Could They By Chance Be Related?

Many worldwide are racking their brains for a good reason as to why Israel is acting with such abandoned barbarity towards Lebanon. The usual real politik-al explanations don’t seem to suffice to explain their harshness. Now it’s not just bombardments any more.

2006: Israel hints at a full-scale invasion

What has Israel got to gain in material terms from a full-scale invasion and occupation of the country, other than to cascade terrorism down the generations? It could be something very simple: water. From American University in Beirut’s Notes on the Geology of Lebanon:

The chief natural resource is water. The high mountains gave a high rainfall (widely over a meter a year in Mount Lebanon), and the porous fractured limestone made excellent aquifers which were refilled over summer by slow snow melt. The resulting abundant springs and rivers, unique to the region, gave the country its abundant forests and legendary fertility. However due to the steep slopes and the stony, shallow soils this fertility has proved hard to harness for agriculture and the removal of the forests tended to produce only short lived farming land.

2002: The Wazzani Water Dispute

[…]

The project–carried out by the Council of the South, a government body affiliated with the Shi’i movement Amal–will divert by pipeline as much as 9,000 cubic meters of water daily to dozens of villages. This portion of the project is expected to be complete by the end of the year, after which the Lebanese plan to construct a pumping station and a reservoir from which the water will be channeled. The amount of water that such a project could divert from Israel would be enough to lower the level of the Sea of Galilee by almost an inch. Under normal circumstances, such a unilateral step would likely have passed without incident. Considering the existing tension along the border, however, this seemingly small water dispute could deteriorate into a military confrontation. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned that Israel will not accept Lebanon’s project, telling Army Radio that he sees the plan as ” a pretext for war.” Indeed, water is a sensitive topic that has contributed to several Arab-Israeli conflicts, including the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in part from a Syrian-Lebanese plan to divert the Jordan River’s tributaries.

[…] Israel’s Water Anxiety

For years, Israel’s fresh water supply has been declining in both quality and quantity. The combination of low precipitation, growing population, and over-pumping has created a national water crisis. In recent years, Israel’s water balance has been so negative that the country failed to meet its allocation transfer quotas to Jordan from the shared Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers?transfers mandated by the 1994 peace treaty between the two nations. In order to meet its needs, Israel has been forced to import water from Turkey. Last month, the two countries signed a water accord in which Turkey undertook to export 50 million cubic meters of water to Israel over a 20-year period.

Israel’s water anxiety stems from the fact that all of its three main water sources–the Coastal Aquifer, the Mountain Aquifer, and the Sea of Galilee–are currently under stress. First, the Coastal Aquifer is rapidly deteriorating due to contamination, low rainfall, and the growing population in the coastal plain. Second, the Mountain Aquifer may be threatened by the future establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Third, the Sea of Galilee depends on an inflow of water, and 50 percent of this inflow originates in Syria and Lebanon, both of which are still in a state of war with Israel. With no diplomatic relations between these neighbors, water division is regulated by a number of unwritten accords and understandings in place since the 1920s, all designed to preserve a certain status quo in the region and minimize disputes. But these understandings are not binding; they are predicated only on the goodwill of Syria and Lebanon.

When Israel controlled southern Lebanon, Beirut had no access to Israel’s water sources. Since Israel’s withdrawal, however, Lebanon has twice attempted to unilaterally change the status quo of water usage in the Hatzbani basin (in March and August 2001). Both times, Lebanon’s actions elicited Israel’s condemnation, but no military action. Israel is concerned that its tolerance of past incidents created a dangerous precedent that prompted the Lebanese government to initiate larger water projects. Failure to act now could lead to more water withdrawals from other sources originating in Lebanon and Syria.

See also this British Israel Communications and Research Centre report and the EU’s end of programme report from its Israel/Wazzani Springs Rapid Response Team for much more detail.