Water

Reneging on the Port Deal would be a Blow to US Interests

Edward Walker — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:00:00 -0500

The sudden outcry by some members of Congress, state and local officials, and pundits about the United Arab Emirates port deal has the odor of election-year politics. I see a lot of statements that ignore the facts and are designed to play on the fears of the American public. The facts do not support the political rhetoric about security.

If our ports are indeed vulnerable, that vulnerability has nothing to do with the companies that manage them. Port security is regulated by the Department of Homeland Security, US Customs, the Coast Guard, and border protection authorities, not by private contractors. Port employees must be American citizens or legal permanent residents. No private company will own or manage any of our ports — the UAE company, Dubai Ports World, would only manage and operate terminals within the port.

More to the point, by the time a container has entered one of our ports and been off-loaded for further processing, it is probably too late to avert a nuclear or biological attack. Ports are located in major metropolitan areas where the effects of such an attack, even if centered in the port area, would have devastating consequences. The Container Security Initiative is the critical piece in the port security puzzle.

The UAE was the first Middle Eastern state to join this US-sponsored initiative. Under its provisions, customs and border protection officers are permanently located in UAE ports to inspect containers before shipment to the United States. The UAE was also the first Middle Eastern state to join the Energy Department's Megaports Initiative, designed to stop illicit shipments of nuclear and other radioactive material. In short, we already depend on the cooperation of the UAE and its management company to ensure the security of US ports, regardless of this proposed contract.

In more general terms, the UAE has been a key ally in the fight against Saddam Hussein, both in 1991 when I was the US Ambassador to the UAE, and more recently in support of our efforts in Iraq. Since 1990, the UAE has entertained more port visits by US naval vessels than any other nation. In the war period of 1990-91 alone, more than 300,000 American sailors were able to take liberty in the UAE (and all on the basis of a handshake between the UAE ruler, Sheik Zayed, and myself). We had multiple squadrons of fighter, tanker, and reconnaissance aircraft stationed at UAE airports. Today our planes are able to use UAE facilities and we work together at the UAE Air Warfare Center, where our pilots are able to train.

Like the United States and most countries in the Middle East, the UAE was asleep at the switch when it came to al Qaeda prior to September 11, 2001. But since that time we have had outstanding cooperation on curtailing terrorist financial operations. Working with the Treasury Department, the UAE has enacted aggressive anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws. Information exchange between intelligence and financial authorities is continuous and far-reaching.

When our politicians ignore these facts and challenge the UAE's support for American interests, it looks more like racial profiling and political grandstanding than honest concern about US security. The fact that a few UAE citizens have joined al Qaeda is not a reason to condemn an entire country, just as we cannot and should not take the blame for the actions of every US citizen.

The fact that the UAE was the site of financial transactions supporting terrorist organizations before 9/11 is no more relevant today than the fact that the US supported the Taliban against the Soviets in Afghanistan or that American citizens financially supported terrorist organizations before systematic reforms we put in place after 9/11.

Members of Congress need to consider carefully the impact of reneging on this contract. Identifying the UAE as complicit in terrorism will sour a relationship that has been essential for our forces in the region and the continued safety and well-being of our troops. It will also anger the population of the UAE and put pressure on the government to terminate or limit UAE cooperation with the United States.

It may also put our ports in greater jeopardy if the UAE becomes less rigorous or less cooperative in the Container Security and Megaports Initiatives. We will be no safer and possibly a good deal less safe. Let us hope that we do not jeopardize our relations with a country that is a key player in the war against terror just to score a few points against the President and his administration.

Political Geography in Israel and the West Bank

Dr. David Newman — Fri, 31 May 2002 12:00:00 -0400

Dr. David Newman, founder and chair of the Politics and Government Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, addressed three major components of the geopolitical discourse in Israel and the West Bank. Dr. Newman began his lecture by asserting that discussions of security, water, and settlement issues must be prefaced with a determination for conflict-resolution, and with a resolve to establish two states, with two territories determined by a strong border.

Dr. Newman defined the Green Line, a boundary that separated Israel from the West Bank between 1949 and 1967, as the starting point for the discourse. The Green Line, what he described as a “socially poor” boundary that divided Palestinians into both residents of the West Bank and Israeli citizens, resulted in the “creation of different social and demographic structures amongst a people who were once a single ethnic and national group.” This boundary, declared in the Rhodes Agreements after Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 and 1949, exists today as an informal 35-year-old administrative line, separating civilian Israel from occupied territories in the West Bank, and delineating between two different legal and structural systems. No official Israeli map shows the Green Line boundary, although Israel’s municipal maps stop at the Green Line. The Green Line remains today as the “default image” of the region. The 1993 Oslo Accords’ use of “West Bank” and “Gaza Strip” gave it a formality, which it no longer officially possesses.

Israel’s security discussions, until recently, focused on retaining control of the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights. The Jordan Valley, Israel’s eastern border, provided Israel with a defense from incursions of petty armaments and allowed more control of the West Bank. Israel perceived that the loss of control of the uplands would impart Palestinians with the military advantage of stationing weaponry that would overlook Israeli cities. During former Prime Minister Barak’s administration, Barak surprised his army by saying that Israel no longer needed the Jordan Valley to ensure security in the region. Today, the security threat is nuclear, rather than a military threat directed at micro-territories; thus, the security discourse is no longer the prevalent issue in Israel’s geopolitical discussions.

Dr. Newman presented the water issue to be as conflict-inducing as both the security discourse and settlement concerns. Water in Israel and the West Bank is scarce. The population is growing, and consumption habits are increasingly more “domestic and Western.” A single aquifer provides water to the two areas, underlying the coastal plain of Israel and the greater part of the West Bank. The aquifer is beginning to show signs of salinity, and tensions are increasing about rights of exploitation and drilling of new wells. Water continues to be piped into all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while growing Palestinian communities are not always allowed to drill new wells to obtain the water for their domestic needs. The international community proposed a Tennessee Valley-type approach involving Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, and an outside mediator to negotiate the issue; however, both Israel and the Palestinians expressed that they want independent and unilateral control of the resource. The Israelis and Palestinians foresee sharing the aquifer as detrimental to their potential efforts in a conflict or war. The international community sees their reluctance to destroy an aquifer that they share with an enemy as a possible facilitator of peace. Recent approaches to the issue include technical solutions for desalination, equal access plans, and increase of the water supply by importing from Turkey.

Settlements vis-à-vis the boundary between Israel and the West Bank constitute the final component of the geopolitical discourse of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not including east Jerusalem, 200,000 settlers reside in the West Bank. 65% of the settlers live in clusters close to the Green Line boundary, and 35% live in more upland areas of the West Bank. The more ideologically committed settlers of the interior parts of the region believe that the land was given by God, liberated in 1967, and cannot be conceded in the future. The majority of the settlers, on the border of the West Bank, participated in suburban colonization driven primarily by economic incentives, including low mortgage rates and cheaper land. The challenge of settlements with regard to agreeing upon a boundary necessitates consideration of territorial compensation and territorial exchange, both previously taboo. The 35% of settlers in the interior region will, once an agreement on a border is reached, have to evacuate. Proposals such as expanding and enlarging the Gaza Strip have been suggested in response to the potential evacuation of settlers.

Dr. Newman concluded by reiterating his point that any resolution must be reached through the agreement for continuous, compact territories on both sides of the Green Line. In past negotiations, 85% of the fine points of these issues were addressed, and approximately 80% were resolved. Dr. Newman explained that the absence of the “big issues,” a willingness for discussion and mutual efforts toward peace, are hindering the development of the smaller problems’ solutions.

Water and Conflict in the Middle East

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 16:03:19 -0400

Discussions of transboundary water issues in regions of the developing world other than the Middle East have tended to focus on development potential and poverty reduction. However, with respect to the Middle East, much of the media coverage and a sizable portion of scholarly writing have been devoted to “water conflicts.” Given the current amount of water available per capita, the high rate of population growth, and the high levels of interstate tension and conflict in the region, images of “water wars” do not seem far-fetched.