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The Zalul environmental group has published a study pointing out how Israel's waters are being polluted by businesses granted with government permits to dump their sewage into the rivers and sea. Three boxes at end of text. First box by Rory Kress
Many of the country's proliferating environmental organizations tend to conglomerate their headquarters around the Heschel Center in south Tel Aviv. Not so the Zalul Association for Environmental Protection.
Zalul [Hebrew for clear] operates from the heart of Babylon - an office tower owned by a leading telecommunications company in Ramat Gan's bourse business area. "We're different from other amutot," says the non- profit organization's Executive Director Yariv Abramovich. "We're not granola-eating tree-huggers. The staff here all have a strong business, media or technical background. We believe in changing from the inside, by speaking the same language."
Such is the persevering ambiance of the organization's workmanlike office, where about 10 paid employees researched the data that appeared in Zalul's 2007 State of the Sea report, released last month to a flurry of local media attention. "We believe in attacking a limited number of issues from all angles, and have a high management attention ratio," explains Abramovich, an attorney with an extensive background in business management.
When he assumed the reigns in 2003, Abramovich's goal was to bring effective management strategies to Zalul, and to increase its productivity and effectiveness.
Zalul was set up seven years ago by Morris and Benjamin Kahn, press-shy father-and-son businessmen originally from South Africa. "They are environmentalists from the heart, and want to do something about the situation," says Abramovich. "Benjie is a keen diver, and he saw the degradation of the Eilat coral reef over the years. Then came the Kishon river disaster in 2000 [when it was revealed that dozens of naval commandos were exposed to cancer after conducting regular diving training sessions in the Kishon as part of their regular training]."
As a non-government organization (NGO) operating within the dovetail of Israeli business and politics, Zalul is careful not to take sides. "Our financial sources are all from abroad - we're afraid of a conflict of interests," Abramovich explains.
However, he points out that more Israelis are becoming increasingly concerned about the environment, part of a...