the following week's outbreak of the Six-Day War, the US Departments of Interior and State convened an "International Conference on Water for Peace" in Washington, D.C., which attracted 6,400 participants from 94 countries, including Israel, Egypt (then the WAR), Jordan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.
June 1967. The Six-Day War changed regional riparian positioning. Israel acquired two of the three Jordan River headwaters, riparian access to the entire river, and the recharge zone for mountain aquifers that currently constitutes about 40 per cent of Israel's freshwater supply. Israel also destroyed the "All-Arab" diversion scheme of the Jordan headwaters, which would have reduced Israeli water by 35 per cent.
6 May 1977. Only ministerial-level meeting between Jordanians and Israelis to discuss joint watershed planning.
June 1982. The Israeli war in Lebanon reportedly had a minor hydrologic component.
1980s. Philip Habib helped to renegotiate Johnston allocations based on political and demographic changes, and tried to reach arrangement over "Unity Dam."
1967-Present. Ownership and management conflicts between Israel/West Bank, Israel/Gaza, Israel/Jordan, and Jordan/Syria.
1989-1990. Richard Armitage led US State Department indirect mediations to reach arrangement over "Unity Dam."
1991-Present. Impetus towards cooperation grows as regional peace talks develop.
Again, it should be kept firmly in mind that none of the events described above in this historical section happened in a political vacuum. Of all the geopolitical and strategic forces surrounding each of these events, only those relating water resources to strategic decisionmaking have been culled for inspection in this work. However, in an analysis of this sort, one must be careful of overzealous reductionism. It is not being suggested that water is the prime motivator in the history of the people of the Jordan River watershed, nor even that water, of itself, has been the cause of conflict. In a section on "hydroconspiracy" theories, I examined two theories, "the hydraulic imperative" and "hydronationalism," and found both lacking in hydrologic (and therefore in political) legitimacy.
My contention is only as follows:
- That water, as a strategic resource, has played a larger role in regional conflict than is generally known;
- That water issues have precipitated some conflict and added to existing tensions in the region;
- That occasionally, water issues have led to dialogue and attempts at cooperation.
Before proceeding to examine possible solutions to the Middle East water conflict, we might look to history for lessons that may be applicable to the future. The above discussion of regional hydropolitics offers several lessons that could be useful in helping to formulate options for solutions to waterinduced tensions, as follows:
- Observation: The link between water resources and political alternatives is inextricable, with water scarcity leading directly both to heightened political tensions and to opportunities for cooperation.
Implication: For negotiations for a political settlement to be successful, they will also have to address solutions to the water conflict. Similarly, workable solutions to the problems of regional water shortage should also address the constraints posed by regional politics. - Observation: Water has historically been a factor in Middle East population distribution, including some border considerations.
Implication: Successful negotiations over Jewish immigration or Palestinian "right of return" will have to incorporate the hydrologic limitations of the region. - Observation: No dispute between Arabs and Israelis, on water or on any other issue, has ever been resolved without third-party (usually United States) sponsorship and active participation. and
- Observation: The better a state's "hydrostrategic" position, the less interest it has in reaching a water-sharing agreement.
Implication: Strong third-party involvement will be necessary for successful negotiations. The United States, or other sponsor of negotiations, should be prepared with a comprehensive strategy to induce cooperation, with particular emphasis on the upstream riparians. - Observation: Projects of limited and implicit cooperation have been successful even in advance of political solutions between the parties involved (e.g. Picnic Table talks, water-for-peace process). Nevertheless, explicit cooperation (e.g. Maqarin Dam), has not preceded political relations. and
- Observation: The more complex a proposal is technically, the more complex it is politically.
Implication: In the context of regional talks, progress in negotiations over water resources may encourage dialogue on other, more contentious, issues. While water continues to "lead" the peace talks, projects to induce cooperation can be designed in a stepwise fashion beginning with "small and doable," and leading to ever-increasing integration, always remaining on the cutting edge of political relations. - Observation: The two conditions at the core of political viability of watersharing are equity of the agreement or project (that is, how much each participant gets), and control by each party of its own primary water sources (or, where it comes from, and whose hand is on the tap).
Implication: These two contentious issues will have to be addressed fairly early in negotiations. Unless a water-sharing agreement is worked out, with each party having its historic as well as future needs addressed, any negotiations over intricate cooperative projects will be building on accumulated ill will.
Contents -
Previous - NextTowards an interdisciplinary approach to water basin analysis and the resolution of international water disputes
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The nature of water conflicts
3.3. Paradigms for analysis of international water conflicts
3.4. An interdisciplinary approach to water basin analysis and conflict resolution
Till taught by pain, men know not water's worth.— Byron
Introduction
In chapter 2, I presented the hydropolitical background of the Jordan River watershed, which has been described as "having witnessed more severe international conflict over water than any other river system in the Middle East" (E. Anderson in Starr and Stoll 1988, 10). I concluded the chapter with the question "What is to be done?" In this chapter, I develop a framework to try to answer that question.
Just as natural water flow ignores international boundaries, so, too, does the evaluation of water resources transcend the analysis of any single discipline. Water, by nature, necessitates an interdisciplinary analysis. Through its physical components, we measure the quantity, quality, and variability of water sources. Because we need to develop an infrastructure to harness water for human use - storage and delivery systems, for example - an engineering component should be incorporated into the analysis. Furthermore, because water can be owned, bought, sold, and traded, its analysis takes on legal, economic, and political aspects as well. Finally, because water is a resource that, when scarce, can induce both conflict and cooperation, water can become a subject for alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
After a short description of the particular nature of international water conflict, and of water as a unique strategic resource, this chap ter explores separately how each of several disciplines treats water as a resource and as a subject of conflict. The disciplines offered are the physical sciences, law, political science, economics, game theory, and ADR.
In the final section, "An Interdisciplinary Approach to Water Basin Analysis and Conflict Resolution," I try to bring together lessons learned through each discipline in a single framework for evaluation. The technical and policy options that might be proposed for any watershed are listed, and a method for evaluating each option, dependent on three measures of viability - technical, economic, and political - is described. In chapter 4, I apply this "interdisciplinary approach" specifically to the Jordan River watershed.
The nature of water conflicts
As a nation reaches and surpasses its hydrologic limits, impetus toward either international conflict or cooperation may increase. For the purposes of this work, I define "competition" as two or more entities, one or more of which perceives a goal as being blocked by another entity (what Frey [1992] refers to as an "issue"). If power is exerted to overcome the perceived blockage, I refer to this as "conflict." If there is coordination of behaviour among entities to realize at least some common goals, I (after Frey 1992) refer to this as "cooperation." The strategies one might employ to further any of these ends are discussed in later sections. To understand how this competition/cooperation dichotomy may diverge, however, we should delve briefly into the nature of water conflict.
To begin with, we might draw parallels between evolution and conflict resolution to see what lessons nature may provide. As species evolve, they become more efficient in their use of the scarce resources they need for survival. If the resource becomes more scarce, the species must either become adept at competing with other species, or it must learn to cooperate and develop symbiotic relationships in order to survive. Maruyama (1963), in his discussion of the "second cybernetics," gives the case of a moth and its predator as an example of resource competition, which, itself, becomes more efficient as the interspecies deviation amplifies - that is, as the differences between them are enhanced. The moth develops better camouflage to avoid its predator, which in turn becomes more adept at discovering the moth's camouflage.
Competition seems to be the more common strategy in human re source conflicts, and, as in nature, once the path towards competition is chosen, Maruyama's "deviation-amplification" would tend to increase.
On the other hand, nature provides lessons in cooperation, as well. A rainforest plant that hosts an ant population, for example, secretes a glucose-rich liquid on which the ants thrive and they, in turn, trim back other plants and vines that compete for sunlight with their host. Such true examples of symbiosis may seem rare, unless one considers that each individual in nature is made up of single cells, which cooperate to achieve the most efficient distribution of scarce resources within that individual.
As in nature, human conflict over resources at its most basic level can be dealt with through either competition or cooperation. Returning to the lessons of cybernetics, both options might be seen as positive feedback loops regarding relations with neighbouring states, in that each aspect reinforces the other : however, only the latter case can truly be seen as "positive." Competition begets ill will, which increases competition, while, conversely, cooperation encourages better relations, thus creating an environment conducive to increased cooperation.
Competition - cooperation
The choice between ever-increasing conflict or cooperation in hydropolitics is discussed by Frey (1992). Frey cites the "Catastrophe Theory" of sociology (E. Zeeman, cited in Frey 1992), which describes how small changes in a social structure, once begun, can develop and increase quickly, much like the effects of resonating sound waves amplifying to shatter a wineglass:
The tension and threat (of transnational water shortage) can apparently be resolved either by sharply escalating the conflict or by accepting the necessity of some form of cooperation. Dire conditions promote cooperation, but those same conditions also make severe conflict more likely. (Frey 1992)
How salient is water as an issue of conflict? Maslow (1954) categorizes and ranks basic human needs according to their level of motivating behaviour. From inner to outer, these are (1) physiological needs, (2) safety needs, (3) belongingness and love, (4) esteem, and (5) self actualization. Water for personal consumption is clearly a most basic human need, as would be water for subsistence agriculture. Water allocated to export, or cash-crop agriculture, or industry, would probably fall within safety needs still a fairly fundamental issue. Water is occasionally used as an esteem item, in elaborate fountains or private swimming pools for example, and even for self-actualization, in baptisms and other ritual purification.
Because of the properties inherent to human water needs, competition over water as a scarce resource, when it occurs, can be especially intense:
At the individual level, the demand for water is highly inelastic, although fairly readily satiable. Personally, we do not need much, but we need that small amount urgently and reliably ... The sinister corollary of this, however, is that if such basic needs are not met, they override more sophisticated interests and become absolute and obsessive. (Frey and Naff 1985)
Along with water's particular salience, it has other singular and elusive characteristics that differentiate it as a unique strategic resource. Like timber or agriculture, fresh water is usually treated as a renewable resource. Next year's rains are counted on as inevitable, albeit allowing for some deviation in amount. Much water, however, particularly fossil groundwater, is nonrenewable, more like oil or minerals. Unlike most other renewable and nonrenewable resources, however, property rights for water, surface or ground, are far from clear.
This is complicated by the fact that water, like air resources, is both pollutable, from point and non-point sources, and mobile, adding another possible point of contention between states. Moreover, water is creatable, or at least purifiable, with the input of enough energy. This adds economic ambiguity to legal ambiguity, by the need to know both from where the water comes and to what use it will be put, before determining efficient allocation.
Water, in short, seems to share only the most contentious characteristics with other resources, particularly in the international setting, making analysis of international water conflicts especially difficult.
Paradigms for analysis of international water conflicts
3.3.1 Physical sciences and technology
3.3.2 Law
3.3.3 Political science
3.3.4 Economics
3.3.5 Game theory
3.3.6 Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
It is a truism of conflict analysis that there will never be a lack of subjects to study. Conflicts abound, from interpersonal to international, and approaches to solving them are almost as numerous. As we have seen, water conflicts are particularly difficult to define, evaluate, and resolve.
What follows is a brief description of how various disciplines approach conflict in general, and international water conflict in particular.
Physical sciences and technology
The technical implementers of water policy are the physical scientists, who have traditionally borne the responsibility for making sure that water supply meets demand. These hydrologists, hydrogeologists, engineers, and chemists manage the supply, delivery, storage, and quality of each entity's water to match the needs of each user. On the demand side, agricultural researchers develop new delivery systems, greenhouse technology, and bioengineered crops to lower the need for water on the farm. This section examines the contribution of the physical sciences to alleviation of the water conflict in the Middle East by offering possibilities both to increase supply and to decrease demand.
Increasing supply - New natural sources
No new "rivers" will be discovered in the Middle East, but increased catchment of winter flood water anywhere along an existing river system can add just as well to the water budget. This applies to small wadis as well as to large storage projects such as the Maqarin Dam, which alone could contribute a saving of about 330 MCM/yr by storing winter run-off that otherwise is lost to the Dead Sea. When it is possible to store water underground through artificial groundwater recharge, even more water is saved - that not lost to evaporation in a surface reservoir. Less evaporation also means less of a salinity problem in the remaining water. Israel currently stores 200 MCM/yr from its National Water Carrier project by this method (Ambroggi 1977, 25).
Underground is the only place to look for any major new water supplies within the basin. In 1985, Israel confirmed the discovery of a large fossil aquifer in the Nubian sandstone underlying the Sinai and Negev deserts. Israel is already exploiting 25 MCM/yr from this source and is investigating the possibility of pumping 300 MCM/yr in the twenty-first century (Issar 1985,110). Jordan has also been carrying out a systematic groundwater evaluation project in recent years, and has begun to tap the fossil Disi aquifer along the Saudi border for 80 MCM/yr (E. Salameh in Garber and Salameh 1992, 114).
Increasing supply - New sources through technology
Projects such as iceberg-towing and cloud-seeding, though appealing to the imagination, do not seem to be a likely emphasis for future technology: the former involves great expense and the latter can be, at best, a small part of a very local solution. Although a representative of Israel's water authority claims that 15 per cent of Israeli annual rainfall is due to their cloud-seeding programme (Siegel 1989), this has been documented only within the northern Galilee catchment and results seem not to have the consistency necessary for reliable planning.
The three most likely technologies to increase water supply for the near future are desalination, waste-water reclamation, and water imports.
DESALTNATION.
The Middle East has already spent more on desalinating plants than any other part of the world. The region has 35 per cent of the world's plants with 65 per cent of the total desalinating capacity, mostly along the Arabian peninsula (E. Anderson in Starr and Stoll 1988, 4). Israel, too, included plans for both conventional and nuclear desalination plants in its water planning until 1978, when they were abandoned as "technologically premature and economically unfeasible" (Galnoor 1978, 352).
It is this problem of cost that makes desalinated water impractical for most applications. Although drinking-water is a completely inelastic good - that is, people will pay almost any price for it - water for agriculture, by far the largest use in the Middle East, has to be cost-effective enough for the agricultural endproduct to remain competitive in the market-place. The present costs of about US$0.80-$1.50/m3 to desalt sea water and about $0.30/m3 for brackish water (L. Awerbuch in Starr and Stoll 1988, 59), do not make this technology an economic water source for most uses. Efforts are being made, however, to lower these costs through multiple use plants (getting desalinated water as a byproduct in a plant designed primarily for energy generation), increased energy efficiency in plant design, and by augmenting conventional plant power with solar or other energy sources.
One additional use of salt water is to mix it with fresh water in just the quantity to leave it useful for agricultural or industrial purposes, effectively adding to the freshwater supply. This method was used in Israel in the 1975/76 season to add 141 MCM/yr to the water budget (Kahhaleh 1981, 40).
WASTE WATER RECLAMATION.
The other promising technology to increase supply is cleaning and reusing waste water. Two plants in Israel at the time of writing treat 110 MCM/yr or 40 per cent of the country's sewage for reuse, and projections call for treating 80 per cent by 1990 (State of Israel 1988, 8). The treated water is currently used to irrigate some 15,000 hectares - mostly cotton (Poster 1989b, 42). It is anticipated that full exploitation of purified waste water will eventually constitute 45 per cent of domestic water needs (State of Israel 1988, 147). This type of project could be developed throughout the region (a World Bank loan helped to finance the Israeli project). The obvious limit of this technology is the amount of waste water generated by a population.
INTERBASIN WATER TRANSFERS.
Other sources of water could come from neighbouring watersheds that currently have a water surplus. At one time or another, Israel has eyed the Litani and the Nile, Jordan has looked to the Euphrates, and all of the countries in the area have been intrigued by the "Peace Pipeline" proposed by Turkey in 1987. The western line of this project would deliver 1,200 MCM/yr from the Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers to Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia (C. Duna in Starr and Stoll 1988, 119). Despite Prime Minister �zal's belief that "by pooling regional resources, the political tensions in the area can be diffused," at a cost of US$20,000 million this project probably will not be diffusing tensions in the near future.
Other recent proposals include bringing Turkish water to Israel in barges (Starr 1991), or towed in plastic "Medusa bags," each with a volume of 1 MCM (Cran 1992). Boaz Wachtel (1992) has devised a branch of the "mini-peace" pipeline to come from Turkey, through Syria, to the Golan Heights. This last branch would be in an open canal, doubling as an antitank barricade, then dropping water to both Jordan and Israel for hydropower.
Some proposals have focused on economic incentives as a means of overcoming the political reluctance to transboundary water transfers. Countries upstream to Egypt may have a legal say in any transfer of Nile water, for example. Dinar and Wolf (1992) suggested a technology-for-water exchange between Israel and Egypt, and calculated the economic "pay-off" that would be generated to induce such co operation. Another cost-cutting option might be to use facilities that are already in place, such as the TAP line, an abandoned oil pipeline that extends from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf.
Once additional water is introduced to the Jordan basin, arrangements can be made for exchanges within the basin from one region to another for the most efficient overall distribution. Nile water, for example, could be brought to Gaza and/or the Israeli Negev Desert for less expense than most alternative sources (Kelly 1989; Dinar and Wolf 1991). Increased water from the northern Jordan could then be made available to other parts of Israel, the West Bank, or Jordan. Similar exchanges could be arranged for Litani or Turkish water as well.
Decreasing demand
The guiding principle to decrease demand for any scarce resource should be, "Can it be used more efficiently?" This does not always work, however, especially when there is an emotional value associated either with the resource itself or with the proposed solution. Unfortunately, when dealing with water, emotions usually charge both aspects of the issue. For example, one way to cut long-term demand for Middle East water is to limit population growth in the region. However, in an area where each national group and religious and ethnic subgroup seems to be locked in a demographic race for numerical superiority, this is not very likely to occur. Many of the sectors most susceptible to efficient restructuring are also those most laden with emotion.
Some aspects of decreasing agricultural water demand are noncontroversial and have made the region a showcase for arid-agriculture water conservation. Technological advances such as drip-irrigation and micro-sprinklers, which reduce water loss by evaporation, are about 20-50 per cent more efficient than standard sprinklers and very much more so than the open-ditch flood method used in the region for centuries (Hillel 1987). Computerized control systems, working in conjunction with direct soil moisture measurements, can add even more precision to crop irrigation.
Other water savings have come through bioengineered crops that exist on a minimal amount of fresh water, on brackish water, or even on the direct application of salt water (C. Hodges in Starr and Stoll 1988, 109-118).
As a result of using a combination of these conservation methods, Israel's irrigated area has increased from 172 million hectares in 1973 to 220 million hectares in 1988, with total production increasing by 100 per cent, while water consumption for agriculture remained nearly constant (State of Israel 1988, 144). It has been speculated that the irrigated area in the West Bank could, similarly, be doubled without increasing the demand for water (Heller 1983,130). Meanwhile, these techniques have been spreading throughout the region, and it is reasonable to assume that increased water efficiency will continue to be an important aspect of Middle East agriculture.
Encouraging cooperation in research and development between the countries in the region, possibly in cooperation with other areas facing similar problems, such as the arid south-west United States, can help with this diffusion of technology. Some such programmes exist, but they usually exclude pairing of any two countries with hostile relations, creating a serious technological barrier precisely where the free flow of information and technology is most important. Starr and Stoll (1988) have advocated regional research centres for the Middle East, sponsored by the United States.
Emotional charge enters into the water debate when it is suggested by economists or planners that greater hydrologic efficiency might be gained if less water were used in agriculture in general, as described in the section on economics, below.
Variability in supply and demand
It should be emphasized that an analysis of such a fragile "hydropolitical" situation as exists in the Middle East is actually more complicated than so far discussed, because of tremendous variability in the system. Some fluctuation is natural. Even in "normal" years, rainfall is extremely variable in both space and time. Almost all of the year's rain falls in the four winter months, and varies from the lush Mount Hermon and Golan Heights, to the desert areas around the Dead Sea. Further, average annual rainfall can vary from year to year by as much as 40 per cent (Stanhill and Rapaport 1988). These fluctuations introduce tremendous challenges to water managers and the water delivery and storage infrastructure on which they rely.
Middle East hydropolitics are made even more difficult to plan for by human-induced variability. Aside from the volatile nature of politics in general, and Middle East politics specifically, two other factors complicate the present precarious situation - one climatic, and one demographic.
CLIMATE.
Many climatologists are currently investigating what changes will occur in regional weather patterns, given an anticipated rise in average global temperature (see, for example, Lonergan and Kavanagh 1991). One possible climatic scenario is a northward shift in the distribution of winter rainfall, away from the Jordan Basin. Difficult though they are to predict on a regional scale, the effects of shifting annual precipitation patterns in the Middle East could have profound impacts on the politics of the region, depending on how dramatic the changes are that actually develop. As global, and finally regional, modelling and forecasting improve, this subject will have to be investigated further in order for appropriate planning measures to be taken.
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES.
A second, more imminent, change is already beginning to occur in the region, which could dramatically affect issues of water distribution and usage. Israel expects at least a million Soviet immigrants in the coming decade, possibly two million (Bank of Israel 1991). Jordan recently absorbed 300,000 Palestinians who left Kuwait in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Furthermore, if political negotiations were to result in an autonomous Palestine on the West Bank, that entity might absorb a percentage of the 2.2 million Palestinians registered worldwide as refugees (Jaffee Center 1989). Heller (1983) has suggested that 600,000 refugees might immigrate to the West Bank under such conditions.
Based on current domestic consumption, Israel would require an additional 94 MCM/yr, or a little over 5 per cent of the current water budget, just to provide for personal use by one million immigrants. Jordan would need 17.5 MCM/yr additional supply for its refugees, and the West Bank would need an additional 15 MCM/yr, or a 14 per cent increase in its water budget, to provide for the personal water needs of 600,000 immigrants.
Admittedly, these numbers represent simple extrapolations based on current water use. However, given not only that hydrologic limits are being reached but also that annual supplies are routinely being surpassed, questions as to the absorptive capacity of the region's water resources for immigrants and refugees should at least be asked.
RELIABILITY OF DATA.
Water supply in general, and groundwater availability and flow in particular, are difficult to evaluate. Estimates of rainfall, evaporation, transpiration, run-off, and percolation to the water-table each can be in error, even by orders of magnitude. Because each measurement adds reliability to available data, the difficulty in measuring and evaluating water resources may add impetus to dialogue within a watershed. Both Kolars (1992) and Starr (1992) have suggested cooperative water data gathering and sharing as an important starting point for regional cooperation.
Law
Authors who have specifically addressed international water law include Caponera (1985), Cano (1982; 1989), and Bilder (1975), while Utton (1982), Hayton (1982), and Hayton and Utton (1989) have focused on the law of international aquifers.
What follows is a brief description of the current state of international water law, the legal ambiguities inherent to Jordan River hydropolitics, and some alternative approaches that others have taken to resolve similar disputes. One procedural note: the critique that follows is of the applicability and enforceability only of the international legal structure - not of treaties. It is argued that, while a legal code can offer general guidelines, it is precisely a treaty, born out of the process of conflict resolution, that offers an appropriate means for agreement.
International water law
The Charter of the United Nations stipulates that states in dispute have an obligation to "first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice." Of the options presented, only "judicial settlement" refers specifically to law. According to Alheriti�re (1985), "states not uncommonly still prefer to bring their dispute to an ad hoc arbitral forum rather than settling it in well established courts." When one examines the painstakingly incremental movement of the international legal structure to grasp and incorporate hydrologic complexities, this lack of legal emphasis in conflict resolution is not surprising.
According to Cano (1989), international water law did not substantially begin to be formulated until after World War I. Before that time, human consumption, industrial waste, and diversion for irrigation, were not deemed major issues. Rivers were used primarily for navigation and log flotation, both of which were covered for Europe in the Congress of Vienna of 1815.
During this century, organs of international law tried to provide a framework for increasingly intense water use. The concept of a "drainage basin," for example, was accepted by the International Law Association in the Helsinki Rules of 1966, which also provided guidelines for "reasonable and equitable" sharing of a common waterway (Caponera 1985). Article IV of the Helsinki Rules describes the overriding principle:
Each basin State is entitled, within its territory, to a reasonable and equitable share in the beneficial uses of the waters of an international drainage basin.
Article V cites all of the factors that must be taken into account for "reasonable and equitable" use, including, but not limited to, the following (cited in Caponera 1985, 567; Housen-Couriel 1992, 5): (a) the basin's geography and the extent of the drainage area in the territory of each basin state; (b) the basin's hydrology, including the contribution of water by each basin state; (c) the climate affecting the basin; (d) past and existing utilizations of basin waters; (e) economic and social needs of the basin states; (f) population dependent on the waters of the basin within each basin state; (g) comparative costs of alternative means of satisfying (e); (h) availability of other resources; (i) the avoidance of unnecessary waste in the use of the waters; (j) the practicability of compensation as a means of adjusting conflicts among users; (k) the degree to which a state's needs may be satisfied, without causing substantial injury to a co-basin state. There is no hierarchy to the above components of "reasonable use"; rather, they are to be considered as a whole. One important shift in legal thinking in the Helsinki Rules is that they address rights to "beneficial use" of water, rather than to water per se (Housen-Couriel 1992, 5).
The International Law Commission, a body of the United Nations, was directed by the General Assembly in 1970 to study "Codification of the Law on Water Courses for Purposes other than Navigation" (Cano 1989). It is testimony to the difficulty of marrying legal and hydrologic intricacies that the Commission, despite an additional international call for codification at the UN Water Conference at Mar de Plata in 1977, has not yet completed its task. After 20 years and nine reports, only a few articles have been provisionally approved.
The final product, which also only establishes general principles for, for example, "equitable use and apportionment" and "prohibition of considerable, substantial, or appreciable harm," would not have the force of law until approved by the General Assembly (Falken-mark 1987; Solanes 1987). The general principles being codified include (after Caponera 1985):
- Common water resources are to be shared equitably between the states entitled to use them, with related corollaries of
- limited sovereignty,
- duty to cooperate in development, and
- protection of common resources.
- States are responsible for substantial transboundary injury originating in their respective territories.
- Absolute sovereignty. A state has absolute rights to water flowing through its borders.
- Riparian rights. Any territory along a riverway has rights to a relatively unchanged river.
- Prior appropriation. "First in time, first in right."
- Optimum development of the river basin. The basin is considered a single hydrologic unit, and it is incumbent upon states to develop it accordingly.
- Reasonable share or equitable use. Provides rights dependent on some or all of the above criteria, but is difficult to interpret.
It should be noted that one aspect of water law in today's Middle East - the issue of ownership - is somewhat more clear within each nation than it is, for example, in the United States. In all of the countries riparian to the Jordan River, as well as in most of Europe, water within a nation's borders is nationalized. What users gain rights to is the use of water, not ownership of the water itself.
As might be imagined, issues of international groundwater have been especially perplexing. Before the Helsinki guidelines, international agreements referred only to specific wells and "in no event is there any manifestation that a whole international aquifer was intellectually comprehended, much less embraced by treaty" (Hayton 1981).
Since the Helsinki Agreement, which mentions "under-ground water" in passing, some progress has been made, particularly linking ground and surface water, and allowing for pollution control. Nevertheless, discussion of international groundwater still takes place "'on the frontier,' if not in no man's land" (Hayton 1981). Probably as a consequence, as of 1982, international courts have issued no decisions specifically on the question of groundwater (Utton 1982).
Even given a detailed law code and a more authoritative court, initial negotiations would still be required, or at least somewhat conciliatory relations would be necessary, between the states involved. The International Court of Justice refers to the following guidelines, in order of precedence, for its rulings (Cano 1989):
- The law of treaties and conventions ratified by governments,
- Customs,
- Generally accepted principles,
- Decision of the judiciary and doctrines of qualified authors.
To summarize, then, general guidelines, although not binding law, are the best that can be expected from the legal structure, for the following reasons (after Caponera [1985] and Cano [1989]):
- International law is founded on the consent of the nations that participate in the system. A state with pressing national interests can therefore disclaim the court's jurisdiction or findings.
- There is no superpower or supralegal authority interested in, or capable of, dictating and enforcing international law, except in the most extreme cases.
- Hydrologic complexities, which are site specific and often poorly understood, preclude the application of sweeping legal generalities.
SHIFTING RIPARIAN POSITIONS.
Given the difficulty of defining the rights of riparians in international law, one can imagine the compounded complications of applying such a code where the riparian positions themselves, and resulting legal claims, continue to shift over time. Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan were all upper riparians between 1948 and 1967, and their corresponding legal claim, therefore, was mostly of "absolute sovereignty" of the Jordan River. This conflicted, during the Johnston negotiations (1953-1955), with the United States' desire for "optimum development," and the Israeli claim to its "riparian rights." Because Jordan was somewhat restrained, being also a lower riparian further downstream, a compromise Arab claim was of rights to water allocation proportional to a territory's contribution to its source (Lowi 1985).
From 1964 through 1967, Syria and Lebanon began building a diversion of the Jordan headwaters, again claiming "absolute sovereignty," to thwart a downstream Israeli diversion that threatened Jordanian water supply. The Jordanians challenged the Israeli plan to move water out-of-basin, arguing that it was entitled to the river's "absolute integrity," and that first priority should be given to in-basin uses (Naff and Matson 1984).
After 1967, Israel became the upper, and predominant, riparian and moved towards a claim of "absolute sovereignty," although remaining, for the most part, within the confines of the (unratified) Johnston allocations (Naff and Matson 1984).
Complicating riparian positions even further is the unresolved issue of groundwater. Israel currently receives about 30 per cent of its water budget from aquifers that recharge in the West Bank. Ownership and rights to this water are in conflict, with Israel claiming "prior appropriation," limiting Palestinian groundwater development in the West Bank. Palestinians have objected to this increasing control. As mentioned earlier, legal arguments often refer, at least in part, to the Fourth Geneva Convention's discussion of territories under military occupation (see, for example, Dillman 1989; El-Hindi 1990). In principle, it is argued, the resources of occupied territory cannot be exported to the benefit of the occupying power. Israeli authorities reject these arguments, usually claiming that the Convention is not applicable to the West Bank or Gaza because the powers that these territories were wrested from were not, themselves, legitimate rulers (El-Hind) 1990). Egypt was itself a military occupier of Gaza and only Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan's annexation of the West Bank in 1950. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the water that Israel uses is not being exported but, rather, flows naturally seaward and, because Israel has been pumping that water since 1955, it has "prior appropriation" rights to the water. Both Israel and Jordan insist that any future allocation to the West Bank must come out of the other's share (Naff and Matson 1984).
RECOGNITION OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY.
As mentioned previously, international legal code is applicable only to states that adhere to a court's jurisdiction. This principle runs into two types of problems in the Jordan watershed:
- States. Except for Egypt, no Arab state has recognized Israel's right to exist. One reason given for collapse of the Johnston negotiations was that ratification would have implied recognition of Israel's legitimacy (Wishart 1990). Israel, in turn, does not recognize the national aspiration of Palestinians who, in the absence of sovereign territory, are relegated to observer status in most international forums.
- Jurisdiction. As mentioned above, Palestinians have claimed that much of Israeli action on the West Bank, including control of water resources, violates the Geneva Convention protecting civilians under military occupation (Ataov 1981). Israel rejects the applicability of the Convention to these territories, claiming that, since Jordanian annexation of the West Bank in 1950 was not widely recognized in the international community, Israeli presence is not legally "occupation."
Alternate legal venues: Treaties and river commissions
In contrast to the development and application of a general law code, treaties and river commissions have been established and perpetuated for water systems throughout the world. They were created through direct or indirect agreements, negotiation, or mediation, even between hostile states.
According to Rogers (1991), there are more than 200 river basins shared by two or more countries. This accounts for more than 50 per cent of the land area of the earth, and more than 280 treaties have been negotiated to resolve the inevitable water conflicts. Treaties are brought about either directly between the parties involved (ne gotiation) or with the help of a third party (mediation). A treaty, once ratified, has the force of law and is the highest precedent recognized by the International Court of Justice (Cano 1989).
Negotiating a treaty is often the first step in ongoing conflict resolution. Onethird of all international agreements contain compulsory dispute settlement clauses (Alheriti�re 1985). One method of providing a forum to resolve disputes is through the establishment of a river commission. For friendly nations, this process might take place directly, between only the parties involved. A good example is the Rhine River Commission, established in 1831 after a lengthy process dating back to 1785. The Commission, with representatives from six nations, provides consultation and technical assistance, although it can also undertake research and make non-binding recommendations. Commissions exist for the Danube, for US-Canadian joint waters, and for dozens of shared waterways throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa (Caponera 1985).
If relations are less friendly, commissions can be established through the "good offices" and sponsorship of an interested third body. One example is the Indus River Treaty of 1960, which established the Permanent Indus Commission between India and Pakistan with heavy involvement of the World Bank (Caponera 1985). Under the terms of the treaty, the basin was divided and developed, giving each nation exclusive rights to its own tributaries. Any cooperative measure requires unanimity among the Commission members (Saliba 1968). Another example is the Committee for the Lower Mekong River, established in 1957 between Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Viet Nam, with close cooperation with the United Nations. Along with hydrologic and management achievements, the Committee deserves special mention for operating uninterruptedly since its inception, despite political differences and occasional armed conflict (Caponera 1985).
Treaties and river commissions have reached a certain level of success, probably because they fill precisely the gaps left in generalized international water law. They address only local conditions and incorporate the vested interests of the specific parties in conflict. In this context, it is not surprising that most law schools in the United States now offer courses in environmental negotiation (Falkenmark 1987). The initial process still requires a certain amount of good will on both sides or, barring that, particularly strong encouragement from a third party. The challenge is to get the parties together initially and, once there, to induce ongoing cooperation. This is a process best served by ADR strategies, as addressed in the following sections. Nevertheless, as Robert Hayton (1982), a professor of law himself, concludes, "just as war is too important to be left to the generals, water law is too important to be left to the lawyers."
Contents -
Previous - Next
No comments:
Post a Comment