[Music]
Mohammed L see us went with his family
to a beach in Gaza
unfortunately the parents didn’t realize
that sewage was flowing meters away from
the where they were swing and that they
were swimming in mostly raw sewage
by evening Mohammed in particular was
not feeling well and while all the
family was vomiting the parents rushed
Mohamed to a nearby hospital a virus
from the sewage had got to Mohammed’s
brain Mohamed was dead within 10 days
just one hour’s drive south from here in
Tel Aviv there’s a water and sanitation
crisis in Gaza two million people have
run out of water the aquifer the
groundwater of Gaza has been overdrawn
and as the groundwater has dropped
seawater is rushing in in addition
there’s very little treatment of sewage
in Gaza the sewage is percolating into
the groundwater that people are drinking
at the moment 97 percent of the
groundwater of Gaza is no longer
drinkable and by the end of this year
all of the water of all the groundwater
of Gaza will be polluted
ladies and gentlemen nature knows no
boundaries
and as the sewage of Gaza including the
sewage that killed Mohammed flows out
it’s carried with the streams north
towards Israel a hundred and twenty
million litres of
today flowing out of Gaza every single
day
last year the ashkelon desalination
plant pride technology of Israel
producing 15 percent of our drinking
water was closed twice because of the
sewage of Gaza this summer Gaza beaches
Israeli beaches just north of Gaza were
closed because of the sewage Israel’s
Iron Dome can knock down Hamas rockets
but defense around Gaza cannot stop the
sewage nor disease should pandemic
disease break out in Gaza cholera or
typhoid hundreds of thousands of people
will be walking towards defenses of
Israel in Egypt they will not be
carrying stones or rockets they’ll be
carrying empty buckets pleading for
water just 70 kilometers to our East is
the River Jordan it was the only / fast
flowing river that we had in the 1850s
an American Admiral by the name of Lynch
was the first Westerner to take a boat
from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead
Sea in fact Lynch took four boats but he
lost one of his boats on the rapids that
were then there on the river Jordan
today a mouse wheel will hardly turn in
with left of the river Jordan for
legitimate reasons there’s been massive
water diversion the national water
carrier of Israel dams by Syria and
Jordan and the King Abdullah canal but a
conflict mindset has taken all
the healthy water and in its place the
sewage of Israeli Palestinian and
Jordanian communities were flowing a
river holy to half of humanity where
Jesus was baptized for Christianity
where for Jews miracles took place on
its banks and for Muslims with four of
the companions to the Prophet Mohammed
were buried has been turned into little
more than an open sewer the river as the
border fenced and mind has been turned
into the regional dumping ground of the
region here we have some of the highest
levels of poverty on the Jordanian side
of the Jordan Valley there are pockets
of 40% unemployment that translates to
50 percent youth unemployment the
largest number of volunteers from Jordan
who have joined Isis have come from
Jordan Valley communities there’s a link
between ecological demise poverty under
development and the growth of radical
dangerous ideologies ladies and
gentlemen water security ours and our
neighbors and national security concerns
how serious can it get well look at
Syria look at Yemen the civil rising in
Syria did not occur just on water but
the failure of the Assad regime to
respond two consecutive years of drought
meant that farmers were left without
water and hundreds of thousands of them
together with their fair
he’s moved to nearby cities that with
their anger fueled the civil unrest in
Yemen where like Gaza cities a long time
ago ran out of water and like Syria
where war rages cholera has today broken
out in his last month two thousand
people have died from cholera five
hundred thousand Yemenis are infected
and five thousand people are catching
the disease every single day in the
midst of all this turmoil Israel is a
world leader on water Israel is in fact
Zee world leader on treating wastewater
and reusing that affluent for
agriculture were at over eighty eighty
six percent in addition Israelis have
been involved in developing membrane
technology that dramatically reduced the
cost of manufacturing water from the sea
it’s called desalination in less than a
decade Israel has built five major
desalination plants some of the largest
in the world that today supply 70
percent of our drinking water a means
that were less dependent on the natural
waters in fact along the eastern
Mediterranean there are only two
countries that have excess domestic
water Turkey because of its mountains
and rainfall and Israel because of its
technology the challenge and question
before us is where there Israel’s
leadership in water can be a
game-changer that promotes regional
water security in the Oslo Accords of
1995 Israelis and Palestinians
we’re only able to get to an interim
water agreement water issues and
resolving allocation of natural water
was seen as too difficult because
natural water is finite we’re trying to
reallocate water between these rays and
Palestinians we’re seen as leading to
winners and losers and therefore water
issues and a final water agreement was
deferred together with other final
status issues of Jerusalem of borders of
settlements and of refugees to be
resolved in a package deal but today
water is no longer a zero-sum game today
we’re able to strike a fair water deal
between Israelis and Palestinians
without any losers with changes in
allocation replaced by desalinated water
at reasonable cost yet nevertheless a
water deal has still to be struck one of
the great challenges is that the way
that the negotiations of the peace
process have been led for the past 23
years negotiations have been led in an
all-or-nothing manner either we agree on
all five final status issues including
jaw including water we agree on nothing
in that way resolving water issues that
it’s a day easily done so a held hostage
to the failure to agree on the more
difficult issues such as Jerusalem well
that’s not right and both our
governments bear responsibility so
holding water hostage in order to try
and get a better deal on one of the
other final status issues
but we also see from our own
self-interest that holding water hostage
threatens our own water security if
we’re to avoid the tragedy and turmoil
of Syria and Yemen developing in Gaza
and the West Bank then we do need our
governments to strike a fair water deal
there is some room for optimism in the
Jordan Valley
we’ve seen some game-changing a decade
ago a government official said to me get
on your naive water will never flow down
the river Jordan again the region has
run out of water after a moment of
silence the same official said to me but
I do remember going fishing with my
father 50 years ago on the banks of the
River Jordan and wouldn’t it be
remarkable if I could take my son today
to fish on the banks of the river as my
father had done with me well since 2013
fresh water is flowing out of the Sea of
Galilee into the river Jordan no less
important sewage treatment plants have
also been built on the Israeli
Palestinian and Jordanian side removing
some of the pollutants while lots more
investment and water is needed down the
Jordan it is clear that the linkage
between water development and security
have increasingly been recognized
this is my very favorite photo while
it’s technology that increased the water
pie its leadership that’s brought the
additional water to the Jordan River
these are mayors Israeli Palestinian and
Jordanian coming from the communities
along the Jordan River whose for a
decade have literally been jumping in to
the Jordan River together they’re not
best friends and the conflict continues
but they’ve come to understand that the
only way for them to improve the
livelihoods of their communities is
literally to get wet together to
cooperate over water I remain optimistic
and my optimism comes from this
leadership community level leadership
from mayors and also youth
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
we can be good water neighbors and we
can be leaders for the rest of the world
on water if we work together thank you
very very much
[Applause]
Mohammed L see us went with his family
to a beach in Gaza
unfortunately the parents didn’t realize
that sewage was flowing meters away from
the where they were swing and that they
were swimming in mostly raw sewage
by evening Mohammed in particular was
not feeling well and while all the
family was vomiting the parents rushed
Mohamed to a nearby hospital a virus
from the sewage had got to Mohammed’s
brain Mohamed was dead within 10 days
just one hour’s drive south from here in
Tel Aviv there’s a water and sanitation
crisis in Gaza two million people have
run out of water the aquifer the
groundwater of Gaza has been overdrawn
and as the groundwater has dropped
seawater is rushing in in addition
there’s very little treatment of sewage
in Gaza the sewage is percolating into
the groundwater that people are drinking
at the moment 97 percent of the
groundwater of Gaza is no longer
drinkable and by the end of this year
all of the water of all the groundwater
of Gaza will be polluted
ladies and gentlemen nature knows no
boundaries
and as the sewage of Gaza including the
sewage that killed Mohammed flows out
it’s carried with the streams north
towards Israel a hundred and twenty
million litres of
today flowing out of Gaza every single
day
last year the ashkelon desalination
plant pride technology of Israel
producing 15 percent of our drinking
water was closed twice because of the
sewage of Gaza this summer Gaza beaches
Israeli beaches just north of Gaza were
closed because of the sewage Israel’s
Iron Dome can knock down Hamas rockets
but defense around Gaza cannot stop the
sewage nor disease should pandemic
disease break out in Gaza cholera or
typhoid hundreds of thousands of people
will be walking towards defenses of
Israel in Egypt they will not be
carrying stones or rockets they’ll be
carrying empty buckets pleading for
water just 70 kilometers to our East is
the River Jordan it was the only / fast
flowing river that we had in the 1850s
an American Admiral by the name of Lynch
was the first Westerner to take a boat
from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead
Sea in fact Lynch took four boats but he
lost one of his boats on the rapids that
were then there on the river Jordan
today a mouse wheel will hardly turn in
with left of the river Jordan for
legitimate reasons there’s been massive
water diversion the national water
carrier of Israel dams by Syria and
Jordan and the King Abdullah canal but a
conflict mindset has taken all
the healthy water and in its place the
sewage of Israeli Palestinian and
Jordanian communities were flowing a
river holy to half of humanity where
Jesus was baptized for Christianity
where for Jews miracles took place on
its banks and for Muslims with four of
the companions to the Prophet Mohammed
were buried has been turned into little
more than an open sewer the river as the
border fenced and mind has been turned
into the regional dumping ground of the
region here we have some of the highest
levels of poverty on the Jordanian side
of the Jordan Valley there are pockets
of 40% unemployment that translates to
50 percent youth unemployment the
largest number of volunteers from Jordan
who have joined Isis have come from
Jordan Valley communities there’s a link
between ecological demise poverty under
development and the growth of radical
dangerous ideologies ladies and
gentlemen water security ours and our
neighbors and national security concerns
how serious can it get well look at
Syria look at Yemen the civil rising in
Syria did not occur just on water but
the failure of the Assad regime to
respond two consecutive years of drought
meant that farmers were left without
water and hundreds of thousands of them
together with their fair
he’s moved to nearby cities that with
their anger fueled the civil unrest in
Yemen where like Gaza cities a long time
ago ran out of water and like Syria
where war rages cholera has today broken
out in his last month two thousand
people have died from cholera five
hundred thousand Yemenis are infected
and five thousand people are catching
the disease every single day in the
midst of all this turmoil Israel is a
world leader on water Israel is in fact
Zee world leader on treating wastewater
and reusing that affluent for
agriculture were at over eighty eighty
six percent in addition Israelis have
been involved in developing membrane
technology that dramatically reduced the
cost of manufacturing water from the sea
it’s called desalination in less than a
decade Israel has built five major
desalination plants some of the largest
in the world that today supply 70
percent of our drinking water a means
that were less dependent on the natural
waters in fact along the eastern
Mediterranean there are only two
countries that have excess domestic
water Turkey because of its mountains
and rainfall and Israel because of its
technology the challenge and question
before us is where there Israel’s
leadership in water can be a
game-changer that promotes regional
water security in the Oslo Accords of
1995 Israelis and Palestinians
we’re only able to get to an interim
water agreement water issues and
resolving allocation of natural water
was seen as too difficult because
natural water is finite we’re trying to
reallocate water between these rays and
Palestinians we’re seen as leading to
winners and losers and therefore water
issues and a final water agreement was
deferred together with other final
status issues of Jerusalem of borders of
settlements and of refugees to be
resolved in a package deal but today
water is no longer a zero-sum game today
we’re able to strike a fair water deal
between Israelis and Palestinians
without any losers with changes in
allocation replaced by desalinated water
at reasonable cost yet nevertheless a
water deal has still to be struck one of
the great challenges is that the way
that the negotiations of the peace
process have been led for the past 23
years negotiations have been led in an
all-or-nothing manner either we agree on
all five final status issues including
jaw including water we agree on nothing
in that way resolving water issues that
it’s a day easily done so a held hostage
to the failure to agree on the more
difficult issues such as Jerusalem well
that’s not right and both our
governments bear responsibility so
holding water hostage in order to try
and get a better deal on one of the
other final status issues
but we also see from our own
self-interest that holding water hostage
threatens our own water security if
we’re to avoid the tragedy and turmoil
of Syria and Yemen developing in Gaza
and the West Bank then we do need our
governments to strike a fair water deal
there is some room for optimism in the
Jordan Valley
we’ve seen some game-changing a decade
ago a government official said to me get
on your naive water will never flow down
the river Jordan again the region has
run out of water after a moment of
silence the same official said to me but
I do remember going fishing with my
father 50 years ago on the banks of the
River Jordan and wouldn’t it be
remarkable if I could take my son today
to fish on the banks of the river as my
father had done with me well since 2013
fresh water is flowing out of the Sea of
Galilee into the river Jordan no less
important sewage treatment plants have
also been built on the Israeli
Palestinian and Jordanian side removing
some of the pollutants while lots more
investment and water is needed down the
Jordan it is clear that the linkage
between water development and security
have increasingly been recognized
this is my very favorite photo while
it’s technology that increased the water
pie its leadership that’s brought the
additional water to the Jordan River
these are mayors Israeli Palestinian and
Jordanian coming from the communities
along the Jordan River whose for a
decade have literally been jumping in to
the Jordan River together they’re not
best friends and the conflict continues
but they’ve come to understand that the
only way for them to improve the
livelihoods of their communities is
literally to get wet together to
cooperate over water I remain optimistic
and my optimism comes from this
leadership community level leadership
from mayors and also youth
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
we can be good water neighbors and we
can be leaders for the rest of the world
on water if we work together thank you
very very much
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: