James Carville kept a sign over his desk that said, "It's the economy, stupid!" as a reminder of what the real issue in the 1992 Presidential campaign was.
Today we are bombarded by all kinds of propaganda about Hezbollah, captured Israeli soldiers, and all kinds of yada-yada. The news today is that Israel is planning to establish a security zone inside Lebanon that will extend to the Litani River. Up to 300,000 Lebanese will be displaced, become refugees in their own land, by that move.
If up to this point you have believed everything the American corporate media has told you about Lebanon, I've got news for you: It's the water, stupid!
Here is a brief sample of Israel's designs on the Litani and the Hasbani Rivers:
Tuesday, March 16, 1999 Published at 14:05 GMT
World: Middle East
Analysis: The politics of water
By Middle East specialist Roger Hardy
Water is the most valuable resource in the Middle East, more precious even than oil.
Scarcity of water has contributed to regional tensions and is an aggravating factor in the Arab-Israeli conflict:
Lebanon: The Lebanese have long accused Israel of having designs on the waters of the River Litani, suspecting this is one reason why the Jewish state maintains a toehold in southern Lebanon. Israel denies the charge.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Friday, 2 June, 2000, 10:41 GMT 11:41 UK
Water conflict in Middle East
Fishermen haul in their nets on the Sea of Galilee. Things seem to have changed little from biblical times, but they have. These waters are a source of great tension between countries, not because they are holy, but because they are scarce.
Yitzhak Gal from the Lake Authority showed me how the waters have fallen to a critically low level.
"Five years ago, the water arrived this line," he explains.
"Today you can see the lake is lower and the shoreline is in the far."
In the summer water levels went below the danger line where it is believed that salt waters may begin to cause damage to this lake, its supplies and its ecology. Meanwhile, demand for water grows.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Wednesday, 28 March, 2001, 21:48 GMT 22:48 UK
Lebanon hails 'liberation of water'
Lebanon has begun pumping water from a tributary of the River Jordan to supply a southern border village, despite opposition from Israel.
At a ceremony, government official Qablan Qablan said the opening of a pumping station on the Hasbani river was the first step towards liberating the country's water.
The pump will supply drinking water for about 200 people in the village of Wazzani, and other projects are planned.
Israeli officials have criticised the setting up of pumps on the river, which rises in southern Lebanon and flows south to feed the River Jordan, a major source of water for Israel.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Tuesday, 10 September, 2002, 17:39 GMT 18:39 UK
Israel warns of war over water
An alleged Lebanese scheme to divert water from a river feeding Israel's largest reservoir could provoke a war, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned.
Israeli army radio quoted the prime minister as saying on Tuesday that the issue constituted a "casus belli", or "grounds for war".
He was addressing senior military and civilian officials after a cabinet meeting.
Lebanon opened a pumping-station on the River Hasbani in the spring of 2001 to irrigate a drought-stricken village but denies that it plans to dam the river.
The river supplies between 20 and 25% of the water flowing into the Sea of Galilee, an official at Israel's Ministry of Agriculture was quoted as saying by the French news agency AFP.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Litani River Dispute
There has always been conflict over scarce natural resources, for instance, water. Adequate access to necessary water may be termed resource security and possible to war over. Both Lebanon and Israel see adequate supplies of water as essential to their security--and increasingly see it so. In fact, they find that there is not enough water to satisfy their wants and needs.
Therefore, there exists the possibility of aggression in order to obtain water from the Litani River. In fact, "history reveals that water has frequently provided a justification for going to war: It has been an object of military conquest, a source of economic or political strength and both a tool and a target of conflict."(8)
If the demand or need for water in the riparian region is much greater than the supply, conflict over the relatively scarce water to meet those needs is more likely. This conflict may be military.
In the Israeli-Palestinian context, water is a central ingredient, perhaps only second to land, of the wider conflict between the two sides...the water conflict is not just about water; it reaches to the recesses of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to questions of land and annexation. Those are abnormal in a water conflict, and render the Israeli-Palestinian water conflict more complex and acute than others in the region.(9)
Israel seemingly is tempted to reach beyond its border to get access to the needed water. "Almost half of the water currently used in Israel is captured, diverted or preempted from its neighbors."(10) This is understandable, given water can be described as "Israel's vulnerable and fragile source of life."(11)
Israel is a riparian state, in part meaning that it must share a large portion of its surface water resources with neighboring countries. Control of water may be seen as integral to Israel's sovereignty, the need for which Israel might war over.(12) Historically, Israel has been interested in the Litani, and conflict with Lebanon over the Litani is more likely given this. Essentially, control of the Litani has long been a dream of Israel in hopes of establishing a greater Zion from Sinai to ancient Babylon.(13)
http://www.american.edu/...
NOTES
(8) Lee, James R., and Maren Brooks. "Conflict and Environment: Lebanon's Historic and Modern Nightmare." Paper for Conference on Environment & Sustainable Development in Lebanon, NGO- Private/Public Sector Partnerships Rene Moawad Foundation, Dec. 1996.
(9) Elmusa, Sharif S. The Water Issue and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. Information Paper Number 2. (Washington, DC: The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, 1993), 1, 15.
(10) Stauffer, Thomas R. Water and War in the Middle East: The Hydraulic Parameters of Conflict. Information Paper Number 5. (Washington, DC: The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, July 1996), 11.
(11) Amery, Hussein A. "The Litani River of Lebanon." The Geographical Review. Vol. 83, No. 3, July 1993, 232.
(12) Ibid., 233.
(13) Stauffer, 11.