An Environmental Oasis in Israel, or is it?

The Golan Heights with the caption “places of Israel”

The Banias River

Pan’s Cave and Banias Stream

The Banias Falls

Mt. Hermon Skii Resort

Pretty neat nature right? Hard to imagine this is a part of the desert state of Israel. Well technically it doesn’t, but Israel doesn’t want to know that.

The status of the Golan Heights is confusing to say the least. Israeli tourist agencies describe it as a part of Israel. Meanwhile, internationally it is part of Syria as the UN does not recognize any land taken under siege by one sovereign state from another.

The 1981 Israeli Annexation of the Golan Heights was not internationally recognized. By continuing to occupy the Golan Heights as if it is part of Israel, Israel is ruling the area de facto.

What’s the big deal? Why does Israel want this territory so badly even though it has little spiritual value unlike Judea and Samaria (the West Bank and Gaza Strip)?

View of South Western Syria from Israeli lookout point. Nicholas Casey

First, in pure military terms, the Golan Heights allows Israel forces to look right over Damascus so that they can see any military threats before they reach the border.

And then there’s the tourist part, providing an environmental hub for tourists to hike, ski and sight-see. There’s no surprise Israel would like to just swallow this area up.

And really, how could the area benefit by being put under Syrian rule again? Would the rare oasis of luscious greenery become a battle field for ISIS or the Syrian Civil War?

The Golan Heights would not be in better hands if given to Syria in its current state. On the other hand, Israel has no right to swallow up the land into its on state.

The best would be to maintain an occupied status in which Israel may not call the land its own until Syria becomes a stable state of sorts and the issue can be revisited. Israel is walking a fine line between maintaining the earlier agreed upon status and trying assimilate the area under the U.N.’s blind eye.

The international community must be aware and sensitive to the issue as strife continues in the area, and especially as the violence finally starts to lessen.

Climate changing in the Levant

Climate change is a global phenomenon that is happening now, but different regions are feeling the effects in different ways. This blog will focus on how climate change is affecting the Levant.

Temperature

In the 20 years between 2030 and 2050, the average temperatures in the Levant region are expected to increase 1-2 C. To put this in perspective, the average temperature in the region between 1901 and 1996 rose 0.7 C.

Precipitation

Precipitation is projected to increase in the region, but we can’t celebrate just yet. The increase in precipitation will take the form of more rain less often. With heavy rainfall, dry soil has trouble soaking up the water. The resulting run off leads to erosion, including erosion of nutrients necessary for farming.

Putting these two categories together, the increase in temperature will lead to evaporation rates higher than precipitation rates. This means that more water will be evaporated from soil than is being returned through precipitation.

Sea Level Rise

One symptom of global climate change you’ve probably hear about is sea level rise. Sea level rise is caused by a variety of things including the fact that warm water expands in volume and warming at the poles is melting polar ice caps into the ocean.

Salt water intrusion poses a significant threat to water supplies in the Levant.

For the Levant, any sea level rise will especially affect the water supply in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip relies on the Coastal Aquifer for pretty much its entire water supply. As the population continues to deplete this water resource, sea water has already started the process of salt water intrusion, making the water unusable without a desalinization plant. Sea level rise will lead to even more salt water intrusion of the aquifer, further straining the water resource.

So What?

What used to be a farm before the drought hit Syria.

 

Climate change does not happen in a vacuum. Degrading water resources and soil quality will put greater strain on the farmers who already trying to achieve the impossible- growing food in the desert. The resulting economic hardship could result in more strife in the region, depending on regimes’ abilities to respond to the environmental crisis. After all, the beginning of the Syrian civil war is said to have sparked from the unrest in the rural farming village of Dara’a because of the severe drought making farming impossible.

Water and War in the Levant

War affects more than just combatants and often the affects on civilians are in fact greater than those on the people actually fighting the war. One of the ways civilians lives are torn apart by war is through damage to their water supply. I’ve decided to survey the area and see how states’ water supply has been affected by war.

Gaza Strip

The latest military offensive by Israel this summer included an attack on the only power plant in the territory. Sewage treatment and pumping water to communities all require electricity and so this attack meant the failure of these systems. Reparations will take at least a year before the power plant can reach full capacity again.

West Bank

Although there has been no major war outbreak in recent history, the disturbing differences in water availability for Palestinians as compared to Israeli settlers in the West Bank is a product of war. During the 1967 war, 140 Palestinian wells were destroyed and since then Israel has given permission for only 7 wells to be built/rebuilt. The lack of wells inherited from this war that happened over 45 years ago is at the base of water inequality in the territory today.

Israel

Much of the violence in the area involving Israel includes Israeli offensive strikes, and so it is hard to find examples of recent attacks on Israeli water infrastructure. However, two years ago in response to Israeli air strikes, Assad’s Syria attempted to cyber-attack the water system in Haifa, although the hacking did not actually pan out. By attacking water infrastructure, the Syrian Electronic Army saw a way to hurt Israeli government legitimacy even though Israel is militarily stronger than Syria.

Lebanon

The 34 day war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 left water infrastructure severely damaged. Pipelines, water tanks, and springs were all attacked.

Main water tank in Khiyam being rebuilt by UNICEF. Hugh Macleod, IRIN.

While NGOs like UNICEF fixed some of the damaged infrastructure, ironically Hezbollah itself played a role in reconstruction, filling in a hole the inefficient central government leaves. Israeli attacks on water resources in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks in fact led to growing ground support for Hezbollah in the aftermath of the war.

from UNCHR– Refugees in 2015, not including Palestinians.

Jordan

The biggest way Jordanian infrastructure is affected by war is not through direct attacks, but through refugees fleeing various conflicts in the region. The latest wave of refugees has come from Syria; this influx has moved Jordan from the 4th poorest country in terms of water resources to the 3rd. Jordan has now swallowed around 2 million Palestinian refugees, with water resources just getting dryer and dryer. Other main sources of refugees are Iraq and then in the “other” category Sudan and Somalia.

Syrians are forced to get water from puddles as a result of attacks on the water infrastructures of major cities. Zein al-Rifai

Syria

In ISIS-controlled territories, ISIS governance provides services such as water. That is, if communities are cooperative. Otherwise, ISIS does not shy away from using water access as a weapon, cutting off supply to uncooperative communities in Syria and Iraq.

In the civil war even before ISIS was a player, water was used as a weapon by the regime and rebels. Both supplies and water treatment plants have been caught in the cross fire, with untreated water resulting in diseases such as typhoid to break out.

Israeli Energy Supplies

Picture by Lihee Alvidan.

When thinking about the Middle East and natural resources, oil is one of the first, if not the first thing to come to mind. Whether it is true or not, oil is often thought of as the driver of politics in the Middle East— the reason for wars, conflict and power. Fossil fuels are a pretty big here, there’s no doubt about that, but they are not the only driver of politics.

An area not touched on too much in this blog yet is this very topic and its place in the Levant region. Oil reserves in this area are mostly found off the shore of Gaza and on the eastern border of Jordan.

Oil sources in the Levant

One 2014 article estimates these oil reserves as enough to sustain Israeli energy needs for up to 50 years. With political strife in the region, Israel may in fact have to fall back on these resources. The difficulty is cost.

Sabotage of Egyptian-Israeli Pipeline. From the NY Times.

By 2012, a natural gas agreement with Egypt which promised Egyptian natural gas to Israel until 2020 was cut off due to the Arab Spring chaos. Luckily shortly afterwards, the Tamal natural gas field off the coast of the West Bank was pumping out natural gas- counting for 40% of Israeli electricity use by 2014. The trick? It took $3.25 billion and four years to get the oil rig pumping oil for Israel.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Even with this new source, Israel still has too little resources to be a big energy player globally. To put it in perspective, Iran has 4x the natural gas reserves of Israel. So what is the effect on the region?

My guess is it will lead to even less Israeli reliance on its Arab neighbors. If and when Egypt returns to stability, Israel will no longer need to import energy from Egypt necessarily. Israel’s energy will no longer be at the mercy of unfriendly neighbors. In fact, Israel has agreed to start exporting natural gas to Jordan and the Palestinian Territories.

Israeli consumption and production of oil compared to that of its Mediterranean neighbors.

That’s natural gas though. Oil is a different story.

Of the Eastern Mediterranean states, Israel is the largest consumer of oil, but does not produce any significant amount of petroleum. 99% of oil is imported but not through pipelines shared with neighbors in the Middle East. Instead it is shipped from Russia and Azerbaijan. With the falling Russian economy, it does make one wonder how long this relationship will last, although Israel needs it in order to avoid reliance on neighbors and being forced to “play nice”.

Long story short, oil plays somewhat of a factor in the international relations of the Middle East. Developing natural gas extraction has led to an Israel less dependent on an at times hostile neighbor. On the other hand, Israel still has next to no petroleum reserves and if current trade partners run dry, could be looking at a future in which they are forced to make nice with neighbors in order to feed Israeli energy needs.

Peace with the Earth

source

Environmental peacemaking, although it sounds like an crunchy hippy slogan of “peace love and the Earth” from the sixties and seventies, has legitimate space in international relations studies. In the conflict-prone area of Israel/Palestine/Jordan, the organization Eco Peace Middle East (formerly known as Friends of the Earth Middle East), champions this approach to peace.

The basic idea behind environmental peacemaking is that common dependencies on natural resources and a healthy environment acts as the base for cooperation between nations, even nations in conflict-prone areas such as in the Levant area. The idea is that forced cooperation through shared environmental resources leads to integrated socio-cultural and economic development between nations, as well as increased dialogue between states, making conflict between them less likely to happen/ more likely to be resolved.

from FoME Presentation

In this area of the Middle East, there are three main shared bodies of water which could either be a basis of conflict or a basis of peace between the societies living there: the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River, and the Mountain and Coastal Aquifers.

Eco Peace has had some of the most success when working in the grassroots arena through its program Good Water Neighbors (GWN). Since 2001, GWN works to connect communities across national borders through a shared water source. A recent evaluation of the project from 2012-2014 attributes the success of these peacemaking efforts to the GWN approach of focusing on actual acute and tangible issues between communities instead of the more general peace and cooperation-focused efforts which have, and continue to, fail in the region.

GWN starts in the future with establishing youth water trustees in GWN communities, and from this incorporating adult and governmental involvement in the peace and environmental education efforts. As featured in the latest EcoPeace newsletter, youth water trustees together toured the shared water resources of Alexander/Zomar stream, Abu Nar/Hadera stream, Lower Jordan River, the Soreq stream and the Yarkon stream. This is the same age group extremists and security forces recruit from- these vulnerable kids are instead taking part in peace efforts beyond their governmental leaders.

So what’s happening? How can kids go beyond the efforts of their governmental leaders?

Waad of the Palestinian Territories.

Israeli Water Messenger 

Could these efforts eventually inspire state leaders? and how does this fit into the paradigms of international relations?

It serves to go back to my blog about world politics starting local. Local movements are where the action and will to support global initiatives starts. A national government without the support of its people can only get so far in maintaining peace, but a peaceful population pushing a conflict-prone government could have a lasting impact on the strife in its region.

And is such an idea of environmental peace believable from an international relations stand point? It is for constructivists! The building up of transnational bonds through shared resources and shared experiences supports the constructivist focus on identity in the realm of international relations.

The King Talal Dam Goes Sour

The King Talal Dam Water Basin Source

King Talal Dam source

The King Talal Dam provides water in the otherwise thirsty state of Jordan, sustaining a rare feat in the Middle East- an agricultural valley.

The Zaqar Watershed. Picture source 

The King Talal Dam took 6 years to build, finally finishing in 1976 crossing the Zarqa River in the north of Jordan. The dam diverts water to the King Abdullah Canal through pipes and canals in order to irrigate even more farmland.

A Zarqa River farming community. Elizabeth Whitman

The socioeconomic benefits from constructing the King Talal Dam are huge, considering it can be credited with creating the Jordan Valley known today. The productive agriculture in the valley was made possible by the availability of water during the dry season- thanks to the dam. Improved farming and the power generated from the dam led to strong public services such as school systems, agricultural organizations, health care, and employment opportunities. The now blossoming Jordan Valley was a mix of subsistence agriculture and villages without electricity before the King Talal Dam.

Sounds awesome, right? So what’s the problem?

The King Talal Dam does allow the Zaqra River to more reliably irrigate farmlands further inland from the Jordan River, but this has consequences with the serious polluting of the river. The Jordanian Ministry of the Environment describes the river as “turned into a sewage canal, attracting flies and other insects. All forms of wildlife have disappeared, including fish and frogs”. The main culprits of the pollution are chemical waste dumps from factories and sewage system waste waters. With the river flowing through Amman and Zarqa before reaching the dam, the opportunities for picking up such pollution are endless.

The polluted Zarqa River. Maria Font de Matas

You can imagine the result of such pollution of a water way relied on for agriculture in the region. Jordanians, and especially children, eating produce from farms by the Zarqa River or coming in direct contact with the water come into a hospital in Zarqa with respiratory infections and diarrhea.

So now instead of providing an essential nutrient for inland agricultural efforts, its water is, and will continue to, poison the crops as long as stronger anti-pollution efforts are in place. Such efforts are not impossible; remember the Cuyahoga River Fire in Cleveland and the U.S. environmental movement’s ability to turn the river’s fate around.

The pollution of Cuyahoga River before the fire. Source

Green Prospects of the Israeli Election

Israel is all over the papers in the past week covering the Freudian slips of incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the hours leading up to elections and then his attempts to back pedal and take back his polarizing comments made only days before. But what about the rest of the election? I took it upon myself to see the status of green candidates in the aftermath of elections.

Elections are not the end of the road for Israeli politics as seats are elected to parties and then it is up to the party to fill those seats. Furthermore, the large number of political parties almost guarantees the need for coalition governments. The Jerusalem Post describes the environmental hopes of the Knesset elections, which come from a variety of political perspectives. This could prove a strength for the movement as environmental advocacy in the Knesset will be present regardless of a Right or Left majority.

Four incoming “MK”s mentioned in the Post’s article that I will focus on are Dov Henin of the Joint Arab List, Eitan Cabel of the Zionist Union, Moshe Gofne of United Torah Judaism, and Rachel Azaria of the Kulanu party.

Dov Khenin. Photo from http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-elections-2013/israeli-elections-news-features/mk-dov-khenin-netanyahu-government-is-dangerous-for-israel-1.494332

Dov Henin is the head of the Program of Environmental Justice at the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and holds leadership positions in Knesset committees relating to the Environment. The Joint Arab List is a new party coalition for this election and united all of the separate Arab parties. Henin previously represented the Jewish-Arab Hadash party and combines communist roots, Arab nationalism, and environmental advocacy.

Eitan Cabel. Photo from http://hamahanehazioni.co.il/zionist/?team_member=eitan-cabel&lang=en

Eitan Cabel advocates for the rights of all sorts of citizens. In terms of the environment, one of his many roles in the Knesset was the head of the Animal Rights Lobby.  As for the larger party, Yael Cohen Paren is the head of the Green movement and played a major role in creating the environmental platform of the Zionist Union Party. Issues include air pollution and sea pollution due to oil extraction.

Moshe Gafni. photo from http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-moshe-gafni-to-head-knesset-finance-committee-1001022358

Moshe Gofni will be heading the Knesset’s finance committee so at least one kind of “green” will be covered. Previous environmental issues have included legislation against beach development, and his continued partnership with Henin will mostly continue through this new government. His “ultra-conservative” party also claims the environment as a focus in this elections’ campaign.

Rachel Azaria. photo from http://2013.generalassembly.org/speakers/bio/rachel-azaria

Rachel Azaria, deputy mayor of Jerusalem and an Orthodox Feminist, holds liberal views which lend themselves to environmentally-friendly policies. She is also on the board of the Israeli environmental volunteer association Green Course. The Kulanu party is new in Israeli politics and new for Azaria and so its overall policy platform is still being developed, although its pluralistic approach to politics provide a good likelihood of advocating for environmentally-friendly legislation.

What’s most promising about these MKs is not their environmental records but their involvement in other initiatives. A strong diverse legislative record which includes environmental advocacy is what adds legitimacy to these MKs’ points-of-views. If a member focused solely on environmental issues, they could be easily cast aside. However, an Orthodox feminist, Arab Jew, super-conservative finance leader, and advocate for military members and their families beg attention draw attention and respect to their legislative initiatives, including the environmental ones.

A U.S. Double-Standard: Per Usual

Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at talks in Lausanne, Switzerland. Photo by Brian Snyder (http://news.yahoo.com/us-iran-nuclear-pact-deadline-approaching-071208446–politics.html)

Ever since the U.S. has largely come out of its isolationist shell in the beginning of the 20th century, it’s seen unstable regimes as a danger to U.S. national security.

The logic makes sense especially in an ever-increasingly globalized world: an unstable or illegitimate regime often sparks civil resistance movements which in turn could lead to human rights abuses, failing economies, and could inspire neighboring countries to make an effort to take control of the weak state.

The easiest examples of this logic are from the Cold War. There was nothing in Vietnam which would otherwise attract U.S. interest. However, eventually the communist sphere of the world took advantage of its weak regime and Vietnam was suddenly detrimental to U.S. security. If the U.S.-backed southern regime did not win, the communist north backed by Russia and China would surely turn the state communist, thus threatening the very existence of the Democratic Republic United States. Or so the Cold War paranoia goes.

Aren’t we over this fear now that the communist threat in large disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s?

U.S. Troops as part of the NATO mission in Bosnia. Photo from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ europe/country_profiles/1549072.stm

The short answer, not really. The U.S. took part in the NATO Stabilization Force in Bosnia up through 2004 (note the name) and then more recently, the bombings in Libya during the Arab Spring revolution against Muamar Gaddafi. TIME quotes President Obama as rationalizing Gaddafi’s removal as necessary or “the entire region could be destabilized”.

The U.S. understandably wants to work with other regimes who are somewhat predictable over time so that the U.S. can trust them to at least probably follow previous treaties, informal commitments, and agreements.

Yet, the U.S. is not even capable of promising this of themselves thanks to 47 Republican Senators’ open letter. Current news stories describing negotiations this week point out that the letter has earned a spot on the agenda for today. Solomon of The Wall Street Journal writes that Tehran officials “have publicly questioned in recent days whether the White House will be able to execute any agreement…”

Senator Tom Cotton, lead signatory of the open letter. Photo by Danny Johnston (http://www.thv11.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/11/sen-cotton-why-we-wrote-the-letter-to-iran/70144804/)

Sounds pretty hypocritical to me. Such worries lie behind the U.S.’s support for stable, or what they think will be, stable regimes- how could the U.S. have signed any of the weapon-reduction agreements with the Soviet Union if it believed Gorbachev could be ousted at any moment?

In fact, detente came at a time when the U.S. and the Soviet Union thought that the Cold War bi-polarity was “here to stay” and so it was time to learn how to live with it. This stability could be seen as the precise reason/driver for detente- treaties seemed attainable once it looked as though the regime of both sides would maintain a general level of stability.

So back to the current nuclear topics with Iran. The Republican letter gave reason for Iran to doubt the U.S.’s ability to hold up its side of the bargain, so why should Iran? Whether the letter was unconstitutional or not is irrelevant to this argument because either way, this move was stupid.

The Senators’ letter undermined U.S. regime legitimacy in any future negotiations with anyone by pointing out the unspoken fear of many- Executive Actions are no longer effective with an almost guaranteed rebuke by Congress no matter which party is where. Although this was no secret, there’s a difference between thinking such a thought and having U.S. officials blatantly state the fact.

Will this change the U.S.’s standard in judging other regimes’ legitimacy? Not a chance. But will this change other regimes’ judgments of U.S. regime legitimacy/efficacy? Without a doubt.

My Water Footprint

Calculated at http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/change-the-course/water-footprint-calculator/

According to National Geographic’s water footprint calculator, I score a 1,159 gallon/day water footprint- 929 gallons less than the U.S. Average. This translates to my annual water usage average of 1,602 m³/year compared to the U.S. Average of 2,842 m³/year. Compare this to the average annual water footprints in the Levant area in the table below.

Country	Average Water Footprint	% freshwater from outside country
Me	1,602 m3/year
U.S.	2,842 m3/year	20.2
Israel	2,303 m3/year	81.5
Jordan	1, 678 m3/year	85.8
Lebanon	2,112 m3/year	72.9
Syria	2,107 m3/year	15.9

My annual water footprint is still lower than any of the Levant states, although it comes closest to Jordan’s average usage which is only 76 m³/year more than mine. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that the amount of water Levant-area citizens use is sufficient as people in the U.S. live on even lower annual amounts just fine.

For one, water quality is much different, so that even if citizens in the Levant use more water on average than I do, the water they use could be contaminated by waste and bacteria which then cause diseases. Also, water is often not as democratically distributed in the Middle East even though an average water footprint hides the fact that there is a large discrepancy between water distribution to those at the bottom and top.

From http://www2.dickinson.edu/departments/envst/facilities.html

Also, I feel I should share a disclaimer- I live in the Treehouse which is Dickinson’s Center for Sustainable Living. Thus, when I moved in last semester I agreed to live sustainably, which included spending a maximum of 15 minutes of shower water/week, using only cold water to wash clothes, and living in a pretty cold house. Plus, being around people interested in living the same way has inspired me to eat less meat, spend more time outdoors, and be locally minded.

From http://moosealmighty.co.uk/picsvkzr/dickinson-college-dorms

Plus, my house is Gold LEED certified and so it’s built to do more with less. We have solar panels and huge windows that bring sunlight in. We even have a grey water system except that we don’t even use enough water to allow it function and so we had to turn it off. Long story short, I pride myself in using less water than most and I realize that my choice to sacrifice things such as long showers is very different than when others are forced to take short or no showers due to water shortages.

Note also the differences in the amount of freshwater usage which is imported from other states. Besides Syria, which is less dependent on others for their freshwater needs than the U.S., Levant-area states are on average dependent on other states for around 75% of their freshwater needs.

This dependency in turn impacts the international relations of the region. Freshwater access is vital to both citizens and the stability of states themselves. Water shortages threaten civil unrest due to things like unclean water sources and drought-affected crops, which in turn leads to starvation.

Thus, when a threat to outside freshwater occurs, states will prioritize finding solutions ASAP to avoid possible internal strife. This can result in states giving in to more concessions than they otherwise would in order to ensure internal stability.

Political Me

Words from various flyers on Dickinson Campus- Recycle for our earth.