Ramin Hossein Abadian, journalist and researcher
Jordan, after Egypt, became the second Arab‑Islamic country to pursue the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime. On October 26, 1994, Jordan and the Zionist regime signed a peace treaty known as the Wadi Araba Agreement. Part of the agreement on normalizing relations between Jordan and the regime states: “Aiming at the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 in all their aspects.”
From the Wadi Araba normalization agreement to the water war
Recently, a report in the Israeli newspaper Maariv was widely circulated by regional and international media. Perhaps the reason for its prominence was that no one expected the Zionist regime to openly confront a country that, after Egypt, had agreed to a normalization treaty with Tel Aviv. According to Maariv, Israeli officials informed Jordan that they would not deliver the annual water quota stipulated under the Wadi Araba Agreement. In other words, Tel Aviv announced that it would not provide the approximately 50 million cubic meters of water that were supposed to be delivered to Jordan under the agreement.
This decision by the Zionist regime’s authorities comes despite the 1994 Wadi Araba Agreement, under which the regime is obliged to deliver 50 million cubic meters of water annually from the agreed sources to Jordan, through the King Abdullah Canal. The website of the Al Jazeera emphasizes: “Under Article 6 of the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement concerning the water issue, the two parties agreed to recognize equitable allocations to each of them from the waters of the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers and from the groundwater of the Wadi Araba, in accordance with the accepted and agreed principles and in the quantities and quality agreed upon." Therefore, by refusing to deliver Jordan’s agreed water share, the Zionist regime has explicitly violated one of the most important clauses of the Wadi Araba normalization agreement concerning Jordan’s water rights.
Water theft Tel Aviv–style and Jordan’s water rights
Ayman Fadilat, an expert and analyst on Arab world affairs, reviewing the water dispute between Jordan and the Zionist regime, states that international water experts accuse the regime of stealing Jordanian water from the Jordan River and groundwater from the Wadi Araba and Al-Ghamr areas in the south of the Kingdom.
On the other hand, Hisham Al-Bustani, a Jordanian researcher and writer, emphasizes that the peace treaty between Jordan and the Zionist regime established a peculiar water arrangement that ensured the former's dependence on the latter and secured the latter's security at the former's expense. By signing the treaty, Jordan accepted the regime's arbitrary division of the Jordan River basin, allowing the Zionist regime to control the Jordan River and its tributaries north of the Sea of Galilee, as well as the Sea of Galilee itself, the source of the river's southern section, thus depriving Jordan of any share of this vital water. However, on the other hand, despite the fact that the Yarmouk River (a major tributary of the Jordan) is not shared by both countries but rather by Jordan and Syria, the agreement guaranteed the regime a specific share of it (12 million cubic meters in the summer and 13 million cubic meters in the winter), with Jordan receiving the "remaining flow." That is, Jordan, in the context of drought and global warming, Syria's construction of dams on the Yarmouk River, and Jordan's mismanagement and delay in managing water resources as a result of taking into account the approval of the Zionist regime and the US, will get very little water, and according to the arrangements of the "peace treaty" it will get less than it used to get from the Yarmouk River before it.
However, the Zionist regime’s encroachment on Jordan’s water rights does not end there, as Sufian Al-Tal, a Jordanian water expert, reveals events dating back before the Wadi Araba Agreement, relating to the diversion of the Jordan River. He noted: “The Zionist regime stole our water rights by diverting the course of the Jordan River in the forties and fifties of the last century. According to international agreements, the Jordan River is shared by Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories occupied before 1967, and the Zionist regime is not mentioned.”
Exploitation of the most vital need of the second country to normalize relations, by an ICC- wanted prime minister
Jordan is among the 17 countries suffering from severe water scarcity, to the point that per capita water share has fallen below the water poverty line. Meanwhile, population pressures and the effects of climate change are increasing year by year. This situation has made Jordan dependent on external sources to meet part of its water needs. Despite Jordan’s efforts to expand desalination projects, completing these initiatives and bringing them to fruition takes years; therefore, any external disruption in water supply directly triggers domestic crises that affect the lives of millions of Jordanians.
Given this circumstances, the Zionist regime, fully aware of Jordan’s current conditions and its critical need for water, has targeted this very vulnerable point. In this regard, Mahdi Mubarak Abdullah, while describing the regime’s recent withdrawal from delivering the annual 50 million cubic meters of water to Jordan, according to the prior agreement, as a politically motivated act, states that the Zionist regime is using water as a punitive tool to exert pressure on Jordan. In fact, Netanyahu exploits Jordan’s water needs as a direct leverage. The consequences of this Israeli action will fall directly on the Jordanian people. Such a move is not only a major threat to Jordanian farmers, but it will also compromise the provision of drinking water in the country’s major cities.
What exacerbates the consequences of the Zionist regime’s water war against Jordan for its people is the country’s already precarious access to water resources. Habib Abu Mahfouz, a Jordanian writer and journalist, describes his country’s situation as follows: “Jordanians anxiously await winter, fearing it will be meager. The land that once overflowed with life now groans with thirst, and some of the dams that were lifelines for the country have become empty. The water crisis is intensifying for a country that stands on the brink of thirst in one of the driest places in the world.”
These conditions highlight how further tightening of Jordan’s access to water due to the Zionist regime’s violations of its water rights can seriously impact the lives of its citizens. It is now increasingly clear how the signing of the Wadi Araba normalization agreement with the regime, and subsequent collaborations and agreements, have left the fate of Jordan’s most vital resource dependent on the decisions of an ICC- wanted war criminal— a political figure who is under investigation by the International Criminal Court for committing war crimes in Gaza—who nevertheless positions himself as a provider of water technology and expertise to countries around the world.
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
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