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Page added on September 7, 2014
Israel Steals Gaza’s Offshore Natural Gas
While Gazans suffer from daily power shutdowns, Israel is signing an important deal to sell gas to Jordan, gas which, researchers say, was stolen from Palestinians. In addition to confiscating Palestine’s energy resources, Israel has destroyed Gaza’s only power station in its latest military offensive.
Photo: “Gaza electricity; ‘enemy of the (Jewish) state’” wrote the Middle East Online during the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead.
While Gazans suffer from daily power shutdowns, Israel is signing an important deal to sell gas to Jordan, gas which, researchers say, was stolen from Palestinians.
In addition to confiscating Palestine’s energy resources, Israel has destroyed Gaza’s only power station in its latest military offensive.
On July 29, 2014, RT reported:
Over a million people in Gaza could be without electricity after Israeli tank shells hit the fuel depot of the enclave’s only power station, causing it to shut down. Its director, Mohammed al-Sharif, said, “The power plant is finished.” (Gaza’s only power plant shut down by Israeli shelling, RT, July 29, 2014)
The Middle East Monitor reported September 4, 2014 that a Memorandum of Understanding ”is due to be signed between Israel and Jordan in the reservoir of Leviathan to export Israeli natural gas to Jordan during the next 15 years with a total value of $15 billion”. (Jordan to buy $15bn of Israeli gas, Middle East Monitor, September 4, 2014.)
Israel’s first natural gas export deal will also be signed by “the Leviathan field partner Noble Energy Inc. on behalf of itself and its partners Delek Group Ltd. units Avner Oil and Gas LP and Delek Drilling Limited Partnership and Ratio Oil Exploration (1992) LP.” (Leviathan partners signing $15b Jordanian gas deal, Globes, Israel business news, on September 3, 2014)
We may recall that in the wake of the Israeli bombing and invasion under Operation Cast Lead, “Palestinian gas fields were de facto confiscated by Israel in derogation of international law”:
A year following “Operation Cast Lead”, Tel Aviv announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean “off the coast of Israel.”
At the time the gas field was: “ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.”
Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration. (Felicity Arbuthnot, Israel: Gas, Oil and Trouble in the Levant, Global Research, December 30, 2013)
The Gazan gas fields are part of the broader Levant assessment area. (Michel Chossudovsky, War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields, Global Research, January 8, 2009)
The Times of Israel said this first export deal “makes Israel chief energy supplier for [the] kingdom.” (Marissa Newman, Israel signs $15 billion gas deal with Jordan, The Times of Israel, September 3, 2014)
The Israeli business news outlet Globe reports that the U.S. State Department “assisted” both countries in signing the deal which gives Israel the capacity to “use its position to achieve strategic aims”:
The deal has been brought to fruition with the assistance of Israel Minister of Natural Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources Silvan Shalom and the US State Department.
US Secretary of State John Kerry’s special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs Amos Hochstein is in Jordan for the signing ceremony. Silvan Shalom will be required to approve the deal before contracts are finally signed.
This deal significantly changes the economic strategic relations between Israel and Jordan and makes Israel an energy producer and exporter that can use its position to achieve strategic aims. Discussions over Israeli gas exports have rumbled on in Israel for the past few years and ultimately it was decided that Israel can export 40% of its offshore natural gas reserves. (Leviathan partners signing $15b Jordanian gas deal, Globes, Israel business news, on September 3, 2014)
According to the Middle East Monitor, Jordan approved last month a recommendation “calling for supplying Jordan with natural gas from Palestinian water of the Gaza Marine”:
“The Jordanian cabinet approved, last month, the recommendation of the Committee on Economic Development, calling for supplying Jordan with natural gas from the gas field discovered in the Palestinian water of the Gaza Marine, after coordination with the Palestinian Authority.
The Palestinians own a stake in the Gaza Marine field, located 35 kilometres away from the coast of the Gaza Strip, which was discovered at the end of the 90s, nothing has been extracted from it yet.” (Middle East Monitor, op. cit.)
Will this deal between Israel and Jordan jeopardize this approval?
One thing is certain, this new deal making Israel the “chief energy supplier for the kingdom” and making Israel an important energy player able ”use its position to achieve strategic aims”, sheds a new light on the purported objectives of the relentless Israeli attacks against Gaza.
In 2007 a year before Operation Cast Lead in which Palestinian gas fields were confiscated, Israeli Defense minister and former Israeli Defence Force (IDF) chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon wrote that “Israel needs additional natural gas sources”. However, purchasing gas from Palestinians, he claimed, would be “tantamount to Israel’s bankrolling terror against itself” and that gas revenues cannot be “a key driver of an economically more viable Palestinian state”. His statement below clearly shows the links between Israel’s military operations and Palestine’s oil and gas reserves:
British Gas is supposed to be the crown jewel of the Palestinian economy, and provide part of the solution to Israel’s pressing energy needs. The British energy giant, now called the “BG Group,” and its local partners – the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and the private, Palestinian-owned Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) – are currently involved in advanced negotiations to sell to Israel massive amounts of natural gas – reserves of nearly 1.4 trillion cubic feet – that BG first discovered in 2000 off the Gaza coast. The market value of the gas has been estimated at $4 billion. Therefore, sale of the gas to Israel would mean a billion-dollar windfall for the PA and, potentially, for the Palestinian people.
Unfortunately, British assessments, including those of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, that Gaza gas can be a key driver of an economically more viable Palestinian state, are misguided. Proceeds of a Palestinian gas sale to Israel would likely not trickle down to help an impoverished Palestinian public.
For Israel, the need for BG’s gas may have already taken a toll. It is possible that the prospect of an Israeli gas purchase may have played a role in influencing the Olmert cabinet to avoid ordering a major IDF ground operation in Gaza …
Clearly, Israel needs additional natural gas sources, while the Palestinian people sorely need new sources of revenue. However, with Gaza currently a radical Islamic stronghold, and the West Bank in danger of becoming the next one, Israel’s funneling a billion dollars into local or international bank accounts on behalf of the Palestinian Authority would be tantamount to Israel’s bankrolling terror against itself. Therefore, an urgent review is required of the far-reaching security implications of an Israeli decision to purchase Gaza gas. (Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza Threaten Israel’s National Security?, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 19, 2007)
What needs to be understood from that declaration is that Israel will not allow Palestinians to have a viable economy by exploiting their natural resources. The “terrorist threat” is just a pretext to maintain Palestine under military occupation and continue to steal its land and resources.
Independent researchers have indicated that these military operations as well as the illegal blockade of Gaza are in fact all about oil and gas:
What is now unfolding is the integration of these adjoining gas fields including those belonging to Palestine into the orbit of Israel. (see map below).
It should be noted that the entire Eastern Mediterranean coastline extending from Egypt’s Sinai to Syria constitutes an area encompassing large gas as well as oil reserves. (Chossudovsky, op. cit.)
For further information on the Palestinian offshore gaz fields, we suggest the following GR articles:
War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields
Israel: Gas, Oil and Trouble in the Levant. Will Israel’s Gas Hopes Come True? Accused of Stealing Gas from the Gaza Strip
Is Israel’s Operation Protective Edge Really About Natural Gas?
Israel Authorises Mining of Natural Gas off Gaza Shore in Defiance of Palestinian Sovereignty
Will Gaza ever get a whiff of its offshore gas?
21 Comments on "Israel Steals Gaza’s Offshore Natural Gas"
Makati1 on Sun, 7th Sep 2014 7:37 pm
Greedy Jews and America’s Jew wannabees. It’s ALL about money.
Ugly Truth on Sun, 7th Sep 2014 9:09 pm
Looking forward to Israel being wiped off the map. The leadership of this country is fucking evil as can be. Palestine is the true inheritors of the land, any honest research will reveal this. The crimes of Israel are legendary. Israel leaders should be prosecuted by the World Court for genocide, then the country should be given back to the Palestinians.
GregT on Sun, 7th Sep 2014 11:28 pm
Who cares about all of those people in Gaza?
It’s just business, nothing personal.
simonr on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 2:15 am
Your Right Mak. and they have big noses and want to marry your sister, polluting the blood.
We need a final solution
#When it is ….springtime for hitler and Germany#
#Winter for Poland and france#
da da daaaaaa
Davy on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 7:41 am
I agree Simon maggots tend to drop to the lowest level of the food chain eating dead flesh. That is what name calling and the blame game are to our intellectual discussions. I don’t care for the Jews. My girlfriend works for one as a designer in the fashion industry in St Louis. He is chinnsy and uptight. He treats his employees like dirt. Jews are strong in St Louis. Yet, I am an egalitarian and they are no worse than many other groups who would be at the same level if they could be. I admire the Jews for their sense of survival with so many Christians and Muslims wanting them killed over the centuries.
paulo1 on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 8:57 am
Geez guys, it wouldn’t have anything to do with lobbing rockets at Israel, or kidnapping and killing teens would it? Certainly Israel has been criminal and there needs to be a two state solution. I suppose when there finally is a two state solution and they lob more rockets at Israel they will be bombed again, though. And I suppose if Israel wasn’t bombing Gaza Egypt would.
For all the rhetoric in the ME nobody seems to pony up and actually help out the Palestinians do they? Although Saddam did send $5,000 to every suicide bomber’s family. That was a big helpful solution, wasn’t it?
Of course this was written by a European publication.
Paulo
JuanP on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 9:37 am
I have Jewish friends, my wife works for a Jew.
Observant people will notice that I never post comments regarding Israel’s actions in Palestine or the ongoing Palestinian Holocaust. I just have nothing good to say about it. It has been the most atrocious conflict in the world since before I was born.
I consider the creation of the state of Israel one of the worst mistakes made in human history.
I will not hate the Jews for Israel’s actions, just like I don’t hate Americans or Russians for the atrocities committed by their respective governments.
When I was 10, my father was laid off and my family went through hard times the next years. We are Catholics, but it was not the Catholics that helped us out in those rough times, it was JEWS. They didn’t have to do it, but they respected my father because when he had been in a powerful position, he had treated the Jews fairly and they didn’t forget it. I will never forget that they put food in our table when those closer to us turned their faces the other way. A Jew is a human, and like all humans, there are both good and bad Jews. I take them as they come.
Fulton J. Waterloo on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 10:56 am
JuanP: well said. I am extremely opposed to Israels ACTIONS, and the influence of the Israel lobby in America. But I want to second your opinion about judging people by their actions and personal morality; NOT their background.Have many dear Jewish friends.
J-Gav on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 12:53 pm
Holding Jewish people everywhere responsible for the actions of the Zionist criminals running the show in Israel is unjust.
For example, a substantial percentage of American Jews are against the siege of Gaza, where 40% of any already postage-stamp sized territory has effectively been snatched (these ‘buffer’ inhabitants having been told by Israeli authorities they’d be bombed if they stayed there.) Not to mention the theft of Gazan offshore energy resources …
GregT on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 1:06 pm
J-Gav,
So true. Not all Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews.
Most people in this world only want to live their lives in peace. Others are hell bent on controlling the world. Those sorts of people, whatever their ideologies, the rest of us can do without.
JuanP on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 1:07 pm
For the record, just so that I am not accused of being anti USA or anti Russia, I will relate a couple of atrocities committed by my own small, insignificant country, Uruguay.
Uruguay has the distinction of being one of only two, that I am aware of, countries in the world where the native population was completely, totally exterminated. A few years after our independence in 1825, the government sent troops on a very successful campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide that didn’t leave one indian alive. All Native peoples living in Uruguay today are immigrants or descend from immigrants. In my family, my younger sister’s husband is Chilean and native and lives in Uruguay.
Uruguayan soldiers deployed under the UN Blue Helmets have raped women and children on multiple occasions, particularly in Congo and Haiti.
Daniel Belteshazzar on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 4:41 pm
Gaza is a territory of Israel. Gaza only has what Israel gives them. If they want a state they better accept Egypt’s proposal for part of the Sinai Peninsula.
peakyeast on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 5:26 pm
Thanks to JuanP for his comments. Very commendable and very true. Thanks again.
shelly on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 6:29 pm
Thanks all you anti-semites for showing your true colors. Israel was given to the Jews, in the Bible and by declaration from the League of Nations. Arabs started the wars. Gazan/Hamas terrorists lob rockets and all you people feel sorry for suicide bombers. The more of them that are killed the safer the rest of the world is. Wake up! They are terrorists who want to kill not only Jews but other muslims and infidels, which probably means most of you that posted these stupid comments. Israel owns the gas fields and Gaza owes Israel millions for the electric that they supplied and Gaza NEVER paid for-Israel didn’t cut it off but I sure as hell hope they do. Most of you are just nazi wannabes. Hitler was wiped out and was evil. Those of you that rant will also be. ISIS will just love to get you infidels.
E. Luton on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 6:41 pm
The more I find out about this parasite of a nation-the more I find them unconscionable and despicable! They owe MUCH of their objectionable behavior to their presumed mentor-ADOLPH HITLER!
(With the exception of all persons of the Jewish faith who do not support these criminals)
yahuda shlomo zobroski on Mon, 8th Sep 2014 7:31 pm
Iam a Jew who hates Israeli action against Palestinians and stealing Palestinian natural recourse’s..people like Netanyahu are not good Jews, they are filthy Zionists criminals that give Jews a bad name worldwide,
Davy on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 5:54 am
The whole Jewish Palestinian problem is a needless distraction to the mega Predicament we face. I am sorry both peoples are locked in an unholy struggle. If it were not the holy land it may have been forgotten about. Look at the size of the populations and the land area then look at the time and energy the global system wastes on this problem. The dirty Jews will continue the apartheid policies and the numb nut Muslims worldwide will encourage terrorism all the while “Rome Burns”. We do not have the time, resources, nor political capital to spare for what is ahead. It is my hope the world turns their back on both peoples. Let them destroy each other. The Palestinians can never win militarily and the Jews can never contain the Palestinian people especially with their population growth. The world should say we gave you 60 something years to work this out and you blew it so enough is enough. I know wishful thinking. My point is the end is near for many of us 7BIL why should a few million be so special? They are nothing more than a needless distraction with the end of BAU in sight.
joey on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 10:13 am
a bunch of jealous antisemites ,could of seen it all by the large protests all over during the resent war and virtually no protest on the killings by syria and thier opponents ,close 250,000 deaths!!! in 3 years and no outcry so its pure antisemitsem hidden under “sympathy” of those innocent killed ,gimmie a break
peakyeast on Tue, 9th Sep 2014 4:37 pm
shelly: If you back far enough you will discovery that all countries has been stolen by warmongers at one time or another – or even several times.
Refering to something as ludicrous and despicable as the bible completely invalidates any points you might have as far as i am concerned.
And just why do you think that the “league of nations” has any right to give away other peoples land? Is this a way of telling us that the biggest guns wins? In that case you invalidated your own reference to the bible.
Do try to connect the dots in your own ramblings – you look like a fool so far.
Peter on Wed, 7th Aug 2019 8:47 pm
Anti semites is just a safeword to excuse you vile zionists of all evils! The scale of attacks by ‘terrorists’ pales significantly to the genocide inflicted by Israel and why was it the jews were without their own land for millennia? I take no stock in religion anyhow but it says clearly the people were barbarous and destroyed their own kingdoms, hardly role models for ‘chosen ones’.
Many cultures have done and still do despicable things, you mentioned Hitler… YET none of these wicked people, organisations, nations etc have dodged reproach anywhere to the extent the jews have under their guise as ‘victims’ time and time again! Anyone that tries to call them out on their blatant lack of humanity to put it lightly are branded anti semites!
You can whinge century after century that the world are anti semitic persecuting jews for unjust reasons out of jealousy and evil but the more you deny any wrongdoings by the jews the more you alienate them from redemption!
The way Israel jealously holds onto that bit of land handed to them on a plate is like a rabid beast, anyone that deems themselves a humanitarian will not excuse it!
Cloggie on Wed, 7th Aug 2019 9:38 pm
For the record, just so that I am not accused of being anti USA or anti Russia, I will relate a couple of atrocities committed by my own small, insignificant country, Uruguay.
Uruguay has the distinction of being one of only two, that I am aware of, countries in the world where the native population was completely, totally exterminated.
We are talking about “small, insignificant” numbers here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_in_Uruguay
It is estimated that there were about 9,000 Charrúa and 6,000 Chaná and Guaraní at the time of contact with the Spanish in the 1500s. By the time of independence, some 300 years later, there were only about 500 native peoples remaining in Uruguay. The cause of the decline in native populations was disease, as well as intermarriage. With little immunity to these diseases, native peoples and culture were gradually diminished.