Home > War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 18 January 2009
2 comments

Wars and conflicts International Energy

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

continue to read :

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11680

Forum posts

  • Now, more of the truth comes out. Israelis have wanted to retake all of Gaza for their own, allegedly to allow settlements back in—but many of us who have followed the combination of money/power know of the offshore gas fields (the major media has kept this hidden from the public all over the world).

    thank u, Bellacio, for publishing this iimportant article.
    sincerely,

    Dr. Sam Hamod, editor, www.todaysalternativenews.com
    samhamod3@gmail.com
    USA

    • Obama’s Disconnects: Why the World Doesn’t Trust Him, Nor Should You

      Sam Hamod, Ph.D. 4.2.09

      Obama and some Americans may wonder why most of the world’s leaders, save the British, don’t believe or have any great trust in Obama’s words. In fact, it’s because of his disconnects between his rhetoric and his decisions that have become evident since he became presdident. Obama is not trusted by the China, France, Turkey, Germany, the head of the EU and many other world leaders because they can see through his rhetoric to his behavior—and they see the disconnect and that has led them into distrust of Obama and America.

      Here are some samples of this disconnect I am talking about:

      1. Withdrawal of troops from Iraq: Obama said he was withdrawing our troops from Iraq, but then in the next breath he said he was going to leave at least 50,000 troops there as “advisors.” In fact, everyone knows that 50,000 troops is a war force, not simply “advisors” and that this is not a real withdrawal at all. The people of Iraq have made clear they want us out of Iraq, but Obama, like Bush and our Congress, is not listening nor caring what the people of Iraq want. Also, Obama has said nothing about the over 100,000 mercenaries we have in Iraq, as to whethere they’ll be withdrawn or not. My guess is that they’ll still be there as "civilian supervisors" or "civilian social advisors," or some other such semantic trickery that Obama seems to be using more and more every day.

      2. Fixing the economy: The Europeans, led by Merkel and Sarkosy, and the Chinese as well, want more regulation in the world’s markets and especially in America; instead, Obama has hired all the men in treasury and other financial posts who pushed for deregulation, namely: Rubin, Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, Paulsen and now, Wolin (who helped write the deregulation bill, Gramm et.al, under Bill Clinton), and Obama has made clear prior to the G20, and now at the G20 Conference, that he supports these men –knowing full well that they are holding back regulation of the banks and the markets, which will lead to more disasters for America and the world. But have no fear, ,the Chinese see this, and they are making heavier and heavier demands on America and are moving toward a new world currency to replace the dollar. Furthermore, today’s announcement that banks will be allowed to “mark-to-market” their toxic and failed assets means that the banks now will be able to write off billions of dollars of their own bad debts and to be able to once again show good balance sheets, even though those balance sheets are nothing more than lies, covering up misdeeds, mistakes and corruption.

      3. Obama shouted against the bonus’ for AIG, but then when Congress was passing legislation to get the bonus’ back by high taxes against those who got bonus’ by using our taxpayer funds that were given to them by Paulsen, Geithner and Bernanke, Obama and his team of “financial experts” said the Congress should “go slow” on this, and basically told the Congress not to do anything but to let the bonus issue alone! Not only that, but it has now come out, see my articles and those of others, that Bernanke, Paulsen and Geithner,and even Obama knew about the bonus’ for months but did nothing about them except to say, “Go ahead boys, business as usual, but don’t get caught.” Now it has also come out that AIG paid some of our bail-out money to the banks, that already had gotten bail-out funds. It is no wonder no one in the financial world outside of the US and UK trusts our financial system.

      4.Obama said he wants to send more “civil aid” to Afghanistan, yet he has increased his war force there and intends to increase it by far larger numbers than any civilian and social help. By believing the lies of Petraus, Gates and now Mullen, Obama is putting into a direct war against Islam, while calling it his new name, no longer the “war on terror,” but now, “overseas contingency operations’, as if that will make his war against Islam any different than that of Bush. He is continuing this insane and misled war against Islam, and the Muslims in the world know it. He is making more enemies every day with his drone attacks wherein more and more innocent people are being killed; thus, making more more enemies, not friends, in the Muslim world. His behavior has also made it difficult for moderate Muslims to speak up for peace because our nation is nothing more than a war-loving, empire-loving, greedy for resources country led by corrupt men who say one thing then do another—we call them hypocrites of the worst sort. Sadly, enough, most of the world knows this, but too many Americans live in denial of the truth.

      5.Closing down of Gitmo was a big deal, but then it came out that the men there are to be tried in various courts, without opportunity to see the alleged “evidence” against them; others are to be shipped off to other camps in other countries (so far un-named), and others who were to be discharged are still being held as “potential threats” even though they have no known record of threatening anyone or having done our nation or people any harm. Attorney General Holder says he, like Obama, is for JUSTICE, but so far, it’s hard to tell what he means by that term; if one looks at how he let ex-senator Stevens off the hook for major and obvious corruption, it appears either Obama or Holder, or both, are playing the same game of “Tell the American people one thing, but then do another.” Ah, George Orwell would have a field day with Obama, Holder, Geithner, Paulsen, Bernanke, Rubin, Wolin and Summers by holding their feet to the fire of truth—they’d all be scorched.

      6.Finally, Obama has tried to cut veterans out their benefits from serving in our "wars" of empire by saying they "volunteered" and should thus be paying their own insurance and medical bills for wounds sustained in these wars. American veterans, who had hoped for more decent treatment from Obama are sorely disappointed—with good reason. So, like everything else, Obama’s plan is, "We take the s teak and gravy and you get what’s left out of the garbage can, if the dogs don’t get it first."

      I could go on with more examples of this behavior by Obama and his “team,” but what’s the use—they say one thing and then do the opposite. It’s a real shame, because so many people did put their hope in Obama, feeling he would do what he said he would do when he first began running for president. In fact, some friends of mine who study non-verbal behavior have noted that Obama now "struts"(their words) and acts is "very arrogant" in his manner and speech, they feel he is not the same man who was running for president unless his humility was but an act in order to win the presidency. Look for yourself; I think they are right.

      Finally, Obama, like Pelosi and Reid, saying they wanted to impeach Bush or make him answer for his war crmes—when they got into office and took over the Congress and Senate, and now the White House, they all said, “Impeachment of Bush is off the table…” So, here we go again, hypocrites all. The American people may put up with all this, but the Chinese, the French and the Germans are making clear they want no more of it. I hope the American people wake up and call a halt to all this hypocrisy, these lies and find a way to throw all these dangerous hypocrites out of office.

      C: sam hamod 4.2.09

      Sam Hamod has written extensively on culture, politics, economics and social matters for years in journals, websites and other media outlets; he was the founder of Third World News in Washington,DC, www.todaysalternativenews.com, and has served as a professor at several major universities. In addition, has also published 11 books of poems and is in numerous anthologies. He may be reached at
      drsamhamod@gmail.com