Netanyahu's turn to the Left? Or turn to his real constituency?

Submitted by Martin H. Katchen (United States), Jul 8, 2013 at 21:58

There is another way of looking at Netanyahu's uncharacteristic support for the so called "peace process". One is to look at who Netanyahu's REAL constituency is and who the REAL constituency for the "peace process" is. Did anyone catch how the CEO of Deleq Oil called urgently for peace negotiations?

Right now, Israel is in a delicate phase of bringing the Leviathan gas field onstream. As much as Leviathan is protected both by the Israeli Navy, Iron Dome and the US Sixth Fleet, it is still vulnerable to a Hezbollah missile strike. And Hezbollah has threatened to strike Leviathan, calling it a violation of Lebanon's sovreignty. One should have nothing to do with the other. But if Israel did not negotiate at this time, the US could withdraw it's naval protection. Noble Oil might pull it's rig out.

In a year or two, when the natural gas pipe has been set and most if not all of the infrastructure is over 1000 feet underwater, Israel will be much less vulnerable to this kind of attack. And Deleq's oil shale project in the Valley of Elah, backed by Halliburton and Rupert Murdoch among others may be ready to go commercial. So these negotiations may be seen as playing for time.

One can only hope that once again, Mahmoud Abbas cannot say "yes" and make "yes" stick, since if time runs out on this set of negotiation attempts, Israel will be in a position to be independent enough not to have to engage in them for a long time to come if ever.

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