Having established control over all local irrigation, Egyptian and Babylonian rulers made water available for obedient subjects and shut it off for dissenters. Although Karl A. Wittfogel coined this term (1957) to apply only to Oriental despots, its practice is worldwide, as in the Los Angeles water wars of urban expansion and assimilation and Israel's diversion of the Jordan, a project that led to the Six Day War of 1967. The definition could be broadened to apply to enterprises like OPEC that monopolize vital resources.