HULEH VALLEY

The Huleh Valley, Israel, courtesy, Wikipedia

The Huleh Valley used to be a lake prior to its draining. It lies about 15 miles north of the Sea of Galilee and is about 7 feet above sea level. Today, it is an agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water. It is also a major stopover for birds migrating along the Syrian-African Rift Valley between Africa, Europe, and Asia.

"The waters of Merom", as it is called in the Book of Joshua, is given as the name of the place at which the hosts of the peoples of northern Canaan assembled to meet Joshua and the Israelite warriors. The commander-in-chief of the Canaanite forces was Jabin, King of Hazor. The only hint as to Joshua's method of attack is the statement that “he came against the enemy suddenly, and fell upon them”. This probably indicates a night march and early morning attack. The Israelites “smote them, put them to flight, and pursued them in every direction. Their horses were hamstrung, and their chariots were burned, while their cities and the whole country were laid waste”. After these battles and the ensuing Israelite victories, the area in and around Lake Huleh became allotted to the tribe of Naphtali. In the 8^th century BCE, the lake was captured by the Neo-Assyrian Empire's armies under Tiglath-Pileser III (reigned 745–727 BC) and its inhabitants were driven away. After the Babylonian Captivity (538 BCE) and later in the Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods, when the Jews resettled in the area, the growing of rice became a major agricultural industry.

Over the centuries, however, Lake Huleh became marshland and also a breeding ground for mosquitoes carrying malaria. It wasn’t until the 1830s that Arab migrants, mainly refugees, established permanent settlements in the area that were conducive to the swamp environment. The first modern Jewish settlement in the Huleh Valley, Yesud HaMa'ala on the western shore of the lake, was established in 1883 during the First Aliyah. Since then, plans, and several attempts, were made, either by Jews or the Turks or the British, to drain the nearby swamps and turn the area over to agriculture. In 1934, during the British Mandate, the Palestine Land Development Company was awarded this concession by the Mandatory government and drew up plans to drain and irrigate the valley which brought scientific expeditions to the area. This activity was forced to be suspended at the outbreak of the Arab riots and World War II after that. It wasn’t resumed until after Israeli independence.

In 1951, the draining of the swamps began, lasting seven years and carried out by the Jewish National Fund and aided by the Construction Aggregate Company of Chicago. During this time, the Israeli government invited John Zuckerman, an agriculturalist from California, to visit Israel as advisor on a project. The Syrian Arabs, for their part, often interfered with the execution of the project by repeatedly opening fire on work crews along the Jordan course and by obtaining from the UN a stipulation that the dredged earth and stone be deposited on the western river bank only (although the eastern bank was Israeli territory as well). But in spite of the usual problems with the surrounding Arabs, the draining was successful, achieved by two main engineering operations: the deepening and widening of the Jordan River downstream; and two newly-dug peripheral canals diverting the Jordan at the north of the valley. Though perceived at the time as a great national achievement for Israel, with the advent of the modern environmental movement, it became evident that the transformation of the swamp into agricultural land involved significant trade-offs and had effects on the ecosystem that had not been perceived previously such as the extinction of the unique endemic fauna of the lake. In fact, this concern was the impetus for the creation of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel in 1953. Due to the activities of this Society, in 1963, a small area of recreated papyrus swampland in the southwest of the valley was set aside and thus, it became the country's first nature reserve, the Huleh Nature Reserve. The next year, it was officially inaugurated and today, it is listed by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, as a Wetland of International Importance. In the early 1990s part of the valley was flooded again in the wake of heavy rains. Therefore, it was decided to develop the surrounding area and leave the flooded area intact. The new site, the Agmon HaHula, has become the second home for thousands of migrating birds in the autumn and spring. In November 2011 the Huleh painted frog, classified as extinct since 1996 by the IUCN as a result of the marsh drainage, reappeared to park patrollers. The reappearance was confirmed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Today, several communities have been established in the area since the establishment of Yesud Hamaala – Hulata (1937), Ramot Naphtali (1945, located adjacent to the Nebi Yesha Forest), Yiftah (1948), Sde Eliezer (1950), and Gonen (1951).