Israel’s Unnatural Dreams For Its Natural Gas
October 23, 2013 § 6 Comments
On Monday, Israel’s High Court cleared the way for Israel to export 40% of its new natural gas bonanza after rejecting petitions that challenged the government’s export plan. The Israeli government harbors high hopes of reaching $60 billion in profits over the next two decades from natural gas exports, and so the High Court’s decision is being celebrated as paving the way for an economic windfall. The problem is that there are some very big and intractable regional issues that have to be settled before Israel sees even a shekel from gas exports, and the prospect for all of this coming together is quite slim. If anything, Israel’s natural gas fields are going to end up sparking competition and regional destabilization rather than the opposite.
There are two ways for Israel to export its natural gas. The first is via pipeline to Turkey and hooking up with the planned TANAP or TAP pipelines in order to send Israeli gas to the rest of Europe. The prospects of Israel and Turkey cooperating on a pipeline deal at this point are laughable when the two sides cannot even agree on something as basic and simple as compensation for the Mavi Marmara deaths, not to mention the most recent unpleasantness between the two countries. Let’s assume for a moment though that cooler heads are able to prevail and mutual economic interests override the basic domestic politics of both countries, there is still a thornier problem of geography. A pipeline from Israel to Turkey has two possible routes. The first runs through Lebanon and Syria, which is a non-starter for all sorts of obvious reasons. The second route is undersea and has to travel through Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone. Given the animosity between Turkey and Cyprus and Turkey’s adamant insistence that is does not and never has occupied any part of Cyprus, reconciliation between these two parties over an issue that has been dubbed a diplomats’ graveyard is not on the horizon. It is true that there are many good reasons for a deal to happen, from the fact that there is a lot of money at stake to the fact that Turkey is completely isolated on the Cyprus issue and is the only country in the world that even recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as an independent state, but that doesn’t mean that movement is imminent. Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected a painstakingly negotiated federal model in 2004, and there is no reason to think that opinion on this has changed. What this means is that a pipeline, which would be the most cost-effective and easiest solution, is out for now.
The other way for Israel to export its gas is to liquify it and ship LNG to Turkey and other destinations. This comes with its own set of challenges as well. The first is that liquifying natural gas is an expensive process that reduces profit margins as compared to shipping it via pipeline. On top of the process itself, it requires building an LNG terminal that takes approximately 3-5 years to build and costs somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion, which cuts into profits even further. An LNG terminal is unlikely to be built in Israel itself due to legal and environmental challenges, which again leaves Cyprus as the natural partner, but absent reconciliation between Turkey and Cyprus, shipping LNG to Turkey from a Cypriot LNG terminal is likely off the table. Without a Turkish market for gas, Israel is not going to expend the time and resources to build a LNG terminal in Cyprus to then have it essentially be bricked. Even assuming that Turkey and Cyprus are able to patch things up and Israel goes the LNG route, the security challenges posed by protecting an Israeli LNG terminal that is in Cyprus rather than in Israel and then protecting Israeli tankers plying the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean are enormous. Israeli ships carrying Israeli natural gas are immediately going to become an attractive target for all manner of jihadi and terrorist groups, and the Israeli Navy does not now have the capacity to protect such a potentially large venture.
So the bottom line is that a boom in natural gas exports is not assured by any means. No matter which way Israel turns, the path to huge profits from natural gas is complicated by geopolitics that have so far proved immune to easy resolution. In the short term, the answer is likely to send natural gas to Jordan, which will be profitable to a limited extent since Jordan is not a very big market. Another cheap alternative with much larger potential is to export to Egypt, but despite Energy Minister Silvan Shalom’s insistence that this avenue is open, the Egyptians claim that they have no interest in buying Israel’s natural gas.
Looking at the bigger picture, Israel’s long term problem may be more serious than simply not having a viable market for its exports. Turkey and Egypt both project very high growth in energy demand with no real energy resources of their own at the moment, and they are sitting next to countries – Israel and Cyprus – that are resource rich and with whom they do not have great relations. In addition, there are claims on Eastern Mediterranean gas fields being made by Lebanon and by the Palestinians in Gaza, not to mention Northern Cyprus’s claims to the fields claimed by the Cypriot government. How these tensions will be resolved is unclear and anyone’s guess, but a very combustible situation is developing, and the idea of major resource conflict at some point is not all that far-fetched. Should the Israel-Turkey-Cyrpus triangle not get resolved to each party’s relative satisfaction, the Eastern Mediterranean may very well become a lot less placid.
Turning Lemons Into Rotten Lemons
December 4, 2012 § 9 Comments
Last night Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted an apt point that all supporters of Israel should think about very hard. He wrote, “Two things can be true at the same time: Israel is judged more harshly than any other nation–and, Netanyahu is behaving terribly.” Israel is subjected to double standards to which no other country is held, and if you think that isn’t true, consider the nearly single-minded focus on Israel that is the hallmark of the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council, or the harsh spotlight trained upon Israel over civilian casualties relative to other countries. Israel behaves badly on plenty of occasions, but so do other countries with far less complex challenges, and yet a visitor from another planet encountering Earth for the first time would lump Israel together with North Korea based on the media coverage (and if you think that is a fair comparison, please just stop reading now since you’ll be wasting your time). Israel always starts off in any situation at a complete disadvantage, and this is something that no other country deals with on a similar scale. Yet, this does not mean that Israel is a completely blameless actor in every instance, and none of the above obviates the fact that not all criticism of the Netanyahu government is a result of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, dislike of Netanyahu personally, or driven by a hidden agenda. To take the case in point, Netanyahu’s actions since last Thursday are not only childish and puerile, they are weakening Israel to an immeasurable degree.
Let’s zoom out for a minute and look at the long term picture. Israel is now perhaps more isolated than it has ever been on a number of levels, and certainly the most isolated it has been since 1975 during the Arab oil boycotts and the falling out with the Ford administration. Looking at Israel’s traditional regional allies, Israel’s relationship with Turkey is at an all-time low, its ties with Egypt are the most strained they have been in the post-Camp David era, and Jordan is too preoccupied with its own internal problems and the wave of refugees coming over the border from Syria to give Israel much cover on anything. While Israel does not have to worry about military threats from Arab states, it is looking at a long-term stream of diplomatic pressure from Islamist governments and less cooperation from Arab states on repressing non-state actors who threaten Israel.
In Europe, Israel faces an uphill battle as well. There is generally a lot of sympathy in European capitals for the Palestinians, but Europe’s indignation over settlements is real as well. This was driven home by the lopsided UN vote on Palestinian statehood, in which the Czech Republic was the only European country to vote with Israel. New allies Cyprus and Greece, to whom Israel has pinned such high hopes, both voted to grant Palestine non-member state observer status, and stalwart Israeli ally Germany abstained due to its anger over repeatedly being dismissed by Israel over the issue of settlement expansion. This all comes on the heels of the surprising European support for Operation Pillar of Cloud, which indicates that while Israel faces a tough audience in Europe, it has some wiggle room.
Then there is the United States, which has given Israel military aid for Iron Dome, constantly goes to bat for it in the UN including last week, was unwavering in its rhetorical support during military operations in Gaza, and also has been pleading with Israel to halt settlement expansion. The U.S. is unlikely to put heat on Israel like Europe does, but it has repeatedly expressed its displeasure with settlements and is very clear that it sees settlement growth as an obstacle to peace.
Given all of this, what is Israel’s most sensible course of action? Is it to loudly announce that it is going to “punish” the Palestinians for going to the UN by building thousands of more homes in the West Bank? Or is it to look at the big picture, realize that settlements are not just an excuse trotted out by anti-Semitic Europeans and Israel-hating leftists but are actually causing Israel all sorts of problems, and come up with some other way to deal with what it views as Palestinian intransigence? Israel went in the span of weeks from being viewed sympathetically due to Palestinian rockets indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians to being denounced and having its ambassadors hauled in on the carpet over settlement expansion and being threatened with all sorts of countermeasures by the West. Please, someone make a cogent argument for me how this is somehow a brilliant strategy and how Netanyahu is ensuring Israel’s future existence, because from where I am sitting it is counterproductive, dangerous, and unwaveringly stupid. It’s all fine and good to constantly claim that Western views don’t matter and that Israel has the right to do what it wants, but that is the equivalent to burying your head in the sand. The fact is that Israel cannot exist on its own, it needs allies given the neighborhood in which it lives, and settlements are actually a problem for Israel’s allies. That’s the truth, and pretending otherwise is fiddling while Rome burns.
It has become clear to me over the past few years that contrary to the popular myth that the problems between Israel and the Palestinians stem from 1967, the parties are still fighting over 1948. Significant segments of Palestinians, with Hamas leading the way, simply will not concede the legitimacy of Israel, plain and simple. Concurrently, the constant refrains from the right about Palestinians not needing a state of their own because they have Jordan or the tired old canard that there is no land to give back to the Palestinians because it belonged to Jordan and to Egypt (always smugly spouted as if this is some brilliantly clever argument) is a vestige of 1948. Everyone loves to point out that Hamas doesn’t care about settlements, and that the PLO was founded in 1964, and both of these things are true and speak to the challenges that Israel faces that have absolutely nothing to do with settlements. But – and this a big one – settlements exacerbate the situation enormously, particularly with Western countries. Even ceding the argument that Palestinians of all stripes are never going to accept Israel in the pre-1967 borders and that Arab states will never want to make peace with Israel, Israel should then be doing everything it can to make sure it has the West on its side. You want to know what the best way to foul that up is? Proudly declaring that you don’t care what anyone else thinks and that you are going to build settlements wherever and whenever you like, and that doing so is not in any way an obstacle to a two-state solution and that in fact the blame rests solely with the other side. I am sick and tired of watching Israel’s supporters, of whom I am most definitely one, ignore the glaringly obvious facts that are right in front of their faces. Settlements are a huge problem, case closed. If you think that the benefit to expanding Israel’s presence in the West Bank outweighs everything else, then I respect your argument and at least you are going into this with eyes wide open. Pretending that settlements are an ancillary side issue though is willful blindness, and if that’s what you really think, then your powers of observation and analysis are sorely lacking.
Talking Past Each Other On Turkey and Israel
September 5, 2012 § Leave a comment
In the midst of a very long day yesterday, the Atlantic Council’s Young Turkey Young America group had a meeting at the American Jewish Committee to talk about the U.S.-Israeli relationship with AJC executive director David Harris and former Israeli deputy permanent representative to the UN Aaron Jacob. I find that there is a general misconception in Turkey about the basis for U.S.-Israel ties along with a perception that the “Jewish lobby” controls U.S. politics (thank you very much Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer), so to my mind this was a good opportunity for the Turks in the group to hear a different perspective and to separate fact from myth. It was also a great venue to hash out some of the many issues plaguing the Israel-Turkey relationship. One of the last questions asked was about Israel’s general unpopularity in the world, and part of the answer given was an attempt to demonstrate that Israel is not the only country that behaves in certain ways (Northern Cyprus and the fight against the PKK came up) and that both Israel and Turkey feel that they are misunderstood.
This last question and answer generated intense heated discussions throughout the rest of the day. A significant number of the Turks were unsatisfied with, and even angered by, the answer for two reasons. First, they did not feel that the question had been addressed, since the query was about why Israel is unpopular and isolated and this seemed to them like an attempt to avoid the question by changing the subject. Second, and more saliently, they were perturbed that someone would compare Turkish actions to Israeli actions, and some of them insisted that Turkey is not occupying Northern Cyprus and that the PKK is unquestionably a terrorist group whereas Hamas is not.
I took two lessons away from this. First, it never fails to amaze me how people – and my new Turkish friends are not unique in this regard at all, since we are all (myself included) guilty of this – will go to great lengths to distinguish their own country’s behavior from another country’s behavior despite the similarities that exist. Some of my Turkish compatriots were arguing later in the day that Israel must be doing something wrong since it has no friends in the world save the U.S. (and one person made the astute point during the AJC meeting that there is a real difference between friends and partners) and everyone is opposed to Israel’s foreign policy actions, yet in the next breath argued that Turkey was fully justified in its Cyprus policy despite the fact that the only country in the entire world that recognizes Northern Cyprus is Turkey. You can’t have it both ways, and yet many of the Turks were visibly annoyed when it was suggested that Turkey is not behaving any differently than Israel, or that Hamas is just as much a terrorist group as the PKK. It really reinforced just how hard it is to overcome your natural biases no matter where you are from, and how intractably difficult some of these issue are.
Second, it served as a reminder about how different audiences require different messages. Some of the AJC answers were exactly what you’d expect in terms of an aggressive defense of Israeli actions, but some of the Turks were taken aback at just how forceful the answers were, and as I noted were not at all receptive to the argument that Turkey and Israel are similar in their approaches and in both being misunderstood by international actors. The more forceful answers are the type that worked on the American audience to a greater extent and would have been very well received by a Jewish pro-Israel group, but the overall strategy seemed to backfire with the Turkish contingent. Rather than convincing them, it made them defensive and left them somewhat unsatisfied, whereas they appreciated the questions that were answered in a more measured or more reflective way. I don’t generally spend too much time thinking about communications issues, but it was interesting to listen to Turkish reactions to different answers and how interest group messaging strategy affected them. All in all a very interesting meeting, and many thanks to AJC for hosting a wide-ranging and frank discussion on a sensitive topic.
The Latest Reminder That All Politics Is Local
July 10, 2012 § 2 Comments
Remember the enormous optimism in Turkey when François Hollande was elected? Predictions abounded that Turkey’s path to EU membership was going to be far easier than it had been under Sarkozy, and it appeared that the kerfuffle over the Armenian genocide denial bill in France was a thing of the past. At the time, I thought this enthusiasm was misplaced, and wrote the following:
France sees much of North Africa as being in its domain given its colonial history there, and it is threatened by another outside power establishing deep economic ties as Turkey has been doing. The Armenian issue is also not one that was first initiated by Sarkozy; the French parliament voted in 2001 to declare the events in Armenia a genocide and the Assembly voted in 2006 to criminalize its denial (it did not pass the Senate at that time). Turkey-bashing is a popular electoral sport in France no matter who is running, and the emotions that it stirs up are not so easily suppressed once the votes are counted. At the end of the day, a Hollande victory is likely to herald a positive reset in France’s relations with Turkey – although Hollande is considered to be one of the Socialist Party’s most pro-Israel politicians so the continued shenanigans over Israel in NATO forums won’t help matters – but it is not going to be the panacea that permanently puts the Armenian issue to rest in France or mean a fast track victory for Turkey’s EU bid.
Now, as it turns out, the Armenian issue cannot be put to bed so easily. Exactly as he promised he would do during his campaign, Hollande has announced plans to reintroduce a bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide. His reason for doing this is pretty simple: there is a large Armenian community in France, and Hollande wants to ensure that he has their votes in the next election. In fact, Hollande is so committed to this issue, it has been reported that he has been exploring means other than legislation, such as an official degree that would penalize Armenian genocide denial, given the fact that a previous iteration of the law was ruled unconstitutional. It is worth remembering that Prime Minister Erdoğan had restored full ties with France following Sarkozy’s defeat on the assumption that this issue was over, and if Hollande indeed pushes for another Armenian genocide bill, I expect that ties will be downgraded once again. On top of the fact that Turkey has suspended formal political ties with the EU during Cyprus’s presidency, it does not appear that Turkey’s EU bid is any better off now than it was when Sarkozy was in office.
This should be a useful reminder of two things. First, domestic politics trumps everything. Hollande cares a lot more about being reelected and pleasing various domestic constituencies than he does keeping Ankara happy. He is more than happy to risk Erdoğan’s wrath on this issue if it means another term down the road in the Élysée Palace. Second, and more importantly for our purposes, it indicates that there is a perception gap between France and the rest of the EU on one side and Turkey on the other over Turkey’s value to the EU. There is a view that has taken hold in Turkey over the past few years, as Turkey’s economy has exploded while Europe’s has tanked and as Turkey has become a more influential global player, that Europe needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Europe. I myself think that Europe stands to benefit greatly from Turkish accession to the EU, but the fact that Hollande is willing to risk another rupture in ties over what seems to be a comparably small domestic political issue suggests that many in Europe do not share this view. Ankara would do well to take heed of this, since bad relations with France and endless fighting over Cyprus only benefit Turkey if Europe as a whole believes that there is something to lose by alienating Turkey. Were I advising Erdoğan and Davutoğlu, I would suggest that they ignore this latest provocation, keep tensions low over the latest Armenian genocide news, and wait to see how things play out. Blowing up at Hollande and France will not accomplish anything in this case, and will demonstrate that Turkey is willing to be more pliable and puts joining the EU at the top of its list of priorities.
Magical Thinking On Turkey’s EU Bid
May 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
The swearing in of new French president François Hollande has led to a round of renewed optimism in Turkey over its bid to join the European Union. The Turkish parliament is racing to introduce new legislation that would establish a human rights commission and a panel to deal with complaints about Turkey’s judiciary, and the hope is that these moves will lead France to unblock five chapters in the EU accession talks. On Monday, Germany’s foreign minister said that there is space to once again resume negotiations but that Turkey should not get its hopes up too much since progress on the issue will take awhile. As always, it is interesting to note the difference in the accounts from Hürriyet and Today’s Zaman, as the former includes the German minister’s words of caution while the latter omits them. Zaman does, however, take stock of the elephant in the room, which is Cyprus. Despite the fact that Cyprus is a member of the EU, Turkey’s seaports and airports are closed to Cypriot ships and planes, which is what led the EU to suspend succession talks in the first place. Turkey has no plans to change its policy, and on Monday FM Davutoğlu confirmed Turkey’s position that it will suspend relations with the EU once Cyprus assumes the rotating presidency on July 1. At the very same press conference, Davutoğlu also voiced the expectation and hope that there is going to be a “positive acceleration” of relations between Turkey and the EU now that Sarkozy is gone and Hollande is in his place.
I call this magical thinking because it completely glosses over the real obstacles to Turkey’s EU bid and and ignores the hard facts on the ground in favor of highlighting ephemeral minutiae that will barely register in the grand scheme of things. The actual situation is as follows: of the 35 chapters of EU law that must be negotiated, 13 have been successfully opened, 17 are currently frozen, 4 have yet to be opened, and only 1 has been successfully completed. Furthermore, of the 17 that are frozen, only 5 were blocked by France; the other 12 were blocked by the EU itself or Cyprus, a situation which is not bound to resolve itself any time in the foreseeable future. Turkey is convincing itself that a new French president means that its EU bid is about to begin sailing through, as if perfidious France was the only obstacle to Turkey’s accession, and Davutoğlu is busily crowing about a new era of positive relations while at the same time preparing to freeze all political relations and EU accession talks come July. The notion that replacing Sarkozy with Hollande is ultimately going to make even one lick of difference is laughable. Until Turkey complies with EU demands over normalizing relations with Cyprus, Turkey will remain on the outside looking in. The French could elect Abdullah Gül and it still wouldn’t change a thing.
For what it’s worth, outside experts appear to believe that Turkey’s future if it does not soon join the EU is going to be one that looks very different from its present. Foreign Policy surveyed 59 experts (including heads of state and foreign and defense ministers) about issues relating to NATO, and on the question of Turkey’s orientation in five years if it is still not a member of the EU, 21 believed that Turkey would pursue a revival of Ottoman power, 13 that it would be more closely aligned with its Muslim neighbors, and only 11 that Turkey would still be closely aligned with its Western allies. The point of bringing this up is not to allege that Turkey is on the verge of anything drastic, but to illustrate the European and American perception that Turkey’s reliability as an ally is in many ways contingent on it officially joining Europe in the form of becoming an EU member. If this perception holds and Turkey is not able to join the EU, the consequences will be bad for all parties involved. It is encouraging to see Turkish optimism over the EU once again, but the optimism will continue to be entirely misplaced so long as Turkey continues to fool itself over what true obstacles remain in its path. It is altogether possible that Turkey could do everything that is asked of it and still get rejected for xenophobic cultural reasons, and if that does indeed happen, it will be the EU’s loss. But Turkey as of now is not doing everything that is required to mount a successful accession bid, and that has not changed just because we now have President Hollande.
