The UAE daily Al-Khaleej links US war preparations to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s threat to attack Lebanon if it goes ahead with plans to pump water from the Wazzani Springs. The paper describes the offer of US ?mediation? in the dispute as ?a bad political joke.? Whenever the US delves into any issue relating to Israel, it invariably does so to put pressure on the non-Israeli side ­ ?in this case on Lebanon, rightful owner of the territory and water in question to give Sharon what he wants, deprive its own people of it, and thus save him the bother of mounting another assault or invasion,? it says.

?Lebanon?s waters, like Palestine?s waters and Syria?s waters, and the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates and even the upper reaches of the Nile,? are all coveted by Israel, and it has for years taken gradual steps toward getting its hands on them whenever US policy has given it the opportunity, writes Al-Khaleej.

?Wars for territory and wars for water are indistinguishable in the Zionist lexicon. The aspiration is one and the same. And at this stage, amid mounting American threats to all the Arab states, Ariel Sharon is dusting off all his plans in order to take maximum advantage of the Bush-Blair campaign, in the belief that his policy of offensive aggression can put Lebanon on the defensive and thus force it to retreat.?

In the Beirut daily As-Safir, publisher Talal Salman says it is no more a ?gamble? for Lebanon to stand up for its water rights despite threatened Israeli aggression, than it is for Syria to speak out against a US war on Iraq despite the threat of being subjected to US sanctions under the Syria Accountability Act. Both are instances of upholding justice and national rights, and one would have assumed it would be natural for the Arab states to rally round such a stance, he says."...if Bush?s administration has arrogated to itself the rights of public prosecutor, judge and executioner, the least the Arabs can do is to keep the harm away from themselves. And the first thing they must do to prevent such ?mass destruction? is to join forces in rejecting the American war, especially as this new war is to act as an ?incubator? for Israel?s ongoing and open-ended war of extermination against the Palestinians.?