Arab diplomatic representatives in Washington are preparing to submit to President Eisenhower a Jordan River development project which is their alternative to the plan recommended by Presidential envoy Eric Johnston.
The Arab plan differs from the Johnston plan mainly in that Israel would be forced to make vast concessions. A group of Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian engineers drew up the new scheme. Their definition states that it “differs from the Johnston project regarding the use of Lake Tiberias as a storage basin for the Yarmuk waters.”
The Arab plan proposes that the river basin shall be the reservoir for its own waters. The two plans are contradictory as regards the quantity of water to be used for irrigation. The American water allocation per dunam is 15 percent less than provided in the Arab plan. The American project also offers no benefits to Lebanon, whereas the Arab plan grants Lebanon quantities of water “sufficient to irrigate an additional 35,000 dunams.”
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