Existential Threats – Water

The holiday of Shavuot begins tonight, celebrating receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Shavuot is commonly celebrated by eating dairy products. Cheesecake, ice cream, and a variety of cheeses replace the meat and poultry dishes that dominate most Jewish holiday meals. In Israel, a relatively little-known allegorization of the Torah to water has turned Shavuot into an annual festival of water fights. This utter waste of water, fun for some, scary for many others (in some places, similar to a colorless Holi), contributes one of the most dangerous threats to Israel’s existence.

I’ve already expanded on Michael Oren’s list of seven existential threats to Israel. While he did briefly touch upon the issue when I saw him speak a few weeks ago, he did not mention Israel’s limited supply of water in his latest article in Commentary.

This crisis has been a long time in the making. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), Israel’s primary source of potable water, has been dwindling for decades, and an alternative source of water is still at large. Unfortunately, the Levant was not blessed with an abundance of water sources. Over the past decade, a series of droughts, interspersed with relatively small amounts of rainfall, have only made the matter worse.

Israel is a leader in water desalination technology, yet in typical Israeli fashion, water is in extremely short supply. Only over the past few years has Israel started availing itself of this technology in any significant manner.

Wars have been started over oil, land, religion, and countless other commodities and ideologies. Although a water war has not yet been fought in the modern Middle East, issues relating to the Jordan River’s tributaries did contribute to the unrest leading up to the events of June 1967. Action must taken now, or else a war will be fought over what little potable water there will be to keep the region alive.

Seawater is a non-perishable resource, and the Mediterranean Sea is not likely to disappear anytime soon. Desalination efforts need to be stepped up. Budgetary concerns, and even fights, are a constant in Israel. One thing people should be able to agree upon easily is the importance of solving at least one, not so insurmountable, problem. After that people can throw gallons of water at each other, without worrying about the salinization of the Kinneret.