Think-Israel

THINK-ISRAEL

HOME July-August 2009 Featured Stories Background Information News On The Web

THE GOLAN HEIGHTS, SYRIA AND WATER

by Yoram Ettinger

70% of Israel's water resources will not be under its control if it withdraws from the Golan (30%), Judea and Samaria (40%). There is no precedent for a country giving away water sources.

Syria is systematically violating water agreements with Lebanon and Turkey (Orontes River), Jordan (Yarmuk River), and Iraq (Euphrates River). Israel's average annual water potential is 280 cubic meters per capita, compared to 2,000 cubic meters for Syria and 1,400 cubic meters for the Middle East at large.

The more sophisticated the missiles, the greater their capabilities (e.g. precision) to disrupt the mobilization of reservists and the greater the indispensability of ground features (topographical edge in a country which lacks geographic depth), which enable the regular Israeli military to ward off a surprise attack by Arab regular armored forces.

In Defiance of Wishful Thinking and in Support of Realism

70% of Israel's water resources will not be under its control if it withdraws from the Golan (30%), Judea and Samaria (40%). There is no precedent for a country giving away water sources.
Syria is systematically violating water agreements with Lebanon and Turkey (Orontes River), Jordan (Yarmuk River), and Iraq (Euphrates River). Israel's average annual water potential is 280 cubic meters per capita, compared to 2,000 cubic meters for Syria and 1,400 cubic meters for the Middle East at large.
Syrian control of the Golan watershed — located on the present cease fire line along the eastern Golan Heights mountain ridge — would pollute the Kinneret waters and make it easy to divert its water sources.
Ballistic missiles cause destruction but do not occupy the land and do not determine the outcome of wars. In 1991 Saddam Hussein was not overpowered by 8,000 tons of missiles and bombs daily, but by the entry of American ground forces into the war. The critical importance of ground forces suggest the equally critical importance of ground features (geographic depth and topographic edge).
The United States, the leading ballistic power, controls 100 bases and military installations located on essential ground features throughout the world.
Territory is more critical in the ballistic era! Ballistic missiles can hit air force bases, emergency stockpiles, major intersections, and population centers, and can disrupt the mobilization of reservists (75% of the IDF), which is critical for fending off a surprise attack by an Arab regulars (75% of the Arab armies!).
The more sophisticated the missiles, the greater their capabilities (e.g. precision) to disrupt the mobilization of reservists and the greater the indispensability of ground features (topographical edge in a country which lacks geographic depth), which enable the regular Israeli military to ward off a surprise attack by Arab regular armored forces.
In 1973 the present cease fire line on the Golan Heights (the mountain ridge of the Hermon, Hermonit, and Bental in the north down to the Rokad River in the south) enabled 177 Israeli tanks to fend off a surprise attack by 1,400 Syrian tanks, despite the failure of Israel's sophisticated (human and electronic) early-warning system.
A giveaway of the mountain ridge, which is a unique natural tank barrier, would enable a surprise Syrian tank offensive — under cover of ballistic missiles — to reach the Galilee in three hours.
Military technology — just like commercial technology — is an obsolescent product. Today's high-tech becomes tomorrow's low-tech. Any technology can be jammed, but a topographical advantage (the Golan Heights and the mountain ridge of Judea and Samaria) cannot be jammed. Syria and Israel's eastern neighbors can import superior technologies, but they can't import a topographical edge over the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria.
The most advanced technology, weapons, and early-warning systems in the world — stationed in the Persian Gulf and the adjacent areas — did not enable the US to anticipate Iraq's invasions of Kuwait in 1991 and of Iran in 1980. The IDF's sophisticated early-warning systems, and superb personnel, failed to anticipate the Syrian-Egyptian attack in 1973. The topographical edge on the Golan Heights enabled the IDF to block the 1973 surprise attack and save itself from oblivion.
Syria does not have peaceful relations with its Muslim neighbors: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq.
Syria has been a serial violator of commitments with every one of its neighbors.
Is it logical to claim that Syria is trustworthy when it provides a safe-haven to Nazi war criminals, denies the Holocaust, incites its citizens — via school textbooks and state controlled media – against Jews and Israel, tramples human rights and massacres its own citizens, rapes Lebanon, is a leader of international narco-terrorism, a counterfeiter of hundred dollar bills, a strategic ally of other terrorist states, and proliferates weaponry of mass destruction?

EDITOR'S ADDITION:

"Syria is drying up"
by Guy Bechor
Ynet News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3755655,00.html

If given the opportunity, Syria will ruin our main water source

Syria is experiencing an economic holocaust. There is no other way to describe what the Syrian regime is so much trying to hide. The country is drying up, and no less than 250,000 farmers were forced in the past three years to abandon their land and migrate to the large cities. They live in tents there, completely neglected by the regime. These figures appeared in a special study undertaken by the United Nations and published on the al-Arabiya website.

The immense Euphrates River, Syria's main source of water, is drying up. The Turks are stopping its water in their territory, so that Syria and Iraq are receiving a declining portion of the water. Within about 10 years, the river is expected to dry up completely outside Turkish territory. Today already, it reaches Syria with contaminated water and therefore its fish, an important source of livelihood, is becoming extinct.

As result of the drought that had been plaguing Syria for several years now, another important Syrian water source, the Aasi (Orontes) River, is drying up as well. Its water is becoming saltier and increasingly contaminated, and its fish are dying off. And without fish, there is no livelihood. Entire villages fed by its waters for hundreds of years are simply being deserted.

Ground water in the country had reached such nadir that it is no longer possible to use the roughly 420,000 illegal wells dug by residents over the years. If there is no water, there is no agriculture; people proceed to leave the village and move to the city. As there is no work there either, the distress is terrible and political pressures builds up.

Many of the farmers leaving their villages are Kurd, which makes the problem an ethnic one. The Kurdish refugees accuse the regime of doing nothing for them. For several years now they have been living in thousands of tents near the big cities without being addressed.

Should Israel pay for Syrian failures?

It turns out that the ruling Baath party is at fault for everything. During the 1960s, the party decided to turn Syria into a grain-exporting state. They viewed it as a victory of the Syrian agrarian revolution. For that reason, they forced the farmers to shift from herding, on semi-arid land, to growing grain. The regime turned a blind eye to the hundreds of thousands of wells that were dug in order to water the grain. Any economist who dared to speak out against this policy was jailed.

Now, with the terrible drought, the grim results are overwhelming this land of 20 million people, half of them farmers. Instead of the 1.9 million tons of grains they expected to produce this year, the farmers managed to supply only 892,000 tons. Ruin in Syrian terms. The implication is that Syria is importing its grains today and has no money.

Syria has an existential interest in getting its hands on the Sea of Galilee in order to get the water needed for its agricultural land. Meanwhile, the water of our poor Kinneret reaches both Israel and Jordan at this time (we provide a fixed amount every year in line with our peace treaty.) Should Syria touch the Kinneret, the amounts of water pumped out of it will be huge. As it ruined its own rivers and ground water, Syria will also ruin our main water source. It has its sights on it, even though it is uninterested in peace with Israel.

Should Israel pay for the failures and mediocrity of the Syrian Baath party? Moreover, when one realizes how badly Turkey robs Syria, should we choose Turkey as the mediator between us and the Syrians? After all, Turkey has an existential interest in seeing the Syrians get the Kinneret. It will take the pressure off.

Ahead of the possible resumption of negotiations with Syria, we should know these figures and be cautious. We should hope that the Americans, who wish to advance talks on the Syrian track, will also be aware of this information.

One reader of the original article wrote:

16. Good!
steve from raleigh (08.03.09)

Syria dumps more than 4 billion barrels of fresh water into the sea each year through waste and inefficiency. That is 4x more than the combined consumption of Israel, the West Bank and Jordan combined. If Syria dries up and blows away it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. Despite decades of trying to get Syria engaged in a regional water sharing initiative, they refused. They refused even to take money from Israel for Israel to build a water pipeline from Turkey to Israel, through Syria. All in the name of their retarded racist fascist hate. Well I say good on them. Let them drink SAND!

Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il This article was submitted August 8, 2009.

_________________________End of Story___________________________

HOME July-August 2009 Featured Stories Background Information News On The Web