Let it be known that it will be easier to find water on the
Moon than to find a grain of truth in Israel . With this caveat in place,
let us discuss what is known about the natural gas situation in the Eastern Mediterranean region.
It was revealed a few years ago that gas was discovered in
an area where the economic zones of Turkey ,
Syria , Lebanon , Cyprus ,
Palestine and Israel converge. Even though the
proven reserves that Israel
may legitimately claim did not exceed the 4.5 trillion cubic feet, Israel 's
officials jumped the gun and declared it was 18 trillion – a figure that would
include the possibility of the “proven” reserves quadrupling … something that
happens at times under the most favorable of circumstances.
The truth, however, is that the circumstances in that region
are the worst they can be for Cyprus
and for Israel .
This is the case because of the obvious political reasons– which are that
nobody gets along with their neighbors – and because Cyprus
and Israel
are small territories extended by limited territorial waters and equally
limited economic zones. Thus, the probability that gas reserves will quadruple
with new gas being discovered in their zones is infinitely small.
Upon learning these realities, Cyprus did the right thing and
scaled down its expectation on how much gas it will rely on. As to Israel , it
stuck to its guns and kept peddling the old figure of 18 trillion. What
happened subsequently was that 30 trillion cubic feet of gas were discovered in
Egypt 's
zone. And that's when the Israelis did the very Jewish thing of inflating their
figure to 22 trillion cubic feet. Later, they inflated once more to 25
trillion. Give it a little more time, and they'll be talking about a hundred
trillion cubic feet … and more.
Before the Egyptian discovery, the talks were not going well
between the international companies and Cyprus ;
between the companies and Israel .
The reason is that the gas is in deep waters, and the infrastructure that will
be necessary to get it out will cost between 8 and 15 billion dollars for each
location – depending on may factors; a reality that's not unusual for projects
of this kind. Thus, for these companies to start working on the
infrastructures, Cyprus and Israel will
have to accept practically zero return in royalties, yet pay international
prices for buying the gas that's coming out their own territorial waters.
Because Egypt 's
discovery is huge, and because the infrastructure is already there, the gas
will come out of its zone in record time and will be profitable to all the
participants. Realizing that cooperating with Egypt
can be its salvation, Cyprus
went to Egypt and asked to
have its discovery developed together with that of Egypt . Greece
came along too, and will act as a gateway to Europe
for the Egypt/Cyprus natural gas.
You would think that the Israelis had the IQ of at least a
bird, and realized that Egypt
was their salvation too, thus followed in the footsteps of Cyprus and sought Egypt 's goodwill. But no; they didn't
have this level of an IQ. What they did instead, was to go to a self-declared
obscure tribunal with a post office box in Geneva
and another one in Paris , where they lodged a
complaint against Egypt
asking for – what else – compensation.
This story is told in an article that came under the title:
“Dispute With Egypt Threatens Israeli Gas Plan” and the subtitle: “Egypt
halts plans to import Israeli gas after arbiter rules it owes $1.76 billion to
state-owned Israel Electric Corp.” It was written by Roy Jones and Summer Said,
and published on December 16, 2015 in the Wall Street Journal.
The Egyptians are by nature an easy going people and do not
have the necessary meanness to deal with situations like these – as they
should. And so, we can only hope that the Jews will push them so hard as to
awaken the lion in them, forcing them to go all out and teach those parasitic
cockroaches a lesson they will never forget.
The way that thing should turn out is this: We assume, for
the sake of this discussion that Egypt fulfilled only half the
contract and reneged on the other half. Israel says it bought fuel at a
higher price, paying an extra $1.76 billion dollars for it, and wants to be
compensated. Thus, the counter argument Egypt
must use is that it was underpaid by that amount for the gas it sent to Israel . And it
is Egypt
that needs to be compensated, not the other way around.
And there remains a lingering question: How did Israel get a
deal like that?