Keeping the 21st century peace with water
Just as peace in the 20th century was sustained by oil, will peace in the 21st century be sustained by water? After a visit to Ramallah and Tel Aviv this week, I was tempted to turn to Ismail Serageldin’s famous 1995 prophecy that while wars of the last century were fought over oil, wars of the next century would be fought over water.
I was in Tel Aviv to give a speech at the Israel Water Association’s annual event, and in Ramallah to talk to the Palestinian Water Authority about its plans for a major water summit to be held in 2020. The overall impression I came away with was that however bellicose the politicians feel, the common need for water is a constant reminder of common humanity.
In Tel Aviv, Giora Shaham – the head of the Israel Water Authority – spoke of the need to reverse the flow of water in the country. Traditionally this has run east to west, taking water from the Kinneret to provide irrigation to the coastal plains. It future it will run west to east, taking desalinated water from the Mediterranean to the Kinneret. The objective is to provide a resource not just for all the people up to the River Jordan (including the West Bank), but beyond that – for Syria and Jordan. He said that Israel has a responsibility to all the people in the region. This sentiment was echoed by Yoram Avnimelech, an emeritus professor at the Technion, in his acceptance speech for the special award he received from the association. He spoke of the water challenges facing Egypt, Iraq, and the rest of the region, with which Israel should engage. It is a refreshing message at a time when many of Israel’s voters seem inclined to support parties which believe that Palestinians are a security problem to be managed rather than a people to be at peace with.
Last time I was in Ramallah it was to talk about the proposed large-scale desal plant for Gaza. The situation seemed hopeless. Saline intrusion into the groundwater means that unless a new source of fresh water is developed in the next couple of years there will be a major public health catastrophe. Building a desal plant, however, seemed like a completely impossible dream, not least because of the restrictions the Israeli authorities imposed on bringing building materials into the strip. Today there is a lot more optimism at the Palestinian Water Authority. The urgency of the situation is such that both sides are completely committed to making it happen. The money is in place, the logistical obstacles have been addressed, and the process of procuring it could start in the next couple of months.
It seems to me that squeamishness about using water as a weapon of war has been growing. Earlier this week, Libya’s Khalifa Haftar was reportedly persuaded to reconnect Tripoli to the Great Man-Made River, two days after it was cut off during his continued siege of the city.
It seems to me that when water is the issue, there is an inclination to pull back from the brink (as happened in Libya this week) rather than to raise tensions. Perhaps oil played a similar role during the 1970s when the oil price spikes of 1973 and 1979 served as a warning to America not to escalate regional tensions.
At the very least, solving water is a lot cheaper than fighting a war, and as long as we as an industry work to maximise that differential, it is a good job done.
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