tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19151341.post1922627705315520471..comments2024-03-16T16:12:13.296+00:00Comments on some LANDSCAPES: Palestinian WalksPliniushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06529481330530614513noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19151341.post-66562025854828789582010-12-13T07:42:55.918+00:002010-12-13T07:42:55.918+00:00Raja Shehadeh writes about evenings of music and l...Raja Shehadeh writes about evenings of music and laughter by the Dead Sea before the occupation. 'I recalled one night when the moon was a particularly bright silver. The gently rippling sea managed to calm even as anxious a person as my father. We rented a boat and slide through the oily water in the dark, crossing the path lit by the moon. Now the Lido hotel next to which we spent that memorable evening was a long way from the water, an abandoned miserable place.' From Wordsworthian to Ballardian landscape... <br /><br />According to Shehadeh (p117) the Dead Sea 'has been shrinking at an alarming rate. Fifty thousand years ago its surface was at least 200 metres above the present level ... Even at the beginning of the twentieth century the sea was twelve metres higher than it is now. More recently the water has been declining by about a metre every year owing to Israel's diversion of the River Jordan and the tributaries which used to flow into it, and to the use of the seawater by factories in Israel and Jordan.'Pliniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06529481330530614513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19151341.post-1260364768451953782010-12-12T23:58:12.165+00:002010-12-12T23:58:12.165+00:00Landscape is always changing - I realise that. But...Landscape is always changing - I realise that. But... but..<br /><br />I had visited the Dead Sea hotels during my first trip to Israel (1966) and loved the swimming, the dozens of hotels' social life etc. My most recent trip to the Dead Sea hotels was 3 years ago when the water had all but disappeared and the dozens of hotels looked like stranded ships :(<br /><br />Global warming and drought are an absolutely tragedy for this part of the world :(Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.com