Netanyahu's Water Diplomacy

FollOwing the highway going from Jerusalem to the Negev in southern Israel, I was reminded of the green landscape of Java's rice fields. Areas that were once desert show no trace of what we often read about in the scriptures. Extensive, fertile fields of wheat and potatoes dominate both sides of the road. These are interspersed with orchards of citrus fruits, pomegranates, cherries and avocados.

At the end of March, during my journey with four other journalists from Indonesia, Israeli foreign ministry's deputy spokesman Oren Rozenblat, who accompanied us, proudly explained it all. He said that while many in other countries cut down their forests, perhaps Israel is the only country that ensures it has many more trees today than 100 years ago. When his forefathers began arriving there from all over the world, he said, the region now controlled by Israel was nothing more than a barren desert. "With technology, we changed all that," he declared.