Water and Thirst Wars (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Prospects of water wars???

*****************************
Clement M. Henry
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
tel 471-5121, fax 471-1061

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 10:43:19 -0400
From: Mid-East Realities <MERL@middleeast.org>
To: MER <MER@middleeast.org>
Subject: Water and Thirst Wars

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                 NABIL SHAATH MUST FINALLY GO

NEWS FLASH:   Abed-Rabo and Dahlan - two U.S. favorites -- are said to be out of the next Arafat 'Cabinet' to be announced by the Chairman in a few days after much delay and procrastination.  But the key person is NABIL SHAATH, the de facto jet-setting Prime Minister, the man closest to the Americans, and among the most politically and financially corrupt of all.   Shaath's removal is essential -- as demanded by the Palestinian Legislative Assembly five years ago when a formal call was made for his indictment -- if the so-called 'Palestinian Authority' is to have any hopes of seriously and independently reforming itself freed from US/CIA/Israeli domination.
    In southern Gaza just hours after Ariel Sharon's 7th U.S. visit to coordinate policies and prepare for regoinal war, occupying Israel troops fought with Palestinian gunmen and stone-throwing youths early Thursday killing five and wounding more than 30.



                    WATER AND THIRST WARS

               Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the
               militant Islamist organization Hezbollah,
               warned that any Israeli "aggression" over
               the Wazzani issue will be answered swiftly
               and firmly. "The response will be very quick,"
               he said. "And I am not exaggerating if I say
               within minutes."

MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 17 October 2002:
   Ariel Sharon now holds the record for the most visits of any Israeli Prime Minister to the U.S. in a year and a half - seven and counting.  The Palestinians are besieged as never before in history; a neo-apartheid has been brought to the once Holy Land, and American weapons and personel of war are pouring into Israel and the Arab client-regime states as never before.
   The Palestinians are quite literally beginning to starve and thirst.  Some two-thirds of Palestinians are now living in utter poverty; and even basic drinking water is becoming too expensive and too scarce for many.  Indeed, the Israelis, all the while with American support and help, have now set the stage to vanquish the Palestinians once and for all, with escalating plans to 'transfer' as many as they can if they can during the regional war now looming
                    ____________________________


              SCRAPING THE BOTTOM OF THE CISTERN
                                  By Amira Hass

Ha'aretz - October 16, 2002:    Where will America and the EU succeed more: In their pressure on Yasser Arafat to lead governmental, financial and security reforms, or in their pleas with Israel to guarantee enough water of reasonable quality and price to 200,000 Palestinians?

Another delegation from the UN is in the country to monitor Israeli and Palestinian Authority promises to deal with the severe humanitarian crisis in the territories. The visit follows one in August by UN envoy Catherine Bertini. Her report noted that among other things, Israel promised to guarantee appropriate daily amounts of water to the Palestinians.

Behind her diplomatic language was hidden an intolerable reality well known to the security forces and the international community. There are 281 Palestinian communities that are not connected to water supply lines. According to various estimates, more than 200,000 people in the West Bank - and their herds and flocks - depend on water tankers for their daily supply of water. They must make their way several times a day between their villages to the main water sources, which are usually a nearby well.

In the last two years, because of the policies of closures and curfews, those 200,000 receive much less than the minimum amount required - 50 liters a day - and the water they do get is of a poor quality, unhealthy, and so costly that fewer and fewer are able to pay for it. Oxfam, the British-based international relief organization, devotes an entire chapter in its most recent report to the impact of the closures on Palestinian villages.

The IDF's blockades around every village and the prohibitions on Palestinians traveling on most of the paved roads to the West Bank have doubled and tripled the distances the tankers have to travel from the water source to the villages, so instead of five to 10 trips a day, they can now only manage two or three.

Instead of seven kilometers, they have to travel as far as 55 - on unpaved roads. Sometimes they encounter mobile IDF and police checkpoints, which delay their trips for hours. Because of the difficulties on the roads, the drivers demand double payment and more for every cubic meter of water they transport.

Unemployed and impoverished, most residents are unable to pay the high prices. The water suppliers are no longer ready to sell on credit. People have sold their source of livelihood - sheep and goats - because they could not afford to keep them watered. In some areas, people have taken to using irrigation water for drinking and cooking. In others, they are scraping the bottoms of the cisterns for polluted water that could cause disease.

Everywhere, people are saving water, using much less than 50 liters a day. In some schools, pupils are told to bring their own water. There's no need to describe the hygienic conditions in the schools.

More than a month after Bertini's visit, Oxfam and B'Tselem sent a letter to the defense minister and representatives of the donor countries, detailing cases that prove no real steps were taken by Israel to meet its promises about water. The defense minister's spokesman promised Ha'aretz that "the defense establishment is working to meet all needs of the broad Palestinian population uninvolved in terror... [and that] in the West Bank, there is a steady supply of water. When there are isolated problems regarding water supply, it is enabled through tankers and with the help of the army and the civil administration." But there is no connection between those promises and reality.

Last week there was a flurry of activity between the Foreign Ministry, the government coordinator in the territories and representatives from the international community over "easing" conditions for the Palestinians in general, and regarding the water crisis specifically.

There were meetings, phone calls, complaints and new promises. Western sources reported that "Shimon Peres was furious when he heard the promises were not being kept" about the water. Maybe. In any case, it seems the international community knows very well that it is impossible to stand on the sidelines and continue the policies of internal closure and curfews in the West Bank and at the same time guarantee reasonable water supply to people imprisoned in their enclaves. But they don't have the strength to deal with the contradiction.



                   WAZZANI RIVER AT HEART OF EXPLOSIVE CRISIS
                                           By PAUL ADAMS

[Globe and Mail - Canada - Wednesday, October 16, 2002]:
WAZZANI, LEBANON -- A group of senior Muslim clerics performed a ritual washing in the clear, cool water of the Wazzani River yesterday morning, in the shadow of two large, blue water-intake valves. Then, near a banner reading, "Ariel Sharon is thirsty for blood and we are thirsty for water," they rolled out carpets, knelt down and prayed.

Lebanon's plan to tap the waters of this little river, no more than a creek at this time of year, threatens to snap the uneasy truce along the the country's border with Israel, and presents yet another potentially violent crisis for this already troubled region.

Yesterday, Israeli jets could be seen at times, circling high above the Wazzani.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militant Islamist organization Hezbollah, warned that any Israeli "aggression" over the Wazzani issue will be answered swiftly and firmly.

"The response will be very quick," he said. "And I am not exaggerating if I say within minutes."

Today, Lebanese dignitaries and politicians are scheduled to gather at the river for the official opening of the water project, which is designed to slake the thirst of south Lebanon's parched villages. Initially, the Lebanese plan to draw off four million cubic metres a year, mainly for drinking water; but this is just the prelude to a more ambitious plan that would draw nearly three times that amount from the region's rivers, partly for agricultural irrigation.

The Israelis take this so seriously that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has suggested it might mean war. This week, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer described the situation as "very serious."

Israel's anxiety stems from the fact that the Wazzani, and two other rivers affected by the Lebanese plan, form the headwaters of the fabled Jordan River, Israel's main source of fresh water.

In recent days, both the United States and the United Nations have had senior envoys shuttling between Lebanon and Israel in an attempt to defuse the crisis. The European Union went even further earlier this week, promising a comprehensive economic development for the region, which suffered under a 20-year Israeli occupation that ended in 2000.

Atop a hill that overlooks the Wazzani, in a village of the same name, the Al-Ahmed family was already celebrating yesterday. At a large family gathering, people drank tea, smoked from water pipes, and spoke excitedly about an end to hauling water up the steep incline with donkeys or in containers balanced on their heads.

"We used to wait until sundown to fetch the water because of the heat," said Fatimeh Al-Ahmed, dressed in the richly embroidered gown of an Arab peasant. "It is very difficult for us, because the water is so close and yet we still labour to get it."

The villagers, who are mostly farmers and shepherds, said that for the moment, their new water supply will be for drinking only. But they cast an envious eye on the verdant fields in Israel, visible across the border fence, just a couple of hundred metres away.

The Israel government does not dispute that its people consume much more water per capita than any of their neighbours. However, it argues that the new Lebanese water projects threaten the long-established and delicately balanced regional status quo.

The Lebanese government launched the Wazzani water project without consulting its neighbours. It argued at the United Nations that it is entitled to the water under international treaties.

At least in public, the controversy has created a rare moment of unanimity among Lebanon's fractious political parties. This week, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri spurned the idea of an internationally brokered compromise, saying that it would "infringe on Lebanon's sovereignty because Lebanon is free to use its share of the water the way it pleases."

His rhetoric not withstanding, few believe that the moderate Mr. Hariri actually relishes an armed conflict with Israel over water. His government is preoccupied with restoring economic and political stability to Lebanon after decades of civil war and occupation.

But southern Lebanon is a political powder keg, where the yellow Hezbollah flag flutters from many rooftops and telephone poles. Supporters of the militant Shia group believe that it was their sustained guerrilla campaign that drove the Israelis out of the area two years ago, and they are heavily armed and bellicose.

Many Israelis already fear that Hezbollah could use the cover of a U.S. war against Iraq to launch a new campaign of violence. And Hezbollah's leaders themselves have warned that they are ready for a fight if Israel takes up arms against the Wazzani River project.

"Our brothers know how to act," Sheikh Nasrallah said yesterday. "They will need no more than a two-second phone call."



                      LEBANON TAPS RIVER AT THE CENTER OF ISRAEL ROW

WAZZANI, Lebanon (Reuters - 16 October) - Lebanon started pumping water Wednesday from a southern river that also supplies Israel -- a project that has drawn Israeli ire and U.S. mediation to avoid a regional flare-up.

Israel has said it takes a ``grave view'' of the project to pipe water from the Wazzani river to parched southern villages. But Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah has warned it would retaliate ``within seconds'' to any Israeli attack on the new pumping station.

Amid tight security, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud officially opened the project on the Wazzani, a tributary of the Hasbani river that feeds the Jordan river and the Sea of Galilee -- Israel's biggest freshwater reservoir.

Lebanese security forces stood guard as Lahoud sent water gushing through the pipe at the center of the row, which has prompted Washington to dispatch envoys to cool tensions and drawn U.S. calls for Lebanon not to begin pumping.

Hundreds of red and white balloons were released as the water began to flow, and revelers splashed around in the water.

Lebanon says the amount of water it plans to use -- up to an extra 140 million cubic feet a year -- is within its rights under international law.

It now pumps seven million cubic meters a year.

Lebanon has also said it would not be talked out of plans to tap water from the Wazzani for irrigation, following suggestions that it limit use of the river to drinking water.

A report by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) this month said Lebanon had not broken any international agreements but said the row should be resolved diplomatically.

``It is a duty of the Lebanese government to supply local residents with water for domestic and other use,'' said a copy of the report obtained by Reuters. ``We consider that the Lebanese government has not breached any international agreement and that United Nations mediation is necessary.''

Thousands of people, waving Lebanese flags, turned out to watch the ceremony as Lebanese and Israeli security forces patrolled the border area near the Wazzani, witnesses said.

Israeli jets have circled over the area in recent weeks as workers put the finishing touches on the project.





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