Israel to purchase four German missile boats to protect offshore gas facilities

[jakeXT]

Israel agreed to purchase four new missile boats from Germany, specifically for the purpose of protecting offshore gas facilities in the Mediterranean Sea, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday.

The new deal comes after a minor crisis in Israeli-German relations in October, specifically relating to missile boats.

Throughout 2014, Israel and Germany were in talks to purchase three missile boats from Germany, for a reported €900 million ($1.1 billion) price tag.

Israel originally asked for a 30 percent discount, like it had received in previous deals on German submarines. The German reduction in cost, tantamount to a grant of hundreds of millions of euros, was part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy to bolster Israel’s security.

However, in the beginning of May, about two weeks after peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled, German’s national security adviser Christoph Heusgen told his Israeli counterpart Yossi Cohen that Israel would not receive the discount and would have to pay their full price.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.633814

[bemildred]

1. They seem to have big plans for those gas deposits.

I'm sort of wondering if that will hold up, given the fracking glut and global warming.

I was reading a long and rather detailed screed on the subject the other day, about all the claims and bickering going on behind the scenes.

But I see they caved on the price of the missile boats.

[jakeXT]

2. It's a big sea, that's for sure

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3014/pdf/FS10-3014.pdf

Although the Israeli press frequently raises the specter of some aggression against its oil and gas installations by Hezbollah or even by the minuscule Lebanese navy, outside observers suggest the chance of such unprovoked attacks are slim to nonexistent. Because of its activities in neighboring Syria, “Hezbollah just doesn’t have these kinds of resources and they are trying to manage a very delicate local mood,” says a well-placed source close to the Shiite communities in Beirut. “More significantly, Iran has no interest whatsoever in this kind of collision now. And what Iran wants, Hezbollah does. It’s the Israelis who are trying to take advantage of a nervous moment all around and see what they can get out of it.”

In practical terms, says Terzian at Petrostrategies, nobody is going to invest with Lebanon in disputed waters. There are no Lebanese companies there capable of carrying out the drilling, and there is no military force that could protect them. But on the other side, things are different. “You have Israeli companies that have the ability to operate in offshore areas, and they could take the risk under the protection of the Israeli military.”

War on the high seas of the Eastern Med is not inevitable, of course. U.S. Ambassador Frederic Hof, now at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center, led the diplomatic effort to sort out those differences for much of 2011 and 2012. “EEZ disputes are very common around the world,” he tells me, and “they are normally settled through common sense compromise.”

But, then, common sense compromise has never been a common attribute among the nations of the Middle East.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/06/are-these-gas-fields-israel-s-next-warzone.html

[bemildred]

3. Globes, Tel Aviv, Israel, Norman Bailey column

Here is another different screed, but I think it is describing the same argument. Lots of interesting bits.

Dec. 26--I had hoped to write an optimistic column due to interesting developments in the region that are potentially good for Israel.

The Egyptian president has announced that Egypt will be willing to station troops in the Palestinian territories to ensure compliance with any agreement reached on their political status, especially with reference to demilitarization. Along with the draconian measures taken by Egypt on the Gaza frontier and the abortive offer of land in the Sinai to be united with Gaza to form a homeland for the Palestinians, an offer rejected by Abbas, of course, it shows that Egypt continues to take measures and offer solutions entirely to the benefit of Israel.

The Saudi energy minister, speaking on behalf of King Abdullah, stated that the kingdom would be willing to sell oil to Israel, a startling reversal of decades of Saudi policy. In some ways even more interesting is that he referred to Israel as "the Jewish state", not "the Zionist Entity" or any other epithet so dear to Palestinian and other Arab propagandists.

Finally, it would appear that another attempt is underway to replace Mahmoud Abbas with Mohammed Dahlan, an effort undertaken by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE (where Dahlan resides), and Jordan. A massive demonstration in favor of Dahlan recently took place in Gaza, not interfered with by the Hamas authorities. When a similar project was on the verge of coming to fruition some months ago, Abbas quickly formed a unity government with Hamas, offering funding to Hamas in return for protection by the much more heavily-armed coalition partner. Now the unity government has collapsed due to the inability of the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its financial promises to Hamas. A Dahlan government in Ramallah, especially if, as rumored, he reinstalled Salam Fayyad as prime minister, would be good news indeed for Israel, not to mention the Palestinians themselves.

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/news/article.asp?docKey=600-201412260001KRTRIB__BUSNEWS_54212_38701-1

[sabbat hunter]

4. I think that

natural gas will be continued to be used for a long time, as it is much cleaner than oil or coal. Additionally, if Israel is able to develop these fields off of its coast, it will have easy access to European markets either by ship or pipeline, giving them an alternative to Russian gas. I think that most of Europe, Turkey and the US will back Israel in developing these fields as all of them would prefer gas from them than Putin.

[bemildred]

5. I read they could get about 20 years out of those fields, if they don't export.

And there is some disagreement about what to do, go for the cash or go for the energy independence for twenty years or so. Otherwise, I concur.