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Israel-Lebanon Sea Boundary Row Obstructs Energy Development

Water border marks in the Mediterranean sea next to Rosh Hanikra, near Haifa at the Israel-Lebanon border, 06 June 2022. (EPA)
Water border marks in the Mediterranean sea next to Rosh Hanikra, near Haifa at the Israel-Lebanon border, 06 June 2022. (EPA)
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Israel-Lebanon Sea Boundary Row Obstructs Energy Development

Water border marks in the Mediterranean sea next to Rosh Hanikra, near Haifa at the Israel-Lebanon border, 06 June 2022. (EPA)
Water border marks in the Mediterranean sea next to Rosh Hanikra, near Haifa at the Israel-Lebanon border, 06 June 2022. (EPA)

A dispute between Israel and Lebanon over their maritime boundary has obstructed energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and risks exacerbating tensions between two foes.

After months of deadlock in US-mediated talks, Beirut on Sunday warned against any activity in the disputed area, responding to the arrival of a vessel to develop a field for Israel.

Lebanon has said the field in question, Karish, is in disputed waters. Israel denies this.

Here's what you need to know about the standoff:

What’s at stake?
Gas - potentially a lot of it.

Lebanon and Israel are located in the Levant Basin, where a number of big sub-sea gas fields have been discovered since 2009. Israel already produces and exports gas.

But while Israel has moved ahead, Lebanese hopes of producing energy have been hamstrung by political paralysis.

Lebanon's one and only attempt at drilling - an exploratory well in 2020 - found gas traces but no reservoirs, according to France's Total, part of a consortium with Italy's ENI and Russia's Novatek that was awarded Lebanon's first oil and gas offshore license in 2018.

A gas find would be a major boon for Lebanon, which has been mired in financial crisis since 2019. Eventually, such a discovery could fix Lebanon's long-standing failure to produce adequate electricity for its population.

Israeli officials have previously said they hoped the negotiations would take a short time and that an agreement would strengthen both countries' economies.

But while an agreement could allow both sides to benefit, the issue could risk conflict if unresolved.

Lebanon is home to the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has fought numerous wars with Israel and has previously warned Israel against drilling in the disputed zone.

What is the dispute over?
Lebanon and Israel are at odds over the boundary separating their exclusive economic zones - an offshore area that a country can claim for resource extraction.

Israel claims the boundary runs further north than Lebanon accepts, while Lebanon claims it runs further south than Israel accepts, leaving a triangle of disputed waters.

After indirect negotiations began in 2020, Lebanon expanded its claim. Israel then did the same.

Karish became part of the zone Lebanon was disputing after Beirut expanded its claim, according to Laury Haytayan, a Lebanese oil and gas expert.

Lebanon has stated that Karish was in the disputed area in a letter to the United Nations, the presidency said on Sunday.

Israel says Karish field, discovered more than a decade ago, is in its exclusive economic zone. Israeli Energy Minister Karin Elharrar said the Lebanese account was "very far from reality".

What does Hezbollah think?
Hezbollah has been a sworn enemy of Israel since it was established in 1982 by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The group has said the talks are not a sign of peace-making and threatened action if Israel violates Lebanese rights.

But Hezbollah is more deeply involved than ever in Lebanese state affairs, and wants to see Lebanon's offshore energy resources developed. It has not stood in the way of the US-mediated indirect talks and has said it will agree to whatever the government agrees.

Is there a risk of conflict?
The last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon was in 2006. The border area has remained largely calm since. Analysts believe both sides want to avoid another conflict.

But Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said last year Israel was wrong if it thought it could act as it pleased before a solution was reached, and the group would "act accordingly" when it finds that Lebanese oil and gas is in danger.

Following the latest spat, Lebanon said it would invite a US envoy to resume negotiations to prevent any escalation and Israel's defense minister said the matter was a civilian issue to be resolved diplomatically.

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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.