Yesterday, a
historic agreement:
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have signed a water sharing pact aimed at one day replenishing the rapidly drying Dead Sea.
The agreement will build a pipeline to carry brine from a desalination plant at the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, while providing drinking water to the region.
The Dead Sea is dropping by as much as 1m (3.3ft) a year as the River Jordan is depleted for use in irrigation.
Such a project has been under discussion for years.
The agreement was signed on Monday at the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington DC. The project is expected to cost $250m-$400m (£152m-£244m).
There is
more that would benefit everybody:
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians have agreed to a water-sharing pact that would see the construction of a desalination plant on the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea and bring "a long-awaited Red Sea-Dead Sea pipeline one step closer to completion," according to Reuters.
The plant would be built on the Jordanian side of the Gulf and the resulting potable water would be shared between Jordan and Israel.
Alexander McPhail, the lead water and sanitation specialist in the World Bank's Water Practice division, tells The Jerusalem Post Monday that in return, "Israel will increase the annual releases of water from Lake Kinneret to Jordan and will also increase its sales of water to the Palestinian Authority."
"'It's like a swap,' McPhail told the Post, regarding the Israeli and Jordan portions of the agreement. 'Israel needs water in the south because they want to settle that part of their country. Jordan needs more water in the North.'"
Some Arabs who follow zero-sum thinking are upset, because to them, if Israel benefits, then it is bad - no matter who else benefits.
Islamic Jihad warned about the consequences of the agreement, "saying the move is a direct normalization with the Israeli occupation."
A spokesman for the Islamic Jihad, Daoud Shihab said, "This agreement gives a mandate to the Israeli occupation for looting our wealth and enhances their control on the ground."
He pointed out that this project was the dream of the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, pointing out that he mentioned in his book "The Promised Land" published in 1902 about the channel to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea. (Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea - close enough!)
He cautioned that this agreement confiscates water and political rights from Palestinians and Jordanians alike, thereby refuting statements made by the Minister of Water Resources of Jordan Hazem Nasser in which he emphasized that "the agreement does not carry political implications, but is purely humanitarian."
