Analysis of seismic intensities observed in Israel

Macroseismic data of earthquakes felt in Israel and also recorded instrumentally are analyzed. The analysis yields the following empirical relations:

Environmental geology in Israel

Conclusion The environmental topics reviewed above and in the following articles represent only the tip of the iceberg. Nevertheless, they might shed some light on the existing environmental problems which must be resolved.     

Water scarcity problems in Israel

The demand for scarce fresh water requires Israel to cease squandering this limited resource on agriculture, at present consuming about 70% of the annual supply. Environmental pollution must cease as well, for untreated urban water effluent contaminates ground water. All Israel's 700 million cubic metres sewage water must be suitably purified to irrigate about one hundred thousand hectares. Climatically controlled greenhouses and advanced agricultural research will reduce the amount of water and land required for the cultivation of the fresh vegetables and fruit, and small proportion of the dry fodder needed for the country's consumption. Israeli agriculture's association with moral, ideological and social ideas obstructs meaningful reduction in the allocation of water to agriculture. The Zionist movement has always seen transforming land into a means of production as the index of its success. Failure in this would signify an inability to adapt to adverse environmental conditions and be a sweeping repudiation of Zionism. The protracted Israeli-Arab national conflict also affects water policy. Israeli Jewish society has always considered rural settlement, agricultural activity, as part of the substance of its national identity and power, bonding the people with the land and consolidating territorial sovereignty. Since the 1970s, capitalism, which has dominated Israeli ideology, has favoured the individual's interests over the community's. Thus agriculture is mobilized to accommodate the private struggle for the good of the farming sector against the needs of the national collective.     

Geography of alarm zoning in Israel

During the Gulf War Israel was divided into six alarm zones to enable the people to be released gradually from their shelters according to the rate of damage and danger which has been in the different regions. These zones were outlined superficially, neither according to basic geographical elements, nor to the ballistic behaviour of the Iraqi missiles. A modified division into ten alarm zones was announced in September 1992 following the blockade which the USA had laid on military aviation in southern Iraq. A different division of alarm zones, based on ballistic and geographical parameters is proposed should there be missile attacks on the country in the future.     

Disintegration of marl slopes in Israel

Disintegration of marl slopes in Israel is directly related to the climatic characteristics of the region even where water is not an obvious component of the environment. Seasonal contrasts between long, dry summers and short, wet winters are manifested by wide ranges in temperature (13–26°C) and water content (5−>42 percent) within the marl. These variations lead to both solution and aggregation of carbonate material in the marl. Chemical disintegration in summer followed by mechanical disintegration in winter causes progressive weakening of the marl. The repeated wetting and drying results in the formation of an open texture in the marl. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations made over several seasons on marl from freshly excavated slopes confirm the progressive disintegration from the slope's surface to a depth of at least 1.50 m. Solution holes, channels, and gaps between aggregates and matrix, formed during the summer, greatly increase the effective porosity and permeability of the marl. Water infiltration in the winter results in the mechanical washing out of fine material to the surface of the slope by throughflow and piping.     

The distribution of snow in Israel

The area researched is characterized by changes in the weather according to fluctuations in the world pressure belts throughout the year. The temperature climate in this region is typified in winter by changes in the pressure system from cyclonic to anti-cyclonic conditions in spells of about 5 days.When Israel is under the influence of a low pressure system, and the 500 mb surfaces are approximately 250 m lower than average, the temperatures along the vertical cross-sections are 6° – 8° C lower than average on rainy days, then snow may be expected in various sections of the country.This paper investigated the 35 years period from 1938/9 to 1971/2, concentrating on two mountain stations — Jerusalem in the centre of the country and Mt. Kena'an in the north —because of the high snow incidence and its greater regularity than other stations.The conclusions are as follows: The maximum number of days of snow (between 2/3 and 3/4 of the annual total) is noted at all stations during January and February, although there are also years in which there was snow but not during those months. Regional devision of the snowy days indicates that the number increases with altitude, and decreases from north to south.Snowfall in regions which have lower incidence is less stable and given to greater fluctuations. There was no indication of periodity of the number of days of snow per season, nor did it appear that a very snowy year followed a dry one.Investigation of the lenght of the snowy and the number of days of snowfall does not indicate any connection between them, and there may well be a long season with few days of snow, or a short one with relatively many snowy days.Comparison between the shorter period of readings — from 1938/9 till 1971/2 — and the longer one — from 1860/1 till 1971/2 (111 years) — at the Jerusalem station shows the same trends, which reinforce the conclusions presented above.     

Building in Israel throughout the ages

Conclusions Historical-botanical investigations carried out at various sites in Israel point to the use of Cedar of Lebanon wood for special construction purposes, during different periods, in various regions of the country (Tab 3).The cedar of Lebanon grows outside Israel and required a special system of commerce for it to be brought to the building sites. This included the felling of the trees in the mountains, their transportation to the coast, loading on ships, shipment or floating them by sea to Israel and its subsequent transportation to remote parts of the country. Such a commercial system could have existed only in a prosperous period characterised by a booming economy and a well-organised administration. These circumstances occurred in Palestine only from the Middle Bronze Age onwards up to the Crusaders period. Later on, during most of the Mameluk and the Ottoman periods (13th to 19th centuries), Palestine was a neglected place and an international trade in timber was in practical terms absent. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century Palestine regained part of the previous circumstances, which was characterised by the use of imported timber, firstly Near Eastern trees — the cedar of Lebanon as the most suitable one.The distribution pattern of cedar remnants in Israel is obvious and enables us to evaluate the wealth, economy, commerce, transportation systems and overall administration of the different regimes in Palestine during various periods in the past. Today there are only scattered groves and stands, most of these planted during the last decade to restore the cedar forests of the past. Therfore the evidence from Israel can show that the overexploitation of cedars for construction was one of the causes of the disappearance of the cedar forests in Lebanon and S Turkey throughout the ages.     

The geography of suicide terrorism in Israel

Palestinian suicide terrorism has been a key feature in the latest phase of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the past decade, and particularly since September 2000, there has been a substantial increase in the use of this type of warfare. Recent studies suggest that, contrary to common belief, suicide terrorism is highly rational and driven by strategic considerations. This article explores the rationality of Palestinian suicide terrorism from a geographical perspective. It is argued that suicide terrorism works along two parallel paths: rationality and randomness. It complies with geographical fundamentals, and target selection is highly rational, subject to spatial considerations such as distance, agglomeration, and accessibility. As the permeability to Israel became more difficult, suicide bombers and their organizers had to adopt more flexible practices which emphasized other spatial considerations. Timing is of importance both for strategic and tactical reasoning. Obstructing negotiations and peace talks has been a salient objective, but the exact timing of suicide bombings has been influenced by tactical considerations, which aim at maximizing casualties.     

Equatorial modes observed in atmospheric variables

Wavenumber-frequency spectral analysis of different atmospheric variables has been carried out using 25 years of data. The area considered is the tropical belt 25°S–25°N. A combined FFT-wavelet analysis method has been used for this purpose. Variables considered are outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR), 850 hPa divergence, zonal and meridional winds at 850, 500 and 200 hPa levels, sea level pressure and 850 hPa geopotential height. It is shown that the spectra of different variables have some common properties, but each variable also has few features different from the rest. While Kelvin mode is prominent in OLR and zonal winds, it is not clearly observed in pressure and geopotential height fields; the latter two have a dominant wavenumber zero mode not seen in other variables except in meridional wind at 200 hPa and 850 hPa divergences. Different dominant modes in the tropics show significant variations on sub-seasonal time scales.     

Main karstic springs of Israel

A series of karstic springs in Israel belongs either to the western (Mediterranean) or eastern (Rift Valley) watersheds. Most of them are presently managed or diverted. Salinities range from very fresh through brackish to very saline waters.     

Travertines in the northern Hula Valley, Israel

This study describes the field and petrographic relationships of a widespread deposit of Pleistocene travertines in the northern Hula Valley, northern Israel. The travertines interfinger with conglomerate deposits and basaltic lava flows. Field relationships and radiometric dating indicate that the travertines accumulated intermittently over the past million years, and their formation virtually stopped 25 000 years ago. The travertines are characteristically highly porous. Some of the pores, as well as some spar-filled voids, preserve the shapes of stalks and leaves. The abundance of plant material suggests that photosynthesis, rather than bacterial or abiogenic processes, was the main mechanism which induced carbonate precipitation. The reasons for travertine accumulation in the past and for the cessation of its formation today are ascribed to differences in the palaeogeographic setting. In the past, water flow is viewed as having been mostly sluggish, and a widespread and shallow sheet of water was formed. The lush vegetation, combined with the relatively long residence time of the water in the area, led to increased efficiency of the calcium carbonate precipitation. Today, by contrast, water flows rapidly in gorges, precipitating only a small fraction of its load of dissolved calcium carbonate. The conjectured change in hydrological conditions is ascribed to rejuvenation of faulting activity in the Late Quaternary.     

The spatial pattern of Bedouin Sedentarization in Israel

The bedouin in Israel form a small group (13%) within the state's Arab minority, and they completed their transition stage towards settled habits in the middle of the present century with the establishment of a relatively high number of villages and hamlets. It is the object of this paper to examine and define the nature of these patterns of rural settlements, which emerged in the two distinctive areas of Galilee and the Negev.The discussion in this paper is confined to the period of the state of Israel (1948–83), when changes in both the processes and the patterns of bedouin sedentarization took place under entirely new political conditions. After the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948, both Galilee and Negev bedouin sedentarization was completed within a period of a single decade (1950–60). However, the sedentarization pattern has further evolved during the past two decades and is likely to continue to do so until the end of the present century.In the Israeli period, the pattern of bedouin sedentarization has developed in two distinct directions. First, the bedouin themselves have built permanent structures for residential purposes, a process usually referred to as spontaneous bedouin settlement. Secondly, the state authorities have planned and established settlements. In this planned bedouin settlement, the state has been dominant in shaping the pattern. It is important to note that most bedouin settlement in Israel belong in the first category where the whole tribe or individual groups were the initiators of their settlements. This paper which was written by an author who belongs to the bedouin community, is based mostly upon fresh evidence from field research data, and is the first attempt to indicate the importance of the role of the state in shaping the settlement pattern. It is hoped to contribute to the study of nomadism as well as to the study of the Arabs in Israel.Paper presented at the 25th International Geographical Congress Paris 27–31 August 1984. The author would like to thank the Centre for Arab Heritage without whose support his attendance at this conference would not have been possible.     

The ethno-class trajectory of new neighborhoods in Israel

The subject of this article falls within the debate on the development of new neighborhoods beyond the hub of the metropolis and how this relates to planning from below. It regards new neighborhoods as being increasingly shaped through deliberate action in the form of public policy at the state and local levels. However, it emphasizes the central role of the government establishment, national institutions and ideologies in walling out and exclusionary practices. Research into four representative new neighborhoods in Israel, which were planned under the new spatial regime of the 1990s, reveals patterns of discrimination and ethno-class stratification that enable the preservation of nationalism and ethnic logic as the main, yet concealed, axis organizing social and spatial life.     

Inter-regional variations in cyclical sensitivity to unemployment in Israel

The author is heavily indebted to Prof. S.E. Finer of All Souls College, Oxford, for his encouragement and help. Yet, he alone bears the responsibility for the outcome.