The Dominion - zionism

Apartheid Oil

stephlaw — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:58:40 +0000

Crude oil trapped in shale could transform Israel into energy powerhouse

JERUSALEM—Major offshore gas strikes in 2009 and 2010 may soon convert Israel into a gas exporting country with self-sufficient energy. But perhaps more important than the gas under the sea is the mock crude trapped in husk dry sands and rock hard shale, reserves which could push Israel into the upper echelons of recoverable oil on the planet. Israel’s reliance on others for energy supplies has long been a weakness, both economically and militarily.

What promises to be the most energy intensive form of oil recovery on the planet could reinforce Israel's military might, while presenting a new threat to scarce water resources and the climate.

New estimates show that there are 250 billion barrels of recoverable mock (or synthetic) crude oil, possibly even more, in locations throughout Israel. By way of comparison, Canada has just under 200 barrels of oil, including recoverable tar sands while Saudi Arabia is said to have 260 barrels.

The announcement of these major oil finds comes on the heels of the discovery of the contested Leviathan offshore gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, estimated to hold between 16 and 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The Leviathan field was discovered by Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. in June 2010. The discovery is disputed by Lebanon, which brought a complaint to the United Nations alleging Israeli slant drilling off the Lebanese coast following the 2006 aerial war. Further complicating matters is the other major natural gas play in the region, which lies beneath the recognized maritime territory of the Gaza Strip.

“Israel [will] never buy gas from Palestine,” declared Ariel Sharon in 2001, after the Palestinian Authority signed 25-year development leases with European energy companies. Palestinian control over their own gas was challenged in a 2003 Israel Supreme Court case that has yet to be resolved.

British Gas Group was close to striking a development deal on the Gaza deposit, and was planning to pipe gas through to Egypt when, in 2006, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair allegedly intervened to prevent sending the gas south, in the interest of Israel. In the following year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a proposal to buy the $4 billion worth of gas found in the Gaza deposit, with $1 billion in profits going to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli cabinet approved the proposal, and bypassed the newly-elected Hamas government in Gaza altogether.

The proposal eventually fell through because various military and security advisers warned a gas deal with the PA would pose a security risk to Israel. Soon after, British Gas Group closed their office in Israel and announced on their website that they were “...evaluating options for commercialising the gas.” Perhaps on the advice of retired high-ranking Israeli Defence Forces officials, British Gas Group ceded their field license, so as to no longer involve the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli interest in the Gaza deposit didn’t end then. In November 2008, the Israel Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed the Israel Electric Corporation to enter into negotiations with British Gas with hopes of purchasing natural gas from British Gas’s offshore concession in Gaza, according to a press release by Boycott Israel UK.

These instructions came approximately one month before Operation Cast Lead, or the Gaza War, and might have played a role in stalling an official Israeli attack on Gaza.

"It is possible that the prospect of a major natural gas transaction with the Palestinians has been a factor in the Israeli cabinet's refusal to launch a Defensive Shield II operation in Gaza,” wrote retired Israeli Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, only months before the Operation Cast Lead bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Together with the Leviathan deposits, the natural gas fields off of Gaza's shores represent reserves that could easily meet Israel's internal electrical energy needs and turn the Zionist state from net importer to an exporter of energy. But the importance of the gas deposits may pale in comparison to the more recent development of technology for recovering tar sands and shale oil. In fact, given the massive energy inputs required to extract oil from shale, the Leviathan and Gazan gas fields may become an integral part of supplying the energy for this massive heavy oil project.

Israel's massive oil shale deposits vary in form from petrified kerogen rock to bituminous formations that have the texture and appearance of the tar sands common to places like Alberta, Canada.

Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) announced in March 2011 a project to transform shale into oil. The project will use a combination of technologies already in use in Canada's tar sands and newer conceptual technology developed in Colorado's vast oil shale deposits. If it proceeds, the shale oil extraction in Israel project could permanently alter the political and atmospheric climate of the Middle East.

IEI is a subsidiary of the much larger Israeli Data Technologies (IDT), a corporation that already dominates Israel's economic landscape and is led by IDT Chairman Howard Jonas. Along for the ride on this venture are media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former US vice-president Dick Cheney, along with many other notables.

Approximately 15 per cent of the landmass of UN-defined Israel overlays oil shale deposits. In fact, Israel has already exported their know-how to the Alberta tar sands: Ormat, an Israeli firm, has set up shop with patented energy technology in Alberta under the name Opti. Opti teamed up with Nexen in Canada to launch an in-house technique of burning the waste gunk produced through extraction in order to provide energy for the extraction operation itself. At the end of July 2011, Opti (and their interests in Alberta's tar sands) was sold to China National Offshore Oil Corp.

Not unlike the seismic shift that kicked the long dormant Alberta tar sands into high gear following the war on Iraq and cumulative rise in oil prices that coincided with the Katrina disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the latest announcements out of Israel are staggering.

The oil shale proposal that is closest to approval is a short drive southwest of Jerusalem, a pastoral area of Kibbutzes and small villages that historians believe was the backdrop for the biblical battle between David and Goliath. The area doesn't feel anything like the oil boomtown of Fort McMurray, Alberta, or even anything close to much of the Middle East, but more like parts of western Canada's Okanogan Valley.

In the sunny backyard of a house in a gated community, Lia Tarachansky of the Real News Network interviewed Chagit Tishler about the proposed oil shale project while myself and a Palestinian man from a Jerusalem neighbourhood listened and drank tea.

“It's the biggest license even given to a private company in Israel,” said Tishler, who works with the organization Save Adullam, which is made up of local residents who oppose the IEI pilot project. The license was granted under the Oil Law, said Tishler, which is essentially a free entry law dating from 1952, which prioritizes oil and gas exploration over farms, parks or historical sites.

“The area could be ruined completely. This area is the last area in the centre of Israel that remains an open area and a green area, and has a lot of archaeological sites that are important not only to Israelis but to the rest of the world,” she said, before listing historical sites in the vicinity. Known as the Elah Valley, the area was re-settled only a couple of years after the Nakba in 1948 by primarily North African Mizrahi Jews. To this day, they and others use the valley for food crops and Israeli wine.

IEI's planned operations in the Elah Valley include digging five kilometres of trenches through farms and vineyards to expose the shale rock, which would then be heated until the kerogen and other organic materials held inside it are bled out of the rock, producing a basic crude substance. Much like tar sands bitumen, this substance will still need to go through an upgrading process before refining.

If carried out as planned, IEI’s project would constitute one of the least energy efficient forms of oil production ever devised. Three to five gigawatts of electricity would be used to produce a single barrel of shale-based oil, according to Save Adullam. Heating the shale, which takes place for months at a time, could release at least 15 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. No other extraction process in conventional oil or even tar sands involves a heating process this extensive, nor is any as carbon intensive. This carbon release takes place even before refining, let alone consumption.

Regardless, for Israel, these reserves represent a local supply that cannot be blockaded. IEI states that the petroleum from this shale produces a light synthetic crude nearly perfect for converting to jet fuel.

Thus far, groups like Save Adullam who wish to stop this project have failed to make alliances with other communities living with the threat of oil shale extraction. The focus of Save Adullam is to demand a repeal of the 1952 oil law. Their allies are inside the Knesset and others within the Israeli state, including the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

Though the first lands slated for large scale development projects have religious and biblical resonance, there are also mining projects that will spread across the traditional territory of Bedouin Palestinians in various parts of the Negev Desert. The majority of the surface oil shale, which is similar in composition to the Albertan tar sands, sits in the northern part of the desert. In addition, mining for oil shale, which is burned for electricity, has already taken place in the deep south of the desert, close to Eliat.

The Mishor Rotem Basin is on the west bank of the Dead Sea, and an oil shale deposit straddles both sides of the border between the state of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 2006 the JNF concluded that Israel was using 25 per cent more water than was sustainable (this includes the almost 90 per cent of the water diverted from Palestinians in the West Bank).

In Zionist settlements and recognized Bedouin villages in the Negev, cancer rates are already considerably higher than in the rest of the Jewish state. Pollution from oil shale developments in any form would undoubtedly contribute to increasing overall contamination. In addition, the bulk of the Negev desert is also a training ground and “free fire zone” for the air force and military—already a massive environmentally destructive force at play.

Israel's laws make it nearly impossible for non-Jewish citizens of Israel to exact equal rights in almost any field, even within Israel. Bedouins are seeing these problems deepen—primarily upon the orders of the JNF, and carried out by riot squads and the IDF—with JNF-led “making the desert bloom” projects, attacking and bulldozing entire villages (some over 25 times in the last year) to facilitate “forest planting”; and forced re-settlement into government planned townships.

Bedouin communities traditionally linked with the land who wish to stop the intrusion of oil shale and its toxic consequences will likely need to think beyond strategies that simply try to undo laws written by the Zionist state, and they aren't likely to find allies in the JNF.

And in yet another parallel to Canada, the vast offshore gas deposits claimed by Israel—mainly but not exclusively the Leviathan field—could serve the same vital role for energy input of oil shale developments that natural gas plays in the Athabasca tar sands. Israel already has a water crisis, but it looks like it might see fit to exacerbate that problem in the push for energy independence.

This article is the first in a four part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published at http://mediacoop.ca

Israel Jordan Shale Oil Map

Jews for Palestine

Stuart Neatby — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:21:11 +0000

Remembering the Nakbah

On May 15, the State of Israel turned 60. Celebrations around the world were held to mark Israel's Day of Independence. Remarked also for different reasons, this day has made a global impact under its other title, "the Catastrophe," or Al Nakbah in Arabic. It is mourned as a day that commemorates the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, as a result of which Israel is today a Jewish majority state.

Resistance to these celebrations has also taken place across North America under a campaign entitled “No Time To Celebrate: Jews Remember the Nakbah.” This activism demonstrates a growing Jewish presence within the movement to oppose Israeli policies, the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the ongoing oppression of Palestinians. In Canada, this presence was strongly felt on March 29 when over a hundred representatives of various organizations joined at the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadian's (ACJC) conference. The aim of the conference was to create an effective and justice-oriented strategy for future collaboration of jews critical of Israel's policies.

A jewish stance in solidarity with Palestinians is particularly significant, given recent remarks by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Reminding the world of the Holocaust, Harper announced that Israel was "threatened by those groups and regimes who deny to this day its right to exist." Despite Israel’s refusal to acknowledge a Palestinian state, in deed if not in word, Harper further emphasized his alliance with the State of Israel by calling it "one of the most successful countries on earth... Israel truly is the ‘miracle in the desert.’”

"The source of Israel's strength and success,” continued Harper, “is its commitment to the universal values of all civilized peoples: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law." Post-Holocaust Jewish settlers in Israel, according to the Prime Minister, have "led the world back to the light."

Such flamboyant support stands in stark contrast to Canada's historical record of siding with the majority of the world, whose national representatives have consistently voted at the UN General Assembly for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

During a teach-in held in Ottawa days before the anniversary of the Nakbah, Diana Ralph, Coordinator of the ACJC conference, reduced much of Harper's statements to little more than myths. Ralph broke down the logic in Harper’s speech, which proposed that all criticism of Israel was equated with anti-Semitism, that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East, and that Arab and Jewish people hate each other.

“If this is a beacon of light onto nations,” said Ralph, referring to Harper’s position on Israel's settlers, “I think we need to turn out the lights."

Ralph's support for human rights in the Middle East went hand in hand with the outcome of the historic ACJC conference. The ACJC body has made a remarkable move in declaring its support for "a properly negotiated peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people" and opposing "any attempt by the Israeli government to impose its own solutions on the Palestinians."

The organization further recognizes the world's repeated calls for Israel to respect international law, particularly the 2004 International Court of Justice's ruling on post-1967 affairs in the region. The ICJ ruled that the so-called “Annexation Wall,” as well as the West Bank settlements, were illegal and demanded Israel pay reparation for "all damage caused by the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, includ[ing] in and around East Jerusalem."

Such international decisions have been amplified worldwide by opposition to the celebrations of Israel's 60th anniversary. In San Francisco, 20 Jewish activists were arrested while protesting their local community centre's celebrations of Israel@60. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, and dozens of other cities across the continent, organizers put together street theatre shows, die-ins, educational and media events, mournful vigils, and peaceful disruptions, all in solidarity with Palestine.

In Canada’s capital, Not In Our Name (NION): Jews Against Israel's Wars, which represents pro-justice Jewish voices in the Ottawa community, has linked with many others to form what has become the Ottawa Palestine Solidarity Network (OPSN). On May 8, over 70 community members and activists joined to mourn outside the Ottawa Civic Centre where the local Israel@60 celebration took place. Continuing their visible support for understanding the real history of Israel/Palestine, OPSN held a teach-in on May 18 that posed the question of whether the 60th anniversary of the State's inception was indeed something to celebrate.

Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian refugee, presented the history and fallout of the 1948 Nakbah. She spoke of the 500 villages that were destroyed in the lead-up and in the midst of the 1948 War of Independence, a war that displaced 750,000 refugees. Today, the West Bank hosts over 500 checkpoints; the Israeli State controls all Palestinian access to water, land, and employment; and an “Annexation Wall” now segregates communities from each other. In places such as Qualqilia the wall completely surrounds entire villages, while the checkpoints reinforce a segregation system. Israeli-only settlements are interspersed in the West Bank among Palestinian farms, connected to one another and Israel-proper by Israeli-only roads which are heavily protected by walls, fences, and armed soldiers. Effectively, Sabawi explained, the Nakbah Catastrophe has never ended.

Ralph followed Sabawi's short history with a talk entitled "Which Side Are You On?" which emphasized the importance for Jews to stand for justice in Palestine. Ralph’s message was further amplified by Rabbi Dovid Feldman, who drew from the Old Testament to argue that traditional Judaism rejects the idea of Zionism. The philosophy of zionism, to which the creation of the State of Israel has been attributed has, according to Feldman, been countered by Jewish leaders since its very inception at the end of the 19th century. Rejecting the celebrations of Israeli Statehood, Feldman stated, "Every Israeli Independence Day, we have a day of fasting. It is a day of mourning."

Concluding the teach-in, Mazen Masri, a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and a PhD candidate at York University, spoke about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Arising from Palestinian civil society, the BDS campaign began in the summer of 2005. The campaign calls for tactics similar to those which contributed to the official end of South African apartheid to be applied to Israel. The BDS campaign calls for the boycott of Israeli businesses by individuals, the divestment of international corporations from the Israeli economy, and the enforcement of sanctions by governments against the State of Israel until its apartheid policies end.

Days later, on May 20, a fundraiser held at the National Arts Centre (NAC) was sponsored by the Jewish National Fund and hosted by Israeli Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker, who was also the guest of honour. Baker has been under strict in recent weeks after making remarks that have been called discriminatory and racist against Muslim and Arab people. Baker argued that Canada should limit immigration of Muslim people on that grounds that they may alter Canadian demographics as well as Canada's overt support for Israel. In response, almost a hundred protestors crowded the doors of the NAC, including over twenty Haredi religious Jews as well as dozens of Israelis, secular Jews, Palestinians, and other supporters. A mock check-point was constructed and activists, dressed as soldiers, with the inscription "Israel Offense Forces" attached to their uniforms, controlled access to the entrance. Organizers billed this as a mild demonstration of the daily humiliation and delay to which Palestinians are subjugated.

In Toronto, on Sunday May 25, the UJA Federation’s annual ‘Walk with Israel’ was held. Advertised as a fundraiser for “programs for children and youth in Israel with a specific focus on those in Sderot and the Western Negev,” the event drew thousands of participants as well as approximately three dozen protesters. Holding a silent vigil on the outskirts of the Walk, the protestors were met with discriminatory remarks such as “go back to Jordan.” Some parents even stopped to demonstrate to their children that the men and women who were dressed in black to commemorate the Nakbah, were forever Israel’s enemy.

“I would kill another 800,000 of you!” one man yelled, referring to the 1948 ethnic cleansing.

In Israel/Palestine, 21,915 black balloons were released over Jerusalem to represent the number of days since the beginning of the Nakbah. Spearheaded by the Badil Resource Centre in Ramallah, the idea was part of an international campaign called "Justice is the Key to Tomorrow." The organization's website explains the reasons for which thousands worldwide have mobilized in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

"How can you celebrate?" the site asks. "The establishment of the State of Israel sixty years ago was a settler-colonial project that systematically and violently uprooted more than 750 thousand Palestinian Arabs from their lands and homes... These celebrations, by definition, insult our history, violate our rights, and deepen our oppression. They also render the path to justice, freedom, equality, and sustainable peace based on international law longer than ever before."

Rabbis for Palestine

NION