The Middle East today is witnessing a transformation that goes far beyond conventional geopolitics or the competition for oil. One of the most urgent yet underexplored dimensions of its crisis is the question of water, which has increasingly become both a scarce commodity and a weapon in the hands of states and non-state actors alike.
According to the Pacific Institute, in 2022 and 2023 alone there were roughly 350 conflicts worldwide linked directly to water, and the Middle East—particularly Palestine—accounted for a disproportionate share of these incidents. This reality is not accidental. It reflects the way global climate change intersects with regional inequalities, colonial structures, and authoritarian governance to create a cycle of violence where access to water itself becomes a matter of survival, control, and domination.
For decades, international observers focused on energy as the main axis of power in the Middle East. But as climate patterns shift, it is water that increasingly defines the possibilities of stability or conflict. Israel’s control over Palestinian aquifers and its systematic restriction of water access in Gaza and the West Bank is a striking example of how resource management is turned into an instrument of collective punishment. For Palestinians, the denial of water is not simply a matter of inconvenience; it is a violation of their most basic human right, used deliberately to weaken their social fabric and impose dependency. In this sense, water becomes no different from a siege or a blockade: It is a tool of war under another name.
The instrumentalization of water is not confined to Palestine. In Iraq and Syria, dams on the Tigris and Euphrates have repeatedly been manipulated by regional powers and armed groups to gain leverage over civilian populations. The deliberate flooding or drying of entire areas has been used both as a tactical weapon and as a form of coercion against communities already devastated by decades of war and sanctions. In North Africa, the tensions between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan over the Grand Renaissance Dam reveal how water disputes are reshaping the geopolitics of the Nile basin. These examples highlight a pattern that is not unique to one country but characteristic of the entire region: Water is increasingly governed not as a shared resource but as an instrument of power, deployed in ways that exacerbate fragility and deepen mistrust.
If water continues to be treated as a weapon, the region will face not only deeper wars but also the erosion of any possibility of trust among its peoples.
Overlaying these conflicts is the accelerating impact of climate change. The Middle East is warming faster than many other regions, and prolonged droughts are already destabilizing entire societies. In Syria, a decade of severe drought preceding the outbreak of civil war played a major role in driving rural populations toward cities, where state neglect and economic desperation created fertile ground for unrest. In Iran, recurring protests over water shortages reveal how ecological stress translates directly into political instability. In Yemen, the depletion of groundwater has compounded the devastation of war and famine, pushing communities into cycles of displacement and despair. These are not isolated events; they are symptoms of a systemic crisis in which the environment is no longer a neutral background but an active driver of conflict.
From the perspective of the Global South, the crisis of water in the Middle East cannot be separated from broader patterns of structural inequality in the international system. Just as natural resources such as oil or minerals have long been subjected to forms of colonial extraction, water too has been folded into systems of control shaped by external powers and neoliberal institutions. Privatization schemes, often promoted by global financial institutions, commodify access to water and place it in the hands of corporate actors whose logic of profit directly contradicts the principle of universal human rights. For vulnerable populations in Gaza, Basra, or Sana’a, the question is not merely ecological but profoundly political: Who controls the flow of life itself?
The human cost of these dynamics is staggering. Water scarcity strikes hardest at the most vulnerable—children, women, refugees, and the poor—who bear the brunt of disease, malnutrition, and displacement. When families must choose between buying water or food, the very notion of human dignity is stripped away. In refugee camps across the region, inadequate water supply is linked to rising health crises, while urban populations face soaring prices as corporations exploit scarcity. To speak of water in the Middle East is therefore to speak of justice, of whose lives are considered expendable in a system that treats water as a weapon rather than as a shared right.
At the same time, the weaponization of water reveals a profound moral failure of the international community. Global powers that once justified their interventions in the Middle East with rhetoric about human rights remain silent when basic rights are violated through the denial of water. This silence reflects a double standard in which ecological violence is normalized when it serves geopolitical interests. It also underscores how little regard is given to the voices of the Global South, where communities consistently insist that climate justice cannot be divorced from political justice. To demand fair access to water is to demand a reordering of priorities that places human survival above strategic advantage.
The irony of the current moment is that while the West proclaims its commitment to universal values, it is in fact the countries of the Global South that articulate a more compelling vision of planetary justice. In Latin America, Africa, and Asia, movements have emerged insisting that water is a commons, inseparable from human dignity and beyond the logic of commodification. This resonates deeply in the Middle East, where communities understand that peace cannot be built on pipelines of oil or weapons, but only on the guarantee that every person can drink, irrigate, and live without fear of thirst. Such a vision requires not only local cooperation but also a radical shift in global governance, one that dismantles the structures of environmental colonialism and affirms water as a fundamental right.
The Middle East stands today at a crossroads where climate change, conflict, and inequality converge. If water continues to be treated as a weapon, the region will face not only deeper wars but also the erosion of any possibility of trust among its peoples. Yet the very urgency of this crisis also opens a space for a new discourse, one that reframes water not as an object of control but as a foundation for coexistence. To imagine such a future is not naïve; it is the only realistic response to a world where climate shocks are intensifying and old paradigms of power are collapsing.
For those of us in the Global South, the lesson is clear: The struggle for justice in the 21st century is inseparable from the struggle for water. To defend the right to water is to defend the possibility of peace, dignity, and life itself.
