ARABS KEEP OUT! ISRAEL LAYS CLAIM TO ALL THE RESOURCES

by Manlio Dinucci

For years, various companies have been exploring the hydrocarbon deposits in the Levantine Basin, but only a handful of political and economic leaders were privy to the size of the prize. On 29 December 2010, the Israeli authorities gave Noble Energy Inc. the green light to release the news. The communication, announcing that exploitation was taking off after a political freeze, has been coupled with a diplomatic campaign to allow Tel Aviv to siphon off all the reserves to the detriment of the other coastline states.

U.S.-based Noble Energy Inc. recently announced a massive natural gas field discovery, located 130 kilometers offshore of Haifa [1] and consisting of an estimated 450 billion cubic meters. Resources in the surrounding area should total some 700 billion cubic meters. Exploration and exploitation are overseen by an international consortium composed by U.S. company Noble Energy Inc., currently the largest shareholder with a 40% stake, plus Israeli enterprises Delek, Avner and Ratio Oil Exploration [2]

This accounts for only a small part of the energy reserves abounding in the Levantine basin, which comprises Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and their territorial waters. According to U.S. Geological Survey, a U.S. Government agency which has been prospecting in the region for several years, the natural gas deposits in the basin consist of approximately 3 500 billion cubic meters, while the oil reserves have been assessed at 1,7 billion barrels.

The Israeli government, with Washington’s backing, considers it is entitled to all the energy reserves. Israeli national infrastructure minister Uzi Landau declared that the large natural gas fields would not only bring economic benefits to Israeli citizens but could also transform Israel into a gas supplier in the Mediterranean region. However, objected Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri, Israel is disregarding the fact that according to the maps the fields stretch into Lebanese territorial waters. The United Nations Convention stipulates that a coastal state may exploit offshore gas and oil reserves within a zone extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the shore.

According to the sample principle, the reserves belong in great measure also to the Palestinian Authority. From the map drawn up by the U.S. Geological Survey itself, it emerges that the major portion of the gas deposits (around 60%) lie in the waters and territory belonging to Gaza. Exploitation rights were granted by the Palestinian Authority to a consortium formed by British Gas and its partner Consolidated Contractors (based in Athens and owned by two Lebanese families), of which 10% is held by the Palestinian Authority.

Two wells, Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2 are ready but not operational. In fact, Tel Aviv has systematically rebuffed all the proposals from the Palestinian Authority and the consortium to export gas to Israel and Egypt. Therefore, the Palestinians possess vast riches which they are unable to exploit.

To seize the totality of the energy reserves – both Palestinian and Lebanese – bathing in the Levantine Basin, Israel has chosen the military option. The Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister Ali al-Shami recently urged the UN Secretary General to prevent Israel from exploiting the offshore energy reserves located in Lebanese territorial waters. Minister Uzi Landau claimed instead that the reserves are in Israeli waters and warned that his country will not think twice about employing force to protect them. Israel has therefore threatened to attack Lebanon again, like it did in 2006, with the intention this time of impeding it from exploiting its offshore deposits [3].

It is for the same reason that Israel does not accept a Palestinian state. To do so would imply the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty over a large portion of the energy reserves, which Israel wants to grab. It was to this end that the 2008-2009 “Cast Lead Operation” was launched and Gaza caught in the clutches of the blockade. Meanwhile, Israeli war ships control the whole of the Levantine Basin – and hence the offshore oil and gas reserves – within the framework of the NATO-sponsored “Mediterranean Dialogue” to “contribute to the security and stability of the regi

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Turkey PM: Netanyahu has worst government in history of Israel

Erdogan tells Al-Jazeera that Lieberman is Israel's 'greatest problem' and urges the Israeli public to 'get rid' of him; he also denies Western definition of Hamas as a terrorist movement and declares peace impossible until they are brought into negotiations.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Recep Erdogan on Thursday decried Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government as the "worst" in the history of Israel.

The once close ties between Israel and Turkey began faltering following the war in Gaza two years ago and spiraled to an unprecedented low following Israel's deadly raid on a Turkish-flagged aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip last May.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Erdogan said that Turkey would uphold the chill in relations until Israel relented in its refusal to apologize for the raid and compensate the families of the nine pro-Palestinian activists killed aboard the Mavi Marmara.

"As long as Netanyahu's government does not change its policies, it cannot expect us to change ours," Erdogan told Al-Jazeera.

Erdogan added that Turkey had no interest in renewing any of the accords it had signed with Israel and would also consider refreshing relations once Israel acceded to its demands.

Erdogan also deemed Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Israel's "greatest problem", reacting to the latter's remarks that Turkey's demands for apology were cheeky ("chutzpah"). The Turkish premier told interviewers that the Israel public should "get rid" of Lieberman, who he called a "despicable" man.

"It is up to them, not us" to unseat Lieberman, said Erdogan, adding: "If they don't, Israel's problems will only get worse."

Erdogan also voiced support for the Hamas rulers of Gaza and denied the Western definition of the group as terrorists.

"Hamas is not a terrorist movement. They are people defending their land. It is a movement that entered the elections and won," he declared, adding that the group has never been given the chance to rule as a democratic regime.

The Turkish premier added that Hamas must be brought into negotiations for a permanent settlement to the conflict, declaring that without their input Palestinian-Israel peace was impossible.

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Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews During World War ll

Posted January 7, 2011 by Patrick Mac Manus in International.

It has been said “the story of Albania’s Muslims, and what they did during World War II, is one of the great untold stories of the world.” In recent years, these private heroisms have been revitalized through the lens of Jewish-American photographer Norman H. Gershman and his collected images and oral histories that make up the travelling portrait exhibit called Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews During World War II.

The story is quite an extraordinary one. When Hitler’s troops began invading the Balkan States in the early 1940s, Muslims across Albania took an estimated 2,000 Jewish refugees into their homes en masse and welcomed them not as refugees, but as guests.

They disguised these Jews as Muslims, took them to mosque, called them Muslim names, gave them Muslim passports, hid them when they needed to, and then ferried them to inaccessible mountain hamlets.

“In fact, Albania is the only Nazi-occupied country that sheltered Jews,” says Gershman. The Jewish population in Albania grew by ten-fold during World War II, and it became the only country in occupied Europe to have more Jews at the end of the war than at the beginning. Records from the International School for Holocaust Studies show that not one Albanian Jew or any of the other thousands of refugees were given up to the Nazis by Albanian Muslims. “They did this in the name of their religion,” Gershman says. “They absolutely had no prejudice what so ever.”

That is because these Muslims held themselves accountable to what Albanians call Besa, which is still upheld as the highest ethical code in the country. “Besa is a code of honour deeply rooted in Albanian culture and incorporated in the faith of Albanian Muslims,” the gallery explained in the show’s press release. “It dictates a moral behaviour so absolute that non-adherence brings shame and dishonour to oneself and one’s family. Besa demands that one take responsibility for the lives of others in their time of need. This Islamic behaviour of compassion and mercy celebrates the sanctity of life and a view of the other- the stranger- as one’s own close family member.”

“Most remarkably, this was all done with the consent and support of the entire country. Thousands of Jews, hidden in plain sight- everyone knew- and no one told.”

Over a five-year period that began in 2002, Gershman travelled to Albania to document these surviving Muslim families and collect their stories, both through pictures and words. A man who worked for the Albania-Israel Friendship Society carried a small notebook with the names and addresses of these Muslim families, and with that, an interpreter, a driver and an assistant, Gershman crisscrossed the country, finding these families in cities, villages, even at the end of gravel roads. Yad Vashem knew of 63 families on record, but Gershman’s trek led him to more than 150. “I travelled all through Albania and Kosovo where I met the rescuer’s children, who are in their sixties or even older, the rescuers’ widows, and in some cases the rescuer himself.” He took their portraits and began with the same question: What is your story?

“I asked them, ‘Why did you do this? What was in the Quar’an that you did this?’ They would only smile. Some of them said: ‘We have saved lives to go to paradise.”

“There was no government conspiracy, no underground railroad, no organized resistance of any kind-” Gershman said, “only individual Albanians, acting alone, to save the lives of people whose lives were in immediate danger. My portraits of these people, and their stories, are meant to reflect their humanity, their dignity, their religious and moral convictions, and their quiet courage.”

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