Would Regeneration of the Dead Sea Bring Peace and Prosperity to the Middle East?
Leslie Sacks Amid the constant turmoil and angst boiling over in Israel and the West Bank, at the center of the Middle East, lies the Dead Sea. This salt-laden desert sea is rapidly diminishing in size as its source, the Jordan River, dries up: the Syrians (via the Yarmuk, a source for the Jordan), Israelis and Jordanians all draw an ever-increasing amount of water from this biblical tributary. We think of the Dead Sea as a tourist haven for spa treatments and beauty products, as a relief for psoriasis sufferers; we know about its amazing buoyancy and the factories mining its esoteric salts (its salt concentration is about 33%, compared to 3% in the Mediterranean). What we don’t know is that this area of dangerously diminishing returns may very well provide a synergistic solution to the region’s major political, economic and environmental problems. A number of large-scale infrastructure projects – including the construction of a canal and nuclear power and desalinization plants – have
