The multiple narratives

There is a commercial advertising Israel on tv that I saw multiple times when I visited my mom recently: it features a hip-looking young couple checking out the beaches and the nightlife and oh, look over there: it's 3 old guys representing the big 3 monotheistic religions, peacefully drinking tea on a sunlit balcony! this place is so cool- let's go shopping! This tourism/'modern consumer' kind of narrative misses the social & political ones that have been playing out there in large-scale and day-to-day ways for years. Currently one of the biggest narratives has Jewish Israelis protesting in the streets as their government moves to solidify power with its ultra-Orthodox base by limiting the country's democracy- which, in my view, as an American Jew who would have more legal rights if I moved there than Palestinians living there for years, is already a limited one (and why Peter Beinart's recent piece makes so much sense to me). But- wait- what about climate change and the environment?, you may be rightly asking- how do all these story lines intersect with climate change?

I think this Time magazine article, titled "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Also a Looming Climate Disaster", points out the threats quite well. From projected temperature and sea level increases to less rain and more deserts, it would seem like climate change could be a unifying factor. And there are non-governmental organizations like EcoPeace Middle East, which has put together a 'Green Blue Deal' that would have Israel and the Palestinian territories producing desalinated water they could sell to Jordan, & Jordan in return harnessing and selling solar energy from their desert areas. But can this pro-active kind of environmental thinking & imagining gain political traction when there is an imbalance of control, access, and trust in regards to something as essential as water? Even before this current Israeli government, Orthodox settlements in the West Bank have frequently blocked Palestinian access to water sources like natural springs.

While many Israelis and Palestinians will be looking at a future where time is ticking by as the effects of climate change increase, for now the Israeli government is partnering up with ultra-Orthodox Jews who are more fixated on their vision & story of the future where the 'righteous' ones rise out of the earth after death (like holy zombies?)- and there they all are, crammed into the Holy Land, immune to climate change, of course.