Gaza gardeners, with harvest.Photo: Grassroots InternationalThis is the time of year when gardeners start to reap their rewards--fruits and vegetables that make for a healthy feast. But for the people of Gaza, gardens produce a serving of self-sufficiency, too.

Urban gardens usually bring to mind savvy urbanites indulging in an organic lifestyle--witness Michelle Obama and her model urban garden at the White House. Although urban gardens in the West may not be a total indulgence--Ms. Obama, for example, is trying to counteract the growing instances of diabetes and obesity--they are hardly a necessity.

In the Gaza Strip, on the other hand, where more than 80 percent of residents are dependent on food aid, urban gardens mean survival, and resistance to Israel's policies of occupation and blockade. When only half of the U.N.'s food aid is actually allowed in to Gaza (during the last siege on Gaza, only 10% of the food trucks were allowed entry), planting an edible garden on just a scrap of land can be enough to ensure self-sufficiency. In an enormously insecure and unstable zone, a simple urban garden ensures food security, and food sovereignty.

The World Food Programme says "Gazans face an acute shortage of nutritious, locally-produced and affordable food." The drastically reduced consumption of meat, oils, fats, fruits and dairy products can lead to anemia and stunted growth. Fifteen percent of Palestinian schoolchildren are "intellectually impaired" due to malnutrition, according to the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. Since last December, the price of pepper has doubled, the price of onions increased 33% and chicken 43%.

Urban gardens are just now gaining popularity in the West, thanks to the rise of environmentalism and health awareness (Ms. Obama only planted hers in April). But Grassroots International, a Boston-based nonprofit has been funding efforts to plant urban gardens in the Gaza Strip for the last five years.

Photo: Grassroots InternationalGrassroots partners with the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), a progressive organization that runs an "Urban Gardens" initiative. To date, PARC has set up 1,000 urban gardens in Gaza. Last year, Grassroots granted $25,000 to PARC's "Urban Agriculture for Food Security and Increased Income Project." PARC also runs a Farm-to-Table program sourcing local food from Gazan farmers for Gazans in need of food aid - a model worth emulating globally.

Ahmed Sourani, is PARC's project director in Gaza City (PARC works in the West Bank as well). He says that urban gardens are vital not just for food security but as a way to empower women, and a way to "revitalize" agriculture in general. Household gardens are a part of Gazan culture, he explains, and says, "Since women are the primary caretakers of these gardens, the status of women will advance as this vital food source expands in the community."

PARC provides women with vegetable and fruit seeds, and gives them rigorous training in how to maintain a garden: they learn about composting, fencing, irrigation, and how to make and use natural "green" pesticides. Women learn how to turn any scrap of land-even on a rooftop-into a blossoming garden.

Women are also taught how to raise rabbits, which are notoriously easy to breed. PARC incorporates animal husbandry into its training because, explains Sourani, chicken and other sources of protein are so prohibitively expensive. Between the gardening and the animal husbandry, a number of households can become almost completely self-sufficient.

Um Abdullah, who lives in the bleak al-Maghazzi district, is just one example: she grows corn, spinach, cabbage, eggplant, beans, peas, zucchini...even alfalfa for her rabbits. And in fact, PARC has helped Um Abdullah raise not just rabbits, but pigeons, chicken and ducks. They've helped her grow trees like orange, lemon, peach, palm, and pear. Her urban garden provides more than food security for her family, it provides financial security; it's her livelihood.

War can make gardening necessary--and simultaneously impossible. Photo: Grassroots InternationalDespite the success, the urban gardens of Gaza are at risk. Half of the gardens funded by Grassroots International were destroyed in Israel's December '08-January '09 assault. Most of the rabbits were killed by plumes of white phosphorous unleashed by the Israeli military. Human Rights Watch has confirmed the use of white phosphorous, stating, "A disturbing weapon was used against Gazan civilians and their livestock by the Israeli military in violation of international law."

Grassroots released emergency funding, but it's not just the gardens that are struggling. PARC too suffered a great set-back. Its office was occupied by soldiers and severely damaged. Their greenhouse training facility was lost, as were most documents and twenty computers.

Right after the war, Salena Tramel, Grassroots' Program Coordinator for the Middle East & Haiti saw first-hand both the destruction and resilience in Gaza. She recounts the story of an old man who lived next to PARC's office. The day after Israeli Defense Forces destroyed PARC's model urban garden, he took his sons to start replanting it. "This is how I can teach them to not lose hope," he said.

Grassroots and PARC are trying to rebuild Gaza's gardens, resolute to make them a permanent fixture and a symbol of justice and hope for Palestinian human rights and self-determination. The White House lawn, let's remember, isn't the only place for an urban garden.

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In “The Limits of Science Diplomacy,” SciDev.net Director David Dickson argues that scientific collaboration can achieve only very limited diplomatic victories. A conference hosted by the Royal Society in London earlier this month, entitled “New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy” (agenda), seems to have arrived at a similar conclusion.

But this view of science diplomacy is overly pessimistic. It sets unrealistically high expectations such dialogue could never hope to achieve. Science diplomacy is not meant to solve all aspects of conflicts or distrustful relationships, so setting such a high bar is a bit of a straw man. Science, as well as dialogue on the management of shared natural resources, remains an under-utilized and under-studied tool for trust-building, so it is premature to declare it a failure before we have sufficient evidence for evaluation.

Veterans of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and other Cold War-era scientific dialogues might suggest we are neglecting some rich experiences from this era. It bears remembering that Pugwash was awarded the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize (and current U.S. Science Adviser John Holdren delivered the acceptance speech as then executive director of Pugwash).

A distinct but related arena for further policy attempts and research inquiries is environmental peacebuilding, where mutual interdependence around natural resources provides pathways for dialogue in the midst of conflict. The establishment of the Cordillera del Condor Transboundary Protected Area between Ecuador and Peru was a result of integrating joint environmental management structures in the 1998 peace agreement that ended a long-festering border conflict. Negotiation over shared resources, such as water, can be a diplomatic lifeline for otherwise-hostile countries, such as Israel and Jordan, which held secret “picnic table” talks to manage the Jordan River while they were officially at war. And the U.S. military has successfully uses environmental cooperation to engage both friends and adversaries.

Collaboration on scientific and environmental issues won’t solve all our problems. And defining and identifying success remains a fundamental challenge when success is the absence of something (conflict). But let’s not retreat to the common church-and-state division where scientists fear being “contaminated” by participating in policy-relevant dialogues. And let’s certainly not declare science diplomacy a failure—and stop trying to make it a success—based on unrealistic expectations for the benefits such efforts might produce.

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The more you talk to Shai Agassi, the more the Steve Jobs comparison seems apt.

Shai AgassiCourtesy Better PlaceLike his fellow Silicon Valley impresario, Agassi, the founder of electric car infrastructure startup Better Place, is as much a green-tech visionary as entrepreneur bent on cashing in on the "Next Big Thing." Just as Jobs elegantly married hardware and software to create the iPod and iPhone and disrupted the telecommunication-entertainment industrial complex, Agassi aims to do the same with transportation.

In case you missed the spate of national magazine stories on the former software executive and his company, Better Place has signed deals with governments in Israel, Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and Canada to build a web of electric car charging spots and battery-swapping stations.

Agassi aims to crack the chicken-and-egg electric vehicle dilemma by deploying the infrastructure that will give automakers the confidence to make carbon-free cars by the tens of millions while allaying drivers' "range anxiety" that they'll run out of juice on the way to grandma's house. Better Place will own your car's battery and sell you electricity by the mile (or kilometer) like your mobile phone company sells you minutes.

Better Place is not the only company pushing that model, but no competitor has raised as much money -- more than $200 million so far -- or signed deals with national governments to electrify their roadways.

Then there's the Agassi factor.

If Steve Jobs is a distant, "cult of personality" figure, making semi-annual pronouncements before the party faithful in a never-changing uniform of running shoes, jeans and turtleneck, Agassi is the Gen X enviro-evangelist in a sharply cut black suit, appearing before audiences large and small to sell the story of making the world a better place through electric transportation.

I sat down with Agassi recently to get an update on Better Place's progress and delve into just how the company plans to make money off a capital-intensive venture that will depend on an emerging EV ecosystem of carmakers, battery manufacturers and utilities, not to mention government policymakers.

Slight and dark-haired with a penetrating gaze, Agassi possesses Jobs' supreme charismatic self-confidence -- "The internal combustion engine is dead," he tells me matter-of-factly -- and parries every question with a ready set of facts and figures. We met at Fortune Magazine's Brainstorm Green conference in Southern California a few weeks before the scheduled May 13 unveiling of Better Place's prototype battery switching station in Japan. (Why Japan? "They paid for it," he says. "Japan is the most robust manufacturing and they fear being wrong" on electric cars.)

Think of Better Place's battery switching station as the electric version of gas station. Most of the time Better Place subscribers will top off their batteries at home or at battery charging posts -- about the size of a parking meter -- scattered around cities and suburbs. For trips that exceed a car's range, they'll pull into a switching station where a robot will unlatch a panel underneath the vehicle and remove the battery pack, install a fresh battery and close and lock the panel. Total time: About 40 seconds. The depleted battery is then recharged so it's ready for the next customer. Each Better Place station will cost about half million dollars and will maintain a store of 10 batteries.

"We've done tests where we've swapped the battery 200 times a day on a car," Agassi says. "It feels like a car wash more than anything else."

For $25 million, according to Agassi, Better Place could electrify the West Coast's Interstate 5 corridor.

So far, Renault-Nissan is the only automaker that has pledged to manufacture an electric car with a battery pack configuration compatible with the Better Place switching station. No worries, says Agassi, noting that in Israel -- the first country that will deploy a nationwide Better Place network -- the company has already taken more than 20,000 orders for electric Renaults. He says that's enough to break even on Better Place's initial $200 million investment in 100 switching stations and 100,000 charging posts. At somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 cars, Better Place turns a profit, according to Agassi, who notes that there are about 2 million cars on the road in Israeli and that about 200,000 cars were sold there in 2008.

Israel, a relatively tiny country, is one thing. But the suburbanized and continent-wide United States will require a much bigger investment in infrastructure. Agassi estimates that to do the initial build out of the San Francisco Bay Area, he'll need Northern Californians to buy between 40,000 and 50,000 electric vehicles -- no small number. When Better Place announced the $1 billion Bay Area deal with the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland last year, no automaker had committed to providing the electric cars, though Renault-Nissan has pledged to begin putting EVs in mass production by 2012.

A demonstration of what a Better Place charging station looks like. Watch the video at the bottom of this article for a demonstration of the company's battery-swapping stations.Courtesy Better PlaceAgassi says he expects Better Place to earn between $4,000 and $5,000 in annual battery subscription fees per car. That would be the equivalent of buying $76 to $100 worth of gasoline a week, which seems on the high side for even a suburban commuter given current gasoline prices. That's also far more than what Better Place's initial urban customers likely pay for gas. Of course, the wild card is the price of gas. If it goes back up to $4 or more per gallon, Better Place's numbers start to look more reasonable.

There are plenty of critics who question whether Better Place can raise the billions needed to build just the infrastructure for the deals the company has signed so far. Others doubt that automakers and battery manufacturers will adopt standardized technology to enable, for instance, the widespread use of Better Place switching stations.

None of which, of course, fazes Agassi. He says Better Place has the cash to build the Israel network and Denmark -- next up with a 2011 roll out -- is financed as well. He's hoping to tap stimulus package funds to help pay for Hawaii's network.

"Somewhere between hundreds of thousands and millions of cars, electric vehicles are cheaper to make than gas-powered cars," he said earlier in the day, pacing the Brainstorm Green conference stage Oprah-like. "Somewhere between now and then we get to [the equivalent of] zero dollars a barrel of oil."

--

Below, a Better Place promotional video:

Watch another promotional video on the Better Place website.

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Shai Agassi: Green’s Steve Jobs

Could the global auto infrastructure be overhauled in a way that's profitable for business, cheap for drivers, and easy on the planet? Meet Better Place's Shai Agassi and his plans for an electric-car future, featured in the latest issue of Wired. In Agassi's vision, gas stations are replaced with omnipresent recharging spots for electric cars. Vehicles are cheap, perhaps even free; money is made off electricity, and renewable energy is incentivized. Drivers purchase electricity on subscription, paying for unlimited miles, a certain number of miles per month, or pay-as-you-go. No time to recharge? Head to your nearest battery exchange station and swap in a fully charged one. An onboard system is energy monitor, GPS unit, help center, and personal assistant in one. Think it could never happen? Think again: 100,000 electric cars will roll out in Israel by the end of 2011, and Denmark will also provide a testing ground. And wherever Agassi goes, he convinces CEOs, mayors, investors, and statesmen that the world could become a Better Place.

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Lebanese oil spill continues to spread

Six weeks after Israel bombed a Lebanese power plant, spilling 10,000 to 15,000 tons of heavy fuel oil into the Mediterranean Sea, the disaster continues to be disastrous. The slick has traveled an estimated 90 miles north, affecting every one of Lebanon's approximately 200 beaches, and may reach Syria and Turkey. Lebanon's coastline has traded in throngs of tourists for beach-cleanup volunteers; in Beirut, 18 miles from the original site of the spill, they gaze upon black sand and yellowish-green water, breathe in the scent of petroleum, and look in vain for any sign of live fish. Lebanese divers have found oil up to four inches thick on the seabed; sea turtle hatchlings at an island nature reserve will have to crawl through an oil slick to reach the water; and coastal towns with fishing- and tourism-dependent economies are struggling mightily. Ongoing conflict has delayed cleanup, which Lebanon's Environment Ministry estimates will cost $150 million over the next year. Worst of all, there's really nothing funny to say about any of it.

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War igniting forest fires in northern Israel

Like America's, Israel's forests and grasslands are suffering an unusual number of fires this season. But the problem isn't so much a heat wave as, um, rocket attacks. Since the mid-July start of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, an average of around 50 fires a day have ignited in the northern region of Israel. Though many are small and eventually burn themselves out, others -- a blaze at a toothpaste factory, and some in densely packed neighborhoods -- have taxed even the area's recently beefed-up firefighting resources. Some 2,000 to 3,000 acres of forestland have burned so far, as well as about 6,000 unforested acres. Israeli bombs have also caused fires in Lebanon, not to mention a massive oil spill, so Lebanon's environment is doing considerably worse overall -- in case anyone's keeping score. This is what's known in international relations as a "lose-lose-lose" situation, though that probably underestimates the number of losers. Wake us when the Rapture comes.

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Oil spill and power-plant fire wreak havoc in already-havoc-stricken Lebanon

Bombed by Israel two weeks ago, a storage fuel tank of a power plant in Beirut, Lebanon, is still burning, filling the air with dangerous fumes; another exploded, sending at least 10,000 tons of oil into the Mediterranean Sea. Particulate pollution could waft as far as Europe, and winds have pushed the oil spill dozens of miles up the coast, blackening beaches and threatening marine life like the endangered green turtle and the commercially important blue fin tuna. Lebanon lacks the resources to extinguish the oil fire; if the second tank collapses, up to 15,000 more tons of fuel could seep into the sea. Lebanon has begged assistance from Kuwait, but the spill will take months and tens of millions of dollars to clean up. "This is a catastrophe I wouldn't wish on any country in the world," said Lebanese Environment Minister Yacoub Sarraf. Meanwhile, Israeli-blocked ports are leaving Lebanon mere days from running out of fuel for power plants.

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Roey Angel.

With what environmental organization are you affiliated?

I'm a graduate student at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, a regional center for academic studies and research. It's a rather unique place where Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians -- as well as North Americans and Europeans -- study the environment, live together, and do joint research.

I also spent five years working at Green Action, an eco-social NGO based in Tel Aviv.

What are you working on at the moment?

For my research, I'm involved in a joint Palestinian-Israeli project for trans-boundary watershed modeling and restoration strategies. I wanted to do scientific research, but it's also very important for me to make an impact on the environmental issue. To add to that, I'm a great believer in practical cooperation between people as a lever for peace, so I'm always excited about joint projects in the Middle East.

I truly believe that peace between Israelis and the Palestinians will emerge when we tightly weave together the fabric of our lives.

How do you get to work?

Right now, I live about 100 steps from my workplace -- that's because I've had the wonderful opportunity to live and do part of my degree in the lovely campus community of Midreshet Ben-Gurion at Sede Boqer. Before coming here, I spent my life in the Tel Aviv metropolis where I relied on nothing but my bike to get to work as well as everywhere else. I'm a great supporter of bike commuting.

What's your environmental vice?

My lab work; let's not talk about it.

How do you spend your free time? Read any good books lately?

I've recently read The Web of Life; it's an amazing work by Fritjof Capra, a physicist taking physical and biological theories and discoveries to create a holistic and almost spiritual perspective on our global ecosystem.

What's your favorite meal?

Being a vegan in Israel, I crave the fresh fruit and vegetables we have here, yet there's nothing like the divine hummus they sell in Jaffa.

Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?

Last fall, I spent some time doing an internship in Burlington, Vt. It freaked me out when people kept saying that I'm like a typical Burlington Vermonter: a young vegan and radical environmental and peace activist with dreadlocks.

What's your favorite place or ecosystem?

The desert -- no questions about it. I was born in the coastal Mediterranean part of Israel, but I was always attracted and amazed by the desert. The desert to me is more versatile in landscape and experience than any other place in the world. There's a deep and immediate connection to the earth, to the bare rock that you just can't find in other places. The harsh conditions and the untamable nature of the land give me a sense of humility, and I'm truly glad that the megalomaniac Zionist project to "green" the desert failed.

If you could institute by fiat one environmental reform, what would it be?

Contemplating between the car and the meat industry, I go for the meat. It's where I started my political life, and I still think that the animal-farm industry is the cruelest and most immoral industry -- and also one of the most environmentally destructive. For these reasons, I hope to see that industry disappear. I think it would be a step forward for humanity.

If you could have every InterActivist reader do one thing, what would it be?

Go vegan! No wait ... sell your car ... or curb your consumption. Or start an urban food garden. Actually, just try to be a good person and minimize your impact on this planet.

Roey Angel, Arava Institute.

Touched by Angel

From your experience studying at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, what examples have you seen of environmentalism breaking down political barriers or furthering coexistence?    -- Hart Feuer, Portland, Ore.

Environmentalists in the Middle East have an advantage over other Middle Easterners when facing the political issues of the area, especially the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. The reason is that these environmentalists understand that at the end of the day, all the issues that lie at the basis of the conflict as presented in the mainstream are marginal. They might be very traumatic and important on a personal level, but on the macro level, they are marginal compared to the environmental problems we are facing.

Or as a smart environmentalist I once knew said (and in the meantime, became a Knesset member), "It's like arguing about the interior design onboard the Titanic." It is the understanding, for example, that if we run out of water, who cares who is right; if we overpopulate this area, we will all become refugees. I would be generalizing, but I think this perception is the link between all Arava students.

Do you know of any other cooperative projects between Israelis and Palestinians?    -- Daniel Orenstein, Providence, R.I.

There are many cooperative projects between Israelis and Palestinians, but unfortunately not so many that are environmental. Besides the Arava Institute, I would refer you to a wonderful Palestinian-Israeli Fair Trade project, which I had the honor of taking part in during its initial stages back in my days at Green Action. Bustan is another organization that I support; it is also involved in environmental peacemaking.

The Zionist ethos -- from its formative years to the present -- puts a lot of emphasis on settlement and development of the land. Do you think this worldview is at all compatible with sustainability? Perhaps Zionism needs to be reshaped to fit into 21st-century reality?    -- Dror Etzion, Barcelona, Spain

The ethos of continuous settling is probably the most unsustainable element of Zionism. The initial goal was to capture as many lands as possible in order to push back the Palestinian and Bedouin communities and to create "Jewish territorial continuities." This is the goal still today in establishing new settlements in the Galilee, the West Bank, and the Negev, and is the fuel that keeps the fire of our ethnic conflicts going. On top of that, I find this settling frenzy devastating to the Israeli environment as well as to the existing communities (the bottom line is simply more suburbanization).

Cyclists pedal the streets of Israel to raise money for the Arava Institute.

Can you tell us about the Israel Ride cycling fundraiser for the Arava Institute?    -- Grist editors

The bike ride is a wonderful fundraising event that keeps the Arava Institute going and is organized in collaboration with Hazon.

People raise money, they come to Israel, they ride, and they sweat. Then they cross the desert and sweat some more. Then they come back home saying it's the greatest experience they have ever had, and at the end of the day, the Arava Institute can support students from Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. The 2007 Israel Ride is now being planned.

How do you factor in the political, ethnic, and religious conflict of the region into transboundary watershed modeling and restoration strategies? What are the limits and strengths of your model?    -- Jennifer Welch, Chicago, Ill.

Well, personally I don't, but that's because my field is environmental microbiology and environmental chemistry, and not political science or economy. Building the political/economic model is the next stage of our project after we finish the physical model (mapping pollution sources, estimating pollution loadings, etc.) and will be performed by people trained for dealing with these kinds of issues.

If you want to see what something similar looks like in the end, I would refer you to a report by Friends of the Earth Middle East on the wastewater problem in the West Bank. This report also incorporates political and ethnic issues in an attempt to solve an environmental problem.

It seems to me that policy makers need to be more scientifically literate. What do you think we can do to educate these few who make the decisions that affect us all?    -- Kathleen Winn, Bruges, France

I agree that a lot of the politicians and policy makers are embarrassingly illiterate and ignorant. I also think that policies should be based on a strong scientific background.

But let us never forget that policies are always based on and driven by ethics and ideologies, even though they often presume an "objective" aura.

We should never leave politics (and that includes policies) in the hands of the so-called "professionals." To continue with the Titanic note, let's not forget that the ark was built by amateurs while the Titanic was built by professionals.

I go to school in Burlington, Vt. At which organization were you an intern?    -- Corey Paradis, Nashua, N.H.

I was participating in a program called "Beyond Borders: Israel-Arab Peace Partners Project." It was organized mainly by Saint Michael's College and Burlington College. I was interning at the University of Vermont at the department of geology with Dr. Greg Druschel.

I loved Vermont and have dear friends there, but could never live in a place colder than my freezer at home.

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Eric Pallant is a professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management.

Monday, 13 Feb 2006

Kibbutz Ketura, Israel

A Moldovan, two Bulgarians, and three Canadians walk into the desert. It's like the start of a bad joke, but this is a specific desert -- an extreme one, according to local hydrologists. The Arava, in the southern Negev of Israel, is one of the driest deserts in the world, with an average amount of annual precipitation that would barely breach the soles on a pair of sandals.

The Moldovan, Bulgarians, and Canadians are in the company of 41 colleagues, who have come from 14 countries and the Palestinian Authority for a 10-day institute on water resources management. The event is sponsored by NATO, which understands that a future conflict in the Middle East -- heck, in many places on the planet -- could arise over natural resources. And water is the most embattled liquid, after oil.

I organized this institute with Clive Lipchin of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. The organization is a liberal survivor of the 1990s, when peace between Israel and its neighbors seemed imminent and environment and peace groups sprouted like spring flowers. Arava is located on Kibbutz Ketura, a small communal village generating income from growing voluptuous medjool dates, farming fish in cages floating in the Red Sea about 35 miles from here, and raising cows that produce the best chocolate milk in Israel. On many mornings, before the desert winds flow down the Syrio-African rift valley, the aroma of desiccating cow manure blankets the kibbutz.

To kick things off, NATO sent its program director for Scientific and Environmental Affairs, Professor F. Carvalho Rodrigues, to explain why an organization formed during the Cold War to protect Europe from the Warsaw Pact had become a funder of a conference in Israel on water use in the Middle East. Carvalho, built like Luciano Pavarotti, sported a black suit and floral bowtie beneath a coal-black beard. He said the challenges to NATO's core countries and partners (there are 56 nations now) "have been transformed from national security to broadly defined social security." NATO now worries about failures in transportation, energy, communications, and what Carvalho calls "life support systems": water, air, soil, and climate.

Immediately after Carvalho sat down, we heard "good news and bad news" from David Brooks, a Canadian septuagenarian who is the closest thing to a globally recognized, impartial expert on Middle Eastern water. Brooks said the good news is that water wars aren't imminent, thanks to reasonably good cooperation among erstwhile enemies. The bad news is that water scarcity is pronounced, and getting worse. The overwhelming majority of surface water in the region is polluted, mostly by raw sewage. Inappropriate disposal of industrial and chemical waste is widespread. Farmers receive water for irrigation at absurdly subsidized prices, and groundwater is being extracted at unsustainable rates.

Brooks predicted that as Middle Eastern populations continue to expand, water shortages would be felt first in food production, nearly all of which depends on irrigation. There wouldn't be a shortage of drinking water; humans can survive on mere gallons per day. In fact, the average Palestinian consumes just 15 gallons a day -- half as much as a Jordanian, a fifth as much as an Israeli, and about one-twentieth as much as a Californian.

We got a hint of things to come when Dr. Samir Hijazin, from the Jordanian Ministry of Water and Irrigation, asked, "How can Israel grow vegetables [and raise cows] in the middle of the desert, when Jordanians and Palestinians have to wait for sporadic water deliveries during the middle of the summer?" To paraphrase David Brooks, water shouldn't be a cause for war in the Middle East -- but it could become an excuse.

Tapped Out

Tuesday, 14 Feb 2006

Kibbutz Ketura, Israel

Nader El Khatib is the Palestinian director of Friends of the Earth Middle East. During most of the year, he meets with his Israeli and Jordanian counterparts to promote environmental protection of the region. During the summer, however, he is a dictator.

Nader lives with his two brothers in a house on the West Bank. There are 35 water tanks on the roof, but inside there is no running water. Speaking softly, he told the participants at this week's NATO institute, "I become a dictator in my family during the summer, when no rain falls for six or seven months. I am constantly checking that no one in the household is wasting water."

Nader El Khatib.

Photo: Eric Pallant.

In Amman, Jordan, there are water shortages, but at least there is a schedule: water comes every Wednesday. "But in Palestine," continued Nader, "it could be weeks or months, because Israel controls water allocations to Palestinians on the West Bank. When we were under curfew for 40 days in Bethlehem [during the worst of the intifada], we were constantly worried about water supplies." The only predictable increase in water provisions on the West Bank comes on Saturday, when religious Jews observe the Sabbath in their West Bank settlement communities and do no work.

To Nader and his fellow citizens, this is the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the peaceful 1990s, Palestinian children were out in the street handing olive branches to Israeli soldiers. After seeing their hopes for an independent Palestine dashed, Nader says it is very hard to tell kids to conserve. "They tell me to get lost, because they do not have enough water to use."

Nader once participated in a study of water supply to Palestinian cities on the West Bank. In 1997 in Hebron, a city of approximately 110,000, he found most people got water from the piped system only once a week from May to October. This was only enough for 27 liters per day -- a little more than six gallons. Picture that many Coke bottles, and imagine using just that amount for cooking, cleaning, washing, and toilet activities. "People have to buy water from suppliers, tanker trucks, and this is an economic burden," Nader says.

Evgeni Levner, a gray-haired Israeli scientist from the Holon Academic Institute of Technology, listened to Nader's stories with quiet intensity before finally speaking up. "First of all, I want to say that I never knew any of what Nader just told us. I also want to say that I don't think we should generalize, we should not create an image of a monster of Israel, nor should we aim to praise it. We should do our very best to find a solution."

Susana Neto, an urban and regional planner from the Technical University of Lisbon, could not believe Israelis were unaware of Palestinian water shortages. Other Israeli participants confirmed Evgeni's observation. Israelis don't know how hard it is. The same can be said for most residents of the developed world.

The participants produced one example of "consciousness raising" from Jordan. A few months ago, there was a campaign in Jordan called "Right to Water." It was designed to raise awareness among the privileged part of the country's population about scarcity and lack of water experienced by its poor residents. Participants wondered why there couldn't be something similar throughout the Middle East.

Jonathon Chenowith from the Center for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, England, put his finger on the problem of conferences like these. "The thing is, we are sitting in a small room in a small kibbutz in the middle of the Arava Desert. How can we get the message out beyond our bubble to the rest of the world?"

Now you know.

Dead on Arrival

Wednesday, 15 Feb 2006

Dead Sea, Israel

The public beach on the Dead Sea is filled with gleeful voices: Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, heavily accented English, German, and Armenian. Chris Bowser, a graduate student from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., laughs as he paddles on his back, his feet in the air, his head, shoulders, and half his chest well above the surface.

Frolickers like us can still walk to the public beach, but the walk has gotten longer every year. And reaching the fancy beach at the Ein Gedi Spa now requires a mile tram ride. The snake-like road from spa to beach must be extended annually in order to reach the edge of the Dead -- a shrinking body of water that has lost about one-third of its surface area over time.

Dead Sea salt.

Photos: Eric Pallant.

The famed sea is actually a terminal lake. Water flows into this, the lowest point on the earth's surface, from the River Jordan. Its only way out is evaporation. But the last time any fresh water from the Jordan reached this point was in 2005.

As Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, puts it, the one-meter-per-year drop in the level of the lake is the best example of international cooperation in the Middle East: "Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan have all worked together to drain it."

The Jordan River flows through the Sea of Galilee on its way to the Dead Sea in a nearly straight line from north to south, along the border between Jordan and Israel. North of the Galilee, its tributaries in Syria and Lebanon are dammed. Farther downstream, it is piped to farms in southern Israel. Water is extracted from the Sea of Galilee to supply Israel and Jordan. By the time the river exits the Sea of Galilee to continue south, it consists of brackish water and sewage.

To compound matters, an enormous industrial complex at the southern end of the Dead Sea -- known as the Arab Potash Company in Jordan and the Dead Sea Works in Israel -- has established evaporation ponds to extract commercially important salts. The factories produce magnesium, bromide, potash, and phosphorus fertilizers for export. Through evaporation, the two companies are responsible for approximately 30 percent of the Dead Sea's demise.

In the last decade, 800 sinkholes have opened on the Israeli side of the lake. The holes have absorbed highways, bridges, and date orchards. When rainwater or fresh springwater washes away salts in the soil, craters 30 feet deep and wide enough to swallow a bus open without warning.

Sinkholes forming on the former lake bottom.

Eduard Interweis, a German ecologist at the Institute for International and European Policy, said it best -- while standing next to a sinkhole the size of a condo. "How can I make it clear to my mother? She goes to the store to buy peppers. They come from Israel. Those peppers contain water that once flowed into the Dead Sea and fertilizers manufactured by the Dead Sea Works. How do I explain to her that the salad she prepares for me is killing the Dead Sea?"

The water exported in those vegetables could have been used to support people in Jordan, foster agricultural development in Palestine, preserve endangered riparian species in the Jordan River Valley, or prevent the Dead Sea from drying up.

The Dead Sea won't disappear. Springs on its floor supply some water that can't be tapped by surrounding countries. Furthermore, as the lake shrinks, salt concentrations will get so high the rate of evaporation will eventually decline. Nevertheless, in just a few decades, one of the world's most unique resources -- a lake known for millennia for its ability to buoy bodies and spirits -- will become a tiny, painfully salty, human-made puddle.

A Sight for Besor Eyes

Thursday, 16 Feb 2006

Kibbutz Ketura, Israel

The Besor River is just like the 14 other streams that begin in the mountains of the West Bank and flow west toward the Mediterranean Sea across the border between the Palestinian territory and Israel. Like the other streams, the Besor is utterly polluted.

The Besor looking sickly.

Photo: Lior Assaf

Raw sewage from 200,000 people in the Palestinian city of Hebron and the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba is dumped into the Besor. At its start, the stream is a milky white slurry, but 60 percent of this sewage will seep into the ground before the stream reaches the sea. On its 70 mile trip, the Besor picks up sewage from the Israeli industrial city of Dimona, turns velvety brown, collects agricultural chemicals from Israeli farms in the northern Negev, gathers solid waste, leaves Israeli territory for the Gaza Strip, and finally empties into the Mediterranean. The Besor is the largest watershed in Israel. In Gaza, it is the only flowing water.

Lior Assaf, an Israeli staff hydrologist at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, is part of a team of Palestinians and Israelis working together to model the hydrology and chemistry of the Besor. As happens at meetings like these, he presented a PowerPoint profile of the stream: "Biological Oxygen Demand," "Index of Biological Integrity," "Nitrate Concentrations," and so on. Every measure indicates the stream is deadly. Lior summed up his presentation in Israeli-accented English. "If it smells like sewage and it looks like sewage, then guess what: it's sewage."

When he finished his presentation he was attacked. Jordanians, Canadians, and Europeans felt certain he was laying the blame inside the bathrooms of Palestinians for dumping their sewage into the Besor's headwaters. First, Lior insisted he was only presenting data; the city of Hebron was simply the first to dump its waste. Second, he tried to remind the countries of NATO that Israel also added chemical, agricultural, and human waste. He could not assuage the audience. In the Middle East, even feces (this is a polite publication) is political.

A troubled river helps bring people together.

Photo: Lior Assaf.

Nevertheless, hidden in Lior's message is a news story bubbling below the line of sight of the world's television cameras: Palestinian and Israeli scientists are working together. While their leaders hurl vitriol at one another and their armed forces launch missiles, people who care about the environment have steadfastly continued to call, email, and meet.

The Besor River study is not the only cooperative venture in the region to cross borders. The last formal talk of our NATO Advanced Study Institute was delivered by David Lehrer, director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and host for the meeting. David said the goal of the Arava Institute is to bring Jewish and Arab citizens together to protect the environment, "because nature knows no boundaries."

In one example, college-level students attending the Arava Institute will prepare curricula on transboundary environmental issues during the upcoming semester. They will discuss the religion of birds in high-school classrooms in Eilat, Israel, and Aqaba, Jordan.

The cities of Aqaba and Eilat, which sit side by side on the Red Sea, separated only by the Israeli/Jordanian border, present the first food and rest for nearly a billion migrating birds a year, making it the busiest flyway in the world. The high-school students will be asked to decide whether squacco herons, white storks, little crakes, or tawny pipits choose Judaism or Islam before selecting which side of the border to land on, or whether the quality of the habitat and resources are more important. It proves David's point. Migrating birds know no boundaries and only cooperative efforts between Jordanians and Israelis will ensure that open space is protected from developers.

There are dozens of cooperative environmental projects in the Middle East, each one rather tiny in the grand scheme of Middle Eastern politics. What they have in common is recognition that everyone here depends on the same dwindling aquifers and breathes the same polluted air. The Middle East is a densely populated, small, dry place, but seen from a bird's eye view, environmentalists are defying politicians, building bridges across religious, ethnic, and political borders that separate people, but not nature.

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Eilon Schwartz.

What work do you do?

I'm the founder and executive director of The Heschel Center, an environmental NGO in Israel. I am also an academic, teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

What does your organization do?

Only in the last decade has environmentalism gotten on the map in Israel. For years, "The Situation" -- that is, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians -- dominated political discussion and prevented virtually any other issue from being seriously addressed. But the acute nature of environmental problems, coupled with the birth of an energetic civic society, led to a huge increase in environmental awareness.

The Heschel Center was born during that growth spurt, partially as a result of these processes, but also as a catalyst for them. Our goal was to envision and empower a movement for social change based on ecological health and social equity.

So, what does the organization actually do?

We run high-level leadership training programs for the next generation of environmental leaders -- coming from fields as diverse as architecture, journalism, art, law, public health, agriculture, community organizing, education, and of course, environmental and ecological science. We work with journalists to help them reframe environmentalism as a social issue. We work with local municipalities, getting them to draw up plans for a sustainable future through large-scale citizen participation. We work with principals, schools, teachers, and kids, creating models for an ecologically literate education. We run a network of public-health advocates. We work with the national government on implementing a national plan for sustainability. We bring together Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Oriental and European Jews, believing that environmentalism should reflect a larger, inclusive vision for the society.

What are you working on at the moment?

I'm on a sabbatical at Brown University for the year (otherwise I wouldn't have the time to write this!), and I'm taking advantage of my proximity to many potential donors in America to find new resources for our work. I'm also taking advantage of getting away from the day-to-day to think strategically about our next set of projects, and about maintenance and fine-tuning of existing ones.

What long and winding road led you to your current position?

I grew up in Levittown, Long Island, as a suburban Jewish kid. I knew that I didn't want that when I grew up. I focused on Jewish studies in New York City and then promptly left to live on a kibbutz for 10 years, working as a farmer and an educator. Being in a beautiful desert landscape had a profound impact on my environmental identity, and although subsequently I have become very critical of romantic environmentalism, everyone should have a moment in their biography where they can notice the radical beauty of the world.

When I left kibbutz for the big city, I knew I wanted to keep connected to the great outdoors, so I decided to go back to school and learn environmental studies. (What I didn't realize is that this would lead to far too many hours in front of computer screens and far too few hours in beautiful places.) Simultaneously, a friend of mine began an environmental NGO and asked me to chair the board of the fledgling organization. That gave me enough of an understanding of NGOs and of environmental politics in Israel to feel confident in starting my own organization, and to have a clear idea of what I wanted to do and why.

Who is your environmental hero?

I can follow the book trail, all the classics that inspired me: Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold. I've also been inspired by Jewish religious thinkers who critiqued contemporary culture and made a place for environmental thinking: Martin Buber, A. J. Heschel, Gershom Scholem, and A. D. Gordon, to name a few.

What is your environmental nightmare?

The blind faith in neoliberal economic capitalism -- fundamentalist capitalism -- and its prophets.

What's your environmental vice?

I love (kosher) meat.

Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?

Gloom and doom ecology guy.

What's your favorite place or ecosystem?

I learned to love the desert, but this year in New England I'm back in my childhood landscape and remembering how much the fall, winter, spring, and summer cycle is in my bones.

What's one thing the environmental movement is doing badly, and how could it be done better?

We still speak too much about protecting the environment instead of talking about protecting people. We need to win the hearts and minds of a majority and then advocate policies that prove to people that this is a better way to live.

If you could institute by fiat one environmental reform, what would it be?

Close the city centers to cars; charge cars for entering the city during congested times; subsidize mass transit; have designated bus lanes that are enforced; build bike lanes for commuting and not just recreation; build community gardens and farmers' markets; have mixed zoning in the cities and mixed communities with affordable housing; advocate for community schools that kids can walk to. To paraphrase Thoreau, "In cities is the salvation of the world."

What's your favorite TV show?

On sabbatical, I've been watching Seinfeld and Simpsons episodes. In Israel, I watch a weekly political satire show with my kids.

What piece of advice might you give to others?

Slow down. Social-change organizations notoriously exploit their workers. A paradigm shift in attitudes and policies is not going to take place because someone slept four hours instead of eight hours. The immediacy of our pace of communications has a price. I actually think that is what an environmental-cultural critique should be trying to change.

Eilon Encounters

Eilon Schwartz, founder of The Heschel Center.

How does the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians affect the work of environmentalists?    -- Noah Efron, Tel Aviv, Israel

As you must know, coming from the region, the "conflict" has traditionally dwarfed all other agendas. Interestingly, the environment has always been a central piece in efforts to build a dialogue and reconciliation between Israel and its neighbors. (As is often stated, nature knows no boundaries.) Even after the second intifada broke out in 2000 and much of the cooperative work disintegrated, many of the environmental initiatives continued. A number of wonderful NGOs have continued their work in extremely sensitive and politically dangerous times.

The Heschel Center has chosen to focus its work on Israel proper, believing that the Israeli progressive movement has become one-dimensional, allowing the conflict to shape all other agendas. In particular, we have focused on Jewish-Arab relations among Israeli citizens. With so much attention focused outwardly on Israel's relationship with the Palestinians, far too little has been paid to issues of environmental justice within the Israeli Arab community.

I'm a fellow native Long Islander with deep environmental roots and with relatives in the State of Israel. How do the government and the people reconcile the past actions of bulldozing olive groves and citrus orchards that sometimes date back to the days of Abraham, using clean water as a weapon against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and the inordinate consumption per capita of freshwater by Israelis when contrasted to Palestinian villages?    -- Larry Zuckerman, Salmon, Idaho

I am not a government representative. I am a member of civil society who is working to build a sustainable future in Israel. I have learned, from living in the Middle East, that nothing is as simple as it is reported. There is obviously anger and hatred on both sides that often spills over into cruel and violent acts. Suicide bombings are the most graphic and horrifying of these, although there are activities by Israel which are morally indefensible.

But the more complex issues for Israel, I think, are those that demand balancing the immediate protection of Israeli citizens with a broader view of security and a deep commitment to human rights. This is an equation that American politics and society have become increasingly aware of since 9/11, and the wide spectrum of responses by politicians and citizens in America to that equation is not very different from the spectrum of responses in Israel. And there are no simple answers, although I know that there are wrong ones.

One of the fascinating things about Israel is that worldwide issues get shrunk onto a very small stage. The unequal distribution of water resources and the struggle over water rights is of course a worldwide problem between the First and Third Worlds, but you can see it all the more vividly when one compares neighbors who live within several kilometers of one another, but worlds apart. Ultimately, the solution for Israel and the Palestinians has to be two viable states who share resources together as equals, but until both sides are politically able to make that happen, we will be stuck in the quagmire of occupiers and occupied.

Can you give some examples of how you help reframe environmental problems as social issues when talking with journalists?    -- Name not provided

Journalists in Israel have traditionally mocked environmentalists for focusing on saving endangered beetles or wildflowers, while Rome burns. We have taken journalists to see abject poverty and health hazards in poor Jewish and Arab communities that neighbor rich ones. We have looked at land-use issues to examine who benefits, and who doesn't, from present distributions. We also look through case studies at the distribution of power and lecture on global trends, putting the environmental crisis in the context of First World and Third World, of haves and have-nots.

I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis of environmental issues as a public health issue. How does Israeli society react to this analysis?    -- Janna Cohen-Rosenthal, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

The environmental health agenda is relatively new in Israel, in spite of the fact that some of the major environmental issues over the past decade have had to do with public health: hazardous wastes, toxins in rivers, air pollution, and asbestos dumping, to name a few. Due to the sensational character of terrorist bombings, the public underestimates the risk from other causes -- even though, for example, many more people died last year from air-pollution-related illnesses than from terror attacks. But this is changing as community activists, environmental organizations, and public-health professionals begin to understand, document, and organize.

The Bible has been blamed for teaching us that the earth and all the non-human creatures on it are here for us to dominate. Do you think the Bible has had a negative effect on Western civilization, so far as our abuse of the environment goes? Do you have confidence that the Bible has positive lessons to teach on these matters, and that there are religious people prepared to listen and learn?    -- Mark Stephen Caponigro, New York, N.Y.

One of the big mistakes of early environmentalism was demonizing religion. One can find quotes in religious texts supporting most perspectives, so claiming that Western religion is anti-nature says more about those making such claims than about religion's inherently antagonistic relationship to the natural world. The great contribution that religion offers environmentalism is a language and literature that can speak of life's meaning beyond consumer culture and instrumental relationships. We need to teach about the environmental message, but we also can learn from religious perspectives. There is more of a meeting ground than the stereotype would suggest.

Which Jewish authors have inspired you as an environmentalist?    -- Mark Stephen Caponigro, New York, N.Y.

Early on in high school and college, I was taken with the struggle of Jewish thinkers to make sense of modernity. People like Buber, Scholem, Heschel, Soloveitchik, Gordon, and others all criticized the rootless nature of modern and Jewish life, and searched for the rebuilding of community beyond the instrumental material culture that increasingly dominates our lives. My years on kibbutz were a direct result of those concerns, searching for a way to benefit from the blessings of modernity without its negative derivatives. I like to think that my lifestyle still reflects a concern to build a sense of place and community -- to dig in to where I live and take responsibility for it.

What kind of future do you see for Israel regarding the availability of freshwater, and how does that translate to the global picture of freshwater supplies?    -- Janelle Robbins, Tarrytown, N.Y.

Israel's freshwater future is similar to that of other places -- there isn't enough water to go around. Already today, the peoples of the world exist on overdraft, utilizing more water than natural systems can regenerate. The strategies are the same in Israel as elsewhere: conservation of freshwater sources and their catchment basins; efficiency in use of freshwater and increased use of gray water; appropriate technologies, including desalination, as supplements and not substitutes for the natural water cycle.

By your statement, "We still speak too much about protecting the environment instead of talking about protecting people," are you saying that people can't or won't appreciate that nature and wilderness have a right to exist regardless of whether humans interact with it?    -- Carol Norton, Placitas, N.M.

The environment is not something out there. It is part of us, and we are part of it. Evolution teaches us that we are deeply embedded in the world around us, not some foreign creature that was plopped in the middle of an alien landscape. There is no actual dichotomy here: the choice isn't between humans and nature. It is a choice between an isolated, individualistic, atomized view of what it means to be human, and an interconnected, interdependent, and social one. We need the natural world, because it is the context in which we live our lives as human beings. But we don't need it just for its materials. We need it for its air and its water and its silence and its majestic beauty, and mostly for its sense of scale. It reminds us that we are part of a much larger whole. I don't think that is anthropocentric in the instrumental sense; I simply don't know what a relationship means without two to relate.

I work for the Green Schools Network in Israel, which works closely in joint projects with The Heschel Center. We miss you here! Does the environmental movement in North America have any new insights that could enrich our work in Israel? In our outlying Mediterranean outpost here, we often harbor the feeling that "the really good stuff is happening elsewhere."    -- David Dunetz, Rosh Pina, Israel

Hi David! To tell you the truth, I haven't done a whole lot of systematic looking at environmental education here, but anecdotal evidence suggests that what we are doing [in Israel] is pretty sophisticated. What I've seen here is quite impressive with regard to ecological literacy, but relatively weak in terms of understanding the social context of environmental issues and understanding environmental education as a central part of political education in a healthy democracy.

How do you respond to those who claim all of this work toward sustainability is unnecessary because we are naturally progressing toward the proclaimed Armageddon?    -- Jule Asterisk, Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada

I'm left speechless. Never waste emotional energy on convincing those whose worldview precludes having a reasonable discussion where both sides are open to changing their minds.

What is one thing you feel everyone should be doing to have a smaller ecological footprint?    -- Genny Bourdages, Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada

Getting involved in politics.

Your thoughts create your future. If you are looking for humanity, the environment, and the earth to continue successfully, make that your reality now. Instead of being a "gloom and doom" guy, maybe something like "Gaia and life" kind of guy.    -- Kathleen Schleimer, Cranston, R.I.

Touché. I was too glib with my "gloom and doom" line, which actually doesn't really reflect my personality or views. Still, I would be careful about projecting an unrealistic optimism in the world. Realistic optimism is what we need, to paraphrase Janusz Korczak, and part of that realism is recognizing that there is suffering and injustice and extinctions of species. Mourning for what has been lost, and fear for what is in danger of being lost, is a critical part of any grounded sense of hope.

I spent some of my childhood money planting trees in Israel in memory of friends and loved ones -- are they really there?    -- Larry Zuckerman, Salmon, Idaho

Sure they are -- although their history is, like everything in the Middle East, a contentious one. Today those forests represent some of the last great open spaces in Israel, free for public use and visited annually by hundreds of thousands from all corners of multicultural Israel.

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A variety of explanations have been offered as to why Israel is reluctant to redistribute water resources. The most obvious reason is that doing so would require a change in Israeli lifestyles: no more private swimming pools and green lawns. But the motives go deeper than that, according to Robin Twite, director of the Environment Program for the Jerusalem-based Israeli/Palestine Center for Research and Information, a public-policy think-tank. Twite says Israelis have what he calls a "mythical belief in development."

Blood and Water

Part II in a two-part series. Click here to read Part I.

"Since first settling the land over 100 years ago, Israelis have never stopped building, developing, and expanding their homes and infrastructure. And the kibbutz, agricultural settlements, and farms hold a special place in Israeli affections. The strive to develop has a momentum of its own and tampering with it could be politically dangerous," Twite says.

An irrigation system in Israel.

Photo: USGS.

Henry Gold, an engineer and chair of Israel's Committee for Public Transport, says that when it comes to the water crisis, the prevailing attitude is that technology will save the day. "The government has just decided to start building what will be the world's largest water desalination plant," Gold said. "And over the next 10 years, 20 more desalination plants are being established. But this is irresponsible, as desalination can only be part of the solution. Reducing consumption and encouraging responsible use remains critical."

Gold said the emphasis needs to shift toward political action and measures to make water conservation economically enticing. "In Israel at the moment, the local municipality sells water. It buys the water from the central company and sells it on at a 300- to 400-percent mark-up. Under this system, the municipality has no interest whatsoever in conserving water use. But the central government is doing nothing to change it."

Another Israeli environmental group, the Israel Union for Environmental Defence, has gone to the courts to try to jump-start political action around water issues. The group is concerned that the nation's water crisis is being compounded as rivers and groundwater resources are contaminated by poorly treated municipal sewage as well as military and industrial waste.

In May 2000, the IUED petitioned the Supreme Court for funds to decontaminate a water source in Tel Aviv. Testing at the site revealed the presence of trichloroethylene, hydrocarbon solvents, heavy metals, and other hazardous industrial effluents, which led to the closure of drinking water wells in the area.

IUED's petition was successful, but still amounts to little more than closing the barn door after the horses are gone. By not adequately addressing the water crisis when making building and planning decisions, Israeli politicians are achieving short-term survival by risking the long-term stability of the Israeli state.

If the present water situation is tense, the future one is simply untenable, according to Ayman Rabi, director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group. "At the moment, the water problem is one of efficient management above efficient use," Rabi says. "There is enough for the current populations of Israel and Palestine, it just needs to be distributed fairly. The problem is that these populations are projected to double by 2025. There will, quite simply, not be enough water to sustain this population if today's consumption pattern remains unchanged."

Down on the kibbutz.

Photo: Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Perhaps mindful of that, the Israelis have made some attempts to address water consumption. Some 53 percent of drinking-quality water in Israel is currently used for agriculture. In 1995, a Ministry of Agriculture commission recommended cancelling allocations and subsidies to the agriculture sector, suggesting that if farmers bought water at market prices, they would use it more efficiently. The Water Commissioner's office, however, rejected this idea outright.

Israel has also been at the cutting edge of some technological advances. In the 1960s, it gained worldwide admiration by developing a drip irrigation system, which efficiently delivers water to the root of the plant, dramatically reducing the amount of water needed to grow crops. Unfortunately, much of this technological research slowed down after Israel gained control of the water in the occupied territories during the 1967 war.

Meanwhile, lacking any option, many Palestinians -- especially those not connected to the water network -- have adopted water-efficient lifestyles, which Israelis could copy without significantly changing their lives. Rainwater harvesting, whereby water is collected on roofs and stored in cisterns, is becoming more and more widespread, and usually allows a family to be water self-sufficient for half the year. And many Palestinian villagers have started treating and recycling water on site, using simple earth filters. Three ponds are built on top of each other. Water that has been used for cooking and cleaning is passed through them and cleaned by the earth between the ponds. By the time it reaches the third pond, it is clean enough for agricultural use.

This Jericho spring has
served as a source of
drinking water for
thousands of years.

Photo: USGS.

But although practical solutions may be available, the problems, ultimately, require political management -- and nothing is being done at the political level. This is hardly surprising as the two sides can barely bring themselves to talk to each other, let alone decide on how to manage their joint water resources.

Further complicating the matter is the fact some of the water resources that the Israeli and Palestinians share, such as the Jordan River, must also be shared with neighbouring countries. The Yarmouk-Jordan River basin serves Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Israel and Jordan have made admirable attempts to jointly manage the Jordan River since signing a peace agreement in 1994. But Israel and Syria, in particular, are a long way from finding ways to cooperate. Indeed, the two countries are still formally at war over Israel's occupation of the water-rich Golan Heights. Meanwhile, population growth and developmental pressures coupled with inefficient use in all five countries continue to deplete and pollute the water.

Israel is founded on a simple, central tenet: that any Jew, anywhere in the world, can immigrate and settle in the nation. Six million people currently live in Israel and the occupied territories, but there are an estimated 12 to 14 million Jews worldwide. Israelis may find that the land places caps on immigration levels whether they like it or not, if sustainable water consumption is not achieved and water becomes increasingly scarce. And if politicians continue to ignore the water issue, they may find that peace is equally hard to come by.

Part I:   Israel and Palestine struggle over water in an arid land

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Oil, namely the vast reserves in Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, is the cause of many of the broad geopolitical battles plaguing the Middle East. But it is access to water, a more fundamental resource, that is at the root of much of the bitter conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Blood and Water

Part One in a two-part series. Click here to read Part Two.

Case in point: The Palestinians say they rejected a recent peace proposal from Israel because, among other things, it didn't give them control of water resources within their territory. Granted, it's tough to figure out what's to blame for the unravelling of the Middle East peace process, not least because there are so many issues on the table. But when viewed through the lens of one of those issues -- access to water -- the Palestinians seem to have a point.

A young boy gets water from
one of the trucks supplying
villages.

Photo: B'Tselem.

The land that Israel and Palestine share is desert or semi-arid, so the limited amount of water in the area must be carefully managed if everyone is to get enough to ensure a decent standard of living. International law states that most of the water sources in the area are international resources, and as such must be shared by Israelis and Palestinians according to the principle of equitable and reasonable use.

Unfortunately, equitable and reasonable are two words that cannot be used to describe the water situation in Israel and Palestine.

At present, Israelis receive five times as much water per person as Palestinians. In Gaza, the disparity is even more striking, with settlers getting seven times as much water as their Palestinian neighbors. Stated differently, on average, Israelis get 92.5 gallons per person per day, while Palestinians in the West Bank get 18.5 gallons per person per day. The minimum quantity of water recommended by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Health Organization for household and urban use alone is 26.4 gallons per person per day.

Yehezkel Lein from B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, explains the origins of this discrepancy succinctly: "Underlying Israel's water policy in the Occupied Territories was the desire to preserve the quantity of water it uses."

A snapshot of the West Bank:
How dry was my valley?

Photo: Jerusalem Water
Undertaking.

Lein says a variety of methods were used to achieve this. First, Israel formalized the unequal division of the shared groundwater that was established prior to the occupation: capping Palestinian consumption, banning the digging of new wells, and putting quotas on how much water could be extracted from existing wells. Then it set about exploiting new water resources it didn't control before the 1967 War, such as the Eastern Aquifer in the West Bank and the Gaza Aquifer. These new water resources primarily benefit the Israeli settlements that are still being established in those areas -- even though those settlements are illegal. (Under international law, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are defined as occupied territories and are therefore subject to the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war. The convention expressly prohibits moving people from the occupying county, i.e. Israel, into the occupied country, i.e. Palestine.)

Israel did hook some Palestinian towns into the water network -- although nearly 30 percent of Palestinian homes have yet to be connected -- but it did not provide appropriate maintenance work, with the result that, today, as much as half of the water meant to supply some Palestinian towns may be lost to leaking pipes, according to B'Tselem. The country also gave Israelis and settlers priority access to water: In the summer, when water is scare, the Israeli water company Mekorot shuts the valves of the main pipelines supplying Palestinian towns so that Israeli supplies remain unaffected.

The interim agreement of the Oslo peace process, signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1995, mandated zero reduction in the amount of water Israel was allowed to extract from the West Bank aquifers. Any additional water that the Palestinians needed was to come from new sources, not from a redistribution of existing sources. Israel, however, was given a veto on any water project aimed at tapping new sources and, over the past six years, has used that veto to block or delay almost all proposed projects.

Where the water is. (Click here for a larger
map.)
Map: U.N. Department of Political Affairs.

When tensions between the two sides run high, as they have since September 2000 when the current uprising against the occupation started, the Palestinian water crisis becomes more desperate, especially for those without a connection to the water network. The Israeli policy of closure -- whereby tanks and soldiers block entrances to Palestinian towns and villages, disrupting the normal flow of people and traffic -- makes it difficult and dangerous for villagers to go to nearby wells and for water tankers to get into villages.

Human rights organizations are unanimous in condemning these policies, pointing out that they violate fundamental tenants of human rights law (such as the right to good health and an adequate subsistence) as well as fundamental tenants of international law (such as the ban on using resources from occupied territory and the ban on distributing water in a discriminatory way).

Such organizations also point out that Israel's water policy heightens political resentment and, ultimately, makes reaching any peace agreement more difficult. No such agreement will be struck that does not entail a just resolution to the water issue.

Part II:   Without fair water distribution, the Middle East peace process is all dried up

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