CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VIII (2) ContEurVIII2 | Page 84

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VIII (2)
attempts to change the flow of the Jordan River Basin and use it for their
own interests were noticeable by the riparian states. For this purpose,
several projects have been put forward by the third parties (Britain, the
US) for sharing the basin among the riparian states and ensuring unified
management of the Basin. 3 However, it should be pointed out that none
of these plans have been entirely implemented, leading to conflict among
them over the water resources of the region.
1948-1967: The Failure of Unified Management of the Jordan
River Basin
The year 1948 was decisive, as the state of Israel was founded on
the basis of ‘most of the British mandate Palestine’ 4 by the UN General
Assembly Resolution 181. 5 The following period from 1948-1967 was
strained and crucial in Israeli-Palestinian relations, regarding the
hydropolitical relations between them and among Arab states as well.
Tense relations with their Arab neighbors continued and the failure to
manage the Jordan River Basin cooperatively reinforced its unilateral
development of it by separate riparian countries. Israel began building the
National Water Carrier (NWC) in 1953 to divert water from the Sea of
Galilee to the highly populated parts of the country, reaching even as far
as the Negev. Despite the resistance from the neighboring riparian
countries, Israel completed the construction of the NWC in 1964, starting
from the north-western shore of Lake Tiberias.
To counteract the Israeli unilateral actions towards the diversion of
the headwater of the Jordan River, Jordan and Syria proposed their own
diversion plan. In such a water-related hostile environment, when each
side strived to utilize the river for its own purposes, Israel’s retaliation
was not late, and it started to attack these projects by investing in
extensive military potential and by launching large-scale air strikes in the
direction of Syria. This, along with a number of other factors, reached its
tipping point and lead to the Six Day War of 1967.
1967-1993: The era of Israel’s Domination
The Six-Day War was a turning point in the Middle East, which
completely changed not only the political map of the region but also the
hydropolitical map. The Israeli-Syrian border clashes, including the

3 Arnon
Soffer, Rivers of Fire: The Conflict Over Water in the Middle East (Oxford:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1999).
4 Mark Zeitoun, Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics of the
Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2008), 66.
5 William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East
(Boulder: Westview Press, 2013).
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