Water-for-energy deal between Israel and Jordan forges ahead
Jordan and Israel signed a letter of intent in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi for a large-scale water-for-energy project last week.
According to the proposed deal, facilitated by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan will receive desalinated water from Israel in return for clean energy generated from an Emirati-financed large solar farm in the Jordanian desert.
Oded Eran, a senior research fellow at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, believes the project will advance the integration of the Jewish state in the wider Middle East region.
“This is going to be the flagship example of bilateral relations and also of the Israeli integration into the region,” said Eran, who served as Israel's ambassador to Jordan from 1997 to 2000.
“This clearly makes use of the energy advantages of Jordan and Israel in the sense of the proximity of quantities of water that can be made available by desalination on the Israeli side, and the large areas that be used in Jordan to produce solar energy,” he added.
Once implemented, the project is expected to greatly benefit Jordan, one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. In addition, it will provide energy to Israel and enhance the United Arab Emirate’s status as an important regional broker.
In November 2021, Jordan, Israel and the UAE signed the initial large solar-water agreement, which is the largest Israeli-Jordanian commercial agreement to date and has been enhanced by the wider Arab-Israeli Abraham Accords in 2020.
Jordan is facing an “existential challenge” in terms of water shortages, according to Middle East water expert Duraid al-Mahasneh. He claims the Jordanian water crisis results from a combination of a rapidly growing population and insufficient water resources in the desert kingdom.
“Jordan suffers from water scarcity, and the water currently available in it is only enough for 2 million people, while the population of Jordan is now about 11 million,” al-Mahasneh explained.
The water-for-energy project between Jordan, Israel and the UAE is another example of successful regional cooperation resulting from the Jewish state's normalization with Arab nations.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
