“A SEA of opportunity.” The giant blue advertising hoarding at the edge of the road that descends from the bustle of Amman to the calm of the Dead Sea says it all. Amid the daily turmoil of the Middle East, something remarkable happened this July. After three years of negotiation, the governments of Israel and Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority agreed the first steps of a plan to refill the Dead Sea with water from the Red Sea by carving out a 200-kilometre canal through the south of Jordan.
The potential benefits of this highly ambitious scheme are manifold: the…
