Environmental diplomat Tareq Abu Hamed seeks to build bridges through science

Tareq Abu Hamed believes the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies represents hope for the Middle East.

“We are a small model of how a sustainable Middle East can look, where people care, where people share the same concerns,” he said.

Don’t be fooled by the name of the institute Abu Hamed leads; he has loftier goals than simply making an impact on the world of science.

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“I’m a Palestinian from East Jerusalem,” he said. “Both sides, Palestinians and the Israelis, want to live in peace, but they doubt there is a partner on the other side.”

Programs such as Arava, he said, connect people and ultimately bring them together — and that is how a sustainable Middle East will come to be built.

Created in 1996, the institute is located on Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel. Since its formation, Arava has brought together nearly 1,800 Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and international students.

Its goal is to educate future leaders who can meet the Middle East’s environmental challenges with innovative, peace-building solutions. The institute features a university-accredited academic program and works to protect fragile shared environmental resources and eliminate conflict over natural resources with ground projects and research.

More than that, though, the institute is a melting pot of nationalities and political attitudes.

A third of the students involved in the institute’s academic program are Arabic speakers, including residents of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan; a third are Jewish Israelis; and a third are international, including students from America.

This petri dish of opinions is something Abu Hamed encourages. He grew up in East Jerusalem and earned his doctorate in Turkey. He also studied at the University of Minnesota. He joined Arava Institute in 2008 and established its Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation before leaving to serve as the Israeli Ministry of Science’s deputy chief scientist, becoming the highest-ranking Palestinian working in the Israeli government at the time. He returned to Arava in 2016 and is a member of President Isaac Herzog’s Forum on Climate Change, leading the working group on regional cooperation and security.

He has spent his life working to build relationships with his neighbors.

“When I was in high school, I volunteered and worked at a kibbutz, which was next to my village,” he said. “It was my first exposure to my Jewish neighbor, and it stayed inside me. I experienced the power of being with the other and how it shapes you, and wanted to be in a place that does the same thing.”

Arava, he said, combines his background in government and science, creating the opportunity for what he calls “environmental diplomacy.”

“We use science and the environment to build bridges, to build understanding and to build peace,” he said.

In addition to the mélange of backgrounds at Arava, Abu Hamed said the institute’s projects reflect its aim of environmental diplomacy.

“We do projects on the ground with Palestinians, with Jordanians and Moroccans,” he said. “It’s beyond the classroom. It’s projects on the ground with normal people and regional councils. We implement projects in Gaza, Jordan, Morocco and the West Bank related to climate change, cooperation on solar water desalination, solar water treatment, decentralized technologies.”

Asked if Arava leads with science or diplomacy, Abu Hamed said it’s a little of both, quoting an old joke from the field of academia — you go for the conference but stay for the coffee breaks.

“It’s where you make the connections,” he said.

And, he said, people are encouraged to share their personal and political opinions.

Arava, Abu Hamed noted, features a dialog forum where students talk politics, culture, religion and family stories.

“Israeli Jewish students talk about their experience serving in the Israeli army. Palestinians share the experience of living in a Palestinian village, or as a refugee in a refugee camp,” he said.

The discussions, he said, aren’t easy, especially since they involve passionate young people. At the end of the day, he said, they might still disagree, but understanding is built.

Abu Hamed was in Pittsburgh last week with Rachel Kalikow, the chief executive officer of Friends of the Arava Institute, the nonprofit American arm of the Arava Institute, to meet with administration officials at the University of Pittsburgh.
The parties, he said, discussed ways of cooperation, student exchanges and joint research.

Kalikow said some semesters can include as many as 10 American students who might spend their junior year working with the Arava Institute.

“We have agreements with almost three dozen American universities, including Pitt, for student exchanges,” she said.

Those exchanges have become challenging due to the war between Israel and Hamas. In fact, the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s response has made Arava’s work more difficult, Abu Hamed said.

“We see the impact of the war on cooperation, on joint publications, on new proposals,” he said. “People are stepping back. It’s not the way to go.”

Despite the work he has done to build relationships, several student groups at Pitt and outside agitators seem to be unaware of Arava’s work or its mission. Some of the groups took to Instagram to protest Abu Hamed’s time on the campus, calling him a “normalizer of Zionism and with the Zionist organization.”

Abu Hamed said that in spite of these protests, he still believes in Arava’s mission.

“Dialogue through communication is not a weakness,” he said. “It’s how we build understanding. That’s how we build trust and that helps indirectly in negotiations. When I understand you, I estimate things you can give up on and you’ll do the same on my side.” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.