Lebanon Analysis of Israel Highlights Rewards, Risks
The Israeli elections hint at potential for cooperation in the gas sector but also problems, writes Nasser Chararah.
Lebanon is monitoring the January Israeli elections and results from a new and largely unprecedented standpoint. In the past, it had focused primarily on whether the new Israeli government would tout a peaceful or bellicose agenda, in order to gauge the likelihood of a new military offensive against Lebanon. This consideration, however, no longer takes priority, despite the fact that such a fear could still become a reality. Instead, other considerations have emerged.
In response to the question of why Lebanon’s stance has shifted, a source from the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited two driving factors: a UN resolution supporting the stability of Lebanon and the fact that the resolution is bound to the all-important issue of the two countries jointly creating a safe working environment for international companies to explore the offshore gas deposits overlapping their maritime border.
US envoy Frederic Hoff visited Israel and Lebanon twice in the past year and managed to craft a technical document resolving the two countries' dispute over the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which includes the disputed Leviathan gas field overlapping the Israeli-Lebanese border. It is the largest known field of its kind in the region, containing some 122 billion cubic feet of gas.
The same diplomatic source revealed to Al-Monitor that he had been told that Israel wanted to quickly resolve this matter and that it was willing to agree to the American proposal. According to him, none of the involved parties appeared to have reservations about the proposed solution.
