By Darlene Casella, AM THINKER
The Mediterranean Levant Basin is offshore to Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Cyprus. It could hold 120 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is enough to supply energy for the region and Europe. Israel has two huge gas fields, Leviathan and Tamar, as well as other smaller gas fields, which are part of Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in that basin.
The Karish natural field is one of these. Gas was discovered there in 2016, Karish is owned by Energean Israel. In 2017 the Israeli Minister of Energy approved development.
United Nations international maritime maps, including maps submitted by Lebanon in 2011, show Karish in Israeli territorial waters. In 2019 it was revealed that Karish has recoverable natural gas resources significantly larger than originally expected.
Under pressure from Hezb’allah, Lebanon claims Karish ownership and asserts the maps are wrong. Lebanon demands that drilling be halted until the dispute regarding maritime borders is settled.
Energean installed an exploration platform in the Kadish Field, and announced they would begin extracting gas within three months.
Hezb’allah was founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Lebanese voters have given Hezb’allah powerful influence and seats in Lebanon’s Parliament.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezb’allah, gave a televised speech on June 9 about “Israeli provocations” in the maritime area. He threatens to strike the gas rig that Israel is setting up at Karish. Nasrallah thundered that Lebanon has the right to fight militarily to prevent Israel from extracting oil and gas from the Karish area.
Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati invited Biden’s State Department energy envoy Amos Hochstein to mediate “…negotiations to demarcate the southern maritime border and to work on concluding the issue as fast as possible to prevent any escalation that would not serve the state of stability in the region.” Is that a threat from the prime minister?
Amos Hochstein served under Obama Administration Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Neither of these secretaries were known as pro-Israel. In Beirut on June 14, Amos met with Lebanese president Michel Aoun at the Baabda Presidential Palace. It is reported that Hochstein proposed a gas field swap, but Lebanon did not officially agree.
Leader of the terrorist Hamas organization, Ismail Haniyeh, went to Lebanon June 23rd for a meeting with Nasrallah. We speculate on what these terrorist haters of Israel might have discussed.
Lebanon and Egypt are expected to sign an agreement for gas supply through a pipeline which will pass from Egypt through Jordon and Syria. Lebanon has a severe energy shortage and many parts of the country have electricity only two hours a day. A Catch-22 is that Egypt gets much of its gas from Israel.
Israel, Egypt, and the European Union (EU) signed a milestone ‘memorandum of understanding’ in mid-June that Israel will export its natural gas to the EU. The goal is to reduce dependence on Russian gas. Gas will flow from Israel to Egypt through a pipeline and then be transported on tankers to Europe. It is anticipated that this will bring $1 billion shekels to Israel.
The importance of gas development to Israel was not always self-evident. Over a decade ago, Israeli cooperative gas development was blocked by Anti-Trust Commissioner David Gilo. Prime Minister Netanyahu declared gas development to be a national security priority and Commissioner Gilo resigned. Houston-based Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group became consortium partners.
Leftist member of the Knesset Zehava Galon launched an attack suggesting that American philanthropist Sheldon Adelson had contacted Netanyahu to influence the natural gas issue. Zehava wanted Netanyahu out of gas negotiations. Adelson responded “I never had any discussions, in writing, in person, or by telephone with the Prime Minister regarding any gas company. I hope that Israel becomes energy independent and an energy exporter, but so does every Israeli and every Jew around the world. I don’t even know Noble Energy. This is all a complete fabrication and 100% false.” It was determined that the accusations were completely without merit.
Adelson died in 2021, but he must be elated because his hope for Israel’s energy has come true.
Darlene Casella is an internationally published writer, a former English teacher, stockbroker, and owner/president of a small corporation. She is active with Republican Women Federated, the Coachella Valley Lincoln Club, the California Republican Party, PEO, Armed Services YMCA-29 Palms Marine Base. She can be reached at darlenecasella@msn.com
Image: Fjmustak
The issue of Israeli gas and its sale to Europe presents a real opportunity for which Israel may reap a greater windfall than simply the financial benefit from the sale of gas. Europe has foolishly placed themselves into a position in which they need some source from which to satisfy their enormous gas needs, now that they have entered into a sanctions war with Russia, from which outrageous levels of energy costs will shatter their economies unless they find the means by which to remedy their unforced error.
With Israel becoming a partial, currently very partial, solution to this energy crisis in Europe, it would place Europe into a position of dependency upon Israel, the likes of which has never before existed. As I mentioned above, it is a very small portion of the European gas deficit that Israel can satisfy currently, but Israel this is a recent endeavor which has been met with several complications, not the least of which was the foolish Meretz Interior minister halting gas exploration in the past year. As Israel restores the gas exploration, and her oil production, and thereby oil export, rises she will be able to gain a greater and greater dependency from Europe on the gas commodity. The benefit of this dependency will become even more acutely realized should the US change their decision on building the pipeline that will make the delivery of gas possible with a much greater level of efficiency, again presuming exports rise. As Israel becomes capable of producing and delivering greater quantities of gas to Europe, the resulting dependency will present Europe with a geopolitical motivation to actually afford a greater level of respect and accommodation with Israel and for her interests, quite distinctly contrary to the rapport which has heretofore existed between Europe and Israel.
There are, of course, a great many possibilities that could scuttle this opportunity, such as Meretz maintaining their block on explorations, resolution of the self inflicted European energy crisis with Russia, among many others. The potential of creating a dependency by Europe on Israeli gas sales does, however, present Israel with a great opportunity for a relationship to blossom between Europe and Israel which is far more beneficial to Israel than has ever existed before.
Selling gas to the EU should be conditional on the EU being non discriminatory against Israel!
Whether Karish or Kadish, it will be interesting to see the EU response and maybe even the US response.
I missed the part where the Egyptian cut was mentioned.