Water politics in the Middle East: Difference between revisions

Water politics in the Middle East refers to the control of water sources in the Middle East, an arid region where issues of water use, supply, control, and allocation are vital.

Water politics plays a role in various areas of politics in the Middle East, and it is particularly important in one of the defining features of the region’s political landscape. Water issues reflect a central aspect of the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; namely, the original influx of an additional large population mass to a relatively fragile geographical area of land, and the massive expansion of previously existing populations. As Tony Allan notes, the initial arrival of Jewish migrants into the Middle East occurred ‘in the most water stressed of the Middle East and North African river basins’, putting extra pressure on basic natural resources there, most obviously water and land.^[1] Concerns over water have significantly helped to shape the Middle East’s political development.

Issues relating to water supplies, then, affect international and inter-regional affairs, with disputes over countries’ rights and access to water resources most often the cause of tensions in this arena. The contended nature of some water provisions has tended to mean that certain waters become more prone to political conflicts (those which are primarily prone to this in the Middle East and northern Africa are the Nile, Jordan and Tigris-Euphrates rivers). In order to secure reliable levels of water access for their populations, states must either have a large water supply in terms of economic availability, or their rights to such supplies must be established.^[2]

Studies of water in the Middle East have also suggested that, in a sensitive hydrological location, a country’s existing surface- and ground-water access should be protected as a first priority if it is to begin to address any water difficulties or shortages. Such measures as these can be seen as being the primary responsibilities of national governments or ruling authorities; and water is therefore closely tied up with statehood and geographical territory in international relations, and with the recognition and rights of nation states as the central actors in this field.^[2]

The political process and interactions underlying the international relations of water have been characterised as having three stages. These are that a state must go through a process of; firstly claiming its right to water resources, secondly receiving recognition of this right, and finally seeking to attain its entitlement to water in accordance with the recognition of its claim. However, these processes have not always succeeded.

In this regard, water politics in the Middle East has been impacted by changes in the international political order and their implications for the area. The involvement of the USSR in Middle Eastern political affairs was seen to have had a constraining effect upon this process, in terms of claims and recognition in the Cold War era.^[3]

The post-Cold War period, therefore, has since been perceived to offer the opportunity for transforming water politics in the Middle East, in light of the shift which it has brought about in global political dynamics in the region. This potential, however, had failed to be fulfilled by the end of the decade, with states in the Middle East ‘still mainly involved in… asserting water rights over shared waters’. The consequence of this has been that ‘non-agreed water sharing is an unavoidable reality in present Middle Eastern international relations’, with attendant political problems invariably surfacing.^[4]

The claims over rights to water in the Middle East are centred around the area’s three major river systems. As mentioned above, these are the River Nile, the River Jordan, and the Tigris-Euphrates river basin. International water agreements in the Middle East have been rare, but the situation regarding regional water relations in the three main basins will be explored below.

As with the other major Middle Eastern river systems, political agreements over access to the water of the Nile have been few and far between. The first such accord was the 1929 Nile Agreement. However, this was an agreement that largely represented the nature of world geopolitical realities at that time, rather than being a mutual expression of accord between the participating parties of the region.

This, it is argued, is because it was essentially a product of British national interest. The priority of the United Kingdom, as part of its strategy as the dominant contemporary political and economic power in the Middle East, was maintaining secure supplies of water to Egypt, and this was what the agreement primarily provided for.^[5]

The next agreement on water use in the Nile did not come for exactly three more decades. The new 1959 Nile Agreement was signed by Egypt and Sudan, and was at this point free from political influence by the UK. However, the limitation of this agreement was that it was not more than a bilateral treaty between the two participant countries and, as such, it provided solely for an agreement on the sharing of water between the two nations. The 1959 Nile Agreement has not been granted recognition by the other states through which the Nile also runs.^[6]

The countries which rely upon the Tigris-Euphrates water system remain at the first stage of claiming their rights to water. However, the key player in terms of water politics in this area is Turkey, who Allan reports as having ‘gone a substantial way to[wards]… what it regards as its water rights by its construction programmes on the Euphrates without having them recognised by downstream Syria and Iraq’.^[7]This refers to the dams built by Turkey from the 1970s, partially funded by World Bank loans.^[8]

The Syria-Lebanon-Palestine boundary was a product of the post-World War I Anglo-French partition of Ottoman Syria.^[9][10] British forces had advanced to a position at Tel Hazor against Turkish troops in 1918 and wished to incorporate all the sources of the river Jordan within the British controlled Palestine. Due to the French inability to establish administrative control the frontier between Syria and Palestine was fluid. Until, 1920, when the French managed to asserted authority over the Arab nationalist movement and King Faisal had been deposed.^[11] In the unratified Treaty of Sèvres from the San Remo conference, the 1920 boundary extended the British controlled area to north of the Sykes Picot line (straight line between the mid point of the Sea of Galilee and Nahariya). The international boundary between Palestine and Syria was finally agreed by Great Britain and France in 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne after Britain had been given a League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922. Banyas (on the Quneitre/Tyre road) was within in the French Mandate of Syria. The border was set 750 metres south of the spring.^[10][12]

In 1941 Australian forces occupied Banyas in the advance to the Litani during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign. When Free French and Indian forces invaded Syria in the Battle of Kissoué ^[13] Banias's fate was to be left in a state of limbo when Syria came under British military control. After the cessation of World War II and at the time of Syria being granted Independence (April 1946) France and Britain bilaterally signed an agreement to pass control of Banias to the British mandate of Palestine against the express wishes of the Syrian government who declared Frances signature to be invalid. While Syria maintained its claim on Banias, it was administered from Jerusalem.^[14][15]

Following the 1948 Arab Israeli War, and the signing of the General Armistice Agreements in 1949, the Banias spring remained under Syrian control, while the Banias River flowed through the contested Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and into Israel.^[16]

In 1951 the tensions in the area were raised when, in the lake Huleh area (10 km from Banias), Israel initiated a project to drain the marsh land to bring 15,000 acres (61 km²) into cultivation. The project caused a conflict of interests between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Arab villages in the area and drew Syrian complaints to the United Nations.^[17] On 30 March in a meeting chaired by Ben-Gurion the Israeli government decided to assert Israeli sovereignty over the DMZs, consequently 800 inhabitants of the villages were forcibly evacuated from the DMZ.^[17][18] From 1951 Israel refused to attend the meetings of the Israel/Syria Mixed Armistice Commission. The Security Council condemned the attitude of Israel, in its resolution of 18 May 1951, as being "inconsistent with the objectives and intent of the Armistice Agreement".^[18]

Under UN auspices and with encouragement from the Eisenhower administration 9 meetings took place between 15 January and 27 January 1953, to regularise administration of the DMZs.^[19] At the eighth meeting Syria offered to adjust the armistice lines, and cede to Israel's 70% of the DMZ, in exchange for a return to the pre 1946 International border in the Jordan basin area, with Banias water resources returning uncontested to Syrian sovereignty. On 26 April, the Israeli cabinet met to consider the Syrian suggestions; with head of Israel’s Water Planning Authority, Simha Blass, in attendance. Blass noted that while the land to be ceded to Syria was not suitable for cultivation, the Syrian map did not suit Israel’s water development plan. Blass explained that the movement of the International boundary in the area of Banias would affect Israel’s water rights.^[20] The Israeli cabinet rejected the Syrian proposals but decided to continue the negotiations by making changes to the accord and placing conditions on the Syrian proposals. The Israeli conditions took into account Blass’s position over water rights and Syria rejected the Israeli counter offer.^[20]

In 1953, Israel unilaterally started a water diversion project within the Jordan River basin by the Israeli National Water Carrier. This caused shelling from Syria^{[citation needed]} and friction with the Eisenhower Administration; the diversion was moved to the southwest. September 1953 Israel advanced plans to divert water to help irrigate the coastal Sharon Plain and eventually the Negev desert by launching a diversion project on a nine-mile (14 km) channel midway between the Huleh Marshes and Lake Galilee (Lake Tiberias) in the central DMZ to be rapidly constructed. Syria claimed that it would dry up 12,000 acres (49 km²) of Syrian land. The UNTSO Chief of Staff Major General Vagn Bennike of Denmark noted that the project was denying water to two Palestinian water mills, was drying up Palestinian farm land and was a substantial military benefit to Israel against Syria. The US cut off aid to Israel. The Israeli response was to increase work. UN Security Council Resolution 100^[21] “deemed it desirable” for Israel to suspend work started on the 2nd September “pending urgent examination of the question by the Council”. Israel finally backed off by moving the intake out of the DMZ and for the next three years the US kept its economic sanctions by threatening to end aid channelled to Israel by the Foreign Operations Administration and insisting on tying the aid with Israel's behaviour. The Security Council ultimately rejected Syrian claims that the work was a violation of the Armistice Agreements and drainage works were resumed and the work was completed in 1957.^[22]

After the 2nd Arab summit conference in Cairo of January 1964, Syria, started development of the water resources of Banias for irrigation along the slopes of the Golan toward the Yarmouk River.^[23] The project was to divert 20 to 30 million cubic metres of water from the river Jordan tributaries to Syria and Jordan for the development of Syria and Jordan.^[23][24] This led to military intervention from Israel, first with tank fire and then, as the Syrians shifted the works further eastward, with airstrikes.

On June 10, 1967, the last day of the Six Day War, Golani Brigade forces quickly invaded the village of Banyas where a caliphate era Syrian fort stood. Eshkol's priority on the Syrian front was control of the water sources.^[25] This action has meant that Israel utilizes all water resources for the agricultural development of the Hula Valley. Jordan being a country that borders on the Jordan has riparian rights to water from the Jordan basin and upper Jordan tributaries. Due to the water diversion projects the flow to the river Jordan has been reduced from 1,300/1,500 million cubic metres (mcm)to 250/300 mcm. Where the water quality has been further reduced as the flow of the river Jordan is made of run-off from agricultural irrigation and saline springs.^[26]

Paradoxically, despite being the site of probably the most fundamental political divisions in the Middle East, the Jordan basin has arguably seen the most progress when it comes to the regional politics of water. The agreement between Jordan and Israel over water is the only one in the Middle East region in which the political process described above has reached its conclusion, with a mutual attainment and recognition of water rights on both sides. Even this relative success story is not without its considerable problems.

The water agreement forms a part of the broader political treaty which was signed between Israel and Jordan in 1994, and the articles relating to water in this agreement do not correspond with Jordan’s rights to water as they were originally claimed. The nature and significance of the wider 1994 treaty meant that the water aspect was forced to cede importance and priority in negotiations, giving way to areas such as borders and security in terms of armed force, which were perceived by decision-makers as being the most integral issues to the settlement.^[27]

These problems can be seen to have emerged in 1999, when the treaty’s limitations were revealed by events concerning water shortages in the Jordan basin. A reduced supply of water to Israel due to drought meant that, in turn, Israel which is responsible for providing water to Jordan, decreased its water provisions to the country, provoking a diplomatic disagreement between the two and bringing the water component of the treaty back into question.^[28]

Israel's complaints that the reduction in water from the tributaries to the river Jordan caused by the Jordan/Syrian dam look to go unheeded due to the conflict of interest between Israel and her neighbours.^[29]

Constant conflict in the Middle East has seen some major environmental consequences of water related damage. A report ^[30] by Strategic Foresight Group, a think tank in Asia, details in the damage and destruction done to water systems and resources. The Middle East is an extremely water scarce region and any damage to this vital resource has an adverse impact on health, bio-diversity and eco-systems in the region. Water scarcity in the future could prove to be both cause and cost of conflict. Countries in the region are highly dependent on others for their water supply, and nations such as Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait and Syria have a dependency ratio above 50%.

The first Gulf War in 1990 caused untold damage to the water network and the Shatt al-Arab waterways, and many of these systems have yet to be fully functional. 8 major dams were destroyed and over 30 municipal facilities were destroyed. The second Gulf War has resulted in over 70% of the population without adequate water supply.

The Israel-Hezbollah war has also resulted in severe damage to water systems with the destruction of 45 distribution units and pumping stations.^{[citation needed]}

• P.J. Vesilind: "Middle East water-Critical resource" National Geographic Magazine May 1993