Preface
On a technical level, I have been preparing this book for the past five years. In fact, the project represents the culmination of some eighteen years of work in the field of environmental protection in Israel. By training and trade I am not a historian. Yet, I hope that Pollution in a Promised Land offers a fair, engaging, and well-documented description of Israel's envi-ronmental experience.
On a subject this broad, I am well aware of the highly selective nature of the editorial process. There are large areas about which I might have written and did not. For example, regional environmental issues are not re-viewed in great detail because I believe they have been of limited histori-cal importance. Issues such as radiation, hazardous materials, noise, and consumption may be underrepresented. And a future edition will certainly have to discuss the growing concern about cellular phone technologies and antennas. A recurring theme in the book is that limited space forces hard choices. The text would undoubtedly look quite different if it had been written by someone who had worked for industry for the past two decades or grown up as a Bedouin in the Negev.
It is well to set my biases on the table at the outset for readers so they can weigh the perspective of the narrator as they read this story. Two personal and professional passions informed almost every stage of writing. The first, my “green” bias, was probably formed somewhere between the friendly woods of North Carolina and many dinner table conversations with my fam-ily as I was growing up, the son of an analytical chemist with an expertise in pollution monitoring, who cared about his work. This perspective crystallized during the course of work in government environmental agencies in Israel and the United States and more recently in public-interest environmental ad-vocacy. As an environmentalist, I am concerned that human beings today are
At the same time, certain principles have remained axiomatic with me as a Zionist since visiting Israel at the age of twelve in 1972. Given the his-tory of the first half of the twentieth century, I believe that a Jewish state in the Land of Israel constitutes a moral imperative. The Zionist tradition has always encouraged free and open criticism, and like all Israelis I have more than my share of gripes and suggestions. But ultimately I believe that Israel remains a remarkable country—a wonderful, even inspira-tional, place to live and raise children. The country's achievements during the past fifty years, by any impartial standard, appear to me to be breath-taking. When the more mystical of the locals speak of the nation and its progress in terms of “miracles,” it resonates.
The trouble is that Zionist and environmental viewpoints can clash when they leave the realm of theory and meet in a planning commission hearing or in an emission standards debate. Although I do not believe that these two ideologies are mutually exclusive, they have not yet found a healthy equilibrium or even a clear basis for coexistence. This book repre-sents my own attempt to reach some harmony between the two impulses, or at least a more sober understanding of why they are at odds. In this re-gard, the writing process has been an edifying and encouraging endeavor. The one thing Zionists and environmentalists clearly share is a funda-mental optimism and a belief that people can do better.
As I mentioned, I am not a professional historian. To me, my amateur status seemed like a liberating factor rather than a liability. Nonfiction can be hard to read, especially a book of this length and potential density. It was important to me that Israel's environmental history be accessible, di-gestible, and, whenever possible, fun to read. On the whole, I prefer a good anecdote to scholarly commentary or analysis. On the scale ranging from “scholarship” to “journalism,” therefore, I often intentionally leaned in the latter direction, while censoring “juicy” tidbits that crossed the line from relevant history to gossip. I have tried to make a presentation that is scientifically and factually precise. To compensate for the popular style and
The text also reflects my lack of enthusiasm for “debunking” the past or painting it with the cynicism that seems to characterize the thinking of many so-called post-Zionist revisionist historians. This world is full of he-roes. One finds disproportionately large clusters of them among environ-mentalists, and I have been privileged to meet many myself. In reviewing the manuscript, one friend gently advised that I beware of hagiography, and indeed I have tried to tone down the hyperbole without masking my admiration. Given the rather brief opportunities for personal profiles that a book like this offers, it seemed appropriate to emphasize the positive. If Israel's environmental movement might benefit from a little less self-righteousness, it certainly could also stand to be a little more collegial. I hope this book contributes to such a culture of ingenuousness and appre-ciation and will be delighted if its positive tone sparks a “revisionist” cri-tique.
A word or two about the book's narrative perspective. History books be-long to the realm of the third person. In the present context, however, there may be a few places where I departed from this convention. I drew many of my recent examples from personal experience or direct involve-ment, especially inChapter 11, when documenting the emergence of Adam Teva V'din, the Israel Union for Environmental Defense. As found-ing director and later chairman of the organization, I relied heavily in this section on my own memories and observations. Friends there advised me that it would be unnatural to expunge myself from the text, and perhaps they were right. Nonetheless, writing with a first-person voice seemed even more awkward. In any event, I did not want to claim undeservedly disproportionate recognition for the work done by the talented staff dur-ing the period of my affiliation.
Finally, this book helped serve a personal need. My awareness of Israel's environmental experience really began in 1980, after I moved to Israel and joined the army. Everything before that time remained something of a “black box.” Pieces of the past would pop up, but I lacked a comprehensive picture of where the country had come from environmentally. That made it a little harder to know where it should go. After eight years of acting lo-cally, it seemed wise to take some time and try to think more globally.
So, armed with transcripts from dozens of interviews and a couple hun-dred kilograms of books and materials, I set off for New Zealand. It was there, at the University of Otago, that for eight months I wrote the first drafts of the book's twelve chapters. No place could be further from Israel's
There I learned that the environmental movement in Israel has a truly rich history: It has its elders; it has its poetry and songs; it has had its fail-ures and successes. One can even begin to identify a unique local ecologi-cal ideology—a curious amalgam of romantic, ruralist, pantheist, Western, and, in many contexts, Jewish beliefs. Recently I spoke on the subject of environmental heritage with my friend and teacher (and first boss), Rutti Rotenberg, head of the legal department at Israel's Ministry of Environment. She told me how shocked she was to discover the growing number of coworkers who had never heard of Uri Marinov, the controver-sial first director-general at the Ministry. But, then, where might they go to learn of their roots? I hope this book will remedy the situation. More important, I hope this book will help all people who care about the Land of Israel to better understand the origins (and the magnitude) of present en-vironmental challenges. Perhaps such an understanding can contribute to greater action and commitment to healing this ancient yet new, fertile yet arid, violent yet holy, and polluted yet promising land.
A. T.
Kibbutz Ketura, April 2002
