Lieberman's wily African adventure

On September 10 Avigdor Lieberman returned home after an eight-day tour of African countries - the first by an Israeli foreign minister for more than 20 years.

Israel has looked to Africa for key alliances since the 1960s and although it was largely ostracised following the 1973 Ramadan War, it currently has full diplomatic relations with 39 out of 47 sub-Saharan countries.

There are several reasons behind Israel's renewed enthusiasm for its African friends. Among them, certainly, is the increasing influence of arch-enemy Iran in key strategic locations such as Eritrea, Sudan and Djibouti, Ethiopia's tiny neighbour which guards the southern entrance to the Red Sea (and hence the Suez Canal) at Bab Al Mandab.

Since all nations, however small, have equal votes in the UN, Israel also relies on African support to counter the Arab bloc.

The Israeli delegation, which visited Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria, included representatives from the Defence Ministry, Mossad, private weapons manufacturing companies, economic development specialists and irrigation experts.

Israel already exports $3 billion (Dh11 billion) worth of goods and services to the continent and the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Export Institute are keen to exploit the 'business potential' in Africa by boosting sales of arms to governments troubled by rebel groups.

But this trip has mostly been about water: Israel realises the tremendous political leverage control of the continent's limited water resources offers and wants to exploit it. Water, particularly in the more arid regions of the globe, is being dubbed the 'new oil'.

Speaking at the 2003 Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev noted that there had been 21 armed disputes over water in recent history - and 18 of them involved Israel.

It is no coincidence that three of the five countries Lieberman has visited are situated at the two sources of the River Nile. The Blue Nile originates in Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands and Kenya and Uganda share the waters of Lake Victoria (the headwaters of the White Nile) with Tanzania.

Israel is well aware of these countries' dissatisfaction with the 1959 Nile River Treaty, which is still in force and gives two downstream countries - Egypt and Sudan - the majority of the Nile's waters. Egypt takes 55.5 billion cubic meters and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres, leaving just 10 billion cubic metres to be shared between eight countries upstream. Furthermore, the treaty gives Egypt the right to veto any projects to dam the Nile in other states.

Arguments that the treaty is invalid since it was signed in colonial times have failed to gain any material concessions from Egypt and Sudan. To reduce the potential for conflict, the Nile Basin Initiative was launched in 1999 - but its meetings have always ended in stalemate. Egyptian Water Minister Dr Mahmoud Abu Zeid has even gone so far as to say that damming or diverting Nile water is 'tantamount to an official declaration of war'.

Nevertheless some countries have already taken unilateral action: In February 2004, Tanzania constructed a water pipeline from Lake Victoria and in the same year, Ethiopia announced its plans for two dams in the Blue Nile sub-basin to irrigate 200,000 hectares for much-needed food.

Lieberman's trip is likely to embolden Israel's new allies to undertake similar initiatives. Agreements signed with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda offer help with 'water harvesting' and 'irrigation' projects. The delegation's emphasis on arms sales and military advice implies that Israel would boost these countries' military capability in the event of an armed response from Egypt.

Lieberman is mostly remembered in Egypt for his bellicose 1998 proposal that Israel bomb the Aswan Dam in retaliation for Egypt's support for Yasser Arafat. The current trip seems rooted in the same anti-Arab zeal and designed to create a similar level of anger and controversy.

Among Israel's motives for establishing a role for itself in the distribution of Nile water is the greater control it can exercise over Egypt by influencing future agreements. It needs to keep Egypt 'on-side' in many ways - at the Rafah crossing, for example, in its war with Hezbollah and with regard to its growing concerns about Iran.

Official estimates predict that by 2017 Egypt will not have access to the 86.2 billion cubic metres of water its burgeoning population will require. Since Egypt has very little rainfall, the Nile accounts for nearly 90 per cent of its water supply.

When the African Union met in Tripoli on August 31, Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi warned that the Israelis were intent on "pillaging our continent" and it is quite possible that Israel has its eye on the Nile to boost its own water supplies in the long term. Its National Water Carrier from the Jordan River already produces a quarter of its requirements, even though only three per cent of the river falls within pre-1967 borders.

Gaddafi urged fellow Arabs to sever all diplomatic ties with the Zionist state. Ironically, many of them were busy 'normalising' relations with Israel under pressure from the new US administration, in exchange for a partial and temporary freeze on Israeli colony construction.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could have used the Tripoli meeting as an opportunity to counteract Israel's growing influence in Africa, but he did not even attend the gathering.

The strategic infrastructure for imminent 'water wars' in Africa is being deftly assembled by other nations while the Arabs look the other way.

Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.