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Scale and the resource nexus
Published in Raimund Bleischwitz, Holger Hoff, Catalina Spataru, Ester van der Voet, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Routledge Handbook of the Resource Nexus, 2017
Corey Johnson, Stacy D. VanDeveer
Yet the scalar aspects of water governance also provide opportunities for cooperative management. In areas where water is not abundant, water governance is typically at the community or higher scale. The case of Israel and its neighbors offers a good example of the scalar dynamics of water governance, and it also provides some insight into the material as well as the socially constructed elements of scale as it pertains to water resources and their management. Prior to the 1930s, water management for Jews and Arabs in the Levant was largely a community affair, but with the arrival of larger numbers of Jews and “the state-building development ethos espoused by the Zionist movement from the outset” (Feitelson and Fischhendler, 2009, 733), basin- and interbasin-scale projects were developed, such as the Kishon project started in 1937 (ibid.). With the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, a national-scale effort at water management was introduced, one that sought to encourage development in water-poor parts of the country through large-scale interbasin transfers such as the National Water Carrier that moves water from the Upper Jordan River basin (especially the Sea of Galilee) to communities in the dryer Negev in the south of the country. During the 1980s, a growing environmental movement in Israel successfully lobbied for the construction of wastewater facilities, giving rise to a water governance system wherein freshwater supply is still largely national in scope, while wastewater and drainage is managed at the basin scale.
Can climate change challenges unite a divided Jordan River Basin?
Published in Larry A. Swatuk, Lars Wirkus, Water, Climate Change and the Boomerang Effect, 2018
Nikita Yasmin Shah, Lars Wirkus, Larry Swatuk
In 1951, Jordan made public plans to irrigate the Jordan Valley using the Yarmouk River for agriculture and development. Israel responded by initiating the drainage of the Huleh swamps situated between Israel and Syria’s demilitarized zone, causing a dispute over borders (Wolf, 1997 and Samson and Charrier, 1997 in Gleick, 2004: 240). In 1953, Israel began constructing the ‘National Water Carrier’ for irrigation purposes; water would be transferred from the North of the Sea of Galilee out of the Jordan Basin and into the Negev Desert (Samson and Charrier, 1997 in Gleick, 2004: 242). However, due to international disapproval and Syrian military actions along the border, Israel had to move its intake to the Sea of Galilee (Samson and Charrier, 1997 in Gleick, 2004: 242). The Arab League gathered at the Arab Summit in 1964 to discuss plans on halting Israel’s National Water Carrier and to divert the headwaters Hasbani and Banias of the Jordan River to Syria and Jordan (Wolf, 1995, 1997 in Gleick, 2004: 243; FAO Aquastat 2009: 9). Upon Israeli’s learning of discussions over the new diversion projects from which Israel was excluded, Israel attacked diversion projects in Syria from 1965 to 1967. These small-scale conflicts, alongside others, led to the Six-Day War in 1967 that resulted in Israel gaining control over the entire Lower Jordan River, Mountain Aquifers in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, dramatically changing the power relations within the basin. Israel had become the most powerful riparian state and henceforth used this power to dominate over riparian states and to pursue national building. Israel began to confiscate and/or destroy Palestinian irrigation pumps on the Jordan River, introduced quotas on existing Palestinian irrigation wells, forbidding the establishment of new ones, and prevented Palestinians from accessing and using water from the Jordan River; instead, water was to be purchased from Israel, establishing a relationship of dependency and control whilst disregarding Palestinian water rights (FAO Aquastat 2009: 9). Israel established settlements in Palestinian areas (established in the Armistice Agreement), where water continues to be unequally distributed amongst Palestinians and Israeli settlers. In 2001, Palestinians destroyed water-supply pipelines connected to Israeli settlements in the West Bank; thus Israel responded by disconnecting the Aqbat Jabar refugee camp from its water supply pumps (ENS, 2001 in Gleick, 2004: 249). To this day, Israel cuts water supplies as a punishment or to exert control. During Ramadan in 2016 Israel cut water supplies in the municipality of Jenin in Palestine, preventing Palestinians, including those who were fasting, from collecting water (Yeung 2016; Al Jazeera 2016). Such actions hinder peace and incite conflict.
Cost–benefit analysis of full and partial river restoration: the Kishon River in Israel
Published in International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2019
Nir Becker, Asael Greenfeld, Shiri Zemah Shamir
In a comprehensive review of its environmental history, Golan (2016) uses the story of the Kishon River to demonstrate the political-cultural shift in Israel’s attitude to its natural resources. In Israel’s early years, the Kishon’s natural flow was captured to support the National Water Carrier project (in 1953), and regional sewage was directed to the river via a treatment plant (in 1961). This domestic contamination added to industrial and agricultural waste throughout the river system, with detrimental effects on the wildlife as well as on humans exposed to the water, who were harmed directly or affected by secondary contamination. According to Golan (2016), Israeli society sacrificed the most important waterway in the north of the country to support the building of the state. This ethos continued to prevail throughout the 1970s and ’80s, despite accumulating public unease with the river’s physical condition. It was only towards the end of the twentieth century that the tide turned. This happened due to increasing environmental awareness, supported by public concern regarding the incidence of cancer in naval commando unit veterans who had done extensive diving training in the Kishon River for years (Avishai, Rabinowits, Moiseeva, & Rinkvich, 2002; Shoshana, 2013). The shift in public opinion led to a decision by the Israeli government to engage in the rehabilitation of all its coastal streams, and particularly the Kishon River (O’Sullivan, 2001; Shoshana, 2013).