 Over the past few weeks, an old controversy between Lebanon and Israel over the use of off-shore gas fields has broken out once again. This was sparked by Israel sending a European vessel to develop the Karish gas field, which according to Lebanon, isn't disputed waters. The countries have been engaged in a long deadlock over their exclusive economic zones where they conduct commercial activities. The political crisis in Lebanon over the years has also contributed to this issue as has the US backing of Israel. What are the key issues in this dispute? What are the positions of Israel and Lebanon? What results have the negotiations yielded? Rania Khalik of Breakthrough News explains. So there's this risk of a major escalation between the Lebanese and the Israelis over the anticipated Israeli explanation and what are disputed waters off the coast. You know, obviously these two countries share a coast and they're Mediterranean because they border each other. So there's this impending crisis, but really to understand how it happened, it's important to understand why the Lebanese adopted what's called line 29 and why it was important. So there are these promising gas fields in the Mediterranean off the coast. Israel is already exploiting some of these gas fields in undisputed waters. And of course, Lebanon, particularly now that it is suffering this horrible economic collapse and an energy crisis is very eager to exploit the potential resources in its waters. But first, the border has to be demarcated. So Lebanon doesn't recognize Israel, obviously, and is technically in a state of war with Israel, which means the dispute over the line of whose, you know, whose water, which waters belong to Lebanon, which area belongs to Israel. That dispute can't be resolved in the way that most maritime borders are demarcated because these countries don't have a diplomatic relationship. They don't communicate. So the Israelis and Lebanese delegations, they do actually meet by the border, but they don't talk directly because of their enemy status towards each other. So there's an American mediator between them as well as as UN observers. So over 10 years ago, it's important to understand that a very weak and at the time, pro Saudi Lebanese government submitted to the UN its position on the border, which gave Israel everything it wanted. It's actually kind of shocking. It's almost it's actually treacherous what this government demanded or, you know, didn't demand. And that was under the leadership of Fuad Senyura. Then a couple of years ago, a Lebanese lawyer who's an expert in this stuff, who happens to be an expert in this stuff, he pointed out to the government of Lebanon that international law and actually recent presidents gave Lebanon significantly more than its previous and incompetent government had requested. So the new line that this this international like law expert was suggesting to the government is called line 29. So prior to the Lebanese preparing to change their demand to line 29, the talks had been frozen for years. The two sides like weren't speaking on this at all. And then suddenly a couple of weeks before Lebanon officially corrected their position to accept line 29 as the line that they're going to demand. The Americans and the Israelis got interested in talking again and negotiations were restarted. So there was a deal basically precooked between the Lebanese and Israeli negotiators that was actually interestingly enough ruined by the American mediator at the time. And so there was this actually after this one disastrous meeting in 2021, the American mediator got busy and then ultimately ended up moving to Qatar. That's beside the point. But then a new American mediator was appointed by the Biden administration and his name is almost Hochstein. So the problem with this guy is that on top of being American, he also is actually Israeli and has served in the Israeli military prior to joining the US government. So this is who the Biden administration appointed to be the American mediator between the Israelis and the Lebanese. So it's a little bit weird, right? So Hochstein came to Lebanon and he made an offer that nobody in Lebanon could accept, which included, you know, sharing a gas field with Israel. It looked like a really sneaky way actually to normalize relations between Lebanon and Israel, which is what everyone suspected was happening with this American mediation effort as they were trying to use it as a way to push normalization between these two countries. So some Lebanese politicians that they can't say no to the US, they fear the consequences. And at the same time, they but at the same time, they can't accept this offer from the US because it's just completely unacceptable. I mean, unacceptable, like even to pro-Western elements in Lebanon, like if they were to accept this deal, it would be seen as treachery, as treasonous. So Hochstein also started his line from the land at a point that was advocated by the Israelis, which would have met compromising on the land boundary established 100 years ago, something called the Pallet-Nukom line. And on the land, you know, on the land, the boundaries like already established. The Lebanese argument is actually grounded in international law. It is this Pallet-Nukom line. And if you started on another point on the shore, which is different than the land, then this agreement on the land or this agreement on the shore can be used by the Israelis for other locations on what, you know, we still have 13 disputed points on land by the Israelis against Lebanon, saying it's their land. So Israel's claim is based on this tiny island called Tachelet and its impact or effect, right? So the issue is the effect of this island, like, does the island have full effect or zero effect on how you like on how you delineate the line for, you know, which side belongs to who? And this, of course, depends on the island. So if you give the island what's called full effect, you get the line the Americans and Israelis want, which is deep into Lebanese waters. If you ignore this island, you get line 29, which is what the Lebanese are now demanding. So the criteria to decide if this island has full effect or not is the impact of the island on the line. And I know this is getting really technical, but it's important. If the impact, though, this is under like the international law, if the impact of the island is disproportionate on the line compared to the size of the island, then it's like disregarded. So this tiny island that I mentioned is basically it's a tiny rock. It's like not even an island. It's literally 20 meters wide. The Israeli and Americans claim that its impact is 1,800 square kilometers. So because of this tiny rock, they want Lebanon to lose 1,800 kilometers of this like, you know, this land in the sea. OK, this is like a blatant disproportionate effect. No question like international law allows Lebanon to literally disregard it. And this was actually confirmed in the last judgment of the International Court of Justice in a case between Somalia and Kenya. When this like tiny Somali, when these tiny Somali islands were disregarded and those islands were literally the same size and same location vis-a-vis the coast, like the the Teclitz Island I'm talking about, literally one kilometer from the coast. So the Lebanese have a very, very strong case for this line 29. So the alternative is to give an island what's called half effect or partial effect. And these are also solutions like international case law. It's always zero, full or half effect when it comes to these islands. And half effect is always given to like very big islands that are inhabited and have like people living on them, which is not the case for this island off the coast of Lebanon. And even the half effect in this case should not apply because of how small and insignificant this island is. But let's suppose for pragmatic reasons or because there's like black mail and Lebanon needs the energy and electricity. So maybe they're willing to accept less than what they're entitled to, which is I think what the Americans are betting on. They can accept half effect and it's still a huge compromises, but you know, compromise, but that's grounded in international law. So Lebanon at the moment has no government. It's in a caretaker capacity because there was elections and like the new parliament hasn't elected a new prime minister yet. So there's no decision making processes right now. Nothing like Lebanon is essentially like a failed state at the moment. And the army doesn't have the means to defend Lebanese sovereignty. It never has. You know, it's it perp intentionally kept a week like that by the Americans in Western countries that literally like send it aid. But Lebanon does have Hisbola, which views itself as the protector of Lebanese sovereignty and has been quietly observing the Lebanese government's behavior on this issue and has recently made its position quite clear. So they know that Israel has no reason to make concessions or give Lebanon more than what Hodgstein proposed when it's facing this weak Lebanese government that's intimidated by the Americans, you know, who are constantly threatening sanctions and are sanctioning Lebanon to some degree. But the oil and gas exploration is carried out by private companies. And we all know that capital is a coward and the companies will won't start exploring or extracting until the surrounding conditions are stable and peaceful to some degree. Like even big companies are sensitive to destabilization. You don't need to look any further than the Tamar field and Chevron. And during the last Gaza war in May 2021 of last year, Chevron had to shut it down for two weeks because of the threat from Hamas. And the Tamar field is very far from Gaza and Hamas doesn't actually have missiles good enough to even reach it. You know, so but they still shut it down because any sign of destabilization and these companies get very scared. So Israel shouldn't look at Lebanon and get greedy when they see leaders who don't defend Lebanon's rights because his Bullah will take action if it thinks that Lebanese politicians are selling out Lebanese rights. And, you know, in the past had Bullah had said what we accept whatever the state decides. But then after what Hassan Nasrallah said a few months ago and actually he's set to speak on this issue again this week about a disputed area and Israel shouldn't think that it'll be able to work in disputed area before a solution is found. And then in May, Nasrallah made it very clear that he won't accept Israel exploring in disputed areas. So the question actually becomes like, will his Bullah allow activities in this disputed area? Israel really shouldn't think that private companies will be able to work freely in disputed areas before a settlement is reached. His Bullah is not going to allow it. They know how to make threats credible. This is not the Lebanon of the 1960s. Lebanese officials of course are very sensitive to American pressure and the threat of sanctions but his Bullah is not sensitive to those things. His Bullah has made it clear they want there to be a maritime border agreement but they will not accept an unfair one imposed by the U.S. and Israel at the expense of Lebanese interests. And they also acknowledge that there will be a compromise in the end of course. And they've reminded their interlocutors that they have ways of preventing any exploration or extraction by Israel if the deal is perceived to be at the expense of Lebanese rights. They would however, I know this for a fact, they would accept the formula I described before. So the point of all this is to say the region, it's moving towards de-escalation. And we've talked about that before on this program. And actors like his Bullah are busy with the internal problems of their country. They're busy with economic collapse and providing for their community. So there is actually a chance to close the maritime border issue in a satisfactory way and then move on to the land border in fact and remove a major part of the conflict from the equation. And again, like the most reasonable solution is accepting this half effect that I mentioned because Lebanon is weak, it needs the economic boost and it ends up with one gas field called Kana going fully to the Lebanese side and then one called Karish going fully to the Israeli side. And so that's certainly possible but it also depends on if the Americans choose to act as spoilers. And of course right now, you see Israel really taking this silly move of sending this like Greek ship to the coast that provoked, attempting to provoke his Bullah over the weekend which is what Hassan Isra'la is gonna be speaking on. But regardless, at the end of the day, this could go either way, it could either escalate a situation in a very serious way or it actually, there is an opportunity should the Americans care enough to not get in the way of it. There is an opportunity to de-escalate. Amos Hochstein is supposed to come to Lebanon soon. So it's yet to be seen like how the Americans will play it.