Palestinian and Lebanese Gas Fields

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

For a long time now, it has been known that gas fields were discovered off the coast of the Gaza Strip and within Palestinian territorial waters, but the matter was kept quiet and pushed out of the media because of its economic and political sensitivity, and no one spoke of it anymore. But the subject has recently come back to life after Israel announced the discovery of huge gas fields off the coast of Acre and Haifa, especially now that Lebanon’s ears and eyes have opened wide to it.

According to the information available to me, the quantities of gas discovered off the Gaza coast are very large, and if they were exploited, Palestine would move out of the circle of want and scarce economic resources into an era of material abundance that would drive broad investment across every area of life. Israel has kept the matter hushed up so as not to run afoul of international law, and so as not to stir the peoples of the earth and some of their governments against it — given that international law does not permit the exploitation of the resources of territory under occupation or siege for the benefit of the power carrying out that occupation or siege. And if Israel does exploit these fields in defiance of international law, it cannot escape handing over a share of the revenue flowing from them to Gaza or to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

For this reason Israel has continued prospecting along the length of the Palestinian coast, hoping to find further fields within what it calls its territorial waters, and this is what was announced recently. True to their heroic custom, the Lebanese did not wait patiently, and demanded that their government hasten the process of prospecting for gas off Lebanon’s southern coast and work to exploit it. Israel immediately threatened that any approach to its territorial waters would be considered an act of aggression against it requiring a forceful response, thereby warning Lebanon.

[belonging] to the Zionist state extends north of Naqoura to form a line running from the settlement of Metula westward, parallel to the notional Palestinian-Lebanese border. That is, according to their own claim, the Zionists’ territorial waters extend as far as north of Tyre, or to the mouth of the Litani River at al-Qasimiyya. This is a claim that means Israel does not recognize the Lebanese territory south of the Litani as Lebanese, does not recognize Lebanon’s rights to its river waters, nor to the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Lebanese will certainly confront every one of these aggressive Zionist policies.

As for Palestine, all Palestinians are required to raise the issue of the gas fields off the coast of Gaza, and Mr. Ismail Haniyeh in particular is strongly required to turn the matter into an international cause. This subject must be raised on every occasion and in every forum, and a public awareness campaign is needed so that the people are fully informed about it. Palestinians must draw in offers to prospect for gas, sign agreements to that effect, and press hard for their mining rights. The fields that are available are capable of providing income for the Palestinian people everywhere sufficient to spare them the indignity of depending on others, and to free them from begging, pleading, and material dependence on others — and this in turn would liberate their political will and bring them closer to liberating their homeland and reclaiming their rights.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حقول الغاز الفلسطينية واللبنانية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.