Author: Prof. Dr. Walid ‘Abd al-Hay
Affiliation: Al-Zaytouna Centre for Study and Consultations
Organization/Publisher: Al-Zaytouna Centre for Study and Consultations
Date/Place: August 2020/Lebanon
Type of Literature: Analysis
Number of Pages: 12
Keywords: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Water War, GERD, Geopolitics
Brief:
The Zionist state of Israel has been involved in the Nile Valley since its establishment. In fact, diverting and utilizing the water and resources of the Nile River across the Sinai constitutes an essential element of the project of creating the Jewish state in Palestinian land. As part of this general framework, the state of Israel is active in political developments in the Nile valley for strategic reasons, including in the politics of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The Israeli’s approach to the Ethiopian dam project is driven by its policy of weakening the Arab states and societies. Although weakening Arab regimes constitutes a significant concern of Israel’s policy towards the Arab states, the leaderships of the Zionist state have believed that weakening Arab states and societies is more valuable than weakening regimes in these countries, so that a sudden replacement of a non-hostile political system by a foe will not pose any security threat to the Jewish state because the Arab state remains weak. The Nile River has been used as a tool to influence Egypt, the key country in the Arab World. The economic, technological, military, or societal progress in Arab states is an asset to anti-Israeli political groups in the Arab World. Thus, the ultimate security of the state of Israel lays in the conditions that ensure the Arab states remain weak. Egypt’s central status in the regional system of the Arab World puts it in the frontier of Israel’s foreign policy in the region. If Egypt becomes strong economically and militarily, and if the regime there changes into a hostile one at any time, such condition risks the Israeli’s security. Thus, to keep Egypt politically and economically weak mainly by depriving its water resources of the Nile River, Israel reproached Ethiopia—where 86% of the Nile’s water comes from—to assist Ethiopia in its grand project in the contexts of political developments from 2011 to 2020.
By: Jemal Muhamed, CIGA Senior Research Associate
