Mar
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Week 3: Is water part of or is it the root of the conflicts in the Middle East?
March 9, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
By Elmy Lung
The Middle East is loosely defined as consisting of states stretching from the borders of Western Asia (i.e. Turkmenistan) to North Africa (i.e. Egypt). When talking about the Middle East, we tend to focus on main oil producing states around the Persian Gulf. Depiction of the region is somewhat reinforced by the international media as conflictual as reflected in the ongoing tension in the Gaza strip, the Gulf war and later the Iraq war and its aftermath. Collectively, they illustrate just how politically, strategically, culturally and religiously sensitive the area is. While there is no shortage of violence but when it comes to water, it’s a rather different story.
In Water Wars -a book published in December 1993, Adel Darwish and John Bulloch already predicted water conflicts between states for the resource for agricultural and industrial use. Nowadays, more scholars are coming to realize and agree with this view, especially given the geographically arid climate of the region. Whereas the pursue of oil colloquially termed as “black gold” was the subject of conflict in the 20th century, it would be water, or “blue gold” in the 21st century.
In the article Water in the Middle East Conflict, it provides a rather simple description of the problem. States like Israel, Jordan, Palestine Syria and Lebanon are in constant dispute over the use of water from the Jordan River. Although Israel and Jordan has settled their dispute through peace agreements by having Israel supply water to Jordan and thus sharing the responsibility of water system developments, this is not a norm of conflict solving in the region. Israel is still unable to buy water easily from Turkey as the water pipes will have to pass through Syria- where historical grudges remain from the 1967 Arab- Israeli War (or the “Six Days War”). Syria itself, even having water supplies that exceed demands, still faces water shortage because of the inability to divert water to certain areas. The situation is not made any better with Turkey often threatening to use the water weapon against its downstream neighbors. As a regional expert is quoted as saying “The Middle East has basically run out of water. Only in the Tigris and Euphrates is there some surplus and Turkey controls this vital resource…A conflict between Syria and Turkey will almost certainly involve Iraq, thus making matters more complicated in the region.”
And water conflicts are not confined to these states either.
Population growth has inevitably resulted in higher demands of water. It is said that “swaths of the Middle East, are reaching the physical limits of their water supplies”. Egypt, for example,has to import about half of its food because of the lack of water to grow them domestically. This makes the tension stronger when water from major tributaries are being diverted for various uses. As such, there is increasing reliance on aquifers to provide water.
Aquifers are essentially “undergound lenses of fresh water, effectively floating, within the porous rocks, on salt water which has soaked into the land from the sea.” And many cities depend on them. However, the problem is once the non- renewable resource (as it takes thousands of years to build up such a reserve) of fresh water is used, it leads to a rise in salt water and that contaminates the aquifer.
Underground water from the Gaza Strip is now so contaminated by the salination that it is undrinkable. So the million odd Gaza residents will have to seek water beyond their closed borders which is dangerous. Otherwise, they face the elimination of agriculture- a 30% GDP industry of the area within the coming twenty years. Residents have already had to resort to growing more salt- tolerant crops because of the increasing salinity. The situation is not helped when researchers have found that the Israelis control up to 80% of Palestinian waters in the surrounding area.
Arie Issar argues that desalination plants and other peaceful solutions are feasible to solve the water shortage problem but political tensions and lack of investment prevents such an implementation. It is a tall order though as that requires regional peace as its foundation, otherwise, conflict will continue and likely to heighten. Even if water is only part of the problem the region now faces, no doubt it will easily escalate and become the cause of conflicts in the very near future.
Of course here, I’ve only given a very brief introduction of the shift in focus from oil to water in Middle Eastern conflicts. The topic deserves closer examination because of the increasing role these states play internationally. I just hope to illustrate from this post that the water is fast becoming a serious issue and in a capitalist market where one tends to watch the prices a barrel of oil, perhaps they should now be thinking of the human prices of water.
