After Israel’s Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, gave away the farm, or more directly Israel’s maritime territory, to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, Israel is now on high alert, the more so after Lapid territorial surrender was greeted with a slap in Israel’s face by Lebanon who took everything that Israel gifted them and then moved the goalposts by disagreeing to prior agreed Israeli security and compensation requirements.
In response, Israel’s Defense Minister, Benny Ganz, who had also agreed to the terms of a bad deal, put the Israeli Defense Forces on high alert.
Now Israeli decision makers are preparing various potential military scenarios, over renewed tensions with Lebanon, with both defensive and offensive operations.
One of the altered Lebanese clauses demands that Total Energy, the French energy conglomerate that holds the license for both Israel’s Karish rig and Lebanon’s future drilling rig, buy a portion of the reservoir in the waters that Israel was about to surrender to Lebanon.
This is a Lebanese admission that the disputed waters are indeed, at least partly, Israeli sovereign maritime territory which Lapid and Ganz are about to gift to them in return for a low percentage of royalties if, or when, Lebanon is capable of drilling from a future rig.
Israel has informed the United States, acting as liaison negotiators in a deal, and who many see as favoring Lebanon over Israel according to many observers, that Israel opposes the Lebanese changes in, what is considered by many in Israel, as an already bad deal.
United States officials, and perhaps people at the top of Israel’s echelon, seem not to comprehend or are ignoring who the decision makers are in Lebanon. They primarily include the leader of the Lebanese Parliament and the religious Iranian proxy Hezbollah who are Lebanese twins, joined at the hip by their Shiite connections.
Everyone is familiar with Hassan Nasrallah, the turbaned Hezbollah leader. But not many people are aware of the intimate link between this Iranian-backed terrorist firebrand and the refined, suited, elderly stateman, Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament since 1992 and, equally significantly, the head of the Lebanese Shiite Amal Movement.
One of the shocking revelations made at the recent ICT World Summit on Counter-Terrorism at Herzlia was the depth and breadth of Hezbollah's money laundering and business enterprises in South America, and how their expanding family and clan ties strengthen the spread of their legitimate and criminal enterprises, including how they have certain corrupt leaders of several Central and South American countries in their pocket.
-To suggest that Hezbollah is a separate part of Lebanon’s cultural and political life is to misunderstand Lebanon.
-To suggest that Israel, through a US-proxy, is negotiating with the Lebanese government, and not with Hassan Nasrallah, is a fatal mistake.
-To say that Hezbollah will not be a recipient of future natural gas revenue is delusional. I repeat, they are joined at the hip with Amal, and Amal and Hezbollah control what happens in Lebanon.
An unconsidered result of Israel’s surrender of its legitimate maritime rights to Lebanon is what will happen if the quantity or quality of the gas is not substantially profitable, and no drilling takes place. This means that Israel will have gifted Lebanon its maritime territory for nothing because there will be no compensation based on energy production to be paid to Israel.
This deal will not be a water for peace deal and the Israeli Karish rig will be even more exposed to Hezbollah aggression on maritime waters gifted freely to Lebanon much closer to the Israeli rig than before.
And to think that, when the terms of this deal were being finalized, Ganz said that “this deal harm’s Iran’s interests.”
How wrong can he be? If there is sufficient gas to make a Lebanese rig profitable then Amal-Hezbollah will be major recipients of the profits. And until or instead of drilling, Lebanon’s new Mediterranean territory will be infinitely closer to Israel’s Karish gas rig.
Although Yair Lapid said there was no need for this troublesome deal to be authorized by the Israeli Knesset, hopefully saner voices will be heard.
Israeli law only required that international agreements be submitted to the Knesset for review, not a vote of approval. However, historically, agreements regarding territorial changes have been brought to the Knesset legislature for a vote.
If this deal translates to Lapid/Ganz gifting strategic expanses of the Mediterranean to Amal and Hezbollah, and Israel still being treated like an unrecognized pariah enemy, it is the equivalent to these Israeli leaders gifting huge chunks of Judea & Samaria to Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, our land version of Amal and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This is the reason that the country will be in uproar if they push this deal forward without the issue being brought to the Knesset for a debate and a vote.
With an upcoming election in November, Israel is sailing into stormy waters.
Barry Shaw is International Public Diplomacy Director, at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.