The summit conference of Arab kings and presidents, convoked by Egyptian President Nasser, opens here tomorrow with plans prepared by a technical committee of the Arab League to divert the waters of Jordan River in such a way as to prevent Israel from bringing Jordan River water to the Negev through Lake Tiberias. Thirteen Arab countries are participating in the parley.
The plans to be laid before the heads of the Arab states will propose a three-presaged construction project involving: I. Building two storage dams in Jordan to take the waters of the Yarmuk River, which is the chief tributary of the Jordan River; 2. Building a storage dam in Lebanon, containing the waters of another Jordan River tributary, the Hasbani River; 3. Building of canals in Syria eastward and westward of a third Jordan River tributary, the Baniyas River.
Through these projects, the principal tributaries of the Jordan River would be diverted into vast storage and irrigation developments in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. At the same time, the Jordan River inside Israel, which flows into Israel’s Lake Tiberias, would be left with a mere trickle of water. According to Arab figures, about 77 per cent of the Jordan River water sources would thus be trapped on the Arab side.
Although Egypt is not touched either by the Jordan River or by any of that waterway’s tributaries, the Egyptian Government is a member of the technical committee which finalized these plans. The other members of the committee are representatives of the three Arab states containing the Jordan River headwaters and the river’s more important tributaries–Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Only one Jordan River tributary, the Dan River, is in Israel. But Lake Tiberias, which receives the main flow of the Jordan from the Arab areas in the north, is entirely within Israeli territory. It is from this lake that Israel has planned a project to carry the waters about 100 miles southward, through pipes, canals and tunnels, to the northern reaches of the Negev Desert.
Tomorrow’s summit meeting, according to Nasser’s plans, is intended to solidify Arab actions in opposition to Israel’s project. While there is wide disagreement among most of the Arab states on most political issues, they an agree in their opposition to Israel.
The technical plan to be laid before the heads of the Arab States was seen here as the alternative to the only other choice open to the Arab states opposed to Israel’s development. That choice would involve military action–and it was conceded by Cairo dispatches received here that Nasser is not ready for unified Arab military action against Israel at this time.
Among the heads of state at the summit meeting, some of whom were reported today to have already arrived at Cairo, will be King Hussein of Jordan, and King Hassan II of Morocco; Major General Amin El-Hafez, President of the Syrian National Revolutionary Council, whom Nasser has called “a practicing Fascist”; Marshal Abdullah El-Sallal, President of the Yemeni Republic, who is supported in his battle against Yemenite royalists by about 40,000 Egyptian troops stationed in his country; President Habib Bourguiba, of Tunis; Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Abboud, of Sudan; Fuad Shehab, President of Lebanon; Salam Aref, President of Iraq; Sheik Abdullah el-Salem el-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait; and Crown Prince Hassan Rida, representing his father, King Idris, of Libya. King Saud of Saudi Arabia will also be represented.
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