Abstract
Israel is considered by many as a paragon of sound water management (e.g., Postal, Last oasis: facing water scarcity, Norton, New York, 1997). Due to the severe water scarcity Israel faces and the relatively high levels of human and social capital it can muster, Israel has successfully implemented policies that are at the forefront of the water policy field. These policies enabled Israel to develop an advanced postindustrial economy and to supply a burgeoning population with high-quality water at the tap on the basis of scarce and contested water resources. Moreover, Israel has succeeded in providing water to an advanced agricultural sector whose product per unit of water has risen rapidly in the past 30 years.
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Notes
- 1.
Invariably named after their chairs, these are the Arlosoroff committee (1997), the Magen committee (2002), the Gronau committee (2005), and the Bein committee (2010).
- 2.
Essentially, the Zionist movement claimed that with irrigation, food production can increase, and hence, the absorptive capacity is higher than in the British calculations. Reichman et al. (1997) provide a detailed account of this argument.
- 3.
The drainage of the Huleh lake and swamp were viewed at the time as a direct continuation of earlier Zionist drainage projects that were intended to eliminate malaria and create new farmlands. In reality, however, malaria was already eliminated at the time. The skirmishes in both this case and the Bnot Yaacov bridge area 2 years later, however, were largely over the control of the demilitarized zones between Syria and Israel, and particularly whether Israel could conduct works from the eastern bank of the Jordan River, which was contested. The 1965–1966 skirmishes, in contrast, were largely an outcome of the growing rivalry between Egypt and Syria over the leadership of the Arab world. For a more comprehensive overview and discussion, see Feitelson (2000).
- 4.
The most notable of these were Levi Eshkol, the founding director of Mekorot, the future national water company, who went on to become minister of the treasury and prime minister, and Pinhas Sapir who replaced Eshkol in Mekorot and later in the treasury (Seltzer 2011).
- 5.
The Jordan River has four sources in the north. The largest, the Dan springs, is within pre-1967 Israel, while the Ajoun and Hasbani streams originate in Lebanon and the Banias spring in the Golan Heights.
- 6.
The requirement to measure and monitor was made already in the 1955 Water Measurement Law.
- 7.
See Seltzer (2011) for a detailed history of Mekorot.
- 8.
See Seltzer (2011) for discussion of the different facets of water quality concerns addressed by Mekorot.
- 9.
An exception is the Ajoun stream, the westernmost source of the Jordan River, whose water is used primarily in Lebanon, and is not seen thus as part of the Israeli system. In contrast, most of the Hasbani water, which also originates in Lebanon, flows into Israel and is seen as part of the Israeli water potential.
- 10.
“Virtual water” is the water embedded in food. As Allan (2001) shows, it has become the main de facto source of water in the Middle East since the early 1970s.
- 11.
The decision to issue the tender is considered here as the turning point. However, it was one of several governmental decisions that moved desalination forward. Earlier government decisions to plan for desalination were made in January 1997 and March 1999. Decisions to widen the scope of desalination were made after the tender was issued in 2001 and 2002. But these were only partially implemented (National Water Commission 2010).
- 12.
In its first 4 years, between 1952 and 1956, Tahal was also in charge of operating the water system. In 1956 following the resignation of Blass, the operation elements were transferred to Mekorot, which subsequently became the National Water Company.
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Feitelson, E. (2013). The Four Eras of Israeli Water Policies. In: Becker, N. (eds) Water Policy in Israel. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5911-4_2
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