Water Problems in the Middle East

When Americans think of the Middle East, they visualize rich oil fields and religious fanaticism. When Middle Eastern people think of their region, they ponder over the problems of water and of their Moslem faith in a developing world threatened by Western culture. Arabs today are suspicious of what they perceive as the inevitable destructive contributions of Western industrialized civilization: the breakdown of millenary traditions; the exploitation of their natural resources by power-hungry foreigners; the poisoning of their environment by urbanization and industrialization; the corruption of their faith by the infidels; the polluting or theft of their most precious resource: water. Of course, Jews and Christians and Turks and a plethora of peoples, through thousands of years, have mixed in this part of the world. Somehow, history has thrown together peoples of diverse origins, customs, religions, goals, and destinies, but they all share a primary concern: how to exploit water for their survival and growth. And there may not be enough of it to ensure the survival of all.

This limited survey of the literature covers what is commonly called the Middle East. By and large, geographical boundaries are well defined: "To the north by the Black Sea, the southernmost ridges of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea; to the west by the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Red Seas; and to the south by the Gulf of

s, and pumping from existing wells is strictly limited. The surplus water has been made available to seep down to the lower-lying Israeli reaches of the transboundary aquifers. "Israel also licensed the high-power pumps of newly established Israeli settlements in the West Bank with the occasional result that nearly all Arab wells went dry. This pattern of Israeli conduct is in clear violation of the international law of military occupation. This law is largely the creation of the The Hague Convention of 1907 and of the Geneva Convention of 1949. While Israel claims to reject the applications of these Conventions to its administered territories, most states consider that both Conventions express general customary international law. If this rule is jus cogens ("law of cogent reasoning"), then Israel is bound. The United States seems to support the latter view, but the question is not settled" (Naff and Matson, 1984). Of course, if Israel claims these territories to be historically and therefore lawfully theirs, then there has not been any military occupation, and the said Conventions are not applicable. Jordan has tried to import water from the Euphrates in Iraq; Israel, from Lebanon's Litani or Egypt's Nile. Both Jordan a