Islam, oil and gas ...or a bit of both?

Submitted by Martin H. Katchen (United States), Dec 27, 2011 at 12:25

This article does not mention what is probably the biggest reason for the end of Turkey's entente with Israel; Israel's joint development, with Cyprus and Noble Energy of Houston, TX, of the large Leviathan gas field. Turkey is claiming that the unrecognized Turkish Cypriot state in the North of Cyprus, has the right to an equal share of all of Cyprus's offshore oil and gas reserves in a bid to force international recognition of North Cyprus. Israel's cooperation with Cyprus (Greek) put Israel at odds with Turkey on a matter Turkey sees as vital. Besides which of course, Israel's development of it's energy reserves is a way of Israel getting uppity and making itself less vulnerable to international pressure.

It literally means that Israel, once it is an oil and gas exporter (the reserves of offshore gas and onshore oil shale are that large) will have the staying power to prosecute a major war for longer than 2 weeks and therefore will have no strategic reason to obey UN or Great Power calls for ceasefire and withdrawal from territory taken as a result of war. It also means that it will be that much harder to enforce any international sanctions against Israel for the same reasons that sanctions against Iran are dificult to enforce. Energy independence for Israel is a repudiation of Israel's state of international dhimmitude and therefore is intolerable to any predominantly Muslim nation.

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