Israel-Lebanon maritime deal

The Israel-Lebanon maritime deal is in the interests of both countries. The deal can help unlock energy security for both states at a time when the world needs new and secure natural gas supplies.

Israel has much to gain from the current talks, but it does not mean Israel must make a deal at any price. Lebanon appears to be pushing for last-minute changes to a US-backed deal that President Joe Biden’s energy envoy, Amos Hochstein, has worked on for the past year.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Israel will not compromise on its security and economic interests. Several entwined issues are at stake.

Israel wants the Karish gas field to begin production, and Energean, which developed the field, is ready to move ahead. 

Hezbollah is openly threatening the field – not only launching drones, but prodding Lebanon to increase rhetoric against Israel’s exploitation of these resources off its coast.

The deal that has been worked on with US support would see Israel receive royalties from gas that Lebanon extracts in the disputed area of the Mediterranean Sea, but Israel would concede a triangle of economic waters. 

Lebanon only recently asserted more claims to these waters. Lebanon also wants to develop a field called Qana that extends into areas Israel claims.

The current deal would preserve a line of buoys that extends some five kilometers off the coast into the sea. 

Then the line would deviate slightly and give Lebanon more of the area it wants. It appears that this would be in the interests of other countries as well, such as France.

Lebanese block 9 of its offshore concessions could lead to exploitation of the Qana field, but Lebanon does not want Israel receiving any share of profits from that field. 

This creates complexity. In the past, it was assumed that trade and economics could underpin peace in the region. Lebanon needs investment, and Hezbollah is busy siphoning off money from the state. 

The upcoming Israeli election also hangs over the current discussions. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed Lapid’s decisions and has openly said the deal, which he views as surrender to Hezbollah threats, would not bind a new government that he seeks to establish after the November election.

This could create another strange situation in which one Israeli government accepts the deal and the next tears it up, the way the US shifted tactics on the Iran deal. 

This would lead to tensions and accusations that Israel is then crossing the line and give Hezbollah an excuse to resist by firing rockets.

 

 

 

 

               

 

Israel heading to fresh polls

The Knesset dissolved automatically at midnight Tuesday, setting a 23^rd March 2021 date for elections amid mutual recriminations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu and Gantz blamed each other for not finding a way to keep their government going. Likud and Blue and White had reached an agreement to extend the deadline for passing the state budget and preventing early elections. But Gantz issued new demands, and then rebels in both parties prevented the bill from passing in dramatic fashion.

 “It is no secret that the Likud and I did not want to go to elections,” Netanyahu said in a Knesset press conference. “Israel is going to elections due to internal fights in Blue and White.”

Netanyahu said he had agreed to the rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office before Blue and White reneged on their deal.

Blue and White responded by shifting the blame to Netanyahu, saying: “A man under three indictments is dragging Israel to elections for a fourth time. If there was no trial, there would be a budget and no elections.”

Polls broadcast on Tuesday night found that the election will be devastating for Blue and White. A Kantar Institute poll broadcast on KAN News predicted six mandates for the party. A Midgam poll on Channel 12 predicted five seats, and if Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai forms a party, only four.

Both polls gave the Likud a significant majority over the New Hope Party of former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar, Yamina and Yesh Atid. Sa’ar has risen in polls that ask who is most fit to be prime minister. In the KAN poll, 39% said Netanyahu was most fit for the job, and 36% said Sa’ar.

The Likud took action on Tuesday to deprive Sa’ar’s party of key state funding. Sa’ar called the Likud’s steps brutal and expressed confidence that the move would boomerang against Netanyahu’s party.

Sa’ar played an active role in preventing the deadline for passing the budget from being extended and the time until another election from being prolonged. His confidante Likud MK Michal Shir joined Blue and White MKs Ram Shefa, Miki Haimovich and Asaf Zamir in voting against the early election prevention bill.

Shir and Shefa waited in the Knesset parking lot before surprising their colleagues by voting against the bill and ensuring its defeat in a 49-47 vote.

Shir submitted her resignation letter to Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin on Tuesday. She said she was proud to vote to end a dysfunctional government and that she would be joining New Hope.

When her resignation takes effect on Thursday, Shir will be replaced by the next candidate on the Likud list, Shevah Stern, who was chosen for a slot on the list reserved for a candidate from Judea and Samaria.

Likud MK Sharren Haskel, who refused to come to the vote, has not said when and if she will quit, but she is also expected to join the new party. If Haskel quits, she will be replaced in the Knesset by former minister Ayoub Kara.

Meanwhile, the state budgets, which were the technical reasons for the election, were advanced in the cabinet and Knesset but not passed into law.

“Out of a sense of responsibility to the Israeli people, I have decided that we will approve legislation that will enable a rolling budget for 2021 so that the country can minimally function during election season,” Gantz said. “The prime minister and finance minister have been wildly irresponsible, denying the country a budget for six months in flagrant violation of their commitment and all out of narrow, self-serving personal considerations.”