Abstract
This paper recounts the environmental history of a main waterway in Northern Israel—the Kishon, and deploys this history to examine the evolution of Israel water policy as it struggled to bridge the growing gap between its ambitions of development and the realities of its limited water supply. The first part of the paper describes the decay of the Kishon since the early 1950s, and the multiple scientific, political and legal attempts to alleviate its misfortunes, and discusses the reasons for their failings. Some of these reasons were administrative by nature, but the paper suggests a deeper reason, rooted in the ideological core of the infant state that was overwhelmingly concerned with the development of its infrastructure, and invited the pioneering Israeli society to consider the demise of the Kishon as a necessary sacrifice for progress. The second part of the paper describes the late-20th century developments that allowed for the recovery of the ailing river. Changing social mores, the growing importance of environmental politics, the advance of Israel’s water technologies, and an environmental scandal that endowed the rehabilitation of the Kishon with a new political and moral meaning, have all contributed to the rehabilitation of the river. Once a testament for the sacrifices involved in a struggle to create a viable state, the Kishon has become a theater for a confident society that has triumphed in its struggle against nature.
Highlights
What drives the ubiquitous conflict between national interests of development and environmental protection, and how is it best managed? This paper describes how Israel’s water policy makers have struggled to answer these questions, and analyzes how their answers were shaped by the evolving relations between nature, society, ideology, technology, and the young state
Well aware of the country’s limited supply, Israeli legislators developed, early on, a powerful legal framework to administrate Israel’s water resources [2]. This powerful machinery could not prevent the destruction of Israel’s natural waterways system [3]. Their headwaters redirected to quench the thirst of the growing population and agricultural-based economy, Israel rivers and streams languished and their flow became dominated by the wastewater of the thriving modern nation: Agricultural runoff, industrial waste and urban sewage [4]
The paper focuses on the environmental history of a main waterway in Northern Israel—the
Summary
What drives the ubiquitous conflict between national interests of development and environmental protection, and how is it best managed? This paper describes how Israel’s water policy makers have struggled to answer these questions, and analyzes how their answers were shaped by the evolving relations between nature, society, ideology, technology, and the young state. Well aware of the country’s limited supply, Israeli legislators developed, early on, a powerful legal framework to administrate Israel’s water resources [2]. This powerful machinery could not prevent the destruction of Israel’s natural waterways system [3]. Their headwaters redirected to quench the thirst of the growing population and agricultural-based economy, Israel rivers and streams languished and their flow became dominated by the wastewater of the thriving modern nation: Agricultural runoff, industrial waste and urban sewage [4]. The military denied the claim and the dispute escalated into a bitter public dispute that endowed the rehabilitation of the Kishon with a new political and moral meaning [8]
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