By Britten Schear, Special to JTNews
Ze’ev Kahanov was not dissuaded by the poor turnout to his lecture at Congregation Beth Shalom on Wed, Feb. 12. Speaking to an audience of about 15, Kahanov was quite at ease, telling jokes in his soft Israeli accent and inviting his listeners to interrupt him with questions at any point. The setting for his lecture, however, sharply contrasted with the seriousness of his message.
Kahanov is the central shaliach, or emissary, of Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael, known more commonly in the United States as the Jewish National Fund. Kahanov came to Seattle by invitation of Bunny Alexandroni, the consultant, director, and sole operator of JNF’s Northwest office. Kahanov spoke about the desperate water shortage that now threatens Israel’s survival.
The day was a fitting one on which to give a lecture for the JNF, Kahanov began by saying, as it was the anniversary of his grandfather’s memorial. Kahanov’s grandfather’s mother and father were killed in pogroms in Russia. He escaped and went to where Israel is today to live, and planted his community’s first tree in 1883. On Feb. 12, 1918, he was murdered by British forces in Damascus.
While trees are certainly what come to mind in connection with the JNF, Kahanov then reminded the audience that his grandfather’s planting of the tree was heavily symbolic. “Herzl didn’t dream of trees,” Kahanov said. “The issue was of ownership. Land ownership.” What’s more, Kahanov added, farming is “part of the mythology of returning to the land and Zionist ideals,” and all of this is dependent upon the availability of water.
Israel is now in its sixth year of drought. Despite 50 percent of Israel’s water being recycled, Israelis have not reduced domestic consumption, and have actually been increasing their water usage. In 2002, each person consumed an average 105 cubic meters of water. One cubic meter should be enough to provide one person with three and a half days of water. Because public campaigns haven’t worked to reduce consumption, Israel faces having no fresh water for farming in 10 years’ time.
So why has this issue received little attention? “Suicide bombings on one side, political crises on the other side,” Kahanov explained, “[water issues] just get lost in the middle.”
It may appear that Israel has more important things to worry about, but, Kahanov warned, there is a “political context to the whole water issue. At the end of the day, the Israeli-Arab conflict is over land, which is over water.”
A history of political problems that has faced Israel can be traced back to struggles over water. The 1967 Six-Day War, Kahanov cited as an example, was largely the result of Syria attempting to divert the waters of the Jordan River away from Israel. Even between countries with friendly relations, such as the U.S. and Mexico, there are ugly fights over who will control water resources.
“Now imagine,” Kahanov suggested, “how Israel, being surrounded by 220 million Arabs, complicates the struggle for water.”
“Are Israel’s water problems solvable,” one attendee asked Kahanov, “without cooperation from neighbors?”
The first issue, Kahanov responded, is that “water knows no boundaries,” and as such rivers will begin in one country and end in the neighboring country.
Who then controls the water? The country from which the river originates or the country into which it pools? For example, the Kinneret, or Sea of Galilee, is the source of 35 percent of Israel’s water, but it borders Syria along the northeast corner of Israel.
The Negev Desert sits atop groundwater that can be purified, but it borders Egypt along the southwest corner of Israel. If animosities were to again ignite between Israel and either Syria or Egypt, as they did in 1967, two of Israel’s water sources could be seriously jeopardized.
Lack of water and its preservation are not Israel’s only problems, however: all of Israel’s streams are polluted. Kahanov recalled Israel’s Maccabiah Games, during which two Australian athletes died and dozens of others were sickened by drinking water from Tel Aviv’s Yarkon River. Analysts at the time described the river as a “deadly cocktail of chemicals and pollutants.”
Kahanov welcomed many suggestions from the audience, but assured everyone that Israel is constantly trying to devise easier ways to maintain water resources. Past ideas have included shipping in water from Turkey, which proved too expensive, and a complicated desalinization process that involved water cascading down a very tall tower — a plan hindered by the tower’s necessity to be one mile high in order to separate the salt from the water.
The most promising solution, Kahanov said, is the addition of reservoirs. One eighth of the water Israel acquires every year is dumped into the Mediterranean without being used, simply because there is no place to store it. With more reservoirs, the water could be adequately guarded, treated, and held for use.
The next important step would be the implementation of cheaper desalinization methods. The Knesset is now accepting bids from private companies who wish to build desalinization plants, especially along the shore of the Mediterranean. After 25 years, the plan states the facility would then be taken over by the government.
The JNF is seeking volunteers, as well as donations for the creation of more reservoirs and for continued research into desalinization methods. Please contact Bunny Alexandroni locally at [email protected], or at 425-443-6846.