logicas arebecombecos exa

Israel acquires from aquifers in the West Bank. In addition, if the impoverished Arabs surrounding Israel one day attemptmore successfully to improve their economic status, the increasing demands on disputed waters could cause trouble.

* Tel.: 1 202 966 4135; fax: 1 707 371 7345.E-mail address: drrsanders@yahoo.com

1 In his doctoral dissertation Paul Wolfowitz rebutted the proposal of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adm. Lewis Strauss to pursue thepossibilities of nuclear desalination and included this quote in Executive Intelligence Review, April 15, 2005 [3].

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technology in Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ techsoc

Technology in Society 31 (2009) 9499At the outset, it must be noted that there is no consensus that solving the water scarcity problemwill truly help efforts toachieve peace in the region. Paul Wolfowitz, former President of theWorld Bank and former U.S. deputy secretary of defense,has argued that, Scarcity of water has not been the cause of recent wars in the Middle East and the introduction of largesupplies of desalted water can make only a marginal contribution to reducing tension that may lead to future wars.1

It is quite true that up to now water issues have not proved the chief cause of tension in the Israeli/Arab dispute. Issuessuch as borders, the right of return, the nal disposition of East Jerusalem, and the questionwhether Israel should continueto exist as a state have proved more important. In addition, through intelligent water management, Israel has been able tosqueeze out most of its available water. However, simmering below the surface is Palestinian resentment of the waters thatthat could help solve water problem1. Introduction

When people speak of the technocontrol. Obviously, these technologieplaces of the world water problemsMiddle East, water technologies have0160-791X/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltddoi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2008.10.002continuing. Even costly seawater desalting is likely to prove more attractive than theconicts that water controversies might produce. If the Israelis succeed in producingsubstantially increased amounts of desalted water from their own coastlines, they canlessen (though not reduce entirely) their reliance on controversial water sources in Arablands. By lessening tensions over water rights, improved desalting technologies couldreduce the obstacles to peace.

2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

l dimensions of achieving peace, they usually focus on matters like arms and theircentral to the issue of peace on a planet wracked with conicts. In fact, in manye strategically important [1,2]. In some critical regions of the world, such as theme very signicant. This essay examines one such technology, seawater desalting,cerbating relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.the reverse osmosis method. This method gives promise of future advances. At any rate,Israel has no better option. Thus, research, improved designs, and construction projects areWater desalting and the Middle East peace process

Ralph Sanders*

National Defense University, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 4416 Butterworth Pl. NW, Washington, D.C. 20016, United States

Keywords:DesalinationSeawater desaltingThe reverse osmosis methodIsraeli water supplyWater rights disputesMiddle East peace negotiations

a b s t r a c t

This essay examines seawater desalination technology and projects that could help solvewater disputes that have been exacerbating relations between Israel and its Arab neigh-bors. While water conicts are not the chief cause of tension in the area, they makeachieving peace more difcult. In the past, analysts have advocated several differentmethods for achieving economically competitive water desalting, only to encounterdisappointingly high costs. Israeli engineers have reduced costs signicantly by exploiting. All rights reserved.

This analysis does not suggest that water disputes constitute the chief cause of tension in the area, but they could makeachieving peace more difcult and would strain the effort to maintain that peace long after the contending parties haddecided to embrace it.

R. Sanders / Technology in Society 31 (2009) 9499 95In any peace negotiations between Israel and its neighbors, the issue of water rights could prove thorny. While Israel andits Arab neighbors struggle to carry on a genuine peace process, Israel should address more intensively the scarcity of waterthat hinders the road to peace. The Israelis are fortunate that technology seems about to furnish the means for dealing withmuch of the water scarcities in the Middle East. Desalting seawater in the region might help overcome the water rightsproblems associated with the peace process.

Desalting brackish waters, reclaiming waste waters, and other technological approaches to gaining potable, farm, orindustrial waters also might be feasible. Some alternatives might even prove more economical than desalting seawater.However, this essay focuses only on desalting seawater.

2. Water scarcities

Droughts and high consumption long have caused water decits and prompted Israel to tap the water sources of itsneighbors. Erratic climatic conditions, increasing population growth, and improved living standards have contributed toIsraels water shortage. Various sources describe this water decit in different ways. One source indicates that in 2001 aloneIsrael suffered a 90-million-cubic-meter water decit (even after cutting water allocation to farming by 50 percent in 2000)[4]. Another suggests that Israel lacks about 1.5 billion cubic meters of water, especially in its aquifers [5] while a third sourcenotes that its renewable water resources amount to about 2 billion cubic meters, a sum equal to the annual consumption ofthe Jewish state [6].

Rain falls in Israel only in winter and uctuates greatly. The Israelis long have known that scarcity limits farming in theregion. As people in the region have used more andmorewater, the levels of the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the DeadSea have fallen alarmingly. (From 1930 to 1997 the level of the Dead Sea has fallen 21 meters.) Whats more, experts believethat salt water is beginning to seep into their usable water.

Paradoxically, Israels rapid economic progress has worsened the situation. Water reserves have all but disappeared, andthe quality of availablewater has declined. In addition, farming, modern living, and increased industrialization have producedpollution that has degraded the quality of existing water resources. To make matters worse, Palestinians continue to seek toachieve economic progress, further straining water resources.

Mekorot, Israels National Water Corporation, has had to establish technological support units to address Israels rapidlydwindling supply of water [7]. Some experts believe that this shortage is developing into an acute crisis whose solution is farfrom easy to perceive [8].

When Zionists took to intensive development of farming early in the 20th century, they began to demand more and morewater. Whats more, the father of Israel, premier David Ben-Gurion aspired to make the desert bloom, adopting an ideologyespousingwater as the lifeblood of Zionist society [9,10]. In addition, large-scale immigration has vastly increased the size ofthe Jewish population and consequently its demand for water.

3. Water quarrels

For their part, the Palestinians complain that the more water Israel uses, the less is left for Arab use. Whats more, as notedabove, the Palestinians charge Israel with unlawfully tapping underground aquifers in the occupied territories, using suchwater in Israel proper. To the Palestinians, such Israeli actions amount to water theft.2

In 1964 Israel completed its National Water Carrier, a system for transporting water from the Sea of Galilee southward tothe countrys large population centers and to the Negev desert [13]. This engineering project combines underground pipe-lines, open canals, interim reservoirs, and tunnels. To ll this system the Israelis diverted water sources from Arab localities,thereby causing this project to be seen as Israeli aggressive expansion.

Shortly thereafter, the Syrians began buildingwater projects on the Golan Heights, thereby diverting the headwaters of theJordan River that owed into Israel. Arab critics viewed Israels long retention of south Lebanon as an effort to secure waterfrom Lebanons Litani River.

The Palestinians themselves exacerbated the situation by drilling an estimated 150260 unauthorized wells in thenorthern West Bank. Some Israelis worry that after they withdraw from the West Bank too much drilling there will intensifythe water controversies in the region [1416]. In 1998, the late Paul Simon, the former United States senator from Illinois, inhis well-known report, Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water [17], pointed out that in the Middle East quarrelsover water rights made an already tense political situation worse.

The Palestinians also have drilled hundreds of illegal wells in the Jenin area in theWest Bank, contrary to the water accordsigned between Israel and the Palestine authority. Under that agreement Israel provides water to Ramallah as well as tomuchof the Gaza Strip. Concerns have been expressed that overuse of aquifers in the areawill raise the salinity of thewater, making

2 Gary Hoch provides an analysis of the political consequences of water shortages in the Middle East [11]. Alwyn Rouyers argues that Israeli policiesunfairly withhold water from Palestinians as a political weapon [12].

agriculture very difcult. Thus far, Israel has taken no action to prevent unauthorized drillings. When both sides draw near toachieving a peace agreement, they will have to give considerable attention to water issues.

In 2002 Lebanese ofcials rejected requests by the United States to stop diverting the waters of the Wazzani River. Thisriver feeds into the Hatzbani River, which, in turn, empties into the Sea of Galilee. The Israelis argued that by pumping theWazzani, in effect the Lebanese were diverting some 15 percent of Israels water supply. Because Lebanon drew waters fromthe Wazzani River instead of from the Litani River (which ows to the sea rather than into Israel), Israel charged its northernneighbor with having a political motive. However, no reprisals resulted from this Lebanese action.

R. Sanders / Technology in Society 31 (2009) 9499964. Impact on peace

Arab critics argue that, in any potential peace agreement, negotiators will have to solve the thorny problem of under-groundwaters in theWest Bank [18]. In fact, at the present time neither side seems willing to agree to a reasonable sharing ofwater. Palestinians logically ask: once a sovereign Palestinian state emerges, why should it share West Bank undergroundwater with Israel?

One can look at the peace agreement of October 26,1994 between Israel and Jordan to see how difcult water issues can be[19]. These countries tried to solve this problembyagreeing to a complicated agendumof joint developmentofwater resources.

Meir Ben-Meir, former Israeli water commissioner, argued that, if there is not sufcient water in the Jordan valley, weshall doubtless face war [20]. All the countries in the region have to cooperate with their neighbors to come up withequitable water allocations. In 1998, Ariel Sharon, at the time in charge of Israels infrastructure ministry, stressed toa conference devoted to the study of desalination in Israel the anticipated major role of desalting in resolving widespreadwater shortages of the 21st century [21]. Large-scale seawater desalinationwill become imperative for Israel and its neighborsat the beginning of the 21st century.

Without desalting seawater, Israel will have to rely chiey on rivers, aquifer waters, and perhaps imported water fromTurkey. Some Israeli authorities have called for recycling as a major solution to their water woes. Reclaiming undergroundwater in the West Bank appears to many Israelis as a major part of any solution [22]. Yet, increasingly, Israelis realize that inany peace agreement the Palestinians will receive all or most of theWest Bank, an area that now provides about 25 percent ofIsraels water supply [23].

West Bank water is so critical to Israel that many analysts believe that it is difcult to imagine any Israeli governmentmaking even minor concessions on this score. Back in 1993 Israels negotiators on water matters demonstrated an inexibleattitude, suggesting that they did not accept the argument that Palestinians can claim that just because they occupy certainterritory, they necessarily have a right to all the water underneath.

If the Golan Heights reverts to Syria in a peace agreement, the headwaters of the Jordan River that the Israelis captured in1967 might become inaccessible to Israel. The geopolitical signicance of the water situation becomes clear. With theacquisition of these lands, the Palestinians and the Syrians might be in a position to control much of Israels water supply.3

Many Israelis questionwhether they can afford to trust their most valuable and irreplaceable natural resource to people whohistorically have been very hostile to the Jewish state?

5. Technological options

Various technologies could improve the water situation in the Middle East, including water conservation, anti-pollutionmeasures, more effectivemanagement of rivers and aquifers, and enhancing the efciency of water use. Of course, controllingpopulation growth could help reduce the gap betweenwater supply and demand. Some authorities claim that conservation isthe most reliable, but all these options most likely will not alleviate the countrys water shortage nor overcome its accom-panying political problems.

In 1958 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent American troops to Lebanon to try to restore order to that strife-torncountry, he addressed the United Nations and proposed that nations in the Middle East cooperate in working to solve theareas water shortages. He noted that, the new horizons are opening in the desalting of water.4 For a variety of reasons,including the slow reduction in the costs of water desalting at that time and the unwillingness of the Middle East countries tojoin in cooperative efforts, his dream of bringing water to the region never came to pass.

During the Arab/Israeli conict of the 1960s David Ben-Gurion, Israels rst Prime Minister, mentioned the possibility ofnuclear desalinization.5 Recognizing that Israels Dimona nuclear research facility was producing nuclear materials whichcould be used for peaceful purposes as well as for weapons, he saw the possibility that Israel could develop nuclear desalting

3 The Golan Heights is a key source of water for Israel and other countries in the region. Rainwater from the Golans catchment feeds the Jordan River andprovides a third of Israels water supply. Israel fears that if, in a peace agreement, it returns all of the Golan Heights (the pre-1967 borders), Syria couldcontrol a third of Israels water supply [24].

4 The water development program proposed by President Eisenhower was one of the rst times that the United States attempted to pursue an explicittechnological strategy to solve an international problem. Unfortunately the reluctance by the nations in the region to cooperate in the venture doomed thisinitiative [25].

5 In 1953 David Ben-Gurion selected a 300-acre site on Mount Carmel to conduct research into a host of elds, including nuclear desalination. Reported inTechnion History, Milestones.

plants. In 1964 the U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol agreed to set up a bilateralcommission to coordinate a joint research in nuclear desalting.6 This vision of developing a nuclear-powered desalting plantalso never materialized.

R. Sanders / Technology in Society 31 (2009) 9499 976 The joint venture that was established by this pronouncement failed to achieve its objective [26].7 In September 2007 Mordechai Ben Menachem, a well-known writer on Israeli and computer affairs, personally provided me with the statistics

associated with this desalting plant.6. Desalting potential

Fortunately, over the years the high cost of removing salt from seawater has fallen [27]. In 2000 Israel launched itsdesalination master plan [28,29]. Today, Israel has undertaken a major effort to produce potable water from the sea. Its planscall for building desalting plants along the Mediterranean coast. Israel now has three working desalting plants. The smallestand oldest one is located in Eilat, the largest one in Ashkelon, and the newest at Palmahim.

The Eilat plant produces 30 million cubic meters of drinking water per year. Eilat, a resort city at the southern tip of Israel,receives its potable water from a number of desalting sources. With a population of some 37,000 and an inux of manytourists each year, it has depended upon desalted water for the past thirty years. Eilat acquires its water from a reverseosmosis facility that acquires 80 percent of its seawater from the Red Sea and an additional 20 percent of brine from anadjacent factory [30].

The plant at Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv on Israels southern Mediterranean coast, has an annual output of 100 millioncubic meters and is the largest desalting plant in the world using the reverse osmosis process [31]. This process also wasbringing down costs. A dedicated gas turbine power station was built near the desalting plant. An overhead line providesa second power supply from Israels national grid.

In 2006 the plant achieved two signicant successes. In March of that year the plant was named the Desalination Plant ofthe Year by the Global Water Awards and in October, a little more than a year after it rst began production, it delivered itsrst 100million cubic meters of water.7 The plant produced desalinated potablewater at one of theworlds lowest ever prices.The plant was built by VID, a special-purpose joint-venture company of IDE Technologies, Veolia and DanknerEllernInfrastructure.

The Palmahim facility currently produces 50 million cubic meters per year and is scheduled to attain a peak capacity of150 million cubic meters per year.

Israels desalting plants are among many such facilities being built or operated throughout the world. About two-thirds oftheworlds desalinatedwater is produced in Saudi Arabia and North Africa. The Al-Jubail facility in the United Arab Emirates istheworlds largest distillation plant. Although global output of desaltedwater in Israel is very small, less than 0.1 percent of alldrinking water, the desalting industry is expected to grow 140 percent over the next decade, with a capital investment of $56billion by 2015 [32].

Israel reportedly plans to build additional plants at Kishon and Caesarea. If and when all these plants come on line,Israels dependence on water sources located in neighboring Arab territories should lessen appreciably. Desalting seawatergives promise of offsetting the impact of Israels forecasted 60 percent increase in water demand by 2020. Seawaterdesalting seems to offer the best option of supplying the large quantities of needed fresh water, thereby alleviatinginternational controversies.

By 2009 the Israelis are contemplating building a Hadera plant that will produce some 100 million cubic meters annually.They also are considering constructing similar-sized desalting facilities in Ashod and south of Rishon Lettzion by 2021. Theseplants should reach a combined annual production capacity of about 500 million cubic meters per year.

Israeli environmental critics argue that these plants exact a high environmental and economic cost. The Greens contendthat desalting plants consume huge amounts of fossil fuel energy (i.e., oil), emitting harmful greenhouse gases. They also needa signicant expense of coastal land and will spill high concentrations of damaging salts and chemicals into the sea.

Spokesmen for Israels water system counter that environmental damage and chemical and salt runoff would be negli-gible. In as much as these plants would tap only 3 percent of Israels electricity use, gaseous emissions likewise would provevery small. In short, the ecological damage caused by these plants would be very tolerable and the Israelis would lose someimportant political advantages by abandoning their desalination plans.

To put it very simply, two desalting techniques appear quite possible: distillation and reverse osmosis. (a) Distillation isa phase separation method whereby saline water is heated to produce water vapor. In other words distillation uses heating,boiling, evaporation, and condensation to remove salt from saline seawater [33].

The reverse osmosis technology relies on membranes to strain the salt fromwater. Water is pushed through a membraneor lter under very high pressures. Membranes strain salt out of water, requiring half as much energy as does distillation. Bythis method, salt can be separated fromwater, whether that water comes from oceans, inland seas, or underground brackishpools. For this reason, it is less expensive to extract salt from brackish water than from seawater. The former demands lessenergy. Israels three plants all use the reverse osmosis process [34].

Some experts suggest that desalting seawater most likely will remain costly because of the high concentration of salt thatexists in adjacent seas. For this reason, up to now the Israelis have used the reverse osmosis process chiey for desalting

R. Sanders / Technology in Society 31 (2009) 949998brackish waters. They also have exploited other technologies. Currently it costs about 25 percent more to produce potablewater by reverse osmosis than by purication of waste water.

Although unable to develop a truly cost effective seawater desalting technology, Israels water planners are now investingin developing this option. The seas near Israel constitute the most abundant source of water in the region. In addition, mostpeople in Israel (and elsewhere in the Middle East) live on or near coastlines. Desalination plants can be located near pop-ulation centers where potable water is most needed.

Although seawater contains high levels of dissolved matter, its supply, for practical purposes, is unlimited. Hence, in thefuture as long as the cost is not exorbitant, Israel can desalt seawater to meet its escalating water demands.

7. The shift in public opinion

Until recently Israel did not have the political will to push a seawater desalting strategy. The country faced high defenseexpenditures, some major social issues, and inadequate economic progress. In the 1990s, prevailing opinion believed thatIsrael had discarded its major desalting efforts because it was cheaper to reduce demand (e.g., curtailing irrigation andrecycling water) than to desalt seawater. Israelis have now changed their minds.

8. Desalting projects

The key to success is the use of reverse osmosis. Israel has pioneered this technology, helping to perfect energy-efcientltration devices. In order to reduce costs, the Israelis also are building a power station as an integral part of the unit. Privatecontractors in Israel are calling this facility a water factory.

Some Israeli experts expect Israel to integrate its desalting facilities with coastal power plants that will be fueled by newlydiscovered offshore gas reserves. Whats more, swifter advances in desalting technologies are expected in the near future.Joshua Schwarz, an expert in the eld, argues that the goal of economic desalted seawater is not a mission impossiblescheme [35].

Advocates of desalting seawater continue to ask for additional investments. Yet, we have to exercise caution in forecastingthe future of desalting seawater. Analysts have touted the coming of economic water desalting for quite some time, only to seethese predictions proven faulty.

However, Israel might have no other option. Even costly seawater desalting would prove more attractive than the costs ofarmed conicts that water controversies might produce. To secure peace Israel might have to live with tolerable uneconomiccosts. For political reasons, the availability of potable water could become more important than its costs.

9. Building experience

The Israelis are at the brink of the seawater-desalting era. They still have much to learn about its operations and conse-quences. For example, they earmarked desalted water from the Ashkelon plant for drinking water and other urban purposesas well as for farming needs in the plants vicinity. They experienced no problems with the water used for drinking. The cropsusing this desalted water did not do so well. The Israelis learned that this water was too pure. It did not contain the nutrientsthat plants need to survive. Accordingly, the Israelis mixed this water with waste water, thereby increasing its nutrientcontent. Crops then ourished.

As Israelis use desalted water, other unexpected problemswill appear. For example, Israelis must learn about the problemsassociated with large installations that provide economies of scale. They must gather experience with large-scale desalina-tion. Israeli engineers will have to use their demonstrated ingenuity to solve these problems and most probably they willsucceed.

10. Final thoughts

It is well to reiterate that if Israelis acquire large amounts of desalted water within their own sovereign domains, they canlessen (not reduce entirely) their reliance on controversial water sources in adjacent Arab lands. The Israelis will control everydrop of water produced by their desalination plants. No other country will have a right to it. In short, desalted water willbecome the sovereign property of the Jewish State.

Israel must be realistic in its water aspirations and policies. If Israel were to lose the water sources in theWest Bank and onthe Golan Heights as the price of achieving peace, desalination would be unable to make up the entire deciency [36]. Thus,the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Syrians will have to work out complicated water rights agreements just as Israel andJordan did in their peace agreement. Even this agreement left many complicated water problems to be addressed. Althoughnot a total solution for Israels water problems and their associated political difculties, water desalting could go a long waytowards easing Israels water shortages and in lessening those political controversies.

Thus, although one cannot predict that with desalted seawater available Israels water controversies with other nationswill disappear entirely, they certainly should diminish appreciably. By lessening tensions over water rights, seawaterdesalting could help lead the way to peace in the Middle East.

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2007.

Ralph Sanders, currently the J. Carlton Ward Jr. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the National Defense University (NDU)/Industrial College of the ArmedForces (ICAF), received his BSFS, MSFS, and Ph.D. from Georgetown University. In 1958 he worked at theWhite House as co-author of the water developmentproposals contained in President Eisenhowers address on the Middle East to the United Nations. He joined the ICAF faculty in 1960 after nine years as ananalyst. His included national security, technology and the art of war, and industrial preparedness. He also taught part-time on the faculties of AmericanUniversity and John Hopkins University. His honors include the Armys highest civilian award and Central High School of Philadelphias Hall of Fame. Hepublished in the elds of politics and science and executive decision-making. His publications included International Dynamics of Technology; The Arrow:Israels Missile Defense; and Penetrating the Fog of Technologys Social Dimensions.

Water desalting and the Middle East peace processIntroductionWater scarcitiesWater quarrelsImpact on peaceTechnological optionsDesalting potentialThe shift in public opinionDesalting projectsBuilding experienceFinal thoughtsReferences