How will "petroshekels" change the world?

The standing joke among Jews is, "If we're the Chosen People, why didn't God promise us some land with OIL under it?" As it turns out, He did.

Recent discoveries -- over the past several years -- put the amount of natural gas reserves in Israeli territorial waters at as much as 26 trillion cubic feet. That's roughly triple what Israel will consume over the next 20 years, meaning much of it can be exported. But compared to Egypt's 77 tcf of gas reserves, Israel's natural gas discoveries are not quite Earth-shaking.

Currently, Israel imports coal for domestic electricity, supplemented since 2004 by natural gas from the offshore Mari-B field twenty-five miles from the southern port of Ashdod. More gas comes from Egypt, arriving near Ashdod via an undersea pipeline. Indeed, despite the excitement over the Leviathan field, Israel signed a new twenty-year gas purchase agreement with Egypt earlier in December to supply several industrial entities, including the Dead Sea Works and the Haifa refinery.

If the riches of the Leviathan field are confirmed, production could begin by 2016. In that scenario, Israel could eventually become a net energy exporter despite still needing to import oil to refine into gasoline and other products. Apart from notional energy independence, using natural gas from its own fields would save Israel $4 billion in imports annually while boosting gross national product. Plentiful indigenous hydrocarbon supplies could also prompt the development of new industries. For the time being, though, Israel must resolve a variety of problems before it can begin reaping the full benefits of the new discovery.

However, Israel sits atop another energy resource: oil shale. Up until the end of 2010, it was believed that Israel had about 4 billion barrels of oil in extractable oil shale. Given that the Saudis produce just under 10 million bbl/day, those 4 billion bbl are equivalent to about 400 days of Saudi Arabia's production.

But new discoveries of oil shale in Israel and new techniques of extraction put the latest estimates of available oil from Israeli shale at 250 billion bbl - just shy of Saudi Arabia's proven reserves of 260 billion bbl.

What is less well-known, but even more dramatic, is the work being done on this country’s oil shale. The British-based World Energy Council reported in November 2010 that Israel had oil shale from which it is possible to extract the equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil. Yet these numbers are currently undergoing a major revision internationally.

A new assessment was released late last year by Dr. Yuval Bartov, chief geologist for Israel Energy Initiatives, at the yearly symposium of the prestigious Colorado School of Mines. He presented data that our oil shale reserves are actually the equivalent of 250 billion barrels (that compares with 260 billion barrels in the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia).

Independent oil industry analysts have been carefully looking at the shale, and have not refuted these findings. As a consequence of these new estimates, we may emerge as the third largest deposit of oil shale, after the US and China.

Moreover, Israel is developing extraction techniques that take the oil out of the shale while the shale remains underground, at per-barrel costs of $20 or less.

What would it mean to the world if Israel were able to produce oil at rates similar to Saudi Arabia?

1) Lower oil prices overall. More supply would allow oil prices to fall to levels more consistent with historical patterns. Cheaper oil would help the world's industrialized economies to grow.

2) A loosening of OPEC's stranglehold on world oil markets. Any significant non-OPEC production reduces OPEC's leverage and provides a safety valve against production restrictions by one or more OPEC nations.

3) A flip in American foreign aid payments. Israel would no longer need aid from the USA and would be able to buy American military hardware for cash.

4) A revision in geopolitical and global military postures. Unlike oil from the Persian Gulf that has to transit the Suez Canal or circumnavigate Africa, Israeli oil can be delivered to tankers in the Mediterranean. Consider the way Europe reacted to the potential disruption of oil production in Libya, an unstable and hostile producer in the Mediterranean; the value of a politically stable and friendly oil source in the Mediterranean would cause the West to put more pressure on the Arab world to declare peace with Israel and cease threatening a valuable energy exporter. It would also change the calculus with respect to the threat Iran and its nuclear program pose to Israel.

5) A potential recession in global terrorism. If the West uses Israel's rise as an oil exporter as an impetus to stand up to Iran, the Iranian regime may find it too costly to continue exporting terrorism via Syria to Hezbollah, Hamas and other groups around the world. Without Iranian sponsorship, jihadist movements in many places would become too weak to stand up to more moderate movements. And to the extent that Israel's competition with Saudi Arabia in the oil markets and its new geopolitical importance made life harder on Saudi and other Gulf oil sheikhs and emirs, they would have less disposable income to spend on al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Not surprisingly, Hezbollah wants to throw a monkey wrench into Israel's plans by prodding Lebanon to claim part of Israel's territorial waters for its own. But Israel has plenty of gas for its own use in undisputed waters and has the technology to defend its claims against Hezbollah attacks by missiles or suicide boats. And Hezbollah can't make any claim over Israeli oil shale.

Let's hope this brave new world opens up soon. We will all benefit.

UNIFIL (allegedly) demonstrates grasp of the obvious

A house full of short-range rockets and small arms blew up in southern Lebanon and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon apparently noticed the fireworks.

A day after Israel cried foul over an explosion that uncovered a hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Wednesday that storing the ammunition was a "serious violation" of the UN-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

According to estimates in the IDF's Northern Command, Hizbullah has turned hundreds of homes in southern Lebanese villages into warehouses to store short- and medium-range Katyusha rockets.

The IDF released video footage taken from an Israeli aircraft, showing a home that had exploded on Tuesday in the village of Hirbet Selm - located some 20 kilometers north of the Lebanese border. The roof is seen in the footage with dozens of holes, which IDF ballistic experts said were the size of 122-mm. Katyusha rockets.

Given that a house blowing up is pretty obvious (especially since Israeli surveillance aircraft were watching the area), it would have been difficult for UNIFIL to deny that the incident took place. And since they had to admit that it took place, they also had to admit that it was a blatant violation of Security Council Resolution 1701.

UNIFIL seems to find a lot of blatant violations of UNSC Res. 1701, like the 20 Katyusha rockets set up and ready to fire it discovered last month:

In an effort to prevent a flare-up along the northern border, UNIFIL has increased its operations in southern Lebanon and has begun entering villages in search of Hizbullah weapons caches, according to information obtained recently by Israel.

In one recent successful operation in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon, UNIFIL peacekeepers uncovered close to 20 Katyusha rockets that were ready for launch.

UNIFIL operates under Security Council Resolution 1701, passed following the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Operations in villages have been a point of contention between UNIFIL and Israel, which said over the past three years that the peacekeeping force was failing to prevent Hizbullah's military buildup in southern Lebanon since it refrained from entering villages.

Hizbullah, the IDF believes, has deployed most of its forces and weaponry - including Katyusha rockets - inside homes in the villages. Until now, UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have mostly operated in open areas.

According to information obtained by Israel, UNIFIL has also succeeded recently in thwarting attacks that were planned against its own personnel.

Is UNIFIL actually taking on Hizbullah's arms caches south of the Litani River, or is it only reacting to each individual "serious breach" as if it were an isolated incident?

More evidence of UN uselessness

Proffered without comment:

UN peacekeepers ambushed in Darfur barely a week after launching mission

Bomb wounds 2 UN peacekeepers on patrol south of Beirut

Status quo won't change after Katyusha': 2 rockets hit North; Barak to "assess situation before responding;" UNIFIL to 'Post': No suspect ruled out.

What the Bush Administration has accomplished in the Arab world

Those who yearn for the days of "American engagement" in the Middle East during the Clinton Administration, those who deride President's Bush's vision of a new Middle East, should consider the actual, observable behavior of Arab nations today. Syria claims that Israel mounted an aerial assault deep in its territory, but more disturbing to the Syrians than the Israelis' ability to penetrate its air defenses is the total lack of support, or even interest, from other Arab nations, as described in this Jerusalem Post report:

Issam Dari, the editor-in-chief of the Tishrin daily, one of the Syrian government's mouthpieces in Damascus, said he was more worried by the Arab reactions than the Israeli "aggression."

The Arabs remained silent in the face of the Israeli piracy, he said, adding, "They are pretending as if this happened on Mars or Jupiter."

A Jordanian academic in Amman said many Arab governments were unhappy with Syria's role in Lebanon and Iraq, as well as its close ties with Iran.

"The Syrians are still meddling in the internal affairs of Lebanon by killing anti-Syrian figures," he told The Jerusalem Post. "They are also seen as supporting al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists in Iraq."

The academic said the Syrians should be the last ones to expect the backing of the Gulf countries.

"Syria is a close ally of Iran, which is still regarded as a major threat to stability in the Gulf," he said. "[Syrian President] Bashar Assad has placed himself on the wrong side by forging an alliance with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah."

An Arab diplomat in Cairo said the failure of the Arab world to voice strong support for Syria "should be seen as a message to the rulers in Damascus that they must revise their policies." He said Assad "needs to realize that the Arab world has changed and become less tolerant toward dictatorships. Many Arab governments are angry with Syria because of its support for Hamas and Hizbullah."

Even Arab autocrats understand that their people seek greater political rights. They see Syria not as a champion of the old Arab order, but as an impediment to the new era of Arab reform. As with Soviet perestroika, the opening of cracks in Arab autocracies' political systems will lead to an accelerating process of change: chalk this up along with the North Korean nuclear retreat as major foreign policy victories for George W. Bush.