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Aaron T. Wolf
University of Alabama
Paper presented at a conference:
Water: A Trigger for
Conflict/A Reason for Cooperation
Bloomington, Indiana
March 7-10, 1996
| Address for correspondence: Department of Geography 202 Farrah Hall, Box 870322 University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0322 |
Phone: 205-348-8682 Fax: 205-348-2278 email: awolf@ualvm.ua.edu |
Page Contents: Introduction
| Borders,
Boundaries, and Hydrostrategic Territory | Water and
Boundaries | Water and War | Water and
Negotiations | Conclusions
| Bibliography
| Notes
"Water" and "war" are two topics being assessed together with increasing frequency. Articles in the academic literature (Cooley 1984; Gleick 1993; Starr 1991; and others) and popular press (Bulloch and Darwish 1993; World Press Review 1995) point to water not only as a cause of historic armed conflict, but as the resource which will bring combatants to the battlefield in the 21st century. Invariably, these writings on "water wars" point to the arid and hostile Middle East as an example of a worst-case scenario, where armies have in fact been mobilized and shots fired over this scarce and precious resource. Elaborate "hydraulic imperative" theories have been developed for the region, particularly between Arabs and Israelis, citing water as the prime motivator for military strategy and territorial conquest.
The basic argument is as follows: Water is a resource vital to all aspects of a nation's survival, from its inhabitants' biology to their economy; the scarcity of water in an arid environment leads to intense political pressures, often referred to as "water stress" (a term coined by Falkenmark 1989); the Middle East is a region not only of extreme political conflict, but in which many states are reaching the limits of their annual freshwater supply; therefore Middle East warfare and territorial acquisition must be related to the region's "water stress.
This article seeks to examine in detail the premise of a link between water and land--the nature of "hydrostrategic territory"--in this "worst-case" water conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The heart of the question as I define it is, "Does territory exist over which sovereignty has been sought politically or militarily, or which would be insisted upon in the course of current territorial negotiations, solely because of its access to water sources, and in the absence of any other compelling strategic or 1egal rationale?" In order to approach this issue, the question as a whole is divided into three components:
In order to answer the question posed above, we must first define our terms, then distinguish "hydrostrategic" territory, that is, land surface which has strategic value solely for its access to water resources, from other territory under conflict.
Ratzel (1897) succinctly defined the difference between a border line and a border fringe: "The border fringe is the reality and the border line is the abstraction thereof" (cited in Prescott 1987, 12) . The term "boundary" has become more common for the line, while "frontier" or "border region" are used regularly to refer to the zone on either side of the boundary (O'Loughlin 1994). Prescott (1987, p. 5) defines boundaries as "the line of physical contact between states" and points to these lines as both opportunities for conflict and for cooperation.
The link between the attributes of the border region and international conflict has been well documented. Ratzel emphasized the physical components of boundaries, arguing that states should establish strong military boundaries, including mountain slopes and the far banks of rivers (cited in Prescott 1965, 11). The functional approach of political geography, as defined by Hartshorne (1950), Jones (1954), and others, describes the motives of state behavior; Douglass (1985, 84) succinctly defines the fundamental goal of a state being to achieve security: "security for its political system, its economic system and for its people..." Homer-Dixon (1991, 77) offers a broad definition of security along similar lines, to include human physical, social, and economic well-being. If the division of boundaries does not further these goals for states on both sides of the line, they themselves can become a cause of conflict. Waterman (1984) describes the hardships of the peoples of Ireland and Palestine brought about by the imposition of boundaries which insufficiently take into account geography. Cohen (1986) lists almost one hundred boundary disputes, and describes the most important elements which contribute to them, including some most-relevant to this study: strategic and tactical land space; strategic water space; land access to the sea; strategic minerals; water resources for irrigation, drinking and electric power; historic claims; drives for racial, ethnic, or religious unification; minority struggles for independence; refugee populations; distractions from domestic turmoil: and major power rivalries. One problem is that these and other elements can be in contradiction with each other: as Tonkin (1994. 21) points out, borders imply scarcity: "Borders now imply potential contestation and scarcity, a sense that territory is either in short supply or potentially valuable."
Water, as a unique natural resource, has caused its disproportionate share of boundarv conflicts. Prescott (1965, 126-133) describes disputes over water bodies which mark or cross a boundary (including territorial waters) as the most common source of functional disputes, and both he and Bingham, Wolf, and Wohlgenant (1994) describe such examples from around the world. In contrast, ignoring water in favor of other parameters of boundary delineation has also proved unwise. The boundary between India and Pakistan, for example, was drawn mostly on the basis of religious considerations, all but ignoring the dependence of populations on both sides on the waters of the Indus. Not only has religion not been enough to unify either country (Donnan and Wilson 1994), but ignoring the location of water necessitated ten years of negotiations, and elaborate engineering works, to physically divide the river (Biswas 1992).
It can be difficult to distinguish between military strategy, defined concisely by one military officer as "from where are they shooting and from where will we shoot back" (cited in Wolf 1995, 73), and "hydrostrategy," the influence of the location of water resources on strategic thinking. A river, for example, is also an valuable barrier against tanks and troop movements, and, as clear landmarks, rivers often delineate boundaries. High ridges, ideal for military positioning, are also often local watershed boundaries. As Minghi (1969) points out, much thought was given to the relationship between boundaries and security particularly in the periods including the two world wars--times of intense boundary delineation. Lord Curzon (1907; cited in Prescott 1965, 13) described the superiority of "natural" boundaries,2 being dependent on physical geographic features, over "artificial" boundaries of latitude and longitude. Writing during World War I, Holdich (1916, 502) linked the concept of security with boundaries, arguing that, whether it is natural or artificial, a boundary should act as a barrier which "must be made as secure as nature or art can make it."3 Rivers, he argued, may make good boundaries (second to mountain ranges), provided "the channel is narrow in a rock-bound bed" (p. 504). Lyde (1916), arguing that the prime function of a boundary was not as a barrier, but rather as "a feature which encourages peaceful international discourse," suggested that rivers made in fact the most-desirable boundaries, providing "a maximum of peaceful associations."
Johnson (1917), Broek (1942), and others have pointed out problems unique to river boundaries, including the difficulty in accommodating geomorphic change and the fact that rivers often flow through heavily populated areas. With World War II, however, came the development of new military technology which brought a third dimension to warfare which, along with a greater awareness of the importance of ethnic and economic relations between states, together obviated the role of boundary-as-barrier (Committee on International Relations 1940; Spykman 1942, cited in Minghi 1969). The war also graphically contradicted Lyde's ideas as boundary-as-inducer-to-peace. With both arguments discounted, Jones (1945) concludes (not surprisingly) that rivers are especially troubling boundaries but that, "unfortunately, rivers probably will be [continue to be] adopted as boundaries even though the geographer or engineer inveigh against them" (p. 108). Jones is also the first in the literature on boundaries to detail the conflict-inducing aspects of international rivers, notably the difficulty in allocating the water of a shared river.
It is precisely these conflicting elements of water sources--their strategic value in the traditional sense, their functional value in a domestic sense, and their role in delineating boundaries--which inform the central questions of this paper posed above. For the purposes of this study, then, I define "hydrostrategic territory" as that territory which has strategic value primarily because of its access to water resources for irrigation, drinking and/or electric power. This is distinguished from strategic territory in a traditional military or political sense, including what Cohen (1986) calls "strategic water space," or water-related territory which provides traditional strategic value.
In this section, I seek to answer the first question posed in the introductory section, that is: Have boundaries been drawn historically on the basis of the location of water access?
In this century, as the developing modern nationalisms of both Arabs and Jews become clearly defined, and with subsequent population pressures accelerated by immigration, the boundaries of today's Middle Eastem nations begin to take shape. After the first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897, the idea of creating a Jewish State in Palestine, which by then had been under Ottoman rule for 400 years, began to crystallize in the plans of European Jewry and efforts were made, without much result, to gain the support of Turkish or British authorities. Even without commitments for independent nations, both Jewish and Arab populations began to swell in turn of the century Palestine, the fommer in waves of immigration from Yemen as well as from Europe, and the latter attracted to new regional prosperity from other parts of the Arab world (Sachar 1969; McCarthy l990). According to McCarthy (1990), Palestine had 340,000 people in 1878 and 722,000 by l9l5.
During World War I, as it became clear that the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, the heirs-apparent began to jockey for positions of favor with the inhabitants of the region. The French had inroads with the Maronite Catholics of Lebanon and therefore focused on the northern territories of Lebanon and Syria. The British, meanwhile, began to seek coalition with the Arabs from Palestine and Arabia--whose military assistance against the Turks they desired--and with the Jews of Palestine, both for military assistance and for the political support of Diaspora Jewry (Ra'anan l955). As the course of the war became clear, French and British, Arabs and Jews, all began to refine their territorial interests.
A detailed description of the lengthy process which finally led to the final determination of boundaries for the French and British mandates which, in turn, informed the boundaries of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel, is beyond the scope this paper, but can be found in the works of Ra'anan (l955), Sachar (1969, 1987), and Fromkin (1989). Since the roots of subsequent water conflicts lie in the delineation of modern boundaries, it is important to go into some detail to exarnine the process and results, as well as the motives of each of the actor is involved. The influence of water resources along the Palestine-Syria border is described by Garfinkle (1994), and along the Palestine-Lebanon frontier b Hof (1985) and by Amery (1995). The following outline of events leading up to the Anglo-French Convention in 1923 emphasizes only certain decisions, and is based on the works mentioned above. The interested reader is referred to that literature for more detail.
1913. French and Lebanese discussed the creation of a "Greater Lebanon" under French control, which would include the Beka'a Valley and the vilayet of Beirut, and which included northern Palestine (Ra'anan 1955, p. 72).
March 22, 1915. T.E. Lawrence wrote London from Cairo suggesting that he, "pull them [the Arab tribes] all together and roll up Syria by way of the Hejaz in the name of the Sharif [Hussein].., and biff the French out of all hope of Syria" (Ra'anan 1955, p. 64).
May, 1915. The "Damascus Protocol" was drafted in Syria by secret Arab nationalist organizations insisting on independence for the Hejaz, Iraq, Syria, and Palestine in exchange for assisting the British. In July Emir Hussein of the Hejaz communicated these demands to the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon. In October, McMahon finally agreed, but insisted that certain areas had to be excluded because of British or French interests, namely, "the country west of Aleppo, Hams, Hama and Damascus," leaving unclear what the status of Palestine was to be (Ra'anan 1955, p.65).
March 9, 1916. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was signed between British and French, dividing the Mideast into regions which would be designated as French (including Lebanon and the northern Galilee), French-influence (Syria), British (Egypt, Iraq, and the port of Haifa/Acre), British-influence (northern Saudi Arabia and Jordan), and international (the remainder of Palestine) (Ra'anan 1955, p. 68).
The spheres of influence of the Sykes-Picot Agreement would have left the watersheds in the region divided in a particularly convoluted manner: the Litani and the lordan headwaters to just south of the Huleh region would be French; the Sea of Galilee would be divided between international and French zones; the Yarmuk Valley would be split between British and French; and the lower stem of the Jordan would be international on the west bank and British on the east. Because of these divisions, and because there is no mention of water per se in the literature on these negotiations, I suggest that other factors, such as the locations of rail and oil lines, holy places and political debts and alliances took precedence, and water resources was not an issue to this point in the border demarcation process (see Ra'anan 1955 and Fromkin 1989 for thorough discussions of these other factors). After the Sykes-Picot agreement, however, and as the outcome of the war began to become clear, each entity with national claims in the region increasingly included water resources in its geographic reasoning, particularly after the end of the World War I in 1918:
French 7, 1917. Disturbed by rumors of the still-secret Franco-British agreement, Zionist leaders met with Sir Mark Sykes to express opposition to condominium or internationalization of Palestine in favor of a British protectorate; insistence on full rights of Jewish immigration; and that Jews in Palestine be recognized as a nation (Memorandum of Meeting, in Sachar 1987, vol. 8).
November 2, 1917. The Balfour Declaration was approved by the British Cabinet.
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country (reproduced in Friedman 1987, vol. 8).
Conflicting interpretations of what was meant by "national home," or even by "Palestine" (at the time including both sides of the Jordan River), and the apparent contradiction between "facilitating this object" and "not prejudicing the.., rights of existing non-Jewish communities," would lead to contention for years to come.
September-December, 1918. Because of British conquests in Palestine, the British no longer felt overly obligated to the French and new political interests began to be incorporated in the delineation of boundaries. Although not acceding totally to Zionist requests, the British did deviate from the Sykes-Picot line and adopted the biblical "Dan to Beersheba" for Palestine, as based on a map of "Palestine under David and Soloman" (Hof 1985, p. 11), in negotiations with the French over the temporary boundaries of "Occupied Enemy Territorial Administrations (OETA)," but held open the possibility that,
Whatever the administrative sub-divisions, we must recover the Palestine, be it Hebrew or Arab, the boundaries up to the Litani on the coast, and across to Banias, the Old Dan, or Huleh in the interior" (Lord Curzon, cited in Ingrams 1972, p. 49).
French Premier Georges Clemenceau agreed that Palestine, defined at the time in the temporary boundaries of OETA, should be exclusively British (Hof 1985, p. 7)
1919. With the war over, and as preparations for the Paris peace talks began at Versailles in early 1919, border requirements were again refined by each side:
The Zionists began to formulate their desired boundaries for the "national home," to be determined by three criteria: historic, strategic, and econornic considerations (Zionist publications cited in Ra'anan 1955, p. 86).
Historic concerns coincided roughly with British allusions to the biblical "Dan to Beersheba." These were considered minimum requirements which had to be supplemented with territory which would allow military and economic security. Military security required desert areas to the south and east as well as the Beka's valley, a gateway in the north between the Lebanon Mountains and Mount Hermon.
Economic security was defined by water resources. The entire Zionist program of immigration and settlement required water for large-scale irrigation and, in a land with no fossil fuels, for hydropower. The plans were "completely dependent" on the acquisition of the "headwaters of the Jordan, the Litani River, the snows of Hermon, the Yarmuk and its tributaries, and the Jabbok" (Ra'anan 1955, .87).
In a flurry of communication between world Zionist leaders, the aspects of historic, strategic, and economic security became increasingly linked with the Jordan headwaters. These leaders of diverse backgrounds--Chaim Weizmann, a British chemist whose wartime contribution of the gun-powder refining process to the Allies granted him a certain status among British decision-makers; Aaron Aaronsohn, a Palestine-born agriculturalist who had undertaken intelligence operations on Turkish troop movements for the British; and Louis Brandeis, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice--each became demographer, cartographer, hydrologist and strategist in preparation for the Peace Conference.
The guiding force in refining the thinking on the necessary boundaries was Aaron Aaronsohn. In charge of an agricultural experimental station at Atlit on the Mediterranean coast, Aaronsohn's research focused on weather-resistant crops and dry-farrning techniques. Convinced that the modern agricultural practices which would fuel Jewish immigration were incompatible with "the slothful, brutish Ottoman regime" (Sachar 1979, p. 103), he concluded that Zionist settlement objectives required alliance with the incoming Allied Forces. Aaronsohn initiated contact with the British to establish a Jewish spy network in Palestine, which would report on Turkish positions and troop movements. Perhaps because of his training both in agriculture and in security matters, he became the first to delineate boundary requirements specifically on future water needs. Aaronsohn's "The Boundaries of Palestine" (January 27, 19l9, unpublished, Zionist Archives), drafted in less than a day, argued that,
In Palestine, like in any other country of arid and semi-arid character, animal and plant life and, therefore, the whole economic life directly depends on the available water supply. It is, therefore, of vital importance not only to secure all water resources already feeding the country, but also to insure the possession of whatever can conserve and increase these water--and eventually power--resources. The main resources of Palestine come from the North, from the two mighty mountain-masses--the Lebanon range, and the Hermon...
The boundary of Palestine in the North and in the North East is thus dictated by the extension of the Hermon range and its water basins. The only scientific and economic correct lines of delineation are the water-sheds.
Aaronsohn then described the proposed boundaries in detail, as delineated by the local watershed. He acknowledged that, with the exception of the Litani, the Lebanon range sends no important water source towards Palestine and, "cannot, therefore, be claimed to be a 'Spring of Life' to the country." It is the Herrnon, he argued, that is, "the real 'Father of Waters' and cannot be severed from it without striking at the very root of its economic life."
Returning to the Litani, though, Aaronsohn suggested that,
(it) is of vital importance to northern Palestine both as a supply of water and of power. Unfortunately its springs lie in the Lebanon. Some kind of international agreement is essential in order that the Litani may be fully utilized for the development of North Palestine and the Lebanon.
Aaronsohn's rationale and boundary proposals were adopted by the official Zionist delegation to the Peace Conference, led by Chaim Weizmann. The 'Boundaries' section of the "Statement of the Zionist Organization Regarding Palestine," which paraphrased Aaronsohn read, in part:
The economic life of Palestine, like that of every other semi-arid country depends on the available water supply. It is therefore, of vital importance not only to secure all water resources already feeding the country, but also to be able to conserve and control them at their sources.
The Hermon is Palestine's real "Father of Waters" and cannot be severed from it without striking at the very root of its economic life... Some international arrangement must be made whereby the riparian rights of the people dwelling south of the Litani River may be fully protected. Properly cared for these head waters can be made to serve in the development of the Lebanon as well as of Palestine (Proposals dated February 3, 1919, Weizmann Letters 1983, Appendix 11).
Interestingly, Aaronsohn thought his ideas had been badly mangled in the Proposals, perhaps because he was not included in the final drafting. In an angry letter to Weizmann, he complained that the draft was, "a disgrace and a calamity" (emphasis Aaronsohn's), and expressed shock that, for one of the delegates, "a 'watershed' is the same as a 'thalweg.' Incredible, but true" (unpublished letter, February 16, 1919, Weizmann Archives).
In June, 1919, Aaronsohn died in a plane crash on his way to the Peace Conference and the Zionist proposals were submitted without revision. Nevertheless, the importance of the region's water resources remained embedded in the thinking of the Zionist establishment. "So far as the northern boundary is concerned," wrote Chaim Weizmann later that year, "the guiding consideration with us has been economic, and 'economic' in this connection means 'water supply"' (Weizmann Letters, September 18, 1919).
The Arab delegation to the Peace Conference was led by the Emir Feisal, younger son of Emir Hussein of the Hejaz. Working with T.E. Lawrence, Hussein and his sons had led Arab irregulars against the Turks in Arabia and Eastern Palestine. After the war, Feisal had developed a relationship with Chaim Weizmann as both prepared for the Peace Conference. After a meeting in 1918, Feisal said in an intervlew,
"The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that as a result of interchange of ideas as the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realization of its aspirations (cited in Esco Foundation 1947, p. 139).
Feisal also initially expressed support for Jewish immigration to Palestine, in part because he saw it as useful for his own nationalist aspirations. At a banquet given in his honor by Lord Rothchild in 1918, he pointed out that, "no state could be built up in the Near East without borrowing from the ideas, knowledge and experience of Europe, and the Jews were the intermediaries who could best translate European experience to suit Arab life" (Esco Foundation 1947, p. 140).
In a meeting later that year, Feisal tried to enlist Weizmann's support against French policies in Syria. Weizmann in turn outlined Zionist aspirations and, "asserted his respect for Arab communal rights" (Sachar 1969, p. 385). The two also agreed that all water and farm boundary questions should be settled directly between the two parties.
Feisal and Weizmann formalized their understanding to support each other's national ambitions on January 3, 1919, in a document which expressed mutual friendship, recognition of the Balfour Declaration, and stated that,
All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immiarants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assigned in forwarding their economic development (original reproduced in Weizmann Letters).
providing, Feisal hand-wrote in the margin, that Arab requests were granted." If changes are made," he wrote, "I cannot be answerable for failure to carry out this agreement."
The Arab requests were spelled out in a memorandum dated January 1, 1919. Because the territory in question was so large--including Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula -geographically diverse and, for the most part, well-watered, it is not surprising that water resources played little role in the Arab deliberations. Based on a combination of level of development and ethnic considerations, Feisal asked (from Esco Foundation 1947):
--Syria, agriculturally and industrially advanced, and considered politically developed, be allowed to manage her own affairs;
-- Mesopotamia, "underdeveloped and thinly inhabited by semi-nomadic peoples, would have to be buttressed... by a great foreign power," but governed by Arabs chosen by the "selective rather than the elective principle;"
-- The Hejaz and Arabian Peninsula, mainly a tribal area suited to patriarchal conditions, should retain their complete independence.
Two areas were specifically excluded: Lebanon, "because the majority of the inhabitants were Christian," and which had its own delegates (see Amery 1995 for details of Lebanon's position), and Palestine which, because of its "universal character was left to one side for mutual consideration of all parties interested" (Esco Foundation 1947, p. 138).
Once testimony was heard at Versailles, the decisions were left to the British and the French as the peace talks continued, culminating at San Remo in 1920, as to where the boundaries between their mandates would be drawn:
The French supported the Lebanese claim that the "historic and natural" boundaries of Greater Lebanon should include the sources of the Jordan River (Sachar 1979, p. 117), including the Galilee Region. They claimed that the Litani was needed for development in Lebanon, while the snows of the Hermon provided water for Damascus.
In 1919, the Bntish first suggested the "Meinertzhagen Line" as a boundary. Based mostly on British security requirements, this line was similar in the north to the Zionist proposals, and was rejected by the French for similar reasons. In September the British put forward the compromise "Deauville Proposal," which granted Palestine less territory than the Zionists sought, but still included the southern bank of the Litani and the Banias headquarters. At the time, Banias was thought (incorrectly) to be the biblical Dan, thereby allowing the British to remain true to their claim of Palestine "from Dan to Beersheba" (Hof 1985, p. 9). Finally, to meet French objections as far as possible, the British proposed a border running north from Acre to the Litani bend, then east to Mount Vernon, which would increase Lebanese territory but leave the headquarters in Palestine (Ra'anan 1955, p. 123).
Although the French rejected each of these proposals, Phillips Berthelot, the foreign minister and negotiator to an Anglo-French conference on the Mideast in December 1919, suggested that Prime Minister Clemenceau insisted on the Sykes-Picot line, but that he was prepared.
to agree that one-third of the waterpower of the waters flowing from Mount Hermon southwards into the Palestine of the Sykes-Picot agreement should be allotted to the Zionists under an economic arrangement with France. The French could do no more than this (cited in Ra'anan 1955, p. 125).
At a meeting on February 17, 1920, the British, represented by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, suggested that, "all Jews were unanimously agreed that the sources of Hermon and the head-waters of Jordan were vital to the existence... of Palestine (Ra'anan 1955, p. 128)." Without these headwaters, Lloyd George argued, the Mandate for Palestine would be a "heavy burden" for Britain. If France could not concede the point, he argued, U.S. President Wilson might be asked to arbitrate.
Berthelot responded that, "the snows of Hermon dominated the town of Damascus and could not be excluded from Syria, nor could the waters of the Litani, which irrigated them to fertile regions of Syria." But he did offer that the claims to the Jordan might be more admissible and that, while France could not concede a frontier following the watersheds of the Syrian and Palestian rivers, "some arrangement might be made for the joint use of the waters in question" (Ra'anan 1955, p. 129).
As to U.S. mediation, the French refused, claiming that, "President Wilson was entirely guided by Judge Brandeis, who held very decided views." Brandeis had, in fact, sent a telegram to the conference, endorsed by President Wilson, which read, in part, that, "rational northern and eastern boundaries are indispensable to a self-sustaining community and economic development of the country. North Palestine must include the Litani River watersheds, and the Hermon on the east... Less than this would produce mutilation of the promised home" (unpublished telegram, February 16, 1920, Zionist Archives).
Lloyd George and Berthelot finally fell back on "from Dan to Beersheba," as described in an atlas written by Adam Smith, a Scottish theological professor, where ancient Samaria only brushes against the Litani, and has a more southem boundary on the west coast even than the Sykes-Picot line (Hof 1985, 11).
In June 1920, France agreed to a compromise: Palestine's northem boundary should be a line drawn from Ras en-Naqura to a point on the Jordan just north of Metulla and Banias-Dan, and then to the northern shore of Lake Hula, running from there along the Jordan, down the middle of the Sea of Galilee to the Yarmuk, where it would meet the Sykes-Picot line. Although these boundaries included all existing Jewish settlements within Palestine, most of the water resources would remain in Syria (Ra'anan 1955, 133).
At the San Remo Conference in April, 1920, agreement was reached where Great Britain was granted the mandates to Palestine and Mesopotamia, and France received the mandate for Syria (including Lebanon). During the remainder of the year, last-minute appeals were made both by the British and by the Zionists for the inclusion of the Litani in Palestine or, at the least, for the right to divert a portion of the river into the Jordan basin for hydro-power. The French refused, offering a bleak picture of the future without an agreement and suggested, referring to British and Zionist ambiguity as to what was meant by a 'National Home,' "Vous barbotterez si vous le voulez, mais vous ne barbotterez pas a nos frais"4 (Butler and Bury eds. 1958, vol. viii, p. 387).
On December 4, 1920, a final agreement was reached in principle on the boundary issue, which addressed, mainly, French and British rights to railways and oil pipelines, and incorporated the French proposal for the northern boundaries of six months prior. The French delegation did promise that the Jewish settlements would have free use of the waters of the Upper Jordan and the Yarmuk, although they would remain in French hands (Ra'anan 1955, p. 136). The Litani was excluded from this arrangement, Article 8 of the Franco-British Convention, therefore, included a call for a joint committee to examine the irrigation and hydro-electric potential of the Upper Jordan and Yarmuk, "after the needs of the territories under French Mandate," and added that,
In connection with this examination the French govemment will give its representatives the most liberal instructions for the employment of the surplus of these waters for the benefit of Palestine (cited in Hof 1985, p. 14).
The final boundaries between the French and British mandates, which later became the boundaries between Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, were worked out by an Anglo-French commission set up to trace the frontier on the spot. Biger (1989) cites the principles followed by the commission as generally circumventing settlements, divided ethnically (based on the wishes of the inhabitants); and retaining the link between settlements and their agricultural land. Their results were submitted in February, 1922 and signed by the British and French governments in March, 1923 (Ra'anan 1955; Hof 1985):
The frontier would run from Ras en-Naqura inland in an easterly direction along the watershed between the rivers flowing into the Jordan and into the Litani; the line was then to turn sharply north to include in Palestine a 'finger' of territory near Metulla and the eastern sources of the Jordan.
Rather than include the Banias spring within Palestine as in the French proposal of six months prior, the border ran parallel to and 100 meters south of the existing path from Metullah to the Banias. The French insisted on inclusion of this road in its entirety to facilitate east-west transportation and communication within its mandate--this is a stretch of the main route from Tyre to Quneitra. This northern border meant that the entire Litani and the Jordan headwaters of the Ayoun and Hazbani would originate in Lebanon before flowing into Palestine. The Banias spring, meanwhile, would originate and flow for 100 meters in Syrian territory, then into Palestine. Since Palestine had a promise of water use, and also access to the Banias Heights which overlooked the spring, the fact that the actual spring lay outside of the boundaries was not of immediate concern. Of the headwaters of the lordan, however, only the Dan spring remained entirely within Palestine.
From Banias, the border turned south toward the Sea of Galilee, along the foothills of the Golan Heights, parallel and just east (sometimes within 50 meters) of the Huleh Lake and the Jordan River. Rather than passing through the middle of the Sea of Galilee, the border ran I Om east of its shores (even if the level should rise because of a proposed dam), leaving the entire lake, the town of El-Hama, and a small triangle just south of the Jordan's outflow within the territory of Palestine. These latter two were already included in Zionist plans for water diversion and hydro-electricity generation. These changes were beneficial to Palestine's hydrostrategic positioning, and, although they were made mainly for administrative reasons, "to make customs inspection easier," it was also expressed that the development plans should proceed without international complication (Ra'anan 1955, pp. 138, 143. Nevertheless, according to the agreement, fishing and navigation rights on the lake were retained by the inhabitants of Syria. Later, between 1948 and 1967, Syria claimed the shoreline as the de facto border, and argued for riparian rights to the lake on that basis.
At the Yarmuk, the border went eastward along the river, meeting up with the Sykes-Picot line into the Syrian desert and south of the Jebel Druze.
The final agreement made no mention of joint access to French-controlled waters.
Administrative divisions would further convolute the boundaries along the Jordan. In May 1921, Churchill offered the Emir Abdullah reign over that part of the British Mandate east of the Jordan River--Transjordan became a semi-independent entity in 1993, and an independent kingdom in 1946. While the division was originally between administrative units under one authority--the British Mandate--the boundary, as defined by the center of the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and Wadi Araba/Arava, would eventually become the international boundary between Israel and Jordan.5
Although the location of water resources had been an important, sometimes over-riding issue with some of the actors involved in determining the boundaries of these territories, it is clear in the outcome that other issues took precedence over the need for unified water basin development. These other factors ranged from the geo-strategic--the location of roads and oil pipelines--to political alliances and relationships between British, French, Jews, and Arabs, to how well versed one or another negotiator was in biblical geography.
During the 1930s and 1940s, water was a focus of several reports which tried to determine the "economic absorptive capacity" of the land. In the absence of clear immigration policy, both Jewish and Arab residents of Palestine became increasingly frustrated, taking out their hostility on each other as well as on the British. Over time, the Partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states increasingly became the most advocated option, first in an Anglo-American plan in 1946, and later, when Britain ceded the Mandate to the United Nations, in the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947.
In the case of partition, it became clear to the Zionists that, at a minimum, three areas were needed for a viable Jewish state: the Galilee region with the Jordan headquarters, the Coastal zone with the population centers, and the Negev Desert, to absorb "the ingathering of the exiles." In the late 1930's, the Jewish Agency, sensing that partition was imminent, set out on an intensive settlement program building 55 farm communities between 1936 and 1939 (Sachar 1979, p. 216). The emphasis for site location was in the northern Galilee, to reinforce the projected boundaries and to guarantee the inclusion of what Jordan headwaters were left from the Mandate process.
The Zionist position on whether partition should occur and, if so, what the minimum territorial requirements would be for a viable Jewish State, was increasingly influenced by Walter Clay Lowdermilk. Lowdermilk, director of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, published in 1944 Palestine, Land of Promise at the commission of the Jewish Agency. In contrast to the Ionides Plan of 1939, Lowdermilk asserted that proper water management would generate resources for four million Jewish refugees in addition to the 1.8 million Arabs and Jews living in Palestine at the time. He advocated regional water management, based on the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), to develop irrigation on both banks of the Jordan River and in the Negev Desert, and building a canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea to generate hydro-power and replenish the diverted fresh water (Naff and Matson 1984, p. 32).
Referring to Lowdermilk's work, a 1945 aide memoire on Palestine described Zionist reservations on partition:
With the sea in the West, the Jordan and the Power and Potash concessions in the East, the chief water resources in the North, and the main land-reserves in the South, any partition scheme seems bound to disrupt the country's economic frame, and wreck the chances of large-scale development (April 6, 1945, cited in Weizmann Letters, vol. XXII, p. 299).
At the same time, a 1944 study, "The Water Resources of Palestine," undertaken by Mekorot, the national water company for Jewish Palestine, described an "All-Palestine Project," for irrigation and hydro-electric development. The study included frontier adjustments which would be desirable for a basin-wide development scheme in Palestine. It was suggested that the mandate border be moved upstream where it met the Hasbani, Dan, and Banias headwaters to allow for more effective drainage; eastward along Lake Hula to leave room for a conduit on the east side of the lake; and upstream along the Yarmuk to include an area of about 80 km2 of Transjordan to develop a series of impoundments along the river (Mekorot 1944). It should be noted that, although the report included plans to bring Litani water into the Jordan watershed, it was assumed that agreement would have to be reached with the Lebanese government to do so. Lebanese territory was not included in the list of desirable frontier adjustments. It should also be noted that there is no evidence that any of the territorial suggestions of the Mekorot study were ever included in political decision-making, nor were the proposed boundary modifications raised in subsequent negotiations.
Prescott (1987, 94) notes that the most common cause of boundary disputes can be found in the history of the boundary--that the "evolution" of the boundary is "incomplete." In answer to the question of water's influence on boundaries posed at the beginning of this section, it is clear that water sources have played a role, albeit subservient to other concerns, in the delineation of international boundaries, first between the British and French Mandates, then between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. In particular, the political and military policymakers of Israel had explicit interests in retaining the northern headwaters of the Jordan River, arguing for them in political arenas and reinforcing claims through settlement policy. The goal, however, was reached with only marginal success. While the headwaters of the Jordan originated in the territories of three separate entities, Israel had been successful in retaining riparian access to both banks of the Jordan River above the Sea of Galilee, and sovereignty over the entire lake. Yet it is also clear that once boundaries were agreed-to in a legal forum in 1923, development plans were modified to fit the legal boundaries, not vice versa.
The next aspect of "hydrostrategic territory" to be addressed is the relationship between military strategic thinking during wartime and the location of water resources. In this section, I try to answer the question, "During warfare between competing riparians, has territory been explicitly targeted, captured, or retained because of its access to water sources?"
On February 2, 1947, Great Britain officially turned the fate of Palestine over to the United Nations. The U.N. Special Committee on Palestine recommended partition of Palestine into two states, but included a vehicle for joint economic development, especially in respect of irrigation, land reclamation, and soil conservation."
The Jewish state included the areas described above, and the Arab state included the remainder of Palestine, based on population centers. Jerusalem was to be an international city, and the Jewish state would pay a four million pound annual stipend to the Arab state to reflect the more advanced agricultural and industrial position of the former (U.N. Resolution on the Partition of Palestine 1947, Chanter 4). The Great Assembly approved the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947.
Though the Jewish Agency reluctantly accepted partition, the Arab states rejected it outright and, when the British pulled out of Palestine in May, 1948, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia went to war against the new state of Israel. During the 1948 war, keeping the three zones described above as necessary for a viable Jewish state--the Galilee region with the Jordan headwaters, the Coastal zone with the population centers, and the Negev Desert, to absorb anticipated immigration--became the focus for the Israel war effort.
The Israelis lost three other strategic points along waterways, though, and the repercussions would be felt through 1967. As mentioned above, during the Mandate negotiations, the French had denied the Zionists the Banias spring because an access road they needed crossed the waterway about 100 meters downstream. To guarantee access to the water, though, a small hill overlooking the stream, Givat Banias, had been included in Palestine. Second, the town of El-Hama, located on one of the few flat areas within the narrow Yarmuk valley, and an adjacent triangular area from the Yarmuk to the shores of the Sea of Galilee were included within Palestine territory, specifically to facilitate water resources development. Both of these areas were lost to the Syrians during fighting in 1948 (Sachar 1979). Also, the Syrians crossed the Jordan River in the Huleh Lake/Daughters of Jacob Bridge region, an area targeted by water planners as the site of the first major Israeli reclamation project. Finally, although the Israeli army had occupied a strip of Lebanese territory along the elbow of the Litani, they pulled back to the Mandate boundaries as part of the armistice agreement, in the unfulfilled hopes of gaining a peace treaty with Lebanon (Hof 1985, p. 31).
The 1948 war added a new type of boundary to the region--the Armistice Line. While the boundary between the British and French mandates had the permanence and force of international law, the Armistice agreement, signed separately in Rhodes between Israel and each of its neighbors between February and July 1949, was explicitly stated not to constitute political boundaries--only to delineate a temporary military agreement (Hareven 1977). Negotiations continued in an unsuccessful quest for a permanent peace agreement culminating in Lausanne late in 1949 (Caplan 1993). Water was not mentioned at all during the Rhodes Armistice talks, and only intermittently during the Lausanne Conference.7
The difference between permanent legal boundaries and the Armistice Line were manifested in how each boundary segment was treated by each combatant:
Israel had occupied Lebanese territory up to the Litani River, yet withdrew its forces to the international boundary as a result of the Armistice Agreement, Amery (l995, 23) suggests that Israel's withdrawal was based on the belief that it could make peace with a Christian-led Lebanon, and that joint Lebanese-Israeli water resources development could proceed without territorial annexation. Amery (1995, 23) cites Berger (1965, 30) as arguing that Israel would not have withdrawn from southern Lebanon had it not been convinced of these results.
Syria occupied about 60 km2 of Israeli territory during the war at three locations, as described above: the Banias Springs area, the Huleh Lake/Daughters of Jacob Bridge region, and the triangle from El-Hama to the south-eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee. During the Armistice talks, Syria agreed to withdraw from all of this territory except the Givat Banias hill and the town of El-Hama, provided the remaining territory not be militarized by Israel. While both of these sites which Syria retained were included in Israeli water development plans, Israel did not push for the return of this relatively small territory which deviated from the international boundary, given the presumed temporary nature of the Armistice Line.
Neff (1994, 27) suggests that Syria withdrew with the understanding that final borders, including final sovereignty of the three demilitarized zones (DMZs), would be negotiated in the future. Israel, in contrast, considered itself the legal sovereign of these areas, legal heir to the Northern territory within the British mandate.
The pre-war boundary between British-mandate Palestine and Transjordan, delineated when Britain split Palestine in two in 1922, followed the middle of the Yarmuk River, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and Wadi Araba southward to the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat (Biger 1994). After the war, Jordan claimed jurisdiction over the West Bank, and nowhere is the assumption that the Armistice Line was to be temporary more clear than in the "Green Line," the Armistice Line between the West Bank and Israel. While negotiations continued officially in Rhodes, Sachar (1979, 349-50) describes secret meetings which took place directly between the Israelis and King Abdullah and his advisors at the king's winter palace. The agreement which was reached was informed not only by the location of the two armies at war's end, but also by the location of roads and railways; and by hilltops and high ground for local strategic advantage, based on the type of weaponry available to each side. The line, drawn in green on a map at a scale of 1:250,000,8 cut villages from their land, divided towns from the springs on which they relied, and occasionally split settlements in two (Biger 1989). As Biger (1989) points out, "in no case did the terms of agreement provide for continuing rights of access by inhabitants to their vital land and water resources."
As a result of the 1948 war, the Jordan River was even more divided than it had been under the Mandates. The Hazbani rose in Lebanon with the Wazzani, a major spring of the Hazbani, situated only a few kilometers north of the Israeli border. The Banias flowed for five kilometers in Syrian territory before crossing into Israel. The Dan rose and remained within Israeli territory. The confluence of the three, the Jordan River, flowed along the Israeli-Syrian border, often through a demilitarized zone, until it reached the Sea of Galilee. The sea lay wholly in Israel, with the Syrian border ten meters from the eastern coast. The Yarmuk rose in Syria, then became the Syrian-Jordanian border until its confluence with the Jordan. South of the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River formed first the Israeli-Syrian border, then the Israeli-Jordanian border below the confluence with the Yarmuk, finally flowing wholly into Jordanian territory and the Dead Sea, which was about one quarter Israeli and three quarters Jordanian. Groundwater was equally divided, with the recharge zones of two springs on which Israel increasingly relied, the Yarkon and the Taninim, originating in the Jordanian territory of the West Bank.
For the Jordan River, the legacy of the Mandates, and the 1948 war, was a river divided in a manner so convoluted that unilateral water resources development, the only strategy possible between these hostile riparians, would lead inevitably to conflict. By the early 1950s, Arab states were discussing organized exploitation of two Northern sources of the Jordan--the Hasbani and the Banias (Stevens 1965, 38). The Israelis also made public their All Israel Plan, which included the draining of Huleh Lake and swamps, diversion of the northern Jordan River and construction of a carrier to the coastal plain and Negev Desert--the first out-of-basin transfer for the watershed (Naff and Matson 1984, 35).
Jordan, in 1951, announced a plan to irrigate the East Coast of the Jordan Valley by tapping the Yarmuk. At Jordan's announcement, Israel closed the gates of an existing dam south of the Sea of Galilee and began draining the Huleh swamps, which lay within the demilitarized zone with Syria. These actions led to a series of border skirmishes between Israel and Syria which escalated over the summer of 1951 (Stevens 1965, 39). In July, 1953, Israel began construction on the intake of its National Water Carrier at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge north of the Sea of Galilee and in the demilitarized zone. Syria deployed its armed forces along the border and artillery units opened fire on the construction and engineering sites (Cooley 1984, 3, 10). Syria also protested to the U.N. and, though a 1954 resolution for the resumption of work by Israel carried a majority, the USSR vetoed the resolution. The Israelis then moved the intake to its current site at Eshed Kinrot on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee (Garbell 1965, 30).
Against this tense background, President Dwight Eisenhower sent his special envoy Eric Johnston to the Middle East in October 1953 to try to mediate a comprehensive settlement of the Jordan River system allocations. Johnston's initial proposals were based on a study carried out by Charles Main and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) at the request of the U.N. to develop the area' s water resources and to provide for refugee resettlement (Main 1953). Both Israel and a united Arab League Technical Committee responded with their own counter proposals. The Israeli "Cotton" plan included integration of the Litani River's flow into the Jordan basin, with a subsequent increase in allocations to Israel. The Arab plan rejected integration of the Litani and substantially reduced Israel's share as compared with the Main plan. Johnston worked until the end of 1955 to reconcile these proposals in a Unified Plan amenable to all of the states involved. In the Unified Plan, Johnston accomplished no small degree of compromise. Though they had not met face to face for these negotiations, all states agreed on the need for a regional approach. Israel gave up on integration of the Litani and the Arabs agreed to allow out-of-basin transfer. The Arabs objected, but finally agreed, to storage at both the Maqarin Dam and the Sea of Galilee so long as neither side would have physical control over the share available to the other. Israel objected, but finally agreed, to international supervision of withdrawals and construction. Allocations under the Unified Plan, later known as the Johnston Plan, included 400 MCM/yr, to Israel, 720 MCM/yr. to Jordan, 35 MCM/yr. to Lebanon, and 132 MCM/yr. to Syria (Unpublished summaries, US Dept. of State l 955, 1956).
The technical committees from both sides accepted the Unified Plan but forward momentum died out in the political realm, and the Plan was never ratified. Nevertheless, Israel and Jordan have generally adhered to the Johnston allocations and technical representatives from both countries have met from that time until the present two or three times a year at "Picnic Table Talks," named for the site at the confluence of the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers where the meetings are held, to discuss flow rates and allocations.
As each state developed its water resources unilaterally, their plans began to overlap. By 19S for instance, Israel had completed enough of its National Water Carrier that actual diversions from the Jordan River basin to the coastal plain and the Negev were imminent. Although Jordan was also about to begin extracting Yarmuk water for its East Coast Canal, it was the Israeli diversion which prompted President Nasser to call for the First Arab Summit in January, 1964, including heads of state from the -region and North Africa, specifically to discuss a joint strategy on water.
The options presented at the Summit were to complain to the U.N., divert the upper Jordan tributaries into Arab states, as had been discussed by Syria and Jordan since 1953, or to go to war (Schmida 1983, 19). The decision to divert the rivers prevailed at a Second Summit in September, 1964, and the Arab states agreed to finance a Headwater Diversion project in Lebanon and Syria and to help Jordan build a dam on the Yarmuk. They also made tentative military plans to defend the diversion project (Shemesh 1988, 38).
In 1964, Israel began withdrawing 320 MCM/yr. of Jordan water for its National Water Carrier and Jordan completed a major phase of its East Coast Canal (Inbar and Maos 1984, 21). In November 1964, the Arab states began construction of their Headwater Diversion Plan to prevent the Jordan headwaters from reaching Israel. The plan was to divert the Hasbani into the Litani in Lebanon and the Banias into the Yarmuk where it would be impounded for Jordan and Syria by a dam at Mukheiba. The diversion would divert up to 125 MCM/yr., cut by 35% the installed capacity of the Israeli Carrier, and increase the salinity in the Sea of Galilee by 60 ppm (Unpublished memorandum, US Central Intelligence Agency, May 1962): In March, May, and August of 1965, Israeli tanks attacked the diversion works in Syria. The final incident, including both Israeli tanks and aircraft on July 14, 1966, stopped Syrian construction, effectively ending water-related tensions between the two states.
Nevertheless, these events set off what has been called "a prolonged chain reaction of border violence that linked directly to the events that led to the (June 1967) war" (Safran, cited in Cooley 1984, 16). Border incidents continued between Israel and Syria, finally triggering air battles in July 1966 and April 1967, and finally to all-out war in June 1967.
The boundaries following the 1967 war, determined by an unsigned cease-fire agreement, have generally held until very recently. The boundary between Israel and Lebanon, which was not involved in the war, remained the international boundary of 1923; the boundary between Israel and Syria extended well-beyond the Armistice line and demilitarized zones of 1949 to include the plateau of the Golan Heights as far as Quneitra;9 and the boundary with Jordan returned past the Green Line of 1949 to the 1922 British-Mandate division between Palestine and Transjordan along the Jordan River.
In the territorial gains and improvements in geostrategic positioning which Israel achieved in the war, Israel also improved its "hydrostrategic" position. With the Golan Heights, it now held all of the headwaters of the Jordan, with the exception of a section of the Hasbani, and an overlook over much of the Yarmuk, together making the Headwaters Diversion impossible. The West Bank not only provided riparian access to the entire length of the Jordan River, but it overlay three major aquifers, two of which Israel had been tapping into from its side of the Green Line since 1955 (Garbell 1965, 30). Jordan had planned to transport 70-150 MCM/yr. from the Yarmuk River to the West Bank. These plans, too, were abandoned.
In 1982, Israel, for the second time, mounted an operation against the PLO in Lebanon. The first time, "Operation Litani," four years earlier, Israel had stopped its advance at the Litani River and, before withdrawing, had turned over portions of Southern Lebanon to the South Lebanon Army under the command of Major Sa'ad Haddad. Haddad was reportedly to protect Israeli interests in the region, particularly defending against attempted Palestinian incursions through the area to Israel. In addition, the militia is reported to have protected the Jordan headwaters of the Hasbani by closing some local wells and preventing the digging of others (Naff and Matson 1984, 49). Some Israelis involved in these issues contest these reports. According to an Israeli officer who dealt with Haddad extensively, the Lebanese major made perfectly clear to the Israelis threat, We will cooperate with you, but there are two subjects which are taboo--our land and our water" (Wolf 1995, 58). In 1979, engineers from Mekorot, Israel's water planning agency, developed plans to divert from 5-10 MCM/yr. from the Wazzani springs for irrigation in Shitite southern Lebanon and in Israel. To allow the project to flow on gravity alone, a slight northward modification of the Israeli-Lebanese border, by about one kilometer, was considered (Wolf 1995, 72). These plans too were vetoed by Haddad. In the 1982 operation, the Litani was again the initially stated objective, but, by July, Israeli forces had surrounded Beirut. After the invasion was launched by then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, a "water hawk" who had frequently spoken of seizing the Litani, Israel captured the Qirawn Dam and immediately confiscated all hydrographic charts and technical documents relating to the Litani and its installations (Cooley 1984, 22). Despite Israel's withdrawal, they have retained a "security zone" of territory which extends from the international boundary north to a bend in the Litani.
In recent years, particularly since Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a "hydraulic imperative" theory, which describes the quest for water resources as the motivator for Israeli military conquests, both in Lebanon in 1979 and 1982 and earlier, on the Golan Heights and West Bank in 1967, was developed in the academic literature and the popular press. The theory, which might be better termed the "hydrostrategic imperative,"10 usually points to some combination of the following facts, as detailed above, to support their argument (see, for example, Davis et al. 1980; Stauffer 1982; Schmida 1983; Stork 1983; Cooley 1984; and Dillman 1989, Beaumont 1991):
Particularly during the years of Israeli from 1982 to 1985, several analysts extrapolated from this history to speculate on likely Israeli actions in Lebanon. Proponents of this theory proposed scenarios ranging from a simple diversion of the 100 MCM/yr. available at the lower Litani, to elaborate conjectures of a permanent occupation of the entire Beka'a Valley south of the Beirut-Damascus Highway which, along with a hypothetical destruction of the Qirawn dam and Marhaba diversion tunnel and forced depopulation of southern Lebanon, would allow diversion of the entire 700 MCM/yr. flow of the river into Israel.11
Others have argued that Israel retains access to the Litani through its "security zone" because it is in fact, covertly diverting water into the Jordan basin. According to John Cooley, "It was small wonder that the first Israeli diversion plans for the Litani has come into being" (cited in Soffer 1991, 6). More recently, Beaumont (1994, 15), claims that Israel "may well be stealing Lebanese water for its own use." Frey and Naff (1985, 76), even while arguing against the imperative, do suggest that:
Although water may not have been the prime impetus behind the Israeli acquisition of territory...it seems perhaps the main factor determining its retention of that territory.
Prof. Thomas Naff later testified to Congress that, "...Israel is presently conducting a large-scale operation of trucking water to Israel from the Litani River..." (US House of Representatives l 990, 24). Naff (1992, 6) has since modified the contention to, "water, it seems, was instead trucked to units of the Israeli-supported Lebanese Army of Sough Lebanon in the same area as a reward for their cooperation." Beaumont (1991, 8), is typical of those who, building retroactively on the charges regarding Lebanon, now include the 1967 war as proof of water driving Israel's territorial "imperative:"
To avoid each of the states (Lebanon and Syria) controlling their own water resources, Israel invaded southern Lebanon12 and the Golan Heights of Syria in 1967. The pretext given was strategic reasons, but the control of the water resources of the area seems a more compelling and realistic reason.
The theory that water has driven strategic thinking during wartime has been critiqued for political and technical weaknesses, by Naff and Matson (1984, 75-80), Wolf (1995, 70-80), Soffer (1995), and Libiszewski (1995), as well as on economic grounds, by Wishart (1989, 14). To examine the validity of a "hydro-strategic" imperative, two questions must be answered: Was the location of water resources a factor in the military strategy of Israel in 1967, 1978, or 1982? and, Is Israel now diverting water from the Litani River?
In the events leading up to the 1967 war, it has already been noted in some detail how conflict over water resources between Syria and Israel contributed to tensions leading to the fighting, although the hydrologic aspect ended almost a year before the beginning of the war. The war itself, started in the south, well away from sensitive water sources, with Egypt expelling the U.N. forces in the Sinai and blocking Israeli shipping to Eilat. The Sinai desert was the first front when war broke out on June 5, 1967, with the straits of Sharm-el-Sheikh the primary objective.
The hydro-strategic points over which Israel gained control during the war were on the West Bank, including the recharge zones of several aquifers, some of which Israel had been tapping into since the l950's, and on the Golan Heights, including the Banias springs, which Syria had attempted to divert in 1965, and, further south, at El-Hama and at an overlook on the proposed site of the Maqarin dam. The former was controlled by Jordan, and the latter by Syria.
Before the war, and even in its first days, Israel had agreed not to engage in combat with Jordan, as long as Jordan did not attack. Jordan did launch several artillery barrages in the first days of the war, though, which opened up the West Bank the second front (Sachar 1979).
Finally, despite attacks from Syria, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was extremely reluctant to launch an attack on the Golan Heights because of the presence of Soviet advisors, and the consequent danger of widening the conflict (Slater 1991). For the first three days of the war, Dayan held off arguments from several of his advisors, including the CO of the Northern command, David Elazar, to launch an attack on the Golan Heights. Finally, a delegation from the northern settlements, who had often experienced Syrian sniping and artillery barrages, traveled to Tel Avis to ask Dayan to take the Heights to guarantee their security. Only then, on June 9, did Israeli forces launch an attack against Syria (Slater 1991, 277).
In the taking of the Golan Heights, the water sources mentioned above were incidental conquests as Israeli forces moved as far east as Quneitra. The only exception is the taking of the town of Ghajar, an Awali village which had no strategic importance in the military sense in that it neither contained combatants nor was it situated in a strategic position. It does, however, directly overlook the Wazzani springs, which contribute 2\25 MCM/yr. to the Hasbani's total annual flow of 125 MCM/yr. During dry summer months, the Wazzani is the only flowing source of the Hasbani. Moreover, Ghajar was the site of the projected dams for the Arab Diversion project.
It turns out that Ghajar was not even taken during the war. During the fighting, Israeli troops stopped directly outside of the town. They reportedly did this because on Israeli maps, Ghajar was Lebanese territory, and Israel did not want to involve Lebanon in the war. Ghajar, it turned out, was Syrian--it had been misplaced on 1943 British maps. Cut off from the rest of Syria during the war, a delegation from Ghajar traveled to Beirut to ask to be annexed; Lebanon was not interested. Three months after the war, another delegation traveled to Israel and asked that the village become Israeli. Only then, did Israeli control extend north through Ghajar (Khativ 1988; interview, Khativ, October 1991). Only the village itself was included, though, and most of its agricultural land remained in Syria. Mekorot engineers did install a three-inch pipe for drinking water for the villagers from the Wazzani springs which, although literally a stone's throw from the village, was left under Lebanese control (interviews, Khativ, Paldi, October 1991).
Extensive literature exists on the detailed decision-making on the events before, during and after the 1967 war. What is noticeable in a search for references to water resources, either as strategic targets, or even as a subject for propaganda by either side, is the almost complete absence of such references. See for example Institute for Palestine Studies (1970), which includes almost no mention of water; Brecher (1974), who includes chapters on both "Jordan Waters," and "The Six Day War," but documents no link; and Laqueur (1967, 50), who claims that, "(water) was...certainly not one of the immediate reasons for hostilities." Stein and Tanter (1980) do not mention water at all.
The same absence of documentation is true for Israeli reasons for launching operation in Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 (see, for example, MacBride ed. 1982). As noted previously, Israel's ally in southern Lebanon, Major Sa'ad Haddad, had made clear to Israel in 1979 that water was a taboo subject. It was Haddad, too, who quashed Israel's 1979 plans for a diversion of the Wazzani springs. Tamir (1988), a major-general who helped outline Israel's strategic needs in 1967 and in 1982, described in detail the military strategy of the 1982 war again, mention of water is conspicuously absent.
While the Israel Defense Forces planning branch does have an officer whose responsibilities include water resources, both the officers with those responsibilities during the 1982 war and Tamir (personal communications, 1991) insist that water was not, even incidentally, a factor in the war. When pressed on the subject, Tamir replied:
Why go to war over water? For the price of one week's fighting, you could build five desalination plants. No loss of life, no international pressure, and a reliable supply you don't have to defend in hostile territory.
Even if water was not the immediate cause of the war, the question remains, Does Litani water reach Israel? Despite the inherent difficulty in proving the absence of something. my answer, after investigating as closely as possible, is, "No." This conclusion is based on the following (discussed in more detail in Wolf 1995, 76-78):
An officer who has acted as liaison officer between Israeli and South Lebanon forces doubts that anyone saw Israeli trucks filling at the Litani, pointing out that the 20-ton 'Rio's' which are used to carry water could not make the grade of the military road which leads away from the Litani, if the trucks were full (interview, October 1991). Soffer (1991, p. 7) has calculated that a cubic meter of water trucked from the Litani into Israel would cost about $4 to $10, as compared to about $1.50 for a cubic meter of desalinated water.
After closely examining the arguments both in favor and against a "hydro-strategic" imperative driving military and territorial decisionmaking, it is possible to answer the question posed at the beginning of this section: "Has territory been explicitly targeted, captured, or retained because of its access to water resources?" I argue for the following conclusions:
As noted above, the years of warfare have obscured almost all of the original boundaries between Israel and her neighbors: The June 1967 war erased the boundaries determined in the 1949 armistice agreement on all fronts, with the exception of the line between Israel and Lebanon, in favor of unsigned cease-fire lines between the combatants. These in turn gave way to the lines of the Disengagement Agreement of 1974 on the fronts between Israel and Syria. and Israel and Egypt. The post-1967 years, and particularly the recent period of peace talks, have been characterized by a quest for stable boundary lines, taking into account the lessons of the past. The question I seek to answer in this section is, "How much of the quest for permanent boundaries is influenced by the location of water resources?"
The search for acceptable boundaries be, an immediately after the June 1967 war. For Israel. the guiding rationale was that territorial concessions should be balanced by security needs. defined differently depending on where one was on the political spectrum--from retaining to relinquishing all of the captured territory. For the Arabs, regaining all land captured during the war became the operative imperative, shadowing subsequent negotiations. In the survey of boundary proposals which follows. l exclude the extreme positions of either side--from a "Greater Israel" on one side to one which ceases to exist on the other--but rather describe those which incorporate the concept of territorial compromise in exchange for peace, as provided for in United Nations Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).14 Since Israel controls the territory, and presumably would not withdraw unless its strategic and political goals were met in negotiations, the analysis focuses on studies which investigate Israeli interests in withdrawal.15 However, Foucher's (1987) warning should be borne in mind that, "in the case of the strategic debate over Israel, the West Bank and neighboring Arab states, one may have reason to consider that 'secure border' for Israel and 'security for all' are not synonymous concepts."
Immediately after the 1967 war, strategic needs, none of which related to water, were spelled out by the Israeli government which, if met, would result in Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory. According to Moshe Dayan, the Golan Heights was negotiable even without a peace treaty, and, with such a treaty, so was the rest of the territory captured in 1967, except East Jerusalem (Slater 1991, 286-290). This approach was met by the "three noes" of an Arab Summit in Khartoum in August 1967--no peace, no recognition, and no negotiations with Israel (Sachar 1979, 676). As a consequence, Israel strengthened its position in the newly occupied territories through settlement activities: a string of kibbutzim was established on the Golan Heights in 1967-68 from Senir, on Tel Banias overlooking the Banias headwaters, south along the ridge of the Heights overlooking the previously demilitarized zone, to Mevo Hama, adjacent to Hamrnat Gader with its access to the Yarmuk River. Senir and Hammat Gader were each situated in what had been until the war the demilitarized zone--territory which had been part of the British Mandate, but that Syria had occupied in the 1948 war, then had withdrawn from under demilitarized conditions as part of the 1949 Armistice Agreement.
The same strategy of holding conquered land as inducement to peace talks was followed immediately after the 1982 war in Lebanon. In 1983, an Israeli-Lebanese agreement was signed which called for an Israeli withdrawal from all of Lebanon. The agreement was abrogated in 1984 however. and. consequently, Israel justifies its continued presence in the 'security zone' (Tamir 1988).
As mentioned, Israel began to use settlement activity as a way of reinforcing its strategic interests immediately following the war of 1967. The Labor government which ruled Israel until 1977 adhered generally to guidelines devised by minister Yigal Allon primarily to address Israeli security concerns. Emphasis was placed mainly on the Jordan Valley and the eastern slope of the West Bank mountain rang facing Jordan. It should be noted that the Allon Plan was never endorsed nor ratified by any Israeli government, although it guided the Labor government's settlement policy until 1977.
Some Israeli settlements were established outside of the Allon proposals during the Labor years -a few reportedly to help protect Israel's groundwater resources on the northwest comer of the West Bank. As mentioned, Israel had been tapping into the Western Mountain aquifer which originates on the West Bank since 1955. Because of the disparate depths to water for this aquifer in the coastal plain and in the Judean hills (about 60m in the plain, 150-200m in the foothills, and 700 800m in the hills (Goldschmidt and Jacobs 1958; Weinberger 1991), and the resulting cost differences in drilling and pumping wells in these areas, this aquifer is especially vulnerable to overpumping along a narrow westernmost band of Northern lobe of the West Bank, in the region of Kalkilya and Tulkarm. Some settlement plans for the late-1970's referred in part to this line and about five settlements around Elkanna were reportedly sited in part to guarantee continued Israeli control of the water resources on its side of what would soon be referred to as a "red line" (Pedhatzor 1989: State of Israel memoranda, April-July 1977).
In 1977, the right-wing Likud party gained control of the Israeli parliament for the first time. As Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin was preparing for negotiations with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, he asked then-Water Commissioner Menachem Cantor to provide him with a map of Israeli water usage from water originating on the West Bank, and to provide guidelines to where Israel might relinquish control, if protecting Israel's water resources were the only consideration.
As described above, Cantor concluded that a "red line" could be drawn, beyond which Israel should not relinquish control, north to south following roughly the 100 200m contour line along both "lobes" of the West Bank. Israeli water planners still refer to this "red line" as a frame of reference (interviews, Golani, October 1991; Shmuel Cantor, December 1991), and it has occasionally been included in academic boundary studies of the region. This concept was later expanded by others to areas of the northern headwaters and the Golan Heights. A brief description of those which mention water as a territorial imperative follows:
Cohen (1986) explored "the geopolitics of Israel's border question," addressing possible boundary negotiations with a Palestinian political entity, and with Syria over the Golan Heights. His recommendations for boundary adjustments were considered from the perspective of defensible borders for Israel within the framework of territorial compromise, and included factors of a "strategic-tactical" and a "demographic-economic" nature. They included, explicitly, defensive depth, surveillance points, marshaling areas and corridors, water control, space for Israeli population and industrial growth, absence of dense Arab populations, and psycho-tactical space (p. 4).
In describing the influence of the above principles, Cohen described how water might influence territorial compromise (p. 55): Israel would need to retain sovereignty over the Banias-Har Dov-Hermon shoulder headwaters region, the Golan slopes east of the Upper Jordan, and the Golan Heights that overlook the Sea of Galilee and the Lower Yarmuk and its Raqqad tributary. On the West Bani;. Cohen argued that Israel should annex the territory which extends until the "subterranean water divide." which he identifies as extending from 2-6 km east of the Green Line.16 Despite his acknowledgment that this territory includes Arab population centers, Cohen argued that the substantial geopolitical advantage that Israel would gain (presumably over and above the hydrostrategic considerations) would outweigh those concerns. Overall, for all the factors listed above, Cohen advised Israel to annex approximately 20% of the West Bank, 19% of the Gaza Strip, and 50% of the Golan Heights (p. 4).
In 1991, the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University asked two researchers, Yehoshua Schwartz, the director of Tahal, Israel's water planning agency, and Aharon Zohar, also at Tahal at the time, to undertake a study of the regional hydrostrategic situation and the potential for regional cooperation. The result, a 300 page document titled, "Water in the Middle East: Solutions to Water Problems in the Context of Arrangements between Israel and the Arabs," was one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind (Schwartz and Zohar 1991). It examined a number of possible scenarios for regional water development, including possible arrangement between Israel and Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. Scenarios were included both for regional cooperation and for its absence. Evaluations included hydrologic, political, legal, and ideological constraints. The impacts of potential global climatic change were also considered. The study showed. in the words of Joseph Alpher, the director of the Jaffee Center, "the potential beauty of multi-lateral negotiations" (interview, Alpher, December l991).
Some of the findings of the study contradicted government policies at the time, however. In the sections on possible arrangements between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and Syria, maps of the West Bank and Golan Heights included lines to which Israel might relinquish control of the water resources in each area, without overly endangering its own water supply. The line in the West Bank, which was based on Cantor's "red line," suggested that Israel might, with legal and political guarantees. turn control of the water resources of more than two-thirds of the West Bank over to Palestinian authorities without threatening Israel's water sources from the Yarkon-Taninim (Western Mountain) aquifer, although the authors advocated retaining control beyond the "red line." The same was true of more than half of the Golan Heights
These maps contradicted the position of the Ministry of Agriculture. Headed by Rafael Eitan of the right-wing Tzomet party, the Ministry's position was that, to protect Israel from threats to both its water quantity and quality Israel had to retain political control over the entire West Bank.17 On December 12, 1991, 70 copies of the report were sent throughout Israel for review, including to the Ministry of Agriculture. Calling the maps mentioned "an outline for retreat," Rafael Eitan and Dan Zaslavsky, whom Eitan had recently appointed Water Commissioner, insisted on a recall of the review copies and a dela~ in the release of the report. ln January, 1992, the Israeli military censor backed the position of the Ministry of Agriculture and, citing sensitivity of the report's findings, censored the report in its entirety.18
Once negotiations began in 1991, as explored below, boundary proposals took on new urgency. In one of the most comprehensive post-negotiation examinations of West Bank boundary options, Alpher (1994), both summarizes previous proposals for final boundary arrangements, including the recent "Third Way" and Sharon plans (neither of which have a hydrostrategic component), and offers his own. In defining Israel's requirements in a negotiated agreement, he characterizes Israel's needs according to nine parameters: security, water, demography and politics, the heritage dimension, the historic dimension; Hebron; Israeli Arabs and the danger of irredentism; the economic dimension; and the need to straighten the borderline [boundary].
Alpher relies on the unpublished laffee Center report of 1991 described above for his description of hydrostrategic territory.19 He delineates West Bank territory which might be annexed to Israel in order to protect the Western Mountain Aquifer, as defined first as Cantor's "Red Line"--the westernmost section of the northern lobe of the West Bank. and a region around Jerusalem. Alpher notes that, while annexation would guarantee Israeli control of the water resources, adequate supervision and control arrangements are possible without annexation--perhaps through the implementation of a joint water regime (p. 28). He also notes that the territories of the West Bank which are vital for continued control over water management have already been heavily settled because of their importance with regard to security. Thus, he concludes:
"...the water issue is not necessarily a decisive rationale for annexation. At the same time, to the extent that the water issue is juxtaposed geographically with additional vital issues such as security and demography, then it may be seen to further enhance an annexation solution (p. 28).
Alpher finally seems to weigh in against annexation. In his final map incorporating all of the parameters he defines as crucial, no territory which was identified as being important for water alone is slated for annexation.
The Gulf War in 1990 and the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a re-alignment of political alliances in the Mideast which finally made possible the first public face-to-face peace talks between Arabs and Israelis, in Madrid on October 30, 1991. During the bilateral negotiations between Israel and each of its neighbors, it was agreed that a second track be established for multilateral negotiations on five subjects deemed 'regional,' including water resources. These two mutually reinforcing tracks--the bilateral and multilateral--have led, at this writing, to a treaty of peace between Israel and Jordan, and a declaration of principles for agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Both have had a water component in terms of allocations and projects. In neither has water had any influence on the discussions over final boundaries.
Israel and Jordan have had probably the warmest relations of any two states legally at war. Communication between the two has taken place since the creation of each, ameliorating conflict and facilitating conflict resolution on a variety of subjects, including water. As noted above, the so-called "Picnic Table Talks" on allocations of the Yarrnuk have taken place since the 1950's and negotiations formulating principles for water-sharing projects and allocations have occurred in conjunction with, and parallel to, both the bilateral and multilateral peace negotiations.20 These principles were formalized on October 26, 1994, when Israel and Jordan signed a treaty of peace, ending more than four decades of a legal, when not actual, state of war.21
For the first time since the states came into being, the treaty legally defines mutually recognized water allocations. Acknowledging that, "water issues along their entire boundary must be dealt with in their totality," the treaty spells out allocations for both the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers and Arava/Araba groundwater, and calls for joint efforts to prevent water pollution. Also, "[recognizing] that their water resources are not sufficient to meet their needs," the treaty calls for ways of alleviating the water shortage through cooperative projects, both regional and international.
The peace treaty also makes some minor boundary modifications. As noted, the Israel-Jordan boundary was delineated by Great Britain in 1922, and followed the center of the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers, the Dead Sea, and Wadi Araba. In the late 1960's and 1970's, Israel had occasionally made minor modifications in the boundary south of the Dead Sea to make specific sections more secure from infiltrators. They had also done so on occasion to reach sites from which small wells might better be developed. In the last sixteen years, no modifications were made except on the rare occasion that one of these local wells ran dry and had to be re-dug. All of these territorial modifications were reversed and all affected land was returned to Jordan as a consequence of the peace treaty, although Israel retains rights to the water which comes from these wells.
One other area was similarly affected. In 1926. a Jewish entrepreneur named Pinhas Rutenberg was granted a 70-year concession for hydro-power generation at the confluence of the Yarrnuk and Jordan Rivers. The dam he built for that purpose was destroyed in the fighting of 1948, although he (and later his estate) retained ownership of land which was legally under Jordanian jurisdiction. After Israel conquered that territory in 1967, the land was farmed by the kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov. which was established in 1933. With the 1994 peace treaty, sovereignty of the land was returned to Jordan, although ownership was retained by Israelis--Israeli kibbutznikim now travel into Jordanian territory regularly to farm their land.
On 15 September 1993, the "Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements" was signed between Palestinians and Israelis, which called for Palestinian autonomy in, and the removal of Israeli military forces from, Gaza and Jericho. Among other issues, this bilateral agreement called for the creation of a Palestinian Water Administration Authority. Moreover, the first item in Annex m, on cooperation in economic and development programs, included a focus on:
Cooperation in the field of water, including a Water Development Program prepared by experts from both sides, which will also specify the mode of cooperation in the management of water resources in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and will include proposals for studies and plans on water rights of each party, as well as on the equitable utilization of joint water resources for implementation in and beyond the interim period.
Approximately the same time, Israeli water managers discovered an additional 70 MCM/yr. of available yield in the Eastern Mountain aquifer--the only of the three main West Bank units which was not being overpumped at the time. This probably did not hurt Jericho's choice as the first West Bank town to be given autonomy.22
Between 1993 and 1995, Israeli and Palestinian representatives negotiated to broaden the interim agreement to encompass greater West Bank territory. On September 28, 1995, the "Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," commonly referred to as "Oslo II," was signed in Washington DC. The question of water rights was one of the most difficult to negotiate, with a final agreement postponed to be included in the negotiations for final status arrangements. Nevertheless. tremendous compromise was achieved between the two sides: Israel recognized the Palestinian claim to water rights, of an amount to be determined in final status negotiations, and a Joint Water Committee was established to cooperatively manage West Bank water and to develop new supplies. This Committee also supervises joint patrols to investigate illegal water withdrawals--their first "action" was to discover and put a stop to illegal drilling in the area of Jenin in December 1995 (Israel Line, December 20, 1995).
According to the agreement, Israeli forces are scheduled to withdraw from six Palestinian cities in order from north to south, and from 450 towns and villages throughout the West Bank. The final status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has yet to be determined. No territory whatsoever was identified as being necessary for Israeli annexation due to access to water resources. The second and third cities scheduled for Israeli withdrawal--Tulkarm, and Kalkilya, fall well within the "red line" delineated in Israeli studies as being necessary to retain for water security.
As of this writing, water has not been raised in official negotiations between Israel and Syria.23 Serious bilateral negotiations have only taken place since the fall of 1995 and, given the influence Damascus has on Beirut, Israeli/Lebanon talks are not likely until Israel and Syria make more progress. Israelis had hoped to begin talks on water resources with the Syrians at a meeting in Maryland in January 1996, but the Syrians reportedly refused to broaden the scope (Israeline January 24, 1996).
The basis for Israel/Syria negotiations is the premise of an exchange of the Golan Heights for peace. The discussions thus far have focused on interpretations of how much Golan, and with what security arrangements, for how much peace. The crux of the territorial dispute is the question of to which boundaries Israel would withdraw--the boundaries between Israel and Syria have included the international boundary between the British and French mandates (1923), the Armistice Line (1949), and the cease fire lines from 1967 and 1974.
The Syrian position has been an insistence of a return to the borders of June 5, 1967. while Israel refers to the boundaries of 1923. Although it has not been mentioned explicitly, the difference between these two positions is precisely over access to water resources. The only distinction between the two lines is the inclusion or exclusion of the three small areas which made up the demilitarized zone between 1949 and 1967--Givat Banias, the hill overlooking Banias Springs, the Daughters of Jacob bridge area; and the town of El-Hamma/Hamat Gader--a total of about 60 km2. Each of these three territories were included in British Palestine specifically because of their access to the Jordan and Yarrnuk Rivers and, since each is a relatively low-lying area with no strategic importance,24 their access to water is still considered paramount.
In fact, even before Israel-Syria negotiations began, a flurry of articles have stressed the importance of water on the Golan Heights. As mentioned above, Schwartz and Zohar ( l 991 ) advised Israeli retention of the Golan Heights west of the Jordan River watershed line in order to guarantee continued control of both water quantity and quality. In a 1994 study, Shalev ( 1994), himself a retired general in the Israeli army, cites five other retired generals on the importance of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan to the protection of water resources. Even in his small sample, Shalev finds a spectrum of opinion, from Maj. Gen. (res.) Hofi, who suggests that Israel need retain a physical presence on the Golan Heights, to Maj. Gen. (res.) Shafir. who advocates retention of at least the plateau above the Sea of Galilee, to former chief of staff Gur who concludes that the water problem can be resolved politically in a peace treaty, and that the territory is not vital. Shalev concludes that Syria would not risk a war with Israel for water, especially since a diversion would take years to construct and would constitute a clear casus belEi. It stands to reason, Shalev argues, that countries involved in water-sharing agreements would want to maintain them.
In the meantime, Schiff (1995), Tarnopolsky (1996), and others have argued in the popular Israeli and Jewish press that water's paramount importance may scuttle negotiations over the Golan, while Israeli politicians from the ruling Labor party, including Prime Minister Shimon Peres and his Foreizn Minister Ehud Barak, argue that while the land may be negotiable, the water is not (Jerusalem Post. January 6, 1996 and January 27, 1996).
In answer to the question posed at the beginning of this section, "How much of the quest for negotiated boundaries has been influenced by the location of water resources?" the evidence seems to suggest: not much. This is not to say that water has not been an important topic in each set of negotiations--quite the opposite is true. The questions of water allocations and rights have been intricate and are being resolved with great difficulty. Nevertheless, with the concluded negotiations between Israel and Jordan, and the ongoing talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and despite the quantity of studies identifying hydrostrategic territory and advising its retention, no territory to date has been retained simply because of the location of water. Solutions in each case have focused on creative joint management of the resource, rather than insistence on sovereignty.
The pattern which does seem to be emerging, however, is that water in addition to one or more other concerns, may justify retention of territory. For example, in the absence of any legal claims, security interests, or settlements, Israel withdrew from all territory which it had occupied from Jordan -even those small portions which had hydrostrategic importance. What was important was an agreement on water management, not territory.
In contrast, Israel developed some settlements on the westernmost side of the West Bank to address security and demographic concerns in addition to protecting its water supply. While sovereignty of most of this territory is being turned over to the Palestinians, determination of the final status of those settlements has been postponed until the final round of negotiations. Again, the solution was found through agreements guaranteeing joint water management, precluding the need for annexation of territory.
These principles may be played out in negotiations between Israel and Syria as well. While Syria insists on the Armistice Line as it stood on June 5, 1967, Israel is arguing for boundaries based on the 1923 international division between the British and French mandates--the difference being three small areas of vital hydro-strategic importance. Based on the experience of other boundary delineations (including those between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan), Israel will probably prevail in a legal sense (the Armistice Lines were explicitly temporary) Thus, Israel is able to address hydro-strategic territory in conjunction with its legal claims.
The conclusions which might be drawn from this study have implications for interpretations of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as for the importance of historical analysis to derive these interpretations. As Michel Foucher (1989), describes cross-border "realities and representations:"
Border analysis does not only deal with space, but also with time. So boundaries can be considered as time written in space--not merely the past, but also a special relationship with that past which stands as an inevitable background to current geopolitical decisions.
The question I have sought to address in this work examines the existence of hydrostrategic territory, that is territory over which sovereignty has been sought politically or militarily solely because of its access to water sources, and in the absence of any other compelling strategic or legal rationale. and its role in boundaries, warfare, and negotiations. The answer seems to be a qualified "yes" that hydrostrategic territory has existed as a political goal; a definite "no" for water-related sites as military targets; and a convoluted "maybe" for hydrostrategy as a focus of peace negotiations. The question was then divided in three to better define the issues:
It seems clear that water was uppermost in the minds of planners and political decision-makers, particularly Zionist, as boundaries were negotiated over the years, at times as important as moretraditional definitions of security, and that specific territory was sought for their access to the water resources alone. However, despite studies advocating the need for greater access to water through 1947. actual official advocation of sovereignty over such hydrostrategic territory ceased each and every time negotiations over legal borders were concluded.
The facts seem to show that water has had much less impact on the Arab-lsraeli conflict than is increasingly argued, certainly in strategic, spatial, and territorial terms. As LibiszewsE;i ( 1995. 93) concludes in a thorough study of water and security in the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict "is not primarily a struggle 'over water.' The conflict is over national identity and existence, territory, as well as over power and national security." In this context, water has played a minor role but only, it seems, in conjunction with one or more of these over-riding imperatives. The true lesson of the Arab-Israeli experience seems not to be of water as exacerbator of conflict but rather, as the people in the region move from war to peace and the desire for sovereignty gives way to principles of joint management, of water as inducer to cooperation. As Lord Curzon (1907, cited in Prescott 1987, 5) has said, "Frontiers are indeed the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace." It is perhaps this latter aspect that needs be more-stressed.
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