{"id":773,"date":"2019-03-05T14:53:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T14:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=773"},"modified":"2019-10-20T12:40:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T11:40:59","slug":"middle-east-thirsting-for-conflict","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/middle-east-thirsting-for-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East: Thirsting for conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article has been reproduced from the <\/strong>Socialist Standard<\/strong><\/em> (January 1998), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ismail Seageldin, vice-president of the World Bank, made a disturbing prediction in\n1995: “Many of the wars this century were about oil, but the wars of the next century\nwill be about water.” It was a comment that was to find many echoes at a meeting of\nUN hydrologists and meteorologists, convened by UNESCO in London back in November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to scientists, 7 percent of the world’s people do not have enough water to\nsurvive. With the world’s population set to rise by the current population of India every\nten years, the global population will be in excess of 10 billion and 70 percent will be\nexpected to have an insufficient supply of water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With similar facts in front of them, the London meeting agreed to a decade-long\ncampaign to highlight the case for urgent action. UNEP (United Nations Environment\nProgramme) has already started the ball rolling and committed itself to making water\ndisputes a priority, currently mediating in disputes in the Zambezi river basin and in the\nstand-off between Peru and Bolivia over access to Lake Titicaca. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Africa, which has 19 of the 25 countries with the greatest number of people\nlacking access to clean water, to Central Asia, where 5 countries contest the Amu Darya\nand Syr Darya rivers, conflict could indeed break out at any moment, and ironically over\nthe world’s most abundant resource. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is so much water that, shared out, each person could have 100 billion litres. Of\ncourse, 97 percent of this is sea water, and of the remainder only 0.8 percent is\naccessible. Still, taking into account that a person’s annual requirement is one million\nlitres, there is still enough. The point is that it is not evenly distributed throughout\nthe world and some countries control much greater resources than others. If we add to this\nthe fact that three-quarters goes on growing food, and that a lot is lost through\ndrainage, poorly constructed channels and evaporation, then we really understand UNEP\nspokesman Klaus Topfer when he declares that the “potential for water disputes is\ngreat and the issue needs urgent political action” (Guardian,<\/em> 2 November\n1998). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egypt anticipates that its population will double to 110 million within 35 years. Even\nnow it is faced with a water shortage and has for some time imported “virtual\nwater”\u2014grain and other foodstuffs which removes the necessity to use water for\nhome-grown food. Egypt finds itself in the unique position of being totally dependent on\nthe Nile, a river whose flow and tributaries are controlled by 8 other countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already, Egypt has rattled its sabre at Ethiopia, which controls 80 percent of the\nsupply and which has embarked upon a series of dams and irrigation schemes along the Blue\nNile and, which if extended, would also interfere with Sudan’s supply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Egypt looking to irrigate reclaimed desert along its northern coast and needing to\nincrease its share of Nile water by 15 billion cubic metres per year, and with a further 8\ncountries seeking to increase their share, it takes no great leap in the imagination to\nsee how water is increasingly dominating Egypt’s foreign policy and why Egypt sees the\ntaking of more water by its neighbours as an act of war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the other end of the scale, Turkey possesses an abundance of water and has primary\ncontrol over the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates\u2014rivers that both Syria and Iraq are\nheavily dependent on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1984, Turkey began the South Eastern Antollia Project at a cost of \u00a320\nbillion\u2014a mammoth effort to construct 22 dams, 19 hydro-electric plants and thousands\nof miles of irrigation channels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Turkey directs more and more water for its own use, Syria and Iraq feel that should\nthey upset their northern neighbour, water could be used as a weapon, and thus are anxious\nnot to upset the controller of their water supply. Turkey has already used its control of\nSyria’s water to great effect, forcing Syria to withdraw its support for the Turkish\nGuerrilla movement, the PKK. And it’s a fair bet that Turkey’s political might will be\nfelt further in the region when the 1984-begun project nears its completion in 2005. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty percent of Israel’s water depends on territory occupied in 1967 and still not\nhanded back. Studies of hydrologists’ maps further reveal a pattern of settlement\nconstruction in the “occupied territories” along the ridges of aquifers\nsuggesting a wider Israeli game plan to control an increasing share of the region’s water.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, at a time when Israel is losing interest in Gaza, it can be found that\nGaza’s groundwater is sinking by 8 inches per year. Just as it’s a fact that Israel\ncontrols 80 percent of the Palestinian water supply, so too do we find 26 percent of\nPalestinians with no access to clean water while the average Israeli consumes\nthree-and-a-half times as much water as those Palestinians fortunate to have access. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Israel’s continuing control of the Golan Heights and south eastern Lebanon\nenables it to guard a series of pumps and pipelines which moves the Jordan’s water\nthroughout Israel and as far north as the Negev desert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel’s case is echoed the world over. In the former Soviet Union, while the Aral sea\ncontinues to shrink because of HEP plants and irrigation, five countries are becoming\nincreasingly dependent on its diminishing waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sensing trouble ahead, the UN adopted a convention on international waters in\n1997\u2014basically a framework for sharing rivers and lakes. Before it can become\noperational it requires 35 signatories. So far only 11 have signed\u2014such is the\nreluctance of governments to sign such a valuable resource away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an age when we have the scientific and technological know how to enable us to solve\nalmost all our problems, it is indeed an indictment on capitalism that so many humans,\nliving on a planet, seven eighths of which is covered in water, have so little access to\nit. With the ever-present drive to cut costs and make profits, it is little wonder that\nbetter irrigation and improved channels are as rare as desalination plants and reservoirs?\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Author: J.Bissett<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Please email your comments about this article to feedback@worldsocialism.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the Resources Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (January 1998), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain Ismail Seageldin, vice-president of the World Bank, made a disturbing prediction in 1995: “Many of the wars this century were about oil, but the wars of the next century will be about water.” It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-773","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2562,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/773\/revisions\/2562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}