Beach, Dead Sea. June 2018
[from FB post: June 22, 2018]
Hope
At the beach on the Dead Sea. Everyone is wearing what they want, doing what they like, and -- most importantly -- having a good time.
They are not Jews, Arabs, Christians or anything else. They are just people having a nice time.
I saw the Dead Sea from Jordan before I visited it a year later from the West Bank side. Just a bluish haze on the horizon from Mt Nebo in Jordan, I was not impressed. My Jordanian host NH offered to drive me there, but I opted for other interesting sites in his country.
The following year the Dead Sea was part of a tour to Masada. We stopped there for a couple of hours on the way back to Jerusalem, so people could have a float or just relax on its muddy banks. The heat and humidity were oppressive. We got off the bus and wound down through gift shops and restaurants to its muddy, baked shore. The smell was awful. There were a handful of people in the water, but I chose just to take off my sandals and wade in up to my knees. It felt disgusting.
After my footbath, I washed the dirt from my feet and climbed back up toward the bus and did something more civilized. I had a beer.
The Dead Sea "beach" is patronized by tourists, Palestinians, and Israelis. Everyone was thrown together to enjoy this unique natural wonder. As my post above states, it gave me hope to see even among people with great acrimony, time out could be taken from hatred to enjoy a few hours "by the sea". Too bad it doesn't spread to more parts of the region - it is so desperately needed.
The Dead Sea is shrinking. Fed by the River Jordan, originating in Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) and added to by the Yarmouk River, the whole area is now heavily farmed by the Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians, and Syrians. The river water is pumped up to irrigate endless cultivated fields and what washes back is filled with fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide. What finally makes it to the Dead Sea is probably deader than what that sea has been famous for historically. The Dead Sea was already so saline nothing could survive. Now it is a toxic chemical dump, the by-product of all the fruits and vegetables that Israel and Jordan export so Europeans can have access to fresh fruits and vegetables year round.
The other issue is that because less water is emptying into the Dead Sea its shoreline is receding. As the water table drops, huge sinkholes open up - whole sections of roadway have disappeared. Apparently the ground disappears without warning, which did not make the journey to and from Masada feel completely safe. Being swallowed by a sinkhole almost seemed like some divine punishment out of the Old Testament from an angry Yahweh. The Jordanians and Israelis are trying to cooperate to stop the shrinking of the Dead Sea, yet neither country wants to reduce its share of water taken from the River Jordan. As the sea recedes the salt and chemicals become even more concentrated. The result right now is one small step above sewer water
In the case of the Dead Sea, I wish I had visited years before it became so degraded (and the shoreline was higher). I hate to say it, but other than my brief view of hope for a peaceful future for mankind, my overall impression the lowest spot on earth was just "eww".
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