Golda Meir (1898-1978) was the fourth Prime Minister of Israel. She once quipped, “Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!” Golda, that’s true, but its not true.
A few years ago, the U.S. Geological Survey did test wells in the seabed of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and discovered it has some of the richest natural gas, and probably oil, deposits in the world. Then Noble Energy Inc., located in my former hometown of Houston, Texas, started drilling very deep, offshore wells and discovering these riches for Israel deep underneath its seabed.
Every nation that borders on an ocean owns whatever is under that ocean for 200 miles offshore. But if two nations’ maritime rights intersect, those nations need to negotiate agreed boundaries. Noble Energy discovered similar discoveries offshore of the island of Cyprus. It is less than 300 miles between Israel and Cyprus. Thus, Israel and Cyprus entered into an agreement in which each owns offshore rights extending toward each about 150 miles each, so that the boundary line is half-way between each country.
Yesterday, the government of Israel approved the production of natural gas deposits in its large, Leviathan field in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the expansion of its Tamar field nearby. Both are located several miles offshore from Haifa. Noble Energy discovered these fields years ago. Now, Noble and its partners in Derek–Israel’s energy conglomerate–will develop these deep-water deposits. It will be a very sophisticated operation and expensive to do. But the result will be a financial bonanza for Israel. Production had been held up due to political and legal issues that had to be worked out.
These offshore, natural gas discoveries will make Israel not only energy self-reliant for perhaps the next 100 years, but also a significant exporter of natural gas. Israel now exports natural gas to Jordan and Egypt. But Israel also will do so with Turkey and likely some European countries. Plus, the Eastern Mediterranean surely contains oil deposits belonging to Israel that have not yet been discovered.
I have blogged before about this carbon-deposit wealth of Israel out in the deep blue sea that Golda Meir didn’t know about. I’ve also been saying for years that, because of these carbon discoveries, this gives the Palestinians another strong reason to pursue the alternate, two-state solution that I propose in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990). That is, this geopolitical arrangement, in which both Israel and Palestine would have about eighty-miles of Mediterranean coastline, would no doubt provide the Palestinians with great oil and gas wealth as Israel is beginning to realize now. To learn more, visit my website kermitzarley.com and click on Palestine Articles/Mediterranean Gas Preserves.
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