Hopes that peace can trickle up in the Middle East

While water resources can cause conflict, they can also foster collaboration and build trust. That was the message delivered by water experts from Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, and Tshwane. The four were speaking on 10 April at an event organised by the Middle East Africa Research Institute think tank. The meeting was held at the picturesque Randlord mansion on Parktown Ridge that serves as the headquarters of the Free Market Foundation.

The Jordanian and Palestinian speakers didn’t want their real names used, for safety and in fear of reprisals. Dr Samir Ashqar* from the West Bank said with the optimism of the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s, there was hope that “Palestine could become the hub of the Middle East”. He said Israel controls the four aquifers in the territories, extracts the water, and sells it back to the Palestinians, to their chagrin. Poor political relations with the Palestinian Authority have hampered deeper co-operation.

Ashqar said that he is involved in various projects to build bridges 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.”

Water scientist Dr Rami Suhail* noted that Jordan is one of the driest countries on earth, with water scarcity exacerbated by climate change and prolonged droughts. Historical tensions between Jordan and Syria meant that signed water agreements from 2006 to 2007 were never implemented. Jordan accuses Saudi Arabia of exploiting joint water rights. But Jordan and Israel have shared water resources stemming from their 1994 peace agreement, which has been hailed as one of the best treaties on water worldwide. However, since 2023, the war in Gaza has adversely affected further water co-operation. “The situation is frozen. There is no way to proceed without collaboration with neighbours,” Suhail said.

Dr Clive Lipchin, from Israel’s Arava Institute Center for Transboundary Water Management, noted that the prospects for normal relations with Palestinians unravelled with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and the onset of the Second Intifada in 2000. “Since then, we have gone totally downhill for 30 years.”

Lipchin said Israel’s assessment that water from rainfall was unreliable, especially due to climate change, led to the development of five major desalination plants in the Mediterranean Sea, and the more widespread use of wastewater for irrigation. These non-conventional water sources have totally revolutionised Israel’s water consumption profile, although desalination has made water more expensive due to its enormous capital and maintenance costs.

“Government wrongly sees Israel as an island,” Lipchin said. “But we are not an island, and our neighbours need water.” He said that 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.

“People-to-people projects will hopefully push upward to our governments,” said Lipchin. He noted that hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of raw sewage is pouring into the Mediterranean every day from Gaza, which has caused Israel to shut down its southernmost desalination plant. “Thus, Israel’s water security depends on functioning Palestinian infrastructure. It is clearly in our common interests to collaborate.

“The government has no objection to our joint projects, but it won’t claim any credit for them either,” Lipchin said.

“We need to send an alternative narrative to the government that we can get along with our neighbours, we are all human beings,” said Ashqar.

The former mayor of Tshwane, Cilliers Brink, from the Democratic Alliance, said South Africa’s attitude to water was one of plenitude rather than scarcity. But in reality, the country lacks water – as seen by more frequent urban water outages due to decades of neglect. He said some 42% of Johannesburg’s water is lost because of deteriorated infrastructure.

Brink described the downstream pollution of the Apies River stemming from the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant in Tshwane. It took 30 deaths from cholera – “a medieval disease of poverty and underdevelopment” – to finally get the national government to work more closely with the metro. The involvement of the private sector in terms of expertise and capital in the water sector was crucial, even though this might be politically unpalatable for the government. “We could learn from the Middle East and its technology,” Brink said.

He remarked that the only two private water concessions in the country, in Ballito and Mbombela, lose much less water and register higher revenue collection rates than other municipalities.

“The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) overregulates local government,” Brink said. “The PFMA needs reform, and to be linked to upgrading of railways and ports. South Africa will eventually be forced to do it, so we should do it now already.”

Lipchin said that the rumours that Israel was rejected when it offered assistance to Cape Town during its “Day Zero” water crisis from 2018 were unfounded. The city was inundated by offers from many countries “and they were all spurned”, said Lipchin. “But Israel has vast experience in desalination, wastewater, and recycling that could be of immense use to South Africa.”

* Not his real name