Israel’s Oil War?
Some think Israel is after Gaza's natural gas. And the American press ... couldn't care less.
A column in today’s Times of India argues that Israel’s invasion of Gaza isn’t really about stopping rocket attacks into its territory. According to the piece’s author, Israel has a much more mercantile, and unfortunately familiar, motive–cheap access to fossil fuels:
In 1999, the oil firm BG International discovered a huge deposit of natural gas 32km from the Gaza coast. The Gaza Marine gas field contains 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas valued at over $4 billion. As per the Oslo peace accords, which created Gaza, Israel has security control over air and water around Gaza. So, it wrangled a deal with BG to get access to Gaza Marine gas at cheap rates.
But before the deal could go through, Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006. This sparked off a bitter power struggle between Hamas and the pro-west Fatah. Ultimately, the Palestinian Authority split in 2007, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and Fatah taking control of West Bank. One of the first things that Hamas did after getting elected was to declare that the natural gas deal would have to be renegotiated
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It appears that the current Israeli move is to try and turn the Gazans against Hamas, paving the way for a more pliable administration, so that the gas deal will go through.
We’re not saying we agree with this assessment, but some further reading on the subject did yield some interesting results. For instance, back in 2003, according to an article in the Independent, Israel was all set to sign a deal with the Palestinians to import the Gaza gas, but backed out. Why? Because former prime minister Ariel Sharon didn’t like the fact that the pact would have given as much as 40% of the profits to the Palestinians:
Mr Sharon is reported to have preferred to buy gas from Egypt, which already sells Israel oil from its Sinai fields. The Israeli Prime Minister was reluctant to put money into the Palestinian treasury without knowing what it would be used for.
In 2005, two years after Sharon killed the Gaza gas deal, Israel did in fact enter into an import agreement with Sharon’s preferred partner Egypt. But late last year, this supply line was put in jeopardy. From the NY Times:
An Egyptian court on Tuesday ordered the government to stop piping natural gas to Israel, saying the 15-year contract was improperly awarded because it was not approved by Parliament.
That article is dated November 18. That means less than two months before Israel launched its attack on Gaza, its main source of natural gas was threatened. Meanwhile, an almost inexhaustible supply of the stuff sits just off the coast of … Gaza. Again, we’re not saying this is the sole reason for the invasion, or even one of the reasons. But it is an intriguing, perhaps critical, bit of background. Too bad our domestic media hasn’t mentioned it to us. A Google news search on “Gaza Israel natural gas” yielded absolute bupkis in the American press.
“Why hasn’t the American media mentioned that Gazan territory holds huge amounts of natural gas?” Well, I hate to give the American media this much credit, the the answer probably is because it’s not true.
well, whatever happening currently in Gaza strip is not just related to prevent terrorist activities or get rid of the Hamas, but it also has correlations with the geo-economic matters.
Gaza has significant economic strategic importance. Not only BG discovered the oil capacity of Gaza strip but has already spent $25 million on the joint exploration efforts. Because of Hamas control over Gaza, Israel could not work on the pipeline and Gas exploration in the Gaza strip area which is suppose to be operational by year 2011.
Israel has been buying gas from Egypt as well as from Europe, which is very much expensive for Israeli economy. Hence idea of having its own energy resources and getting cheaper gas access from PA is more economically influential.
Will the Israel action affect the gas agreement and this occupation of Gaza will turn the future of Israel and PA? Although the Israel’s aim is very much to destroy the terrorist activities or the target Hamas activities in the region. But it is also important to contemplate the suffering of Gaza from humane point.