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BRIEF ENCOUNTER: Amikam Nachmani, water expert
Erik Shechter
Israel has endured its third successive year of drought, with water levels dangerously low in Lake Kinneret, the country's main reservoir. Desalination plants are only on the drawing board. The head of the Mekorot water company has warned that Israel may not be able to supply the Palestinians with necessary water. And there's an annual obligation to the Jordanians to meet. In mid-March, Lebanon stepped up work on a new pumping station, just across the border, to draw water from the Hatzbani River. Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman called the move intolerable, and hard-line MK Michael Kleiner demanded the station be bombed forthwith. The Report asked water expert Amikam Nachmani, a senior research associate at Bar-Ilan Universty's BESA Center, how dangerous the crisis is.
Does Lebanon's tapping of the Hatzbani violate international understandings?
The whole topic of shared water resources is problematic, and unfortunately, in the Middle East, most if not all the water resources are shared by more than one nation. There aren't enough rigid international laws or directives. But there is a norm that the upstream riparian [user] has to ensure supplies to the downstream riparian.
Don't the Lebanese recognize our downstream riparian rights?
This is the first time that we've seen this sort of development with Lebanon; it's not the first riparian dispute in the region. There have been disputes over the Euphrates River between Turkey and Syria and Iraq, and over the Nile between Egypt and nine African upstream riparians.
And in the Middle East, a precedent in one place has ramifications elsewhere. Israel's position in relation to Lebanon and the Hatzbani is much like Syria's or Iraq's in relation to Turkey and the Euphrates - where Turkey is exploiting the river and leaving a fraction of the water for Syria and Iraq.
UNIFIL officials say that Lebanon's pumping from the Hatzbani is only designed to serve a few local villages.
I don't know the intentions of the other side. If that's all it is, then there's no problem. But we have heard other voices, including the Speaker of Lebanon's parliament, who has indicated a wider plan to divert the Hatzbani.
I would take these statements very seriously. The Hatzbani is very important for Israel - the source of roughly 25 percent of the water in the Jordan River. That's over 110 million cubic meters of water a year [out of Israel's total consumption of 2 billion cu.m.].
And if Lebanon is bent on diverting the Hatzbani...?
Syria's attempt to divert water from the Jordan's sources [in 1964] escalated the tensions that led to the Six-Day War. Syria's support for the PKK [Kurdish Workers Party] in its separatist fight in Turkey is a result of tension over water. Let's not belittle this threat.
Surely, we'd be less sensitive if we'd done more to boost our water resources?
Yes, it's unbelievable. This is our third drought year in a row. Everyone knows what we have to do. Everyone knows that we need to bring water in huge plastic or cloth bags from Turkey. Everyone knows that we need to build desalination plants. And yet everyone is still waiting for the next rainy winter to solve the problem.
What about the water we provide to Jordan?
The 50 million cu.m. that we give annually to Jordan, under the peace treaty, isn't a prime reason for our shortage.
Much of our water comes from aquifers under the West Bank...
Yes, and the Palestinians accuse us of stealing their water, and we blame them for waging an ecological intifada against us. They lower the water line in our areas with uncontrolled drilling, and they dispose of sewage imprudently. Of course, as regards the West Bank, we are the downstream riparian and they are the upstream riparian.
So if and when the Palestinians gain statehood, they will be in the same situation vis-a-vis Israel as Lebanon is today?
That's right.
Reporter
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