Strategic Sewage

by Roy Tov

 
The chances that the sewage system of Tel Aviv would be featured here a third time were slim; yet, after a deep-kept secret—literally underground-kept—was disclosed on July 20, 2013, the topic was unavoidable.
Hebrew media are suspiciously obsessed with the topic; suspiciously so, until one remembers Prime Minister Netanyahu’s nickname.
If asked, he probably would claim that it was derived by duplicating the first two letters of his name in Hebrew, “Binyamin” became “Bibi.”
Having grown up in the USA and being more Republican than Israeli, he probably failed to see that most Hebrew speakers would analyze the word differently. “Bib” is a hole in the ground, “bib shofchin” is a sewage hole, though the second word is usually skipped. “Bibi” can be understood as “my sewage.”
Humbly, Hebrew media are secretly laughing at the stained, stinky leader.

Sunken Bus
Tel Aviv’s Crumbling Infrastructure
Sewage Sludge Management

 
 A Short—but Stinky—Introduction
Crumbling infrastructures are one of the most evident signs that a terror attack took place. Nowhere was that as evident as in the 9/11 attacks. The rubble and the dust left behind by the twin towers on what used to be the world’s largest financial center were an undeniable and large testimony of the perpetrators’ violence.
The USA government was fast, incredibly fast, in the destruction of the evidence, thus sabotaging any credible investigation of the event. Too bad for the Afghani and Iraqi people.

Ayalon Highway—January 8, 2013
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Crumbling infrastructures are one of the most evident signs that a terror attack took place; however, sometimes they appear far away from the attack site, and do so in an unpredictable way. In Israel, crumbling infrastructures are a reminder that the State is spending incredible amounts of money attacking humanity. Little is left for Tel Aviv’s infrastructures.

Ayalon Highway—January 8, 2013
Superstorm Sandy: A Diary in the Dark

In mid-2011, a bus parked on the busy intersection of Derech Namir and Arlosoroff fell into the ground after the sewage system below it collapsed (Crumbling Testimony of Terror).
On January 1, 2012, a water main burst underneath Shaul Hamelech Street and Derech Namir blocking the north-bound lanes of the latter, which is the main road out of the city. The result was a traffic jam that probably will be remembered for the rest of this young century.
These and other events lose significance compared with the Superstorm in Tel Aviv. On January 7, 2013, 60mm^* of rain fell on the city in a few hours. This is unusual. The images show the dramatic result. Ayalon Highway^** was flooded.
Secret Sewage
On July 20, 2013, the drivers using the Ayalon Highway while listening to the radio were surprised to find out that in the last three years, a sewage tunnel had been excavated under the highway without their noticing that, as shown in the video at Strategic Sewage.
The sewage path is 8km long (5 miles) and reaches a depth of 30m. The secret excavation was conducted by Wuwa Bau – Max Boegl—a German company—similarly to what is being done along the way connecting Tel Aviv with Jerusalem (see German Machine, Russian Workers and Israel’s Largest Nuclear Shelter).
The secrecy was imposed by the same problem that dictated the work being conducted in a 3ATM pressurized environment. The excavation passed dangerously close to the IDF Headquarters and the Ministry of Defense building. Under the latter is the “Bor” (“hole”), the IDF War Room during regular times (the emergency one is in Wing 2). The Azrieli Towers are just next to the new tunnel. Other heavy structures are in the vicinity.
Hence, the odd work conditions were aimed to avoid their collapse and hide that for a while there would be underground access to these structures.
Germany provided Israel not only with state-of-the-art submarines enabling Israel’ssecond strike option. Now it has become clear that it has provided Israel also with more than suspected state-of-the-art boring machines. Their secret number is harder to find than details on the submarines and their nuclear weapons.
Beyond the open excavations below Jerusalem, we discovered now that also Tel Aviv is being hollowed. This excavation was secret. One must ask how many other underground paths and nuclear shelters are being built.
Mr. Netanyahu—I apologize for the foreign formality, but you’ll understand my not calling you Bibi right now—could you please disclose the date of the planned war so that we can accommodate our plans?
———
 
video and full version at http://www.roitov.com/articles/bib.htm
^* Between midnight and noon of January 8, the stations surrounding Tel Aviv reported up to 60mm of rain; for the sake of my American readers, this is just over two inches of rain. The large drops fell vertically on the ground; they were not accompanied by any significant winds. Thus, the event cannot qualify as a tornado, a hurricane, a typhoon, a superstorm, or any other significant meteorological event. It was far from the Biblical Deluge. Yet, this strong winter rain flooded Tel Aviv
^** One of the achievements of Yitzhak Rabin in his second term as Prime Minister (1992-1995) was a decision to modernize Israel’s network of roads. The most visible result of this initiative was the creation of the Ayalon Highway (Road #20). Until then, there were no highways crossing the city; traveling from Haifa in the north to Jerusalem in the east through Tel Aviv was a nightmare. Ayalon Highway was designed as a 30km long, wide road connecting all the highways reaching Tel Aviv, mainly highways #1 from Jerusalem, and #2 from Haifa. It runs parallel to the Ayalon River (more often than not a languid stream), it includes several railways and an additional one is planned to be constructed over the water stream. On regular days, 600,000 cars pass through it; navigating through the area without using it, is unthinkable now. All the images of the metropolis showing modern roads depict different angles of this project.
In the past, the Ayalon River reached the Mediterranean Sea at Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. Due to floods there, it was diverted so that it would flow into the Yarkon River, on Tel Aviv’s northern side. The latter is rather small, thus if the Ayalon River substantially increases its flow, the city experiences an almost biblical flood with just two inches of a sudden rain.

Roi Tov

Roi Tov is a graduate—among others—of Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. In addition to his memoir, Tov is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Physics and other scientific journals. He won various travel writing and photography awards.

In his writings, he tries to reveal life in Israel as a Christian Israel Defense Force (IDF) officer—from human rights violations to the use of an extensive network of underground agents. He was recognized first as a refugee and subsequently as political prisoner of Bolivia.