War Over Water: Conflict Over Trans-Boundary Waters

Water situation is Middle East is hard and difficult to make sense out of it; indicators of shortage are hard to examine and argue. Talking about water in Middle East has many dimensions, social, environmental, religious, and political. What can be drawn from all of this is that water in Middle East is a highly sensitive political issue.Water, poses the biggest challenge of all natural resources, especially when it comes to the Middle East, an area known for its shortage and limited fresh water resources. Water shortage is not the only reason for causing water conflicts, fair equitable agreements plays an essential role in the water conflict especially among states sharing trans-boundary waters.Water war as a concept may not mesh with the conventional construct of warfare. Water wars can be waged and won by nonmilitary means, such as by reengineering trans-boundary flows. But when military force has been employed by any country to change the regional water map, this research attempt to show that merely water conflicts in Middle East are political issues. Hydro-politics is quickly becoming a subject of crucial importance within the general field of conflict studies and environmental politicsThis research is motivated by the Middle East water conflict, which exhibits many aspects of other conflicts over natural resources around the world. Particularly, the Jordanian-Israeli conflict is very intriguing as it incarnates a situation in which conflicting representations of fresh water resources, coupled with power structure imbalance, have created tension, injustice, instability and resulted in a long lasting conflictThe conflict over water facing the nations in the Middle East today will become even more serious over the next coming years, unless something is done in proper time future. Populations are growing and the standard of living is expected to increase as well, Averting water conflicts, demands fair treaties, cooperation, water sharing and not dividing, Joint Fact Finding, Transparency, and clarity are the most essential elements. Despite the ubiquity of transnational basins, the number of genuine water-sharing treaties in the world, unfortunately, remains remarkably small. Most trans-boundary river, in fact, lacks any treaty-based arrangements to promote cooperation between co-riparian states.

Author: Firas T. Thalji

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Publication Date: Nov 05, 2014

Number of Pages: 156 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 1494889137

ISBN-13: 9781494889135