The BBC News website is publishing a series of articles about the attempts to achieve peace in the Middle East and the main obstacles. Today, Martin Asser looks at the central issue of water. The Arab-Israeli dispute is a conflict about land – and maybe just as crucially the water which flows through that land. The Six-Day War in 1967 arguably had its origins in a water dispute – moves to divert the River Jordan, Israel’s main source of drinking water. Years of skirmishes and sabre rattling culminated in all-out war, with Israel quadrupling the territory it controlled and gaining complete control of double the resources of fresh water. A country needs water to survive and develop. In Israel’s history, it has needed water to make feasible the influx of huge numbers of Jewish immigrants. Therefore, on the margins of one of the most arid environments on earth, the available water system had to support not just the indigenous population, mainly Palestinian peasant farmers, but also hundreds of thousands of immigrants. In addition to their sheer numbers, citizens of the new state were intent on conducting water-intensive commercial agricultural such as growing bananas […]