History of Golan Heights and the Battle Over Control of Oil and Natural Gas
The Intra-Arab War for Oil : 1950-1970
June 9, 2015- Gamal Nasser was a socialist army officer in the Egyptian army. In 1952 Nasser, together with other Egyptian army officers, overturned the Egyptian King. Eventually Nasser became Egypt’s president, and he established a one party political system. In 1967 he decided to close the Straits of Tiran to Israel, sending at the same time many army units at the Sinai Peninsula. By closing the Straits of Tiran, Nasser was basically blocking the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline. However Israel, supported by the Americans, attacked Egypt and Syria, and during the Six Days War, the Israelis took the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Therefore the Eilat- Askhelon Pipeline Company was established in 1968; and, at the same time, the piece of the Trans Arabian Pipeline that was passing through the Golan Heights was no longer under Syrian control.
Gamal Nasser died in 1970, without ever achieving to control the oil of the Persian Gulf. However he had supporters in all Arab countries, and all Arab leaders attended his funeral. The only Arab leader who did not attend was the Saudi King. After all, Nasser was mainly after the Saudi oil. When Nasser was using Pan-Arabism, and the socialists of the Persian Gulf, in order to attack the Arab monarchs of the Persian Gulf, the Saudis were using Pan-Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in order to attack Nasser. Therefore Nasser designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
However, nowadays, the Muslim Brotherhood is supported by Turkey and Erdogan. Tayip Erdogan wishes to become the new Sultan of the chaliphate. That way Turkey would play a greater role in the oil and natural gas of the Persian Gulf. As a result the Saudis have designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. In a way Erdogan is for the Saudis a new Nasser. Except that Erdogan is not a socialist, like Nasser was, but he is an Islamist. That does not mean that the Saudis and the Turks cannot reach an agreement. That will depend on how much Turkey wants.
You always hear intellectuals saying how complicated the Middle East is. That’s a great lie. The Middle East is complicated only when oil and natural gas is not based at the centre of the analysis. When oil and natural gas are placed at the centre of the analysis the Middle East is the simplest region in the world. There is only one rule in the Middle East, and that is that the fastest gun takes the oil. But the intellectuals will not say that because their job, as Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand were saying many decades ago, is to convince us about how much we need the civil servants that are paying them.
Chaostan
Russia vs Turkey : The Geopolitics of the South and the Turk Stream Pipelines [Excerpt]
May 29, 2015Russia’s most important geopolitical objective is to maintain her dominant role in the European oil and natural gas markets. Russia is the largest exporter of natural gas in the world, and one of the largest exporters of oil. Approximately one third of Europe’s oil and natural gas imports come from Russia.
Turkey’s most important geopolitical objective is to ensure the country’s energy security, because Turkey is very poor in oil and natural gas reserves. In addition, Turkey wants to become the absolute energy hub between the Middle East and Europe, in order to generate huge revenues in transit fees, and to be able to bargain for better prices with the rich in oil and natural gas countries, which will depend on Turkey for their sales. By doing that Turkey will also increase her geopolitical might, because Europe will increase her dependence on Turkey.
Which are the main threats for Russia and Turkey? Which are the main obstacles to their geopolitical objectives? For Russia the main danger is the construction of a pipeline network that will connect Europe with the Caspian Sea and the Middle East through Turkey. This pipeline network would send to Europe the natural gas and oil of Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, which are all very rich countries in oil and natural gas. This would mean lower prices and lower market share for Russia’s oil and natural gas industry, which account for approximately 70% of the Russian government’s revenues.
Picture 2
For Turkey the main danger is the connection of Europe with the Middle East and the Caspian Sea with a pipeline network that will bypass Turkey as an energy hub. This would reduce Turkey’s ability to bargain vis a vis the rich in oil and natural gas countries, and it would also reduce Turkey’s geopolitical significance, because it would reduce Europe’s dependence on Turkey.
Picture 3
In the past there have been two main efforts to bypass Turkey as the absolute energy connection between Europe and the Middle East. The first one was the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, see the red line on the above map, and the other was the East Med pipeline (Israel-Cyprus-Greece), see the yellow line on the above map. Turkey attacked both Israel and Syria. Turkey attacked Syria with the help of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, and Turkey attacked Israel with the help of Qatar and Iran. Turkey and Qatar support Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate that runs Gaza, and Iran supports Hezbollah, the shite military organization that operates at the borders of Israel and Lebanon. For more information see “USA Russia & China in the Middle East: Alliances & Conflicts”.
The above represent the main geopolitical objectives of Russia and Turkey, and the main threats to their geopolitical objectives. What is very important is that Turkey is the main threat for Russia’s geopolitical objectives, and Russia is the main threat for Turkey’s main geopolitical objectives. It is mainly through Turkey that a competing Russia pipeline network can be constructed in order to send Iranian, Iraqi, Qatari, Azerbaijani and Turkmen natural gas to Europe. At least that’s the best option, because the other options require the construction of long underwater pipeline networks, which are much harder to construct and they also cost a lot more.
Russia is behind the Iran-Iraq-Syria and the East Med pipelines. Gazprom agreed to construct and manage the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, which would bypass Turkey (red line at the following map). An LNG plant would be built in Syria or Lebanon, which would liquefy the natural gas and send it to Europe or Africa with LNG carriers (ships). The pipeline would carry Iranian and Iraqi natural gas. In addition Russia agreed with Syria to exploit Syria’s off-shore natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea (purple circle at the following map).
Picture 4
Moreover Russia formed an alliance with Cyprus and Israel in the East Mediterranean Sea. Both Israel and Cyprus have found natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea (see black and yellow circles on the above map). Cyprus and Israel would be very happy to sell their natural gas to Europe through the East Med Pipeline (Israel-Cyprus-Greece), or by liquefying their natural gas at an LNG plant, which would be built in Cyprus, and then ship it to Europe.
With the plans for the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipelines, and the alliance with Cyprus and Israel, Russia managed to become for Turkey what Turkey was for Russia i.e. a geopolitical headache. Russia managed to become a geopolitical headache at the south of Turkey, in the same way that Turkey was a geopolitical headache at the south of Russia. In the same way that Turkey bypasses Russia from the south, with the TANAP and TAP pipelines (purple lines), Russia can bypass Turkey from the south with the Iran-Iraq-Syria and the East Med pipelines (red and yellow lines).
Picture 5
It must be mentioned that the East Med pipeline is not completely controlled by Russia, as it would have been the case with the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, but Russia’s alliance with Cyprus and Israel makes life for Turkey much harder.
The last factor that must be taken into account when examining the Russian-Turkish relations is the large trade in the energy sector between the two countries. Turkey is the second largest importer of Russian natural gas, with Germany being the largest, as you can see at the following table from the site of Gazprom.
Picture 6
Πηγή:: Gazprom http://www.gazpromexport.ru/en/statistics/
Russian natural gas accounts for 56% of the Turkish imports, as you can see at the following pie chart of the Energy Information Administration.
Picture 7
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=tu
The above 5 points are the main elements of the geopolitical framework that should be used in order to analyse the Russian-Turkish relations.
- The first one is the energy corridor Turkey-Europe, i.e. (TANAP-TAP).
- The second one is the energy corridor Middle East-East Mediterranean Sea-Europe (Iran-Iraq-Syria and East Med Pipelines).
- The third one is Turkey’s energy dependence on Russia.
- The fourth one is that Turkey is Gazprom’s second largest customer.
- The fifth one is that most of Russia’s income comes from her oil and natural gas sales in the European markets.
In this section I will describe in more detail the conflicts between Russia and Turkey. As you can see at the following map, both Russia and Turkey are of strategic importance for the energy security of Eastern European countries.
Picture 8
The countries of Western and Southern Europe have alternatives to the Russian natural gas and oil. They can import oil and natural gas from Algeria and Libya, through pipelines, but also with the use of ships from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the largest producers and exporters of oil and natural gas in the world.
On the contrary, it is very difficult for the countries of Eastern Europe to find alternatives to the Russian natural gas and oil. Therefore they have to pay higher prices and they are vulnerable to Putin’s political manipulations. Their main alternative is Norway, which has 2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, but Norway is facing a falling production due to over-exploitation of her reserves and due to the aging of her gas fields. Their other alternatives are the UK, which already imports more natural gas than it exports, and has become a net importer, and the Netherlands, which have small reserves and also face a falling natural gas production.
For the natural gas production of the European Union see page 8 of the following table from an article of the American Congress, titled “Europe’s Energy Security: Options and Challenges to Natural Gas Supply Diversification”, August 2013. Figures are given in cubic feet, and they must be divided by 35 in order to be converted to cubic meters. As you can see it is only England and the Netherlands which have satisfactory production levels, but it is only the Netherlands which produces more than it consumes, making the Netherlands the only net exporter of natural gas in the European Union.
Picture 9
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42405.pdf
Tel Aviv Diary: Istanbul Blast Brings Turkey Closer
On Monday morning, broadcast bulletins in Israel brought the
news Israelis had been dreading: that the latest attack in Istanbul that
claimed the lives of three Israelis and wounded 10 others had not
randomly hit Israeli tourists.
Reports from Istanbul now categorically state that the suicide bomber had in fact followed the group of Israelis from their hotel and then detonated himself. For Israelis, the notion of being targeted abroad harkens back to “the bad old days,” when Israelis and Israeli institutions were the main targets of Palestinian terror.
Israeli news coverage of the events in Istanbul did not focus only on the personal dimension of the tragedy, but it devoted a great deal of the coverage and speculation to the strategic dimensions. The first moments after the blast started rather inauspiciously, with a leading official in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party tweeting that she wished all the Israelis in the attack had been killed. As the night went on, her tweet was deleted and word spread that she had been fired.
By late Saturday night, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu sent a letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, specifically relating to the loss of Israeli life. Last night, news broke that Erdogan, long considered a foe of Israel, had written a similar letter to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, stating: “I want to send my deepest condolences to the Israeli people and the families that lost their loved ones in this traitorous attack.”
Israel and Turkey have been at odds since Israel’s interception of the Marmara, the Turkish ship, sent to attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in 2010.
Israel and Turkey had had a long history of close cooperation until the rise of Erdoğan’s Islamic party to power. Since then, the ties, which were the strongest example of military-to-military cooperation, have cooled considerably.
The strong economic interdependency between the two countries—which includes large numbers of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey every year and the fact that Turkish Airlines is the second-busiest carrier at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, surpassed only by the Israel’s National Carrier El Al—kept these ties from breaking completely.
In the past months, as Turkey has found itself in an ever more difficult geopolitical reality, attempts have been made for reconciliation with Israel. Speculation in the past few days has been widespread that the attack this past weekend will hasten that reconciliation.
While the bombing in Istanbul was the focus of most of the news over the weekend, two other events could end up having even greater impact. The local ISIS affiliate in the Sinai desert killed 23 Egyptian security personnel in a combined suicide bombing. And on Israel’s border with Syria on the Golan Heights, the loosely affiliated group Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade (LSY) has begun to attack other opposition groups there, in attempts to gain greater control of the Heights and the borders with Israel and Jordan.
According to Daniel Nisman, security analyst of the Levantine Group, “LSY in the Golan has a few barriers, physical and non-physical, preventing it from carrying out sustained attacks against Israel, but the group may find it advantageous to stage a symbolic cross-border attack, particularly if it declares allegiance to ISIS and wants to do so ‘with a bang.’ But realistically, the group knows that provoking Israel may result in a military bombardment that could compromise its far more crucial goals of spreading control in the Deraa Province.”
On the bright side, on Monday morning Israelis were pleasantly surprised to find out that last night Israel had evacuated the last 17 Jews from war-torn Yemen.
Historian Marc Schulman is the editor of historycentral.com.
Reports from Istanbul now categorically state that the suicide bomber had in fact followed the group of Israelis from their hotel and then detonated himself. For Israelis, the notion of being targeted abroad harkens back to “the bad old days,” when Israelis and Israeli institutions were the main targets of Palestinian terror.
Israeli news coverage of the events in Istanbul did not focus only on the personal dimension of the tragedy, but it devoted a great deal of the coverage and speculation to the strategic dimensions. The first moments after the blast started rather inauspiciously, with a leading official in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party tweeting that she wished all the Israelis in the attack had been killed. As the night went on, her tweet was deleted and word spread that she had been fired.
By late Saturday night, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu sent a letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, specifically relating to the loss of Israeli life. Last night, news broke that Erdogan, long considered a foe of Israel, had written a similar letter to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, stating: “I want to send my deepest condolences to the Israeli people and the families that lost their loved ones in this traitorous attack.”
Israel and Turkey have been at odds since Israel’s interception of the Marmara, the Turkish ship, sent to attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in 2010.
Israel and Turkey had had a long history of close cooperation until the rise of Erdoğan’s Islamic party to power. Since then, the ties, which were the strongest example of military-to-military cooperation, have cooled considerably.
The strong economic interdependency between the two countries—which includes large numbers of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey every year and the fact that Turkish Airlines is the second-busiest carrier at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, surpassed only by the Israel’s National Carrier El Al—kept these ties from breaking completely.
In the past months, as Turkey has found itself in an ever more difficult geopolitical reality, attempts have been made for reconciliation with Israel. Speculation in the past few days has been widespread that the attack this past weekend will hasten that reconciliation.
While the bombing in Istanbul was the focus of most of the news over the weekend, two other events could end up having even greater impact. The local ISIS affiliate in the Sinai desert killed 23 Egyptian security personnel in a combined suicide bombing. And on Israel’s border with Syria on the Golan Heights, the loosely affiliated group Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade (LSY) has begun to attack other opposition groups there, in attempts to gain greater control of the Heights and the borders with Israel and Jordan.
According to Daniel Nisman, security analyst of the Levantine Group, “LSY in the Golan has a few barriers, physical and non-physical, preventing it from carrying out sustained attacks against Israel, but the group may find it advantageous to stage a symbolic cross-border attack, particularly if it declares allegiance to ISIS and wants to do so ‘with a bang.’ But realistically, the group knows that provoking Israel may result in a military bombardment that could compromise its far more crucial goals of spreading control in the Deraa Province.”
On the bright side, on Monday morning Israelis were pleasantly surprised to find out that last night Israel had evacuated the last 17 Jews from war-torn Yemen.
Historian Marc Schulman is the editor of historycentral.com.
Israeli intervention in Syria looking more likely
This is following an alliance between the rebel Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades and IS.December 21, 2014
Jerusalem Online - Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon spoke with outgoing US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to discuss increased Israeli involvement in the war against IS. According to a report in Haaretz, Israel has been assisting villages around the Golan in exchange for keeping extremist Islamist groups away from the border.
But with the recent defection of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade from the FSA to the IS dominated Islamist axis, a fact which has been confirmed on Debka and by retired Major General Amos Gilad on Reshet Bet, Israel may have to become more actively involved in the Syrian civil war due to the ascendancy of Islamic State in strategically sensitive areas near the Israeli border.
Additionally, the National reported that Mousab Zaytouneh, a leading figure in the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades that was killed last Monday, was secretly in league with Islamic State. The report noted that there have been numerous reports from opposition sources that various FSA brigades have been secretly aligned with Islamic State. According to a report in Al Monitor, media leaks on some jihadist pages indicated that the most important sleeper cells in Daraa, which might have pledged their allegiance to IS, include Saraya al-Jihad led by Abu Musab; Tawheed al-Janoub Brigades; and Yarmouk Martyrs.
Although Yarmouk has not pledged formal alliance to IS, but merely signed an operational cooperation pact with it, it still represents a major danger to Israel. This sudden defection leaves IDF defense formations on the Golan, US and Jordanian deployments in the northern part of the kingdom, and pro-Western rebel conquests in southern Syria in danger of collapse. It provides IS with direct access to a long section of Israel's Golan Heights border with Syria for the first time, as the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade is primarily based in southwestern Daraa Province near the crossroads between Jordan, Syria and the Golan Heights.
According to a report in American Thinker, the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades was behind taking 21 Filipinos working for UNDOF hostage in March 2013. The group is believed to be named after a battle that took place along the Yarmouk River near the Golan Heights, when the Rashidun Caliphate fought against the Byzantines in 636 AD. The battle ended Byzantine control in the area and led to Islamic rule in the region. For the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, the naming of their group after the Yarmouk battle symbolizes their political aims; the BBC notes that their ideology is Islamist, implying that signing an operational cooperation pact with Islamic State should not come as a surprise.
"Israel cannot stand by while red lines which endanger its security are being crossed," Ya'alon stated previously. "This year, we find ourselves facing radical Islamic terrorism, which lurks in every Middle Eastern corner, seeking to destroy us only for who we are. The relentless terrorism is activated by cruel organizations which do not hold back on means, and will do everything to try and sabotage our existence here in Israel."
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