322 • 17 ISRAEL'S REBIRTH AND THE RISE OF ARAB NATIONALISMwho feared a subversive Nasirite republic on their southern border. Nasir
sent an Egyptian force to aid Yemen's new regime, but its leaders were inex¬
perienced. The civil war that started as a contest between followers of
Imam Badr (mainly Zaydi Shi'is in the hills) and republican officers
(mainly Shafi'i Sunnis living near the Red Sea) became a five-year proxy
struggle between conservative Saudi Arabia and revolutionary Egypt.
Nasir got more heartening news in early 1963, when Ba'thist officers
staged two successive coups: Qasim's ouster in Iraq by Abd al-Salam Arif,
followed by the toppling of Syria's separatist regime. Soon Iraq and Syria
adopted identical flags, swore eternal Arab brotherhood, and sent dele¬
gates to Cairo to negotiate with Nasir for a new United Arab Republic.
Popular enthusiasm for Arab unity reached a new peak in April 1963,
when Egypt, Syria, and Iraq published plans for organic unification. But
again people's hopes were dashed, as Nasir and the Ba'th Party failed to
agree on how the new state should be led. For the rest of the year, disillu¬
sioned Arab governments, newspapers, and broadcasters hurled invectives
at one another.The Jordan Waters Dispute
It was an Israeli move that reunited the Arabs. Ever since Israel's rebirth,
its scientists and engineers had tried to get more fresh water to irrigate its
lands. Hydrologists argued that the Jordan River could be harnessed to ir¬
rigate both Israel and Jordan. An American emissary named Eric Johnston
had secured an agreement from both countries on the technical aspects of
a plan to share the Jordan waters, but Jordan's government rejected it on
political grounds in 1955. For a few years, Israel hoped Jordan might re¬
lent, but then it decided to go ahead and build a national water carrier to
meet its own needs, taking from the Sea of Galilee the share of Jordan
River waters that the Johnston Plan would have allocated to Israel.
Israel's tapping of the Jordan waters galvanized the Arab countries into
action. If Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon could divert the main tributaries of
the Jordan River, perhaps Israel would be deterred from completing its na¬
tional water carrier. But Israel threatened preemptive air strikes against
any Arab diversion projects. Nasir invited the Arab kings and presidents to
Cairo to discuss the issue, and they all met at the Nile Hilton in January
- Though unable to act in concert against Israel, the Arabs decided to
hold further summits in 1964 and 1965. The consensus was that the Arab
armies could not yet confront Israel, but that they would build up their
military strength so that Syria and Jordan could divert the tributaries of
the Jordan River.