The Mighty As Victim

There is a temptation when confronted by a massacre for those of us inured by our distance and sense of security to try and find ways to justify the perpetrator-- so long as the perpetrator is perceived as a friend or a dependable ally. Accordingly, it is vital for such an aggressor to seize the moral high ground. The intention is to excuse what the rest of the world will judge as nothing less than a wholesale slaughter as ostensibly self-defense. No discussion shall take place about whatever provocations may have sparked the escalation--for the manipulators with their private agendas the raging debate over justification and proportionality serve its own purpose: providing cover for another, far greater crime.

For centuries it has been a tactic of the strong to steal from the weak while aping the blameless victim. The carnage taking place in Gaza is merely the latest example following gratefully in the footprints of Bush's unlawful preemptive war.

Israel's Shock & Awe Planned 6 Months

Israel's ongoing onslaught on the sealed off Gaza Strip, sold as a response to Palestinian rocket-firing, was planned for way back in June. As Haaretz reported on December 28: "Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to plan for the offensive even as Israel was negotiating an Egyptian-brokered truce deal with Hamas and other factions.

Why the West Bank Is Virtually Silent

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. Make no mistake, this is a war of conquest. There are large reserves of natural gas off the Gaza coastline. In November of 1999 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 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 CCC also happens to be the construction firm that built Iraq's notorious Abu Ghuraib prison which recently had its Swiss assets frozen amid a $60 million Yemeni oilfield dispute. Swiss courts froze all accounts held by Consolidated Contractors Company's unit Consolidated Contractors International Co., or CCIC, with Lebanon | Financial Services Suisse SA in Geneva and Arab Bank Switzerland in Zurich, according to a statement from the plaintiff's legal representatives.

The freezing of the bank accounts follows a U.K. High Court ruling on Dec. 21 that CCIC and 's oil and gas unit CCOG are in breach of an agreement signed with Palestinian entrepreneur Munib Masri in 1992 to share revenue from Yemen's Masila oilfield. According to Masri's London legal representatives Simmons & Simmons, the U.K. court ruled that family-run Consolidated Contractors Company and its billionaire owners Said Khoury and Hasib Sabbagh must pay about $60 million allegedly owed to Mr. Masri. In addition, the court ruled at the time that the units have to disclose all assets worth more than $100,000 in the case brought by Masri, chairman of the Palestine Development and Investment Company, a Nablus, West Bank-based holding company registered in Liberia.

(Said Khoury is an adviser to the board of Bank AudiBank Audi, which is headquartered in Lebanon, while his son Wael Khoury is a director of one of the bank's affiliates in the U.S., Interaudi Bank, which is based in New York, according to the banks' Web sites. Masri, a former Jordanian cabinet minister, in November launched the Palestine Forum political group, which he intends to convert into a rival for Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.)

From Global Research

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.
Map 1

Map 2

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza's gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza's offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine's sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza's offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza's offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas "was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt." (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

"Israeli defense authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government." (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.
--Michel Chossudovsky

It appears that with the acquiescence of Jordan and Egypt Israel would like to confiscate the Palestinian gas fields and declare sovereignty over Gaza's maritime area. While for the moment this may be politically untenable it is clear that the Israelis-- seeing their own economy in a shambles-- recognize the gas fields as their potential salvation. Stupidly? cunningly? corruptly? --it appears the leaders of Hamas by shooting off rockets instead of a noisy diplomatic campaign have sanctioned Israel's plans.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they are about to find out that where vital resources are concerned, the indigenous poor remain universally expendable.