A plan to harness the waters of the Jordan to provide irrigation for Jordan, Syria and Israel has been prepared by the Tennessee Valley Authority and submitted to the United Nations with the support of the Department of State, it was disclosed today.
The project, estimated to cost $120,000,000, would irrigate 416,000 dunams of land in Israel, 490,000 in Jordan and 30,000 in Syria, in addition to providing hydro-electric power. It would permit resettlement of 200,000 Palestine Arab refugees in Jordan and Jordan-held areas of Palestine.
The United States is said to favor having the Jordan and Syrian shares of the cost covered by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine and the Israeli share covered by Israel – unless the United States agreed to allot part of a $135,000,000 economic aid appropriation for the Middle East to this project. The development plan was described as ignoring political frontiers and as providing for maximum use of the Jordan waters.
An Israeli spokesman here, after studying the plan, said that the question of the most efficient use of the water of the Jordan system was a matter for negotiation among the states concerned.
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