![Sample our Earth Sciences journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5930/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Earth-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Co-riparian parties on the Yarmouk river, the largest tributary to the Jordan, have been complicated by many political factors since the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948. Conflicting water plans drawn up unilaterally jeopardized their benefits. The political settings between them are outlined and the attempts to forge tacit and explicit cooperation between them are discussed. The article reveals the difficulties encountered by Jordan as a result of lack of cooperation over its main water source, the Yarmouk. The potentials and events of near collision are enumerated and the partial resolution of conflict described. The conflicts awaiting resolution are addressed and the timing thereof suggested.
Notes
1. Engineer Abraham Bourcart was dispatched to Palestine by the World Zionist Organization after its first conference in Basel to assess its water resources in 1898. More Zionist and Mandate-instigated plans were made. For details see Haddadin (Citation2001).
2. The real reason was the reservations expressed by the delegates from Syria and Lebanon on the grounds that the agreement with Johnston at the political level entails tacit recognition of the State of Israel before the major issues the Arabs had with it were resolved.
3. Details of the Johnston mission and his negotiations with the parties can be found in Haddadin (Citation2001).
4. Ambassador Philip Habib, a US envoy to help arrange for Israel's consent to have the Maqarin Dam built, stated in his meetings with the Jordanian officials that “the Johnston Plan is not workable any more”!
5. The assumed rate of return flow amounts to 40% of new water to be used by Syria (85 mcm/yr). This proved to be too high a rate.
6. The share includes an estimated 34 mcm of return flow of which 14 mcm go to evaporation. The West Bank share, as determined by the Arab Technical Committee, had to be separated from the Jordanian share after the disengagement of Jordan with the West Bank. West Bank's share of this estimated flow was 81 mcm/yr, and Jordan's was 296 mcm/yr.
7. An aide mémoire by the US Chargé d'Affaires in Amman was forwarded in February 1958 to the Jordanian foreign minister to that effect. The Jordanian minister responded in agreement to that condition (see Haddadin Citation2001).
8. The US State Department dispatched experts for follow-up on the works financed by the USAID. Dr. Wayne Criddle was one such expert.
9. This was particularly helpful to Jordan in the wake of massive return of its citizens from the Gulf states in 1990–1991 in the wake of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A good part of municipal supply to Amman came from the King Abdullah Canal in the Jordan Valley.
10. The US envoy Philip Habib shuttled between Jordan and Israel between 1978 and 1980; another envoy, Richard Murphey, played the same role between 1984 and 1986; finally, Richard Armitage played this role between 1988 and 1991. The role of intermediaries ceased when the Middle East peace process was launched in 1991.
11. The dam site was discovered by Mills Bunger, an American engineer working with the US Point IV Mission to Jordan while on a flight from Amman to Beirut (Lebanon). The dam was initially named after him, the Bunger Dam, and was later renamed the Maqarin Dam. Finally the dam was given the name Al Wehda Dam in 1987.
12. This was overtly communicated to the writer, then head of the Jordan side in the Joint Yarmouk Committee, when he met with the Syrian prime minister, Mr Abdul Rauf Kasm, in Damascus in July 1987.
13. The writer, then President and Chairman of the Board of the Jordan Valley Authority, headed the Jordan side on a trip to Syria to discuss the Syrian demands. He rejected all three demands and insisted that the agreement of 1953 be respected. He resigned when the Prime Minister overruled him.
14. Ambassador Richard Armitage took on the task of intermediary between Jordan and Israel. He was assisted by Fred Hof as a water expert and others. His mission lasted between 1988 and 1991, when the Middle East Peace Process started.
15. The writer was not a party to the replacement of the Yarmouk agreement nor had the chance to be part of the effort when Ambassador Armitage conducted the shuttle diplomacy between Jordan and Israel. However, the King called on him to join the Jordanian delegations to the Middle East peace process.