You probably heard about the complaints in Lebanon of “Israel stealing our gas”. While the premise is indeed infuriating, this is one of the topics where facts and cool heads should matter more than macho politics.
It is easy to get worked up about defending Lebanese gas fields “by force if necessary”, but like gas, this issue is highly combustible. Israel has started creating facts on the ground and Lebanon needs to act effectively to secure its rights if it has any.
There are 3 ways to go about this:
1- We can complain loudly and get ignored by Israel because it’s too busy drilling.
2- Hezbollah can start a war in which Israel lashes out on Lebanon, bombs the south to smithereens, and keeps drilling anyway.
3- Lay off the tough talk and start an international PR campaign, with scientific proof of Lebanon’s stake in the Tamar gas field. The clear goal of such campaign would be establishing a UN entity that will give Lebanon its fair share of the proceeds. Nobody dies, everyone benefits.
Which road would you choose?
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Hello, my name is Mustapha and I've been blogging about Lebanese society, business and politics since February 2005.
In the end, the International Courts will handle the issue though it could take years. The Lebanese government will need to build its case and present it to the courts.
Mustapha,
To ask us to look at an issue scientifically , rationally and logically is synonymous to asking for a miracle lol.
Seriously though, what is the big fuss about? The Israeli find is well within the exclusive economic zone. The only legitimate claim is to show that the field extends all the way into Lebanese waters. If that is the case then Jad is right there is an international arbitration mechanism to decide whether Lebanon is entitled to something or not.
If it is true that the field extends into Lebanese exclusive economic zone then the best thing is to award exploration companies the right to explore. I am not sure that many in Lebanon recognize the difference between potential and actual fins and then the time and huge caital required for the find to be finally lifted. Israel will not start production from Tamar1 for another two years and the junior partner just raised last week $430 million.
As for that item about the pending legislation in the Knesset I have not been able to find anyone who has mentioned it besides Naharnet. Does anyone know their source? The item does not appear to make sense.
let us simply award some major companies like total to explore the lebanese shore and exploit the gaz.
And let the Israelies attack the foreign employees of these companies.
It will bring the same impact that lately occured with the gaza fleet.
About the international court, you need to have both lebanon and israel being read to recognise it. They are in a state of war since 1949, so this scenario is excluded
frenchy, in July 2000, Lebanon filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Well guys, apparently there’s a governmental technical committee working on demarcation issues for the southern Maritime border..
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