War over Water (Jordan River)

War over Water
	Part of the Arab-Israeli conflict
Date	November 1964 – May 1967
Location	Jordan River drainage basin and the Golan Heights
Result	Tensions contributing to the Six-Day War
Belligerents
Israel	Syria; Jordan; Lebanon
Commanders and leaders
Zalman Shazar; Levi Eshkol; Yitzhak Rabin	Amin al-Hafiz; Nureddin al-Atassi; Hussein; Charles Helou

The War over Water, also known as the Battle over Water, was a series of confrontations between Israel and its Arab neighbors from November 1964 to May 1967 over control of water sources in the Jordan River drainage basin.

History

Early tensions: 1949–64

Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the 1949 Armistice Agreements created three demilitarized zones on the Israel-Syria border. The southernmost, and also the largest, stretched from the south-eastern part of the Sea of Galilee eastwards to the Yarmuk River where the borders of Israel, Jordan and Syria converge. The issue of water sharing from the Jordan–Yarmuk system turned out to be a major problem between Israel, Syria and Jordan.^[1]

Small-scale water-related skirmishes had occurred following the 1949 agreements. In July 1953, Israel began construction of an intake for its National Water Carrier at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge in the demilitarized zone north of the Sea of Galilee. Syria protested to the United Nations, and Syrian artillery units opened fire on the construction site. The UN Security Council voted to allow Israel to resume work, but this was vetoed by the Soviet Union. The Israelis then moved the intake to an economically inferior site at the Sea of Galilee.^[2]

In 1955 a United States-brokered deal, the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan (Johnston Plan), was accepted by the technical committees of both Israel and the Arab League, but the Arab League Council decided on 11 October 1955 not to ratify the plan. According to most observers, including US envoy Eric Johnston, the Arab non-adoption of the plan was not total rejection. While they failed to approve it politically, they nevertheless seemed determined to adhere to the technical details of the agreement. Moreover, it continued to be taken seriously by Arab leaders.^[3] Though the Unified Plan failed to be ratified, both Jordan and Israel undertook to operate within their allocation limits.

Main phase: 1964–67

Israel's National Water Carrier project included works to pump water from the Sea of Galilee. Its initial diversion capacity, without supplementary booster pumps, was 320 million m³, well within the limits of the Johnston Plan.^[4]

The Arab states were not prepared to accept a project which utilized resources that didn't belong to Israel. In January 1964 an Arab League summit meeting convened in Cairo and decided:

The establishment of Israel is the basic threat that the Arab nation in its entirety has agreed to forestall. And since the existence of Israel is a danger that threatens the Arab nation, the diversion of the Jordan waters by it multiplies the dangers to Arab existence. Accordingly, the Arab states have to prepare the plans necessary for dealing with the political, economic, and social aspects, so that if the necessary results are not achieved, collective Arab military preparations, when they are completed, will constitute the ultimate practical means for the final liquidation of Israel.^[5]

Pumping from the Sea of Galilee commenced in June 1964. In November 1964, the Syrian military fired on Israeli patrols around the National Water Carrier works, drawing Israeli counterattacks.^[6] The Arab states accepted that they were not able to halt the Carrier scheme by direct military action, and instead formed a plan to divert the Jordan River headwaters to the Yarmouk River.^[4]^[7]

Work on the project began in 1965. The scheme was technically difficult and expensive, but if it had succeeded, it would have diverted 35% of the water that Israel intended to withdraw from the upper Jordan. Israel declared that it would regard the diversion as an infringement of its sovereign rights.^[4]

Border clashes ensued, with Syrian forces firing on Israeli farmers and army patrols, and Israeli tanks and artillery destroying Syrian tanks as well as earth-moving equipment used for the diversion plan.^[6]^[7] In July 1966, the Israeli Air Force bombed a concentration of earth-moving equipment and shot down a Syrian MiG-21.^[6]^[7]

The Arab states abandoned the diversion effort, but conflict continued on the Israel–Syria border, including an Israeli air strike into Syrian territory in April 1967. Control of water resources became a significant factor behind the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967.^[1]^[4]^[6]

The war is referenced in the famous US antiwar 1965 song "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire with the line "And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'".^{[citation needed]}

Notes

^ ^a ^b Seliktar, Ofira (June 2005). "Turning Water into Fire: the Jordan River as the Hidden Factor in The Six Day War". The Middle East Review of International Affairs. 9 (2). Archived from the original on 2010-01-13. Retrieved 2023-06-24.
^ Wolf, Aaron T. (1998). "Principles for confidence-building measures in the Jordan River watershed". In Kobori, Iwao; Glantz, Michael H. (eds.). Central Eurasian Water Crisis: Caspian, Aral, and Dead Seas. United Nations University Press. ISBN 978-92-808-0925-1. Retrieved 2023-06-24. In July 1953, Israel began construction on the intake of its National Water Carrier at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge (Gesher B'not Ya'akov) north of the Sea of Galilee and in the demilitarized zone. Syria deployed its armed forces along the border and artillery units opened fire on the construction and engineering sites (Cooley, 1984, pp. 3 and 10). Syria also protested to the United Nations and, although a 1954 resolution for the resumption of work by Israel carried a majority, the USSR vetoed the resolution. The Israelis then moved the intake to its current site at Eshed Kinrot on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee (Garbell, 1965, p. 30). … In 1964 Israel began withdrawing 320 MCM/yr of Jordan water for its National Water Carrier… In 1965, the Arab states began construction of their Headwater Diversion Plan to prevent the Jordan headwaters from reaching Israel. … The Israeli army attacked the diversion works in Syria in March, May, and August of 1965. These events set off what has been called 'a prolonged chain reaction of border violence that linked directly to the events that led to the [June 1967] war' (Safran cited in Cooley, 1984, p. 16). Border incidents continued between Israel and Syria, triggering air battles in July 1966 and April 1967 and, finally, all-out war in June 1967.
^ Gat, Moshe (2003). Britain and the Conflict in the Middle East, 1964–1967: The Coming of the Six-Day War. Praeger Publishers. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-275-97514-2. Retrieved 2023-06-24. Nasser, too, assured the American undersecretary of state, Philip Talbot, that the Arabs would not exceed the water quotas prescribed by the Johnson [sic] Plan.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Murakami, Masahiro (1995). "Appendix C. Historical review of the political riparian issues in the development of the Jordan River and basin management". Managing Water for Peace in the Middle East: Alternative Strategies. United Nations University Press. ISBN 978-92-808-0858-2. Retrieved 2023-06-24. The initial diversion capacity of the National Water Carrier without supplementary booster pumps was 320 million m³, well within the limits of the Johnston Plan. … Shortly before completion of the Israeli Water Carrier in 1964, an Arab summit conference decided to try to thwart it. Discarding direct military attack, the Arab states chose to divert the Jordan headwaters. … According to neutral assessments, the scheme was only marginally feasible; it was technically difficult and expensive. … Political considerations cited by the Arabs in rejecting the 1955 Johnston Plan were revived to justify the diversion scheme. Particular emphasis was placed on the Carrier's capability to enhance Israel's capacity to absorb immigrants to the detriment of Palestinian refugees. In response, Israel stressed that the National Water Carrier was within the limits of the Johnston Plan. … The Arabs started work on the Headwater Diversion project in 1965. Israel declared that it would regard such diversion as an infringement of its sovereign rights. According to estimates, completion of the project would have deprived Israel of 35% of its contemplated withdrawal from the upper Jordan, constituting one-ninth of Israel's annual water budget. In a series of military strikes, Israel hit the diversion works. The attacks culminated in April 1967 in air strikes deep inside Syria. The increase in water-related Arab-Israeli hostility was a major factor leading to the June 1967 war.
^ Shlaim, Avi (2001). The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Penguin Books. pp. 229–230. ISBN 978-0-14-028870-4. Retrieved 2023-06-24. In January 1964 an Arab League summit meeting convened in Cairo. The main item on its agenda was the threat posed by Israel's diversion of water from the north to irrigate the south and the expected reduction in the water supplies available to Syria and Jordan. The reaction of the summit to this threat was deadly serious. The preamble to its decisions stated, 'The establishment of Israel is the basic threat that the Arab nation in its entirety has agreed to forestall. And since the existence of Israel is a danger that threatens the Arab nation, the diversion of the Jordan waters by it multiplies the dangers to Arab existence. Accordingly, the Arab states have to prepare the plans necessary for dealing with the political, economic, and social aspects, so that if the necessary results are not achieved, collective Arab military preparations, when they are completed, will constitute the ultimate practical means for the final liquidation of Israel.'
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Morris, Benny (1999). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1998. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 303–304. ISBN 978-0-679-42120-7. Retrieved 2023-06-24. After Israel began pumping water from the Sea of Galilee into its National Water Carrier on June 5, 1964, Syria responded with a plan to divert the Jordan's sources into its own territory. Israel stepped up patrols in areas adjacent to the sources, around Kibbutz Dam. In November, Syrian positions fired on the patrols, drawing artillery and tank counterfire and, eventually, air power, which silenced the guns. In 1965 there were three major incidents in which IDF tanks and artillery destroyed tanks and earth-moving equipment after the Syrians fired at border patrols or farmers.
^ ^a ^b ^c Shapland, Greg (1997). Rivers of Discord: International Water Disputes in the Middle East. London: Hurst & Company. pp. 13–17. ISBN 978-1-85065-214-4. Retrieved 2023-06-24. After two summit conferences in 1964, the Arab states accepted that they were not strong enough to thwart the Israeli plan by military force. They therefore chose to implement a scheme that involved the damming of the Hasbani and the Banias, and the diversion of their flow across the plateau of the Golan and into the Yarmuk. A dam was to be built on the Yarmuk to impound the additional water. The Arab states established a unified military command to deter any Israeli attack. It proved ineffective. Israel attacked construction works in Syria on a number of occasions over the next three years. By the time full-scale war broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbours in June 1967, the Arab states had already allowed their diversion plan to wither away.

War over Water (Jordan River)

History

Early tensions: 1949–64

Main phase: 1964–67

See also

Notes

Further reading