Behind the Headlines a Dream in the Making

Galloping oil prices, spurred by the Arab countries and others in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), have made feasible the plan for a canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea envisioned by Theodor Herzl in his classic “Altneuland.”

The $700 million plan approved by the Cabinet is not as grandiose as that proposed by Herzl. it calls for a hydroelectric plant to be powered by the waterfall that would be created by the difference in the level of the Mediterranean coast and the Dead Sea area. But Herzl also saw the canal as a ship route to the Red Sea.

In fact, Laurance Oliphant, the British non-Jew who promoted Jewish immigration after a visit to Palestine in 1879 and who himself later settled in Haifa, proposed such a canal as on alternate to the Suez Canal.

Herzl’s proposal was an adoption of a plan proposed earlier by Max Brochard, a Swiss engineer who later converted to Judaism. Although international politics rather than science prevented development of the plan, the canal has continued to be proposed over the years. In the 1950, Prof. Walter Laudermilk, the American land conservation expert, suggested building the canal.

EVOLUTION OF THE PLAN

Israeli scientists also proposed the canal But all proposals were rejected because the cost was prohibitive. The price of oil was so cheap that the savings from a hydroelectric plant would not justify the cost of the canal. But now the situation has changed.

In 1977, Prof. Yuval Ne’eman, a noted physicist who formerly was president of Tel Aviv University, was named head of a committee to consider several routes proposed for a canal. The proposals had been made at a seminar on a canal at Ben Gurion University of the Negev at Beersheba earlier that year.

One plan proposed by Shlomo Gur, on engineer, and adopted by the late Yigal Allon, called for a route from Haifa to Beisan and then to the Dea Sea with an open canal along the Yisreal Valley. This plan would have helped implement the Allon Plan for Israeli security settlements in the Jordan Valley and was considered to be the least expensive route. But it was rejected because it would take too much land away from the fertile Yisreal Valley and would endanger Israel’s limited water supply with salt water from the Mediterranean.

Three southern routs were proposed. One from just south of Tel Aviv through Beit Shemesh to the northern Dead Sea area was also rejected for fear of polluting drinking water. A second plan, running from Zikkim near Ashdod to Arad and the Dead Sea near Masada, was also rejected.

The plan which was approved runs from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip to Arad and Masada and then to the Dead Sea. It is 62 miles long, about six miles longer than the other route to Masada.

REASONS FOR THE ROUTE CHOSEN

Ne’eman, who is also head of the ultranationalist Tehiya faction, told the Cabinet that the route chosen was selected because it would have many byproducts in addition to the hydroelectric plan. He said the canal will provide special cooling takes for the proposed nuclear power plant to be built in the Negev, there will be areas for sailing and fishing, and special pools could provide solar energy for the various factories along the canal, especially the Dead Sea’s Potash Works. The power plant to be built would provide 10 percent of Israel’s electricity by the 1990s.

Israel is expected to sound out Jordan before going ahead with the work but it will not ask for Jordan’s approval, it was stressed. Gur, the engineer whose northern route was rejected, has charged that the proposed canal route would raise the level of the Dead Sea so much that it would flood a plant an the Jordanian side of the see. Ne’eman described this view as “nonsense” and said the canal would not cause the sea to go up that high. He said the Jordanians would benefit from the increased water level of the Dead Sea.

The canal would take three years to design and twice that long to build. However, Hooretz has reported that Alvin Rosenberg, a Toronto lawyer, has organized a consortium of Jewish and non-Jewish investors from Canada, the United States, Britain and Israel, who are ready to invest in the project if they are given the concession to operate the hydroelectric plant. Rosenberg told the newspaper that the group was not only motivated by support for Israel but was convinced that the project is economically feasible.