Israel is already preparing for the upcoming COP 28 Climate Change Conference, at the end of November in Dubai. Its government announced in July that it would be sending a delegation of 1,000 people to represent the country that will be led by President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Indeed, Israel is very environmentally conscious. Yet it nevertheless often stands accused of abusing the environment of the Palestinians.
Aiming for Better Air Quality
Israel gets blamed for the air quality in the West Bank, where, according to one Palestinian activist, “it is clear that Israel treats the West Bank as its private ‘sacrifice zone’ because it is much cheaper to pollute the area than to responsibly process or reduce waste.”
However, the truth is that Israel is working to make rules to protect the environment in the Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank even stronger, as the country believes that everyone deserves clean air.
Ultimately, the goal is to attempt to enforce the Clean Air Law of 2008 and the Environmental Treatment of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Batteries Law of 2012. Israel is trying to figure out how to apply these rules in the West Bank that will eventually end up serving Palestinians living there as well.
Israel Tackling Deforestation
While deforestation is considered a serious environmental issue, Al-Haq, a Palestinian NGO linked to the PFLP terror organization, attacks Israel for the opposite – for afforestation, planting trees. Al-Haq claims that planting trees is a deliberate attempt to erase Palestinian history.
Israel now has more trees than when the country was first founded. Al-Haq says that while Israel “…prides itself on counting more trees by the end of the 20th century than at its onset, it fails to mention that afforestation inside the Green Line is essentially rooted in the Jewish National Fund’s colonial enterprise aimed at concealing Palestinian villages and rural towns ethnically cleansed during the Nakba in 1948.”
As a result, planting trees has become contentious.
But Israel and the JNF plant trees throughout the country for the betterment of all, especially on Tu Bishvat, the holiday when Israelis plant trees as a way to strengthen their connection to the earth.
Trees can be an important solution to tackling climate change as they absorb carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas that leads to global warming.
Does Israel Exploit Water?
Israel, which prides itself on being the innovation nation, is always seeking ways to improve resourcefulness and quality of life for all its citizens and beyond, in hopes that improvements in technology here can be used to help improve the environment and life for everyone around the world.
The accusation that Israel is exploiting water simply isn’t true. If anything, Israel’s innovations are going to help the United States, China and smaller countries like Angola, Ghana, Serbia and Spain.
Related Reading: Watering Down the Facts: Israel, the Palestinians & Access to Water
Israel extensively uses desalination of salt water and repurposes its wastewater by 90%. In fact, much of Israel’s drinking water comes from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This kind of technology will be able to help countries that are currently experiencing water insecurity.
Too many people are quick to allege that Israel abuses Palestinians by not providing them with water. But a lot don’t know that Israel has already signed a water agreement with the Palestinian Authority. As required and established by the Oslo Accords, there is a Joint Water Committee (JWC).
This JWC was boycotted by the PA from 2010-2017. The JWC is made up of both Israelis and Palestinians on its board. However, the Palestinians refused to further develop any projects that would help advance Israeli settlements.
A debunked United Nations report also states that “half of the Palestinian wells in the West Bank have dried up over the last 20 years.” What it fails to acknowledge is that there has been a lot of illegal drilling by Palestinians which goes against the water agreement and has damaging effects on the amount of water available.
Ultimately, the narrative that the Palestinians do not have access to water due to Israel is false. Full authority of the water supply in areas A and B of the West Bank was handed over to the PA in 2017 to try and further evolve the system.
Israel has already set up the blueprint for how other countries can try and reduce the amount of water that they waste. These other nations just need to implement it into their daily lives.
How Israel Further Contributes to the Environment
Israel’s MASHAV program aims to “empower individuals and communities in need by sharing tools and expertise to achieve sustainable development and transformation within their own societies.”
MASHAV was created in 1958 as a result of foreign minister Golda Meir and prime minister David Ben Gurion’s desire to help other nations develop by sharing the expertise and technologies that helped Israel evolve.
Today, this includes the sharing of expertise in improving the environment. For example, international courses from MASHAV in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan include Fish Farming and Flood Forecasting. These workshops take place in Israel, but there are many that are provided abroad as well.
The overall goal of these workshops is to provide members with the knowledge and skills that they can take back with them to their home country to improve economic, social and environmental growth, with the intent to meet the aim of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) put forth by the United Nations.
Israel has been accused of greenwashing – but this simply isn’t true. Israel has created and continues to create innovations to protect the environment not only for its own nation but for everyone around the world.
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