Water resources in the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict

✍ Scribed by Basheer K. Nijim

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 956 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0343-2521
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00174593

✦ Synopsis

The quest for water resources by Zionist leaders started in the early years of the Zionist movement. Attempts were made to delimit Palestine according to rivers and headwaters. This quest has been independent of the political status of the territory of Palestine. The quest was intense in the early 1950s during the Johnston negotiations, and it became especially crucial after the 1967 occupation by Israel of the rest of Palestine, the West Bank. Lebanon's Litani river has been included in Israeli considerations, as well as the Jordan river's tributary the Yarmuk river. The Kingdom of Jordan's development plans for the latter may be compromised. Control of underground water resources in the West Bank is deemed essential to Israel, given their importance to the ground supply of pre-1967 Israel. Israel is unlikely to relinquish control of the water resources of the West Bank in the event of a political settlement.