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David Horovitz: Trouble at the Source

�People generally regard June 5, 1967, as the day the Six- Day War began,� a former Israeli general once remarked, in an interview on the origins of the conflict. �That is the official date,� this ex-general went on, �but in reality it started two and a half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan.�A reminder that the dispute over our region�s scarce and diminishing water resources was a prime cause of one war and a factor in innumerable other skirmishes down the decades seems unfortunately timely and essential just now.In the mid-1960s Arab leaders, in a rare act of unity, agreed on strategic planning to divert the Banias and the Hatzbani rivers in Syria and Lebanon, sources of the Jordan � aiming to deprive Israel of some 50 percent of the water it was anticipating distributing via its new national water carrier. The Arab thinking was that if the Mekorot carrier were allowed to function as intended, it would enable Israel to irrigate, and thus populate, the Negev, further cementing Jewish statehood. The thinking in Jerusalem ran along precisely the same lines, and guaranteeing that water supply was regarded as an issue of national survival.What, given such a precedent, are we to make of the current project, nearing completion across the border in South Lebanon, to pump an estimated 10,000 cubic meters a day from the Wazzani River, key source of the Hatzbani, and thus to reduce the flow of water into the Kinneret, the parched prime national reservoir? The official Lebanese position is one of �no cause for alarm.� The quantities of water involved are �minute,� according to Lebanon�s Energy Minister, Mohahammed Abd - al Hamid Beydoun. And indeed, the quantities are relatvely small ( an annual 3.6 million cubic meters compared to Israel�s annual consumption of 1.5 billion, or less than a quarter of a percent), certainly by comparison with the ambitious Arab planning of the mid-1960s.The idea, according to the state-run company overseeing the project, is to provide meager supplies to a handful of nearby villages. But while the proximity of the Wazzani may be tempting in a country that is afflicted by a hugely deficient water distribution infrastructure, Lebanon remains the only nation in the region, bar Turkey, not facing acute water shortages, and its government would hardly launch a project of this scale, one that could not fail to infuriate its thirsty neighbor to the south, for the mere sake of convenience. Clearly, rather, it is Hizballah that stands behind the initiative � an underemployed fighting force since Israel�s unilateral withdrawal from South Lebanon over two years ago. Having failed to draw Israel back into heavy conflict via the hollow pretext of a dispute at the Sheba Farms border section, it is now trying to pick a water fight.Although the ongoing battle of force and wits with the Palestinians and the looming shadow of confrontation with Iraq have kept the lights burning till late at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, the top military brass has also been spending long hours agonizing over this water crisis. There is no dispute among them about the need to block the pumps: If this reduction in the Hatzbani�s flow is not averted, they assume, larger-scale efforts are bound to follow. Still, two divergent schools of thought have emerged about how to act, both of which assume that the relevant address here is Syria � patron of Lebanon, ultimate controller of Hizballah activity in the south.The hard-line view is of a Damascus content to allow Hizballah to provoke Israel into conflict, even though such conflict would immediately extend to Syria. However recklessly, the Syrian leadership, in this assessment, is happily contemplating the prospect of an upsurge in

violence that would complicate American moves toward ousting Saddam and, who knows, perhaps offer an opportunity to strike lasting blows against a Jewish state already fully stretched in the struggle against Palestinian bombers and gunmen. The more moderate view is of an inexperienced President Bashar Asad dangerously attempting to emulate some of his late father�s brinkmanship, irritating Israel by allowing Hizballah some leeway, but still sufficiently sensitive to Syrian self-interest to know when to back down.Until recently the moderates held sway � hence the blind eye turned by Israel to various earlier, smaller-scale Wazzani pumping initiatives, and the quiet diplomacy that saw various American officials transmitting cease-and-desist messages from Jerusalem to Damascus.But the behind-the-scenes channels have yielded nothing .Even the blunt assesment broadcast by Mekorot chief Uri Saguy � well-known to the Syrians as a no-nonsense former peace negotiator and, before that, as the head of Military Intelligence � that it would be advisable to reach an accommodation, �otherwise there�ll be a confrontation,� fell on deaf ears. So now the government has gone public, briefing reporters in mid September to the effect that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon regards the new pumping station as �the kind of thing Israel cannot abide� and close to a casus belli. If the pumping goes ahead, the prime minister warned darkly, �we will have to take steps.�The fateful decision to act, then, has not yet been made. But it may not be too far off. Will we come to see the fall of 2002 as the real start of the next Middle

East war, just as the 1967 conflict began long before with that decision to safeguard the flow of the Jordan�s head waters? Sharon would be well placed to draw the parallel, for he is the man