Weekly Report May 23rd -27th, 2010

• It was another interesting and packed week at the Arava Institute:
• On Sunday afternoon and evening, Michelle Shachar took the students up into the mountains behind Kibbutz Ketura for a PELS overnight under the stars. The students started by riding bikes from the Neot Smadar restaurant at Shizafon Junction, located about 12 kilometers west of Ketura junction (and a well known watering whole to Israel Ride alum). The students ended their ride at the Nahal Kisui sand dunes, where they hiked, frolicked, cooked dinner, sang and slept. The next morning , they hiked back down the mountain to Ketura.



• Sharón Benheim reports: also on Sunday, the Institute hosted the Quebec Labrador Foundation's (QLF) 2010 Land Conservation Fellowship program this past week. The QLF Middle East Program (see: http://www.qlf.org/internat_program/mideast_program.htm ) includes a Fellowship, during which North Americans visit and share innovations with partner organizations from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the West Bank and the Middle Eastern fellows visit the New England area. The goal is to foster citizen diplomacy and cross-border environmental collaboration as a bridge to greater understanding, dialogue, and cooperation. Staff member Gail Osman participated as a Middle Eastern Fellow in the first part of this 2010 program, visiting the American Fellow's and learning about their case studies and this week hosted the American group at the Institute to learn about the Samar Sand Dunes Campaign. Participants heard about the campaign from David Lehrer and visited the site with Yaniv Golan. Sharón Benheim, a former QLF fellow and staff member Abby Lutman also helped host the group and make their visit a memorable one.



• On Monday morning, Taal Goldman, Sababa Coordinator and I met with the Hevel Eilot Regional Council Chairman, Udi Gat, regarding ongoing local environmental issues such as the planned golf course at Ber Ora, the hotel that is planned to be built in Timna Park, the inscription of Timna Valley as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Samar Sand Dune campaign. We intend to meet with the Regional Council Chair once every two months in order to update him and discuss on going issues.



• That evening, the Sababa subcommittee on Timna Valley inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site met to discuss ongoing negotiations with the Park Timna Management Committee. After that meeting the full Sababa Steering Committee met in order to discuss all of the current issues that Sababa is working as discussed with the Regional Council Chair in the morning. The committee finalized Sababa's stand on the Timna Hotel which will be presented to the residents in the region in the near future. The Steering Committee also viewed a presentation prepared by Taal Goldman about the upcoming plans of the Airport Authority to build an international airport in between Timna Park and Ber Ora on the border with Jordan.



• On Wednesday, the institute was flooded with activity. First of all, the New Arava Center for Sustainable Development in Arid Lands (ACSDAL) hosted a delegation of 7 staff members of MASHAV, Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The delegation was headed by the Director of Policy Planning and External Relations, Mr. Ilan Fluss. The visitors had the opportunity to hear about the Arava Institue, the work of the new center, see Elaine's experimental orchard, visit the Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation, see a demonstration of a water harvesting and purification system developed by the Arava Institute together with the Shamraz Company and participate in a meeting between students and an official government delegation from Ontario Canada (see next item). The MASHAV delegation was very impressed with their visit and at the final meeting at the end of the day agreed to work together with the institute to develop a long term partnership between MASHAV and the institute.



• On the same day, the Premier of Ontario, Canada, Dalton McGuinty, the Canadian Ambassador to Israel, Jon Allen and a group of Ontario business leaders and reporters visited the Arava Institute. The Premier met with students in the Kibbutz Community Center (which also serves as a classroom for the institute). Students, staff, regional council staff, members of the Jewish Agency staff and the Ontario delegation crowded into the classroom in order to hear four Arava Institute students, a Jordanian, a Palestinian, an Israeli and a Canadian, introduce themselves and tell a little bit about their background and about the institute. Aftwards, the Premier himself gave a very inspiring speach to the students recognizing the uniqueness of the institue and the importance of our message that only by working together can we achieve sustainabilty and peace for our planet. The Premer praised the work of the institue and the courage of the students. Udi Gat, the Hevel Eilot Regional Council Chair closed the session by thanking the Premier for visiting the institute and the region. After the meeting, the Premier was taken on a tour of the Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation by Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed.



• Parallel to these visits, 9 students from the Arava Institute organized and participated in an activity with 37 African refugees from Eilat at the Samar Sand Dunes. The students have been voluntarily working with African refugees in Eilat all semester. The students facilitated activities of finding animal tracks is the sand, yoga, games and Pita bread making. The kids played in the sand, came to know the dunes and left back home happy with great big smiles on their faces. The students were as pleased.

• On Thursday morning, a group of about 20 Allegheny College students accompanied by Professor Eri Pallant, Allegheny College faculty and Friends of the Arava Institute Board member, crossed from Jordan into Israel and after a quick stop at the Samar Sand Dunes, arrived at the Institute. The group of Allegheny students are participating in an eco-tour of Jordan, Israel and Palestine organized by the Arava Institute's Eco-Paths Department. While in Jordan, the students were hosted by Arava Institute's Jordnian alumni who made all of the arrangements for their tour. The focus of the program is on environmental issues especially issues around water and nature conservation. The students will spend the weekend at the institute and then head north. In the evening, the students were invited to participate in the a celebration of the graduation of 5 Arava Institute Masters students from Sde Boker. See the next item.



• On Thursday afternoon, a group of about 15 Arava Institute Masters students came down from Sde Boker where they are studying at the Albert Katz International School of Desert Studies of Ben-Gurion University. Five of the students who came down have completed their Masters and are graduating this semester. The Arava Institute wanted to honor the students and inaugurate an annual event to celebrate the succes of the Joint Masters Program. The 5 students are Adi Maimon, Eitan Amiel, Sulieman Halasawah, Ziv Sherver and Jennifer Golding. Mazen Zoabi, a 6th graduate could not come down to the institute for the event due to family commitments. The 5 students presented their research to the other Masters students and to the current students at the institute in the afternoon. In the evening all of the students, Masters students. staff, Allegheny students and friends and familes gathered at the pool for a celebration including food prepared by the Arava Institute staff, ceremonial cetificates and gifts, a slide show, musical entertainment and dancing. The Joint Masters program in Desert Studies, Environmental Studies Specialization was initiated in 2002. So far over 35 Arava Institute students have been accepted to program and over 15 have completed their studies and graduated. A number of those graduates are now on their way to their PhD. This was a very proud evening for the Arava Institute.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report May 16th-20th, 2010

After last week's long and action packed report, I am happy to provide a much shorter and calmer summary of this week's activities:

• Students commemorate Nakbah Day "the Great Catastrophe of the Palestinian People"- One of the more difficult aspects of running a program where Palestinians and Israelis live together, is how to deal with national holidays and rememborance days. There is always a hightened level of tension around these events and every year, staff and students struggle to find the right balance of national pride and sensitivity to others. For a reminder of how the staff and students dealt with Israeli Memorial Day and Israeli Independence Day, please refer to my weekly report from April 11th to April 23rd, 2010. The following is a brief report by Yousre Odeh, one of our Program Associates and one of the staff who helped organize the Nakbah Day event this year.
• On Monday night, we met together on the campus (North American, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian students) to commemorate the memorial day for Nakbah (Catastrophe). The commemoration was a student run activity which took place in 3 parts. We started with the screening of a documentary that shows the situation in Palestine from early 1984 untill 2007, shedding light on the human rights situation in the West Bank by interviewing civilians, politicians, Palestinian students, Israeli activist and Israeli professors. The second part of the activity was the telling of personal stories from selected students. We tried to have a diverse group of student speak. One student talked about her grandfather's experience as a refugee in the West Bank. Another spoke about his grandfather's experience as a refugee in Jerusalem. One student whose family were refugees in Jordan and another whose family is living in Haifa talked about their experiences. The last part of the activity was to divide up the group into smaller groups (family groups) where we reflected on what we heard and we tried to relate the personal stories and the movie to events in our lives. The impression about this session was difficult but positive and students stayed on the grass discussing their thoughts untill after midnight. - Yousre Odeh Student Life PA.
• The students and staff had a break this week as Shavuot, the festival of Weeks commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, started on Tuesday night. On Tuesday afternoon, the kibbutz members, children, residents and students gathered together for the ceremonial offering of the first fruits (Bikurim). The kibbutz holiday staff organized a Bikuriada, a contest between various branches of the kibbutz. The Arava Institute went up agains the Kibbutz Environmental Committee in the trash recycling contest, seeing who could recycle the most trash within the time limit. Our valiant team was led by PA Lauren Rauch, but victory was snatched from our grasp as the kibbutz team managed to take the trophy (we of course have lodged an appeal on the judges decision). In any case, this game seemed unfair as the opposing team captain was our own Yonatan Chessler, wearing his other hat as head of the Environmental Committee. We'll get you next time Red Barron!
• Finally, this week we celebrated Hannah Medaliah's 90th birthday. Hanah holds the world record as the oldest research intern at the institute. Hannah has been volunteering for years with Dr. Elaine Solowey in the Experimental Orchard. Born in Germany, Hannah made aliyah with her parents when she was a child. Hannah lived for more than 40 years on Moshav Bnei Zion near Rechovot, where she attended agricultural school. A number of years ago, Hannah moved to Kibbutz Ketura in order to be able to work with Dr. Solowey. Every morning after her coffee in the dinning room, Hannah walks down to the fields to spend the whole day, planting and taking care of trees, bushes and herbs. Clearly a recipe for a long life. The Arava Institute staff and some students threw a surprise birthday party for Hannah this morning at Keren Kolot.

Hannah Medaliah on the left, Dr. Elaine Solowey on the right.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report May 9th-14th, 2010

This was an extremely busy week at the Arava Institute. I am not sure I can fit everything that happened on to one blog posting, but I'll try:

• On Tuesday, the Arava Center for Sustainable Development in Arid Lands (ACSDAL) hosted Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, the founder and director of Tevel B'Zedek http://www.tevelbzedek.org/. Tevel B'Zedek is an organization that brings Israelis and Jews from around the world to do volunteer work in Nepal and is starting to work in Haiti. The goal of ACSDAL is to provide sustainable solutions, training and extensions services to developing countries around the world. After we introduced Micha to the work of the Arava Institute and he introduced our staff to the work of Tevel B'Zedek, we discussed how our two organizations could cooperate. We decided on 4 areas of cooperation:
• 1) Creating the opportunity for our alumni to go from the Arava Institute to volunteering with Tevel B'Zedek
• 2) Helping Tevel B'Zedek develop practical sustainable technological solutions to water problems and other issues that they are confronting in Nepal and now Haiti
• 3) Cooperation on a new develoment project in an arid section of Nepal
• 4) Developing a certification program in Israel for development workers
• These were the initial ideas and we expect there to be follow up in the next few months.
• PELS was also very busy this week with two important guests. On Tuesday, Professor Mohammed Dajani of Al Quds University spoke to the students about "Wasatia" - which promotes centrism and moderation in Islam. The students heard from Professor Dajani about an approach to Islam which allows for the coexistence of Jews and Moslems. Wasatia teaches a moderate form of Islam which accepts fundamentalism in all religions as a belief in the teachings and writings of the religion but does not mean denying other religions or the promotion of violence or terrorism. "Radicalism and the claim of exclusive monopoly for the truth is the disease". www.bigdreamsmallhope.com/wasatia.pdf .
• The Toronto Partnership 2000 Steering Committee spent time in the region this week. On Wednesday, Dr Tareq Abu Hamed and I met witht he committee and presented the progress of the Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (CREEC). This progress report included reports on 8 different research grants which have been approved for funding, including solar hydrogen production, biodigester development for the Bedouin Community in Israel, Palestine and Jordan, PV panels for hothouses, dust effect research, PV panel cooling and the latest research funding for PV panel cleaning granted by the US Binational Science Foundation. In addition to research progress, we also discussed the slower progress of the development of a Master's Degree in "Energy and the Environment". Though progress has been slower than hoped for, there have been recent discussions with the Vice-Rector of Ben Gurion University, Professor Yael Eidan which have been very promissing.
• Later that day, the Toronto Steering Committee took a tour of the new CREEC lab and Technology Validation Center at the institute. The Toronto Partnership 2000 program is a major funding sponsor of CREEC.
• Wednesday and Thursday, the institute hosted Professor Pua Bar (Kutiel) the Academic Coordinator for Ben Gurion University who lectured in the Ecology of the Arava class. Professor Bar (Kutiel) also met with Arava Institute Associate Director Miriam Sharton and Academic Director Dr. Elli Groner to discuss the establishment of a new Masters Degree track in Environmental Policy.
• In addition to Professor Bar (Kutiel), the institute also hosted Dr. Hussein Tarabieh. Dr. Tarabieh is a native of Sakhnin co-founder and director of the Regional Center for Environmental Education and R&D (TAEQ) in the Beit Natufa Basin near Sakhnin. He is also head of the environmental unit of the local villages council. Dr. Tarabieh recently came back from a post-doc at George Mason University where he researched and wrote about environmental mediation. Dr. Tarabieh gave a lecture to the Environmental Politics class.
• On Thursday morning Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed and I met with the CREEC Steering Committee at the Weizmann Institute to discuss progress on developing the Master's Degree in "Energy and the Environment". BGU has proposed that the institute enlist an researcher or an academic institution from abroad who would partner with the institute and BGU in this program. The committee members brainstormed on potential partners and how to approach them.
• Tareq and I had to rush back from Rehovot to the institute that afternoon in order to participate in the second major PELS activity of the week, the guest lecture of former Israeli Chief of Staff and current Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon. Vice-Prime Minister Ya'alon is a member of Kibbutz Grofit and though he is now a full-time politician and senior member of the Israeli Governement, maintains his connection with Kibbutz Grofit (Kibbutz Ketura's neighbor to the south) and with the Arava area in general. It was a great honor for the students to have the opportunity to hear directly from such a high level Israeli politician. Though what Vice-Prime Minister Ya'alon had to say was not always what many of the students wanted to hear, Ya'alon was honest, candid and direct (he did not attempt to sugar coat anything). He presented a very authentic Israeli view of the history of the conflict and the current peace prospects. Unfortunately, his narrative seemed to place 100% of the blame for the failure of the peace process so far on the Palestinans and on the Arab world and did not seem to allow for the possibility that current or past Israeli governments may also have been responsible for failures. This did not seem to me to be a very productive starting point for discussions. The students showed great restraint and respect though I am sure many of them had very strong reactions to the Vice-Prime Minister's speach. Once Vice-Prime Minister Ya'alon had concluded his remarks, students had the opportunity to ask questions. Again the students showed great restraint and maturity in their questions. They challenged the Vice-Prime Minister on current Israeli Army policy in the territories and on the treatment of the Palestinian people in general. The Vice-Prime Minister listened with patience to our students questions, responded and even engaged the students in discussions after the formal session ended. The overall tone of the Vice-Prime Minister's speach was not optimistic. He did not give much chance to the current negotiation process and stated that he did not believe we would see a peace agreement in this generation. Vice Prime-Minister Ya'alon did say that though he did not believe any more in top-down negotiated solutions by the regions political leaders, he did believe in bottom-up solutions. He said that the only way to change the reality in the Middle East is through education and people to people projects that allow Palestinians and Israelis to get to know each other and transform attitudes. This will be a long slow process but the result will be a new generation of moderate and leaders who will be able to reach an agreement on peace. The Vice-Prime Minister praised the Arava Institue as a great example of how to bring about peace in the Middle East. At least there was one thing that the students and the Vice-Prime Minister could agree on.

As I said - a packed week, I am tired just reading about it. Next week we celebrate the Jewish agricultural holiday of Shavout (Weeks). At least we will have some down time to rest. Happy holiday.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report May 2nd - 7th, 2010

• The Academic Study Program left this week for a 4 day trip around the Dead Sea Basin as part of the Water Course taught by Dr. Clive Lipchin. The trip started on Monday morning when the students crossed into Jordan at the Arava Border and headed north towards Wadi Mujib on the Dead Sea. The Palestinian students and Yousre, our Palestinian program associate are not allowed to cross into Jordan from at the Arava Crossing. They are required to go in and out of Jordan through the Allenby Bridge crossing, therefore they left on Sunday for Jordan spending the night in Amman. The Palestinians met the rest of the staff and students at Wadi Mujb for a wonderful hike in water that at some points reached people's waist. Students finished the day in Amman. The next day, the trip travelled up the Jordan Valley meeting with water professionals and visiting the King Abdallah Canal. The day ended in Irbid close to the Syrian border. The next day, the Palestinians students once again had to take a seperate route leaving early to cross back over the Allenby Bridge in order to eventually reach the Sea of Galillee. The rest of the students and staff visited the Yarmouch River where water is divided between Israel and Jordan. Then students and staff crossed at the Beit Shean border crossing back into Israel. That day included rafting on the Jordan River and a night on the Sea of Galilee. The final day of the trip included a visit to the Sapir pumping station where water is pumped out of the Sea of Galilee and sent by way of the National Water Carrier down to the Negev. The trip concluded with a visit to the West Bank and meetings with Palestinian water professioinals.
• I did not join the students on their trip but I also travelled to Jordan on Sunday and Monday in order to acompany Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed in meetingw with the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in Irbid and the National Energy Research Center (NERC) in Amman. At JUST we met with the Vice-President of the University and with the head of the Renewable Energy Department to discuss a joint research project on Biogas and the possibility of collaboration on a Masters Degree Program in Energy and the Environment. Our meetings in Amman with our NERC partners also concerned the Biogas project.
• The student trip left the institute empty and quite but the staff left behind still had their hands full between visits, student registration at BGU and helping Ben Morgan in his recovery from his broken leg. Ben is doing fine but is on a crutch and needs a bit of help getting around. He got a note from the Doctor saying he was excused from classes for the next month!
• On Tuesday, we were honored with a quick visit from the Treasurer of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Hagai Merom. Hagai has visited the institute in the past but was pleased to see the progress being made and to hear about the good relationship with the Toronto Jewish Federation through the Partnership 2000 program. The Chairman of the Regional Council, Udi Gat accompanied Hagai on the quick visit.
• On Thursday, I met with a group from the JNF doing an environmetal tour of Israel. Among the participants in the tour was Bobbie Landau, a supporter of the Arava Institute who was thrilled to see the institute for the first time. Dr. Elaine Solowey took the group to meet the 2,000 year old date palm, Methusala and then took the group down to her Experimental Orchards.
• That night, I was asked to come to Eilat to meet a group on a different JNF mission from Atlanta. This mission was organized and led by the Atlanta JNF Rep and past FAI Board member, Beth Gluck. I came a bit early to meet with Willian Rosenberg, a participant in the trip and a past head of the Air Quality Division of the US EPA. William and I discussed possible collaboration on a policy paper on renewable energy and his further involvement with the institute.

David Lehrer