Huzzah for academics! Today we had a fairly light day. Left in the morning for the Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus campus (where I’ll be staying during Yael’s program). After getting through security (always a delight when you don’t have ID and the guards aren’t expecting a random visiting group), we headed for a classroom and were treated to a lecture by Noam Levin. Noam studied sand dune shifts on the western bank. I have discussed many of the issues in the essay found on the “Reflections” page of this blog, so I won’t describe the lecture in detail here. Suffice it to say that I greatly enjoyed the academic discussion, dork that I am.
We then had a good amount of time between lectures. Eric took us to a gorgeous view of the Old City on campus, where we took some group pictures. We had a leisurely lunch, during which we got into a discussion on religion and faith. After lunch Eric took us to the opposite end of campus to see the view towards the Dead Sea and treated us to a mini-lecture on the history and current status of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At 2, we met with Itay Fischhendler to learn about “unilateral environmentalism” in Israeli wastewater treatment. “Unilateral environmentalism” refers to decisions made by a single body (in this case, the state of Israel, without cooperation or consultation with the Palestinian Authority). Many water basins transcend the Green Line (the Israeli-Palestinian border), resulting in water polluted by one population to affect the other. Currently, Israel has abandoned cooperation (or bilateral environmentalism) in favor of creating treatment plants at each border, treating water as it enters Israel’s borders. This is a suboptimal solution, both politically and environmentally. The cost is taken from taxes collected by Israel on imported Palestinian goods (collected legally under the Oslo Accords in exchange for the providing of water and electricity), but much damage is done by the wastewater before it gets to the Israeli border.
And now, we’re done for the day and I have several hours. Hurray for catching up on the blog (finally and at last, I’ve typed up field notes from the airport discussion) and other miscellaneous tasks!
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(I actually want to post this in the "Issues" section, but there's no spot to do so...)
ReplyDeleteIs there no category for OVERdeveloped nations (such as USA), which are almost completely modernized and consume goods/resources far in excess of need or decency?
Mom
You can now comment on that page! Sorry about that. To answer your question, though: No, of course not. The US and other overdeveloped nations construct these titles, thus, they are favorable to those countries.
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