Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Natural gas

Showing posts with label Natural gas. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Is it wise for Israel to allow development of the Gaza gas field?

On Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister's office issued a brief statement:

In the framework of the existing efforts between the State of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with emphasis on Palestinian economic development and maintaining security stability in the region, it has been decided to develop the Gaza Marine gas field off the coast of Gaza.

Implementing the project is subject to coordination between the security services and direct dialogue with Egypt, in coordination with the PA, and the completion of inter-ministerial staff work led by the National Security Council, in order to maintain the security and diplomatic interests of the State of Israel on the matter.

This is very vague.

In the past, Israel has tied the development of the field off the Gaza coast to returning the Israeli hostages and recovering the bodies of Israeli soldiers still held by Hamas.

But it looks like Netanyahu is dropping that condition and playing some word games:

An unnamed Israeli official at the prime minister’s office told Ynet on Sunday that all of the security agencies recommended the government approve the project. The same agencies had also approved the resolution of the maritime border dispute with Lebanon in November 2022, but Netanyahu rejected the recommendation, and the agreement with Lebanon was reached under the previous Bennett-Lapid government.
“The issue of the [Israeli] prisoners and missing people was and still is a condition for the development of infrastructure in Gaza. In this case [of the Marine field], we are not talking about Gaza infrastructure, but rather about an agreement with the PA and with Egypt," said the official.

Hamas has been pretty much maintaining calm in Gaza since Israel has allowed thousands of Gazans to work in Israel. It seems like Netanyahu (and Israel's security agencies) are looking at Gaza Marine as a means to make life easier for Gazans but Israel could theoretically turn the spigot off in case Hamas decides to resume hostilities.

If that is the logic, there are a couple of flaws. One is that if there is a direct line of natural gas from the field to Gaza, Israel could not turn it off, because that would look clearly like collective punishment.

The real fear is that the revenues would help fund more Hamas weapons and attacks. This will undoubtedly happen. Is that certainty worth the possibility/probability that Hamas will keep Gaza quiet?

Which brings up the other problem. While Hamas might be quieter in Gaza, they are active in the West Bank and taking credit for terror attacks. When Abbas is gone, while there is infighting within Fatah to replace him, Hamas is planning to take advantage of the chaos to make its own bid for controlling the West Bank. And the Gaza money will be critical to that plan succeeding.

Beyond that, what's wrong with leveraging Gaza Marine to get the hostages back? Why give up a concession and get nothing in return? Why not publicly tell the world, "We are happy to allow Gaza gas to be exported as soon as our boys come home?" Europe needs to replace Russian gas, which is why this has become a hot issue over the past year again. Why not give them a reason to pressure Hamas?

I hope Bibi knows what he is doing, and that there will be appropriate guardrails on this effort.

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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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11/07 Links Pt2: Elliot Abrams: No, Israeli Democracy Is Not in Danger; Jonathan Tobin: Democrats’ doomsday political appeals are bad for the Jews; Jew-Free Investing

From Ian:

No, Israeli Democracy Is Not in Danger

Surveying rhetoric concerning last week’s Israeli elections, and the upcoming American elections, Elliott Abrams writes:
There is a striking parallel between the comments being heard from the left in the United States about the meaning of a possible Republican victory on November 8, and from the left in the United States—as much as or more than in Israel—about the meaning of the victory of the right in the Israeli election on November 1. The meaning, we are told, is the end of democracy. That’s what President Biden and Hillary Clinton said on November 2 about our elections, [while] President Obama said, “democracy is on the ballot.” It is what we heard from commentators such as Thomas Friedman about the Israeli results and our own election.

What actually happened? There was a very high turnout of voters—over 70 percent, substantially higher than is typical in the United States (and this was the fifth election in under four years)—and it split almost down the middle.

Those inclined to apocalyptic rhetoric in response to the results cite the presence of two members of the far right, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, in Benjamin Netanyahu’s likely coalition. On this, Abrams comments:
For one thing, Netanyahu is a known quantity as prime minister because he was Israel’s longest-serving prime minister ever. His party is by far the largest in his coalition and as his long record shows he is as canny a politician as Israel has produced. Moreover, he has in the main been pretty prudent as a leader, avoiding war and conflict whenever possible and watching carefully where the voters are. It is not at all to be assumed that the government will be under the thumb of Ben-Gvir and/or Bezalel Smotrich, who are new and untested as government officials. Moreover, though they joined to run in this election, they actually come from separate parties and may soon find themselves rivals. If it is useful to Netanyahu to have this happen, he has the wiles to encourage it.

Jonathan Tobin: Democrats’ doomsday political appeals are bad for the Jews

Both parties spend a lot of effort seeking out and publicizing extremists among their opponents who have either said something anti-Semitic or support someone else who has done so. And each side has found plenty of such targets for their ire. But to jump from that game of political gotcha to a belief that the Jews must be loyal soldiers in an imaginary war for democracy is a trap.

Such is the conceit behind a conference on extremism, being held by the Anti-Defamation League just after the election, whose headliners, like ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, are believers in the war-on-democracy myth. It would have behooved them to invite at least one conservative who might refute that claim, but it appears they didn’t.

Mixing up real Jewish security concerns with partisan propaganda is a colossal mistake. What the ADL seems not to understand is that by enlisting the premier Jewish defense agency to back up the claim that democracy is at risk, they are helping to drag the country down a conspiratorial rabbit hole with incalculable consequences.

Responsible Jewish leaders should be doing the opposite. Even mainstream liberal groups have to understand that bolstering the narrative about the country’s being on the brink of an apocalyptic battle for freedom against domestic foes is bad for America and the Jews. It is exactly the sort of mindset in which those who dwell in the fever swamps of the far-left and far-right, and who actually do mean the Jews harm, thrive.

It remains to be seen whether leaders on both sides of the aisle can be found to pull us back from an abyss of delegitimization that poses a genuine threat to democracy. More than the security of the Jewish community will be at stake if we don’t find a way out of an ideological civil war fueled by intemperate political rhetoric.

Pennsylvania Jewish voters may vote Republican to defeat Israel critic Summer Lee

In Tuesday’s midterm elections, some Jewish voters are hoping for an upset in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, where insiders say Republican Mike Doyle is closing the gap with Democrat Summer Lee in the final days of the race.

It could all come down to support for Israel.

Some Jewish voters in the district, which encompasses most Pittsburgh neighborhoods—including Squirrel Hill, considered the heart of the Jewish community and the scene of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in October 2018—have been deeply concerned by what they perceive as Lee’s political radicalism, including on the issue of Israel.

Some, in fact, were so alarmed that they organized a grassroots effort encouraging registered Republicans and independents to switch their party affiliation to Democrat in order to vote against Lee in the Democratic primary.

Several of Lee’s tweets have been of particular concern, including one that criticized U.S. support for Israel during the May 2021 war between Israel and Hamas.

Lee has also tweeted about a “plan” to “dismantle the Democratic Party.”

Many Jewish voters fear that Lee is sympathetic to the group of left-wing congresspeople known as “The Squad,” which is notorious for its hostility to Israel and includes several anti-Semites. The Squad recently organized a fundraiser for Lee.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Energean PLC has announced a new commercial natural gas discovery of 13 billion cubic meters off the shore of Israel as a result of its exploratory drilling well dubbed Zeus-1. It has also confirmed the presence of an additional 3.75 bcm at its Athena site.

These discoveries have confirmed the company’s suspicions that the so-called “Olympus area” located between the Karish and Tanin gas fields are both voluminous and commercially viable.

Israel signed an agreement last June to export its gas to Europe via liquefaction in Egypt.

The amount being exported to Europe under this agreement is 10 billion cubic meters a year, only 6% of what Russia has been supplying, but chances are high that Israel will increase this amount in coming years as more gas gets discovered.

The ability to extract natural gas and export it to partners is an important guarantee for Israel's security. It will not last forever, as the EU is committed to reducing use of fossil fuels. But with the current crisis with Russia, EU countries will remember who is a reliable ally.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

There's another Mediterranean natural gas agreement where Israel seems to have been out-negotiated - in Gaza

From all appearances, the new Lebanese-Israeli maritime border agreement seems to indicate that Israel has given up significant positions for very little return.

David Schenker summarizes in the Wall Street Journal:

During negotiations, mediated by the Biden administration, Israel conceded the entirety of its claims to the 330-square-mile zone to Lebanon in return for a 3-mile internationally recognized buffer zone adjacent to the shoreline. The remainder of the zone goes to Lebanon, which will also have the right to exploit a natural gas field known as Qana, which extends south of the frontier, and an obligation to remunerate Israel for the extracted gas there.

The contours of the proposed deal are stunning. ...As per the new agreement, Lebanon will attain virtually 100% of its initial negotiating position.

It’s a remarkable turn of events, especially given Beirut’s profound lack of leverage.

Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist organization, also played an important if indirect role in the talks. The organization has threatened to attack the Energean floating production system rig in Israel’s Karish field, south of the 23 line, if the ship started to extract gas prior to reaching an agreement on the maritime border. Before Hezbollah’s warning, Israel announced that pumping would start in September. In the absence of a deal, extraction didn’t commence.

Israel's logic seems to be that if Lebanon becomes a partner in selling natural gas, Hezbollah is far less likely to start another war. But Israel is permanently giving up hundreds of square miles of maritime rights for an assumption of logic on the part of a group that slavishly does whatever Iran tells it to do. And Hezbollah has a history of not giving a damn about Lebanon when it makes its own decisions.

It turns out that there was practically a mirror image of these negotiations happening on Israel's other maritime border, with Egypt. Al Monitor reports that Israel appears to have given up on its maritime rights in the sea off the Gaza coast as well:

Egypt succeeded in persuading Israel to start extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks, according to information provided to Al-Monitor by an official in the Egyptian intelligence service and a member of the PLO Executive Committee.
It comes after years of Israeli objections to extract natural gas off the coast of Gaza on security grounds...
The member of the PLO Executive Committee told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Egypt informed the PA of Israel's approval to start extracting Palestinian gas off the coast of Gaza. He pointed out that this came after political pressure exerted by European countries on Israel to meet their needs for gas alternatives to Russian gas.
The PLO official said that under the agreement, Egypt and Israel would supervise the extraction process, and that part of the gas will be exported to Egypt, and the bulk of it will be exported by Israel to Europe through Greece and Cyprus. The financial revenues from the process of exporting Palestinian gas will return to the treasury of the PA, with part of these revenues allocated to support Gaza’s economy.

The details are fuzzy, but it is apparent that there are commonalities between the Lebanese and the Egyptian/PA agreements: Israel agreed to both under pressure from world powers, Israel abandoned its long standing positions protecting its own rights, and Israel hopes that these agreements will reduce the chances of war without her enemies Hezbollah and Hamas making or even hinting at a single promise.

Avoiding war is of course important, but assuming that making agreements with parties who are adjacent to irrational enemies will avoid war with those enemies is a hell of a stretch, especially one to give up permanent rights for.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

EU drafting deal to obtain natural gas from Israel and Egypt instead of Russia

From EUObserver:

The European Union is negotiating a gas supply agreement with Egypt and Israel, according to internal documents dated 7 June and seen by EUobserver.

A draft memorandum of understanding with the two countries, still subject to changes, is part of its efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"Security of gas supply is a common major concern. Egypt and the EU will work together on the stable delivery of gas to the EU," reads another internal document mentioning the trilateral collaboration deal.

The proposed agreement highlights that natural gas will be shipped to the EU from Egypt, Israel or any other source in the East Mediterranean region, including EU member states in the region.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is due to travel to Cairo next week, but it is currently unclear whether the memorandum will be signed during her visit.

Egypt has increasingly become a regional gas hub, with its two liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Israel has also become a key regional gas supplier in recent years.

Under the draft deal, imports from Israel would involve gas being processed at Egypt's liquefaction plants before being shipped to Europe as LNG.

Mediterranean natural gas has been a game changer for Israel - not as earthshaking as the Abraham Accords, but it is redrawing the regional balance in ways that couldn't have been predicted.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah is threatening Israel - and a Greek ship - for exploring in gas fields that the UN said belongs to Israel but Lebanon disputes:

Lebanon should block Israel from extracting gas from the disputed offshore field, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday, warning a hydrocarbon exploration company hired by Israel against proceeding with its activities.
"The immediate objective should be to prevent the enemy from extracting oil and gas from the Karish gas field," part of which is claimed by Lebanon, Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
Hizbullah will not "stand by and do nothing in the face of (Israel's) looting of Lebanon's natural wealth... which is the only hope for the salvation of the Lebanese people," he warned.
The company "should pull out its ship immediately and avoid getting involved in this aggression and provocation against Lebanon," the head of the powerful Iran-backed movement said, adding that Energean must assume "full responsibility" for its involvement.
“The resistance has the technical ability to prevent the enemy from extracting gas from Karish and I will not say how,” Nasrallah added.
“All of the enemy's measures will not be able to protect the Greek ship or the Karish field,” he warned.

If Lebanon had crafted a maritime border agreement with Israel years ago, it could have been selling gas to Europe by now. Instead it is a country on the verge of failure, in large part because of people like Nasrallah.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Report: Israel planning gas pipeline into Jordan

From Bloomberg:

Israel, seeking to tap recent natural-gas finds for export, plans to build a pipeline from the Dead Sea to the Jordanian border to supply its neighbor, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Ministry of Energy and Water Resources expects to begin work on the 15-kilometer (9-mile) link in 2015 and complete it in 2016, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The ministry commissioned the project on behalf of U.S. gas producer Noble Energy Inc. (NBL) and a Jordanian partner, they said.

The 2010 discovery of the offshore Leviathan field, coming after the nearby Tamar find, proved a bonanza for Israel, which expects the gas to meet its needs for a quarter of a century while also enabling exports. For Jordan, which has seen fuel imports from Egypt disrupted by pipeline bombings in Sinai, deliveries from Israel would help to boost security of supply.

An Israeli Energy Ministry official, who asked not to be identified, declined to comment, while calls to Jordan’s energy minister weren’t answered. A spokesman for Noble Energy in Tel Aviv declined to comment when contacted by phone.

Israel, which itself imported Egyptian gas until bombings cut deliveries, reached its first export agreement earlier this week, a 20-year deal to supply a planned Palestinian power station. Noble and its partners at Leviathan, the larger of the two fields, said they’ll get about $1.2 billion to send gas to the plant to be built in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Partners in the offshore Tamar field, which include Houston-based Noble, also are in talks to sell gas to Jordanian potash plants for 15 years for $500 million to $700 million, Israel’s Calcalist business newspaper reported last month.

Jamal Sarayreh, the chairman of Jordan’s Arab Potash Co., declined to comment when contacted last week. Noble Chief Executive Officer Charles Davidson said in November the company would prefer to export Israeli gas to neighboring countries than to the Far East, which would require seaborne-tanker shipments.

“We will be able to market more gas regionally at lower capital cost because all of these regional markets are basically using pipes, and in some instances they’re connecting the pipes that already exist,” Davidson said.

The new pipeline will start at Sdom, according to the two people. It will be an extension to an existing link that brings gas to the Dead Sea Works Ltd. chemical plant there.

This is very big news, and it shows the importance of a strong economy to Israel's defensive posture.

Jordan (and Egypt) keep doing an interesting dance, publicly inciting hatred against Israel in their media but privately cooperating with the Jewish state. Deals like this strengthen existing peace agreements but they don't reduce the hate - and this seems to be a governmental decision to keep the old mentality of using Israel to divert attention from internal crises.

The contradictory messages cannot easily coexist, but widespread Arab antisemitism would not allow for the governments to act friendlier towards Israel in public. Note how no one will dare confirm any deals - publicizing them is a dangerous business when the Arab media is so invested in hating Israel and Jews.

Normalization with the Arab world will never happen, even if Israel signed a "peace plan" with the Arab League. From Israel's perspective, the best that can ever be hoped for is detente, not peace. Deals like these (and you can be sure that there are negotiations to export gas to Egypt as well) help strengthen Israel's position in this detente, and other under-the-table agreements will be made, but there will never be peace in the way that Israelis yearn.

Israel, Cyprus, Greece sign MOU on energy and water

A great followup to my earlier post on the political issues of Israel distributing natural gas:

CYPRUS, ISRAEL and Greece will sign a “historic” memorandum of understanding (MOU) on energy and water issues today, paving the way for the further strengthening of relations between the three countries.

Speaking after a meeting with Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis in Nicosia on Wednesday, Israeli Minister of Energy and Water Resources Silvan Shalom described today’s signing of the memorandum between the three countries as a “historical moment”, as it was the first of its kind between the three countries.

On the initiative of Cypriot Energy and Trade Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, Shalom and Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Yiannis Maniatis are in Nicosia to discuss issues concerning tripartite and regional cooperation in the energy sector, including protection of the environment from offshore hydrocarbon activities and connecting the electricity grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece through submarine power cables.

The signing of the MOU on energy and water collaboration, due today, shows how far the three countries have come in terms of cooperation, said Shalom. Relations are better than ever, he said, adding that the MOU will enable the three countries to strengthen relations even further.

“The fact that we are here shows that we do not only work well on (issues concerning) water, but it’s also about geopolitics, strategy and political issues between the three countries,” he said.

Shalom and Kouyialis yesterday held a bilateral meeting to discuss water development, management and protection.

The Israeli minister hailed the meeting as an indication of the good relations enjoyed between Israel and Cyprus these days, adding, “I believe we can do more”.

He spoke of a “big change” in relations and the “good will between the two sides” to help one another.

Enhanced relations between the two countries was also a major theme of President Nicos Anastasiades’ speech at the opening of a fifth desalination plant, which Israeli companies had helped build, near Limassol last night.

Anastasiades said energy cooperation between Israel and Cyprus, given their common interests in the exploration and exploitation of significant natural resources, could “become the driving force for an enhanced partnership between our two countries”.

Given the government’s determination to move ahead with the construction of an LNG plant, he invited Israel “to seriously consider committing to exporting Israeli gas” from the Cypriot LNG facility.

“This is all the more pertinent if one takes into account that Cyprus is perhaps Israel’s most stable partner in the region. In addition, our proximity to the Suez Canal is an important factor favouring the creation of a regional energy hub in Cyprus for the transportation of natural gas from Eastern Mediterranean countries, not only to Europe, but also to the Far East,” said Anastasiades.

It's really funny how Iran pretends that Israel is the most isolated country in the world in light of deals like this.

(h/t Professor Pelotard)

The political roadblocks of Israel exporting gas have little to do with Arab/Israel conflict

Reuters reports:

A group of energy companies that discovered large amounts of natural gas off Israel's Mediterranean coast said they were in talks to export the gas to Europe via a pipeline to Turkey.

They are also studying options to export gas to Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, Avner Oil & Gas said on Tuesday.

"The partners are negotiating with various officials," Avner, one of the partners in the project, said.

A spokesman for Delek Group, the parent company for Avner and for Delek Drilling, said the group - led by Noble Energy - was already in advanced talks with companies in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority about buying Israeli gas and building pipelines.

As always, there are some hitches. World Bulletin reports:

An Egyptian energy official has dismissed reports saying that the country is in talks with Israeli energy companies for gas imports and possible pipeline projects.

On Tuesday, Avner Oil & Gas, leading a group of energy companies that discovered large amounts of natural gas off Israel's Mediterranean coast, said that they were in talks to export the gas to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. The talks, the company said, also covered the possibility of building pipelines to help export the gas to Europe.

However, Taher Abdel-Rahim, chairman of the Egyptian Gas Holding Company (EGAS), which runs Egypt's gas pipeline network, dismissed the claims.

"We have not made such negotiations and will not go into talks in the meantime with any international companies about such proposals," Abdel-Rahim said.

Abdel-Rahim said such deals cannot be completed without the knowledge of his company.

But the real issue isn't the Arab/Israeli conflict - so far I have not seen any pushback from Jordan or the PA about buying Israeli gas - but from political issues in other parts of the Mediterranean:

What form should those exports take? One early idea was a pipeline to Turkey. Great. Turkey is nearby; it’s a booming market that is expected to see demand grow from 43.5 bcm in 2012 to around 60 bcm in 2020; and it favors diversity of sources. Moreover, at present, its only completed agreement to cover the extra 16-17 bcm/y of gas it needs to import (and, since domestic production is minimal, its increase in demand is tantamount to an increase in imports), is for 6 bcm to come from Azerbaijan, starting in 2018-19.

But that’s a political minefield. The foreign ministry likes the idea because it would help improve ties with an important neighbor. But it still has no clear answer to the question as to whether maritime boundary issues first must be settled–or even a full solution of their 40-year Cyprus dispute.

The reason is that waters to the east of Cyprus (if not actually Lebanese or Syrian), may be Cypriot in international law, but in practice a good part of any route taken by a pipeline from Israel to Turkey to the east of Cyprus would have to pass through waters controlled not by the Government of Cyprus but by the self-proclaimed breakaway state which calls itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

As for a possible line to the west of Cyprus, that would need to pass through waters that are even more diplomatically murky. The problem here is that Greece, Turkey and Cyprus have yet to state, let alone agree, just what they consider their respective Exclusive Economic Zones to be in this area. Judging by maps produced by Turkish and Greek analysts, any formal claims would be fundamentally incompatible, with Turkey likely to argue that its EEZ would have a common boundary with Egypt’s EEZ; Cyprus would looking to support prospective Greek claims that Greece and Cyprus share a common EEZ boundary. Perhaps it is just as well that neither Athens nor Ankara seem to wish to oppress this point at present. After all , they’ve been arguing over their maritime boundaries in the Aegean for half a century, with no solution in sight.

Some Turkish sources have suggested the simplest solution would be to lay a subsea line from the Israeli and Cypriot fields to southern Cyprus, then run an overland pipe to northern Cyprus, followed by a subsea line across to Turkey. In terms of cost, and engineering, they are almost certainly right. It’s just that laying a pipe from southern Cyprus to the north is politically improbable, and perhaps impossible, in the absence of a solution to the underlying Cyprus problem.

As for various occasional suggestions that Cyprus and Israel might want to look at a pipeline to Greece, this not only poses similar problems, unless a route can be found through Egypt’s EEZ, but it’s also extremely complex, requiring state of the art technology to lay pipes at depths as great as 3000 metres. It thus can be ruled out on grounds of cost, unless, of course, Greece itself finds gas at some convenient intermediate location.

The writer concludes that the only way to make this work is to build a liquefied natural gas plant, one that Israel and Cyprus could both use. LNG can be shipped anywhere. But that has problems as well:

So it looks to be LNG. That’s certainly the goal of the memorandum of understanding signed with the government of Cyprus on June 26 by the Delek Group and Noble Energy, the companies currently developing the major offshore gasfields discovered so far in both Israeli and Cypriot waters. The MoU aims to put in place the basic terms of a formal agreement to develop a joint two-train LNG plant at Vasilikos on the southern coast of Cyprus, with operations to start in 2018-19.

Can Noble and its partners pull this off? No government has yet approved the construction of an LNG plant primarily designed to serve its own resources but to be located in another country. This may be the first time it happens. There are still options for Israel to go it alone, but that would require building an LNG plant in Israel itself, which, given its limited Mediterranean coastline, would be likely to cause serious environmental protests; or to develop floating LNG, already criticized for constituting an obvious target for missile attack from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

Maybe it makes sense for Israel to build its own LNG plant just so it can not have to worry about any future political issues with Cyprus. It certainly would seem to be the most flexible solution giving Israel the most freedom to sell to whom it wants without worrying about the conduits being attacked.

Even so, it is funny to see that that from the perspective of building a pipeline from Israel to Turkey and Europe, the existing political minefield seems to be more intractable than any issues Israel has with its Arab neighbors!

"Israel as a Gulf state"

Malcolm Lowe at Gatestone has a thought-provoking essay that argues that the EU is a lot more pro-Israel than it seems, and things will only get better:

It is a longstanding complaint that Israel is unfairly harassed in those international forums that deal with human rights. On the other hand, countries that are too big to harass, such as Russian and China, or that are oil rich, such as the Gulf states, get away with anything. Well, here's news: Now that Israel has discovered vast offshore deposits of natural gas and even some oil, it can aspire to the status of a Gulf state. Not quite geographically, but in terms of the scruples that others can brush aside in their eagerness to do business.

This applies above all to the European Union (EU). According to a recent report, "Valeria Termini, vice president of the Council of European Energy Regulators, has held talks with senior Israeli Energy and Water Ministry officials" on the proposal to link Israel's natural gas fields to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. The EU would benefit from reduced dependence on Russian natural gas, while the cost to Israel of marketing the gas would be greatly reduced, since there would be no need to liquefy the natural gas (LNG) and ship it on tankers. "An LNG terminal is estimated to cost between $7 billion to $10 billion while a pipeline to the European network can be built for $2 billion-$3 billion."

Yet Israel is not putting all its gas eggs in the EU basket. Another report tells us: "In July 2012 President Vladimir Putin visited Israel, largely to discuss the gas fields. The Russian Gazprom has signed a deal with Israel on the future distribution of the large Israel gas resources, and plans to build a floating facility off Cyprus to convert the product to LNG." The reason given was that the civil war in Syria has frustrated an earlier Gazprom project to pump gas from Iran to the Lebanese coast. In other words, Israel is being courted by both Russia and the EU and can choose what to award to either of those suitors. "Human rights" issues are off that agenda.

Now, there has been a lot of fluttering of feathers over the recently publicized EU guidelines on Jewish settlements across the "green line." We shall turn to that in a moment, but it should not distract our attention from a series of remarkably friendly gestures toward Israel, emanating from Europe in recent months.

Precisely at the last meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, the EU took vehement exception to Special Rapporteur Richard Falk's most recent report, aka baseless diatribe against Israel. It denounced the report in these words: "The EU continues to regret the unbalanced mandate of the Special Rapporteur and is also concerned that parts of the report include political considerations. In the past, the EU emphasized that future reports should be based on a more factual and legal analysis, and we regret to see no genuine progress in that direction. The council needs to be provided with accurate, factual information and solid allegations to fulfill its role and address the human rights situation in occupied Palestinian territory." In short, please stop trying to fool us with fictions about Israeli human rights violations.

There's lots more, read the whole thing.

I'm not so certain I agree with his optimism.

There are two tracks in Europe: a business/pragmatic track that wants to be as close to Israel as possible, and an "activist" track that wants to pollute the European mind with the idea that Israel is a genocidal regime.

The first is not a counter to the second; it simply ignores it for as long as it can.

But the worry is that there will come a tipping point in the future where anyone who publicly backs any aspect of Zionism will be marginalized and berated. It already is happening with a few clueless entertainers who are more worried about appearances than other people, but the entire point of BDS is to create an atmosphere throughout the world that would equate Israel with the worst human rights violators in history. By extension, it would paint anyone who doesn't condemn Israel as evil themselves. Right now the idea is marginal but the single-minded haters behind BDS have patience and a strategy.

The existence of business ties with Israel will dampen any economic consequences to these actions, but if businesses perceive that their own reputations are being damaged to a larger extent than the benefits of working with Israel, they will act in self-interest.

Look how one anti-Israel group responded to the Pet Shop Boys' decision to play in Israel, pictured to the right. 99% of the Europeans who read that Israel kills one child every three days or jails two children a day would have no problem believing it, even though these are outright lies. This is because there is no decent hasbara campaigns in Europe to expose the lies and the hate behind the BDS crowd. They are far more guilty of blind hatred and bigotry than Israel could ever be - yet they suffer no consequences from baldfaced, bold-faced lies. Their campaigns of distortions and slander will continue to gain traction among the clueless, as indeed most people are.

The BDS drones are happiest when Palestinian Arab kids are killed because that gives them more ammunition. One Israeli screw-up that results in too many civilian deaths can be a major tipping point towards the haters.

Yes, it is true that Bahrain and other Gulf states can shrug off human rights accusations because of their economic power, but on the other hand there has never been a systematic anti-Saudi or anti-Bahraini campaign in Europe demanding boycott or divestment. Is such a thing really so impossible to imagine?

I admit, and have even argued in the past, that the most effective thing Israel can do to combat the delegitimization campaigns is indeed to build up its economy so that it is indispensable to the world. That doesn't mean that Israel should sit back and allow the haters free reign to lie and poison the minds of millions. Complacency in the face of concerted, directed campaigns against the Jewish state is not smart.

Egypt's gas line to Jordan bombed again

At dawn today, the gas pipeline from Egypt to Jordan was bombed, for the second time this month.

Unidentified gunmen riding in a four-wheel drive car bombed the pipeline that carries natural gas from Egypt to Jordan in the Kharouba" area, east of El Arish.

While the Egyptian police arrested a Gaza man for the last explosion, the incentive to blow up these lines is unclear.

In possibly related news, ever since the Egyptian coup, the energy crisis in Egypt has apparently, temporarily, disappeared. Gas lines are gone and electricity shortages have been vastly reduced. Cooler temperatures may be responsible for less pressure on the electrical grid, and many are saying that the crackdown on illegal smuggling of diesel and petrol to Gaza is helping the situation in Egypt.

It could also be that people are not hoarding as much as they were before the revolution.

Egypt arrests a Gazan for blowing up gas line to Jordan

A week ago I noted that the gas pipeline from Egypt to Jordan had been bombed, and that this has happened just as often as it used to when the pipeline also went to Israel.

Which makes this story interesting:

Egyptian security officials arrested a Palestinian man late Friday in relation to a bomb blast which targeted a gas pipeline in Sinai last week, security officials said.

Mohamed Abu Hashem, 30, was detained in the Sinai peninsula while trying to return to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials said, and faces charges of blowing up a gas pipeline in north Sinai last Sunday.

Saboteurs blew up the pipeline, which supplied natural gas to Jordan, in two places.

One explosion shook the city of El-Arish, causing flames which could be seen from the distance, witnesses and security officials said.

A Jordanian government official confirmed that gas supplies to the energy-poor kingdom were cut.

"The gas supplies to Jordan stopped due to the attack," the official told state-run Petra news agency.

"The Egyptian authorities have informed us that they are currently evaluating the situation and the damage," he added without elaborating.

Egyptian gas covers 80 percent of electricity generation in Jordan, which imports 95 percent of its energy needs.

Why would Gazans want to disrupt gas to Jordan?

Are they being hired out as mercenaries by Islamists, knowing they can hide in Gaza?

Or perhaps hired by other Egyptians who are against subsidized gas deals with other countries while Egypt doesn't have enough for itself?

Perhaps the new anti-Hamas government in Egypt is using any Palestinian they can find as a scapegoat?

Or maybe terrorism is sometimes just a habit, and when Jewish targets aren't convenient then the terrorists turn to lower-hanging fruit?

PA says Jews are stealing "rich soil"

They aren't happy enough with stealing land - now they are stealing dirt, too!

From the official PA WAFA news agency:

Israelis from the settlement of Susiya stole rich soil from Palestinian land and took it to their settlement, a local activist said Wednesday.

Rateb Jbour, from the Committee against the Wall and Settlements, told WAFA that the settlers razed a large area of privately owned agricultural land near the settlement and stole the fertile soil.

He said this act has destroyed the farm land.

I wonder how many trucks and how much time it takes to steal enough soil to destroy a farm.

From this source, we can see that one acre of topsoil weighs a million pounds (450,000 kg.) It would take 40 dump trucks to move only that amount. A single truck could take only about a 10x10 meter square of soil.

I have no idea how long it takes to fill a dump truck with soil, but you would need some heavy equipment to do it in a reasonable timeframe.

Yet, as usual, there are no photos of this extensive operation to steal - soil.

But you know those Jews will do anything to torture their neighbors, no matter how expensive, time consuming and pointless it is.

"Khaybar" actors, writer describe its incitement against Jews (VIDEO) (updated with transcript)

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from statements made by actors in the anti-Semitic Arab TV series "Khaybar," which were aired on various Egyptian TV channels and posted on the Internet on March 14-17 and May 13, 2013.

Akhbar Al-Youm, posted March 14
Actor Ahmad Abd Al-Halim: I play one of the Jewish characters, who demonstrates the behavior of the Jewish human being. All he thinks about is accumulating money.
Actor Ahmad Maher: History has shown that the Jews are a people with no moral values, who do not honor their agreements.
Screenwriter Yusri Al-Gindi: This series is more historical and political than religious. We have a problem with these people. This problem has continued for a long time, and it still exists. This justifies addressing it all the time. The idea that we wish to convey is that these people have not changed one bit. Their conduct in Medina when the Prophet was trying to build his state there… He allowed them to live there as citizens and extended his hand in cooperation, but this was met by treachery and conspiracies. The only language they understood was the language of force, and hence, they were banished from the Arabian Peninsula.

Rotana Misriyya TV, posted March 17
Ahmad Maher: Al-Gindi created a historical document showing how these people are oppressors, who do not honor their agreements. History shows that they are the people who disputed Allah. They are the slayers of prophets.
Actor Farouq Flux: The “Khaybar” series takes place back in the early days of Islam. It shows the major role the Jews played in fighting Islam, and in the attempt to fight and deceive the Prophet Muhammad. This series shows the truth about the Jews, and about making agreements with them.
[…]

Dream 1 TV, May 13, 2013
Ahmad Maher: I play the character of Hareth Ibn Al-Awf. Through this character, we enter a Jewish home, and we learn how they raise their children, how they immerse their children in these odd modes of behavior, and how they teach them to live their lives in a vile, treacherous, depraved, and Machiavellian manner. They teach them that in order to achieve their aims, all means are justified and all values may be disregarded.
[…]
Actor Mustafa Hashish: I play one of the most prominent Jews, who hatches plots and schemes. He is, of course, very miserly-the purely typical Jew. He is called Abu Khallad. He is killed by his son. So this gives you an idea what the Jews are made of.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have adamantly refused to condemn this miniseries even after numerous emails and tweets.

Sign the petition and join the Facebook campaign to condemn this imminent mass incitement against Jews that will be broadcast to hundreds of millions of Arabs in the next few days.

Keep in mind that it will not only be shown in the Arab world, but certainly copies will be distributed to Muslims in Europe and the Americas so they can learn to hate their Jewish neighbors as well.

Lebanon accuses Israel of stealing gas it doesn't know it has

From Now Lebanon:

In what appears to be an attempt to pressure caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati, caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil on Friday warned that Israel could be stealing offshore oil and gas resources from Lebanese waters. He called for the caretaker government to immediately act on passing the decrees needed for Lebanon to begin its own exploration and potential development.

Bassil pointed to a 'new' Israeli discovery that he said was four kilometers from the countries’ disputed maritime border. Exploratory drilling in Israel’s Alon C block – conducted in late May – revealed that, indeed, there is natural gas in what is known as the Karish reserve.

According to a map from Israel’s Delek Energy, the reserve is around 20 kilometers south of the border Lebanon claims.

Bassil warned of a technique called horizontal drilling, where oil and gas companies drill a well beneath a rig and then turn their drilling equipment once under the sea to get extra quantities of oil and/or gas.

Just so you can see, the Karish reserve is fully within Israeli waters.

The article goes on:

Enzo Zappaterra, a geologist with PetroServe International, noted that it would not make sense for a company to employ horizontal drilling to blindly move from one reserve in search of another.

Drilling companies, he said, “are capable of anything, but it wouldn’t be a practice, just sending a probe up for nothing.”

Noble, it should be noted, has not bought access to seismic surveying of Lebanon’s waters and therefore likely has very poor knowledge of where Lebanese reserves are potentially located.

Without the slightest bit of evidence, Lebanon's energy minister is claiming that Israel is drilling horizontally over 20 kilometers, blind, to access Lebanese gas that no one knows is there.

In 2011, I discussed the legal issues around Israel and Lebanon sharing the same oil/gas field as far as who gets to benefit. The ironic conclusion is that if Lebanon wants any of the natural resources it may share with Israel, it needs to sign a treaty with Israel - or lose it, as otherwise Israel can just resort to taking everything it wants on its side of the border. Lebanon is still years away from pumping.

So given a choice of recognizing Israel and sharing in potentially billions of dollars, or choosing to shun Israel, Lebanon has made its position clear.

Girls on PA TV: Jews are "most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

PA TV reporter: "Let's meet these girls who want to recite a short poem."
Girl 1: "I do not fear the rifle because your throngs are in delusion and ignorant herds.
Jerusalem is my land, Jerusalem is my honor
Jerusalem is my days and my wildest dreams.
Oh, you who murdered Allah's pious prophets (i.e., Jews in Islamic tradition)
Oh, you who were brought up on spilling blood
You have been condemned to humiliation and hardship.
Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations
Oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs
Girl 2: Jerusalem is not your den
Jerusalem opposes your throngs
Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity
Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate
And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure.
I do not fear barbarity.
As long as my heart is my Quran and my city
As long as I have my arm and my stones
As long as I am free and do not barter my cause
I will not fear your throngs
I will not fear the rifle."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, July 3, 2013]

But don't say that the PA teaches antisemitism. They respect Jews, except (1) the ones who are Zionist, (2) the ones who believe in their religion, and (3) the ones that the Koran called "sons of apes and pigs."

All the others are just fine!

Did you know the Jews control Swedish media too?

Radio Islam has an extraordinarily long article in Swedish that seems to list every Jew who ever worked at, or appeared in, any Swedish TV or radio station, or any Jewish-themed TV show to ever air, over several decades, in its zest to prove that the Jews own the media.

It uses the exact same methods as those used by antisemitic sites in the US and Europe, ferreting out Jews or people with Jewish-sounding names in obsessive detail.

I noticed it because "Iraq4AllNews," an Arabic Danish site indexed by Google News, is translating it as a series of articles, so Arabic speakers can know about the incredible Jewish conspiracy to take over the huge Swedish television and radio market.

A quick glance at Radio Islam itself shows that it is pretty much an Arabic translation of Jewwatch or any of dozens of other virulently antisemitic websites. Here is only a small section of the psychotically obsessed homepage:

Writer of "Khaybar" says the series reveals Jews' evil throughout the ages

Note the photo behind him

On Al Jazeera, the screenwriter of the "Khaybar" miniseries that will be aired this month in many Arab countries described its antisemitic motifs in detail.

Yusri al-Jindi tells the network that "Khaybar" raises two issues.

The first is that the Mohammed set up a state with equality between citizens, including Jews. The Islamic state is the finest with respect to equal rights and, what he would say, is "democracy," in ways that modern man can learn lessons from.

The second issue is that despite these civil rights, the Jews didn't respond with equal goodwill. Instead, the Jews greeted the benign Muslim rule with with treachery and intrigue, and outright treason.

Al-Jindi notes that the series emphasizes that Jews are Jews, still practicing their treasonous nature throughout the centuries, and they have wrought havoc in every society they have lived. They were the first to fight against this "civil Islamic state", and stand now against the restoration of the Umma for its civilization and glory.

The Jews have been consistent with this opposition to their hosts, such as in Babylon, with the Romans in the Levant, in Tsarist Russia, in Arab states and in Hitler's Germany.

The current crisis experienced by the Arab world is, he says, the best witness to this fact, and here the series takes its modern meaning.

Once again, it is clear that "Khaybar" is meant to incite Arabs against Jews today.

Please "like" our "Condemn Khaybar" Facebook page and sign the petition urging Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to condemn this series before it goes on the air.

Hamas columnist blames Egyptian coup on..The Jews!

You knew this had to happen.

In Hamas' newspaper Felesteen, Dr. Fayez Abu Shamala (they are always "doctors" for some reason) spins a worldwide conspiracy theory to take down Egypt's democratically elected government, and - as usual - the Jews are central to the plot.

Shamala states that the coup was not done by the Egyptian people who are united and hate division, but rather "what is happening on the land of Egypt is a purely Zionist initiative with a Jewish seal and laminated by America," where they managed to find some Egyptian puppets to help Israeli sabotage against Egypt's energy industry (I guess to create long lines for fuel.)

This is especially funny since Egyptians damaged the gas pipeline to Israel many times!

The writer goes on:

What is happening on the land of Egypt is an intercontinental conspiracy, and the results go beyond the borders of Egypt, to affect the Arab Middle East as a whole, this is not only an Egyptian affair but Arabic and Islamic, which has an effect on each region. Israeli Knesset member Ben-Eliezer when he spoke to Israel Radio, said: "Egyptian society was a secular society with songs, movies and tourism, and suddenly someone comes along trying to turn the clock back by 400 years."

The Jews have lost this bet, and the Zionists lost the battle in Egypt, because the Egyptian society is a Muslim society that lives on dignity and chivalry and has high motivations, a community that clings to Arab morals, and is proud of its place of leadership in Islamic history, and is pouring all his energies to the next stage. Egypt will triumph, and will emerge from the crisis, and move beyond the trap installed by Jews towards Arabs and Muslims on the land of Egypt. ..Egypt will not retreat backwards again, and will not put Zionist restrictions on its wrist again.

The Jewish-Thai conspiracy to stop Turkey's - space program?

Hurriyet's Burak Bekdil is withering in his attack on Turkey's leaders:

Egypt’s deeply troubled president, Mohamed Morsi, proved to be too uncreative compared to his Turkish brothers in arms when he blamed the mass protests against his Muslim Brotherhood regime on foreign countries only. He could have been better inspired by his Turkish comrades. Even Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay was able to add some (well, the usual) sauce on his "evil foreign powers recipe": The Turkish unrest had been sparked by the Jewish diaspora.

So, where, President Morsi, in your assessment of "Tahrir Square – Revisited," are the Jewish conspirators, Western capitals, financial lobbyists, global capitalists, BBC, CNN International, the Economist, Kemalists, Syrian Baathists, Iranian intelligence, the intergalactic forces, and Michael Rubin?

Yes, Mr. Rubin. The zealously, passionately government-friendly press in Turkey discovered weeks ago that the anti-government protests in nearly 80 Turkish cities were the result of a plot hatched at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the plotters are, of course, Jews, including the intergalactic chieftain Mr. Rubin who, in a posting he called “A little bit of crazy from Turkey,” confessed to the global cabal:

“Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can’t even get Jewish conspiracies right: Doesn’t he know that on Sundays, we control the banks. On Mondays, we control the newspapers. On Tuesdays, we think about how we can stage terrorist attacks and blame al-Qaeda. On Wednesdays, we attend meetings with George Soros to discuss interest rates. On Thursdays, we plan atrocities and then order the international media to broadcast cooking shows so no one need see the violence. On Fridays, we hunt Christian children so we can use their blood to make matzoh. On Saturdays, exhausted, we rest.”

But the plot that pushed tens of millions of Turks and Egyptians out to the streets to protest the Turkish and Egyptian Muslim brothers is not confined merely to Mr. Rubin and the AEI (secretly known as “Abraham’s Evil Israel”). I have found on-the-record evidence of Thai collaboration in the big game. Yes, Thai. But no, not avatars disguised as tuk-tuk drivers. Juthaporn Remgronasa, a senior official from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said that the former Siam country saw potential opportunities in penetrating German and other European markets to draw more tourists to Thailand, and openly confessed to the plot: “Turkey’s political problems will benefit Thailand.”

Earlier, a Turkish Cabinet minister unveiled the big game. Economy Minister Zafer Cağlayan said (financial) speculators, lobbyists and bankers were united in a coalition against Turkey. Without these lobbies, he said, Turkey would now have built and launched its own spaceship.

The situation is very serious: All the dark forces of the intergalactic lobbyists, Abraham’s Evil Israel, Mr. Rubin and Thailand’s Union of Tuk-Tuk Drivers have joined their forces to stop the supreme Turkish engineering from building a spaceship which, who knows, could one day save the world from an alien attack. Of course, a more plausible interpretation could be that the dark forces are trying to stop the Turkish spaceship to prevent possible casualties in case the Sultan I crashed into the kitchen of a Bolivian farmer. And I feel guilty because I was the first journalist to reveal Turkey’s plans to build a spaceship (“We’ll make fighter jets! And spaceships too...” this column, Dec. 16, 2010).

In the meantime, it might be a better idea if Mssrs. Erdoğan and Cağlayan devoted less time and efforts to spaceships and intergalactic conspiracy theories and more to making Turkey a better place to live in. Turkey has just ranked last among 34 nations according to the OECD’s Better Living Index (based on 11 selected criteria including health, education, environment, personal security and income). Unless of course Abraham’s Evil Israel, Mr. Rubin, the tuk-tuk lobby and Turk-hating avatars have already taken control of the OECD.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Egypt will run out of strategic fuel reserves within a week (updated)

From Al Ahram last Friday 6/21:

Egypt's strategic reserves of three vital fuel products will run out by end of this month, Turkish news agency Anadulo reported on Thursday, citing Petroleum Minister Sherif Haddara.

According to Haddara, Egypt has enough diesel fuel to last eight days, butane enough for ten days and petrol enough for 14 days.

Ministry officials declined to comment on the Anadolu report when contacted by Ahram Online.

The news agency stated that the government was currently providing the nation's gas stations with 18,000 tonnes of octane per day and 37,000 tonnes of diesel fuel, while also providing the country's power stations with 23,000 tonnes of low-quality mazut fuel.

In recent weeks and months, Egypt has seen a spate of intermittent power blackouts, which government officials have attributed to chronic fuel shortages.

Haddara said that the current fuel quantities were meant to meet national demand, attributing ongoing shortages to hoarding and smuggling activities.

Former petroleum minister Osama Kamal recently estimated that smuggling and black market activity accounted for as much as 20 percent of all fuel the ministry provides to the local market.

He also blamed bad public energy-consumption habits. "Fuel isn't consumed rationally because it's sold at very cheap prices," he said.

According to Anadolu, the Egyptian government has requested a $265 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank to finance the import of diesel in the first quarter of 2013/14.

The news website of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party quoted Supply Minister Bassem Ouda on Thursday as saying that the state's current reserves of diesel fuel were "sufficient."

In August, the government intends to introduce a smart-card fuel allocation system aimed at reducing energy subsidies. The new system will allow consumers to purchase limited amounts of subsidised fuel, beyond which they will have to pay market prices.

Daily News Egypt adds:

According to Reuters, Egypt, which owes more than $5 billion to fuel suppliers, has shifted to large Swiss trading houses after small firms stopped delivering to the financially crippled nation, fearing that it will fail to pay.

The Egyptian government has been struggling with a shortage of fuel, a predicament symptomatic of an ailing economy stuck in a downward spiral since the revolution in 2011. While some attribute this crisis, which has hit the country’s industrial sector, power plants and fuel stations, to smugglers and bootleg markets, the American Chamber of Commerce said it’s the result of “the government’s recent inability to pay its fuel suppliers.”

Litasco, Glencore, Gunvor, Trafigura, Vitol and Mercuria are currently Egypt’s main suppliers; smaller firms such as BB Energy, AOT Trading, Eminent, Augusta and Sahara have stopped selling it fuel, Reuters reported earlier this week.

Egypt is doomed.

(h/t Missing Peace)

UPDATE: Commenter Niklas points to this new video on YouTube showing a line to get fuel in Egypt that takes over four minutes to drive past: