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Palestine’s Man-Made Drought
USA Today marvels at Israeli feats of high-tech water management, but ignores that water's unjust distribution.
While the money flowing to presidential candidates who offer unqualified support for Israel is finally receiving some media attention, much of what falls under the rubric of “The Israel Lobby” is more subtle. In much of the mainstream media, it consists of a nearly incessant effort to present Israel to Americans as both exemplary (in terms of morals or science) and completely normal (as if Palestinians do not and never did exist). A striking instance of the phenomenon was presented over the weekend in USA Today, the middle-of-the-road national paper which, to my limited knowledge, has not been a foremost exponent of Israel Lobby positions.Over the weekend, it ran a piece, with illustrations, taking up the entire back page of the front section, entitled “Israel’s Guide to Water.” Michele Chabin, who seems to be the paper’s principal Israel correspondent, suggests that California might look towards the “Middle East”—that is, Israel—for a solution to its water difficulties. She then elaborates upon Israel’s decades of experience with managing scarce water resources, and the techniques and technologies that Israel has developed. She quotes an Israeli official, the former top water minister, who states reassuringly that “Israel no longer has a water shortage.” In a digression, she notes Israeli success in keeping pine trees alive in a dry climate, though not mentioning that the trees—”part of a man-made greenbelt”—are not indigenous to the region. The paper’s takeaway: brilliant Israelis, who make the desert bloom, can help solve California’s major problem.
No doubt much of what the article recounts is true. Israel’s utilization of water recycling and desalinization probably is state of the art, or close to it. California and other drought-affected areas might well learn something from Israeli engineers. But is this really the most salient aspect of the Israeli water story?http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/palestines-man-made-drought/
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