The New Flare-Up between Israel and Lebanon Over Gas :(COL.Ret.)Jaques Neriah

Posted By on July 12th, 2011

The New Flare-Up between Israel and Lebanon Over Gas :(COL.Ret.)Jaques Neriah

http://www.jcpa.org/.

  • The potential oil and gas fields off the Lebanese and Israeli coasts look set not only to become a long-term source of heavenly bounty – but also a source of conflict in the years ahead. Behind the tensions over the potential gas discoveries is the fact that the maritime border between Israel and Lebanon has never been delineated because the two states are still formally at war.
  • Lebanon has a real interest in developing potential fields and a possible confrontation with Israel will not assist in reducing its energy dependence. However, the sudden interest in potential offshore fossil-fuel wealth has turned the Mediterranean into a potential theater of confrontation between Israel and Hizbullah.
  • Hizbullah already boasts an amphibious warfare unit trained in underwater sabotage and coastal infiltration. Its ability to target shipping – and possibly offshore oil and gas platforms – was exposed in the war with Israel in 2006 when Hizbullah came close to sinking an Israeli missile boat with an Iranian version of the Chinese C-802 missile.
  • Responding to this threat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in January that the offshore gas fields were a “strategic objective that Israel’s enemies will try to undermine” and vowed that “Israel will defend its resources.” It would be a fair assessment that any damage incurred due to Hizbullah’s activities would generate retaliation that would be aimed against the infrastructure of the Lebanese state.

Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.

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