Environmental Platforms for Israel's Elections

This Monday in Israel, we celebrate Tu Bishvat, the New Year for the Trees.  Traditionally a day for planting trees, in recent years it has become more and more a day for environmental awareness, turning form Israel’s Arbor Day into an Earth Day.

Tu Bishvat is also the birthday of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament in 1950, and so it seems appropriate that on February 10, the day following that anniversary, is when Israeli citizens go out to select the representatives in our national parliament.

In preparation for Israeli election day, we present a series of posts with a summary of the environmental positions of the parties running for the Knesset on the following topics: Open Areas and Beaches, Green Energy, Radiation and Global Warming, Sustainable Development, Recycling, Water, and  Air & Industrial Pollution and Enforcement .

This summary was compiled as a joint initiative of the Environmental Clinic at the Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law, and the environmental umbrella organization “Life and Environment” (Chayim Usviva in Hebrew), where this summary is available in Hebrew.   The information was compiled by Yael Morag and Liat Elifaz, under the direction of Ayelet Baram, Eti  Rosenblum, Dr. Oren Perez From Bar Ilan and Naor Yerushalmi from Chayim Usviva.  The list was translated by the greenprophet.com team, with special thanks to Shoshana Michael-Zucker and Bill Marcus.

Please come back for updates, more topics, and a discussion by our greenprophets about the platforms.  And, as always, we encourage you to add your comments below.

We hope that these elections and the next Knesset will be the greenest ever!

The following political parties were surveyed:

Green Movement/Meimad: www.hayeruka-meimad.org.il

Green Party: www.green-party.co.il

Hadash: http://hadash2009.org.il

Israel Beytenu: www.beytenu.org.il

Israel Hazaka: www.israelhazaka.org.il/14-he/StrongIsrael.aspx

Kadima: www.kadima.org.il

Labor: www.havoda.org.il/14-he/Party.aspx

Likud: www.netanyahu.org.il, www.likud.co.il

New Movement-Meretz: www.newmeretz.org.il/aspx/default.aspx

Shas: http://shas.org.il

Topics summarized in this compilation include:

• Green Energy
• Sustainable Development
• Radiation and Global Warming
• Water
• Open Areas and Beaches
• Recycling
• Transportation
• Air & Industrial Pollution and Enforcement

photo:: Jonathan Shippin

Author: Daniel Pedersen

Having spent my Jerusalem childhood ear-deep in science fiction stories, I’m still waiting for clean and abundant fusion power. On the way, I dabbled in solar-powered desalination and alternative building technologies at Swarthmore College, and studied the chemistry and mutagenic effects of particulate air pollution at MIT for a PhD in environmental engineering. Since returning to Jerusalem in 2002, I’ve directed air quality research campaigns from Rosh Hanikrah to Eilat & Aqaba for Hebrew University. I’ve led cooperative regional projects, wrote a successful proposal for the largest air-quality study in the history of the Middle East, and established the first monitoring network in Palestinian cities. Last year I edited a weekly TV environmental spot on Channel 2 and wrote a companion blog. At Hadassah College I train the next generation of environmental science professionals, audit Israel’s chemical and environmental laboratories for the Israel Laboratory Accreditation Authority, and provide environmental consulting services to diverse clients. Daniel can be reached at daniel (at) greenprophet.com.

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