Collateral Damage: Environmental Dimensions of Protracted Conflict in the Middle East.

Palestinians and Israelis have been struggling over a piece of land which is also an ecological system with limited resources, rapid population growth, extensive urbanization, diminished animal habitat, and vulnerable to severe long term degradation from water and soil contamination. The paper presents a broad overview of the ways in which protracted conflict and the local environment have been inter-related. Protracted conflict has meant a constant focus on military tactics and economic strategies. These priorities have led to a common view that environmental protection is a luxury which can be addressed in a less crisis ridden future. This marginalization of environmentalism has had predictable consequences. Efforts to raise environmental consciousness and build an environmental movement in both societies have had to adapt to the culture of continuing conflict. Protracted conflict has not been entirely anti-environmental in its effects. It has encouraged a romantic nationalist environmentalism, in which the traditional way of life as an agricultural people living close to the land is celebrated, even as both societies become overwhelmingly urbanized. Finally, because Palestinians and Israelis share an ecological region, research and policy around the environment have become settings where bilateral contacts have tentatively developed. These bilateral contacts may have the potential to be social spaces where a vision of mutual responsibility for a shared sustainable ecology in the region can emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]