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The lull is over for today. Another one is slated for the day after tomorrow. What would you spend your three hours doing? Searching for food and benzene? Burying a loved one? Or helping the kids get a few hours sleep? Maybe there will be a cease-fire soon. But then again, what would it really look like? Al Jazeera talks to two analysts whose points raise serious questions about prospects for true peace.
Crossposted at JustPeaceNow
Gaza Today: “The Root Cause of Extremism and of Battlefields Tomorrow” |
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| By: Laura Doty Wednesday January 7, 2009 12:00 pm | |
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Digg is open. Many thanks to all of you who take the time to spread ripples in the pond.
Update from Sameh Habeeb: 710 dead, 3200 injured. Thousands evacuating Rafah (after homes were leafleted) while Israel bombs the town, reportedly a prelude to destroying the tunnels. Al Jazeera’s Twitter link reports 25 homes in Rafah have already been destroyed.
War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, January 8, 2009
The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.
The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).
The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).
The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.
The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/i…..;aid=11680