Although most conflicts between states would appear to be of an ideological nature, the reality is that brutal force is the drive to obtain natural resources and ideology is the leverage tool to justify the attacks. What is it that animals compete over? Territory, areas where food is gathered. Blackbirds are easier to observe in this struggle because they are on the ground searching for their food. In towns and cities food gathering areas for these birds has been reduced to small plots of grass between walls and concrete roads. In those tiny spaces there is only so much to eat. The birds have to keep others off their ground in order to feed, and feed their young. It is no different with humans, only human beings take more than they need.
Throughout the Middle east you have ever increasing populations and a rapidly dwindling supply of water. The small patch of grass is drying up and the birds have to find new feeding areas. These confllicts may be be clothed in the feathered dress of irreconcilable Religious and Ideological divisions, but these ideas are merely to give us the appearance that we humans are of a higher intelligence, using reason to discern rather than basic need. The bright feathers justify the war and are part of the war dance, rational avoidance of our fragile animal dependance on the earth and its scarce resources.
Current row between Ethiopia and Egypt over Nile water may spark military action. by John Bradley
It is common knowledge that oil and territorial issues spark conflict in the Middle East, but there is now growing alarm over the risk that water could be the catalyst for the next war in the region.
Middle East nations record some of the highest birth rates in the world but have only 0.4 per cent of the world’s recoverable water resources. Some 80 per cent of people in the region rely on water that flows into their country from at least one other.
The potential for disputes over this scarce essential resource is obvious, a risk clearly illustrated by a currently escalating row between Ethiopia and Egypt over access to the waters of the River Nile.
Former United Nations secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali said last month that if no solution is found, the disagreement will ’certainly’ spark military confrontation.
Dr Joyce Shira Starr, author of the influential book Covenant Over Middle Eastern Waters: Key To World Survival, has been warning along with Dr Boutros-Ghali for years that the region is on the brink of war over water.
She says that the ’21st-century challenge for the international community is to harness and link technological advances with water-sharing agreements’.
The quote: ’The next war in the Middle East will be over water’ came from Dr Boutros-Ghali. It was that single sentence that launched my own ’mission’ over water,’ she adds.
Ethiopia plans to draw more water from the Blue Nile. Although the river’s source is in Ethiopia, an agreement in 1929 between Britain and Egypt gave Egypt most of the Nile’s water, and Cairo has already made clear that any attempt to alter the waterway’s status will be deemed an act of war.
Another reason for some observers’ growing concern over the potential for war is an alarming report issued this week by Friends of the Earth. The international environmental organisation says that the River Jordan - depleted by huge water diversions by Israel, Jordan and Syria - will dry up within two years.
The potential for ’water wars’ has long loomed large over the Middle East. When former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, he said Egypt would never go to war again - except to protect its water resources.
The late King Hussein of Jordan made a similar declaration.
While Dr Boutros-Ghali’s warning of ’certain’ war may seem alarmist, there are precedents.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that the Six Days War started because Syrian engineers were working on diverting part of a shared water flow away from Israel. And Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was planned, in part, as a way of gaining control over Lebanon’s Litani River.
Access to water is also a stumbling block for any permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, not all experts agree that water wars are inevitable.
Dr Jan Selby, lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex and the author of Water, Power, And Politics In The Middle East, believes that the problem is not allocation of water per se but rather uneven socio-economic development. He cited the Palestinians to illustrate his point that there would be nothing to gain from confrontation.
’Even if the Palestinians were granted their fair share of regional water resources, it is very unlikely that their water problems would go away unless they had the economic and institutional capacity to manage water adequately - to desalinate, treat, conserve and distribute it well,’ he said.
It is in the interest of all parties who need water resources to cooperate, this contrary view concerning the risk of war goes.
Dr Daniel Hillel, author of Rivers Of Eden: The Struggle For Water And The Quest For Peace In The Middle East, adds that a decision to go to war over water would be ’based on a mistaken perception of the problem and a failure of positive vision’.
’So mechanisms are needed to address those issues in a spirit of cooperation and the quest for peace,’ he said.
River Jordan 'nearly running dry'
Throughout the Middle east you have ever increasing populations and a rapidly dwindling supply of water. The small patch of grass is drying up and the birds have to find new feeding areas. These confllicts may be be clothed in the feathered dress of irreconcilable Religious and Ideological divisions, but these ideas are merely to give us the appearance that we humans are of a higher intelligence, using reason to discern rather than basic need. The bright feathers justify the war and are part of the war dance, rational avoidance of our fragile animal dependance on the earth and its scarce resources.
Current row between Ethiopia and Egypt over Nile water may spark military action. by John Bradley
It is common knowledge that oil and territorial issues spark conflict in the Middle East, but there is now growing alarm over the risk that water could be the catalyst for the next war in the region.
Middle East nations record some of the highest birth rates in the world but have only 0.4 per cent of the world’s recoverable water resources. Some 80 per cent of people in the region rely on water that flows into their country from at least one other.
The potential for disputes over this scarce essential resource is obvious, a risk clearly illustrated by a currently escalating row between Ethiopia and Egypt over access to the waters of the River Nile.
Former United Nations secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali said last month that if no solution is found, the disagreement will ’certainly’ spark military confrontation.
Dr Joyce Shira Starr, author of the influential book Covenant Over Middle Eastern Waters: Key To World Survival, has been warning along with Dr Boutros-Ghali for years that the region is on the brink of war over water.
She says that the ’21st-century challenge for the international community is to harness and link technological advances with water-sharing agreements’.
The quote: ’The next war in the Middle East will be over water’ came from Dr Boutros-Ghali. It was that single sentence that launched my own ’mission’ over water,’ she adds.
Ethiopia plans to draw more water from the Blue Nile. Although the river’s source is in Ethiopia, an agreement in 1929 between Britain and Egypt gave Egypt most of the Nile’s water, and Cairo has already made clear that any attempt to alter the waterway’s status will be deemed an act of war.
Another reason for some observers’ growing concern over the potential for war is an alarming report issued this week by Friends of the Earth. The international environmental organisation says that the River Jordan - depleted by huge water diversions by Israel, Jordan and Syria - will dry up within two years.
The potential for ’water wars’ has long loomed large over the Middle East. When former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, he said Egypt would never go to war again - except to protect its water resources.
The late King Hussein of Jordan made a similar declaration.
While Dr Boutros-Ghali’s warning of ’certain’ war may seem alarmist, there are precedents.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that the Six Days War started because Syrian engineers were working on diverting part of a shared water flow away from Israel. And Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was planned, in part, as a way of gaining control over Lebanon’s Litani River.
Access to water is also a stumbling block for any permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, not all experts agree that water wars are inevitable.
Dr Jan Selby, lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex and the author of Water, Power, And Politics In The Middle East, believes that the problem is not allocation of water per se but rather uneven socio-economic development. He cited the Palestinians to illustrate his point that there would be nothing to gain from confrontation.
’Even if the Palestinians were granted their fair share of regional water resources, it is very unlikely that their water problems would go away unless they had the economic and institutional capacity to manage water adequately - to desalinate, treat, conserve and distribute it well,’ he said.
It is in the interest of all parties who need water resources to cooperate, this contrary view concerning the risk of war goes.
Dr Daniel Hillel, author of Rivers Of Eden: The Struggle For Water And The Quest For Peace In The Middle East, adds that a decision to go to war over water would be ’based on a mistaken perception of the problem and a failure of positive vision’.
’So mechanisms are needed to address those issues in a spirit of cooperation and the quest for peace,’ he said.
River Jordan 'nearly running dry'
