The Eastern Mediterranean Seabed contains considerable natural gas wealth for Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and somewhat for Turkey. But toxic politics between these countries, which involves disputes about offshore national boundaries, has held up exploration and therefore the attaining of wealth for some of these countries, especially Lebanon. Israel has been drilling and producing natural gas from offshore fields for over two decades. And so has Cyprus, though not as long. But poverty-stricken Lebanon has not.
Israel and Lebanon do not have diplomatic relations. It is partly because Southern Lebanon, which borders on Northern Israel, is controlled by Hezbollah. Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies have the largest voting bloc in Lebanon’s parliament. Hezbollah is at war with Israel and sometimes shoots at Northern Israel.
The U.S. Biden administration has been brokering a deal between Israel and Lebanon concerning offshore boundaries and therefore these gas deposits. Much of the gas well discoveries are up to 5,000 feet under the Eastern Mediterranean floor. It takes years to create the infrastructure for drilling and refining products. But the wealth realized can be very substantial. It could pull Lebanon back to the somewhat affluent nation that it used to be, at least in Beirut. And what about Palestine?
As I keep saying, Palestinians should rethink their two-state solution to their conflict with Israel because it hasn’t happened now for over sixty years. They need a different two-state solution, and I think it should be going according to historical precedent. That is, locate the State of Palestine in the coastal plain as a very expanded Gaza Strip, with the land swap resulting in Israel annexing the West Bank. That arrangement would be like ancient Philistia and Israel lying side-by-side. That’s what my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990), advocates. (See my website kermitzarley.com to read half of it for free.) This is not an original idea of mine; rather, I discovered it forty years ago in Bible prophecy, especially in Isaiah 11.14.
If the Palestinian state existed as I propose, then both Israel and Palestine would have equal length coastlands of about 80-miles long. Palestinians would therefore share in the gas, and perhaps oil, deposit wealth lying offshore.
These offshore fossil fuel deposits are now taking on more significance due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Europe will no longer receive needed oil and gas from Russia, upon which Eastern Europe has so depended. Right now, Europe has been scrambling for other fuel sources. Talks are being revived about a gas pipeline from these offshore Mediterranean fields running through Turkey to Europe. But Turkey has always taken a hardline approach against Israel because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Solve that with a coastal Palestinian state resulting in shipping gas to Europe. Because Europe could have some very cold winters in its future if it is not able to heat homes and businesses. Those Eastern Mediterranean oil and gas fields could help Europe solve that problem until it becomes totally dependent on renewable fuels, which is still many years away.
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