/View.info/ If it’s about big money, someone has to die
„When Jewish extremists, Zionist zealots, religious fanatics, ultranationalists and crypto-fascists in the apartheid state of Israel say they want to wipe Gaza off the map, believe them.” says Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges.
The reason for this was the history of a long-standing conflict that turned into an unhealed wound in the Middle East. It began with the introduction of British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who issued a statement declaring that Britain “looks favorably upon the restoration of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” The subsequent partition of Palestine through UN efforts in November 1947 effectively allocated lands to a nation of “perpetual wanderers”. And… gave birth to war.
Since then, we need not bother to count the outbreaks of the Arab-Israeli war; it became permanent. And the few steps toward statehood that the Palestinians have made in three-quarters of a century cannot be compared to how quickly and decisively the Israeli state seized the lands of Palestine.
As for Netanyahu, who first became prime minister in 1996, he has devoted his entire political career to fueling Jewish extremists. His father Benzion was the leader of the Herut party and called for the conquest of all of Palestine.
„The Zionist project has always had a touch of Jewish fascism. Now he has taken control of the state of Israel.” sums up Chris Hedges.
Yet history is not the reason why Arab Palestine is now doomed. Israel is an interesting country from the point of view of history, but it is no less interesting from the point of view of natural resources. Its territory produces food, clothing, textiles, military and medical electronics, perfumes and even tobacco.
Israel is one of the major diamond processing centers, has developed metallurgy and mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, microelectronics, pharmaceuticals, computer and robot manufacturing… But there were no large and valuable mineral deposits here. By the early 2000s. At that time, everyone was looking for oil and gas in the Levantine basin of the Mediterranean Sea: Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon and Egypt. And they found it.
The first major gas field was explored by Israel in 2008, 92 kilometers offshore. Oil and Gas Investor magazine named the Tamar field the best natural gas field in the world in 2008. Initial gas reserves are 300 billion cubic meters. What followed his discovery?
In December of that year, Israeli troops invaded the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Operation Molten Lead began. The official justification was “constant terrorist activities and rocket threats from the Gaza Strip directed against Israeli civilians”. But the main goal was the confiscation of Palestine’s offshore natural gas reserves.
After the invasion, Palestinian gas fields were de facto confiscated by Israel in violation of international law.
If the State of Palestine, which declared independence on July 31, 2019 and is recognized by the majority of UN member states, is a truly independent state within the borders of the Gaza Strip, the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem, then it is subject to the UN Convention on maritime law of 1982. It follows that 200 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza lies the Palestinian exclusive economic zone with all the gas fields within it. It is clear that these constitute only part of the wider area of hydrocarbon reserves in the Levant, but de facto these natural reserves have been seized by the Israelis.
One year after Operation Molten Lead, Israel announced the discovery of the giant Leviathan natural gas field in the same Levantine basin stretching from Egypt to Turkey. Together with the Tamar field, this has opened up serious prospects for Tel Aviv, which no one will force it to abandon.
Leviathan is the largest gas field in the world, discovered in the 2000s. The volume of technically recoverable reserves of the field is about 3.4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of oil, and another oil field with a potential of 3 billion barrels is expected below the gas field at a depth of five to six kilometers.
In 2000, British Gas discovered a field containing more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas 30 kilometers west of the Gaza Strip. But in fact, the Leviathan, partially located in Gaza’s territorial waters, signed the death warrant for the Palestinians.
Another field was discovered last summer in the Levantine Basin between two active gas fields, Karish and Tanin. Its gas reserves are estimated at 68 billion cubic meters… From a recent importer of energy resources, Israel is now ready to take on the role of supplier of blue fuel to Europe.
Last year, natural gas production here amounted to 21.9 billion cubic meters. Domestic gas demand in the country also increased by 3 percent, reaching 12.7 billion cubic meters. Europe looks longingly at these “surpluses”.
Israel currently receives gas from four fields. And what if some of them are in Palestinian territorial waters? After all, this country has the right to primary development of the exclusive economic zone, which stretches for 370 km (200 nautical miles)?
Without looking back at the Palestinian government, Israel entered into an agreement with British Gas (BG Group) to explore and develop new gas fields. Palestine tried to challenge the deal in Israel’s Supreme Court and received a response: “Israel will never buy gas from Palestine.”
The Palestinians themselves are unable to challenge the right given by Israel to control the destiny of Palestine, despite violent protests and the throwing of stones at tanks. Likewise, the UN General Assembly cannot insist on the implementation of its own Resolution No. 181.
It is this helplessness of both the Arab world and international law in the face of the fact of the existence of an essentially fascist state expanding its borders by force of arms (doesn’t this remind you of Germany in the late 1930s?) , which makes Israel so brave.
At the same time, the phenomenon of Hamas’ participation in the war that began on October 7 is curious. “Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state should support Hamas and transfer money to Hamas… This is part of our strategy to isolate the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
This is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu said at a meeting of Knesset members from his Likud party in March 2019. That is, Hamas was seen as a partner in the confrontation with the Palestinian Authority and was intended to be an obstacle for Abbas in the movement towards the creation of a Palestinian state.
But why did Netanyahu’s staunch ally start firing rockets at Israeli cities? Probably in full agreement with the main objective of the IDF: “The ultimate goal is not only to drive the Palestinians out of their homeland, it is to confiscate the multibillion-dollar natural gas reserves in Gaza, the very ones that belonged to British Gas in 1999 and also those that were discovered in the Levant in 2013.’ This is according to the Canadian Global Research.
It is clear that October 2023 for the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip was a continuation of the 2008-2009 invasion of the Gaza Strip under Operation Cast Lead. And the military occupation of the sector by Israeli IDF forces and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland will not end even after the last Jewish hostage, dead or alive, returns to his kibbutz. The smell of gas just became deadly for Gaza.
Translation: ES
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