The Water Problem in Israel and Its Repercussions on the Arab-Israeli Conflict

By Subhi Kahhaleh, Institute for Palestine Studies Beirut, Lebanon 1981 51 pp. $2.00

Reviewed by E. F. Henderson

This is an important little book, since it deals with the basic facts of Israel's water development, and the ways in which the interests and rights of Israel's Arab neighbors have been habitually ignored.

The author's credentials for telling this story are solid ones. Mr. Kahhaleh holds degrees in civil engineering from Robert College, Istanbul, and from the University of Illinois, and has been President of the Arab Union of Engineers. He has held high posts in Jordan (Minister of Communications), and in Syria, where he was Minister of Planning and Transport and Minister of the Euphrates Dam. He also served as the Arab League's Director General of the Authority to Exploit the Waters of the Jordan River and Its Tributaries.

As Mr. Kahhaleh shows us, water resources have always been at the heart of Zionist planning, since the first modern Zionists arrived in Palestine at the end of the last century. They needed land but land without water is useless, and their efforts to find water have been unrelenting. When the mandate for Palestine was being negotiated after World War 1, the Zionists used their immense influence at cabinet level in Britain to try to get a "better" northern boundary, which would give them control of the whole of the Jordan and its headwaters, and at least part of the Litani River. In this they only partly succeeded. Then, when the mandate began to operate, they sought control of water through specific concessions for water development. They tried to discourage general development, especially in that large part of the country that was inhabited only by Arabs.

Diverting the Waters

After the state of Israel had been established in 1948, Mr. Kahhaleh tells us, Israelis worked as rapidly as possible to develop their diversionary canal from the upper Jordan, and at the same time prevented exploitation of the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers. They bored the aquifer around the edge of the Armistice line, in order to draw off as much water as possible from the West Bank aquifer. They used it partly for irrigation, and partly to counteract the overpumping of the wells on the coast, which had increased their salinity. In this way the Israelis fully exploited all the waters within their reach. After the 1967 war won them the West Bank and all its waters, they completely prohibited any new Arab exploitation of the West Bank water for agricultural and industrial development, and proceeded to sink deeper wells for their own development on Arab land. This in many cases drew off water resources which had been used by the Arabs for many centuries. Arab villages suffered; some were ruined. Meters were fitted to all existing Arab wells, and offtake severely limited by the Israeli authorities. The Arabs were left to rely almost entirely on rainfall for crops whereas the Israelis, in the kibbutzim which sprang up around the Arab villages, were able to introduce overhead and other forms of irrigation.

Mr. Kahhaleh makes it clear that a very critical point has now been reached, because Israel finds that it is using 100% of its available water resources, not counting unavoidable wastage. He suggests that Israel cannot therefore count on sufficient water for all of its agricultural, settlement, and industrial ambitions unless it captures the head waters of the Jordan and all of the lower Litani river, and captures more land near the Yarmuk to give Israel greater control of that river's waters.

Way to Cut Consumption?

He could well have added that Israel might also consider it essential to cut down on water consumption by driving Arabs out of the West Bank. Defense Minister Sharon is known to believe that many of Israel's problems could be solved this way.

Mr. Kahhaleh deals very well with the main problems concerning water development in the whole area. The book, however, would be improved with more detail to show how the 1953 Johnston plan—A U.S.-sponsored scheme for sharing of the Jordan valley waters—changed in its conception during the two years that Mr. Johnston was trying to negotiate it, and how he turned more and more in favor of the Israelis. He could also have treated at greater length the negative effects of taking fresh water out of a valley complex, leaving the valley to become more saline. This reviewer himself saw the Israelis pump saline water over the armistice line into the Jordan river in the period 1964-67, thus further polluting that part of the river which was at that moment entirely Arab. All these things need to be described in greater detail if one is to have a full appreciation of the whole problem. However, enough is said in the book to show how critical the water question has become, and how, as the Israelis see it, this could dictate their taking action soon to get control of all sources which they feel they need for the greater development of Israel-possibly by using PLO "ceasefire" violations as the pretext.

The book may be obtained from the Institute of Palestine Studies Office at 1322 18th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

E.F. Henderson is Chairman of the American Educational Trust, and former British Ambassador to Qatar.