Director's Report June 19th to July 8th

Speech to Students at the End of the Spring Semester 2011
It is my privilege to have been the Director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies for the past 10 years. I became the Director as the second year of the Intifada Al Aqsa began and just 10 days before the 911 Tragedy. For the past 10 years, the Middle East has remained a turbulent and unstable part of the world going from crises to crises and conflict to conflict; the Second Intifada, the second Lebanon War, The Gaza Withdrawal and the Gaza Operation/Invasion, Katyushot on Kiryat Shmona, Kasamim on Sderot, the Flotilla and then there is the wider Middle East conflicts – the Second Gulf War, Iran and this year – uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen.. Notice how so many of these conflicts start with the Second… Doesn’t that say something about our region? Are we trapped in a house of mirrors where we can only see ourselves and are doomed to walk around in circles repeating history and our own mistakes?

For 15 years, the Arava Institute has offered Middle Eastern and International students the opportunity to break through the mirrors and the stereotypes and to meet the other. For many of you it is your first time to really get to know the human side of the other side. Through wars, uprisings, political and military conflicts, the Arava Institute continues to wave the banner of “Nature Knows No Borders”. The institute continues to shine the light on a different path presenting a different paradigm for the Middle East. You have sat side by side in class, studying Ecology, Ethics and Water Politics together; you have slept on the beach together, hiked through dry desert valleys and braved pouring rain. You have disagreed over politics and over what to bring to the pot-luck dinner and you have agreed that there must be a different way to solve the Middle East conflict and that Elli gives way too many quizzes. You have had the incredibly unique opportunity to experience what life could be like in the Middle East without conflict.
It is not just a one time opportunity. Your teachers, staff and fellow students have given you the tools you need to go back to your home communities and to create a different paradigm. Like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day, who discovers that the way to get out of the endlessly repeating loop in which he was caught was to stop looking at himself in the mirror and to start seeing the world through the eyes of others. I hope that your experience at the Arava Institute has enabled you to see the world through the eyes of your neighbors and that you will be able to carry this new view of your neighborhood back to your friends and family in order to enable them to envision a sustainable Middle East without conflict and a world living in peace. Thank you and good luck. - David Lehrer

Sababa at the Knesset
On June 22nd, an urgent gathering of the Knesset Finance Committee was called to discuss the mining in the Samar Sand Dunes. Five Sababa members and 16 representatives from other environmental organizations took part in the discussion. The meeting ended with the committee calling on the Israeli land Authority to stop the plan to mine sand in the Samar Dunes until surveys are conducted for alternatives such as mining below the surface of already mined areas, using sand from Timna waste piles and importing sand from Jordan. The support of Knesset members for our campaign to save the Samar dunes gives us proof that our mission in Sababa is important as the only grass roots environmental organization protecting and promoting sustainable development in the Arava.

Provided by Taal Goldman

Sababa in the Hevel Eilot Region
Sababa has taken on the challenge of leading the discussion of sustainable development in the region. On June 26th, a hot Monday afternoon, 50 people from the region came to a Sustainable Development Workshop to discuss future plans in the Arava and ways we can promote sustainable development and lifestyle. The two hour session resulted in a list of ideas and projects for Sababa to take on as new campaigns and a draft for a joint vision of the Arava. This is the first step in a one year project. We hope that by the end to present to the Chairman of the Regional Council a proposal of a new sustainable development policy to be used as guidelines for regional growth.
Provided by Taal Goldman

Across Borders
From June 26th through July 24th, AIES, in collaboration with Dickinson College, is hosting part one of a two-year project entitled Across Borders. In 2011 the focus is on managing transboundary environmental resources in the Middle East. Seventeen young emerging young professionals from the United States are actively participating in seminars at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and in the field, on site visits in the Negev, the Jordan River Valley, and the Red Sea coast. The group will travel through Israel, Jordan and the Sinai peninsula. The goal of this two-way exchange project is to allow professionals from the Near East and the United States to explore and develop a substantive, nuanced understanding of those complex forces that impact the management of trans-boundary environmental resources through interdisciplinary studies and complementary experiential learning.
The AIES faculty coordinator is Dr. Clive Lipchin, and research intern Kristina Donnelly is the program coordinator. Dickinson staff are Bryan Bartosik-Velez, Senior Associate Director for International Services, and Prof. Ed Webb of the Political Science and International Studies departments.
Provided by Tali Adini

Jordanian Recruitment Trip

Sharon Benheim and Brenda Hausler traveled to Amman last week(June 27-29). Fifteen potential students were interviewed. Visa forms and application materials are currently being collected. In addition to our 6 continuing Jordanian students, we have accepted one new Jordanian student and are hoping to review another 5-6 candidates. Our Jordanian representative organized the intensive interview days, and many alumni came to visit and lend a hand.
Provided by Brenda Hausler

English Ulpan
The Institute received funding to do a pilot English language ulpan with Western Galilee College, in an effort to encourage Arab Israeli students to apply to the Arava Institute. The English Ulpan is going to open at the Western Galilee College on November 1, 2011. It was decided, after some feedback, that having an intensive ulpan, 5 mornings a week in the month of July was not going to be successful. People expressed interest in a longer program with evening hours. Dr. Hussein Tarabeah is our program coordinator. We are working closely with Liliana Caminer, the director of the college, and with Haya Shenar, the English Program Coordinator.
Provided by Brenda Hausler

Dickinson Summer Course

For the month of July the Arava Institute is running the Dickinson College Summer Sustainability Program. This program has 8 students who are accompanied by Dr Marcus Key from the Department of Earth Sciences and Joseph Priestley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Dickinson. The Sustainability Program is an introduction to the unique aspects of the desert environment and its natural resources and provides an understanding of the environmental challenges that are connected to human settlement in the Southern Arava. The course is divided into two main sections: Natural History of the Desert and Development Challenges in a Desert Environment. The AIES faculty coordinator is Dr Uri Gordon and the program coordinator is Josh Neirman.
Provided by Cathie Granit

Center for Transboundary Water Management
As part of the GLOWA research project, a training workshop was held at the Institute for Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian water professionals. The workshop, held from June 19th through the 24th, was focused on building proficiency in the use of a model-building software called WEAP, Water Evaluation And Planning. Over twenty participants from all three countries spent five intensive days with an instructor from the Stockholm Environment Institute, another partner in the GLOWA project, learning about the software and building models.  The workshop was sponsored by GLOWA-Jordan River, an interdisciplinary project addressing water scarce regions under the impact of climate and global change. GLOWA-Jordan River is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Provided by Abby Lutman

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