The latest effort to trade stolen Palestinian gas between the European Union and the Israeli occupation includes a tripartite agreement signed with the Egyptian regime on the sidelines of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. The agreement is valid for a period of 3 years and renewable for 2 more years. Among the members of the Gas Forum, where the agreement was signed, are the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Israeli occupation regime, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France. Under the agreement, gas will be transferred from Israel to Egypt via an existing gas pipeline, after which Egypt will liquify it and re-export it, due to the current absence of a pipeline connecting the Israeli occupation with Europe directly. This, of course, is the goal of the EastMed pipeline project, which aims to link the Israeli occupation through Cyprus and Greece, to be commissioned in 2027.
As Samidoun noted in 2021, the project is ” an imperialist endeavor of resource extraction, great power competition and immiseration of the world’s masses…The existential question for all of humanity of climate change and environmental destruction cannot be separated from and cannot be addressed without the liberation of Palestine and its exploited and oppressed masses from Zionist occupation, without the success of progressive, radical and revolutionary forces in the region and internationally against the forces of imperialism and reaction.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a tweet : “With this EU-Israel-Egypt agreement, we will work on the stable delivery of natural gas to the EU from the Eastern Mediterranean region. This will contribute to our energy security.” Indeed, this agreement comes at the height of the war in Ukraine in order to allow EU countries to depend less on Russian gas, which in 2021 represented more than 40% of EU natural gas imports. On the other hand, there seems to be no concern on the part of the European Commission when it comes to reaching an agreement with the Israeli apartheid regime for stolen Palestinian gas, and one of the most notorious dictatorships in the region, the Sisi regime in Egypt.
For the Israeli occupation, the agreement reflects a strategic opportunity to open markets for the gas it aims to siphon from the Palestinian and Lebanese coastlines. Indeed, the Israeli occupation aim to secure its own economic development following the discovery in 2010 of gas deposits off the coast of occupied Palestine. For example, the “Leviathan” deposit is located 130km west of occupied Haifa and contains reserves of around 500 billion cubic meters, i.e. the equivalent of more than 10 years of French consumption in gas. It is also in this context that the recent provocations of Israel must be understood, specifically the decision to transport a drilling platform to the “Karish” gas field.located in the Lebanese maritime zone.
While the Lebanese people are suffocating due to sanctions and the economic crisis and the Palestinian people are confronting the theft of their land, water, and resources for over 74 years of Zionist colonialism, the Israeli occupation is stealing these resources with the complicity and concealment of EU countries and Arab reactionary regimes. More than ever, we must denounce the theft of Palestinian natural resources and develop the international campaign to boycott Israel.
Original: Collectif Palestine Vaincra
