Conflict ravages the region of the Middle East. Not a day goes past without my reading in national media sources of hunger, poverty and war. U.S. involvement in the region is viewed by some as an important supporter of development, but by other’s as a means for securing quotas of oil in the world’s highest oil-producing nations. I can easily imagine a WWIII igniting and erupting in the Middle East as a result of their abundance of the natural resource. However, I do not think that it’s the resource they have most of, but that which they have least of, which will lead to greatest conflict in the region.
Water is essential for human survival; as developing nations seek economic growth their need for water rises exponentially. ‘Water wars’ are no stranger to the region: the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run from Turkey through Syria and Iraq and have caused numerous conflicts between the countries. I believe that the Israeli’s and Palestinian’s experience of water conflict can serve as a catalyst for reconciliation on their more contentious issue of territory.
In March 2000, Israeli troops shot dead one sixteen-year old Palestinian, and critically wounded another, during a clash with Jewish settlers over a well in the city of Nablus on the West Bank. The sentiments of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, demonstrate the tensions which still cause sporadic conflict on the Israel-Syria border. In 1973 he wrote, “It is necessary that the water sources, upon which the Land depends, should not be outside the borders of the future Jewish homelands… for this reason we have always demanded that the Land of Israel include the southern banks of the Litani River, the headwaters of the Jordan, and the Hauran Region from the El Auja spring from south of Damascus.”
According to Vandana Shiva, author of Water Wars, “In 2000, 50 percent of the total cultivated area in Israel was irrigated; in contrast, Palestinian villages consumed only two percent of Israel’s water.” She further argues that the Six-Day War of 1967, which resulted in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, was “in effect an occupation of the freshwater resources from the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the West Bank.”
Israel’s requirement for water increased with its huge economic development throughout the twentieth century, growing from a small colony of settlers at the beginning of the century to a serious player in the international free-market. Recent droughts further compound their problems. Helena Lindholm, author of Water and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, predicts that, “Israel will cease its cultivation of cotton and oranges, and shift to drought-resistant crops.” Poor conservation management of water resources within the West Bank further exacerbates the problem. The lack of water to adequately develop their industries prevents the implementation of regulatory services required to inform and enforce water conservation.
Once we scratch a little past the surface it seems only too obvious that the conflict between the Palestinian territories and Israel is far from just an ethnic or religious war. It further dispels the commonly held opinion that it stems from the regions abundance of oil and the resulting U.S. interests that lie in its offering political support to Israel. It becomes apparent that there should be a greater concerted effort by the intermediaries of the conflict to raise water usage as a pivotal issue in the peace process. Establishing peace between Israel and Palestine is an enduring struggle, and the scarcity of water could lead to greater conflict in the near future.
There is some hope though. In 1999 the ten Nile-basin states, which have previously been embroiled in conflict over the rivers usage, launched and ratified the Nile Basin Initiative. The Initiative establishes guidelines for how all ten states can sustainably and harmoniously use the water of the Nile. I believe that the diplomatic efforts required to resolve water conflicts between Israel and Palestine could unite the antagonists on both sides, and work as a pilot for later interethnic and religious cooperation, eventually being transposed to the contentious and enduring territory disputes which continue to mar the lives of countless Palestinians, and Israeli’s too.
