Published: 1 November 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Ahead of the JIFF screening of Dead Sea Guardians, GABBI BRINER talks to the director of a documentary about three men who created a stroke-by-stroke plan to save the lowest place on earth.
It’s an unlikely friendship and an even more unlikely mission: an Israeli, a Jordanian and a Palestinian join forces to save the Dead Sea from destruction – and a documentary about their daring quest will be screened at the Jewish International Film Festival.
Dead Sea Guardians tells the story of three locals who organise the first swim across the Dead Sea from Jordan to Israel, a dangerous feat, to raise awareness of its fragile health.
The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth. Its sublime, almost ethereal beauty is characterised by the surprising shapes of the natural salt formations, the stillness of the rocks that lead to the sea’s edge, and the glistening blue of the sea itself.
Yet the Dead Sea is dying. The water is withdrawing by one metre every year, causing devastating sinkholes, and other irreversible damage that poses danger to the area’s unique landscape, tourism and economy.
It’s the dissonance between beauty and tragedy that Israeli filmmakers Yoav Kleinman and Ido Glass hoped to convey in their 2021 documentary.
“There’s something beautiful about the aesthetic of tragedy,” Glass told The Jewish Independent.
“The dissonance creates an interesting idea between catastrophe and beauty. It’s something that can be observed in many places - like a volcanic explosion, very beautiful but dangerous.
“There’s strength in opposition - it draws you in, but then it causes you to think.”
The story follows Oded Rahav, the Israeli activist behind the idea of the Dead Sea swim, who recruits his friend Yusuf Matari, a Palestinian lifeguard, and Munqueth Mehyar, a Jordanian environmentalist, who together face adversity and challenges yet share in the small joys of close friends as they work together to organise this swim and sound the alarm on the crisis.
To swim across the Dead Sea is dangerous, and even experienced swimmers must train for the swim, due to high salinity of the water (36%). The distance from Jordan to Israel is 16 kilometres and takes six to seven hours to swim.
“One drop of water in our masks could make us suffocate,” Oded tells a group of Israeli swimmers training in the Dead Sea.
It was Oded who asked Kleinman to volunteer for a day of filming for a promotional video for the swim. “I got an unexpected phone call from Oded - it was my first time ever speaking to him. He wanted to film this project, to bring about genuine change,” Kleinman said.
Kleinman later called his colleague and friend Glass to tell him about the swim, and after he showed him some of the footage, they agreed there was a need to share the story.
"There’s something beautiful about the aesthetic of tragedy. The dissonance creates an interesting idea between catastrophe and beauty."
The Dead Sea faces two big threats: the first is poor water management by Israeli and Jordanian authorities, who divert the freshwater streams from the Jordan River for local consumption.
The second comes from the Potash factories that mine the Dead Sea for its minerals for the manufacture of skin products, now sold by Israeli vendors in shopping centres around the world.
Dissonance and contrast continue to characterise this visually aesthetic yet unsettling documentary. On surface level, Oded, Yusuf and Munqueth work successfully with environmental not-for-profit group EcoPeace, Jordanian authorities and the local Tamar regional council to carry out the logistics of the swim, while navigating the delicate relationship between the citizens of Israel, Palestine and Jordan.
When it comes to solving the crisis, “EcoPeace has a super-important role,” Glass said.
“They’ve been researching it for over 20 years, and they're experts in creating lots of achievable solutions. Yet even though they are working on it a lot, it doesn’t always eventuate into action.”
However, beyond the warmth the viewer feels from their unlikely friendship, the trio face many obstacles in campaigning for their project. Like everything that happens in this region, environmental issues are often tied to politics, scepticism and distrust.
In Dead Sea Guardians, this was reflected in the dialogue between Oded, Yusuf and Munqueth, as Oded urged them to try and recruit Palestinian and Jordanian swimmers to join the swim.
Munqueth’s wife is Palestinian - and like many Jordanian-born Palestinians, working with Israel before the resolution of the Palestinian struggle was not an option.
“There is a huge movement in Palestine and Jordan that is against ‘normalisation’ with Israel while the Palestinian issue is on the table,” Glass said. “We [Israel] don’t have ‘warm peace’ with Jordan - estimates show that between 50% to 70% of Jordanians are in fact Palestinians.”
"There is a huge movement in Palestine and Jordan that is against ‘normalisation’ with Israel while the Palestinian issue is on the table."
Jordanian and Israeli leaders work closely on issues of energy and water, despite their cold peace.
As part of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, Israel transfers 50 million cubic metres of water to Jordan annually. This agreement was reviewed and strengthened in the Abraham Accords, where Israel and Jordan signed a water-for-energy exchange.
In this new deal, Israel will send 200 million cubic metres of desalinated water via the National Water Carrier of Israel, and Jordan will supply Israel with 600 megawatts of solar energy for $US180 million.
“Jordan is in a very hard situation and is largely dependent on Israel [for its water],” Glass said.
“Though the government knows this, the people are proud, and the Palestinian issue is far from being solved. They [Jordanians] think, ‘if we accept this, we are collaborators with Israel.’ It’s a hard cycle to break.”
Nada Majdalani, the Palestinian director of EcoPeace, says Palestinians in the West Bank have a similar sentiment, saying that Palestinians will not rally behind a solution to the Dead Sea until the occupation is fully addressed.
Watching the film one can feel both the frustration when the protagonists fail to find a solution to this environmental crisis and the hope that comes from the sheer determination of the activists to solve it.
Yet after working with all the partners involved in Dead Sea Guardians, Glass is confident that a breakthrough is imminent. “I’m optimistic. We can’t ever refill it to how it was, but we can stop the drying up,” he said.
“With the correct work by bringing water from the Kinneret via the Jordan river - it’s the natural process that preserves the salt and mineral concentrations - there is a possibility.
“We spoke to lots of people and one thing was clear - that we need to act now. Some people say that it's too far gone, that nothing can be done. Yet I think that with good work and co-operation between Israel, Jordan and Syria, something can be done to preserve this regional treasure for generations to come.”
