The headline-grabbing
maritime boundary deal announced between Lebanon and Israel this week produced
several winners and losers. Determining who is who is another matter.
اضافة اعلان
Leaders in each country claimed victory after US
President Joe Biden unveiled the agreement, while opposition groups on both
sides accused their own governments of conceding national wealth. There are
also questions about the deal itself and whether it will survive the political
storms that are coming.
So, before finalizing the score, we must first
identify what was, and remains, at stake.
The long-standing dispute was over a maritime border
serving two key purposes: security, and delineation of the countries’ exclusive
economic zones.
On the security side, Israel clearly came out on
top. Israel will maintain control over a line that starts five kilometers from
the coast and stretches into territory that Lebanon considers its own. Lebanon
tried to push this line south, but Israel resisted, concerned that a shift
would give the Lebanese direct access to Israel’s north.
The tally on economics is more mixed. Until the
early 2000s, when Israel and Egypt began discovering gas reserves in their territorial
waters, there had been little economic activity in the eastern Mediterranean.
Once gas was found, Lebanon began conducting seismic explorations of its own,
which hinted that it, too, had gas reserves that were commercially viable.
Exploration rights to the most promising Lebanese blocks — 4 and 9 — were
awarded to the French oil giant Total in 2018.
Total drilled Block 4, off the coast of Beirut, in
2020, but came up dry. Total said it would not drill Block 9, whose southern
border was disputed by Israel, without Israel’s consent — which in turn
required having Hezbollah on board. Not long ago, Hezbollah’s buy-in for a deal
with Israel would have been inconceivable. But the freefalling Lebanese economy
forced the pro-Iran militia to bend.
Lebanon is a rentier state. Oligarchs use its
resources to offer their partisans social services, including government jobs,
healthcare, and pensions. With the state going bankrupt, millions of Lebanese
find themselves without a social safety net. Some have started to rely on
Hezbollah’s services, which are also stretched to breaking point.
For instance, the Great Prophet Hospital,
Hezbollah’s main healthcare facility in Beirut, has been unable to cope with an
ever-growing roster of patients. The hospital can barely keep the lights on,
and medicine is in such short supply that those who live with chronic diseases,
such as diabetes, have few options. Lebanon has already run out of affordable
insulin.
As Lebanon falls aparts, Hezbollah is being
squeezed. Lebanon’s Shiite, from whom the pro-Iran militia draws its support,
are hurting, while the party — and its impoverished sponsor Iran — can do
little to ease the suffering.
In the hopes of producing gas to help mitigate
Lebanon’s economic disaster, Hezbollah sued for settlement of the maritime
border issue to allow Total to dig up Block 9.
If gas is discovered in Qana, Lebanon will receive 83 percent of its revenue, while Israel will get 17 percent. In previous scenarios offered by the US, Israel was given 45 percent of the disputed area.
But before the party’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, went
on national television on the eve of the deal’s announcement to metaphorically
drink the poison, he had flown a couple of drones into Israeli airspace earlier
in the summer, presumably targeting Israel’s Karish gas field. Nasrallah
pretended that he had put Israel on notice: He would hit Karish if Israeli
production began before a deal with Lebanon was reached. In other words, Hezbollah
was threatening Israel with war to force a deal.
Everyone, especially Israel, knew Hezbollah could
not drag Lebanon to war in its current state. Yet Israeli officials likely
believed they could extract some concessions from Lebanon, such as the demarcation
of borders between them, both on land and at sea.
Hezbollah wanted a compromise, but not one that
recognized Israel and demarcated borders in a way that would end all
territorial disputes between the two sides. Hezbollah, after all, exists to
fight Israel. Thus, terrestrial border demarcation was taken off the table.
In its place came a maritime boundary that stopped
five kilometers short of shore, leaving most of Block 9’s Qana field in
Lebanese hands.
If gas is discovered in Qana, Lebanon will receive
83 percent of its revenue, while Israel will get 17 percent. In previous
scenarios offered by the US, Israel was given 45 percent of the disputed area.
While assessing Qana’s reserves has to wait until
later stages of exploration, the Israeli Ministry of Energy predicts that Qana
holds just $3 billion worth of gas. With $68.9 billion in external debt, Qana’s
potential will not move the economic needle in Lebanon. Unless Qana proves to
be a mega field, or unless other fields are suddenly discovered, Lebanon’s
claim of economic victory in maritime talks over Israel will prove misplaced.
But, if Qana surprises with big reserves, or if
other fields with sizable amounts of gas are discovered, Israel would have shot
itself in the foot by taking the US-brokered deal.
Moreover, the
temporary nature of the deal could allow Israel to ask for reconsideration, or
it could crumble completely. The deal itself is not a treaty between two
countries, but a US document and deposit of maps with the UN (the second such
deposit since 2009). None of this went through a ratification process — at
least not in Lebanon. In Israel, the Cabinet voted but the Knesset did not, and
an Israeli Cabinet vote could be reversed by a future Cabinet vote.
Finally, if Israel’s opposition leader, Benjamin
Netanyahu, who trashed the deal during its run-up, becomes prime minister again
on November 1, Israel could withdraw before it is clear how much gas reserves
Qana holds, if any.
No matter how all of this plays out, this much is
certain: declarations of victory, by either side, are premature.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD),
a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national
security and foreign policy, Syndication Bureau.
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