{"id":50894,"date":"2020-02-02T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T17:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=50894"},"modified":"2020-02-02T12:25:29","modified_gmt":"2020-02-02T17:25:29","slug":"pipeline-or-a-pipe-dream-israel-turkey-hydrocarbon-conflict-is-brewing-in-the-mediterranean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=50894","title":{"rendered":"Pipeline or a Pipe Dream: Israel, Turkey Hydrocarbon Conflict is Brewing in the Mediterranean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2020\/01\/31\/pipeline-or-a-pipe-dream-israel-turkey-hydrocarbon-conflict-is-brewing-in-the-mediterranean\/\">Pipeline or a Pipe Dream: Israel, Turkey Hydrocarbon Conflict is Brewing in the Mediterranean<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2020\/01\/34227633053_b053334c03_c.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-119068\"\/><figcaption>Photograph Source: Jay Phagan \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Massive natural gas discoveries off the coast of Israel and Palestine are slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic wealth is yet to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is certain, however, is that the Middle East is already in the throes of a major geostrategic war, which has the potential of becoming an actual military confrontation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unsurprisingly, Israel is at the heart of this growing conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLast week, we started to stream gas to Egypt. We turned Israel into an energy superpower,\u201d Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, bragged during a cabinet meeting on January 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Netanyahu\u2019s self-congratulating remarks came on the heels of some exciting financial news for the embattled Prime Minister, as both Jordan and Egypt are now Tel Aviv\u2019s clients, receiving billions of cubic meters of Israeli gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Netanyahu, pumping Israeli gas to two neighboring Arab countries constitutes more than just economic and political advantages \u2013 it is a huge personal boost. The Israeli leader is trying to convince the public to vote for him in yet another general election in March, while pleading to Israel\u2019s political elite to give him immunity so that he can stay out of prison for various corruption charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For years, Israel has been exploiting the discovery of massive deposits of natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields \u2013 located nearly 125 km and 80 km west of Haifa respectively \u2013 to reconstruct regional alliances and to redefine its geopolitical centrality to Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Israeli strategy, however, has already created potentials for conflict in an already unstable region, expanding the power play to include Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, and Libya, as well as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pipeline or a Pipe Dream: Israel, Turkey Hydrocarbon Conflict is Brewing in the Mediterranean Massive natural gas discoveries off the coast of Israel and Palestine are slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[3790,1049,522,28940,818],"class_list":["post-50894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-gas-pipeline","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-ramzy-baroud","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50896,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50894\/revisions\/50896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}