Between Ruin and RestoR ation HISTORY OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT Martin V. Melosi and Joel A. Tarr, Editors Between Ruin and RestoRation an enviRonmental HistoRy of isRael edited by daniel e. orenstein, alon tal, and Char miller univeRsity of Pitts BuRgH PRess Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260 Copyright © 2012, University of Pittsburgh Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 <CIP DATA SHEET TO COME> Dedicated to Azariah Alon and Amotz Zahavi and the late Yosef Tamir: Among Israel’s first environmental leaders, who saw that the road ahead could lead to ruin . or restoration. Contents Acknowledgments 000 Introduction 000 1. The Environment in Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period, 1798–1918 1 Ruth Kark and Noam Levin 2. The Environmental Legacy of the Fellaheen and the Bedouin in Palestine 29 No’am G. Seligman 3. Human Impact on Wildlife in Israel since the Nineteenth Century 53 Yoram Yom-Tov 4. Zionist and Israeli Perspectives on Population Growth and Environmental Impact in Palestine and Israel 82 Daniel E. Orenstein 5. Combating Desertification: Evolving Perceptions and Strategies 106 Alon Tal 6. The Agricultural Roots of Israel’s Water Crisis 129 Hillel Shuval 7. Open Space in an Urban Society 146 Iris Han 8. The Battle of the “True Believers”: Environmentalism in Israeli Party Politics 168 Orr Karrasin vii viii contents 9. Minority Report: Environmental Challenges Facing the Arab Society in Israel 190 Hussein Tarabeih 10. A Prolonged Recessional: The Continuing Influence of British Rule on Israeli Environmental Law 209 David Schorr 11. Marine Pollution Abatement along Israel’s Mediterranean Coast: A Story of Policy Success 229 Dorit Kerret 12. Olive Green: Environment, Militarism, and the Israel Defense Forces 242 Uri Gordon 13. “Going beyond Israel”: Epistemic Communities, Global Interests, and International Environmental Agreements 262 Rachelle Adam 14. Toward Sustainable Development: Mainstreaming Environment in Israel 285 Valerie Brachya 15. The History of Late Twentieth- and Early Twenty-First-Century Anthropogenic Climate Change in Israel 309 Lucy Michaels and Pinhas Alpert 16. Nature Knows No Boundaries? Notes Toward a Future History of Regional Environmentalism 334 Stuart Schoenfeld 17. The Future of the Israeli Environmental Movement: Is a Major Paradigm Shift Under Way? 357 Daniel E. Orenstein and Emily Silverman Epilogue 383 Daniel E. Orenstein, Alon Tal, and Char Miller Contributors 385 Index 389 aCknowledments We are deeply grateful to the authors of the chapters in this edited volume. In most cases, their scholarly contributions to Israel’s environmental history are equally matched by their active participation and leadership in improv- ing Israel’s environment. We are honored to have them as colleagues and collaborators. It is appropriate therefore that we dedicate this volume to three people who have also epitomized environmental activism on the one hand and envi- ronmental scholarship on the other. The first is the late former Knesset mem- ber Yosef Tamir (z”l), who was a pioneer of environmental legislation and a consistent advocate for Israel’s environment throughout his long life, in and out of the Knesset. Azariah Alon and Amotz Zahavi, the founders of the So- ciety for Protection of Nature in Israel, have probably done more than anyone on the planet to protect Israel’s landscape and ecology. For sixty years they have been on the front lines fighting for, writing about, and often succeeding in saving Israel’s unique natural world. At the University of Pittsburgh Press we express our deep appreciation to Cynthia Miller, director of the press. She had originally contracted with the late Hal K. Rothman to edit a volume on Israel’s environmental history; shortly after his untimely death, she spoke with Char Miller to relaunch the project and ever since has given it her steadfast support. Smoothing the way too were her assistant Kelley Johovic and former managing editor Deborah Meade. No acknowledgment would complete without a thanks to our families. In particular, our children, Na’ama, Aviv, and Gil’ad; Mika, Hadas, and Zoe; and Benjamin and Rebecca who daily remind us of what sustainability is all about. This book is also for them. ix intRoduCtion The December 2010 Mt. Carmel forest fire caught Israel off guard. The speed with which the flames moved, their ferocity and destructive force, was stun- ning: 44 people were killed and more than 17,000 had to be evacuated as the blaze swept into a nearby kibbutz and residential neighborhoods, destroying or damaging nearly 250 structures. The firestorm also damaged famed Hai- Bar Nature Preserve: some of its 600 hectares were among the 2,200 that were charred, constituting one-third of the forest cover along the Carmel range. The aftermath as stark, the Jerusalem Post observed: “Entire mountainsides that were once green are now black with the skeletons of burnt trees pointing into the sky” (Waldoks and Rabinovich 2010). Nearly as unsettling was the firestorm of public opinion that erupted even before the inferno had been suppressed. Most commentators focused on the failure of Israel’s firefighting operations and the resulting (and for some) embarrassing need to seek international help to extinguish the blaze; others blamed miniscule budgets and political factors for crippling firefighters’ abil- ity to respond quickly and effectively. No surprise, calls for the resignation of key cabinet officials followed suit. But largely absent from this anguished handwringing and contentious debate was an acknowledgment of the critical role of fire in the Mt. Carmel ecosystem. Although this particular conflagra- tion was ignited when a teenager tossed burning charcoal into the woods, gross negligence that led to a horrific loss of life, it is also true that these forests are fire adapted, a consequence of biology and history, of natural and anthro- pogenic sculpting across thousands of years (Naveh and Carmel 2003). That being so, these ecosystemic realities and historical forces must guide policy makers as they craft new fire-management practices in the aftermath of the xi xii introduction tragic Mt. Carmel fire; if they do not, some of its key lessons will have been lost (Orenstein 2010). Taking environmental history seriously is not simply a matter for policy wonks. This relatively new academic discipline can claim broader signifi- cance, a result of its multidiscipinary perspective: because it focuses on the reciprocal relationship between the natural environment and human develop- ment, and on how this ineluctable connection has changed over time, it offers unique insights into dynamic co-evolution of land and life. Fire, flood, and drought; grassland, forest, and soil; minerals, water, and animals—whether wild or domestic—are among those factors that have shaped, often defini- tively, the contours of human action. Put another way, environmental condi- tions influence the way human societies emerge—their economies, spatial or- ganization, and carrying capacity depend in part on the sites in which they are located. Yet humans also have the capacity to manipulate the environmental conditions that confront them—agriculture, resource development, and lines of trade and transportation are but some of the ways that we fundamentally have changed the world around us. This interplay, everywhere manifest in the Mt. Carmel fire, is yet another reason why it seems so imperative to study the environmental history of Is- rael. Although the nation is relatively young, its modern emergence has de- pended on a rich and conflicted past that has deeply influenced how contem- porary Israelis live and imagine their connection to Eretz Israel. For more than a century, the associated zeal and visions of its Jewish settlers have com- plicated their struggle to reach an appropriate relationship with the natural world: To conquer or to respect? To exploit or to cherish? To pave or preserve? Israel moreover is home to people who have been informed by widely dispa- rate sources, cultures, and ideologies. These include biblical narratives and cutting-edge science; Zionism and universalism, Judaism and Islam; rural- ism and urbanization; socialism and capitalism; industrialism and deep ecol- ogy; altruism and greed. Such dialectics color the present environmental par- adigms that jostle together in Israeli society and make the overall narrativeall the more captivating, troubled, and complicated. That said, there has been no sustained attempt to capture the environmen- tal history of Israel, the dilemmas and difficulties that have shaped how its people, past and present, have tried to make their way in this oft-harsh land. Our goal for this volume has been to do exactly that, to offer a compendium that ranges from the biblical era to the twenty-first century, with a particular emphasis on the past 150 years or so, covering the geographic area of modern Israel.1 For this ambitious task, we tapped a talented team of scholars whose chapters are designed to stand on their own. Among those contributing are introduction xiii emeritus and senior professors who have reflected on a lifetime of scholarly research. They have been joined by retired government policy makers who provide an inside perspective of how Israel’s environmental regulations have evolved, as well as by younger scholars offering a fresh set of interpretative in- sights born of their differing life circumstances. Also contributing are activ- ist professionals, here commenting on the challenges that face those seeking a more habitable, just, and sustainable landscape. The chapters in this book are largely written by people who not only are qualified to write about Israel’s environmental history but to a large extent have been involved in creating it. Rather than try to avoid such potential bi- ases, we have embraced this familiarity, this subjectivity, as an advantage. Sev- eral of the chapters have been crafted to exploit their authors’ personal expe- riences, supplementing objectivity with a human touch.