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Michael Jacobs
Jewish Renaissance Media

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fter years of watching from the
sidelines and making occa-
sional comments as the regional
rivals battled in the media and made no
progress in negotiations, President Bush
intervened last fall, bringing the leaders
together in the Washington area for direct
talks.
The much-hyped White House involve-
ment re-energized the negotiations and
revived hopes for a resolution, but the
subsequent months of talks have missed
deadlines and made no apparent progress
amid bitterness and heated rhetoric. And
the conflict is threatening to spread.
The object of this floundering federal
diplomacy could be peace between Israel
and the Palestinians, but instead it's the
allocation of precious water resources
among Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
Population growth and drought have
driven the states to Congress, the courts
and the White House in search of the
water they need for industry, wildlife and
humans. The rhetoric is ugly, as are imag-
es of drying lakes and dying mollusks.
The governors of the three states missed a
mid-February deadline for a final agree-
ment and appear to be deadlocked.
While the shots fired by Georgia,
Florida, Alabama are rhetorical and meta-
phorical, water has the potential to push
the Middle East toward real violence or to
provide a key to peace-building coopera-

tion.
"The next war is going to be over
water, not over borders:' said Sherwin
Pomerantz, the president of Israeli con-
sulting firm Atid EDI."Our water prob-
lems are bigger than Georgia's:'
Water allocations are a major stumbling
block for any Israeli peace deal, whether
with the Palestinians, who are dependent
on Israeli water; the Syrians, who have
the geographic advantage of controlling
the sources of the Sea of Galilee; or any of
Israel's desert-dwelling neighbors to the
east and south.
"The Middle East, as everywhere, we
are drying out of fresh water:' said Reda
Mansour, the Israeli consul general to the
Southeast United States. "Everybody in the
Middle East has a water problem, from
the regular, standard problem to a severe
problem. Even the Nile isn't enough for
Egypt at the rate it's growing:'
Joe Hess, the Jewish National Fund's vice
president of government relations, said the
region is "an absolute mess. There has to
be cooperation in all countries, including
Syria, including Lebanon ... Water knows
no boundaries."
That's a truth that applies around the
world. Experts estimate that 2 billion peo-
ple lack sufficient safe drinking water. The
problem is worsening through population
growth and climate change and is felt in
almost every nation. Contaminated drink-
ing water is a problem in the United States
and Europe, just as it is in China and poor
nations.

"The situation of water is not a joke
worldwide said Natan Parsons, an Israeli
native who leads a Massachusetts com-
pany called Water Synergies and serves as
the Jewish National Fund's national water
chairman. "It's a time bomb that needs to
be addressed:'

Israeli Innovations
Environmental, economic and security
concerns are driving the world to find
alternatives to oil, but water is the essen-
tial substance for which there is no sub-
stitute. And Israeli innovation is an irre-
placeable part of the global solution.
"We're located on the desert border. We
don't have enough water:' said Booky Oren,
former chairman of the Israeli national
water company, Mekorot, who now leads
the Arison Water Initiative, a $100 million
private-sector effort to develop water tech-
nologies. "One day, the world would cope
with water shortages. But here in Israel, we
have learned a few things that are leading
the world:'
Israel is a superpower in the technolo-
gies related to water — maximizing sup-
ply, maximizing use and reuse, minimiz-
ing waste and contamination. From drip
irrigation to desalination, from filtration
and biological treatment to anti-leakage
sensors and ultraviolet decontamination,
all supported by sophisticated manage-
ment and control systems, Israel is on the
dripping edge of a global boom market
that already is worth about $500 billion a
year.

Parsons said the market should grow 10
percent annually for years to come.
He said the growth will be sustainable,
unlike the high-tech bubble of the late
1990s. In time, he said, "I see that industry
mushrooming to magnitudes that might
even dwarf the oil industry"
Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark,
France and the United States are among
the innovators in the industry; but Oren
and others call Israel the Silicon Valley of
the water industry, a dominant position
gained through necessity. The nation has
one reliable natural source of drinking
water, the Sea of Galilee; but most of its
tributaries run through Syria. Israel's 7
million people are surrounded by saltwa-
ter seas, deserts and thirsty neighbors.
As recently as five years ago, JNF
reported, Israel was running a freshwater
deficit of 131 billion gallons a year, about
one-third of the water it consumed, mean-
ing the country was gradually draining the
Sea of Galilee and drying the Jordan River.
The national Water Commission declared
an impending crisis.
JNF responded by making water a
priority and building reservoirs. The 200
constructed so far contribute nearly 5.3
billion gallons of water a year to the Israeli
system.
Mekorot commissioned three $1 billion
reverse-osmosis desalination plants on the
Mediterranean coast. The plants apply a
classic method to turn sea water into drink-
ing water but do it on an unprecedented
scale with highly efficient energy use.

Shell Game on page A22

Mach 6 2008

A21

