Time to grasp the link between climate and war, says Israeli lawyer Gidon Bromberg - The Jewish Chronicle

Not content with solving the issue of conflict in the Middle East, Israeli lawyer Gidon Bromberg has also set his sights on the climate catastrophe.

Piling one seemingly-unresolvable crisis on top of another may seem counter-productive, but for EcoPeace Middle East, of which Mr Bromberg is the Israeli director, the two share a common solution.

Preparing to give a series of lectures at this year’s Limmud Festival in Birmingham, his mission is to raise awareness of the contribution climate change and resource-scarcity makes towards destabilising the region.

A prime example, he said, is Jordan — which has been simultaneously hit by a drought and an influx of refugees from neighbouring Syria.

Mr Bromberg, the Israeli director of EcoPeace, said: “In Amman, before the Syrian crisis, the municipal government was supplying people with water two days a week. The reality in the UK or US of just turning the tap on and having water is not the reality of some Arab states. Water is intermittently supplied.

“Then the Syrian crisis hit and two million Syrian refugees were coming in. Then water was restricted to one day a week. In some parts of Amman, including where our office is, we didn’t get water for at least two weeks.

“That is clearly affecting the stability of neighbouring countries to Israel. You see it in Iraq and Lebanon, too. And it contributed to the uprising in Syria. And the rise of extremism, like Boko Haram in Chad — it is all linked to the climate.”

EcoPeace, established a quarter of a century ago, aims to bring together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmental activists.

The primary objectives are to advance sustainable regional development and create the necessary conditions for lasting peace through the promotion of cooperative efforts to protect the environment.

Mr Bromberg’s first lecture, on Monday December 23, will tackle the national security implications of the looming environmental crisis.

His talk the following day will explore examples of peacebuilding efforts through environmentalism, while the third will address recent polluting of the Jordan River, and EcoPeace’s efforts in “water diplomacy”.

He said: “There has been a tragic demise of the Jordan River in recent years. Conflict has led to this demise — especially between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.

“The river is so important to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but these Abrahamic peoples have all turned the river into little more than a sewage canal.”

The solution, he argues, is to use these crises to build bridges between these traditional foes.

One example frequently cited example is cooperation between Israel and its neighbours which will allow advanced Israeli technology in water desalinisation being traded with surrounding nations.

Failure to tackle these issues in a cooperative way will lead to political chaos not only in the Middle East — but in Europe, too.

Mr Bromberg said: “This should be a deterrent to us all, but we are keeping our head in the sand. I want to inform the Jewish community of the UK of our work, but also give them the broader understanding that it is relevant to the people of the UK and Europe.

“We are failing to understand the relationship between the climate and national security. We are going to see more and more uprisings around the world, and refugees from Africa, Asia and the Middle East getting to Europe.

“This will lead to the rise of fundamentalism and the rise of the right-wing populist politics. It’s important for Jews in the UK to understand what’s going on and what can be done.”