Control of gas and oil supplies is the main weapon of Israel’s U.S. ‘protectors’. It appears this is the motivation for the bombing of Gaza. The story of Gaza’s natural gas field and the U.S. military are missing in reporting of the bombing of Gaza. A natural gas field was discovered off the Coast of Gaza in 1999 by BG Group, a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. And this gas field is not the only one on Israel’s radar.
Secret U.S. military base(s) are also missing from the story of the bombing of Gaza
It has come to light that the United States has a military base in Israel. This was reported in the Jewish Virtual Library. JVL sources were listed as Barbara Opall-Rome of the Defense News and The Washington Post. The Post’s article is no longer on its website. Actually, there is more than one. The chronology is complicated and will be discussed in more detail below.
Israel is claiming rights to several gas fields, but who really owns them?
Several gas fields have been discovered off the Mediterranean coast in recent decades. In fact, while the Israelis were bombing Gaza, Israel granted twelve licenses to six companies to explore for natural gas in that area. Total oil and gas reserves were valued at $524 billion in 2019.
But did Israel have a right to award these licenses? According to a UN report, Israel is not entitled to all of the gas. Some of the reserves are in the occupied territory of Palestine. Much of the rest is outside of national borders and should be shared with relevant parties. In fact, the UN report questioned whether Israel has a right to any of it. After all, the gas fields took millions of years to form and the Palestinians occupied the entire territory of Palestine for thousands of years before the Israelis arrived.
The question of the hour is, who owns this particular gas field off the Gaza coast? It won’t be surprising to anyone that the majority owner, the Palestinian people, have no access to its income.
Gaza swims with sharks
The Palestine National Authority has maritime jurisdiction up to 20 nautical miles off of Gaza’s coast. This is according to the Oslo II Accords. The PNA signed a 25-year contract for gas exploration off the Gaza coast with BGG in November 1999. Long story short, Gaza ended up with nothing. Here are the details as described by Rachel Donald of Planet Critical.
Ehud Barak
Palestine’s Prime Minister at the time, Ehud Barak, authorized BGG to drill the first well in July 2000. And of course, BGG struck gas. Then Palestine and Israel began to negotiate. They agreed on a deal that was thought to be fair to both Israeli demand and Palestinian supply. But then…
Arial Sharon
Arial Sharon became Prime Minister. His government rejected a supply deal between the Palestinian gas field and the state-owned Israel Electric Corporation.
Tony Blair to the rescue
Enter UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002. As a result of Blair’s influence, Sharon agreed to negotiate an agreement. He agreed to take an annual supply of 0.05 trillion cubic feet of Palestinian gas for a period of 10 to 15 years. But in 2003 Sharon decided the money might be used for terrorism. So he changed his mind.
Hamas scuttles a new deal with Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert’s government made a new deal with the Palestinians that was supposed to start in 2009. Israel would purchase 0.05 trillion cubic feet of Palestinian gas for $4 billion annually. However, the 2007 Battle of Gaza changed the deal again. This battle began when Hamas took control of the strip. They supposedly did this because they wanted to increase the original 10% Palestinian share in the BGG deal.
I have no inside knowledge of Hamas’s motivation. However, In my opinion it is curious that an attack by Hamas also justified Israel’s 2023 bombing campaign. In both cases Israel benefitted by claiming entitlement to self-serving retributions. In 2023, Israel took the opportunity to award exploration licenses off the Mediterranean Coast. Now back to the saga of Palestine’s gas field.
Israel nullifies the 1999 contract that BG Group, the Palestinian government and the PNA agreed to
An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Government of Israel to formulate a deal with BGG, bypassing both the Palestinian government and PNA. This nullified the contract signed in 1999 between BGG and PNA. However, in December 2007, BGG withdrew from negotiations with the Israeli government.
In 2008, Israel belatedly tries to restart negotiations with BGG
In June 2008, the Israeli government recontacted BGG to urgently renegotiate the deal. But it seems this was a cover for at attack on Gaza, which was already planned. The UN report states: “The decision to speed up negotiations with BGG coincided, chronologically, with the planning of an Israeli military operation in Gaza, whereby it would appear that the Government of Israel wished to reach an agreement with BGG prior to the military operation, which was already in an advanced planning stage.”
Israel confiscates Palestinian gas fields in 2008 invasion of Gaza
The invasion of Gaza by Israel in December 2008 brought the Palestinian gas fields under Israeli control—without regard for international law. Israel’s government has been dealing with BGG ever since. The UN estimates billions of dollars in loss for the Palestinian people.
The military base(s)
According to the Jewish Virtual Library and Defense News, there is a new U.S. military base located at the Israel Defense Forces Air Defense School near Beersheba. When construction began in 2017, its stated purpose was to support a contingent of soldiers who would operate systems to help Israel defend against rocket and missile attack. In this base, the plan was for U.S. soldiers and Israeli airmen to be living and working side-by-side. But these articles also mention a U.S. independent facility in the same general area of Israel’s Negev desert.
Pentagon awards contract for expansion of the joint base in August 2023.
The dates reported by the various websites are confusing. I believe construction of the joint U.S. and Israeli facility began September 16, 2017, while Donald Trump was in the Whitehouse. The JVL says ground was broken for the initial construction in 2017. And this one seems to be the one that was expanded in 2023. But before this base was built, the U.S. already had a military base in Israel.
Making sense of the dates
The Intercept says the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for construction of a base in August 2023. However, this contract must have been for its expansion, because the JVL and Defense News says construction was begun in 2017.
At that time, the U.S. had another military site independent of Israel that was not the subject of an expansion. The Intercept was able to report the monetary value of this older site because it was mentioned in an August 2 contract announcement by the Pentagon. The intercept reports that this site is a $35.8 million U.S. troop facility.
The two sites share a code name
The U.S. military has operated this independent facility for more than a decade in the same general area of Israel’s Negev desert, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, Defense News and the Intercept. But Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw of the Intercept report that both sites are part of code-named Site 512.
The Americans operate the independent site without an Israeli presence. Its purpose is to house the U.S. AN/TPY-2, an X-Band radar that is integrated with Israeli search and track radars to augment early warning in the event of ballistic missile attack from Iran. The Intercept article specuates that these sites did not warn against the Hamas attack because they were focused in Iran.
One of Israel’s Iron Dome systems is in the U.S.
One of Israel’s operational Iron Dome systems is now in the U.S., according to the Defense News article. It is competing with U.S.-proposed systems as a possible solution to the medium and short-range air defense requirement.