Making The Desert Bloom

Making the desert bloom is a Zionist slogan. It often refers to Israeli afforestation and agricultural projects.

Background

The Levant has long had settled agriculture, being a part of the Fertile Crescent. Crop domestication is said to have arisen in the Southern Levant around 11,000 BCE. Under the Ottoman Empire, Palestine operated under the musha''’'' system, which relied on a clan structure to rotate plots based on soil fertility and other natural factors to ensure an equivalency based on quality of the earth. After the Land Code of 1858, communal rights continued to be enabled by the existence of ''miri'' land, which allowed the release of land from the Ottoman government to be formally owned by a clan's sheik and worked by fellahin.

The climate of the Levant is varied and includes the marshes and scrublands of Mediterranean zones (dry, hot summers with short, rainy winters), the Steppes, the desert, consisting of the Negev and Judean Desert, and lastly tropical microclimates inside the Judean Desert. Most of the endemic flora in these areas of the Levant, aside from crops like cereals, olives and citrus, are in the form of forests, ''Lotus'' and herbaceous vegetation, and shrubs. Around 47.6% of the land is arable. By 1945, 30% of land was cultivated by around 60% of the rural, non-nomadic Palestinian population.

First usage

The first usage of the term is traced back to 1969, when former Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said in a speech: “What are the Palestinians? When I came here there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was desert. More than underdeveloped. Nothing. It was only after we made the desert bloom that they became interested in taking it from us.”

Ideological basis

Depictions by Europeans

The land was described by many early Zionists and foreign visitors to the area as desolate. In 1902, Theodor Herzl portrayed the landscape in his novel '' Altneuland'', which was modeled after his trip to Palestine in 1898:

40 years earlier, Mark Twain provided an account of the scenery on the way to Jerusalem in his humorous travel book, ''The Innocents Abroad'':

However, descriptions of the coast differ, such as Sir Fredrick Treves' recounting of the various gardens and forests of Jaffa: "the town, except where it fronts the sea, is hemmed around by orange gardens, and the green of the orange tree never falters or grows dim." He also notes the hedges of prickly pear and groves of sycamore, locust, oleander, cedar, and olive that adorn the streets, and how in spring, the path to Jerusalem is filled with flowers.

Ahad Ha'am, in an article called ''Truth from Eretz Israel'', similarly spoke of cultivation and vegetation within Palestine:

In this piece, he also repudiated the common claim that those living there, cultivating the land, did so mindlessly: "From abroad we are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all desert savages, like donkeys, who neither see nor understand what goes on around them. But this is a big mistake. The Arab, like all children of Shem, has a sharp intellect and is very cunning."

Halutz and Jewish labor

The ideological basis for this phrase is rooted in the concept of the halutz. Early Zionism, as the negation of the diaspora, held the stance that Jews living in Eastern Europe had become weakened, culturally inferior, and rootless due their unsettled position between assimilation and anti-antisemitism and thus, required the creation of a nation for Jews. In an attempt to reverse this "rootless cosmopolitan" state, the halutz, or the pioneering Jewish laborer who works the land, was born as a means to foster the " muscular Jew." It was believed that principally Jewish labor could transform the land and that principally agricultural labor could transform the Jewish people.

In practice

Afforestation

The key actor in the afforestation of the region was the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Since 1901, they have planted over 250 million trees, developed 250,000 acres of land, and established over 1,000 parks. The JNF purposefully chose Aleppo pine, as well as cypress and eucalyptus, as a tree that would work reasonably well with the climate and be familiar for the European Jewish population, thereby "beautifying" the land. By 1960, 85% of all trees planted by the JNF were coniferous. Later on, realizing they needed to diversify the forests, the JNF invested in other coniferous species, like Turkish pine and Stone pine, as well as deciduous and other species, like carobs, acacia, tamarisk, and palms. As of 2008, 44% of the trees in Israel are pine, and endemic plants make up only 11% of forests.

Kibbutzim

The concept of Halutzim manifested in the form of kibbutzim and the kibbutz system became a means of connecting the new Jewish population who had come in the second and third aliyah to the land. The first kibbutz was established in 1910. By the time World War II broke out, there were 79 kibbutzim, consisting of 24,105 people and in 1950, the number had almost tripled with around 65,000 kibbutznikim. The kibbutz movement peaked in 1989, with a population of around 129,000. A large portion of kibbutznikim were young students.

The kibbutzim also became a way for the expansion of settlements. Early on, Mizrahi Jews were often placed at the peripheral of Zionist settlements, sometimes leading to conflict caused by coerced placement there. It also saw the inclusion of women in quasi-manual labor jobs such as in tree nurseries, which also were often placed at the peripheries, pushing for expansion.

Water technology

Innovations in water technologies began before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, beginning with the creation of the company Mekorot in 1937. In the following decades after its creation, Mekorot would develop numerous project in water technology, including cloud seeding and the construction of pipelines and wastewater treatment plants. By the '50s, water as a resource was nationalized and entrusted to the state. Since the 2000s, Israel has begun to invest in desalination projects, which makes up around 60-80% of Israel's drinking water. It has also become a major proponent of drip irrigation, making major strides in the technology in the '60s.

With the ongoing water crisis in the area, Israel sells millions of cubic meters of water and billions of dollars worth of agricultural products annually to its neighbors Jordan and Palestine. Claims over water sources has played a major role in numerous conflicts between Israel and its neighbor states, including the War over Water, the Six-Day War (and the following occupation of the Golan Heights), and a few other more minor conflicts.

Criticism

The phrase "making the desert bloom" and well as the implementation of various Israeli afforestation and agricultural/water technology projects have been critiqued by various organizations.

The term has been criticized by anti-Zionists as playing into the Orientalist idea that Western Asian and North African countries are uncivilized until Western interference. Up until the 1990s, many Zionists held the opinion that there was degradation of the land that was due to the backwardness of Palestinians. Some, such as UC Davis professor of history Diana K. Davis and Palestinian climate activist Manal Shqair, have argued that the idea of "making the desert bloom" devalues land that is minimally productive.

The JNF has repeatably been criticized by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Palestine Museum of Natural History, for its extensive use of non-native plants, implementing afforestation in ecologically inappropriate areas, and aggressive planting practices, which has led to increased disease among trees, forest fires, and waning biodiversity in the fragile shrub lands. The JNF has also been criticized by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Code Pink, BADIL, Amnesty International, and others for building forests and national parks over displaced Palestinian villages and olive groves, as well as actively taking part in the eviction of Palestinians from their homes and annexation of land which has left many families landless.

Since 1967, Israel has had complete control over water resources and infrastructure in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), making Palestinians unable to construct or alter existing infrastructure without a permit. It has been known to construct water networks for Israelis in the OPT, thereby diverting water from Palestinian towns into Israel proper and into illegal settlements. Israel's water policies have been criticized by various organizations, such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, and others. Manal Shqair has also critiqued Israel for depleting Jordanian water sources and subsequently selling the water back to the country. Similar criticisms have been made of Israeli policy toward Palestinian water sources by hydrogeologist Clemens Messerschmid. Israel has also been criticized for the poisoning of Palestinian water sources, particularly during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, which is a form of biological warfare. In recent years, there has also been documentation of Israeli authorities poisoning Palestinian water sources in the West Bank. With the onset of the Gaza war, Israel has reduced water access by 94%, limited the frequency of aid trucks, and damaged around 70% of existing water infrastructure. These actions have been critiqued by Oxfam, the WHO, UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and others.

See also

* :Oases of Israel
* :Oases of Jordan
* Cedars of God
* Desert greening
* Desertification
* Oasification
* Rainwater harvesting in the Sahel
*

References

{{reflist

Zionism
1969 quotations
Political catchphrases
Agriculture in Israel
Afforestation
Phrases related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Water politics in the Middle East