Israel will not hesitate to use force to protect its gas fields from being claimed by Lebanon, Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau warned. "We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law," Landau said.
Lebanon parliament speaker Nabih Berri earlier this month urged his government to start exploring its offshore natural gas reserves, claiming that otherwise Israel would claim the resources. "Israel is racing to make the case a fait accompli and was quick to present itself as an oil emirate, ignoring the fact that, according to the maps, the deposit extends into Lebanese waters," Berri said. "Lebanon must take immediate action to defend its financial, political, economic and sovereign rights."
The the head of petroleum and natural gas exploration in the National Infrastructures Ministry, Dr. Yaakov Mimran, called the claims "nonsense." Mimran explained that the Israel-Lebanon border is not perpendicular to the coast and Israel's exclusive offshore economic zone includes all the fields.Prof. Moshe Hirsch of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an expert in international law. He said the gas is under Israel's continental shelf, so there was no need to declare an exclusive economic zone. Altogether the basin in the eastern Mediterranean to which those fields belong could contain an amount of gas equivalent to one-fifth of U.S. natural gas reserves.
Until recently, Israel was facing an energy predicament. The discoveries at Tamar and Leviathan solved the problem: Israel will no longer have to import natural gas. Its dilemma now, rather, is deciding where to export the excess and how to reap the most geopolitical gains from its new status as an energy exporter.
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