Greens Engage

On Project Syndicate, Vaclav Havel et al write:

“The situation may be more promising than it appears, but one cannot deny that hope for real changes on the ground has faded since talks were re-launched two years ago. This loss of faith is, sadly, establishing a dynamic that will itself inhibit the concessions that are needed if a permanent agreement is to be found.

Because an impasse beckons, it is vitally important to work on those areas where intensive negotiations have the potential to produce quick results. Fresh water is one such area.

Across the Middle East, water is a security issue. Indeed, people are now recognizing two important facts. First, nations faced with conflicting claims to water have historically found ways to collaborate rather than to fight. Even during the 60 years of conflict in the Jordan Valley, water has more often been a source of cooperation than of conflict.

Second, water scarcity is seldom absolute, and even less often an explanation of poverty. To quote the United Nations Human Development Report for 2006: “There is more than enough water in the world for domestic purposes, for agriculture and for industry….Scarcity is manufactured through political processes and institutions that disadvantage the poor.”

But almost every nation in the Middle East is using more water than arrives on a renewable basis. There simply is not enough water for everything these nations want to use it for, and the situation will only worsen. Yet, even in Palestine, the key water issue is not thirst, but arrested economic development. In the short term, Palestine needs more water to provide employment and income from farming; in the longer term, educational, cultural, and political changes are needed in order to develop a capacity to adapt.”

Read it all.

Israelis and Palestinians are working on it.

A letter from Andrew White of www.beyondimages.info, some of Israel’s high-level contributions to meeting the global environmental challenge.

Israel and the global environmental challenge

Last week, the UK Green Party passed a resolution calling for a wide-ranging boycott of Israel. The Greens campaign on environmental issues generally, chiefly global warming.

The Green’s move is absurd for the same reason that any boycott motion against Israel is absurd:

• it reflects a totally one-sided view of a complex conflict;
• it does nothing to promote coexistence and dialogue;
• it emboldens the [fundamentalist] Islamist mindset and rejectionism;
• it reflects double-standards, and is completely counter-productive.

(See Beyond Images Briefing 30, on the proposed academic boycott of Israel, in which we summarised these and several other arguments).

But there’s a strong additional reason why the Green Party’s move is absurd.

Israel is contributing significantly to worldwide efforts to counter climate change:

• Israel’s solar energy sector is pioneering, and having an increasing international impact
• Israel is at the forefront of the international drive to combat so-called ‘desertification’ – the steady spread of deserts and the destruction of farmland and forests
• The UN General Assembly recently adopted a milestone resolution on agricultural development which was sponsored by Israel, and which promotes environmentally friendly agricultural practices internationally, including many devised in Israel
• Israel’s university research labs are leading the way in clean energy research and innovation
• Israeli companies are deeply involved in introducing energy-efficient technologies for powering vehicles, factories and other infrastructure
• Israeli start-up companies such as Water Sheer as well as the national water carrier Mekorot are championing new methods of recycling waste water. They are helping to spread the know how to provide clean drinking water for the world’s poor and vulnerable, again with major environmental and human benefits
• There are many grass-roots, citizens’ initiatives in Israel (including joint Israeli-Palestinian projects) which promote environmental awareness and changes of lifestyle

There’s plenty more which Israel is doing to help the green revolution on its way.

That’s the country which the Greens have just voted to boycott…