Norris McDonald | Gaza’s gas, Biden’s Agba Canal, ‘Bibiism’ and the quest for peace

Gaza is oil rich! Over US$525 billion would be available under the terms of agreement signed between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel, if final settlement talks had been reached.

Dr Rachel Donald has done extensive research on this issue. In her article ‘Everybody wants Gaza Gas’, she shares extensive details on gas that is now fully under Israel’s control, illegally appropriated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Prior to this, Dr Donald wrote that then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert even entered negotiations with Palestinians in 2007 over what percentage royalty would go to Hamas in the Gaza.

The sticking point, Dr Donald said, was that “Hamas wanted 10 per cent.”

Israel negotiating gas deal with Hamas?

Wow!

PALESTINE GAZA GAS

But to continue, it appears unbelievable that Palestinians are relegated to extreme poverty and yet, they have such vast potential wealth.

Gaza has an estimated “122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and a recoverable oil of 1.7 billion barrels,” a United Nations-UNCTAD report said.

This vast oil and gas discovered off Gaza waters would fall under Palestinian control under the terms of several deals signed after the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has long been an opponent of the Oslo agreement.

Netanyahu vociferously objected to the two-state agreement and even denounced Yitzhak Rabin as a traitor who, by signing the Oslo Accords, had betrayed Israel national security.

“I do not believe a sovereign Palestinian state is an historic imperative,” Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) in 1999. He then said that “he would use all means to stop the emergence of a Palestinian state”.

I believe he has been doing that for more than one reason.

After coming to power in 1996, and thereafter, Netanyahu has reneged on all the agreements, and political commitments made, by the State of Israel since 1993.

The 1999 discovery of oil in the waters of Gaza by the British BG Group changed the political trajectory of how the 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was playing out.

Now given the issue of vast gas wealth, there is more at stake.

The new Palestinian State boundary would be 22 nautical miles offshore.

In the absence of their own state, there have been more and more conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, especially because of increased building of Jewish settlements. And the frequent military incursions.

Palestinians have not been able to get any of this potential US$525 billion because they were not permitted to set up their own state.

Also, as Dr Rachael Donald reports, Israel invaded Gaza in 2008 and seized control of Gaza’s gas.

Since then, Israel has been mining these gas resources and recently signed 12 oil deals with Western imperialist countries, including America’s Chevron.

Chevron is one of the new players in the illegal exploitation of Palestinian Gaza-gas.

British Petroleum, Italy’s Eni and France’s Total are among the companies involved in piping the Gaza gas.

THE BEN GURION CANAL

Then we have the issue of the Ben Gurion Canal project that is aimed at linking Israel, at the Gulf of Aqaba, to the Mediterranean Sea.

According to US Energy Department declassified documents published on LINKEDIN by Armstrong Economics on November 10, 2023, Gaza is a key point through which the Ben Gurion Canal is conceived to be built.

“The document notes that 130 of the 160 miles dedicated to the canal are “virtually unpopulated desert wasteland”. The key issue was “how to relocate the 2,000,000 people from Gaza Strip”, Armstrong Economics reports.

This Ben Gurion initiative is America’s response to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

So, there we have America, who may well be complicit to the forceful displacement of two million people from Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Desert. But what is strange, is that it fits neatly, seeming like a matter of coincidence, to the Ben Gurion canal project.

Relocating people from the Gaza Strip clearly serves the global imperialist interest.

Isn’t it obvious now?

If Gaza is made a wasteland, wouldn’t the Ben Gurion canal project then emerge as their opportunistic, alternative to the China economic corridor?

‘BIBIISM’ – A DOCTRINE OF FORCE

In the meantime, the humanitarian crisis in Palestine continues with the tragic loss on both sides, but horrendous destruction of Gaza.

People in Israel, like many well-thinking Jewish people worldwide, have had enough of ‘Bibiism’, which is to use military force to control 2,000,000 Palestinians.

Haaretz newspaper is the leading Israeli voice against Bibiism.

In a November 13, 2023 article, Zvi Bar’el called on Netanyahu to give up his long-held idea of military control of Gaza and the Palestinian people.

“Israel’s PM [Netanyahu] insists on establishing Israeli security control of Gaza,” Haaretz’s Zvi Bar’el wrote. “But the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] is not capable of governing two million civilians.”

Bibiism with its military force doctrine solution means destroying any possibility of a nation-state called Palestine to emerge.

THE QUEST FOR PEACE

Israel under Prime Minister Rabin wanted to end the Nakba, the forceful removal of Palestinians from their lands since 1945, and agreed to the two-state solution.

Israel prime ministers Shimon Perez, El Olmert, Ehud Barack and even Ariel Sharon, despite initial objections, came to terms with the need to end the 75-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ariel Sharon, the warrior, too, finally accepted this idea and in 2003 signed on to a “road map for peace”.

Israelis and Jewish people worldwide have been shocked by the horrendous devastation they are witnessing in Gaza.

This madness must end now!

How can a people who themselves suffered so much tragedy be inflicting such a devastating humanitarian pain on the people of Gaza?

Thankfully, a new mood of peace is now resurging in Israel.

If the Israelis and Palestinians can once again seek a peaceful resolution of all conflicts then perhaps the sacrifices, the lives lost in Israel, in Gaza and other areas of Palestine will end.

That is just the ‘bitta’ truth.

Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.