second time by farmers, in effect taking the "waste" out 

 of wastewater. Recycled water makes up a fifth of Israel's 

 total supply, and its share is projected to grow. 



Despite such gains in efficiency, irrigated agriculture 

 still accounts for about two-thirds of Israel's water use, yet 

 it contributes only 2 percent to the nation's gross domestic 

 product. Israel imports a good deal of its wheat and other 

 staple foods, but it still irrigates substantial tracts planted 

 with fruits, vegetables, and other high-return crops. By 

 reducing agricultural water subsidies and paring back ir- 

 rigated farming, Israel could free up a substantial quantity 



part, Palestinians publicly blame Israel's water greediness. 

 Yet behind the scenes, even during the worst of the second 

 intifada, ministers from both sides quietly met and agreed 

 not to damage each other's water infrastructure. 



Joined in destiny by the hydrological cycle, the people 

 of the Jordan River basin know, whether consciously 

 or subconsciously, that they must share the water of 

 the basin and that cooperation can benefit them all. While 

 traveling in the hills of Israel's western Galilee region in 

 1992, 1 visited an Arab village of 7,000 people called Kfar 



Even during the worst of the second intifada, ministers from both sides 

 quietly met and agreed not to damage each other's water infrastructure. 



of water to share with its Palestinian neighbors — at little 

 cost to its own economy. 



Desalination — the removal of salt from seawater — could 

 also yield sizable peace dividends. Although its costs 

 are still high, they have fallen substantially in the past 

 decade. In 2005, at Ashkelon, on the southern Mediter- 

 ranean coast just north of Gaza, Israel opened the first of 

 five planned desalination facilities. By a process called 

 reverse osmosis, in which saltwater is filtered through a 

 fine polymer membrane under high pressure to separate 

 out the salts, the facility can produce 100 million cubic 

 meters of desalinated water per year. That capacity makes 

 the Ashkelon plant the largest reverse-osmosis seawater 

 desalination plant in the world. 



By 2010, Israel expects to be desalinating a total of 315 

 million cubic meters ot seawater per year, nearly equal to 

 its current use of freshwater from the West Bank aquifers. 

 If Israel were to substitute desalinated seawater for West 

 Bank groundwater, Palestinians there could double their 

 current water use while easing up on the overpumping 

 of the aquifers. 



Unfortunately, no such deal is in the cards. Israeli officials 

 have instead proposed that the United States help fund 

 the construction of a desalination plant on the Mediter- 

 ranean coast at Caesarea. From there, they suggest, the 

 desalinated water could be transferred to the West Bank 

 for use by the Palestinians. Under that proposal, Israel 

 would retain its control of West Bank groundwater, and 

 the Palestinians would get high-priced desalinated sea- 

 water from Israeli territory — hardly a recipe for Palestin- 

 ian water security. 



Why is Israel pushing for this approach? Driven by a 

 deep mistrust of Palestinian motives, Israel feels a need to 

 retain control over the region's water supplies. For their 



Manda. The sewage from the village was managed by a 

 neighboringjewish community, Yodfat. A series of small 

 reservoirs stored Kfar Manda's wastewater and treated 

 it biologically; it then became a source for drip irriga- 

 tion in Yodfat's cotton fields. The Arab villagers got an 

 inexpensive way of handling their sewage, which might 

 otherwise have flowed untreated into their surround- 

 ings. And the Yodfat farmers got a reliable and less costly 

 source of water for irrigation — water that carried enough 

 nitrogen and phosphorus to markedly cut their fertilizer 

 costs. By bridging the ethnic and religious divides, the 

 two communities reaped benefits that neither would have 

 achieved without the other. 



With similar methods and goals in mind, EcoPeace/ 

 Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), a private or- 

 ganization of Arab and Israeli environmentalists, initiated 

 the "Good Water Neighbors" project in 2001. It aims to 

 organize joint water-management projects between cross- 

 border communities in Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian 

 territories. Seventeen communities are participating so 

 far, each one working with its partner across their com- 

 mon border on the water problems they share. A mayors' 

 network has been formed to give residents a voice on such 

 larger issues as the health of the Jordan River, the demise 

 of the Dead Sea, and the implications of the separation 

 wall under construction in the West Bank. 



Along with the drip irrigation lines and desalination 

 units that increasingly dot the landscape of the Jordan 

 River basin, technical and civilian cooperation has per- 

 sisted throughout years of violence and political stalemate. 

 That spirit of cooperation stands ready to be harnessed 

 and augmented to build a secure water future for all in the 

 region. If it is not, political leaders will have squandered 

 far more than water. D 



To find Web links related to this article, visit 

 www.naturaihistorymag.com and click "Online Extras," then "Web Links," and finally "November 2007." 



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NATURAL HISTORY November 2007 



