Israel: Plant to Farmer – “I'm Thirsty, Water Me”

“Come on, admit it, sometimes you just have to love Israel,” urges Jewlicious. Israeli researchers have developed sensors for plants that will send text messages to farmers when their water levels get low. Developed for commercial use, the devices are intended to decrease agricultural water costs by 50 percent.

34 comments

  • MERC

    Solana Larsen, It’s 2009 and you still don’t understand that an Israeli dialogue is alwats a monologue? Here’s the context of the Jewlicious piece from which there is no escape: stolen land, stolen water.

  • MERC

    That’s ‘always’ by the way.

  • hatred begets hatred, is an equation of diabolical equilibrium, is a hellish foundry where there are no winners except chaos and devastation.
    i agree with Solana there is more than enough hatred in this conflict already. why not make comments on the merrits of the information given, in this case the use of sensors for agricultural edge.

  • on Merc’s comment , stolen land , stolen water, nothing can be further from the truth.
    Jewish state was formed and recognized in 1948 although this may be an irking fact to many still a fact and it does not diminish the veracity of the establishment of the Jewish nation.
    The Jewish people have work very hard to turn desert land into agricultural promise land and it has succeed in many levels. there is so much wasted land in the Arab world, why don’t they get busy and convert their arid ground to a more beneficial purposes. it takes work and dedication to good an noble goals to succeed. haters always which to process what they already have and want to take what others have successfully plowed.

  • MERC

    So, WD, even reminding people of the fact that Palestine was ethnically cleansed in 1948 and the homes, lands, businesses etc of Palestinian refugees were then stolen by the Israeli terror state and distributed to Jews is inciting hatred, is it? Perhaps facts & history should be banned as hateful? Palestine was just one great sandy wasteland until redeemed by the right kind of people, was it? Time to get real. Time to jettison your dated Zionist colonial fantasies. You can go on hating the facts all your like, but history’s bottom line, no matter how unpalatable for you , is that Israelis live on stolen ground, and play with stolen water.

  • Surprised Reader

    What a shameful response to an amusing article about something important that was developed in Israel. All of a sudden we read about dying babies in Gaza.

    There were also lots of dying Hamas members in Gaza, probably the large majority of those killed in fact. The same ones who liked to hide and fight from areas with Palestinian babies.

    Of course, Israel didn’t have to go into Gaza but the rocket attacks had begun again and an entire section of Israel was being held hostage to Hamas leaders and their supporters. Forced to enter Gaza because of the thousands of rockets that were launched at Israel AFTER Israel exited Gaza entirely, Israel was certainly justified in fighting back. Had Israel lobbed rockets back instead of attacking with an army, you wouldn’t say it was okay, you’d call them inhumane. If Israel did nothing at all, as they did for 3 years while getting bombarded, you’d call them inhumane. Face it, you’d call them names no matter what they do.

    You know what they do? They invent sensors for plants. They invent plenty of other things as well, and would invent far more if they weren’t in a constant state of attack. Since you dislike Israel so much, you are welcome not to use their inventions. The countries that might benefit the most from this particular invention are Middle Eastern and African countries – Arabs and Muslims. It’s a shame if they don’t use this invention because of its source, but that’s their right.

    To correct some errors: Israel stole nothing. Every inch of land it controls was won in wars. And every one of those wars that led to control of this land was launched by Arabs. And prior to every one of those wars, namely 1948, 1967 and 1973, the Arabs were in a position to compromise or avoid the war entirely before it began and in every instance, they refused. Years later, we get to read how the land \was stolen.\ No, had the Arabs been willing to compromise, Israel would exist on about a half of the land it controls and everybody would live in peace in two side-by-side countries, an Arab one and a Jewish one.

    Imagine that!

    You accuse that Israel \stole land\ and \stole water?\ Fine. If you want to define land won in wars started by the Arabs as theft, know that the Arabs and the Palestinians are the thieves who stole peace and the chance for compromise – more than once, in 1937, 1947, 2000 and 2001.

    Despite all the stealing going around, Israel is responsible for the invention of an excellent new addition to agriculture. I plan to buy some when they become commercially available.

  • MERC

    What chutzpah, SR! Zionist propaganda about Hamas/human shields/toy rockets etc – but not a word about Israel’s obscene blockade of its very own Gaza (Warsaw) Ghetto, or its policy of so-called targeted assassinations, or its continual violation of ceasefires agreed to by the Palestinians, or its refusal to engage with the democratically elected government of Palestine, or its intransigent demand that the Palestinian government (the democratically elected one in Gaza, that is) recognise the state that has condemned millions of Palestinian refugees to permanent exile and statelessness, or its use of the most obscene and deadly of weapons such as white phosphorus, dime bombs, flechettes etc, or the equally obscene behaviour of its racist stormtroopers who make no distinction between combatants and civilians. As if the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began with Palestinian rockets from Gaza.

    “Every inch of land was won in wars started by Arabs”? Give us a break. The Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine had been underway for months in ’48 before the Arab armies belatedly sought to stem it, thus at least ensuring that the West Bank and Gaza remained out of Israeli hands till ’67. In 56 the Israelis attacked Egypt and had to be forced out of the Sinai by the Americans. In ’67 the Israelis began the war with what they called a pre-emptive attack against Egypt, and opportunistically snaffled up the rest of Palestine and chunks of Egypt and Syria as well. ’73 was an attempt by the Arabs to win those territories back. ’82 was a unilateral attack by Israel on Lebanon, as was ’06. All, except ’73, were wars of choice, but Israel, pumped up by US money and diplomatic backing, has no incentive to comply with international law or abide by international norms.

    And you want to blah on about water-saving technology? How about you start with the swimming pools and manicured lawns of the Israeli settlers who illegally inhabit the West Bank. There you go – back to stolen land and stolen water.

  • I wish to go back to the main issue of the new invention created in Israel. It stated that a device have been invented by Israelis sends an email to its owner saying I am thirsty, give me water.

    First, I thought this was a joke since it lacks any inventive imaginations. This type of technology was available in the USA more than 40 years ago. Alarm system called the police. In manufacturing facilities all over the USA, devices find problems, fix them and report them.
    Large buildings have central air conditioning controlled by wireless sensors. When a room temperature falls below a certain value, the device signals the main computer to increase air flow to that room to adjust the temperature. Can you imagine if we followed the Israeli invention? Then the wireless will send an email to the maintenance supervisor saying ” I am cold” Then the supervisor need to go to the building and turn the temperature up. That is why I thought this device was a joke.

    Israelis invented and continue to invent important and useful thing, Can you report on something that worth talking about. People turned the discussion to the Palestinian issue because it is on every ones mind.

    Someone said that the Israelis fix the land. Yes, the Israelis help grow some land in the desert, but at what cost? They stole the Jordan River water, the Yarmook River water and that is the reason why the Dead Sea is drying and the Jordanians thirsty. Thanks

  • MERC

    I think you might be onto something there, Jamal. Since Israel gained preferential access to the US market under Reagan, US industry associations and counterintelligence agencies have documented a worrying chain of intellectual property theft. (See Documents reveal AIPAC trade secrets leak leading to $71 billion export loss – irmep.org). Once you develop a taste for theft, it just goes on and on: 1948-2009.

  • Surprised Reader

    Chutzpah? Propaganda?

    No propaganda, just the truth you would like to avoid.

    Let’s review:

    Blockade? Yes. It followed the rocket attacks that continued unabated even after Israel left Gaza. Not even one Jew was left in Gaza – Judenrein just as the PA wanted – and yet the rockets launched at civilian centers persisted and, in fact, increased in number. That’s why there were blockades. Then, sometimes, the Israelis would try to open the crossings. And every time, not sometimes but every single time that a crossing was opened, they either captured terrorists trying to come into Israel or terrorists actually got through. So the crossings would be closed again.

    The suggestion that Israel should negotiate directly with a group of thugs whose platform rejects the Jewish religion’s connection to Israel and determines that Israel cannot be recognized and must be annihilated is ridiculous. Even if someone were to consider it seriously, they would first have to satisfy Hamas’ basic demands to begin negotiations which is that Israel withdraw to 1967/1949 lines entirely. Does that sound like a serious suggestion or something they came up with to ensure there wouldn’t be negotiations?

    Targeted assassinations of murderers who send out rockets and terrorists to attack civilians are perfectly justified. I happen to have a problem with these attacks because innocent civilians have been hurt, but these are justified attacks and they are legal as well.

    The rest of your spiel (“racist;” “stormtroopers”) you can leave to your ignorant audiences. I’m personally familiar with the IDF and soldiers who serve and who have served and the idea of “racist stormtroopers” is absurd. For example, in Jenin, in 2002, 23 Israeli soldiers lost their lives only because they were trying to be careful with respect to Palestinian lives and property. It was only after they lost more than dozen men because of this approach (which was remarked upon in Al Haram by one of the Palestinian fighters there as “crazy” and as making the Israeli soldiers “shooting ducks”) that they began to destroy the homes and attack more forcefully.

    I bring up Jenin because you have the chutzpah to talk about “Zionist propaganda” when that event was the pinnacle of cynical Palestinian propaganda. Care to explain the live people being carried away as if dead on stretchers?

    The “Zionist ethnic cleansing” was a war in place thanks to a couple of suicide trucks places by the Palestinians in key Jewish civilian centers. One in Jerusalem alone killed about 60 Jews. There was no “ethnic cleansing” unless you’re referring to the well documented statements made by Arab leaders about what they would do to the Jews. The Jews literally had their back to the ocean and had a good 30 years of experience of Arab-Palestinian murderous brutality against them. They has no choice but to fight…after they accepted the UN’s partition plan and the Palestinians rejected it. 10 years earlier, the Jews accepted the Peel Commission’s partition recommendation and the Arabs didn’t. Same thing would happen in 2000 and 2001.

    The Palestinians could be sitting in their own state for many years now. Too bad they keep trying to destroy Israel.

    In 1956, Israel attacked Egypt because of the numerous attacks of the Fedayeen. After 1956, there were virtually no attacks by Fedayeen on Israel. They were coming over from the Egyptian border.

    In 1967, Egypt blocked shipping lanes and moved its army into position while making broad public threats against Israel. The shipping lanes alone are recognized as casus belli. Oops, there went the Sinai. But then Jordan was warned not to enter the fray, and did anyway. Oops again, there went the West Bank.

    In 1973, the Arabs attacked because they wanted to destroy Israel again, just as they did in 1948 and 1967. This time they made sure they were the first to fire a shot in the war, that’s the only difference from 1967.

    1982 followed plenty of rocket firings from Lebanon into northern Israeli territory. Stupid war and Israel shouldn’t have gone in there, but the firing came from S. Lebanon first. 2006 was a response not only to the unprovoked attack on soldiers, but simultaneously, apparently to distract other Israeli forces, Hizbullah shelled a civilian community in northern Israel. That was a justified war under any measure and it was provoked by attacks on Israel.

    But we agree about the settlers. They should move west of the Security Fence and Israel should seal that thing off, creating a de-facto border over which they can negotiate with the Palestinians. Oh wait, hold on, if they remove the settlers and the soldiers, then what happened in Gaza will happen in the West Bank: arms smuggling, tunnels, rockets and terror attacks. Hmmmm…maybe that’s not such a good idea, leaving the West Bank. At least not until the day the Palestinians, when left to their own devices as they were in Gaza, use their resources to build playgrounds, schools, roads and other infrastructure instead of tunnels with which they can smuggle the arms they bought with that playground money.

    Jamal, with all due respect to blaming Israel for the absence of water in that region, please don’t forget there has been a brutal drought for several years. Please also don’t forget that the population in the region stands at approximately 9 or 10 million people not including the Jordanian or Lebanese sides of the equation. The area is simply over-populated and people are so busy with wars that they aren’t focused on preservation. Maybe if the wars would stop, then people could divert their attention to other critical problems like pollution, water retention, etc.

    So why don’t you guys try hard to bring your people to pursue peace with Israel on a good-faith, long term basis. I’ll do the same with my Israeli friends. Maybe some good will come from this.

    In the meantime, I will be texting back and forth with my plants.

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.