The Militant Libertarian

I'm pissed off and I'm a libertarian. What else you wanna know?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

33 Israeli Civlians or 100 Billion Cubic Meters of LNG? What Do You Think the Gaza Invasion Is About?

by Scott Creighton

Since 2006, there have been 33 Israelis killed in Israel by Palestinian aggression whereas during that same expanse of time, there has been 1,485 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in the Occupied Territories (that doesn’t include Palestinians killed by “settlers” in the outposts or Israeli troops killed in the Occupied territories). At this point during the current attacks on Gaza, there have been reported over 500 Palestinians dead, to a total of 4 Israelis. You can do the math.

I would be willing to bet over the past 3 years, more Israelis have died from drunk driving, than from Palestinians attacks.

Why is it that every time someone tries to justify the Israeli invasion, they always talk about the “thousands of rockets” landing in Israel? Because if they start bringing up the numbers of casualties, Israel starts looking less like the victim and more like the perp.

So why is this so important to the Israeli right-wing hardliners? Why is it that the Labor Party is jumping in right now to look just as tough as the Likud Party? Is it because of the upcoming elections and they want a big victory to show Israelis that the left wing Labor Party is “tough on crime”? That probably factors into it. But I would suggest looking into something a little more tangible, and just about as old as political corruption, to be the main culprit here; Mamon.

In the late 90’s, Israel started looking for a replacement to oil in order to make them less dependant on foreign supplies. What they found, was natural gas.

The architect of Israel’s energy strategy at the time was Netanyahu’s Minister of National Infrastructure, Ariel Sharon. Pakistan Daily

Sharon struck a deal, and a British Company found massive reserves of natural gas in early 2000, that are accessible to Israel that would be large enough to power Israel for 20 years or more with Liquid Natural Gas. As it turns out now, that LNG is worth lots of money because as we are now pushing to develop “Green Technologies”, LNG powered vehicles are far better for the environment than those powered by refined oil products. So those reserves that BG, the British company, found are now worth tons of money.

The only problem is, Israel doesn’t own them; the elected government of the Palestinian people owns them, because you see, those LNG fields are sitting off the coast of Gaza. And since Hamas is the legal elected government of Palestine, Hamas owns them.

Such a gas field has been discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean, with the major portion located about 50 kilometers off the coast of Gaza, Another smaller gas field is located a similar distance off Israel’s northern port city, Haifa; but it is much smaller than the Gaza gas field. Green Prophet

lng-reserves-1The first map of the area reserves prepared by BG (British Gas) only showed the first of the two reserves discovered off the Gazan coast. It was still such a large reserve, BG put a deal on the table for Israel and Palestine to lease them access to it, to the tune of about 3 billion dollars. Then the elections came along, and Hamas won, largely due to the corruption of the Fatah government, and the deal stalled. BG spent 5 years in Israel trying to set the deal up, and it all came crumbling down when the people of Palestine choose their new leader.

Since that time in about 2006, there has been another, larger reserve discovered, even closer to Gaza, and the stakes have gotten even higher with the drive for the “Green Technologies” being what are these days.

BG, apparently still interested in the deal, went and struck a deal with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt (the P.A. is the “recognized” authority in Palestine, only, not to the “elected” government of Hamas and the people in Gaza). That meant that Israel was going to be left out.

However, following the signing of the deal it was revealed that - impatient with Israeli intransigence - Egypt, British Gas and the Palestinian Authority had also been secretly negotiating a deal to sidestep the problematic Israeli market. Within a month, the three parties announced their plan to extract Gazan gas, transport it to Egypt in an Egyptian controlled pipeline, and then ship it on in liquefied form to the international market... Pakistan Daily

Now, with a new plan in place for the billions of dollars worth of LNG and the rights to the oil that probably lay just under the gas, Israel was about to be left out completely. That is, until they took over Gaza.

lng-reserves-2This is the newest map, showing both LNG fields off the coast of Gaza.

As Israel cuts a swath right through the middle of Gaza with their ground assault, we can now see what their ultimate goal really is. It also puts this conflict into a bit clearer picture, now doesn’t it?

We invaded Iraq for control of it’s oil, and now, our “Special Relationship” partner in the Middle East is going after their own payday.

Thanks to Pakistan Daily for shedding light on this issue now, at this crucial time.

Thanks to websites like Mediterranean Petroleum News and Ignited Identity for getting the word out there.

This is yet another illegal resource grab masquerading as the “Global war on Terror”. This is about money and power and the access to massive LNG reserves, not 33 Israeli civilian lives lost over the past three years.

Now, when you look at it, Gaza has ample prime real estate and several seaports have already been planned there. Once Israel gets Hamas out, they not only get control of the LNG and the oil that lies beneath it, but they can then develop resort areas, create “free-trade zones” around the sea ports, and they have about a million and a half Palestinians that they can force to work for slave wages.

This is about money folks. It is the same model that we worked out in Iraq.

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