In the Arab world, people don't only share the same language, history and traditions, but also the same water problem. The Arab world, where around 5 per cent of the world's population lives, only contains 1 per cent of the world's water, while some Arab citizens only have 200 cubic metres of water to use annually. "The Arab countries don't only share the problem of water scarcity, but they also suffer from people using it unwisely. This means our valuable water resources are being wasted," says Mahmoud Abou Zeid, the former Egyptian Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources and the head of the Arab Water Council. According to a UN report, Arab countries are now among the most water-scarce in the world with a "worrying decline in per capita water availability", likely to be aggravated by climate change. Abu Zeid adds that its scarcity is not the only problem with water in the Arab world. "Nearly 60 per cent of water in the Arab world comes from sources in the neighbouring countries, which requires a kind of water diplomacy and threatens to cause tension from time to time," he told a ceremony marking Arab Water Day, organised by the Arab Water Council. During the ceremony, Arab water experts didn't forget to remind the world that part of the Arabs' very valuable resources are being stolen by the Israelis occupying Palestine and some parts of Syria. Since Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has striven to remain in control of the water resources, diverting water from the Palestinian territories to the cities and settlements set up on the ruins of Palestinian towns destroyed in 1948. At the same time, the Palestinians have begun to suffer from the bad quality of the water they get. The Palestinian Water Authority says that the Gaza Strip is suffering from an annual water deficit of up to 70 million cubic metres, noting that, as a result of natural population growth in the Strip, there are now more than 1.5 million people depending on a single source of water, the coastal aquifer, to meet their needs. The authority also noted the quality of groundwater is suffering from seawater intrusion, causing high salinity and adding to the high concentration of nitrates in the water, due to the leakage of sewage and the return underground of irrigation water. Israel seized the Jordan River and stored its water in Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee), then transported the water from north to south to feed different areas of Israel. Israel gets 60 per cent of this water, while Jordan gets 25 per cent and Syria 15 per cent, despite its source being within Syria's borders. It has also prevented the Palestinians from reaching the Jordan River, destroying all their pumps on the river and evicting the farmers. When Israel occupied the Golan Heights, it prevented Syria from benefiting from its water; today 30 per cent of Israel's water comes from the Golan Heights. It also captured the Syrian water source in the Yarmouk River Basin. During the Arab Water Day celebrations, experts stressed the importance of water diplomacy, an important tool for resolving water problems and defending people's water rights. At the same time, they stressed that water can be a key cause for co-operation between the Arab nations, rather than a cause for conflict between them.
