See E. Kally, Water and peace: Water resources and the Arab-Israeli peace process (1993). The energy required to lift water is independent of plant size due to the minimum flow rate assumption. Within the context of the latter, in countries that do not subsidize diesel fuel, such as Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, die cost of a litre of diesel is approximately $1 .OO/litre.50 The cost in other countries where subsidies exist varies from $0.09/litre in Saudi Arabia to $0.24/litre in the Syrian Arab Republic to $0.44/litre in Jordan.51 A subsidy represents a real cost that, while not borne directly by the consumer, is paid for indirectly by the public through government expenditures.