Darius Shahtahmasebi
There are trillions of tonnes of recoverable gas lying underneath thedisputed waters off Gaza, Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And the Israelis wantto make sure they alone control and profit from it.
Few topics rile people up on both sides of the political aisle more thanthe Israel-Palestine question. It is without doubt one of the most – if notthe most – explosively divisive issues on the planet.
For example, when I have criticised Saudi Arabia’s criminal bombardment ofYemen, I have never once even contemplated fearing a backlash of peopleaccusing me of being anti-Islamic or labelling me an Islamophobe. (Sure,Saudi nationals critical of its government’s actions may have to avoidentering into their local Saudi consulate upon invitation, but that’s for adifferent reason.)
Likewise, if I write about Indonesia’s treatment of the population of WestPapua, described by some observers as equating to a “slow motion genocide,”I rarely have to worry about being accused of being anti-Indonesian, orracist or bigoted in any other way for that matter. For those of you whodon’t know, West Papua is home to one of the world’s largest gold minesknown as the Grasberg Mine, which is co-owned by the American mining firmFreeport McMoRan and the Indonesian government. Curiously enough, FreeportMcMoRan is Indonesia’s largest taxpayer – it provided the government with$33 billion in direct and indirect benefits from 1992 to 2004, and hasgiven millions directly to senior military and police officers.
The real reason behind enacting what can only be described as a militarydictatorship which brutalises the population of West Papua has been topreserve this literal gold mine since the rights to the mine were firstgiven to Freeport McMoRan in 1967.
Is this a controversial take on the issue of West Papua?
Believe it or not, it is possible to view the Israel-Palestine conflictthrough the same lens with the same level of controversy as the aboveparagraph. In 2000, UK oil company BG Group discovered an estimated 1.6trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Gaza Marine. As noted byAnais Antreasyan in the University of California’s Journal of PalestineStud-ies, Israel’s continued desi-re to control Gaza is due to its aim ofmaking “Pales-tinian access to the Marine-1 and Marine-1 gas wellsimpossible”, with the added goal of not only “preventing the Palestiniansfrom exploiting their own resources” but to “integrate the gas fields offGaza into the adjacent Israeli offshore installations.”
According to Antreasyan, this is part and parcel of a broader strategy of:“…separating the Palestinians from their land and natural resources inorder to exploit them, and, as a consequence, blocking Palestinian economicdevelopment. Despite all formal agreements to the contrary, Israelcontinues to manage all the natural resources nominally under thejurisdiction of the PA, from land and water to maritime and hydrocarbonresources.”
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Israel barely has enough energy resources of its own to maintain itscurrent exports. Following the discovery of the $4 billion worth of naturalgas in Gaza in 2000, there were also later other monumental discoveries ofgas in Syria and Lebanon, two known adversaries of the Israeli government.Israel has for some time now shown a keen eagerness to intervene in bothcountries (for completely unrelated reasons, I’m guessing).
Earlier this year, fresh rounds of talks had begun between Israel, thePalestinian Authority (PA), Qatar and the EU in respect of Israel’s goal ofexporting Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe. The problem has been, atleast as far as the US and Israel are concerned, that Hamas has continuedto present itself as a thorn in the side of these negotiations, denouncingtheir legitimacy entirely.
While many on both the left and right, including former US president DonaldTrump, are quick to argue that the only reason the US has ventured into theMiddle East was for oil and natural resources, very few seem capable ofacknowledging the very same issues are also at the heart of the MiddleEast’s most explosive conflict.
This is despite a UN report, and a US Army study which was commissionedunder the Obama Administration which indicated that the recent decision toproceed with a $735 million arms sale to Israel is due to Israel’s aspireddomination of the East Mediterranean’s energy resources, and US tacitsupport for this eventuation. In fact, the 2019 UN report which untilrecently was unreported, concluded that “occupation has impoverished thePalestinian people, undermined their capacity to access and utilise theirresources and denied them the right to move freely within their homelands.”
Occupation? Oh… that’s right. Israel is currently the military poweroccupying Palestinian territories. The same military power which wasbrutalising Palestinians at the al-Aqsa mosque while simultaneouslyforcibly evicting Palestiniansfrom their homes, which in turn led to Hamas’decision to retaliate using rocket fire. But we don’t talk about that,because only Israel has the “right to defend itself.”
Except it’s the occupying power, so technically focusing on Israel’s“right” to do anything is misstating the issue. Israel doesn’t have rights– what it has is a series of obligations und-er international law. Youknow, obligations to ensure Palestinian people receive respect for theirpersons, religious practices, be treated humanely, be protected fromviolence, be provided with food and medical supplies, facilitate reliefsupplies, to name a few. While pro-Zionists like to argue that anyone whopushes back against Israel’s protracted assaults on Gaza are eitheranti-Semitic or terrorist-apologists (or both), in an ideal world therewould be no escaping these facts. If discussing these facts paints anegative picture of Israel and its actions, then so be it. And yet, in somecases, talking about these issues can quite literally get you fired.
In July 2014, journalist Nafeez Ahmed learnt this the hard way when hepublished an article on the Guardian website which claimed Israel’s brutalassault on Gaza during Operation Protective Edge was rooted in Israel’sdesire to control Palestinian gas. The Guardian axed his blog completelyshortly afterwards. Talk about “cancel culture.” Yet somehow, I haven’tseen any conservatives complaining about “censorship” and “cancel culture”rushing to Ahmed’s defence.
