'Will Palestine always be the issue? Interview with Raymond Deane'

First of two part MediaBite interview with Raymond Deane, former chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Soldiarity Campaign in which he discusses attitudes to Palestine with an emphasis on the Irish media's treatment of the issue. Journos, hacks and other media activists should find this interesting:

http://www.mediabite.org/article_Will-Palestine-always-be-the-issue----Part-1_185609237.html

Only read the first part so far, but this is a very interesting interview.

The internet is blowing apart print and television channel reporting. We should brace ourselves for a backlash.

What from would such a backlash take?

Incidentally, I would have no idea who Raymond Deane was if he didn't constantly write letters to the Irish Times.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090115/debtext/90115-0013.htm#090115102001355

Kaufman is a Labour M.P. He recently made this statement on Gaza in Westminster.

Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab):

Quote :

I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the
pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.

I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.

I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.

My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians—the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that “500 of them were militants.”

That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews.
Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin.

Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late
for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah’s previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat’s death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006.

Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error,
from which dreadful consequences have followed.

The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said:
“You make peace by talking to your enemies.”
However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of
the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

A fine speech by Gerald Kaufman and one which I fully endorse, and one which probably would have had no place in most Irish commentary or protest marches which have given Hamas so far a completely free pass. Instead, we burn Israeli flags on Irish streets and have children dressed up as Hamas fighters instead.

We should have our diplomats and politicians on side from the North selling talk rather than war in the solution of the existence of both Palestine and Israel. Israel's survival depends wholly on being able to peacefully co-exist with its Palestinian neighbours in control of their own destiny and to my mind the road map is talking to Hamas and Fatah, ensuing the rapid independence of Palestine comprising Gaza, Judea and Samaria and the total dismantlement of the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Agreement to share Jerusalem with guarantees for access to the Holy places for Islam, Judaism and Christianity are essential. Perhaps some form of joint administration of Jerusalem may be possible.

Either there will be a rapid, active and effective peace process that leads to the creation of a stable State of Palestine in parallel with Israel, or Israel will continue to be under siege.

Pity that Egypt, Syria and Jordan carved up what could have been a viable State for Palestine in 1948 - the original UN motion splitting the half of British mandated Palestine left after the formation of Transjordan into two states, one arab, the other jewish if it had been allowed to stand would have been ideal. Instead the imperative to a) attack Israel and b) carve up what was left, lead to the instablity and paranoia that characterises the middle east today.

Ronald Binge wrote:

A fine speech by Gerald Kaufman and one which I fully endorse, and one which probably would have had no place in most Irish commentary or protest marches which have given Hamas so far a completely free pass. Instead, we burn Israeli flags on Irish streets and have children dressed up as Hamas fighters instead.

We should have our diplomats and politicians on side from the North selling talk rather than war in the solution of the existence of both Palestine and Israel. Israel's survival depends wholly on being able to peacefully co-exist with its Palestinian neighbours in control of their own destiny and to my mind the road map is talking to Hamas and Fatah, ensuing the rapid independence of Palestine comprising Gaza, Judea and Samaria and the total dismantlement of the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Agreement to share Jerusalem with guarantees for access to the Holy places for Islam, Judaism and Christianity are essential. Perhaps some form of joint administration of Jerusalem may be possible.

Either there will be a rapid, active and effective peace process that leads to the creation of a stable State of Palestine in parallel with Israel, or Israel will continue to be under siege.

Pity that Egypt, Syria and Jordan carved up what could have been a viable State for Palestine in 1948 - the original UN motion splitting the half of British mandated Palestine left after the formation of Transjordan into two states, one arab, the other jewish if it had been allowed to stand would have been ideal. Instead the imperative to a) attack Israel and b) carve up what was left, lead to the instablity and paranoia that characterises the middle east today.

I agree a very fine speech, but it was aimed at the Israeli Government and Forces and not at the people who have demonstrated against the assault on Gaza. All kinds of people have demonstrated in all kinds of ways, and it is unwarranted to attempt to tar them all with any one brush and discredit them. Hamas is an elected body and was built up by the Israelis in the first instance. There is no purpose in pointing the finger at weaknesses in the Palestinian leadership when the US and Israel have done everything they possibly could to destroy or ignore elected Palestinian leadership.

Kaufman gives the real answer to the problem which is to rise above religion and ethnicity to find common ground as human beings, irrespective of the past.

One sided support for either Israel or Hamas will only encourage intransigence.

The time for bombing Gaza or lobbing rockets into Israel is long over, if it ever existed in the first place. A negotiated permanent settlement is long, long overdue.

Ronald Binge wrote:

One sided support for either Israel or Hamas will only encourage intransigence.

The time for bombing Gaza or lobbing rockets into Israel is long over, if it ever existed in the first place. A negotiated permanent settlement is long, long overdue.

RB- do you accept the right to self defence when you are being violently attacked? If so, then you will understand that Palestine has been under attack for over 60 years now. This idea that it is more 'blanced' to pretend that there are two equal protagonists in this war could not be more mistaken - though it is an impression deliberately cultivated by the US, the UK and Israel in particular. It's astonishing but true that no matter how vicious and unwarranted the bloodletting by these three, people such as yourslef seem incapable of standing back and looking at what is happening in real terms. Palestine is a victim country whose people have been violently expelled from their homes and lands. They have suffered horrendous losses down the years - many times that of the Israelis who squeal with outrage when the Palestinians merely try to defend themselves and insist on trying to regain what is rightfully theirs. Unless or until the harsh truth about this situation is properly confronted, it will not be resolved.

Aragon wrote:

RB- do you accept the right to self defence when you are being violently attacked? If so, then you will understand that Palestine has been under attack for over 60 years now.

This is the exact argument used by Israel.

Aragon wrote:

This idea that it is more 'blanced' to pretend that there are two equal protagonists in this war could not be more mistaken - though it is an impression deliberately cultivated by the US, the UK and Israel in particular. It's astonishing but true that no matter how vicious and unwarranted the bloodletting by these three, people such as yourslef seem incapable of standing back and looking at what is happening in real terms.

The issue of balance is an interesting one. I'm not aware of anyone (on either side) equating the two, though I'ver heard the accusation often enough. There was talk of Hamas having a wel-armed force. But in moral and political terms, Hamas was a terrorist group willing to sacrifice innocent civilians and Israel was a democratic legitimate state using legitimate force. Or Hamas was a democratic force fighting against the odds with a better armed and funded Imperial force intent on genocide and slaughter.

Where there is balance is in the insistence that both sides need to change their ways to promote peace. Seeing as both sides seem to reckon they are completely in the right, this is not apparantly a common view among those involved.

Aragon wrote:

Palestine is a victim country whose people have been violently expelled from their homes and lands. They have suffered horrendous losses down the years - many times that of the Israelis who squeal with outrage when the Palestinians merely try to defend themselves and insist on trying to regain what is rightfully theirs. Unless or until the harsh truth about this situation is properly confronted, it will not be resolved.

Somehow I think both sides feel they have a good chance at a winning a 'who's the victim' competition. This is something Kaufman talked about. Will the dead Palestinian children be used as an excuse to launch more rockets is now the question.

905 wrote:

Aragon wrote:

RB- do you accept the right to self defence when you are being violently attacked? If so, then you will understand that Palestine has been under attack for over 60 years now.

This is the exact argument used by Israel.

Aragon wrote:

This idea that it is more 'blanced' to pretend that there are two equal protagonists in this war could not be more mistaken - though it is an impression deliberately cultivated by the US, the UK and Israel in particular. It's astonishing but true that no matter how vicious and unwarranted the bloodletting by these three, people such as yourslef seem incapable of standing back and looking at what is happening in real terms.

The issue of balance is an interesting one. I'm not aware of anyone (on either side) equating the two, though I'ver heard the accusation often enough. There was talk of Hamas having a wel-armed force. But in moral and political terms, Hamas was a terrorist group willing to sacrifice innocent civilians and Israel was a democratic legitimate state using legitimate force. Or Hamas was a democratic force fighting against the odds with a better armed and funded Imperial force intent on genocide and slaughter.

Where there is balance is in the insistence that both sides need to change their ways to promote peace. Seeing as both sides seem to reckon they are completely in the right, this is not apparantly a common view among those involved.

Aragon wrote:

Palestine is a victim country whose people have been violently expelled from their homes and lands. They have suffered horrendous losses down the years - many times that of the Israelis who squeal with outrage when the Palestinians merely try to defend themselves and insist on trying to regain what is rightfully theirs. Unless or until the harsh truth about this situation is properly confronted, it will not be resolved.

Somehow I think both sides feel they have a good chance at a winning a 'who's the victim' competition. This is something Kaufman talked about. Will the dead Palestinian children be used as an excuse to launch more rockets is now the question.

Once again 905 - you really need to acquaint yourself with the actual facts. There are so many inaccuracies in what you have posted here, it's hard to know where to start. But you could try this for starters - it's a quote from David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minster of Israel:

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves...politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country...".

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”





Israel has been a lie and a theft from the very start. We don't ask the victims of muggings to make peace with their muggers, to respect their right to mug them or to pretend that the mugging didnt happen. The principle is no different here. If we want to be balanced we must be balanced about what is right - and not pretend that balance is an obligation to accommodate wrong with right as if they both had equal moral force.

905, Kaufman didn't say that at all, he said

Quote :

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

Anyway, I blame the US for the whole thing.

cactus flower wrote:

905, Kaufman didn't say that at all, he said

Quote :

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

Anyway, I blame the US for the whole thing.

Whatever about the US, can you foresee a scenario where militants justify attacking civilians on the basis of what has happened recently? I'm afraid I can.

905 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

905, Kaufman didn't say that at all, he said

Quote :

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

Anyway, I blame the US for the whole thing.

Whatever about the US, can you foresee a scenario where militants justify attacking civilians on the basis of what has happened recently? I'm afraid I can.

You mean the killing of hundreds of children and adult civilians in Gaza? Just watched "A Boy in Belsen" on RTE - did you see it? When there there is destruction of human beings like that, some people react with fury against all forms of racism and antisemitism, other people react by doing the same to other people, and mostly, people try and put it behind them and do nothing at all, but nothing can make the unjustifiable just. I don't believe that what is happening is mindless tit for tat. There are fundamental causes and driving forces, to do with power and resources.

Aragon wrote:

Once again 905 - you really need to acquaint yourself with the actual facts. There are so many inaccuracies in what you have posted here, it's hard to know where to start. But you could try this for starters - it's a quote from David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minster of Israel:

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves...politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country...".

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”





Israel has been a lie and a theft from the very start. We don't ask the victims of muggings to make peace with their muggers, to respect their right to mug them or to pretend that the mugging didnt happen. The principle is no different here. If we want to be balanced we must be balanced about what is right - and not pretend that balance is an obligation to accommodate wrong with right as if they both had equal moral force.

I don’t know what wrong and right you speak of. Shall everything the Israelis do be set in the context that their grandfather stole land. And everything the Palestinians do be set against the context that their grandfathers were dispossessed?



In my book, targeting and killing civilians is always bad. Nothing justifies that. No amount of history or context excuses aiming a rocket at civilians and hoping for the worst. It’s very understandable. That is what the history does; it explains why people might strap bombs to themselves and blow up buses. It’s what Ben-Gurion does; he understands the position of the Palestinians. Does he justify it?



Now Israel is there. It’s not a mugger or a lie or a theft as you think, it’s a country full of people who are expected to bear the cost of what people before their time did. Many of these people are descended from Jews who were kicked out of Arab countries just as the Palestinians were kicked off their land.

cactus flower wrote:

When there there is destruction of human beings like that, some people react with fury against all forms of racism and antisemitism, other people react by doing the same to other people, and mostly, people try and put it behind them and do nothing at all, but nothing can make the unjustifiable just. I don't believe that what is happening is mindless tit for tat. There are fundamental causes and driving forces, to do with power and resources.

You make an interesting point. But in my experience history is usually one damn thing after another rather than a sinister plot.

905 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

When there there is destruction of human beings like that, some people react with fury against all forms of racism and antisemitism, other people react by doing the same to other people, and mostly, people try and put it behind them and do nothing at all, but nothing can make the unjustifiable just. I don't believe that what is happening is mindless tit for tat. There are fundamental causes and driving forces, to do with power and resources.

You make an interesting point. But in my experience history is usually one damn thing after another rather than a sinister plot.

I agree there isn't a sinister plot - or rather, there are plenty of them, but they're not always what determine events. There is an imperative for national states to try and acquire oil and gas, on which their economies depend. Each state tries to safeguard its "national interest" even if the end result is bloody chaos. Many of the historic events of the Middle East for the last sixty years has been determined by that.

Oh gosh, we've skipped politics altogether. I take it this is Aragon's real reason for the war: the oil (or was it gas?) off Gaza's coast. Seeing as no one mentioned this as a factor in the war, something Aragon has pointed out, it would be a cloak-and-dagger plot rather than simple national interest.

If it were about fuel, that would presumably mean putting Fatah in place, i.e. politics. It would be the easiest and most legitimate way to access the oil. I do consider it quite plausible, but not the gospel truth.

Of course, it might just have been about what they say it was about, destroying Hamas and securing civilians on one side and defending civilians and lifting bloackades on the other. The simplist explanation is always the best surely?

Is Israel to be judged by what their grandfathers did? Yes and also according to what their children and their children's children continue to do. Amazing the inhuman standards required of the Palestinians in some people's books. Especially by those who would be utterly incapable of the extremes of forbearance they self-righteously demand of others.

A few facts to confound you 905:

"by Michel Chossudovsky

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.

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza's gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza's offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine's sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza's offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza's offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas "was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt." (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

"Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government." (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza's offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.

The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:

"Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror". (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on "The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas," March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza's Coastal Waters Threaten Israel's National Security? Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)

Israel's intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).

Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board

The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under "Operation Cast Lead" was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza's natural gas:

"Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel's wish to renew the talks.

The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel's request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials." (Globes online- Israel's Business Arena, June 23, 2008)

The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.

Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new "post war" political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.

In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.

In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG's offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)

"Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government's decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.

The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender." (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics

The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.

What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?

What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine's Natural Gas reserves?

A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or "peacekeeping" troops?

The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?

The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza's maritime areas?

If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel's offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above).

These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel's energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport - pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline. "What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel's Tipline." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006) "

(link includes detailed maps)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11680

Aragon wrote:

Is Israel to be judged by what their grandfathers did? Yes and also according to what their children and their children's children continue to do. Amazing the inhuman standards required of the Palestinians in some people's books. Especially by those who would be utterly incapable of the extremes of forbearance they self-righteously demand of others.

I want to be sure of something. Are you justifying the targeting and killing of civilians? That's what it sounds like. What has happened to the Palestinians is inhuman. But two wrongs don't make a right. That doesn't justify imposing inhuman standards on Israelis.

As for your few facts, are they the ones I was discussing with cactus flower above? Very confounding indeed. At least the article itself has the good sense to say it doesn't know for sure what's going on. But you're utterly convinced aren't you? Of course it must be true, it fits every prejudice you have.

905 wrote:

Oh gosh, we've skipped politics altogether. I take it this is Aragon's real reason for the war: the oil (or was it gas?) off Gaza's coast. Seeing as no one mentioned this as a factor in the war, something Aragon has pointed out, it would be a cloak-and-dagger plot rather than simple national interest.

If it were about fuel, that would presumably mean putting Fatah in place, i.e. politics. It would be the easiest and most legitimate way to access the oil. I do consider it quite plausible, but not the gospel truth.

Of course, it might just have been about what they say it was about, destroying Hamas and securing civilians on one side and defending civilians and lifting bloackades on the other. The simplist explanation is always the best surely?

Slow down a bit 905, and take some time to read the post:

Quote :

There is an imperative for national states to try and acquire oil and gas, on which their economies depend. Each state tries to safeguard its "national interest" even if the end result is bloody chaos. Many of the historic events of the Middle East for the last sixty years has been determined by that.

To be honest, I wasn't even thinking about the Gazan gas, although undoubtedly that is somewhere there in the whole mix of what has gone on. Gaza was moving towards a position in which it would have a substantial Mediterranean port and a supply of gas. Do you think that the Israelis government was either unaware or unaffected by those factors?

No, as it happens I wasn't thinking of the Gazan gas, but about the whole history of the middle east and the various carve ups of territory and induced regime changes throughout the twentieth century. I am not expert on the history of Israel and the surrounding states but know a bit about Iraq and Iran. Israel is an entity with its own agenda and strategies, but has been massively subvented from the US, and in the Middle East is seen as a US proxy. Just in the same way as the US and Israel sees Hamas as an Iranian proxy.
Economics and the economic interests of the big powers vs their oponents drives politics most of the time. I don't think its possible to understand what happened in Gaza without that background.

On the day that the UN General Assembly condemned the Israeli massacre in Gaza and that a UN depot was bombed, this pact was signed between the US and Israel.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-01-16-voa56.cfm

On the Gazan sea-front, doesn't Israel control the waters anyway?

I think talk of resource wars gets overdone here, it seems that any conflict has to be explained to be a race to the bottom of human vices.

You're not makiing any specific allegations, which is fair enough. I can't see how Iran or the US benefited from this war. I can see how Israel's government benefited, the war has improved their chances of being re-elected. On the wider front, as I think Gillespie was saying, the Hamas war was Israel attacking Iran; it's the closest they're going to get.

905 wrote:

On the Gazan sea-front, doesn't Israel control the waters anyway?

I think talk of resource wars gets overdone here, it seems that any conflict has to be explained to be a race to the bottom of human vices.

You're not makiing any specific allegations, which is fair enough. I can't see how Iran or the US benefited from this war. I can see how Israel's government benefited, the war has improved their chances of being re-elected. On the wider front, as I think Gillespie was saying, the Hamas war was Israel attacking Iran; it's the closest they're going to get.

Apart from anything else, Gaza was a demonstration of the terrible damage that Israel and the US are prepared to inflict on people. A good negotiating card, perhaps they think. Instead of course it has enraged people in Iran and right across the Middle East.

I think they will push on against Iran. I just found this on Haaretz.com after a long search for more information as to what is actually in the US-Israel accord:
( http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055592.html )

Quote :

A U.S. declaration calling on the international community to deal with the smuggling of arms from Iran to terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.

- Intelligence cooperation between Israel and the U.S. for identifying the sources of weapons, with focus on the network linking Iran, the Persian Gulf and Sudan.
- An international maritime effort along the smuggling routes to find ships carrying weapons to the Gaza Strip, possibly with the involvement of NATO.
- An American and European commitment for the transfer of technologies to Egypt that will help it uncover tunnels.
- Plans for the economic development of Rafah, with particular emphasis on the Bedouin to undercut the financial motivation for building and operating tunnels.

An excuse for even more naval build up and provocation on the Med, and particularly sickening, having messed around building up and knocking down Fatah and Hamas, they now want to mess up the Bedouin.

Can you think of any war that wasn't over resources (including territory), and control of them. I don't know the position in International Law on ownership of the gas reserves off Gaza.

Any fight over political supremacy? The Irish civil war. The fancied war with Iran was not going to get anyone any extra resources, it was going to damage the Iranian government, reduce their supposed military (nuclear) might. Only at a stretch could you say that they would have gotten more oil out of it or something.

Just because resources are picked up as spoils of war, it doesn't mean that every war was then really about resources. If two men can fight over politics or belief, then why can't groups?

The war with Iran requires the say so of ther Americans. If Bush wouldn't give it then Obama certainly won't.

Well both the EU and US in their own policy documents say that resource wars and "energy security" are an issue for them.

The Crusades might be a good example to take, if we wanted to examine how much they were motivated by belief, and how much they were a big looting exercise.

That "refusal by US" was all smoke and mirrors imo. Whyever would anyone have announced that publicly? Chances are they were told to go and give Gaza a smack as a warming up exercise.

I'm sure energy security is important but is it the ultimate reason for every war?

The Crusades involved plenty of territorial aquisition too.

I'm guessing I'm never going to convince you that there's not a war on. If I recall it was leaked, not publicly announced.