In late 2017 the influential Israeli magazine “Makor Rishon” announced Ehud Keinan as “Man of the Year”, portraying him as a national hero and arguing that “only few people can be credited with reality-changing, life-saving undertaking, while risking their reputation, career, and perhaps even their life. Professor Ehud Keinan is such a person. On January 29, 2017, the 70-year old professor - one of Israel’s most prominent chemists - presented an explosive document to the Mayor of Haifa. The Keinan report and his subsequent crusade against the monstrous ammonia imports and storage within the densely populated Haifa Bay, eventually shook the country.

Ten 10 world-renowned professors, including Nobel Prize Laureate Dan Shechtman, were recruited and led by Keinan to voluntarily examine the industrial ammonia operations. They found that importing huge amounts of refrigerated ammonia and storing it in an old, unsafe, 12,000-ton tank under poor safety standards and without proper permits, threatened the lives of nearly 1,000,000 residents at the metropolitan area of about 25 towns in the Haifa Bay. In spite of a fierce PR attacks by the fertilizer manufacturer, who was supported by government officials, Keinan’s unprecedented public struggle has ended with a historical triumph. Following numerous legal battles through the entire court system, the Supreme Court of Israel finally ruled not only to empty and decommission the ammonia tank, but also prohibited all imports of bulk ammonia to any port of the State of Israel. Keinan has terminated a life-threatening, 30-year operation that endangered nearly one million women, men and children.”

Prof. Keinan is about to complete his book, “The Ammonia Wars in Haifa Bay: An Introductory Course to Democracy”, which he intends to publish in two versions, Hebrew and English, and is likely to be translated to additional languages. This book, which emphasises the crucial synergism among multiple organizations, could become a valuable textbook with lessons to those who are involved in various public struggles. Several academic programs of law and public policy in Israeli universities and colleges have already included Keinan’s successful engagement with public initiatives and leadership. They all pose universal questions to professors, students and all citizens: Are we responsible for everything that goes on in our country? Are we exempt from being involved in the State affairs? Do we have any rights or obligations to intervene in State affairs? Do we have the power to influence State affairs? Keinan’s experience has already provided clear answers to these questions.

Prof. Keinan’s victorious struggle to terminate the ammonia operation in Haifa Bay has already triggered and inspired other public efforts under his leadership, as well as various public campaigns led by citizens, university professors, engineers and students. The following list of efforts includes only those initiated and being led by Prof. Keinan.

• Ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by the State of Israel. Although this struggle is on-going, much progress has already been achieved. Keinan had addressed the Prime-Minister and President of the State of Israel with open letters, communicated with Parliament Members and other officials and interacted directly with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in Netherlands and the EuCheMS association on European chemical societies.

• Keinan’s public initiative to minimize natural gas exports from Israel has already gained partial success. Linked to this effort, he has initiated a national effort, which focuses of C1- Economy, aiming to exploit natural gas as a chemical feedstock for the petrochemical industry. He had already created a synergistic alliance, which includes the Israel Chemical Society, the American Chemical Society and various other academic, industrial and governmental entities.

• Keinan’s ongoing, remarkable educational projects, which target high school pupils of low socioeconomic strata in Israel and high-school pupils of the Arab minority, had already gained significant success. Three of these projects are worth mentioning: the Archimedes project, which provides gifted high school pupils with academic courses toward a bachelor's degree in chemistry. The Negev-Nobel Project, which offers advanced chemistry education to disadvantaged pupils in southern Israel. The Assi Project, which promotes science education and academic excellence among high-school pupils of the Arab sector in Israel.

• The MERIT (Middle East Research Institute) represents an unusual, 20-year effort to establish an extra-territorial research institute in the Middle East. Prof. Keinan serves as President of the MERIT Foundation, which was established 2 decades ago. The details of this unusual project cannot be described within the limited space of this document.