What is truly going on between Israel and Gaza? Why
would Hamas fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel like a child taunting a
cobra? Why would Israel risk a land invasion of this small piece of land as
reprisal, knowing as it does that the cost in blood would be extremely high? Is
more going on here than is meeting the American public’s eye?
According to nafeez mosaddeq ahmed,
writing in his blog published in the November 28, 2012 issue of Le
Monde Diplomatique,[i] there
is indeed more going on.
Israel is in the midst of a very critical energy
shortage. There are two major causes for the crisis; Egypt’s repeated
suspension of gas supplies to Israel, and the near exhaustion of Israel’s
Tethys gas fields. These two factors are causing Israel to scramble to locate
additional supplies or face fuel price hikes which would undermine their economy.
According to the Israeli business paper
Globes[ii]; Israeli Minister of National infrastructures Dr. Uzi Landau has
instructed Noble Energy to develop the Noa North gas reserve in the Mediterranean.
One problem—the reserve, about 32km from Gaza’s coastline, is
partly under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority in the economic zone
of the Gaza Strip.
Enter Tony Blair with a plan to sell
Israel Gaza’s gas. Clearly, Israel needs
additional natural gas sources, while the Palestinian people sorely need new
sources of revenue. An obvious win-win? Not quite.
Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon - also
Minister of Strategic Affairs and a former IDF Chief of Staff stated that the
gas deal “threatens Israel national security as long as Hamas remains in
power.” The same man, writing in the Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs[iii] said, “It is clear that
without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no
drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic
movement.”
How
does Israel justify such an overall military operation? It first must draw fire
from Hamas. Israel’s assassination of Ahmed Jabari accomplished exactly that.
nafeez mosaddeq ahmed writes, “By unleashing Hamas’ rage this
November, Israel was able to justify an offensive designed at least in part to
begin engineering conditions conducive to its control of Gaza’s offshore gas
reserves. But this is just the beginning - many analysts note that Israel is
preparing the ground for a wider military assault against Iran[iv]. The tentative ceasefire announced
on the 21st is, therefore, highly tenuous. If the ceasefire is breached, a military
ground operation[v] is
still on the cards. With over 140 dead in Gaza, compared to five in
Israel, Operation Pillar of Defence has vindicated those in Palestine who think
violence against Israel is the only option left[vi]. But then again, perhaps
that’s the idea.”
As disturbing as these scenarios are, more
disturbing to this writer is the almost total absence of this information from
any American media outlet. I am left to ask: How closely aligned is the United
States with Israel in this strategy? Why haven’t I heard of this from American
sources?
No comments:
Post a Comment