MONUMENT
CENTER
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INC.
r rz..-rfe
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K7akzeei
45 years"
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For Many Centuries,
Much Ado About Water
DOV HOCH SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
However, according to Minis-
t the Paris peace talks in
ter
of Agriculture Yaakov Tsur,
1919, the World Zionist
Organization submitted a about 60 percent of the water con-
territorial plan for a Jew- sumed in Israel goes to agricul-
ish State. The area is proposed ture, which costs much less to
included all of the Jordan River process than potable water. There
basin; the headwaters that feed are desalination plants in Eilat
it and part of the Litani River in and Ashdod, the latter being able
southern Lebanon. The borders to produce 20,000 CM per day,
overlapped the British and sufficient for 40,000 people.
According to Ms. Tamir and
French mandates and didn't re-
gard major population centers. former water commissioner Dan
However, what they did demon- Zaslasky, within the next sever-
strate was Israel's acute under- al years, more efficient desalina-
tion technologies will be
standing of hydro-politics.
Today those same water developed. Meanwhile, the Israeli
sources flow through Judea and government will probably con-
Amaria and link the four coun- tinue to subsidize water costs to
tries involved in the bilateral the tune of $200 million annu-
Middle East peace talks, thus cre- ally.
At the First
PHOTO BY WZPS/SAMMY AVNISAN
ating a source of
International
Is-
conflict. "Water
raeli-Palestinian
is inextricably
Conference on
tied to territory
Water in 1992,
and for that rea-
Boaz Wachtel, a
son cannot be
former assistant
separated from
military at-
the bilateral
tached at the Is-
peace talks,
raeli Embassy in
says Marwan
Washington,
Haddad, head
Presented a
of the Palestin-
plan called the
ian delegation
"Peace Canal."
to the water
Simultaneously
talks.
addressing both
In fact, some
water and secu-
33 percent of Is-
rity concerns, it
rael's water is A natural pool In Beith Shean Valley.
suggested the
from rain that
falls in Judea and Samaria and building of a pipeline to carry wa-
an additional 15 percent origi- ter from the elevated Atatuk
nates on the Golan Heights and Baraji Lake (800 meters above
in tributaries of the Jordan Riv- sea level) in eastern Turkey to
er in Lebanon. Lake Tiberias (200 meters below
So important is the water is- sea level) and the Yarmouk Riv-
sue that the subject was dealt er on the Syrian/Jordanian bor-
with independently in the multi- der. The pipeline would open up
lateral talks where 40 states (12 into an open canal on the Golan
of them Arab) met to discuss the Heights along the Israel-Syrian
potential for regional manage- border and serve as an anti-tank
ment of water resources. ditch.
In addition to conveying water
Meanwhile, academics and en-
trepreneurs are increasingly con- to Syria, Jordan, Israel and the
sidering water to be like every Palestinians, Mr Wachtel's plan
other commodity — producible or called for generating hydroelec-
importable: it can be produced tric power which, Mr. Wachtel
through desalination or import- said, could be sold to Syria. The
ed from water-rich countries like money, in turn, would go toward
Turkey. paying Turkey for the imported
But, according to Ora Tamir, water.
Onur Gokce, the Turkish Am-
legal adviser to the Israeli water
commissioner and a participant bassador in Israel, says his gov-
in the regional water negotiations, ernment is willing ton consider
`Water is money." It canbe bound- the plan as a commercial project.
lessly produced through desali- However, it clearly calls for full
nation, but the process requires regional cooperation, and for Is-
tremendous amounts of energy, rael to have to rely on several
which current renders it drinkable transfer states for it water is
is between $1-$1.25. The current highly problematic. In the past,
cost of household water in Israel Syria and Iraq have protested to
is about $0.30 per CM, although Turkey about the reduced flow of
this price reflects substantial gov- the Euphrates river to their coun-
ernment subsidies. tries due to water exports.
A
Nonetheless, in March 1994,
President Ezer Weizman visited
Turkey and took up the issue of
importing water, as Foreign Min-
ister Shimon Peres in April 1994.
An alternative to relying on
transfer states like Syria to con-
vey water is being promoted by a
Canadian company which last
year came up with a new method
of importing fresh water. With Is-
rael and Libya as its first two tar-
get countries, it has invented a
huge, plastic sea-bound barge
able to transfer 1.6 million cubic
meters of water at a time-enough
to fill about two-thirds of one of
New York's World Trade Center
towers.
Called the Medusa Corpora-
tion of Calgary, the company
claims it can deliver water to Is-
rael for bout $0.20 per CM. Tug
boats would pull the barges from
one country to the other, then the
water would be pumped into
loading facilities and later into
the national water carrier. How-
ever, unlike locally desalinated
water, imported water must be
conveyed throughout the coun-
try. This would involve the same
infrastructure, maintenance and
energy costs that make up cur-
rent water costs in Israel.
Agriculture Minister Tsur feels
that this solution is impractica-
ble. The ministry would far pre-
fer to expand its desalination
programs, which according to En-
ergy Minister Moshe Shahal, will
solve the Israeli-Palestinian wa-
ter problems within the next 20
or 30 years.L1
WZPS
Rome, Jerusalem
Link For TV
Rome (JTA) — Rome, the Vati-
can and Jerusalem were linked
up for a special television "talk
show" transmission that looked
to the year 2000.
Titled "The Threshold of Hope:
Five Years From 2000," the two-
hour program was arranged and
broadcast by a Catholic television
station, Telepace, and the Italian
commercial TV network, Tele-
montecarlo.
The live March 15 hookup
linked Rome's historic city hall,
the Campidoglio, with the Vati-
can across town and with
Jerusalem.
Participants included Christ-
ian and Jewish religious
figures and Italian and Israeli
political leaders. They discussed
issues concerning religion, tol-
erance and the Middle East peace
process. ❑
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