Will Oil and Water Ever Mix?
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 12. 8.07
A UN proposal to set up a Middle East environmental training center focused on sustainable water solutions was shot down by the Arab League this past week during a meet in Cairo (see TreeHugger’s post on the event).
Why? Because the majority of the 21 Arab nations in the league do not want Israel included in the center.
This is despite the fact that Israel is a world leader by far in water reclamation, irrigation and water technology; and the Arab world is seeing levels of water scarcity and desertification like never before.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Prince Turki bin Nasser, the Saudi official in charge of environmental affairs said the UN should establish an Arab-only environment training center instead.
Arabs do not need training from Israel," Turki said following one-day discussions of Arab League nations' environment ministers in Cairo. He added the Arab governments would discuss the proposal further with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Perhaps the oil barons would rather have their citizens drink petroleum? See Israel cooperation with Australia, the US and Germany.
That requires some determination to cut one's nose off for the sake of principle. Oh wait, I guess it's not exactly the ruling classes that are making these decisions that will be the ones to suffer from the consequences.
Well, Israel pretty much runs the US, Germany and Australia.
Maybe the boys in sandland are smarter than you give them credit.
It seems comments that criticize Israel's "other" water-related policies, which perhaps might give context to the bad attitude on the part of "the Arabs", are not allowed here.
Water is a pretty sensitive issue when it comes to Israeli-Arab relations. The path of the separation wall/barrier that Israel is building *just so happens* to cut off Palestinian access to several major aquifers that they traditionally had use of, so I don't think it's entirely surprising that Arab countries aren't interested in sharing any discussions of water usage.
This just goes to show that those of us with environmental concerns can't ignore seemingly unrelated political issues and sensitivities if we want to successfully convince others to adopt our agenda.
the US definitely Germany.. maybe but Australia?
Nose. Cut. Face.