The real reason why Israel massacred Palestinians - 2009

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon's Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine's gas reserves could be much larger.

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza's gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza's offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine's sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza's offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza's offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas "was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt." (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

"Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government." (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza's offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.

The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:

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[deepfriedprawn]

i support Israel.

Israelis want peace, you gave them rockets. They want Life, you gave them death. They want Development, you gave them destruction. They gave you Gaza, you have them build bomb shelters. They gave you jobs, you gave them dead bodies.

Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones. Your neighbor got boulders.

I'm not buying the arab muslim stories.

[aiveec]

This is all Arab propaganda.

[ofri75]

@alexsulle - I can also join him and agree: YES hundreds of thousands of palestinans from west bank and Gaza worked in Israel, during the "good" years, and they have flaurished, and made a lot of money, and managed to bring food to their families. After the horrible wage of terror began, we stopped leting them work in our country. Sick are people like you who dont understand the situation and never even been to Israel and dare to criticise us.

PS - israeli settlements are legal!

[alexsulle]

YOU say they gave the palestinians in gaza and westbank jobs?, thats so ridiculous that i wont even answer. AND THIS is just some of the resons. you people make me sick i dont understand how you can just ignore the horrible things that the israeli state is doing and also what the settlers in the westbank and in east jerusalem. aren't you human? LONG LIVE FREE PALESTINE!

[alexsulle]

@deepfriedprawn you say israel wants peace?, but why does they steel land from the westbank every day?

you say israel wants life?, but why did they attack an UN-school, build to protect kids with illegal white phosphorus?. You say israel wants development?, but why did they attack gazas industry and infrastructure?

you say they gave the israelis gave them gaza?, but how can you give them something that already belongs to them and has since 2000 years back in time.

[AvihooI]

lolol... funny how far can worldwide media can go with with its stupidity... grotesque even.

[Elricadon]

bullshit !!! i am from Gaza.

[barak219]

seriously this is so stupid...a much larger gas deposit was found off the shores of haifa and israel said from the start that it wont stay in gaza and behold! they didnt.

this show need a reality check.

[mikkitiny]

wow. now it's clear why Israel launched that ferrocious attack. they want to steal th gas from palestinians, they want to trade what does not belong to them. and Hamas was against that. Hamas is right at the point, the gas belongs to palestinians , BG group got the right to get the gas from palestinians and palestinians have a right to control the sale and get fair share of gas revenues. Israel deprived palestinians of land, Israel deprived them of water, now wants tro rob them of gas. wow!

[amyanthony2002]

skulls and bone are behind 911. they want north american union with amero....members are bill clinton bush and bush`s father and obama....working for the central bankers..... 911 was a inside job.......