The Middle East is in the grip of severe drought. Israel's farmers are so highly dependant on irrigation that they require more than half of the 1.55 billion cubic metres of water that is used annually within Israel's borders and the Occupied Territories.

To cope, Israel has ordered 500,000 cubic metres per annum from Turkey for the next 10 years. It also continues to unfairly exploit the main Palestinian aquifer.

In the last six months, tension has increased due to the Lebanese government's insistence that it has the right to use some of the water from Wazzani River. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said it would be a cause for war.

The Lebanese government has built a pumping station to supply water through a 100-millimetre pipe to several dozen parched villages in Southern Lebanon. According to the data supplied to the United Nations, this pipe could only supply 8 million cubic metres per annum to villagers even if it pumped continuously.

Pumping began on October 29.

Timur Goksel, the spokesperson for UN peacekeeping forces in south Lebanon, has been quoted as saying that he is baffled by Israel's reaction to the project. “What is the fuss about?”, he asked. “Israel appears to be having a water crisis because people are worried they will not have enough water for their swimming pools.”

South Lebanon desperately needs water for irrigation, drinking supplies and for sanitation purposes. The contrast between the dry scenery on the Lebanese side of the border and the green, rich orchards and lush lawns on the Israeli side is striking.

In south Lebanon's villages, drinking water is delivered once a week by truck or piped from a distant spring; non-drinking water is delivered on a different day, but in the same truck. Good quality water from private wells, at US$3 for 23 litres, is too expensive for most southern villagers.

“If Israel [does not] bomb our pump, everything will change”, predicted a village leader in Kfar Kila. “Our side of the border will look like their side”, he said.

The risk of war with Israel is very real. Israel is reluctant to yield any of the up to 400 million cubic metres per annum of water that it claims under the terms of a 1955 US-instigated “deal” which was only signed by Israel. Tel Aviv conveniently ignores the fact that the same agreement allows Lebanon to use up to 35 million cubic metres per annum from the Wazzani, around four times the volume that will be extracted by the new pumping station.

In 1964, Syria and Lebanon tried to build a diversion dam on the Hasbani River, below its junction with the Wazzani. This dam would have supplied irrigation and power to southern Lebanon. The project was destroyed by Israeli artillery shells; this water diversion was one of the main factors cited as starting the 1967 “Six Day War”.

Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and south Lebanon in 1982, gave it control of most of the high-quality headwaters of the Jordan River, a prize of war that it refuses to yield.

The White House is worried that a water war in the region would distract the focus from its proposed war on Iraq. The October 2 Washington Post reported that US diplomats deployed to Lebanon to delay the inauguration of the pumping station met with little success.

On October 8, Naharnet.com reported that Israel was using powerful loudspeakers to magnify prolonged wolf cries along the border with Lebanon every night to scare the workers working on the Wazzani project. Flares illuminated the night sky for Israeli jets to stage thunderous supersonic fly bys, while Apache gunships hovered above. However, work on the project was not interrupted by this intimidation.

The Lebanon government rejected a US “compromise”, which would have allowed Lebanese villagers to have household water only, while Israelis across the border could be able to continue to water their lawns with it. Beirut likened it to “a marriage with the groom banned from touching the bride”. The US then moved from biased cajoling to direct threat, warning that $35 million in US aid may be withdrawn if Lebanon did not capitulate.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate immediately if Israel bombs the Wazzani pumping station.

From Green Left Weekly, November 27, 2002.
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