Water Paranoia in Egypt

Egyptian press is saying that Israel might cause a water shortage in the country, recalling Lieberman's anti-Egypt comments and his suggestion to strike the Aswan Dam. "The water wars have begun, and our wicked neighbors are busy destroying Egypt's relations with the states of the Nile Basin," wrote Jabar Ramadan in Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The Egyptian journalist and scholar Amru Mohammed, writing in Akhbar Al-Bashir, recalled that in 1903 Theodor Herzl submitted to the British a plan for diverting the waters of the Nile, and that years later Israel attempted to persuade Egypt to give it water from the river. The arguments were marshaled in order to warn of an ostensible threat of war. "The signs of the water war are already visible and the crisis will come against the background of the [water] agreements that are being signed between Israel and Ethiopia," Mohammed wrote. "Israel's meddling with the Nile's waters and its cooperation with the Nile Basin states signal a disaster, a water disaster." (reported by HaAretz)

Arab people will believe everything evil about Israel. Herzl in 1903 submitted a plan to the British... well, well, well! In 1903 Zionism was an idea in the minds of a dozen European Jews and Egypt did not exist as a nation. Yes, in the fifties Israel did propose to Egypt to build a pipeline from the nearest branch of the Nile to Gaza, but the Egyptians said that they needed every drop so the idea was dropped. We arrived to the conclusion that the dreams of regional water co-operation are ... dreams, so we are basing our future (and the Palestinian's future) on desalination. Irrational, anti-economic, very expensive, but wars are more expensive. They can have all the Nile to themselves. We are not going to dispute it.