It’s not just the Arabs who are coming around to Israel.
By now we are somewhat accustomed to what seemed impossible for decades: a rapprochement between Israel and Arab countries. To be sure, not all Arab countries are on board with Israel, and even those that are remain restrained. Even so, we now face, in addition to the formal treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, a number of Gulf states doing what was once unthinkable.
They talk with Israel, fly to Israel, trade with Israel, allow Israelis into their countries. They speak frankly of the need to recognize Israel. They see a strong Israel as valuable against the threat of Iran and do not regard the Palestinian issue as the core of the conflict in the Middle East.
They recognize that Arab intransigence on Israel has not helped Palestnians, but harmed them. As the State of Israel has thrived, Palestinian life remains stagnant because its energy is largely focused on harming Israel rather than its own development.
They allow Israeli athletes into their countries and punish others, such as Iran, who will not allow their athletes to compete with Israelis.
Now, there emerges another international alliance, this one more formal than the Israel-Arab cooperation, but equally impressive in belying the myth in the European Union and United Nations that Israel is diplomatically and economically isolated.
This new international alliance includes Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, Jordan, Italy and the Palestinian Authority. They have all come together as the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, triggered by the unimaginably massive natural gas reserves that Israel discovered off its shorelines, followed by additional discoveries primarily by Greece.
Just as the informal Israel-Arab alliance has a natural enemy — Iran — so does the East Mediterranean Gas Forum: Turkey.
The sad thing, of course, is that neither Iran nor Turkey need be an enemy of Israel or of any other country. The ironic thing is that the big losers are Iran and Turkey, each in its own way wallowing in hatred rather than embracing the huge economic possibilities of cooperation.
The Islamic Republic of Iran would prefer to pursue its rigid religious dogma, nuclear dreams and destruction of Israel while its people suffer disproportionately from COVID 19, not to mention from a radically reduced economy. Both derive from Iran’s radical, self-imposed isolation.
Turkey, too, though once the beacon of a secular state with a Muslim population, now also prefers to pursue its religious dogma, much to its own detriment. Out of religious bias, Turkey found it easy to dump its flourishing economic and diplomatic relationship with Israel, but now is tied up in knots over Israel’s response: a regional economic consortium that has brought Turkey’s enemies, Greece and Cyprus, under its wings.
Essentially, the East Mediterranean Gas Forum has a twofold program. First, it sells natural gas around the world. The Wall Street Journal calls it “a global energy source.” Second, it is planning an international pipeline to carry this gas to European consumers.
Turkey objects, but it is unclear what Turkey can do to stop this pipeline, short of all out war. Collectively, the gas forum’s members hold enough gas to cover 50 years of consumption by France! And that’s only counting the known reserves. Vast, additional discoveries await, according to experts.
So here you have the bitter Greek-Turkish dispute over Cyprus suddenly finding Turkey on the outs as Cyprus has unforeseen and powerful allies. Suddenly you find France, long a bitter critic of Israel, suddenly clamoring to join the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, not least because of Turkey’s military moves against France’s navy. Suddenly, even the Palestinian Authority, which cannot denounce Israel enough, comes to its senses when big economic benefits loom. That’s an eye-popper.
To be sure, the alternating Turkish opposition to the pipeline and Turkish demands to get in on it, alongside the drop in energy use due to the pandemic, mean that the pipeline is not likely a short-term prospect. This, however, cannot hide the tremendous economic and diplomatic benefits already accruing to Israel and others from the the East Mediterranean Gas Forum. Remember, it was Israel which first tapped the enormous gas reserves in the Mediterranean, and it was Israel that entered into a long-term agreement to sell natural gas to Egypt.
The pipeline dispute also highlights Turkey’s growing diplomatic isolation. When Turkey said just a couple of weeks ago that it would probe for oil and gas off the Greek island of Rhodes, Germany stepped in, exerted pressure and put a stop to it.
It’s an old story: Economic strength supplies diplomatic power. Ask China why it feels so threatened by Hong Kong and Taiwan. Ask Donald Trump why he is so worried that a once humming American economy, now in the tank due to the coronavirus, will harm his reelection prospects. Go back in history and ask why Ronald Reagan effectively asked when he was running for his second term, “Are you better off now than four years ago?” Go back and ask why John F. Kennedy felt so confident in confronting the former USSR when it put missiles in Cuba. A major reason was America’s economic expansion, which JFK frequently touted.
New alliances emerge to Israel’s benefit in significant part because of Israel’s strong economy. Remember, before Netanyahu was prime minister, he was finance minister. On his watch the old leftist Zionist socialist economy was ditched and start-up nation was born. One of its children is the East Mediterranean Gas Forum.
Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News
