Delegates to the Arab military conference, now being held in Cairo to discuss means of preventing Israel’s plans for use of Jordan River waters, were reported here today to be encountering difficulties in working out a unified plan to block Israel’s water development project.
Israel plans to use the water for a vast irrigation project in the Negev. After several years of work, the project is reportedly scheduled to go into operation next spring–a timetable which has evoked threats of military action by some of the Arab governments.
Differences among the Arab countries was reported hampering the delegates in their efforts to work out a unified plan in time for a meeting of the Arab League Defense Council next month. One proposed plan was to build canals in Jordan to lower the Jordan River water level.
Sources in London said that even among the Arabs there was skepticism that any concrete understanding would emerge from the meetings in view of internal Arab differences.
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