Hydrostrategic Decisionmaking and the Arab ... - Yale University

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234 MIDDLE EASTERN NATURAL ENVIRONMENTSthe territory of Palestine. The latter two territories were alreadyincluded in Zionist plans for water diversion and hydroelectricitygeneration. The arrangement was beneficial to Palestine’shydrostrategic positioning, and, although it was made mainly foradministrative reasons, “to make customs inspection easier,” it wasalso expressed that the development plans should proceed withoutinternational complication (Ra’anan 1955). Nevertheless, accordingto the agreement, fishing and navigation rights on the lake wereretained by the inhabitants of Syria. Later, between 1948 and 1967,Syria claimed the shoreline as the de facto border, and argued forriparian rights to the lake on that basis.At the Yarmuk, the border went eastward along the river, meetingup with the Sykes-Picot line into the Syrian desert and south ofthe Jebel Druze. The final agreement made no mention of jointaccess to French-controlled waters.Administrative divisions would further convolute the boundariesalong the Jordan. In May 1921, Churchill offered the Emir Abdullahreign over that part of the British Mandate east of the Jordan River.Transjordan became a semi-independent entity in 1923 and anindependent kingdom in 1946. While the division was originallybetween administrative units under one authority—the BritishMandate—the boundary, as defined by the center of the JordanRiver, the Dead Sea, and Wadi Araba/Arava, would eventually becomethe international boundary between Israel and Jordan. 4Although the location of water resources had been an important,sometimes over-riding issue with some of the actors involved in determinationof the boundaries of these territories, it is clear from the outcomethat other issues took precedence over the need for waterdevelopment. These other factors ranged from the geostrategic (thelocation of roads and oil pipelines) to the political (alliances and relationshipsamong British, French, Jews, and Arabs) to the historical (howwell versed one or another negotiator was in biblical geography).4The boundary was originally defined as thelocation of the river in 1922. However,after the Jordan shifted 800 meterswestward during the winter of 1927-28,the British high commissioner decided thatthe boundary would henceforth be thecenter of the water bodies mentioned,wherever they meandered. A similar shift inthe streambed, and consequently in theboundary, occurred in the winter of 1978-79 (Biger 1994).Partition and Jewish Statehood: 1922-1948During the 1930s and 1940s, water was a focus of several reportswhich tried to determine the “economic absorptive capacity” ofmandate Palestine. In the absence of clear immigration policy, bothJewish and Arab residents of Palestine became increasingly frustrated,taking out their hostility on each other as well as on theBritish. Over time, the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arabstates increasingly became the most advocated option, first in anAnglo-American plan in 1946, and later, when Britain ceded theMandate to the United Nations, in the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947.BULLETIN 103
WOLF 235Figure 4 United Nations plan for the partition of Palestine, November 1947 (Sachar 1979).YALE F&ES BULLETIN
Page 1 and 2: WOLF 221Hydrostrategic Decisionmaki
Page 3 and 4: WOLF 223BORDERS, BOUNDARIES, AND HY
Page 5 and 6: WOLF 225of international rivers, no
Page 7 and 8: WOLF 227The Zionist PositionThe Zio
Page 9 and 10: WOLF 229Aaronson thought his ideas
Page 11 and 12: WOLF 231Figure 3 Disputed area, Mar
Page 13: WOLF 233the Upper Jordan and Yarmuk
Page 17 and 18: WOLF 237develop a series of impound
Page 19 and 20: WOLF 239Arab state to reflect the m
Page 21 and 22: WOLF 241Figure 6 Rhodes armistice d
Page 23 and 24: WOLF 243Figure 7 Jordan/Yarmuk rive
Page 25 and 26: WOLF 245resources and to provide fo
Page 27 and 28: WOLF 247water Diversion Plan to pre
Page 29 and 30: WOLF 249• The 1979 Litani Operati
Page 31 and 32: WOLF 251In the taking of the Golan
Page 33 and 34: WOLF 253below which the entire lake
Page 35 and 36: WOLF 255string of kibbutzim was est
Page 37 and 38: WOLF 257Figure 11 West Bank groundw
Page 39 and 40: WOLF 259tion and industrial growth,
Page 41 and 42: WOLF 261the quantity and quality of
Page 43 and 44: WOLF 263Israel-Jordan Treaty of Pea
Page 45 and 46: WOLF 265put a stop to illegal drill
Page 47 and 48: WOLF 267which it had occupied from
Page 49 and 50: WOLF 269protect Israel’s groundwa
Page 51 and 52: WOLF 271Fromkin, D. 1989. A peace t
Page 53: WOLF 273Tonkin, E. 1994. Borderline

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