When ideology trumps human progress, water crises exacerbate hardship.
I attended a fascinating panel discussion held recently under the auspices of the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI).
It was fascinating not just because of the subject of the discussion, but because of who sat on the panel, where the participants hailed from, and the insights they revealed.
The subject was water scarcity. The panellists agreed on the need to provide clean water in water-scarce regions; to meet the demand for clean water by growing populations; how crucial cooperation was on the issue; and the nature of the considerable academic and practical expertise required to resolve a potentially existential problem.
The panellists, who have spent many years cooperating, came from Jordan, the Palestine Territories, Israel and, for good measure, Tshwane.
A summary of the discussion can be found in an article by Steven Gruzd in the South African Jewish Report. The focus of this article precludes discussion on what former Democratic Alliance mayor and leader of the opposition in Tshwane Cilliers Brink had to say, but Gruzd’s article provides some very worthwhile insights from Brink.
The Jordanian and Palestinian speakers did not want their real names used for fear of reprisals. Israel was represented by Dr Clive Lipchin of Israel’s Arava Institute Center for Transboundary Water Management.
As Benji Shulman, the Executive Director of MEARI points out, in South Africa this was a difficult discussion to have because of the nature of our political discourse.
“Open-minded and flexible”
Notwithstanding the various crises that have beset the region, particularly given the current war, the Palestinian speaker is still involved in various projects with Israeli institutions “that are open-minded and flexible. We try to work together – water knows no borders. We face the same droughts, the same pests. We all grow date palm trees, so we bring farmers together. It’s literally just a drop in the ocean, but we show our governments how to co-operate.”
Jordan and Israel have shared water resources since the two countries signed a peace agreement in 1994. Their agreement has been hailed as one of the best on water worldwide.
Jordan is one of the driest countries on earth, with water scarcity exacerbated by climate change and prolonged droughts. The Jordanian scientist noted that although Jordan and Syria signed water agreements in 2006 and 2007, these agreements had never been implemented because of tensions between the two countries. Jordan has also accused Saudi Arabia of exploiting joint water rights.
The Jordanian scientist also noted that although the current war had adversely affected co-operation, “there is no way to proceed without collaboration with neighbours”.
Dr Lipchin said that the prospects for normal relations with the Palestinians deteriorated with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and the Second Intifada in 2000.
Because rainfall is unreliable, Israel built five major desalination plants in the Mediterranean Sea. It also developed the widespread use of wastewater for irrigation. These non-conventional water sources revolutionised Israel’s water consumption. Desalination is expensive, however, due to its substantial capital, maintenance and energy costs.
“Trickle up”
Desalination has freed up more water from the Sea of Galilee for use by Jordan. “Water co-operation could trickle up to governments that have to make big decisions,” Lipchin said, remarking that collaboration continued quietly despite the aftermath of 7 October.
Thousands of cubic metres of raw sewage from Gaza have poured and continue to pour into the Mediterranean every day. Consequently Israel shut down its southernmost desalination plant. As Lipchin says, Israel’s water security depends on functioning Palestinian infrastructure. It is clearly in their common interests to collaborate.
The Palestinian scientist said: “We need to send an alternative narrative to the government that we can get along with our neighbours, we are all human beings.”
Water scarcity globally has long been seen as the crisis that will lead to the waging of major wars in the future.
Ironically, this discussion highlighted that fanatical ideology is one of the greatest drivers of war. Those who care for their societies, however, know only too well that the need for water transcends the hatreds and destruction.
Unfortunately, those governments which are ideologically fixated always place their people after, way after, their own survival.
This is brought into relief most acutely by the situation in Iran.
Before the revolution of 1979, Iran did a lot of business concerning water with Israel, particularly in agriculture. Much of the water infrastructure that Iran still has dates from the period 46 years ago.
Consistently ignored warnings
Since the late 1980s, Iran has consistently ignored warnings about its water supply. The Iranian regime constructed dams and increased groundwater extraction for food security.
The result has been irreversible groundwater depletion, with an annual deficit of over 30 billion cubic metres (BCM). While Iran’s population has surged from 10 to over 85 million in a century, its renewable water resources have fallen from 130 BCM to 80+ BCM. Hundreds of dams constructed after the Iran-Iraq war are in poor condition, despite Iran once being capable of proper water management.
Water resources may halve by 2041 while Iran’s population is expected to exceed 100 million. Per capita water availability for Iranians may drop below 500 cubic meters − absolute scarcity.
Iran now faces land subsidence which affects food self-sufficiency. Since 2013 farms have been abandoned as 10 million people have moved to cities.
The regime established a “water mafia”; a non-official alliance of the energy ministry, executives, academics, consulting engineers, influential contractors, and senior members of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
There are dams which contain a multimillion-ton mass of salt, despite many warnings about nearby saline geological formations.
Additionally, water transferred between watersheds to guarantee self-sufficiency have led to a decline in lakes, wetlands, rivers, and groundwater sources.
Protests
From 2015 to 2021 protests over the water crisis have sprung up in a number of provinces, which have led to the deaths of about 200 people.
Khuzestan province, for example, was a water-rich province, with two major rivers and vast oil and gas reserves, but became a victim of poor water management. Rivers and marshes dried up under the management of the mafia.
Wetland areas have become desiccated resulting in dust storms that worsen air quality and cause ill health.
In at least 10 provinces, lakes have disappeared, and groundwater has been depleted and contaminated. Vanishing glaciers have intensified water loss in river basins.
Inter-river basin water transfers in Isfahan threaten the province’s existence as residents resort to pumping illegal wells, causing groundwater depletion, land subsidence, and ill health.
A lake in northern Iran has dried up due to dam construction and unsustainable farming: it’s become a saline desert contaminated by industrial and human wastewater, and chemical fertilisers.
Nik Kowsar, author of A thirsty reality: Iran’s dire water situation, writes that the mafia consistently opposes workable projects because they “undermine their ability to extract commission money”.
The mafia now favours desalination, but due to sanctions and the absence of a direct business relationship with Israel, desalination would be five times more expensive than in the Gulf states because the water would have to be transported through a pipeline to central Iran.
Annihilating themselves
The regime’s most fundamental ideal is an extreme ideology that seeks to destroy Israel specifically (then the USA) and the Jews generally. If an apocalypse is inevitable to achieve this dream, at the risk of annihilating themselves and the Iranian people, that’s what the regime will accept.
Lipchin made a comment about the rumours that Cape Town rejected offers of assistance during its “Day Zero” crisis from 2018. Lipchin says the rumours were unfounded. The city was inundated by offers from many countries “and they were all spurned. But Israel has vast experience in desalination, wastewater, and recycling that could be of immense use to South Africa.”
Perhaps when you have governments that support outdated and sometimes bizarre ideologies, inevitably the elite become hugely corrupt, they fail to take appropriate and timeous action to resolve an existential crisis for their countries, and water mafia become inevitable.
Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the ANC’s otherwise inexplicable support for a genocidal regime.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eliasroviello/45454350461]
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