Bravo, Thomas Friedman.
One of your best columns.
Your thoughtful analysis and foundation offering a mutually beneficial cooperative plan for Israel, Palestine, and Jordan is spot on.
However, the final chapter in this narrative demands a delineation of the effect climate change will on the oil economies of most ME countries.
As the worldwide demand for oil is severely diminished by solar and wind power, won't unmitigated chaos ensue and won't it dwarf the ME chaos occurring today?
19
Well done, Thomas - engaging without being enraging.
The Mid-east as the land that connects Africa to Europe and Asia is critical for bird migration. From the shores of the Mediterranean to the mudflats in the delta of the Tigris-Euphrates viable habitat for both resident and transient species has disappeared at an alarming rate in the last fifty years. So have the birds. The ones that remain are slaughtered by the locals (https://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/news/scale-illegal-bird-killing-middle-east-revealed-first-time).
Sometimes people are better motivated by sad stories about animals. In trying to craft a solution to the many issues of the Mid-east, consider the birds of the air. No “Heavenly Father” will intercede. People must.
11
What make you think that intractable participants with long histories of poor leadership , fanatical religious zealots, and short-sighted political agendas will come together ? thirst ?
Several thousands years of anger, jealousy , and ignorance will continue to doom them all to perpetual war and then self destruction.
What is the cure for insanity ?
8
Meanwhile, Israel far and away leads the world in water recycling. Travel there, and you will find a lattice work of purple pipes transporting grey water to trees and shrubs and elsewhere. Perhaps more of Israel's Arab neighbors could make peace and start implementing the same solution.
10
Yes, cooperation is the right way to address common problems like climate change that affect us all regardless of national boundaries. But the problem with the Trump peace proposal and the problem with Thoms Friedman's column is that there is something people need far more than water. Dignity. We are not simply or even primarily beings with physical needs. Certainly the despair of Palestinians has as much to do with their own corrupt leadership as the leadership of Israel which seems intent on humiliating their enemy into summission. Nonetheless, the Palestinians need a way forward that addresses their basic human dignity. I imagine that and not climate change will their first concern.
3
Thank you sir. In a single column you have made more sense and given more practical solutions to this perpetual problem than all the politicians have since 1948. Now, if only those politicians could be convinced to listen...
8
What will be the geopolitical impact of climate change?
By 2050 or 2100, will Israel be habitable without survival suits? Better get to work on domed cities and solar power plants!
5
Thank you for such a brilliant exposé! Are we all going to let greed, stupidity, blindness and denials get the best of Mother Nature? Sawing the branch were we all sit together ?
3
As fascinating as it is frustrating! With climate deniers and religious zealots making policy in the Middle East and elsewhere, you have a recipe for an epic climate catastrophe giving new meaning to from "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Sadly, we've made a mess for Mother Nature and her clean up will not be pretty.
5
Very informative article, thank you. I had no idea the fresh water situation was as bad as it is in the Mid East. We all hear about the rising sea levels, but forget that people are running out of fresh drinking water, because for the most part we still have ours in the USA. Of course ours is in ridiculous plastic bottles polluting the land and sea. But that's another issue being ignored by the radical right. I tend to get sarcastic about this point in consideration of a very serious issue. And just because the evangelical Christian zealots think they will come to the rescue on Noah's ark, is no excuse to do so. Of course they'll have all those dinosaurs on the ark, and the dinos must drink copious quantities of fresh water... sorry about that.
6
The elephant is the room: too many people who want too many things.
5
Mother Nature is one heck of a problem solver. It's like a Marshal plan for the mid-east. We need more win-win solutions that everyone can agree on in a peaceful manner.
Now that we've significantly decreased poverty, hunger, and disease across most of the world, we need to work on increasing cooperation, decreasing population growth, and saving the planet.
3
Wars will be fought for access to water. Those that caused the drought will be the aggressors. It is they, the polluters, that need to be stopped before they draw us all into the vortex.
3
Alright, Mr. Friedman. You are telling us 30 years from now, water will be the "new oil" in Middle East. Now the question is what that means for Egypt where the mighty Nile flows.
Is that mean the Israelis will become more accommodating to Egyptians - which may mean more receptive to Palestinian demands for having their own state- or they would create a "corridor" - a' la Danzig Corridor- between Israel and Nile to bring Nile's water to suburbs of Tel Aviv?
Well …., the history tell us that Israelis, when they have the full US backing, opt for war and occupation, rather than accommodation. My guess is that, if one asks Mr. Netanyahu that very question, his answer may be something along the following lines:
"Israel will not allow its security and well-being of its citizens to be left at the mercy of others. Not having access to Nile's water is an existential threat to Israel's survival. We have no choice but to maintain this corridor. "
If not convinced, one needs to remember that Israel has used the same argument for maintaining its occupation of the Golan Heights.
Sorry, I understand it is now called: Trump Heights!
2
Well, this all sounds like it all makes sense.
1
The Mediterranean Sea is not a resource to be plundered by the Israelis and Palestinians through its desalination schemes. It is a crucial shared resource for human and nonhuman creatures alike.
Humans, with their overbreeding and resource stripping habits have already made much of the planet barely habitable and have pushed to extinction so many rare and wonderful creatures who had an equal right to existence.
I suspect Mother Nature has her own ideas on where and how this will all end.
2
Surely, Mother Nature had more to say about how aquifers get depleted..? She knows about the policies that promote settler swimming pools on one side of the wall and abide untreated sewage on the other. About allowing settlers to drill deep wells, and preventing age-old Palestinian villages from drilling any. About fining Palestinians for sewage treatment, and then selling back their own grey water...
Mr. Friedman, you know it's not wise to redact Mother Nature.
2
I was born in late 1941 right after Pearl Harbour. At that time there were approximately 2 Billion 550 million people on the planet. There are Now 7 billion 774 million people on this planet with the mean age being 29 a reproductively active age. I don't believe religions, cultures etc. can change quickly enough to alter this explosion in population. Perhaps the worlds many different gods have gotten together and said oops humanity just wasn't a great experiment if they can't figure out their own survival
1
It's important that Friedman has linkedthe economic effects of drought and climate change to terrorism. Drought and natural disasters resulting from climate change in the third world, creates food shortages which creates political instability which promotes violent militia and terrorist groups fueled by religious fanaticism which in turn promotes an exodus away from those countries to the stability of Europe and the US which then results in raising racial discrimination and isolation movements in those western countries. Brexit is a bellwether
1
Unfortunately, Trump doesn't "believe in" climate change. Which is like not "believing in" gravity-- and just as likely to send this agreement off a steep cliff.
1
Good stuff, Tom. Politics everywhere ultimately involves decisions about how resources are distributed. We have heard how "Water is the New Oil." This article demonstrates this reality very clearly in one particular context, and we need to be thinking of this on the global scale.
3
A sobering account of the control and apportioning of water around the world, and it’s effects on populations, is found in
When The Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce. Diminishing sources of water and increasing populations make this one of the biggest, if not the biggest, crisis of this century as countries fight over this precious resource.
6
Thanks, Tom. A timely and interesting column generating many thoughtful and informed responses.
2
Mother Nature will eventually solve the problem, but we won't like it, not one bit. Mother Nature will eventually solve other human caused problems, but we won't like that solution either.
6
@Mr. Jones
Yes, mother nature has been cleaning our mess, solving many problems that we have created. One of those problems is over-population. In the past, that was solved by famine and pandemics such as bubonic plague. Now she is experimenting with viral diseases such as Ebola, SAR, and now Corona virus.
No worries; rest assured she will find the "magic formula" sooner than later.
2
Mr. Friedman has written an excellent summary of the problems of the Middle East. There soon to be worldwide. The regions that do not identify these problems and solutions will experience grievous harm. We all must work together. To do this we need to get rid of our old prejudice and our old belief. We need to free ourselves from our old religions that entailed constant competition between the group and come to a unified monotheism. There’s only one God and there is only one earth. If we don’t understand this and work together the future will not be kind to us.
Population control is vital. Climate control is essential. We need a unified system to identify the problems and suggest solutions. To do this we have to quit being Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We need to be world citizens and serious monotheists.
11
I read the environmental section on page 24 of the feasibility study but didn’t see the issue of desal brine discussed. Large scale desalinization on the coast will ruin the marine environment. The problem will only be solved by shrinking the population. This applies to the entire planet, but the mideast may be forced to come to grips with it first. I can’t imagine living with running water only 8 hours a week.
4
Israel just enjoyed the greatest rainfall in 51 years recently after years of drought. So this argument comes at an odd time when the Kineret is the fullest in memory.
Nevertheless, the issue of water is very real and the issue of infrastructure in the Palestinian Territories is also real.
It is easier/cheaper to work around the infrastructure problems than solve the people issues that aggravate them. Israel is at the cutting edge of water technology - desalinating from the Med Sea and extracting water from the air and using drip irrigation for agriculture. This just means that scarcity of water is priced into the Zionist project.
The real issue that Friedman had put his finger on is Arab infrastructure. Since Oslo, Israel has ceased to maintain much of it as it was transferred to the PA. Unsurprisingly, it is deteriorating and will eventually lead to serious issues in the WB.
One would hope that with $50B, peace, and the dismantling of militias some form of semi-competent governance would emerge. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Israel’s redrawing of the political map and normalization of ties with its neighbors is a viable route for it to exist without absorbing a hostile population.
In any case, changing who lives in the WB will not impact rainfall or water flow from Lebanon.
The basic problem is that Israel is an ultra modern society and the Palestinians are something else ruled by a gang of criminals with little concern for their public’s good.
27
@Sagi
Israel has made your last sentence the reality. The israelis have done their best to destroy the palestinians. They have worked hard to make sure that the palestinians can not enjoy a modern society.
7
This story leads to continuing distress, conflict and misery. We need a new logic. Mother Nature points the way. Can we follow?
@Sagi
Conflating "ultra-modern" with morality and legality is nothing more than propaganda. They do not equate.
3
I wouldn't dispute anything you say here except the concept of the designated Palestinian territories being a separate nation or confederacy or whatever. There is no possible separation, all of the West Bank should be incorporated into Israel and Palestinians given citizenship. There is no other way out of this mess.
2
I read an article like this and I wonder if evil has won. Climate change is already causing much pain and suffering and it is going to get worse. At the same time, our 'leaders' are doing nothing or making things worse.
9
It will take a new generation of leaders, Israeli & Palestinian, to understand and act on the overarching ecological dilemma facing the region. Until Netanyahu and Abas are gone, we can only pray that a hot war does not break out.
5
Fascinating, and frightening, information. Unfortunately, in the last half century of Israeli’s relations with Palestinians and its other neighbors is there any indication of even a shred of hope that the solutions recommended have any chance of being implemented.
3
“100 million liters of raw sewage flows from Gaza every day into the Mediterranean.... where Gaza’s waste gets into the filters of Israel’s big Ashkelon desalination plant....” That flow is in the order of a mid-size American city’s wastewater treatment plant flow. Wastewater treatment plants are expensive and not prohibitive. For the price and maintenance of a modern military jet fighter or less the Israelis could build, operate and maintain a plant for Gaza, with many synergistic benefits. Peace dividend? Just saying.
3
@Tony Quintanilla
“ ...the Israelis could build, operate and maintain a plant for Gaza,”
The Israelis could and probably would but Hamas would find a way to exploit, steal and weaponize every part of the plant.
4
Any projection on climate, conflicts and economic stability 10 to 20 years in the future would certainly not point to improvement around the world. The middle east may just be the place where the problems hit first in the queue.
1
Tom couldn’t this been shortened to:
“If you think you’ve got trouble now, you need to understand that I”m just warming up”
6
Mother Nature: “It would be really nice if you humans could pump the brakes on pumping out babies.”
4
Please, spare us the drama.
The Palestinians have not a clue about nature.
They will deal with the water crisis when they destroy Israel.
There will be no resolution until there is peace.
Mother Nature— do your thing.
3
Thumbs up emoji!
All the countries might start by offering the women free contraceptives to reduce population growth. Next put water treatment facilities every where they are needed Arab and Jewish. Epidemics are just waiting to break out.
None of the countries are going to desalinate enough water to keep up with population growth and raise crops.
2
Boy oh boy, TomFriedman must have been desperate to write something negative, indeed anything even remotely negative about the Trump peace plan. The result is this protracted yawn, one so convoluted in its reasoning that is is highly recommended as a drug-free soporific for terminal insomniacs.
1
Friedman must have missed all the rain that has fallen in Israel. His religion of climate change has made him blind to facts on the ground. Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is pretty full. Desalination is working quite well. Startup Nation finds solutions that work. More rain is forecast for this weekend.
6
Religion? What an ironic choice of a word. Trouble with climate scientists is they have been too cautious and conservative for years in their predictions. Mother Nature bats last, and the Middle East is learning that the hard way now.
2
climate change is not a religion, its a science based on thousand of brilliant scientists and years of combined work.
rain for a season is called "weather". but our "climate" is getting hotter and hotter with each passing year thus influencing the weather. over time you will more and more drought with, yes, the occasional plentiful raint season. But eventually the dryness will far outweigh thr wet seasons. not sure youll be alive to see it though. Most climate change deniers seem to be age 65 and up.
4
Also wanted to ask the correlation between evaporations of water and new diseases coming to life
1
Israel is the world leader of desalination technology and water recycling. Here is an article on plans for further expansion of these water programs in the region.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/plan-to-pump-desalinated-water-to-sea-of-galilee-may-open-diplomatic-floodgates/
9
Ouch. I didn't know about these harsh realities. Friedman's article is interesting but its sunny(!) conclusion seems like a pipe dream.
2
So many unintended consequences and ironies.
Water shortages that require desalination plants pulling water from the oceans may ameliorate the rising coastlines of melting glaciers.
Yet the untreated waste of Palestinians, denied resources by Israel, is sent by currents up the coast to clog desalination plants that provide the lifeblood of Israel.
I don't often agree with Thomas Friedman anymore, but surely EcoPeace and he are right: Mother Nature holds all the cards.
2
“ A pox on both your houses”—
1
Yasser Arafat once stated that the Palestinian secret weapon in their quest for a land of the free and home of the brave where they were divinely naturally created equal persons with certain unalienable rights was the womb.
There are now 6.3 million Christian Muslim Arab Palestinian Israelis living under the dominion of 6.1 million Jewish Israelis by occupation, blockade/siege, exile and 2nd class citizenship.
About 80% of the world's 16 million Jews are evenly distributed between America and Israel. America is the civil secular egalitarian democratic republic that was the Zionist dream. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have any fossil fuel reserves. Neither side recognizes the claims of Christians to their Holy Land.
1
Global Warming won’t be kind to the Middle East ... is a thought I’ve shared for years.
BUT ... the Israelis are perfectly situated to be the Winners .... competing against the Arabs in Jordan / Gaza / the WB
Why would Israel share with those attacking / terrorizing / hounding them ... the technology and/or expertise
You’re dreaming ... lions don’t lie down with the lambs in the Arab/Muslim World ... the ‘strong horse principle’ applies ...
3
DJT is an actor... acting president... he doesn't know anything and couldn't find Israel on a map with country names! The media should be asking him, and any politician, substantive questions about anything they talk about... you can start with, what's the top three policies you've implemented in your opinion? I bet he can't name three!
1
And just compare the maps of the 'Israeli enclaves' with the local water sources in the occupied areas. My goodness, they all overlap, what a surprise! Just a coincidence, for sure. The imbecilic Bibi, Kushner, Trump 'peace plan' is a very bad joke.
3
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you."
~ John Lennon
1
"I see a bad moon arising..."
1
Nice of us in the United States to provide Israel with over three billion dollars in military every year, approximately 5 times as much as Ukraine.
I wonder how many times Trump and or kushner have wanted to root out corruption in Israel, and threatened to withhold that aid? Or is Israel one of those corruption free paradises, like Mara-Lago?
3
Once again, Mr. Friedman makes perfect sense.
However, it will be Israel who takes the lead in solving the water problem.
1
It is Bibi's "Peace Plan" not Trump's and not Kushner's...
This “common threats” analysis is a bit misleading. Ramallah actually gets more average annual precipitation than London (615 mm for Ramallah and 602 mm for London, according to Wikipedia). Yet there are no water shortages in London. The dire water situation for the Palestinians is not because of Mother Nature but because Israel steals all their water and sells them back a bit of it.
1
@HO - "Yet there are no water shortages in London."
Has anyone heard about the tiny small creek passing through London? It is called The River Thames, also known as Isis (sic!) and Tideway!
Oh, Lord! "If any of you lacks wisdom,
you should ask God,
who gives generously to all without finding fault, and
it will be given to you." James 1:5 (RSVA)
Syria's population is decreasing, not increasing.
Excellent recommendations, but there is no possibility that anyone will follow them. Jews and Arabs will never forget their histories and contrive to live together equably.
Mother Nature proves once again there is no such thing as a promised land, especially when it is promised by a fictional man-made entity while real-world humans deform and mar the land and environment selfishly destroying it for the benefit of a tiny few while having the many living impoverished in a sewer.
The irony! The promised lands with no promise, all thanks to real world humans - "Israeli, Palestinian [and] evangelical Christian zealots" and scorched earth capitalist zealots.
"They all should be networked into a confederation, harnessing the sea and sun — with joint commissions to manage water, energy and food security — that would create healthy interdependencies."
That doesn't work in a capitalistic faux-free-market system where there will always be a dominant group exploiting everyone else. Sharing is anathema to capitalistic greed. "Then they could all rise economically together" is the equivalent of the "trickle down" scam. It never happens.
No doubt the fizzy water global corporate brands are more than happy to corner the water supply and bottle it - for a price of course. Water at pharmaceutical-style level pricing - since water, like many overpriced drugs, are necessary to live.
Nothing was more insulting to "mutual respect" than the trump-Kushner-Bibi peace plan.
1
C'mon. Kushner read 25 books and consulted Sheldon Adelson before dreaming up this one-sided peace plan. It's not mother nature he ignored, it was the Palestinians and a whole bunch of other Arabs he didn't consider.
2
As we used to say, "Right On!" Mr Friedman; plz keep at it-this was educational!
2
Thank you "Mother Nature". I especially like your connection between
Climate change + high birth rates
> growing water use
> growing unemployment
> a fertile ground for radicalization/terrorism/war
State Department, if you are listening, can you put your foot down?
2
The Trump "plan," like so many other things Trump, is a mile wide and a millimeter deep. This is a shiny Mid-East object he can point to during the 2020 campaign for the White House and the ensuing campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize (Obama got one, so Trump has to have one. Or two - just to prove he is better than Obama). And, this has nothing to do with the Mid-East beyond a campaign assist for Netanyahu. This is the Potemkin Village of Middle East politics.
1
Jeez Thomas, for heaven’s sake ease up. Trump is on it!
All of the comments on this piece are related to how “that” place doesn’t recognize its unsustainable practices... shame on US.
The Trump admin is far to incompetent and corrupt to consider any plan or confederation that requires compromise and co-existence. Trump's whole history is one of deceit and treachery . Don't expect anything else from this crowd.
1
"The only way Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians ............ can get that ....... is through massive solar-power generation."
We should not ignore the fact that Israel is in the process of grabbing, not only land and water resources, but also natural gas resources, much of which belongs to Lebanon, Gaza, and Egypt. Burning this gas will not please Mother Nature.
2
Jewish settlements are not "haphazard" . . . Israel has deliberately engineered them to carve up Palestinian land into smaller pieces, with the intent of making a two-state solution impossible.
I doubt that Jared knows why his map-making was such a futile exercise.
1
Terrific reporting and a revelation to me. The death knell and tilt toward an inevitable apocalypse will hinge on the idiocy of climate deniers, not just on the hubris, bigotry, ignorance and unabashed cruelty of nations. I never thought my advancing age would be a stroke of good fortune--I don't really want to live to witness this inevitable catastrophe.
1
Jared Kushner should study the run-up to WW I, the Versailles Peace Treaty, the Ottoman Empires demise and then Mr. Friedmans' Op Ed piece.
1
Brilliant article. Sadly I don’t see anything like this ever happening, not as long as humans remains stuck in their primitive ethno/tribal/religious mindset ingrained with fear and hate of the “other”. A mindset that is particularly prevalent in the human, environmental and social basket case that we call the “Middle East”.
1
Friedmans is out of his depth, again. The Galilee is 1 meter from top capacity the result of winter rains as of today.
He speaks as if everyone were not aware of the water issues or that the 3 parties did not already have a written water division treaty, which they do.
The water shortage s Arabs experience is not new, everywhere in the Arab world. What is new is 24/7 running tap water in Israel. It is Controled by pricing that would boil an America's wallet.
Water is not going to leverage peace. Mother nature will not prevail over human nature as Friedman preposes.
3
The United States and Israel used to be shining examples of what the world should and could be. No longer. That's the real daily and long term weather forecast for every region on the planet. Greed, corruption and hypocrisy have become meteorological as well as existential. Dystopia is the true climate change. And it's going to destroy us all.
1
While you accurately describe the potential water shortage issue, and it is something that everybody in Israel takes very seriously, you should also accurately report the current situation in the Sea of Galilee. Thank God we have enjoyed a second winter of bountiful rain fall and the Sea is at its highest level since 1992. Of course, that is no guarantee for the future, but accuracy is imperative in all reporting.
2
It's a lot easier to solve problems when you ignore all of the people causing them.
"How do we bring peace to this region in a way that gives primacy to the demands of Israeli, Palestinian or evangelical Christian zealots?"
I am afraid, Mr. Friedman, you have forgotten one key impediment to peace in this region; namely, the self-promoting western journalists who are ready to beat the drum for a bone-saw wielding criminal autocrat in exchange for being puffed, while being wined and dinned in luxury hotels.
1
Isn’t it ironic, yet totally understandable, that when you strip away all the politics, the religion, the culture and the righteousness is really just about access to water.
1
So many threads woven to make into one piece of clothing. Not a pretty one at that. Is climate change real? Yes, unequivocally. Is climate change due human action or existence? No. Emphatic no.
1956. Kennedy to get on nomination with Adlai. Life magazine did a profile, Jack & Jackie. That issue also had a story on a river that dried up, in Brazil. So I decided to look up that river today. Seems to be back, wet and energetic as ever.
Back 1960s, they said if carbon goes over 100ppm, its over. Today its approaching 400ppm.
In its few billion years (or more) existence, our earth has been hospitable to human existence for a million years or little more.
So we come to Middle East. And Pakistan. And Yemen. When the reproduction rate, the population creation is such that the land and nature cannot support, best we say exactly that. Peace process, Israel, Gaza don't mean a thing. Tell us on population explosion in Gaza. Or Yemen. Or Pakistan. Or Jordan. Now that will further the story. Its my fear Mr.Friedman will next focus on water in Pakistan, somehow end up blaming Modi and India. For those not in the know, India past 70 years has allowed Pakistan use of water from TWO rivers that rightfully belongs to India.
Its not peace or lack of it, its not refugees, its not farming of sub tropical produce. Its families with 13 children. Its about conservation and water purification.
Climate change? Not our brief. Beyond control.
1
Beyond shocking. Had no idea.
Interesting perspective. Holy land will be more uninhabitable in the future. Israel has the technological know how to convert unlimited sea water to drinking water and as such the existence of Israel is critical to Jordan, Syria and Palestine. That said even more reason there should be a peace plan agreed to by all sides.
2
The Christian religion tells us "The meek shall inherit the earth." And I think that may eventually happen, but only after the aggressive greedy destroy the earth's habitability.
2
.Early on those of the Nation of Israel were told that the “earth” was given to hem by their God. Their God told them to care for it. He also told them to multiply. And that was all He said. Those of the Abrahamic faiths and the civilizations that followed those faiths accepted this. As did the others on the other side of the globe. These words became a guide for the Homo sapiens planetary relationship.
Planet Earth is now telling us that this was far too simplistic. There was no reference to the planet as a finite domain. There was no warning of human population size limitations. He did not tell us that our economic and technological advancements could one day destroy the regenerative resource capacity of the planet’s biosphere if we dump into that biosphere hundreds of millions of tons of highly toxic chemical waste, much of it non-biodegradable.
So we in the West as products of that early tradition are today left with an inadequacy to address a 21st an horrific century Homo sapiens existential reality.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
1
There is no guarantee no matter which any path is taken in the Middle East disaster will not happen. Abuse of religion (mixing politics and religion) that started with Abraham, Jesus, Moses and Moh. has poisoned the region for thousands of yrs.
Having said that, instead of pushing surrender terms down the arab's throats instead of peace negotiations, the above has been hastened.
The sure fire way to end disaster is to stop abusing region. Good luck with this. It would be like banning sex and alcohol.
The only other way to help stop coming disaster is to elect leaders like Pericles, Ghandi, Washington, Lincoln etc.
Instead we have Neh. Trump and the leaders of the PLO and Gaza, hastening disaster.
2
That could be the real--not Trump/Kushner/Netanyahu--American peace plan, money to create a water ecosystem distributed to everyone equally throughout the system, without further political, security, and identity conditions. They would emerge naturally from Mother Nature as required.
Everyone, not just Mother Nature, should scoff at Trump's Mideast Peace Plan. It is nothing more than a Kushner-Netanyahu-Grenbaltt attempt to buy Palestinian legal and human rights using MBS/Saudi money.
2
A new take on the conflict for me. I was not aware of the water problems being faced by all of the players in the region. The question now is what will they do about it?
1
I have no clue what Mr Friedman is talking about any more. Between the earth is flat and the greatness of China and raw-raw for the Iraq war - his track record is abysmal and his logic convoluted.
Can NYT hire more young reporters and less opinion writers?
Excellent Mr. Friedman and thank you. Israeli's smart as they have been with various survival techniques from military might to "making the desert bloom" are captured by the emotional and political imperatives of having their expanded and expanding walled in Jewish State while overseeing a military occupation of over half century. This has depressed and deprived Palestinians of their share of needed resources including economic development. The boomerang effect: Palestinian polluted waters infect Israel as also the whole area dries from Climate Change. The notion that both Arabs and Jews are in this environmentally unsustainable situation moving in on everyone does not seem to have hit home. Look at the current unilaterally conceived "deal of the century peace plan" dead on arrival. Israel seems to feel no such pressure on peace evidenced by dictating such terms saying in effect "we won, you lost". Not so fast. Palestinians raw sewage is in the meantime flowing into Israel, a weapon of sorts too.
2
We all stand on the planet earth, but too many individuals and countries are extremely short-sighted, they only hear the cry of me and mine.
American has decided to withdraw from the world, built higher walls and throw out all those "others" while continuing to grab more and more monies hiding behind the walls of their mansions, and the middle and lower class wallow in the muck.
Great Britain, not to be outdone by American isolation, follow a similar trajectory, which will insulate them from the world and those others. Believing what they can"t see isn't there.
Bewildered citizens are lost without a compass, facing the upheavals of Mother Nature, fires, famines, floods and millions of lies. With Autocratic leaders with their heads in the sand, while sitting comfortably on their golden thrones, radiating in shiny orbs.
121
I very frequently disagree with Mr. Friedman's columns, but he's absolutely right that everyone in the Middle East is ignoring climate change. We should remember that extreme drought was a major factor in precipitating the original anti-government protests in Syria, back before the Assad regime militarized everything.
1
Probably one of your best columns. And frightening, sad, in it’s overriding realities. As usual in climate change discussions, fear of being labeled racist, biased, render population control demands, stifled, silenced, back burner fodder.
All religions, all of them, need to face their birth control policies, and what they’re doing to our planet. God’s gift.
After millennia, God has also given us the wisdom of (relatively) safe, reliable birth control. God, Mother Nature, doesn’t recognize the borders in our minds, the blinders, power plays of religious ...interpreters-. He, she, will have their way with us. If we don’t listen, directly.
Thanks for one more reminder of where we are all headed.
139
@Jo Williams Your comment on the lack of consideration in this article of the population issue is spot on. I find it interesting to read about the diminished viability of the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan river, and other water sources, in large part due to the vast increases in the size of the local populations, and contrast this with the argument that the solution is in the use of the Mediterranean Sea as an unlimited source of water for desalinization. Like the Sea of Galilee, can any source truly be unlimited?
24
The same global analysis you presented in "Hot, Flat and Crowded" (one of your best books) but interestingly focusing on a limited area as opposed to the planet. Clearly, most of the world ignored your thesis in the past. I fear this excellent article will also fall on deaf ears. History has proven that people are short-sighted, driven by emotion rather than reason, astonishingly obsessed with absurd religious beliefs, tribal by nature and incapable of universality.
4
Very well said. Israel is going to face monumental environmental challenges that Netanyahu cannot argue against. Having clean water is already a huge challenge in the world. Israel, like Syria, face a water problem that could overturn Israel's prosperity and be the basis for unrelenting radicalization of their Arab neighbors.
2
Well said Sir
Peace between Israelis and Jordanians and Palestinians will come through a confederation of their sovereign entities based on sea and sun.
Question is: will it happen?
1
More than interesting. Reflecting on President's Trump State of the Union and articles like this on I can only conclude that Trump's understanding of the World makes him unqualified to be Present of the United States, or for that matter unqualified for leadership of any other country. His ignorance of science, not to speak of his other areas of lack of understanding, renders him unable to understand the impact of his decisions.
God help us.
1
As much as the Trump Deal requires fine-tuning, its profound impact lies in the CHANGE of paradigm it has brought to the table. All parties involved have been running in circles for the past 3 decades while expecting different results each time, a classic 'ground hog's day' scenario... So, of course, the Palestinians were not invited this time around when their refusal is Pavlovic. Can Israel confide in them when more than 10% of their budget goes to funding convicted terrorists and murderers? When EU money funds terror-tunnels, rockets, and antisemitic child indoctrination? If such vital long term environmental endeavors would indeed someday be feasible in the region it would probably be placed solely on Israel's budget. However important and crucial TF's idea is to the region it is very naive to assume any of the neighboring countries would join, having struggling to barely feed their citizens or keep their regime from toppling over. Israel has no choice but to keep innovating, advancing, aiding, contributing, protecting the environment (and winning the occasional Nobel Prize) while its Palestinian neighbors go on whining and blaming the galaxy for their century-old folly. How I wish it weren't the case!
2
But for the fact that having Israel exist as the nation state of the Jewish people, sovereign and independent on any part of its historical homeland, is too high a price for the Palestinian Arabs to consider signing any peace agreement, let alone joining some union of states that includes the Jewish one, it’s a wonderful idea. Don’t take it from me, just listen to what they keep saying.
As to water and its related infrastructure, imagine where the Palestinian Arabs would be if the PA didn’t embezzle and Hamas didn’t divert for arms and missiles billions of dollars of international welfare heaped on them.
Wishing that the Arabs will suddenly change their behavior and act in their best interests is beyond naive. It is a generational process that will only start when the West helps them confront reality and abandon their supremacist fantasies. Current trends are far from promising.
3
The 'living' cartoon at the top of the page is a stroke of a genius. Probably, it will be repeated in the future, I hope it does. The content of Friedman's article is as refreshing as the green Mother Nature. It represents a very new approach of an old, very complicated problem; to give Israel its place on the checkboard of the Middle East. Maybe, the younger generation will pick the idea up? Let's hope so!
Refreshing way to provide information.
As a note to the author, beyond some Utopian Israeli/Jordanians/Palestinians, is there any group in action today, working along the lines of Mother Earth's suggestions for Ecopeace in the Middle East?
The Saudi seem to anticipate the future and they are investing in alternative, non-oil related industries.
Israel no longer pumps water from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev.
Not just because of droughts, but because almost all agricultural water in Israel is recycled water that was first in domestic or industrial use, and has been through some level of cleanup.
Israeli agriculture uses almost no fresh water of drinking quality.
2
So how do we make this happen?
Some simple decisions:
Trump or any Democrat
Republican or Democratic Congress
The rest will follow
Mother Nature bats last and she always bats 1.000.
1
Thank you, Mr. Friedman. Nature is our home, it always has been. It is a set of forces rushing through time that our senses were evolved to map in our heads such that we could survive and reproduce (https://medium.com/@teresadlonghawkes/the-proxy-life-59773736ad45). Somewhere along the line, our species got stuck in the maps in our head, which we have mistaken for the greater forces operating all around us. What maps? Follow the great man and you will be saved. Ignore your senses and act only on that which you have been taught by powerful men. Powerful men are doing what it takes to keep us safe, including imprisoning women in their capacity as mothers and sexual servants to men while ignoring everything else about them. Children are the property of their fathers. Nature and its resources are the property of the fathers. As Mr. Friedman notes, this is not how Nature operates. Indeed the map is not the territory. We need different maps to navigate in our heads, maps informed by the greater forces at work outside the human mind. Can we manage this before following our old maps destroys us?
1
Yes! The entire Mideast will survive or fail on the foundation of Regional Cooperation. The bellicose threats of warring nations pale in the face of the overwhelming perils of climate.
1
As we say around here, "This makes too much sense to work."
2
Well said, but desalinization is very expensive and energy-intensive. There is a much more economical possibility to transport massive quantities of fresh water (see https://transoceanic.us/) and Europe has at least three sources that are good for the Eastern Mediterranean zone.
“...mutual respect...” Yes!
And mutual trust.
And personally accountable policymakers,
at all levels, on all sides.
Both near and far.
Twenty years ago during the failed Clinton-era peace effort I took the time to find & read the 1947 UN Partition Plan. I was stunned by the authors' vision of regional cooperation on economic development and infrastructure. IIRC, water-resource management was paramount, as was expanding a trans-national regional railway network. Sure, the proposed boundaries of Israel were unrealistic and militarily indefensible. Sure, no one was willing to accept a United Jerusalem as an International Open City. Sure, the 22 members of the Arab League were not going to accept Jewish sovereignty over even one square-inch of Mandate Palestine. And for sure no one could have anticipated the population explosion in the area.
Today, the only thing more stunning that the visionary nature of the Partition Plan is the myopia of too many people today. I count among my friends & acquaintances many who are ardently pro-Israel. But _none_ has ever read the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
Three-quarters of a century make the goals and aspirations of that document no less visionary, no less pertinent. The "Sun and Sea Initiative" described by Mr. Friedman represents a much-needed update.
Instead what we saw last week was a scrawny prospectus for Trump Towers in Hebron and Bethlehem, because, y'all know, the Palestinians have nothing to offer besides tourism destinations. Rather like land-locked cruise ships, those towers will probably dump untreated sewage; call it progress. They're such ingrates to say no.
2
Almost all these considerations apply equally to Iran and the Gulf states.
1
The situation in the Middle East is a canary in the coal mine. Our heedless disrespect for our place in the nature world is bringing on a reckoning for all living things. Greed, prejudice, pride, willful ignorance, and overpopulation, if not checked, will be our undoing. When will we take seriously who are, where we are, and where we are going?
4
"This is a single ecosystem, and there will be no physical security for one if there is not human security for all."
A crucial point, not only about Israelis and Palestinians, but also true of everyone in our global home!
2
Ending in a sane proposal for an insane situation.
1
Very accurate and thoughtful piece. Could you ask mother nature to give your president a little zap just to help him catch on, nothing hurtful, just enough to spark some thought.
1
Absolutely hits the nail on the head. Can you forward this to Jared?
All politics aside- the problem is us - it is overpopulation.
Humanity’s hubris is astounding.
1
In the 1980s, I remember walking through Nahal (Wadi) Refaim (with students and without), the area between Gilo on the east and Malha on the west which straddled the Green Line. The valley was cultivated in part by local Palestinian farmers from Battir, over the Green Line but who passed over it at various spots and through it. The boundary line in the area was very fuzzy even before 1967. These local farmers had a habit of breaking the nearby Israeli sewage pipes in order to irrigate their fields. Cheaper. Faster. Of course before the Israelis attempted to deal with sewage they irrigated in time-trusted old-fashioned ways.
The produce was marketed to both Arab and Jew, sold to wholesalers who sold it on.
Ecology does respect borders, boundary lines and walls. It is a matter of perspective and priorities.
It was not one for those who saw a quick way to save money by irrigating with sewage.
Just as an aside Mr. Friedman, using 2018 statistics is not a good idea. The water level of the Sea of Galilee is improving by the day due to the rains of the last two years. Google it today and compare pictures. You should cite only up to date statistics. This is not your only mistake here.
2
You have written an incredible article, now how can we get more people to read it. A perfect storm is brewing. We need to unite those who are ready to make changes . It is already too late for the planet as we knew it, but our children need to understand & need a chance to more than just survive. It is not just the industrialized nations who got us here. If everything spirals out of control as it is, half the human population won’t be here in 50 years & those that are left may not be so human. Selfish nationalism will kill us all. Two world wars did nothing compared to the self induced extinction.
1
Good article but it leaves out the coming population growth in the area. Probably the best projections come from Israel where matters are tracked carefully. According the Times of Israel, their population is going to double in the next 30 years:
"Within the same 2050 time frame, Israel’s population — the fastest-growing in the developed world, increasing by two percent annually — is set to almost double from the current nine million to 17.6 million, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. And that’s in a dot of a country, just a little bigger than New Jersey in the US or Wales in the UK, that already has one of the highest population densities in the West and rapidly depleting open space." (26 June, 2019)
If this population growth occurs and the predictions of 20 more years of drought prove true, it will give new meaning to the words; Middle East tinderbox.
3
Prof. K once again a beacon. We need progress in our minds and hearts to offset the centuries of blind faith and violence.
Israel picked the wrong century to become a natural gas producing power house, given climate change. This would be the offshore gas fields along the eastern Mediterranean being developed by Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and others. One of Israel's offshore gas fields is called the Leviathan. Another is Tamar. And that massive planned pipeline for taking away gas from Israel and Cyprus for delivery to Europe is curious. That would be the Eastmed pipeline that is planned to run along the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea until surfacing at southern Italy. The agreement was made during the first week of January. All this when Russia is angling to feed Europe and Asia with gas. As are all the major Middle East gas producers. As is US with its shale gas via LNG shipping.
Whoa, Mother Nature, "Peace and prosperity came to Europe after World War II via the creation of the Common Market."
I guess you missed that part about people intent on genocide (mostly Germans) being killed until they were no longer willing to fight for genocide? THAT is how peace came to Europe. And that, dear Mother Nature, is the only way peace will come to the land of the former Palestine Mandate.
Once the Arab leaders accept that their announcedly genocidal wars (1947-8, 1967) have been lost and will not be allowed to occur again, there will be peace. Indeed, the Trump plan requires the Arab leaders to stop funding murders of Israelis, which they have resisted mightily for many decades.
As for prosperity, that will follow peace. Where Arabs are not hounded by their leadership, they get along quite well with non-Arab Israelis, despite the unending anti-Semitic propaganda from government, schools, mosques and media (the elimination of which propaganda, by the way, is also a part of the Trump plan).
So you see, Mother Nature, you are quite right to cite to WWII as an example to be followed, but you somehow missed the significance of what ended that war and led to peace and prosperity.
2
Politicians ignoring nature! Politicians sowing division, not unity! Politicians building weapons, not homes! Politicians building barriers, not highways and universities! Politicians trying to build nations from prejudice and hate, not brick and mortar!
An alternative to the destructive stupidity of politics is the Belt and Road Initiative, a movement to unite the world in beneficial production and trade. It is patterned after the ancient trade routes that opened the provincial Eurasian enclaves to cultural, artistic, and economic “rebirth”.
Excellent article about a tiny speck on the map but it rings true globally.
Maybe the high rate of birth is a war strategy to maintain high population,
While most of the people are kept completely unaware of the self destruction of the world and their own.
Overpopulation is a world problem, now a day every country problems should be a world problem,
It’s like recycling...
The human specie is in denial and we know it,
Why can’t we ant we built a robot to fix us ?
Brilliant. Nature will have the last laugh
The Arava Institute provides a glimmer of hope. Do a web search for it.
With Jared Kushner's vast experience in diplomacy why would you be worried?
A good example of the problem solving pragmatism that can carry the entire world through the climate catastrophe. Thanks to EcoPeace Middle East and Tom Friedman.
Well said. It is not only Israel/Palestine/Jordan that faces "a trifecta of ecological demise, poverty and radicalization." The same is true for the entire region. And it's the old problem: specialists have been pointing to these problems for literally decades. But the problems mature slowly, and don't usually make the news. But their severity inexorably increases. Further, in the not-too-distant future, some areas of the region will be too hot (in "wet-bulb temperature" terms) for people to survive outdoors. The future is grim. And not only for the region...
73
Tom Friedman paints a dystopian future for Palestine, where water is the new oil. Trump's so-called "peace plan" is nothing but a one-sided giveaway to Netanyahu and a blueprint for hatred, chaos and endless war.
132
@Mark McIntyre, I quote from the column: "To begin, any plan that carves up the West Bank into siloed political spaces, walls and roads — driven by a Trump-Kushner desire to embrace the “reality” of where Jewish settlers have haphazardly settled around the West Bank — makes no sense to me."
That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of current policy, is it?
9
Ahhhhh the future is bright.
I have so much faith in humanity's ability to cooperate and see beyond the boundaries of petty tribalism. Truly, we are a blessed species.
This is very wise, but sadly is unlikely to happen unless the key actors on all sides of the Israel-Palestine dispute grow to understand they are facing a common enemy and really need a common solution.
That solution will exclude the USA, unless and until the US Administration believes in climate change, believes in Palestinian survival as a viable entity and believes in disentangling American interests from Israel's perception of its own interests.
1
Thank you for a welcome exercise in truth-telling, Mr. Friedman. While I appreciate this refreshingly broad view of the situation in the Middle East, it also points out an even larger truth. Nowhere on this isolated planet can any of us go to escape the actions and inactions, the deeds and misdeeds, of ourselves and our fellow humans. Regardless of wealth, status, and power differential, each one of us depends on the same sunlight, the same soil, the same breathable air, the same oceans, rivers, and lakes, the same rain and snowfall, and the same resources for our very lives, both for our survival and for our daily living.
While wealth, power, and perhaps location will offer some of us a longer run than others, eventually the same fate awaits us all. It remains to be seen whether humans are the ultimate sentient organism we believe ourselves to be or whether we will prove to be a failed species that will eventually die out to make room for further evolutionary possibilities on our planet. Should we care about which it turns out to be? Perhaps, but at least at the present moment, it appears that greed, power, and political oneupmanship are much more intriguing pastimes than observing the future that is coming into view before us and attempting to work together to change it.
1
Thanks, Tom.
Looking around the world of 2020, most of what one sees is country after country ill-served by its governments and, of course, by its political class. From the Arabs of the Middle East to the people of India to the Hungarians and the Brazilians and the British and, yes, to us in the USA, our "leaders" are leading us into ... can't think of a word that the NYT would print here.
Enlightenment thinkers, a few hundred years ago, spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the best system of government might be. Few if any of them favored any kind of democracy (and maybe they were right). Many, e.g. Voltaire, favored an enlightened monarchy; of course the problem with that is the "enlightened" part of it. Small, historically anchored and ethnically and linguistically homogenous nation-states (or even city-states) seem like a good bet e.g. the so-called Scandanavian model). Otherwise, it seems more and more that the Chinese have the least bad solution.
Autocrats and technocrats. Respect for the individual, civil rights, and all that stuff may be a thing of the past. Too bad...
1
A realistic well thought out plan and idea. I'd leave the "confederation" open for additional participants such as Lebanon, & possibly Egypt with its Sinai Peninsula (solar & some gas).
The question is, what nation or group of nations will bring all the parties together to agree to this confederation of water/sewage/solar energy infrastructure? Mutual self interest does not appear to be a driving force for this beneficial for all idea.
"It's nature's way of telling us something's wrong," the group known as Spirit sang way back in 1970. And nature will have her way in the end, with or without our kind. Thank you Mr. Friedman for an excellent column. Although I have my doubts about whether technology can save us, it would be a good place to start a dialogue about real solutions and harmonious relations rather than more talk of barriers, missiles, and bombs.
1
Thomas, this is excellent and creative writing. The Mother Nature perspective is brilliant.
As South Africa learned last year, "water" is the ultimate leveler and unfortunately those with plenty of it, take it for granted drop by drop.
1
Every time I read an article like this it makes me think of the John Lennon song Imagine.
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
Here we are in the 21st century and still fighting the same old battles of centuries gone by. Humans just can't figure it out so I guess Mother Nature will have to do it for us. Mother Nature is the ultimate decider and her methods can be cruel, but they do ultimately correct everything that we can't seem to take care of.
4
Your best article yet, Mr Friedman. I would argue that every single policy decision we make around the globe should be based on exactly this way of thinking.
2
Friedman's optimistic proposal for ending the M.E. disputes is very enlightening about global heating and the scarcity of water. However, Friedman ignores the monstrous inequality of power and wealth.
In addition to all the CO2 pollution the rich already cause, they are fueling the creation of space tourism, putting CO2 in the air to get a peak at Earth from space. Someone said, "When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!"
Since the arc of government bends to the interests of the rich and powerful, it can't hold them responsible for what they have done. Hence, it cannot end global heating.
Until we use positive action to equalize power, it will protect the rich and powerful, and many millions will continue to die needlessly as a result.
4
The statement, "the only way they can get that [large-scale desalination] — and not worsen climate change — is through massive solar-power generation" is simply incorrect. Nuclear desalination in a facility owned, operated, and secured by an international coalition (or entity, think UN), would be an even better option for reliably providing potable water for millions without carbon emissions.
1
As always, Mr. Friedman cuts to the core of the issues, looks beyond the surface of the immediate political arguments, and advocates long term effective solutions. A very interesting article indeed!
It's pretty obvious that nothing in Thomas Friedman's mind was asked to convey itself into the preposterous "peace plan" cooked up in the Trump-Kushner White House. And let's remember, here, that the American people are going to be held responsible by the radicalized youngsters in the Middle East for the outrages and injustices we suborn and support in that part of the world. As Mr. Friedman reminds us, the earth and water and air don't recognize political boundaries, which are meaningless unless the politicians within recognize what they are trying to say to us all.
2
Once again we are reminded that Civil Engineering issues, namely water and wastewater, form the basic structure of society. In Israel, Gaza, Syria, and Jordan, the civil engineer is told to solve problems at the same time the government is exacerbating the same problems for political or religious priorities. That “plan” will fail and people will be hurt.
Yes, that plan, or rather that unmitigated catastrophe, continues. It continues for as long as the so-called conservatives get re-elected because these people do not correctly prioritize conservative values like ..... conservation of resources and preservation of life. No, today’s conservatives worldwide only prioritize business development and religious power. All humanity must serve these twin conservative gods.
And so people will die, and soon.
That is too bad. How many must die? Probably millions, and perhaps billions, before we humans do anything effective to stop it.
5
Tom, you make so much of the Gallilee water level. The level fluctuates in a nearly predictable cycle. The level three years ago was nearly the same as it was in 1969. It has been steadily declining for the past 3-5 years but prior similar declines were predictably followed by a steady rise. This is the natural ebb and flow of this body of water. I'm not denying global warming, but whenever any body tries to prove it by looking at a single site, it nearly always breaks down into a regular local phenomenon. Its just not persuasive to me.... and its certainly not persuasive to the deniers. Nevertheless, cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would benefit everybody!
A refreshing take on a possible driver in solving a long-running political problem. Hadn't encountered coverage of this in the US media. As others have noted in the comments, though, political incentives exist to increase populations to create voting majorities, especially if Israel continues its annexation of the WB.
The Mediterranean is getting saltier at the eastern end. The salt and brine filtered out through desalinization gets dumped back into the sea making the sea saltier to the detriment of fish stocks. Ever more salt needs to be filtered to make the water usable. Humanity could help mother nature keep the planet green by having fewer babies. To sustain life in the parched middle east vast emigration is necessary, but where will they go?
4
When are we going to learn that supporting and making contraception universally available is cheaper and more effective than maintaining an army; than buying a fleet of warplanes; than hiring a large number of police and building prisons? If you support peace, you must support contraception.
7
World population reached 11 billion in 2011. According to the UN, it is set to reach 8.6 billion by 2030, by the median estimate and 9.8 billion by 2050. And this is a relative conservative estimate. It assumes a slow reduction in fertility rates down to 2.2 children per woman by 2050, from 2.6 in 2010. To put this into perspective, world population when I was born was around 2.7 billion. World population will almost certainly have tripled by the time I die.
Ask a biologist what happens to a colony of bacteria growing in a petri dish starting with adequate food and water, when the bacteria population triples every day. It keeps growing until it fills the dish, then the great die off hits.
For every existential problem faced, there are sensible, thoughtful ways forward. Maybe not complete solutions, but improvements that can relieve suffering and provide hope.
But rarely do we behave rationally and with sufficient commitment. The Jordan Valley region is characterized by deep rooted differences over land and water. Which is a condition found around the planet.
The solution may be a radical and rapid transition to an efficient solar/wind/water system, but where is this approach being attempting, much less demonstrating feasibility?
When will Jordan unravel? When Jordanians are reduced to an hour of water a week, no number of F35s will be a defense.
1
There is no solution to the problems in the middle east.
Religious fundamentalists on both sides fight over anything and everything. There is no basis of agreement on anything and never will be.
This article says it all. They are living in a desert which is increasingly overpopulated and they are using water at an ever increasing and unsustainable rate.
When the water eventually runs out - that will be the solution. And maybe at that point, both sides will see whether the religious wars were worth it.
6
@mrc This applies to all religious people around the planet.
Thomas Friedman has it right. Like most plans I have heard from Trump, his peace plan sounds better in the telling then in the realization. Trump's plan serves to accentuate the divisions between Israel and the Palestinians, creating divisive circles --roads that avoid a direct road--where straight lines would be friendlier.
The best way to achieve peace in that area is to build interdependence between the two people---to make the availability of the water depend on the Palestinians and Israelis working together to desalinate and build aqueducts that bring this increasingly more precious resort to the population of both nations equitably. In general, if people depend on each other, their desire for peace is strongest.
5
@shimr - " In general, if people depend on each other, their desire for peace is strongest."
I am not sure about that one. The Israelis have been dependent on cheap Palestinian labour from the day state of Israel was created. That has not led to any "strong desire for peace" by the Israelis. One could even go as far as claiming that that interdependence has been actually an obstacle to peace.
The reason for that is obvious. In a relationship where one side has all the power, that powerful side wants to maintain the relationship in the form that allows it to dictate the key terms. Once the Palestinians have their own state, Israelis cannot dictate their terms on them any more.
Indeed, once they become independent, Palestinians may not want their young to work for Israelis (they get more money working for Saudis). Or, if they do, they will be the ones who will set the price for their "cheap labour." And, you can bet, it will not be that cheap any more.
Good story in terms of technology, but the bigger issue is that three groups of people simply refuse to get along. Sort of like the rest of the world, just with fewer groups. Water is only part of the problem, although it is a catalyst, in the Middle-East and elsewhere.
But by the end of this century—maybe sooner—none of this will matter. In the aftermath of overpopulation, wars and climate change, human civilization will be gone. Humans will still be around, but no longer dominant. The bugs and microbes and rodents and toothy carnivores will have their planet back. They are much older than humans and very patient. For now they are thinking “Time is on our side, boys, time is on our side.”
5
I use to tease my husband over the massive amounts of sci-fi books that he reads but not now, seems like man is destined to destroy not the planet (4.8 billion years old) but himself. This will become the point when scientists will be able to show were man like the chimpanzee turned left in the fork of the dna road and cyborgs turned right.
2
Tom,
You have apparently forgotten that all Trump needs to do is change the weather, using a black sharpie and, voila, all is solved. We know that about 40 % of voters will believe him and the changes he made. He understands , as he said to Billy Bush when Bush pointed out that Trump was lying about the Apprentice ratings -
" Just tell them ( the public), they'll believe it. I don't know why. they just do."
Kind of explains it all.
12
Climate change, rising tides and salt infiltration of aquifers will eventually cause water rationing in coastal towns around the globe. The same plan to use renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.) for desalinization and wastewater treatment must be included in regional, national, and international planning now.
4
Superb article. Moreover, it is a model that should be applied in Egypt and the Horn of Africa. Need for potable water, shelter from sun/temperature, prevention of soil erosion, control of the waste stream from humans and animals -- these are the critical issues.
7
Thanks for a rational discussion. Refreshing. Makes great sense. If only there were no humans involved.
9
Tom forgot one very very important aspect, politics. There is no political incentive for anyone to compromise.
Mr. Friedman,
With a career in environmental regulation, I appreciate the water and population data you’ve brought to the Mid- East peace issue. Unfortunately, current data doesn’t recognize the reality that the environment is dynamic, not static, and is constantly changing. Human population rates are increasing, and rainfall amounts are declining. Israel is getting richer, and Palestinians are getting poorer.
You did mention that the Mediterranean was an unlimited source of seawater, but failed to note that the desalinization process includes the discharge of massive amounts of water that contain high saline levels, which will negatively impact receiving water bodies. You also mentioned that the potential for solar power generation was significant, but failed to mention that the cost to produce desalinated water is exponentially higher. A landscape that is increasingly being used for human habitation exacerbates the ability to naturally recharge aquifers and limits space to locate photovoltaic display fields.
It appears to me that human population growth in the Mid-East is the great unknown, which can quickly outpace the ability to produce potable and affordable drinking water.
16
@Vernon Rail And, by all means, punish places that try to implement policies and options that limit population growth. Make the World Suffer More should be the mantra of Trump supporters.
4
Too much arms-a-gettin' and too little considering the birds of the field. Too much empire building and too little learning to live within limits. Too much.
9
Mr. Kristof, please don't force us to look at the big picture. How can anything be a looming disaster when the stock market is up?
Or when we know technology will solves every problem, no matter how fundamental, as long as private capital is invested?
Jared's "Peace plan" is exactly what you'd expect from the uninformed son-in-law of the uninformed charlatan in the White House. There are a lot of words, the best words, beautiful words. There are not a lot of good ideas.
14
@Cathy
Smug little slum landlord how ignorant can you be. This peace plan is one of sheer insanity.
Every line is an insult to thinking people. Wonderful to listen to the State of the Nation it was a bad Hollywood movie.
Nancy to bad you cant take a sharpie and erase him from the front page of the newspapers and from our lives.
Exporting our insanity to Israel and the rest of the world which was already unhinged.
Listen to the footsteps of the late 1930's and never forget we are already on that slippery slope
While I agree with Mr Friedman's ecological assessments, I feel we will see ski-resorts in the Negev before the religious fundamentalists of the world accept the level of co-operation he proposes.
Haredi jews are among the least likely to agree to control fertility and share resources. But the opposition of "christian" fundamentalists to supporting family planning, coupled with the islamic belief in ruling the world with their numbers, makes equal contribution.
The reference to Australia's fires is telling; actual ecological and economic catastrophe has not really changed our leaders attitudes. I fear that even an actual, as opposed to impending, environmental disaster will not convince the fundamentalists in the Middle East that "god" will not protect them.
18
@Philip Brown
Yes, irony. The rises and falls in irrigated desert valleys. A common origin of monotheism with kingdoms and armies. Now, no earth ark to float a boat for Noah anymore in the flood of carbon in the sky.
Point to think about: taking water out of the Mediterranean sea is only kicking the problem down the road. The Mediterranean is also in trouble. Pumping millions and millions of gallons of water out of it has what effect?
8
A very well-crafted essay and an eloquent appeal for a Single State Solution to the politically intractable problems facing Greater Palestine, Israel, Jordan and the Ghettoes. Treat all inhabitants of the area equally in terms of human rights and let peace begin.
9
Regional cooperation of the sort outlined by Mr. Friedman makes perfect sense. Yet, he had an opportunity to talk with Mother Nature, and she inexplicably did not make the point that all these phenomena are linked globally. What happens in California, Japan, and Brazil have an effect on Tel Aviv, Damascus, and Amman. Burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and using oceans as waste dumps all cause the problems Mr. Friedman cites.
The solutions need to be regional but only in the context of a global response. Our little blue dot is getting warmer so it’s no wonder that tempers are flaring. We need to cool things off. fast.
3
As goes the Middle East so goes the planet. Would that the species wake up and truly understand that we all live within a terrarium. It's an interesting aspect that another name for our Earth is Terra?
Remember your first childish encounter with such a concept? It's a big one from our perspective, but still it's a closed loop system. Or as Thomas Friedmans' Mother Nature says in this piece:
"This is a single ecosystem, and there will be no physical security for one if there is not human security for all. "
Yes, indeed. Everything we do. Every single thing, comes right back at us in one fashion or another. Threatening and hampering the lives of all. This is a basic reality. Consequently going forward all that we do, everything we plan, consumer, destroy and dump will have to be considered in this light.
We wanted to be (co) rulers of this place (with 'ol Mother Nature)? Okay, we're getting our wish. Now we have to properly manage it. And not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of all the other lifeforms coexisting here with us.
The days of the free ride on the back of Mother Nature are over.
John~
American Net'Zen
2
Ask thye Australians? Their second biggest export, by a tiny percentage, is coal.
6
The article and solutions makes sense, but the countries and peoples involved are not yet at the point to make it happen.Trump's deal is an opening offer which if taken seriously can start the discussion . The Jews in Israel will have too agree to a Palestinian State under the conditions proposed. That is not yet a reality. ,The Arab leadership will have to accept and convince the Palestinians to agree to recognize the Jewish State using modified borders suggested by this deal as guideline. That is at present even further from reality. If no counter offer is forthcoming from the Palestinians Israel after the next election in March will likely annex the land according to the Trump plan and with Jordan will continue to attempt to solve the problems mother nature brings. The Palestinians again get nothing , but their dream of destroying the "zionist entity" remains alive and their kids will continue to be educated to keep up the struggle, as was the case in the past. For the majority that once again seems preferable to the alternative. A unity gov't in Israel and a Trump victory in 2020 may change the approach of both sides.Time will tell
1
Thomas L. Friedman, I am a long-retired emeritus from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Department at the University of Rochester, and I offer my highest praise for your use of the scientific information needed to understand and even deal with Israel-West Bank-Gaza dismal water supply future.
From the Water Resources chapter of "Environmental Geology" a textbook published when I retired in 1996:
The aquifers that supply water to parts of Israel and the West Bank are re-charged, if at all, by rain falling on the West Bank. Researchers are pointing to the geo-hydrologic facts about this groundwater system and will need to take them into account in making future Israel-West Bank public policy.
You bring my words up to date. You are right, Mother Nature and Earth scientists and many others are scoffing at Trump's Mideast Peace Plan.
I think Nicole Kraus should write a follow up to her Kafka- saturated brilliant novel, "Forest Dark", to give us a Kafka view of the future of globally warmed and dried out Israel-West Bank-Gaza.
Meanwhile, your column is a fine beginning.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
30
Thanks for the gratuitous kicker Thomas in the last sentence. Yes, it's not smart to mess with Mother Nature. But don't by implication, or anything else, blame Australia's climate change record for the devastating bushfires. We emit 1.3 per cent of the global CO2. Add in our thermal coal exports and the figure rises to circa four per cent ignoring, of course, the fact that if we halted exports, importing countries would in most cases replace our coal with "dirty coal." And yes, we will meet or exceed what we signed up for with Kyoto (without needing to account for so-called Kyoto credits). It is the case that successive Australian Governments have been all over the shop on climate policy. But don't blame this, or us, for the bushfires. There are many, many years of history of terrible bushfires in this country.
1
"Meanwhile, in 1948 Israel’s population was 800,000. It’s now 8.7 million. Jordan’s was 450,000. It’s now 10 million. Syria’s was three million, and it’s now 17.5 million. So, the future is steadily more people and less water."
As the bible might say "more people beget still more people". Desalinization doesn't stand a chance against the next wave of population generated by these millions of people.
The Israeli solution is apparently to treat the people so badly that they will go somewhere else, and just where is not their problem. A bit like Trump.
21
Just wanted to say that this is a good essay from Friedman. He has noticed how population growth coupled with global warming really makes things worse in the Middle East.
Example: For many decades prior to 2000, population growth in Syria was 3% per annum which results in doubling of population every 23 years. It was inevitable that something had to give. Population growth came to an end at least temporarily with the civil war.
Yes, Bashar al-Assad may have committed atrocities, but the long term cause of the Syrian war was population growth. And many of the other countries in the region, like Palestine, are on a similar collision course with demographics.
8
I believe the current Trump-Kushner plan is unfair and gives no right to us to distribute other peoples land as we see fit.
It is extremely unfortunate that US did not play its role as an unbiased arbitrator and the Palestinians believed otherwise all along.
Grossly unjust and unfair.
12
@TLA Maybe they should come to the table and tell us that themselves
1
Mr. Friedman. Thank you for your very eye opening analysis. The main highlights in your Opinion here is Water and the infrastructure issues. It is unclear whether these factors were taken into consideration in the Peace Plan- if not in the most recent proposal, even in the past peace plans. It is always a quick fix and not looking at long term effects. It can be concerning and scary as well.
As you have pointed out, the sources and the resources are limited with a ever growing population in the region. And, now, there is the threat of Climate Change that can impact the available resources. We have only to hope for the best for all the people in Israel, Jordan and Syria, and other locations in the region
2
@CITIZEN there is no peace plan here, unfortunately!!
It's refreshing to read an article that recognizes the overwhelming importance of the climate crisis to the future of the Israelis and Palestinians.
Maybe the threat posed to all the people of the region will bring about an era of peaceful cooperation. This is a case of all hanging together or all hanging separately. Either they will work together or there will be endless conflict over resources, particularly water, far worse than the current sporadic violence.
10
We are not far from the same problems. How many Americans (US) think about the devastation to water supply for towns and farmers in Mexico due to the ridiculous demand for avocados. How long before those displaced by this water crisis hits our borders?
3
@TM The craze for Mexican avocados is also to blame for illegal logging in the winter grounds of the monarch butterflies (also prime land in terms of climate to grow avocados). In the past few weeks two main conservationists of this land have been murdered.
Over population is mentioned, but not emphasized - It must be faced in order for other solutions to have a chance.
Also, the various Gods have to tell the inhabitants that They want the problem solved.
18
Thank you, Mother Nature, for a clear, unbiased (as you are known to be) though troubling glimpse at truth in this age of truthiness. Sea and Sun. Yes. Putting the right human heads together could accomplish this.
6
This is a great eyes opening article, thank you.
If the entire world population would be willing to strike, act on, one day a month
Maybe things could change fast,
But if WE wait for our politicians to act, for sure we will most probably see the edge really really close
and really really soon.
Let’s the world be French!
2
Well, I take my hat to you sir. You have recognized an absolute reality and you have also provided a solution. Let's hope that there are some political leaders that listen
9
How is the current situation?
Thomas, is NO plan better?
we have a situation, that we can ignore, or we can address.
4
Absolutely true, but we many never be troubled by Nature in the ME, since we have China and India both dependent on snow/glacier melt from the Himalayas. China knows how to take care if her peoples.
These are fine arguments for a one-state solution, with total cooperation between all parties. A continuation of the apartheid system which now exists will lead to disaster, so well explained in this article.
Indeed, the entire Middle East will be a proving ground for the effects of climate warming. To ignore this fact will be dangerous. The half-baked plan (no pun intended) of Mr. Kushner simply ignores reality.
Better to start over now by getting rid of it.
8
When republicans say they care about the future they are only talking about a couple of months or a year or two out at the very most. So deficits, pollution, climate change, r & d and so forth don’t matter
28
Trouble is, Christians have been saying it’s the End Times for 2000 years, and the Times ain’t Ended yet. Might be smarter to assume Time is just going to Go On and deal with reality. If the world ends, you haven’t lost much. But if it doesn’t and you’ve made arrangements, you can cut down on the bloodshed.
1
@Doug I think Republicans care very much about the future, their own future of increasing power and wealth. What we are seeing is the result of a very successful long game.
1
I’ve always thought that wars will start over water and access to it. Another place where there will be huge problems: China’s damming of rivers for energy and water retention starving countries south of its borders, mainly India.
Most of all it is over population, the number one environmental problem. Too many people using limited resources. There are too many people for the planet to handle, mainly, but too many people living in areas of the world that cannot support large populations of people even in this country. I am so glad my children decided not to have children of their own. The future of my non-existent grandchildren is very bleak.
14
Friedman has been wrong about so much for so long regarding the middle east that his opposition to this plan actually gives me some hope that it will make substantial progress toward an agreement with the Palestinians. It is still a long shot, but now I have some hope thanks to Friedman's opposition.
8
Desalinization only takes care of us humans. Do we really want to live without birds and other mammals, trees, and fish? China was criticized for it’s 1 child policy, but it was the only step in the right direction.
25
I am impressed Tom. Erase borders create a common market, build infrastructure based on how it promotes the well being of all. This is really the ultimate solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It can be implemented over one generation to allow the old feelings and negative emotions to fade away if that is what it takes.
5
Water in the region depends heavily on areas not discussed here, the Golan and Southern Lebanon. They are the hills from which the water comes.
Southern Lebanon has its own river, the Litani, and the pattern of mountains also feeds the water supply of Israel. This region was invaded and occupied by Israel for 22 years, Israel was expelled by Hezbollah, and now it is occupied by Hezbollah and the Shiite part of Lebanon's population.
The Golan is key to the Jordan River. It is also important to the plains below in the other direction, the entire farm lands around Damascus in the fertile heart of Syria. Israel claims to have annexed it, Syria while it still functioned was bargaining for its return, and now the whole mess depends on what becomes of Syria.
There is a lot more to the water issues than Friedman addresses here.
10
Before Climate Change, peace reigned over the Middle East, for centuries. Suddenly, and most recently, with the advent of Climate Change, there has been acrimony and friction.
Right?
1
@Sunny 4 Life
Well it isn't only climate change, but that is a major factor. Stealing palestinian land is also a major factor.
Wonderful insights in this mock-interview on the surreality of the situation in the so-called holy lands. As for Tom Friedman, braving our Common Mother's displeasure, many thanks to him for this eye-opening, sane, empathetic, and most natural discourse on the long-detoured route to "peace" in quotation marks. As for the Kushner plan, it should be deposited at once in that Gazan landfill, and his father-in-law should be tossed in along with it.
23
As Greta Thunberg and others of her generations know well, if we don't work together to stop climate change, eventually none of the other issues will matter.
20
@Aurora
Well no one wants to work together as demonstrated by the speech last night.
We have a mayor of a small city who has no world experience and so what is new? we have Jared whose father got him into Harvard is now telling people who are brown how to live their lives.
Climate change means nothing to the GOP we wont have to worry about the future because there will be no future.
Science fiction books have become our reality and it is very stressful since we refuse to think and educate ourselves
We are running out of the necessitates of life but the GOP still cant wake up
Exporting stupidity is key to foreign relations and we are exporting insanity
This is only one aspect of the failure of this plan.
The plan in question was only created by three persons , two of them do not live there , and has no idea what the problems and it’s solutions. The third person who run one area there, got what he wants , and does not care about any body else , including his own peoples.
Very interesting point was raised by Mr. Friedman. He is more aware of what is going on the region than many rulers , or scholars.
12
Mr. Friedman;
thank you for writing about climate change, and the fact that our planet actually has no boundaries - we are constrained by what we think, not by what we can do.
11
This is a right-on article. (Please send a copy to Kushner.). But nothing will happen until Netanyahu is replaced by a Centers-Left government and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority are replaced by a responsible democratically elected government. When(If) this happens, Israel, Jordan and the Arab Palestinian governments need to meet to solve the problems. The problems are approachable. Much of these lands are desert with enough potential solar power to support the entire region. And the use of this power for desalination of Mediterranean water should supply enough water for general use and agriculture. This would also need to include sewage treatment plants to end pollution of the Mediterranean and piping systems to transport fresh water inland from the ocean. There are no other alternatives except brutal population reduction by war, starvation and disease. Historically, mother nature has been quite good at this as a way of reducing populations.
13
The mighty Nile is no longer keeping up with agricultural water needs and exponential population growth. August 28, 2019 Dartmouth College finds:
"More rain yet less water expected for up to 250 million people along the Nile"
"It's hard to overstate the importance of the Nile, and the risk of increasing water insecurity in an already water-scarce place," said Justin Mankin, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth and senior researcher on the study. "The Nile has served as an oasis for water, food, commerce, transportation and energy for thousands of years. But we show that the river won't be able to consistently provide all of those competing services in coming decades."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190828103946.htm
5
Thank you for this reminder of who is really in charge. The underlying cause of all of this environmental degradation is, of course, over-population.
We just can't stop multiplying, can we?
14
Billions of human beings consuming other living beings and plants
Billions of human beings producing personal solid, liquid, and gaseous human waste.
Billions of human beings consuming consumer goods which become waste in a few minutes to a few years.
Billions of human beings creating billions of more human beings.
35
Thanks for saying what I have become weary of saying. Human overpopulation, the elephant in the room, the media are being very careful not to mention this crucial fact, (apparently this is a scary issue so it mustn’t be mentioned). If there weren’t so many humans we could have a sustainable future, but I believe that point has been passed long ago, nature will solve this problem for us since we cannot or will not voluntarily.
Good luck y’all.
5
@Big Al "nature will solve this problem for us since we cannot or will not voluntarily." Unfortunately you are correct.
3
This is all so much nonsense (typical for Friedman though). Nothing wrong with using solar power for desalination, of course. But Israel does not need Jordanian deserts for solar energy – it has plenty of its own. Nor does Jordan need the Israel's seawater - it has its own access to the sea at the Red Sea port of Aqabah. Equally, Palestine (no matter what its eventual borders will be) also will have both to spare. So instead of the useless eco-hipsterist flat-earth Mother-Nature fantasies of a shared communal paradise where blood and politics do not matter, one should focus on solving real issues (yes, like future borders, capitals and security) if any kind of solution to this difficult problem is to b e found.
9
@David
I don't know if the author is an eco-hipster or believes in "Mother Nature" as anything more than a rhetorical device to get people to think about ecological balance. EcoPeace, the joint Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli body mentioned in this article, does a lot more inter-community work than you might think wacky scientists, ecologists and water resource engineers are capable of, though. And they're aware of the real issues you mention. They live there!
Their statement on the 'US Peace Proposal' is worth a read, if you have a moment.
https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?u=3d8a7858bb78ba98208e9bcdc&id=1b97a3a763
More power to your elbow in Brisbane, UQ is getting somewhere in creating a vaccine for Coronavirus I believe.
Why do the major American news sources insult the general public’s intelligence by putting the possessive form of the president’s surname in front of international initiatives, diplomatic accods or legal schemes?
Give the president three sheets of lined paper, two #2 graphite pencils. Seat him in a claasroom with a proctor. Give Don ninety minutes to write down what he knows about The History of Israel, 1948 to 2020.
Or Racism in North America, 1619 to 2019.
Or American Foreign Interventionism, 1945 to 2020.
Get it? Donald Trump let it slip in 2017, that he’d just learned that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.
Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan?
Donald Trump doesn’t have the intelligence or organizational skills to plan a backyard picnic for six adults and six children.
Every time this newspaper implies that Trump possesses skills that he so sorely lacks you are doing him an electoral favor and your readers an erroneous idea.
I am a certified secondary school mathematics teacher in two U.S. states and one foreign country.
DonaldbTrump
43
@Tom W - My last look at comments here before watching my Swedish news and I truly enjoyed your suggestions. They also lead to thoughts about proposals made in various countries, one of them Sweden, to require that immigrants, especially asylum seekers, learn not only to speak the new language but to be able to answer questions about the kinds of subjects you name in your comment.
It is always immediately obvious to me that there are many questions about my country of birth that I would not be able to answer.
What has interested me especially now that I am 87 years old would be answers to questions like this.
What were we taught between grades 1 and 9 in 1937 upwards (I entered first grade in 1937) about slavery, segregation, whites only signs and much more? I would love to be able to see the books we used. I do not think we were taught anything.
My last reply for the day.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Israel has always had a plan-largely successful to this point-to be independent in both water and food security. It has had to absorb millions of Jewish refugees from around the world. They have to feed and hydrate them. Without water there is no life. Israeli water tech is the envy of the world. Read ‘Let There Be Water’ by Seth Siegel and learn something. They take climate change seriously in Israel. They have to do so. They have no choice.
21
The topic is climate change and Mother Nature
The high birth-rate amongst the Arab population in Gaza and the West Bank will result in ecological disaster for themselves and everyone else in the region. Apparently, they’re more interested in increasing their population than having enough water to survive.
14
@Susanna, half of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned. I doubt many are "interested in increasing our population".
The orthodox in the settlements are doing the exact same thing.
1
As Tom is the only major Times journalist who “gets” the essential connection between the environment, the economy, conflicts, refugees, and terrorism--and creative possibilities for resolution, it's frustrating that even he only points this out from time to time. It is absent from most of his columns.
Still, this one is a treat, as it makes so many connections.
A biggie is that it offers a creative alternative to the well-known, “My Way Only” ideologies and rationalizations on each side of the Israeli: Palestinian conflict. Yes, they will have to do things differently. But there’s even more reason they can’t go on with the same old narratives and practices.
While the piece needs more on desalination’s problems, it implicitly gets at some other core beliefs which will have to change.
Any time the Times writes about decreasing population growth rate, it’s treated as a problem. Here we see increasing numbers make everything worse.
The idea that “Making the desert bloom” was a great accomplishment in Israeli mythology now has be redefined.
Even those Israelis who support no more peace efforts, as they blame Hamas or the Palestinian Authority for creating their own problems, have to blanch when their enemies have water “only episodically.” To not care violates the Jewish values I was taught were special.
Mother Nature is the big, often overlooked factor. Invoking it shows us clearly what was always true: their fates (as well as ours for that matter) have always been connected.
8
I admire Tom Friedman, but it is hard to imagine a proposal working along the most difficult border in the world when even before climate change water sharing has been contentious even in politically stable places , like California, or South India.,
I suggest that the future is not yet lost - desert irrigation methods, many developed in Israel *before* the Six Day War expanded to the Jordan river, have proven sustainable agriculture under the driest of conditions, now spreading around the world.
6
When a small minority talk about the existential consequences of human caused climate change they just aren't kidding.
There isn't going to be merely rising water to swamp big coastal cities. That isn't the primary problem. It will be from water availability, rapid growth of pests that will affect agriculture. It will be localized, but as people starve they will migrate.
The majority of us, not just Trump, may "believe" in climate change -- whatever that means -- but in reality we've taken a status quo wait and see attitude. Above all we just plain wouldn't want our greedy little selves to be inconvenienced in the luxury we've come to expect as our birthright, from Mother Nature.
8
Having a common market with Israel, Jordan and what is left of Palestine sounds like a good plan. Now if politicians will just get out of the way and led experts in water management and solar power take over it may even work and bring peace. A nice dream with zero chance of being implemented. Politicians in power in that region (and most places including the US) would rather ruin their country than give up control to people who know what they are doing.
9
Great column, insightful, one of his best & most useful that I’ve seen in a long time. But nobody’s listening, everyone prefers to unthinkingly commit slow suicide. I’m so sick of hearing that it’s all Palestinians fault for (supposedly- simplistically) saying no.
9
Pure fantasy, starting with the idea that these countries can accommodate rapid population growth. A real ecological plan would center on ending it.
14
All those political, religious, and ethnic factions fighting for control of the land, air, and water, while in the end they'll all be smote by Mother Nature who cares not for the petty squabbling of her creatures. The area will revert to "A land without any stupid people."
8
Maybe they should try a far simpler “peace plan”. Birth control.
40
Raising standard of living with (male) employment and education of girls and women will aid in reducing family size
— except perhaps among those with religious belief in being fruitful and multiplying.
Perhaps even those.
1
Wouldn't that be the Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu peace plan?
1
"A wind of madness is sweeping the globe."
_ Antonio Guterres, U.N. Secretary-General
12
Jeez Louise, Tom. Can you make it any more depressing? I mean, I get it where you’re coming from. But give me a break; I’m just coming off the impeachment trial which is depressing enough. I’ll get back to this in a month—I promise. Right now I need a break. (And you should go have a bourbon.)
1
@Huge Grizzly, (And you should go have a bourbon.). But hold the water. It's too precious.
4
Mr.Friedman never never states that Palestininans has the right to their land and has the right to fight anyone who grabs their land while always stating "Israel has the right to protect itself".
So, just to pretend that he is neutral in his writings, he brings in this topic of Mother Nature.
Mr.Friedman, be honest and state that Israel is a bully and trampling the rights of Palestinians.
12
@Sam Swaminathan . Do Palestinians also have the right to declare peace and have a state? If so, they missed their opportunity in 1937, 1948, 1971, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2014, and 2020.
15
@TMDJS, it might be worth researching exactly what the Palestinians were offered on each of those dates, as well as questioning why Western countries were the ones offering the land that Palestinians have occupied for millennia in the first place.
Well said. It is a paradox that rich countries are responsible for most of the pollution by industrial use of carbon (oil it's most representative environmental hazard), and yet the poorer nations, unable to cope with the increased frequency and severity of droughts, floods and fires, are the ones suffering the most from Climate Change. And to add injury to insult, we have a cruel bully in-chief, brutus ignoramus by choice, denying Climate Change, a malevolent stance given the ample evidence. Desalination may be the future as to provide water to a growing population, but for that to occur, the current abuse of denying sovereignty to Palestine must stop; as you said, we need something similar to the EU, with a healthy interdependence, with justice for all....and the peace that may derive from it.
322
@manfred marcus Desalination requires a lot of energy - meaning more burning of fossil fuels if we don't build up renewable energy facilities.
As usual, GOP policies stymie any attempts to make progress.
29
@manfred marcus I believe the "powers that be" DO believe in climate change, and they're planning for it... VICIOUSLY.
14
@manfred marcus I am sorry but "current abuse of denying sovereignty to Palestine" is an old anti-Semitism (I am not Jewish). In 1948 Palestine was divided by Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Israel was created by decisions of international bodies. The three Arab states did not bother with sovereignty of the Palestinians. This became an issue only after Israel defeated its neighbors in 1967. The Palestinians still don't really want to recognize the existence of Israel. In my opinion it is either ignorance or anti-Semitism or both to blame only Israel for the Palestinian situation.
6
Hey Tom, check with Father Time in sure he’ll give you a more relevant assessment!
Get updated on sea levels in the Kineret. 2018 was two winters ago.
6
So the most stubborn people in the world -- both sides -- are going to go right down to the line where ecological disaster strikes before they consent to joint management of water and energy in the Middle East. Nothing short of ecological disaster will be required. And this will be a preview of the world-wide tragedies waiting in the wings. Scientific progress has muted and silenced and distracted and neutered our species-level responses. In an odd way we are now inferior to the other animals on this planet, because they still have species-level reactions (though they are powerless to do anything other than react). And nothing short of the Israelis and the Palestinians teetering on the edge of collective suicide will awaken the world. Or will it? Nobody knows, for we are off and away into the grim future, and no model has predictive value. I mean, shifting gears, could Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Hamilton or later, Lincoln, or even later, the Roosevelts, have ever predicted Donald Trump? Could they have predicted that at the turn of the twenty-first century, after scientific revolutions, the Establishment would leave 40% of the population behind in poverty, drug addiction and family breakdown in the historical blink of a generation, as they chased the chimera of Neo-liberal accumulation and Big Tech overreach? Even so, many millions of we human beings will continue to try to live good lives and work and strive to save the world from itself. That is our nature too.
4
Btw, this issue applies to the entire planet: overpopulation and depletion of resources in the face of the climate change. What could go wrong!
24
Tom, you left out rising sea level. The time frame is a bit longer, but it is a huge threat to both Israel and Gaza, where most of the population lives close to the sea. (Not to mention Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi. And all other coastal U.S. states, too, but those most of all.)
5
A regional water authority partnership of Palestinians and Israelis could work. Would the U.S. or E.U. help pay for it? These are not new ideas. Just more urgent.
@michael. The Oslo Accords created such an authority. Like everything else, the Palestinian Arabs have boycotted its meetings and their rulers have diverted most of the international funds meant for their water infrastructure either to built weapons and terror tunnels or to fill their personal bank accounts.
3
The religious leaders of all faiths really need to tell their brethren that excessive number of children will have dire consequences for the lives of these very children as they grow up on a world impacted by climate change. Most religious teachings were created when the worlds population was a fraction of what it is today and our planet just cannot sustain all of these religions espousing multiple children!
If humans won't make the necessary changes, then Mother Nature will do it for us with tsunamis, earthquakes, fires and worst of all - no drinking water.
20
@Savita Patil
There would be a lot more drinking water if we didn't use perfectly drinkable (aka potable) water to 'flush away' our bodily 'wastes'. But no mention of alternatives, such as methane digesters, in this article. Why ?
4
When I look at that landfill picture, I can’t help but think of 8 billion people producing waste.
13
Sadly, those who listen to gods don’t pay any attention to Mother Nature.
22
Jared Kushner has done a high school project and is seeking a PhD for his work.
37
And you did not once directly mention that it would be wise to stop bringing so many children into the world, which is an issue that applies to the whole world, not just the Middle East.
15
Oh my one of your absolute best! Thank you.
2
"I wonder if God invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey" -- Mark Twain.
8
@Alan Dean Foster
Or vice versa.
And good work.
That's the 'pleasant' mother nature solution... in time, there will be an 'angry' mother nature solution -- of the likes we see here and there already. Fires, floods, etc.
Ya, it'd be great if the Middle East showed us all the way and listened to Mother Nature and took her advice to heart, but sadly this is not happening... and these days, at least in the USA and Israel, Trump and Kushner seem to the ones making the decisions... bad ugly decisions that are going to affect millions of people for long long time.
6
First rate Tom! Mother Nature casts aspersion on the fallacy of nationalism, religious medievalism, archaic and barbaric ideology and the ruinous capitalist system of private property in the means of social production.
4
If the Palestinians got trillions of dollars as part of a deal to settle their disputes with Israel, one thing they could afford is enough desalination plants in Gaza, plus a pipe in the tunnel to the West Bank, to really improve their self-sufficiency and standard of living, powered by solar arrays built on their new land against the Egyptian border.
Thank you for this piece.
1
This is the most important story I've read in a month. I don't post many things to Facebook, but I posted this!
According to Scientific American (2016), "Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants."[1]
A truly good journalist, especially one who frequently writes about Israel and the Middle East would have brought up this point early in their column.
The desalinization plants are powered by natural gas of which thanks to recent natural gas findings off the Israeli coast, Israel has ample amounts -- enough to provide Egypt in a major contract.
As for the sewage in Gaza, Hamas has chosen to spend their money on missiles to shoot into Israel and to build elaborate tunnels instead of helping their own citizens. It is evident that Hamas cares little for the environment or the health of the citizens of Gaza.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/
32
@David MD
You are quite right – Israel is the world leader of desalination technology and water recycling. Thank you for the link. Here is another article on plans for further expansion of these water programs in the region.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/plan-to-pump-desalinated-water-to-sea-of-galilee-may-open-diplomatic-floodgates/
5
@David MD I read somewhere that local Palestinian leadership will not coordinate water planning with the Israelis because that would be considered "normalization"
3
"mutual respect"? like putting the Palestinians on reservations like we did with native Americans? how well has that worked? Jared is following in the family tradition of evictions. the prez learned about racism from his father and is refining the practice.
17
@Robert. By “reservations” I guess you mean the areas in which they lived during Jordan’s illegal 19 year occupation during which not only did no Palestinian demand a state but they all acquiesced in Jordan’s annexation and accepted Jordanian citizenship - while, thanks to UNRWA, simultaneously remaining Arab refugees of Palestine.
You forget that since the Oslo Accords, over 95% of Palestinian Arabs have been ruled by the PA or Hamas. That was their own choice.
Brilliant insights! Thank you.
When will we all realize we’re in this world together — and that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor?
350
@WestHartfordguy
"When will we all realize we’re in this world together — and that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor?"
One person's ceiling is another person's floor.
9
@WestHartfordguy Old landscaping saying...
"EVERYTHING is downstream."
4
@WestHartfordguy : Women account for 51% of the world's population, yet even educated persons in developed nations are still using old-speak -- language from centuries in which only men had agency and therefore "man" was an acceptable stand-in for "person / persons / people."
If you hope for the world to be better, then *everyone* has do better. Please stop excluding women from the equation; please stop unquestioningly using language that excludes them (and non-binary persons).
It's easy. Thanks.
1
Too many people, too little water, too much money hoarded by too few and too much hatred and fighting. Sounds like the future of virtually the entire planet if we and our leaders don't wake up.
589
@Jack Sonville Too many people. Everything else is a footnote.
15
@Jack Sonville
And not much of a future.
6
@Jack Sonville
I believe the planet will survive us, but we will not survive as the destructive species we have become.
8
Electricity generating solar arrays in the Jordanian desert. Great idea but why stop there? I can easily imagine gigantic solar installations from the Mohave Desert throughout the entire American southwest with the distribution and storage infrastructure to power all of Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and stretching up into southern Utah and Colorado. All it would take is will and leadership.
10
@Robert
And the extinction of thousands of species of flora and fauna.
Tom Says "It’s not smart to mess with Mother Nature. Ask the Australians". When I asked who caused wild fire in Australia, the answer was environmental extremists. They did not allow to clear the forest to control forest fire, so, an environmental catastrophe happened there. Environmental problems and water shortages are a global phenomenon. For Israelis and Palestinians to solve there environmental and water problems, they have to solve their security problems first and need to agree to coexist. Environmental issues should give Palestinians and Arabs much more incentive to sign a peace agreement with Israelis because Israel can help them better than anybody else. Tom may not want to give Trump any credit, so he is talking about the next step after the first step, that is signing a peace agreement.
6
Massive solar and desalination schemes are possible only in developed countries, even then at high monetary and ecological cost. Friedman's article is a crystal ball for the disaster that is waiting on the doorstep of most of the world, if it hasn't already forced its way inside. I see only the dimmest prospects for the future.
11
Dear Mother Nature, Thank you very much for speaking up at this moment through everyone's favorite frenemy, Tom F. You have wisely observed that the simplistically political "peace plan" has failed to look at geographical, nutritional, and water realities. We need to start making certain that all parties to ME political disputes have enough to eat. Having enough to eat means having enough water for growing food and enough water to drink. THE ME IS A DESERT. One of the great resources of the ME is the Mediterranean. It is quite foolish to use the Med as a sewer. The child who was assigned the job of bringing peace needs to think regionally. The first problem to address, in multiples, is sewage and other human waste. Regional thinking would mean meeting the needs of Israel, Jordan, Gaza, and Syria. The next problem is potable water supply in the form of desalination. Then we need to build parallel yet integrated durable electrical grids to supply the desalination plants. While we're at it, we should also build factories to produce solar panels. So, now we have a plan to provide everyone in the ME with 24/7 supplies of electricity, water, and waste removal. This will inadvertently create a lot of jobs for a lot of people in electricity generation and distribution, water generation and distribution, and agricultural products. That's enough for now. Maybe in another decade or two we can talk politics.
6
Every system, mechanical, biological, or environmental, can and will reach a point where it breaks down and stops. Abuse anything long enough and it dies. And something for all policy makers to understand: people living in the systems that are breaking down will not just lay down and die. They will move, they will fight. The boarder crisis in America is driven in part by the failure of small farms in Central America driven by climate change.
38
I too have long believed that a massive solar powered desalinization and sewage treatment water system is a prerequisite for peace and prosperity in this region. The recent peace plan endorsed by the Trump administration and the Netanayu administration has a lot of words on security, good government, and transportation infrastructure. But nary a word on water infrastructure. You are absolutely right that such a plan spearheaded by Israel and Jordan is critical. In fact, I would argue it is a necessary precondition to the plan recently put forth.
31
@John McFeely
Section 14 is about water.
Mother Nature,
You have outlined a rational way of dealing with a middle eastern predicament that is global in scope. It's a classic case of "The Tragedy of the Commons" (as you well know) where the "commons" is open to all and overused to the point of ecological disaster. Please continue your life-saving work.
Respectfully,
Your children
43
"Sadly, in the last 50 years, the Jordan River’s annual flow has dropped to a trickle."
I observed this trickle about 15 years ago from the Jordanian side. The riverbed had become a mosaic of scrubby wetlands crossed by a few braided channels. With a good pair of rubber boots you could have walked through the river to the Israeli side. Of course, the gun towers looming in the distance suggested that this was not in reality an adventure to be undertaken.
This is one of Friedman's more perceptive analytical pieces. It serves to highlight how climate change denial has grown from being a mere political stance to an all-engulfing cultural miasma. This fog engulfs us all to some degree. Our media politics has become largely an unconscious exercise in denial:
"Regrettably, we simply won't have time to think seriously about climate change until after Trump is expelled from office. It is our present civic duty to watch the impeachment hearings from beginning to end, even though the predetermined outcome was long ago announced."
Meanwhile, the environmental degradation proceeds from day to day and, indeed, is increasing under right-wing populist regimes. Evolution normally is driven by blind impulses. But now we have added self-awareness to the biological equation.
In the short term, fear and greed are preventing humans from making good use of their brains. This failure is now having serious consequences. Let's hope we creatively adapt sooner rather than later.
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@woofer A civic duty to watch an abuse of reckless legislative power run amok? Please. Rather than waste your time on that Democratic dog and pony show do something useful. Watching is not action. Waiting is not a solution. However, I do agree that Tom’s reference to the “future” trickle is just flat wrong. It’s been a trickle for awhile.....swampy mud flat is more accurate. So where else is this same thing happening? California? Arizona? Agriculture at war with booming cities vying for water? Middle East meet Southern California!
2
@woofer "Regrettably, we simply won't have time to think seriously about climate change until after Trump is expelled from office." Expelling Trump will not be nearly enough. We need to remove most of the Republicans from office if we expect to get a handle on population, the environment and climate change. Here in Missouri most of the Republicans in our state hate renewable energy. They want to discourage solar electric by imposing new taxes on it.
4
The notion of a limited confederation of Israel, Palestine, and Jordan dates back to some of the creative thinking that emerged during the Allon Plan era. It may be too late now but I'm glad that Mr. Friedman is putting it back on the table for discussion.
22
I think that if we did get to astate of sun - sea healthy interdependence, the humans would still focus on killing one another.
3
Dear Mother Nature, Your recommendations vis-a-vis the ecological catastrophe unfolding in the West Bank & Gaza are spot on if the region’s inhabitants are to have any chance of fending off lives of misery and despair as political factions quarrel over diminishing resources.
With respect, might I also urge you to persuade residents of the area to aggressively pursue contraception as a means to reduce the unsustainable pressure humans are placing on a limited resource base?
Respectfully,
Rob
157
@Robert, it strikes me as ironic that the far right who pressured our government to ban all federal funding of birth control, sex education and family planning are now the ones screaming the loudest to close borders and build walls.
22
@tradewinds
Most American women have, in spite of the rights best efforts, been able to control their reproductive lives. It is third world women, with little to no control over anything who are having most of the worlds kids. The only salvation of the planet lies in educating and empowering young women everywhere and part of that is free, easily accessible, confidential family planning services. We should be paying for this here and as a cornerstone of foreign aid. If we did, the need for walls would be much reduced.
34
These problems are not limited to the middle east. Unfettered population growths with a rising demand for an industrialized living standards has depleted natural resources in many parts from africa to china. Water will be a crucial resource, waste management will be a crucial factor for the future for an huge area with billions of people. It is not even just climate change, it is simply an unsustainable economy and ecology.
Given all the other political and social rifts, the ME is a powder keg with more than one fuse cord. And it is not a question, if the situation will blow, but how bad it will become.
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@Mathias Weitz Especially for Europe. There is little land on earth in the Southern Hemisphere. Our current continents are largely north. No where for refugees from the equator to 45 degrees latitude in either direction to go but north.
Tom Friedman: Is there anything important I left out?
Mother Nature: Well, Tom, you forgot to mention that human overpopulation is driving this and all other ecological crises on the planet, including climate change. Treating continuous population growth as a given ignores the most important aspect of the problem. If humankind does not find a way to reign in its own exponential growth, through family planning and education, it will destroy most biodiversity on Earth before eventually destroying itself. So an essential prerequisite to peace and sustainability is your species agreeing on lower birthrates.
492
@Alex The problem, I would posit, is bigger still. World economies measure themselves on growth, and friends at global-oriented hedge-fund companies tell me that there is a factor in their figuring on global economic well being that requires a certain level of population growth to keep global economies well and thriving. Cannot we, as prescient adult humans, get together globally and come up with a different sort of economy that allows us all to sustain ourselves at a reasonable level, and in a reasonable number, without consuming all of the earth's resources to give one or another group an economic leg up in the present? Alas, probably not.
81
Alex, Population growth is a problem, certainly. But the rate of increase has gone from 2.1% per year in the late 1960s to 1.1% today, continually dropping about 0.02% each year. The spread of education (especially for young women, who become empowered to demand and use birth control in order to improve their lives) and significant reductions in extreme poverty are the principal drivers of these changes.
There is every reason to expect these trends to continue even absent a climate catastrophe, for population to stabilize and begin a slow decline in the last quarter of the century, and for dense populations to flow towards regions better able to sustain them. So the potential returns from added emphasis on population control are diminishing. Given the foreseeable need to shift local populations more rapidly and extensively due to coastal flooding and more abrupt changes in climate, priority should probably be given to the transition to green technology, both to slow climate change and, as Thomas Friedman notes in the case of Jordan, to exploit more fully natural, clean energy sources that can replace lost resources in areas like the eastern Mediterranean.
15
@Alex But Friedman DID mention out of control population growth that leads to overuse of scarce energy and water supplies and pollution from sewage.
13
"Meanwhile, in 1948 Israel’s population was 800,000. It’s now 8.7 million. Jordan’s was 450,000. It’s now 10 million. Syria’s was three million, and it’s now 17.5 million."
Isn't this the root of the problem? The entire region is a desert. Ecologically it was never meant to sustain this big a population. As long as the populations of all these countries keep rising, their environmental problems will worsen, which inevitably results in further unrest and violence.
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@Scott ; There seems to be a conundrum. Either side wants to have a bigger population to have a greater voice in any alleged "peace" talks; at the same time the increase in population is a basis for more war.
46
@scott
Middle East or planet earth it is a human population at 7.8 billion, growing by >80 million per year that is making all our problems unsolvable. It’s interesting that newspaper readers can see these numbers and immediately recognize the problem. Our “leaders”? Never.
36
@Scott, Population growth in Jordan and Syria (as well as in the Arab population of the West Bank) has largely been due to high birth rates within these regions; this is likely to continue. Israel's population growth has mostly been due to taking in large numbers of people from outside, to some degree from immigrants, especially from Russia) but primarily from Jews thrown out of Arab lands in North Africa and the Middle East. It is likely that population growth in Israel will begin to stabilize, although it will likely continue among the Jews from Arab lands and from the Ultra-orthodox Jews.
17
Well maybe if you designated all the water TRUMP WATER it may get some play here. We know anything label Trump is likely to be as good as 100% Flint Water. DRINK UP!
For any of this to work you need to eradicate the older 60% and let the kids decide to leave in peace and green prosperity !
8
Friedman makes a lot of sense, but things will need to get much worse before there is the mutual understanding necessary to make a mutually beneficial arrangement work. Quite apart from the hardliners in Israel, there are passages in the Qu'ran that make it impossible for really devout followers of Islam to cooperate with Israel to the extent needed.
11
@Richard - You can find anything you want in the holy books of any religion. Taken literally, Christianity is anti-capitalist because the New Testament quotes Jesus saying that if you really are serious about following his teachings, you will give away all your possessions and follow him. If all Christians in the US literally gave away everything they owned, the capitalist economy of the country would collapse and many homeless Christians would die of starvation and disease.
Islam is no better or worse in its contradictions than any other collections of faith-based sacred writings.
4
The Israeli newspaper, “Haaretz”, had an article within the last couple of years (I wish I had the cite) regarding overpopulation in Israel and the difficulty involved with promoting continued immigration (aliyah, I think). Many Moslems and Orthodox Jews continue to have as many children as they can, and there is no thought regarding the carrying capacity of the land. Now the settlers are going to be able to increase in the West Bank. Peace or not, this area seems destined for increased catastrophe.
154
@Wan. Haaertz is a newspaper to the same degeee that The Nation is a magazine. That is true, but it has a very strong ideological bent. For Haaertz that is a largely anti-Zionist one, so.of course they will say that Jews making aliyah is horrible.
1
How can you write about this and not even mention voluntary family size limitation as a required part of any solution? The Palestinian territory has a current total fertility rate of 3.7 children per woman and is projected to nearly double from the current 5 million to 8.8 million by 2050 (Population Reference Bureau). And Israel, while it has a lower fertility rate, is still projected to add some 4 million people by 2050 (up about 50%). Given the water availability you describe, those projections are absurd. Perpetual population growth in a desert is the place to begin to question your assumptions and analysis. All of these people will never be able to live here peacefully if the population growth is continued, and they will just add to the refuge crises already swelling around the world.
121
Just like in this country. Discussing population growth and the need to limit it, is ALWAYS off limits. Unfortunately that means whether it’s climate change, Middle East peace, immigration, refugees or virtually any of the other serious problem we face we won’t make any substantial progress.
61
Exactly. Many people in the USA don't believe birth control should be readily available, no sex ed - just preach abstinence until marriage. With that mindset the population will continue to grow.
17
So far as Mother Nature is concerned, we are all brothers and sisters.
7
Not really. We are all competitors for the same largely fixed resources with it seems unlimited growing human numbers. These numbers are incompatible, not only with peace, but long term survival.
26
@AL
Especially when those with a ‘population bulge’ are attempting to use their ‘cannon fodder’ to see them through to victory
1
Great idea, Mother Nature. I do wonder if the controlling political entity, Israel, will relinquish it's domination of the West Bank, stop robbing whatever water there and handing it to the settlers, and thus encouraging Palestinians to participate. As much as such cooperation is imperative for regional survival, it ain't gonna happen without some from of political equality, e.g., a viable contiguous Palestinian state. I also think you should credit Mazin Qumsiyeh and Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability.
7
Good article. How about if the Palestinians reach out to work closely with the Israelis and Jordanian towards a sustainable future for all?
Oh no, I forgot, no one expects the Palestinians or Arabs to actually do anything constructive.
11
@ML
The sustainable future as far as Israel is concerned is the eventual expulsion of the Arabs. Hard to be constructive in that atmosphere.
4
Climate change? Drought? Things essential to life in the region? Why would Kushner consider these? All his "plan" has to do is meet the political needs of big Daddy Trump and Netanyahu. You know, give Trump something to crow about.
50
Why do you parse out Palestinians from Jordan considering Jordan is the Palestinian state, home of Palestinian arabs and Israel is the home of the Palestinian Jews. The original and still best two state solution. Between Israel and Jordan one can find solutions.
12
Intelligent, scientific, rational. Doubt anyone will listen. A great proverb in Arabic goes as follows: "Rab'ak jann, aklak ma yinfa'ak." Approximate, non-literal translation: "When people surrounding you have gone crazy, rational thinking doesn't work anymore." But please keep trying, Mr. Friedman! Some of us at least will listen (and are grateful).
78
Why should Israel not continue to take the lion's share of water, when it can do so and get away with it? Why collaborate with your neighbors when you can demonize them and confiscate their land instead?
Old stuff Tom, why don't you suggest pulling the plug on the "special relationship" so that Israel has the incentive to think regionally.
24
@Baddy Khan
Israel actually helps her friends with the some of the best water and farming tech in the world.
Check out what is grown in Jordan and Egypt thanks to Israel. Contrast to Lebanon and Syria.
11
@Baddy Khan
Laughable ... the Arab/Muslims attacked Israel in 1948 setting the stage for the enmity that grows within the hearts of the Arab/Muslims ... eh?
Peace has come ONLY after Egypt and Jordan surrendered ... accommodated to the inevitable ...
The Palestinians have yet to accept that they lost the Arab/Israeli Conflict and refuse to recognize their precarious position ...
They cannot expect mercy after 2 Intifadas and 3 Wars in Gaza ...
1
I’ll bet my house that the important subject matter so expertly explored by the knowledgeable Mr. Friedman, herein, never for a nanosecond percolated in the empty cerebellum of Precious Prince Jared. And this total fraud had the audacity to criticize those former officials who left, or were unceremoniously fired from, his nepotistic father-in-law’s corrupt Administration.
25
@John Grillo
You couldn’t be more wrong!
The Palestinians have never accepted their defeat and believe their own ‘press’ that they will replace the Israelis ...
Now as far as ‘never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity’ it’s accurate ... when Erekat tells the newspapers that ‘Olmert offered 100% of the WB but Abbas refused ... ‘ it’s clear the Pals don’t want to compromise ...
1
Mother Nature is still Female. Real Men have no need for Her, she’s just here to be used, and abused. So sayeth the Lord, and every GOP politician alive.
NOVEMBER.
144
Trump-Kushner? Really? They are the DC Snipers of the Environmental Movement.
Seriously.
41
A sensible article. Unfortunately, the Arab population is not too concerned with its high fertility rates and Israel wants to keep consuming higher amounts of natural resources. The whole middle east is heading towards a disastrous situation and climate change is shortening the time frame.
475
Don’t we all wish it was just the ME that is headed toward an environmental disaster. Look at the world map and try to find even a single spot that isn’t in the same situation to one extent or another.
88
@A van Dorbeck There may not be concern, but Arab fertility rates are much lower than they used to be.
Jordan: 3.14, Lebanon: 1.72 (2018)
4
@A van Dorbeck Yes to your comment, but with the highest birth rate of all the OECD countries - an average of 3.1 children for non-religiously observant women, and 7 children for women from the Ultra Orthodox (Haredi) community, it appears that Israel is not particularly concerned with its high (unsustainable in the long run) fertility rates either.
26
Trump/Kushner put this plan together with an hour's work on an etch-a-sketch and a phone call to BIbi. No discussion of mutual security, no discussion of economic impacts, no participation by all involved parties. no implementation plan. Has all the substance of a Trump rally.
TF however has no idea how to even start discussions more or less implement such an idea as his, no matter how sane and effective.
209
@rnrnry
His link to the EcoPeace organisation is all that's needed to start the - definitely needed - discussions to which you refer. This group works hard with limited resources to build trust between Israelis Palestinians and Jordanians, who come up with practical bottom-up initiatives in their mutual interest. Thanks to Ecopeace there are cross-border relationships, good neighbour paths, and excellent schools programs. Even tourists can get involved. A few years ago I walked a Good Neighbours path with a guide, Ayelet Tapiro, who explained that over 80% of crops in her valley, in Israel, are irrigated with waste water originating in the Nablus area on the Palestinian side and processed on the Israeli side. Most of the product being returned to the Nablus area. Cross-boundary co-operation is actively encouraged by Israeli and Palestinian mayors. And EcoPeace has established a peace park in Jordan to act as a hub for regional environmental education. It promotes local, sustainable, eco-tourism entrepreneurship. Environmental peacemaking could also be the way forward in other regions of the world. Traditional diplomacy fails to grasp this, but were we to recognise all parties' dependence on water, on Mother Nature as TLF says, ways forward would become apparent. Perhaps a long row to hoe but worth the effort.
24
@rnrnry It seems a little presumptuous to assume that TF has no idea on how to start discussions or implement his ideas just because he didn't mention it in this column. Nor is he obliged to provide a detailed solution. If by "starting discussions", you mean getting thoughtful people to talk about this issue, I would say he has achieved this. He even points to the Ecopeace Middle East paper, which lays out the benefits in more detail. You should read it.
Finally, I think it is implicit in your first paragraph and in TFs column that the way to start discussions at a higher level is to vote Trump out of office.
10
@rnrnry . Well, perhaps TF’s article here starts a discussion.
2
Thank goodness for Traitor Trump and Prince Jared. I can' take too much truth from Thomas.
7
Framing the Middle East conflict around water and climate change is at least two orders more sophisticated than is possible for either Trump or Kushner. Trump's bumbling almost brought us to a Mideast War in January. If we have four more years of Trump, we will have real, large-scale Mideast war. It will cost the US a trillion dollars, with no exit.
There is only one chance to change the direction, and it comes in November. Happily for Trump, the Democrats can't even count their own votes, let alone coalesce around opposition to the real threat to the country.
15
Very informative article. Thanks, Tom. Mother Nature seems to be an irresistible force, but as you point out, political cooperation and will can overcome it. Do we have to wait for doomsday until it happens?
12
Mother Nature has a lot to say about the changes in the census figures over the years, but nothing to say about how to correct them to sustainable levels. Yet we know that this Mother can be cruel in making decisions regarding the populations of her denizens, human or otherwise.
8
After talking to a Swiss citizen in 1973, post-1973 war, and learned that Switzerland itself is a confederacy that actually works pretty well, he and I agreed that a confederacy for the Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians might be the best solution. I was pleasantly surprised to see this suggestion from Mr. Friedman—especially in the face of so many daunting environmental and resource challenges.
44
Thanks for this article.
Nothing new here. This was all predictable and was predicted decades ago.
How many more people can we jam into a small patch of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean?
54
@oldBassGuy
How did you miss the part about climate change and how there used to be lots more water?
4
@Jerseytime Do the math:
More people = more consumption
More consuption = less water
Less water = more industrial pollution
More industrial pollution = climate change acceleration
QED
9
@Jerseytime
"... climate change …"
Believe me, I did not miss it.
You can read any of my comments related to this issue in any NYT article related to environment dating back many years.
The global heating and the resulting climate crisis is now a runaway train to perdition. It is literally a virtual forlorn exercise in futility to enumerate the multitude of variegated environmental catastrophes already on a roll, ramping up over time, and baked in for decades to come. Not just in the ME, but over the entire planet.
This 'sentient' species is far too stupid to save itself. I just got tired of beating a dead horse.
12
Problem is that everyone would have to share power, resources, research, everything. I would hope that what Mr Friedman describes is politically feasible. It does seem like it is the only way to go.
13
Fantastic! If borders were to be redrawn according to ecology, 90% of independent states would disappear, along with their presidents, politicians, oligarchs, and corrupt clergies. A simple yet elegant solution to combat climate change, arrive to peace, and sustain prosperity. Hard to argue with, I am sold.
112
Physicist Richard Feynman, in his addendum to the report on the Challenger disaster, famously wrote: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." Same here, but substitute coexistence for technology and politics for public relations.
98
@Joanne
I really appreciate the quote and how you re-interpreted it relating to Friedman's article.
This disaster has been generation's in the making. Sadly the people attempting to make policy are ignorant and naive. (Trump and Kuschner).
AKA: ME and MINI ME
Thanks for your input. It is appreciated and has wisdom.
4
@Joanne
One of my favourite quotes.
5
That's a real "out of the box" way of looking at the situation in the Middle East. I suspect this region of the world is totally doomed if the temperature reaches 5C of 6C which appears to be a distinct possibility some time next century, particularly if millions of people keep voting for climate deniers, but at least for the remainder of this century taking nature into consideration to come up with a Mideast peace plan seems like a sound idea. So while keeping in mind that there is a fairly good chance that climate change will get so bade that adaptation in the Middle East, as well many other places, will not be feasible this looks like a road map for the future that some Democratic leaders should seriously consider in developing a Middle East policy.
19
@Bob I believe you meant 50C or 60C. They're not too far from 50C!
4
@Bob ou could also add some major earthquakes which are overdue in the region...
4
Thank you Tom for always offering an interesting and important perspective on this tragic state of affairs. I have always though your views on the role of Iran in the Middle-East to be unfair and one-sided but still I find you an important voice on the greater implications of the Israel Palestine saga.
30
@Spartan
Friedman's "views on Iran are views on the role of Iran in the Middle-East... [ARE]... unfair and one-sided."
wondering why you don't mention the ARAVA INSTITUTE? I think they deserve a shout out for a number of reasons.
17
Great article, but possibly above the comprehension levels of Impeached Trump and "robotic" Kushner.
310
@Marlea On the contrary. Trump, Kushner and other well informed millionaires and billionaires have already been advised by their money managers to invest in the privatization and commodification of natural resources such as water. It's not that they don't understand the problem as much as they don't have an incentive to solve it because they can profit from it.
Similarly, look at how economic redevelopment zones in this country have become enormous tax havens/subsidies for wealthy real estate investors and their minions. Ultimately, politicians and the people who own them are motivated by profit (idealogy is a smokescreen for the masses to distract them while the country is pillaged).
77
@Marlea
"Possibly"? Surely you jest.
12
@Marlea
They could probably be sold. Deutche Bank could arrange the financing, Trumpco can contract the construction-if they can wrap their heads around solar projects and desalination-and I'm sure their Republican cohorts will be happy to find a way to turn a profit.
10