Obama's double standard
In Syria, the United States military is
acting in precisely the manner in which Israel has often been accused of acting. And Obama has condemned Israel for those same actions.
U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding militants, a group monitoring the war said on Monday.
The
aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the
northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base, said the
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There was no
immediate comment from Washington.
...
The strikes in Manbij appeared to have killed only civilians, not
fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory which gathers
information from sources in Syria.
"These
were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people," he
said. He could not give a number of casualties and it was not
immediately possible to verify the information.
...
In eastern Syria, U.S.-led forces bombed a gas plant controlled by
the Islamic State outside Deir al-Zor city, wounding several of the
militant group's fighters, the Observatory said.
The
United States has said it wants strikes to target oil facilities held
by Islamic State to try to stem a source of revenues for the group.
The
raid hit Kuniko gas plant, which feeds a power station in Homs that
provides several provinces with electricity and powers oil fields
generators, the Observatory said.
I want to make it clear that I have no problem with classifying grain silos or gas plants as military targets. Depending on how they're being used, that classification could well be accurate. In fact, there's something to be said for targeting an opposing army's sources of fuel and food.
But it's hypocritical for Obama to condemn Israel for doing the exact same thing in Gaza. And it's not the first time Obama has done it.
Let's go to the videotape. Make sure to check out Scott Shane around the five-minute mark. Obama was very unhappy when Israel claimed that all of the male casualties between the ages of 18 and 40 in Gaza were probably terrorists.
Heh.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, drone, Gaza, grain supplies, humor, hypocrisy, Islamic State, natural gas, Pakistan, Predator drones, Syria
Israel becoming Jordan's chief supplier of natural gas
Israel has signed an agreement to provide the Kingdom of Jordan with $15 billion worth of natural gas from its Leviathan well over the next 15 years. The Leviathan well is located some 81 miles west of Haifa. It's the largest natural gas deal Israel has ever signed and will make Israel the Kingdom's
chief natural gas supplier.
The new deal is the largest collaboration with
Jordan to date, and will make Israel its chief supplier, according to
the Globes business news website.
The final agreement will be subject to the
approval of Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom, who is expected to
confirm it. According to Globes, the US was involved in the
negotiations. US envoy Amos Hochstein was said to attend the signing of
the memorandum.
Representatives of the Delek Group Ltd. and Nobel Energy Inc. were in Jordan to sign the agreement.
Shalom hailed the agreement, and referred to
it as “a historic act that will strengthen the economic and diplomatic
ties between Israel and Jordan.”
“At this time, Israel is becoming an energy
superpower, which will supply the energy needs of its neighbors and
strengthen its standing as a central source of energy supply in the
region, and I welcome it,” he said in a statement.
In February, Israel signed a deal with Jordan
to supply $500 million worth of gas to the Hashemite kingdom from the
Tamar natural gas field in the Mediterranean.
The Jordanians turned to Israel because their
supply of natural gas from Egypt had been halted by repeated terrorist
attacks on the gas pipeline from Egypt, a Channel 2 report said.
I'm sure the Egyptians are thrilled.... Well, like we always say, business is business.
Labels: Jordan, Leviathon well, natural gas, oil and gas exploration
Breaking: Jerusalem Fire Department prevents massive terror attack
The Jerusalem Fire Department prevented a massive terror attack on Tuesday after finding
lit flames near cut gas lines in three apartment buildings in the capital's Armon HaNetziv (East Talpiyot) neighborhood. The police are now following leads in the neighboring Arab village of Jabel Mukhaber (Hat Tip:
Gershon D).
A burning candle and other flammable materials were discovered near one of the cut lines.
Police believe the lines were intentionally cut in an attempted terror attack. The gas lines were shut down and the buildings were ventilated.
The police are currently investigating the incident, with leads to the adjacent Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.
A Jerusalem Fire Department spokesperson stated that the fire fighters’ quick action and decisiveness prevent a large scale disaster, “They prevented a tragedy while putting themselves in a great personal danger,” he said.
Two months ago a couple and their infant were killed in a gas leak blast in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Giloh. Another 11 were wounded, including one severely.
A month ago a building collapsed in Acre as a result of sabotage of the gas lines in the building, killing five.
Let me guess... they were angry about the 'peace process.'
Labels: Jerusalem, natural gas, Palestinian terrorism, sabotage
#BDS_FAIL: 'Palestinians' first buyers of Israeli natural gas
The BDS'ers are seething. Israel's Leviathan natural gas well has entered into its first contract. And the contract is with... the '
Palestinians.'
The first buyer of natural gas from Israel’s largest gas field will be
the Palestine Power Generation Company, which will purchase some $1.2
billion-worth of gas over 20 years, one of the major partners in the
field announced on Sunday.
The Leviathan group will sell the [Palestine Power Generation Company] PPGC, which
supplies power to Palestinian areas in the West Bank, as much as 4.75
billion cubic meters of gas when the Leviathan reserve begins to yield
in 2016 or 2017, the Delek Group said in a statement.
The Delek conglomerate owns 45.34 percent of
the field, followed by the US-based Noble Energy with 39.66% and Ratio
Oil Exploration’s 15%. Leviathan’s estimated reserves – 537 billion
cubic meters – make it the largest offshore gas discovery in a decade.
The Palestinian company aims to build a $300
million power plant in the West Bank city of Jenin to produce
electricity from the gas,
Reuters reported.
Given the 'Palestinians'
track record on payments, maybe we shouldn't be so happy about this one....
Labels: BDS, Israel Electric Corporation, Leviathon well, natural gas, oil and gas exploration, Palestinian Authority
Cyprus to build LNG terminal for three Israeli oil companies
At its Vassiliko marina on its southern coast, the government of Cyprus has agreed to build a liquified natural gas terminal for Israel's
Noble Energy, Delek and Avner oil exploration companies (Hat Tip:
Joshua I).
The Cabinet approved a memorandum of understanding (MoU)
with Noble Energy International Ltd, Delek Drilling Limited Partnership
and Avner Oil Exploration Limited Partnership to build the LNG plant
near the Vassiliko energy hub on the island’s southern coast that will
process the output from offshore gasfields within the Cyprus exclusive
economic zone (EEZ), as well as from neighbouring Israeli and even
Lebanese gasfields for export.
Noble is currently conducting a second appraisal well within the
‘Aphrodite’ Block 12 on the south easternmost tip of the Cyprus EEZ,
adjacent to the Israeli EEZ where Noble, Delek and Avner are already in
the process of exporting natural gas output from the Leviathan field.
The U.S.-based exploration and energy exporter hopes to have a concrete
estimate of the size and value of Block 12 by early 2014. Initial
estimate suggest that the block may contain an average of 7 trillion
cubic feet of natural gas.
Energy, Trade and Tourism Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said that the
agreement for the LNG plant will be signed by the end of this month.
Of course, there's almost no chance Lebanon will participate, at least so long as Hezbullah holds a veto in its government. But that's just fine....
Labels: Cyprus, natural gas, Noble Energy, oil and gas exploration
Turkey hints at carrots
Apparently realizing that their behavior isn't exactly giving Israel any incentive to reach a financial settlement with them, Turkey is now hinting at a
natural gas pipeline between Israel and Europe.
One byproduct of Israel’s apology to Turkey for operational errors that may have
caused loss of life on the Mavi Marmara could be cooperation in the energy
field, Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Tuesday.
“We should
acknowledge that it is a political issue,” Yildiz was quoted by Today’s Zaman as
saying in reference to the apology at an energy conference in Ankara, amid a
slight decrease in public Turkish gloating over the issue.
“The reason
for the apology is not [common] energy projects, but the result of it can be
energy projects,” he said.
“Within the process of normalization, after
Israel has fulfilled its responsibilities towards our side, the project of
transporting Israeli gas via Turkey could come onto the agenda.”
While
Israel has not yet decided whether or how much of its natural gas reserves that
just began flowing on Saturday should be exported – or whether the preferred
market is to Europe via Cyprus or Turkey, or the Far East via Eilat – there was
considerable talk during the height of the Turkish-Israeli diplomatic tension of
an Israel-Cyprus- Greece energy corridor that would bypass Turkey.
But
now, with Cyprus’s financial woes coupled with the beginning of a Jerusalem-
Ankara rapprochement, the idea of a pipeline to Turkey is once again gaining
currency.
Do we really want our gas exports to be dependent upon an 'ally' as unreliable as Turkey?
Labels: natural gas, oil and gas exploration, Tamar natural gas well, Turkish obsession with Israel
Turkey turns down Israeli offer to build gas pipeline
Turkey has turned down an Israeli offer to
build a natural gas pipeline through its territory. The pipeline would have also allowed Israel to export natural gas directly to Europe.
“Israel has made a bid to build a pipeline to Turkey within the last two weeks,” the Hurriyet
quoted the official as saying. “But we have a policy regarding Israel
and the claims that Turkey leans towards this idea is not true.”
The pipeline would allow Israel to sell gas to Europe, but the
Turkish government has not given a response because of the tensions
between the countries.
This follows reports from Yediot Ahronot that
two Israelis held two meetings in Turkey with the country's energy
ministry officials in order to present the offer. The story was reported
in the Turkish daily Vatan on Thursday, according to the report.
I think that's called cutting off your nose to spite your face....
Labels: Leviathon well, natural gas, Turkey
US energy workers moving to Canada, maybe they should consider Israel?
The Los Angeles Times reports that lots of workers in the US energy industry are
moving to Canada, a trend that seems likely to accelerate in light of Hussein Obama's reelection (Hat Tip:
American Power).
U.S. workers, Canada wants you.
Here in the western province of
Alberta, energy companies are racing to tap the region's vast deposits
of oil sands. Canada is looking to double production by the end of the
decade. To do so it will have to lure more workers — tens of thousands
of them — to this cold and sparsely populated place. The weak U.S.
recovery is giving them a big assist.
Canadian employers are swarming U.S. job fairs, advertising on radio and YouTube
and using headhunters to lure out-of-work Americans north. California,
with its 10.2% unemployment rate, has become a prime target. Canadian
recruiters are headed to a job fair in the Coachella Valley next month
to woo construction workers idled by the housing meltdown.
The
Great White North might seem a tough sell with winter coming on. But the
Canadians have honed their sales pitch: free universal healthcare, good
pay, quality schools, retention bonuses and steady work.
"California
has a lot of workers and we hope they come up," said Mike Wo, executive
director of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp.
Read the whole thing.
For those who might be inclined to think about moving to Israel, Israel also has a need for energy workers. We are developing several
natural gas wells offshore, and there is evidence of
oil shale in the sands here as well. So if you're in the energy industry and have ever thought about aliya, this seems like a really good time to look into it seriously.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Canada, energy independence, natural gas
Why should Israel pay the price?
With Israel facing electricity shortages and possible brownouts this summer as a result of Egypt cutting off our natural gas supply, isn't it a bid odd that we continue to supply electricity (for free!) to Hamas-ruled Gaza alongside the Egyptians? Well, Environment Minister Gilad Erdan thinks it's more than odd.
He wants to put a stop to it.
Speaking in an interview with Army Radio, Erdan said that Gaza has its own power stations and legally, it is not clear that Israel is responsible for supplying power to Gaza, especially after Israel's 2005 disengagement from the terrotory. Gaza's power plant provides electricity to two-thirds of its population. Power is also supplied to the Gaza grid through power lines from Israel and Egypt.
Erdan said that it is "absurd" that Israel should experience power shortages while the "terror entity next to us will get electricity that they don't pay for." The Energy and Water Ministry expects shortages in Israel between June and September.
The environmental protection minister said that the four percent of power supplied to Gaza could prevent outages in Israel at times of peak usage.
Erdan stated that while "water and energy are supposed to be outside the conflict" if their is no choice and Israel needs the energy than he sees no legal obligation to provide Gaza with the electricity.
Yes, it's absurd. But when has that ever mattered in the Middle East?
Labels: Egyptian gas pipeline, Gaza, Gaza electricity supply, natural gas
Egypt shoots itself in the foot
Robin Mills argues that Egypt
shot itself in the foot by canceling its natural gas deal with Israel.
Whatever the reason for the decision, it has squandered one of the Egyptian energy industry's most precious resources. The one thing more important for gas customers than attractive prices is security. As Algeria discovered in the early 1980s and Russia and Ukraine in 2009, once a gas supplier gains a reputation for unreliability, it is very hard to shake off. With the pipeline bombings and now this contractual action, Egypt has squandered a lot of hard-won trust.
This incident marks the definitive end of a very successful period for Egypt's gas industry. Beginning in the early 1990s, Cairo liberalized its natural gas exploration policy, invited foreign investment, and developed new gas exports, including building liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants and pipelines to Israel and its Arab neighbors Jordan and Syria. Major new fields were found offshore in the Nile Delta, and in the two decades since 1990, gas reserves increased nearly sixfold and production almost eightfold.
But this policy had already run into trouble before the revolution. Low, fixed prices made new developments unviable, while encouraging demand to grow at 9 percent annually. Egypt's LNG plants are running below capacity, and its promising shale-gas potential and new offshore fields will not be exploited without price increases. Political paralysis in Cairo, however, makes it all but impossible to reform the subsidized domestic market.
The horizon of Egypt's gas sector is also steadily shrinking. Ambitious plans to expand the Arab Gas Pipeline as far as Turkey, to link it to the European market, have been relegated to the realm of dreams. It also remains to be seen whether prices to Jordan will be raised further or whether that deal too will be annulled. Hassan Younis, minister of electricity and energy, made it clear that the gas originally sent to Israel will now be diverted to the domestic market. But despite claims that Egypt could benefit from using the gas at home, the 2.1 billion cubic meters (BCM) shipped in 2010 is a small part of Egypt's total output of 61 BCM.
Israel will suffer some short-term pain for Egypt's decision. It has already begun contingency plans, however, stepping up output from its existing domestic fields and planning a fast-tracked LNG import terminal. It could be operational as early as the end of this year and would more than replace the lost Egyptian gas -- though at three times the price.
Additionally, while Egypt's gas future looks gloomy without major reforms, Israel's has been transformed by new discoveries in the deep waters of the eastern Mediterranean. The first big find, the Tamar gas field, is due to start production in April 2013. Egypt has thus given Israel a useful opportunity not only to escape from a deal that was about to become unnecessary, but also to claim damages and the moral high ground.
To whom else can Egypt sell gas at a reasonable price? How will they transport it?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Egypt, natural gas
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, April 24.
1) No more designer shoes for you
Richard Cohen in The Luxury we don't have in Syria:
About a month ago the European Union, showing it will not be trifled with, barred Bashar al-Assad’s wife, Asma, and other women in his immediate family from shopping for luxury goods in Europe. For some reason, going cold turkey on Dior, Armani and Prada failed to bring down the Assad regime or to end its vicious attacks on the civilian population. Now the Europeans, presumably with the staunch support of the Obama administration, have imposed an across-the-board ban on the sale of luxury goods to Syria — and yet, somehow, the killing continues.
The imposition of the luxury goods ban was cited in a New York Times editorial with all the solemnity usually reserved for naval blockades — as good an example of any of how we have gone to dreamland. In the dream, a vicious dictator, fighting for his own and his family’s lives, will somehow come to the bargaining table because he is down to his last Montblanc pen. Of course, more practical measures and boycotts have also been adopted, but it is always good to remember that severe boycotts were imposed on Saddam Hussein’s regime for about 12 years — and it still took an invasion to bring him down. There is a lesson here.
And a headline that's hardly surprising: U.N. Observers Prove Little Deterrent to Syrian Attacks.
2) It depends what the meaning of "always" is
From President Obama's remarks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday:
"Never again" is a challenge to defend the fundamental right of free people and free nations to exist in peace and security -- and that includes the State of Israel. And on my visit to the old Warsaw Ghetto, a woman looked me in the eye, and she wanted to make sure America stood with Israel. She said, "It’s the only Jewish state we have." And I made her a promise in that solemn place. I said I will always be there for Israel.
From yesterday's press briefing at the State Department:
QUESTION: There are some press reports that (inaudible) Turkey is blocking Israel’s participation to next NATO summit. And the U.S. side is not happy with that. It’s disappointed and trying to convince Turks not to block Israel to NATO. Do you have any comment on that – on those reports?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think you know for quite some time now, we have been continuing to talk to both our ally Turkey and our ally Israel about the relationship that they have with each other, to encourage them to continue to get back to a place where can have conversation with each other, where they can work well together. We think it’s important to both of them, and it’s certainly important to the region.
With regard to arrangements for the NATO summit and partnership events, as you know, Israel is one of NATO’s partners in the Mediterranean Dialogue. I don’t have anything particular to announce on partnership planning at the moment. Those discussions are continuing as we head towards the May summit in Chicago.
QUESTION: So Israel may participate in some?
MS. NULAND: Again, we’re still working on what the partnership arrangements are going to look like for the summit, so I’m not going to comment on them from here as those conversations continue. There are many aspects of how the partners may or may not participate in the NATO summit that are still being worked on.
QUESTION: Well, are you comfortable with the Turkish position?
MS. NULAND: Again, I’m not going to comment on internal deliberations going on at NATO about arrangements for the summit from this --
...
QUESTION: You are. If you can’t come out and say that the United States wants Israel to participate, its main ally in the Middle East and you won’t come out and say that the Administration wants them to participate in whatever event is going in Chicago, that’s – that is going to be seized on.
MS. NULAND: Matt, at the last summit in Lisbon, there was zero partnership participation with the exception, I think, of ISAF partners. At Lisbon there were some partnership events, and I don’t know whether all partners were included. I think they were not.
Also see Adam Kredo and Michael Rubin.
3) More gas pains
David Kirkpatrick wrote a despicable article about Egypt's decision to terminate its natural gas deal with Israel. The gist of the article was that since the deal was never approved by the Egyptian people it was of questionable validity. And, yes, Kirkpatrick suggested the same about Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Egypt claimed that Israel had not paid for gas in four months. Still Kirkpatrick insists on describing the deal to the detriment of the Egyptian people, and they're not going to take it anymore.
Lawsuits and criminal investigations have accused Mr. Mubarak and his associates of corruption for depriving Egypt of a fair market price for the gas sold to Israel. And since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster last year, unknown attackers have bombed a gas pipeline in the Egyptian Sinai more than a dozen times, apparently to disrupt the flow to Israel.
In any case this leaves out some important details (and conclusions). Barry Rubin observed:
Oh, by the way, the Egyptians have now said they will not sell natural gas any more to Israel. The pipeline that had been providing 40-50 percent of Israel’s natural gas and has been attacked numerous times by Islamist attackers in Sinai will be closed permanently. The $460 million invested in the pipeline project, mostly by Israeli, is gone forever, plus Israel will have to find a substitute source until its own offshore wells come online . While this is supposedly a commercial decision, it is obviously a response to public pressure and the sabotage campaign that the Egyptian government doesn’t care enough to stop. The New York Times dishonestly reported that the issue is just a “payment dispute.” Well, let’s see. Natural gas wasn’t delivered most of the time so Israel didn’t pay. Egyptian leaders and media said the gas shouldn’t be sold to an enemy and that to do so was treason. Sounds like a threat to those operating the natural gas industry there. The pipeline was attacked almost a dozen times and put out of commission without a major effort by Egypt’s army to defend this national economic asset. And they also demanded that Israel pay more than had been agreed, thus violating the contract. But by the time the Times’ article finishes the problem is made to sound as if it is all Israel’s fault. Just wait until Egypt escalates anti-Israel actions and the Times blames Israel for those also.
There are two important lessons here. First, any commitment made to Israel by an Arab partner is easily deemed invalid by the latter (and that would include any potential Israel-Palestine peace treaty). The United States may soon have the same experience in Egypt. Second, while a key Egyptian complaint has been that they wanted higher prices, Egypt will now lose the income from the pipeline, make investors reluctant from fear that their deals might also go up in smoke, and the country will be materially worse-off.
Kirkpatrick's article was even worse than I first thought.
I want to add regarding Richard Cohen's piece on Syria: Can anyone think of any reason why the same would not apply to Iran?
Labels: Asma al-Assad, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Middle East Media Sampler, NATO, natural gas, Soccer Dad, Syrian uprising, Turkish obsession with Israel
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, April 23.
1) Selective
At The Times, a mention of CAMERA frequently induces eye-rolling or shrugs. Editors have clearly lost patience with the group.
Neil Lewis - Israel in The New York Times Over the Decades
Last week, the "Lede" blogger for the New York Times scored a cheap point against Israel, Israeli Minister Agrees Ahmadinejad Never Said Israel ‘Must Be Wiped Off the Map’. Back in 2005, President Ahmadinejad reportedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map:
Those words were attributed to Mr. Ahmadinejad in 2005, in English translations of his speech to a “World Without Zionism” conference that October. As my colleague Ethan Bronner reported the next year, one problem was translating a metaphorical turn of phrase in Persian that has no exact English equivalent — there was, for instance, no mention of a map — and there was a heated debate about whether the original statement was a threat or a prediction.
Last week, Teymoor Nabili of Al Jazeera suggested during an interview with Dan Meridor, Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy, that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rhetorical flourish had been misinterpreted. “This idea that Iran wants to wipe Israel out,” Mr. Nabili said, “now that’s a common trope that is put about by a lot of people in Israel, a lot of people in the United States, but as we know Ahmadinejad didn’t say that he plans to exterminate Israel, nor did he say that Iran’s policy is to exterminate Israel.”
In response, Mr. Meridor said that Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had said repeatedly “that Israel is an unnatural creature, it will not survive. They didn’t say, ‘We’ll wipe it out,’ you’re right, but, ‘It will not survive.’ ”
But, as CAMERA points out, Bronner didn't exactly write what Mackey attributes to him, Just how far did the go, those words against Israel?.
But translators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the foreign ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away. Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say "wipe off" or "wipe away" is more accurate than "vanish" because the Persian verb is active and transitive.
The second translation issue concerns the word "map." Khomeini's words were abstract: "Sahneh roozgar." Sahneh means scene or stage, and roozgar means time. The phrase was widely interpreted as "map," and for years, no one objected. In October, when Mr. Ahmadinejad quoted Khomeini, he actually misquoted him, saying not "Sahneh roozgar" but "Safheh roozgar," meaning pages of time or history. No one noticed the change, and news agencies used the word "map" again.
Ahmad Zeidabadi, a professor of political science in Tehran whose specialty is Iran-Israel relations, explained: "It seems that in the early days of the revolution the word 'map' was used because it appeared to be the best meaningful translation for what he said. The words 'sahneh roozgar' are metaphorical and do not refer to anything specific. Maybe it was interpreted as 'book of countries,' and the closest thing to that was a map. Since then, we have often heard 'Israel bayad az naghshe jographya mahv gardad' — Israel must be wiped off the geographical map. Hard-liners have used it in their speeches."
Bronner concluded:
So did Iran's president call for Israel to be wiped off the map? It certainly seems so. Did that amount to a call for war? That remains an open question.
(Admittedly this is different from what CAMERA wrote:
Bronner may have asserted that Ahmadinejad didn't use the exact word for map. But his bottom line seemed to be the very opposite of what Mackey writes. The Iranian president's statement was more a threat than a prediction.
Bronner confirmed that the "map" translation was likely accurate. He was less willing to agree that it was a threat. Still CAMERA's point that Mackey selectively quoted Bronner is correct.)
By the way to support his thesis, Mackey quotes the Washington Post "fact checker," Glenn Kessler. In his "fact check," Kessler cites some authorities. In the first case he writes:
Then, specialists such as Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and Arash Norouzi of the Mossadegh Project pointed out that the original statement in Persian did not say that Israel should be wiped from the map, but instead that it would collapse.
Cole said this week that in the 1980s Khomeini gave a speech in which he said in Persian “Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.” This means, “This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the arena of time.” But then anonymous wire service translators rendered Khomeini as saying that Israel “must be wiped off the face of the map,” which Cole and Nourouzi say is inaccurate.
In the second case he writes:
But the story doesn’t end there. Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that Iranian government entities began to erect billboards and signs with the “wipe off” phrase in English. Joshua Teitelbaum of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs compiled an interesting collection of photographs of these banners, such as one on the building that houses reserve military forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Israel should be wiped out of the face of the world,” the sign reads in English.
Teitelbaum’s report, while written from a pro-Israel perspective, includes a number of threatening statements about Israel that are similar in tone to Ahmadinejad’s controversial statement.
Note, to Kessler, Cole and Norouzi are specialists, but Teitelbaum writes "from a pro-Israel perspective." A qualification like that without attesting to its accuracy is a way of saying the judgment is biased. Given that Teitelbaum collected statements from news reports and photographs, why is his perspective even relevant? (Kessler could just as well have written, "Teitelbaum, once a legislative aide to Congressman Paul N. McCloskey ..." McCloskey is not known for his pro-Israel view, to put it mildly.)
Yesterday, Patrick B Pexton, the ombudsman of the Washington Post wrote The Post fails a young blogger.
(h/t My Right Word). I'm not especially sympathetic to the young blogger, Elizabeth Flock. She was apparently what the Post hoped would be their version of Robert Mackey. But she wasn't as overtly political as Mackey and she didn't have his flair for writing.
BlogPost was supposed to attain 1 million to 2 million Web hits a month, Flock said, a huge number. On many days Flock was the only reporter filing for blogPost. Last month, she averaged 5.9 blog posts per day. These are not 100-word briefs but often 500-word summaries of complicated news events that ranged from the killing of Trayvon Martin to the use of pink slime in ground beef to the impact of general strikes in Spain.
Flock made two mistakes in the past four months, which earned her two tough editor’s notes disavowing her actions.
She did a roundup on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney allegedly using an old Ku Klux Klan slogan in his stump speech — a story that went viral online yet was untrue — and she didn’t call the Romney campaign for comment, nor did any editor make sure she did. And on April 13, she aggregated a story trending online about life on Mars. Scientists reexamining data collected from the 1976 Viking lander on the red planet concluded that there might be bacterial life there.
If all she was doing was blogging (and being paid for it!) I don't understand why it was so hard to attribute a story correctly.
But compared to Mackey's intentional deception, Flock's infractions seem relatively minor. The New York Times clearly has fewer standard than the Washington Post. Maybe they shouldn't be so quick to stop listening when CAMERA has something to say.
2) No gas
The New York Times reports, Egypt Cancels the Delivery of Gas to Israel.
Mohamed Shoeib, the head of the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, told The Associated Press on Sunday night that it was exercising a legal right to terminate the contract because its Israeli customers had not paid for the gas for four months. “This has nothing to do with anything outside of the commercial relations,” Mr. Shoeib said.
Some Israeli officials expressed concern over the suspension of the gas deal. In a statement reported by Israeli news media, Yuval Steinitz, the finance minister, said it was “a dangerous precedent that overshadows the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt.”
Based on Steinitz's comment, I'm assuming that Israel hasn't really missed payments. But the reporter doesn't mention that, just that many Egyptians feel that Israel was paying too little. The reporter David Kirkpatrick also writes:
After wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973, Egypt’s military government signed the 1979 Camp David peace accords without any public debate or consent. Egyptians of all political stripes overwhelmingly resent Israel because of its continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which many here believe to be a violation of the accords.
This is pernicious. So now anything done by the previous governments is automatically bad or illegitimate. Israel no longer occupies Gaza (and it's debatable whether it occupies the West Bank given that the vast majority of Palestinians now live under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.) Kirkpatrick, though, bends over backwards to justify the Islamist hatred of Israel. Yes he notes that all three major presidential candidates support keeping the peace treaty with Israel. But given all else that he reported, it appears that is a cynical posture maintained to continue receiving American aid. We can expect Egypt to turn the cold peace even colder in the future.
3) Two outstanding soldiers
Recently the IDF named its outstanding soldiers of the year. I've seen items about two of them. One, (via Daily Alert Blog) comes from Israel Hayom.
“S,” an Arab from eastern Jerusalem, is one of the outstanding IDF soldiers who will be recognized at this year’s Israel Independence Day ceremony at the President’s residence.
“First of all, I’m an Israeli,” he says. “For me, to continue to serve in the IDF is a dream.”
Another is Chaya Schijveschuurder who was injured but survived the Sbarro's bombing, though her parents and three of her siblings were killed. Israel Matzav has more:
Every year on Independence Day (which is being celebrated next Thursday), outstanding soldiers are honored at the President's residence. Chaya is one of the soldiers being so honored.
Yedioth Aharonoth put the story on its Facebook page, and has asked people to 'like' it. So far, 7,572 people have. And it just went up yesterday.
Labels: IDF, Iranian nuclear threat, Middle East Media Sampler, natural gas, New York Times, Soccer Dad, Washington Post, Yom HaAtzmaut
Egypt terminates gas deal with Israel
Egypt has
terminated its gas deal with Israel.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he viewed with "deep concern the unilateral Egyptian announcement over terminating the gas deal with Israel, both because of its diplomatic and economic aspects. This is a dangerous precedent that diminishes the peace treaty" between the neighboring countries.
Opposition leader Shaul Mofaz said he views the decision as a "blatant violation" of the 1979 treaty.
...
The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty stipulates that Cairo is obligated to provide its neighbor with as much oil as it could pay for – the wording was later changed from oil to natural gas.
Still, a deal was not signed until 2005, and the $460-million pipeline inaugurated four years later.
YNet adds:
Ampal-American Israel Corporation, a partner in the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), which operates the pipeline, said the Egyptian companies involved had notified EMG they were "terminating the gas and purchase agreement."
The company said in a statement that the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company had notified them of the decision, adding that "EMG considers the termination attempt unlawful and in bad faith, and consequently demanded its withdrawal".
It said EMG, Ampal, which is controlled by Israeli businessman Yossi Meiman, and EMG's other international shareholders were "considering their options and legal remedies as well as approaching the various governments".
Before the sabotage, Egypt supplied about 40% of Israel's natural gas, which is the country's main energy source.
In October 2011 EMG took legal action against the Egyptian government's energy companies and filed an $8 billion lawsuit against the Egyptians, claiming they had breached agreements obligating them to supply natural gas to the company.
I guess now they have another item to add to that lawsuit.
I would say that the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is doomed, and with it any semblance of stability in the region. But I'm sure that the Obama administration still considers getting rid of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak an A+ move.
What more could go wrong?
Labels: Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, natural gas
Gazprom to join Mediterranean energy hunt?
Russian energy giant Gazprom may be seeking to join the consortium
drilling for natural gas off Israel's and Cyprus' Mediterranean coasts (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News).
The Russians reportedly are interested in a partnership in the Leviathan field, the biggest gas zone found so far in Israel's exclusive economic zone. It contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of gas. The next biggest field is Tamar, which contains an estimated 8 tcf.
Officials in Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office say the discoveries could contain double the volume currently listed. They said the known reserves are worth $100 billion-$130 billion.
Israel's gas fields account for only a fraction of the energy riches believed to lie in the Levant Basin that stretches from Syria through Lebanon, Israel, the Gaza Strip and Egypt and includes the waters of the island of Cyprus.
The U.S. Geological Service reported in 2010 that the region contains around 122 tcf of natural gas as well as 1.7 billion barrels of oil.
If Russia joins, they might be seen as taking the side of Israel, Cyprus and Greece in a dispute with Turkey and Lebanon over natural resources.
Acquiring an interest in Israel's boom could be lucrative for Gazprom and extend its international reach. But Gazprom could also be buying into a hornet's nest of energy conflicts between regional rivals that could seriously impede development of gas fields that could transform the economy of the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey, determined to become the region's paramount power and at odds with Moscow over Syria, wouldn't look kindly on Russia muscling into its backyard on such a strategic level.
Such a development could further complicate disputes triggered between the region's states by the energy bonanza, heightening tensions from long-running conflicts in the volatile zone that until the big strikes off Israel was considered poor in natural resources.
Lebanon is at odds with Israel, with which it is technically still at war. Beirut claims Leviathan extends into its waters north of the Jewish state.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded in 1974 and seized the northern part of the island, which it proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and is recognized only by Ankara.
The island's southern sector remains under the control of Greek Cypriots whose government is recognized internationally.
Turkey, which broke a long-running strategic alliance with Israel in 2010, insists the Greek Cypriots have no authority to conduct a gas exploration program.
Israel and Cyprus, whose EEZs adjoin one another, said they plan to cooperate on gas production, jointly exporting to energy-hungry Europe via Greece.
Hmmm.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, natural gas, Russia, Turkey
Israel finds another 1.2-1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
Delek Group Ltd. and Noble Energy Inc. have announced that they have discovered
another 1.2-1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off Israel's Mediterranean coast (Hat Tip:
Shy Guy).
Delek Group Ltd. and Noble Energy Inc. on Sunday reported a substantial natural gas discovery at a depth of 5,500 meters in the offshore Tanin 1 (Crocodile) well, 120 kilometers northwest of Haifa.
The Tanin discovery reportedly amounts to 1.2-1.3 trillion cubic feet, making it slightly larger than the two company's Yam Tethys reservoir, which is rapidly depleting. Delek Group owns its share of the Tanin license through Avner Oil and Gas LP and Delek Drilling LP.
The well discovered net gas-bearing strata 40 meters thick, on the basis of logging while drilling tests. Noble Energy is now stabilizing the borehole in order to conduct wireline, electrical, seismic, and magnetic tests, as well as logging tests of the composition of the natural gas, rocks, and liquids at the well.
The target strata, part of the Tamar sands structure, are divided into two prospects - Sand A and Sand B.
The Tanin well was drilled by the Ensco 5006 rig (formerly North America Pride rig), after it drilling the Dolphin 1 well for Noble Energy and Delek.
Hmmm.
Labels: natural gas, Noble Energy
Syria claims 'terrorists' blew up gas pipeline on Lebanese border
Syrian news agency SANA is reporting that 'terrorists' have
blown up a gas pipeline along its border with Lebanon.
SANA said the pipeline carries gas from the central province of Homs to an area near the border with Lebanon. Further details on Monday's blast were not released.
There have been several pipeline attacks since the Syrian uprising began in mid-March, but it is not clear who is behind them.
President Bashar Assad's regime blames "terrorists" for the country's 10-month-old uprising.
Hmmm.
Labels: Lebanon, natural gas, Syria
Israel sets maritime border with Lebanon
With Lebanon refusing to negotiate, but
attempting to lay claim to natural gas fields that are located in Israel, on Sunday, the cabinet approved a map of
Israel's maritime border with Lebanon that it plans to send to the United Nations.
Maps prepared by the Foreign Ministry set the latitude and longitude of Israel's waters and its maritime borders.
The resolution submitted to the government says that Lebanon's claims and maps that it proposed to the UN contradict maritime boundaries it previously agreed to with Cyprus.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio on Sunday that reports that the United States backed Lebanon on the maritime border dispute are "nonsense."
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon also commenting on the maritime proposal on Sunday told Army Radio that he is confident the UN will accept Israel's position on its marine border with Lebanon.
He said, "The dispute over the border with Lebanon was created by the Lebanese. It is incorrect that the Americans sided with Lebanon in this dispute. There are very objective and organized rules, and I think that Israel will have no problem proving its ownership of the maritime areas that are ostensibly in dispute."
Ayalon added, "We've been in contact with Lebanon for a very long time. We have an interest in demarcating and setting all the borders, but they refuse. Even the current land border, which is recognized by the UN, is without Lebanese involvement or recognition. After the huge gas reserves were discovered, they suddenly woke up.
"Our position was that if the maritime borders are demarcated, the land border should be jointly demarcated as well. Now that they've suddenly sent maps, we have no choice but to set the borders ourselves."
I wish I could be convinced that the United Nations will treat us fairly. Unfortunately, we have too much
experience with that in the past. To date, at least, the United Nations has
refused to get involved in the maritime dispute. In light of that, I wonder if that last paragraph I quoted from Ayalon above is a good idea. Maybe we should just let the UN confirm the maritime border and leave the land border (supposedly
confirmed by the UN previously) for another day.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, they have not even started exploring their own territorial waters. No matter, all can be
blamed on Israel.
“They were trying to ram through a Petroleum Law, to get the exploration going,” said Prof. Brenda Shaffer, an expert on energy policy and management in the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa, referring to a Lebanese law passed last August.
“So they’re trying to get people to think ‘bad Israel,’ let’s just get this law going.”
And the energy experts think Lebanon has 'no chance' - at least at the gas fields that Israel has so far discovered.
While energy experts believe that Lebanon wouldn’t stand a chance if it were to claim Israel’s large Tamar (some 50 km. west of Haifa) or Leviathan (roughly 130 km. west of Haifa) reserves, other more northern, yet-to-be-explored areas are more perhaps more in question.
“According to our understanding, Tamar and of course Leviathan – which is southwest of Tamar – are south of the claimed marine border as planned by Lebanon,” Amit Mor, CEO and energy specialist at the Herzliya Pituach-based Eco Energy consulting firm, told the Post on Sunday. “Nevertheless, the Lebanese are claiming sovereignty over areas that are claimed by Israel and to which exploration rights have already been granted to various companies by the Israeli government.”
For Lebanon, discovery and drilling of its own natural gas will be crucial for its energy supply, most of which currently comes from imported oil, Shaffer explained. There isn’t much known about the amount of gas located off Lebanon’s shores, but a European company did conduct a survey and saw “promising signs,” according to Shaffer.
“Their only gas that they get is from Egypt to Jordan, Jordan to Syria and Syria to Lebanon,” she said.
Read the whole thing.
But the weakness of their claim won't stop Lebanon from
protecting its 'rights.'
"Lebanon has warned that it insists on protecting its borders and resources," said Ali Hamdan, spokesman for Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in a telephone interview from Beirut.
The Israeli Cabinet decision “comes late, as it is proof that they want to drill to see where there might be oil and gas, and then demarcate the border,” Hamdan added.
And of course the Lebanese line conflicts with the Israeli one. This is Prime Minister Netanyahu.
"The area we are discussing borders in the north with Lebanon and Cyprus. The [maritime] line that Lebanon presented to the UN is significantly south of the Israeli line," he said. "It contradicts the line Israel has agreed upon with Cyprus, and what is more significant to me is that it contradicts the line that Lebanon itself concluded with Cyprus in 2007. Our goal is to establish the position of Israel regarding its maritime boundary, according to international maritime law."
So who is trying to adjust the map based on where the gas has been discovered? What could go wrong?
Labels: Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, maps, natural gas, oil and gas exploration
Is it really just the price?
Egypt says that it's reviewing its contract to supply natural gas to Israel. But it's trying to put that review in a context of reviewing all of its contracts with foreign buyers, including those contracts'
pricing provisions.
Egypt is reviewing the timetable for resuming gas exports to Israel and wants to negotiate more flexible contracts with foreign gas buyers, the Egyptian oil minister said on Thursday.
Asked when Egypt would resume the exports, Petroleum Minister Abdullah Ghorab said the issue was "under review".
...
Israel received natural gas from Egypt under a 20-year deal signed in 2005, but flows were halted when an armed gang attacked a metering station in North Sinai on April 27.
Supplies have been halted for over a month, and US investors in the company that operates the Israel export pipeline, Ampal American Israel Corp, have taken legal steps against Egypt's government to ensure gas flows resume.
Israel gets up to 45 percent of its natural gas from Egypt.
Egypt said in April it would review its gas contracts with other states, including Israel and Jordan, amid accusations that the government of deposed President Hosni Mubarak had improperly negotiated the sale of gas at preferential prices.
In an apparent reference to Egypt's efforts to renegotiate gas terms, Ghorab said on Thursday he favored flexible contracts and pricing formulas to allow a "fair and sustainable relationship between sellers and buyers".
"This was exactly our understanding in Egypt of how this relation should be when we got into a renegotiation process for revising Egyptian export gas prices for our long-time contracts that have been accomplished a long time ago under completely different world market conditions," Ghorab said.
The rhetoric in the media indicate that this has nothing to do with pricing or market conditions. And even if the current military regime restores Israel's gas supplies on whatever terms, I would not expect that supply to continue if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over.
But perhaps
this is why the Egyptians are at least talking in terms of prices and market conditions.
Labels: Egyptian gas pipeline, natural gas
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt urges end to 'normalisation' with Israel
This should not really surprise anyone. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the best organized political party in the country, is urging an end to 'normalisation' with Israel and a
full review of the peace treaty.
“We should now raise our voice to ask for: an end to normalisation [with Israel] which has given our enemy stability; an end to [Egyptian] efforts to secure from infiltrators the borders of the Zionists; the abolition of all [joint] economic interests such as the Qualified Industrial Zones agreement and the export of Egyptian gas to Israel,” said Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood’s leader.
The QIZ agreement allows Egypt to export manufactured goods to the US duty-free as long as they have Israeli inputs to a value of 10 per cent.
...
Moves such as the export of Egyptian gas to Israel have always been unpopular and activists tried to stop them through the courts before the fall of Mr Mubarak. Sameh Fahmy, the former oil minister, and seven of his aides have been detained since the fall of Mr Mubarak in connection with the exports, which are alleged to have been sold at less than the market value.
Analysts say Egypt is now charting a more independent foreign policy. The Mubarak regime was seen by many Egyptians to be closely aligned with US and Israeli interests, especially in its later years.
Egyptian public opinion has always been wary of any normalisation of relations with Israel despite more than 30 years of formal peace. But analysts caution that this does not mean a majority would want a return to the state of war.
It requires a lot less than a state of war for Israel to lose many of the benefits of its cold peace with Egypt. It's not the natural gas sales -
Qatar may be willing to replace Egyptian gas, at least until Israel's own natural gas wells come online. The problem - according to our intelligence services and the IDF - is that for the last 30 years, Israel has not worried about the Egyptian border. Now, we would have to start, and that would necessitate a much larger IDF.
I'm not sure why we have not worried about the Egyptian border for the last 30 years. After all, Egypt's war exercises were always directed at Israel and not at any of its other neighbors. But apparently that didn't phase the IDF or the intelligence services too much. Now, they appear to at least deem it necessary to devote the resources to countering Egypt.
Labels: Egyptian regime change, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Muslim Brotherhood, natural gas, Qatar
After pipeline explosion, Israel can meet energy needs but at a cost
In the aftermath of Wednesday's sabotage
explosion of a gas pipeline near El Arish, the Israel Electric Company says that
it can fulfill the country's energy needs, but at both a financial and an environmental cost.
“The Israel Electric Corporation has the means to guarantee a continuous supply of electricity to meet the country’s demands for all of its users, regardless of the cessation in the Egyptian gas supply,” said Dr. Amit Mor, CEO and energy specialist at the Eco Energy consulting firm. “IEC will do this by utilizing the Ashkelon and Hadera coal plants at maximum capacity.”
Coal currently fuels the production of 62 percent of Israel’s electricity, while natural gas accounts for 36% – two-fifths of which is supplied by Egypt, according to Mor.
Senior officials at the IEC convened on Wednesday for a discussion headed by Chairman Yiftah Ron-Tal and CEO Eli Glickman to appraise the situation and determine potential alternative methods for running power plants, including the use of petroleum, the corporation said in a statement.
“We do not expect that as a result of the latest event there will be any drops in the supply of electricity from our power plants,” said National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
“The IEC is well-equipped to deal with such incidents.”
While he agreed that the IEC is completely prepared to handle the situation, Mor said that the current case will be slightly more difficult to manage than that of February “because the demand for electricity during these upcoming days and weeks is significantly higher than the demand for electricity back in the winter,” due to increased use of air conditioning.
“It was a mild winter,” he said.
In addition to making extra use of the coal plants, the IEC will probably convert several of the stations that currently run on natural gas to operate on heavy fuel oil and diesel instead, Mor predicted.
Though sufficient to fulfill Israel’s energy needs, these switches to coal and oil will cost the IEC an additional $1.5 million-$2m. per day, however, according to Mor.
“Coal prices have increased significantly in the past few weeks, due to an increasing demand for coal in China and in the international market. Now coal is more costly than the Egyptian gas,” he said.
Egyptian gas currently costs Israel somewhere between $4.10- 4.50 per million British thermal units (there are 6 million British thermal units in one barrel of oil), while heavy fuel oil costs $20 per million and diesel costs $25 per million, Mor explained.
“[Diesel] is six times higher than the price of Egyptian gas,” he continued.
“At the end of the day, we, the electricity consumers, will pay that additional cost through the price of electricity.
“If the halt of the gas supply is short, then the increase in the electricity price will be marginal, but if the halt is long or permanent, then the resultant increase in the electricity price will be significant.”
After last summer, which saw temperatures in Jerusalem soar over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, many people in this city have installed central air conditioning for the first time. That means that electric use this summer is likely to spike much faster than it did last summer. And the costs aren't just financial.
“Burning coal and fuel oil has adverse environment impacts because of the higher emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate metals, which have negative health effects, as well as carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming and climate change,” Mor said.
“Although heavy fuel oil is significantly cheaper than diesel, due to environmental reasons, the priority should be to utilize the diesel-based power plants before the utilization of the heavy fuelbased power plants.”
Some of you asked yesterday when Israel's newly discovered natural gas (not oil) supply from the fields off the Haifa coast would be coming online. Current estimates of that are 2013-14. Not soon enough.
And one other little tidbit I heard on Wednesday. You know how we're constantly hearing how cheaply Israel is buying natural gas from Egypt? Well, we're paying multiples of what Jordan, Lebanon and Syria are paying.
Labels: Egyptian gas pipeline, Israel Electric Corporation, natural gas, sabotage
