The dispute between Lebanon and Israel over the line demarcating each country's economic waters has been going on for 11 years. In 2011, both submitted to the United Nations their respective views of where the border should run. For Lebanon, this was the second such proposal, having submitted the first draft some two years earlier when it finalized a separate border with Cyprus.
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Israel's proposal effectively adopted the line proposed by Lebanon in its deal with Cyprus and incorporated the Lebanese line (Line 1) into its own proposal to the UN. Thus, Israel effectively chose its northern border according to the first proposal Lebanon had submitted. That's why Jerusalem was surprised when, several months later, Lebanon submitted its second proposal to the UN. It included a new line, that runs south of the line from its first proposal. It ultimately became known as Line 23.
Both lines originate from the same overland point: the westernmost point of the land border between Israel and Lebanon in Naqoura. But the more Line 23 continued seaward, its distances from Line 1 increased, resulting in a triangle gap with a surface area of 332 square miles. This is now the heart of the dispute between the countries.
Underwater surveys conducted since have shown that this triangle of contention has potential gas known as the Qana Prospect. Most of the reservoir lies, according to all assessments, on the Lebanese side of the northern lines. In light of this low likelihood of extracting any economic value from that reservoir, experts advised the Israeli decision-makers to show flexibility toward Lebanon if the talks materialize.
Some 9 years passed, and Israel – despite a heated debate – developed a marvelous gas industry (kudos to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his energy minister, Yuval Steinitz). Lebanon, on the other hand, went in the complete opposite direction. Its social disintegration only intensified, and its gas exploration efforts never took off.
In the years since mediation efforts were launched in the hopes of resolving this dispute and in the process also creating a new stable source of energy that would boost their economy. But the puppet Lebanese governments all said no, until 2020, toward the end of President Donald Trump's term in office, as well as months before Netanyahu was to be ousted as well. The Lebanese shift was prompted by the fact that the country was teetering on collapse.
The long road toward a deal
Just as Netanyahu and Trump were about to leave office, Lebanon started drafting new proposals. But it turned out that Lebanon was not willing to compromise and even replicated its trickery from a decade earlier – proposing another line that goes even further south, Line 29. This line would incorporate another 580 square miles, including the point where the Israeli gas drilling barge for the Karish reservoir would eventually dock
Israel decided to respond in kind. Steinitz instructed the negotiating team to draw a new proposed line that goes even north of Line 1. The talks continued but did not go anywhere. According to one source, "at no point could anyone entertain the thought that the entire area in dispute would be conceded. There was a willingness to give 60% to Lebanon while keeping 40%, but nothing beyond that. We had a vested interest in Lebanon having a stable energy source and that the country does not disintegrate."
Q: Why would Israel have such an interest? Hezbollah controls the country and may even fill its coffers from the gas revenues.
"I don't know if Hezbollah is going to earn anything, but despite the disadvantages, Israel would be best served by having the Lebanese government – however weak – continue to function rather than have the country face total collapse.
The former US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, also criticized the reported Israeli concessions. "We spent years trying to broker a deal between Israel and Lebanon on the disputed maritime gas fields. Got very close with proposed splits of 55-60% for Lebanon and 45-40% for Israel. No one then imagined 100% to Lebanon and 0% to Israel. Would love to understand how we got here," he tweeted.
An Israeli source confirmed that there was a principled stand in the talks [during Netanyahu's term] that Israel would not concede 100% of the disputed area.
"Giving up everything would have served as a dangerous precedent for other maritime border issues, such as the Israeli-Cypriot disagreements over control of the Aphrodite-Yishai field and the future of the gas in the Gaza Marine off the coast of Ashkelon," the source said. "Giving Lebanon everything sends a very negative signal to our other neighbors. They could now come with demands for total Israeli capitulation so that they get what Lebanon got."
Apart from what appears to be a total capitulation on the Israeli side, it may have been made without securing anything in return, although in recent days the Lebanese have claimed that Israel would get a share of the revenue if gas if found in the Lebanese gas field (the Qana Prospect) through the French drilling company. It is also unclear if Israel will get what it wanted in terms of the security arrangements and the actual signing of the deal and international recognition of the border. As of early October, it was not entirely clear what Lebanon would be giving Israel in return for its concessions.
There are also legal pitfalls. Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar has successfully stifled Lapid's effort to bypass the Knesset and have the deal secretly approved in the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet. Thus, the deal will undergo Knesset scrutiny (but not necessarily a vote). Likewise, the High Court of Justice heard arguments against the deal's rushed approval process and instructed the state to explain its legal procedure for ratifying the deal and why it should not merit a national referendum (under Israeli law handing over sovereign territory automatically triggers a plebiscite).
With these obstacles, it is far from certain that Lapid can have the deal approved in Israel before the Nov.1 election. One should also ask why the US mediators had the deal finalized in this sensitive period just before the vote. The Trump White House put on hold its "Peace to Prosperity" plan on regional peace for about a year in 2019-2020 because it wanted to avoid the perception that it was meddling in Israel's political democratic process. Shouldn't have Biden done the same?
Whether or not the Israelis and Lebanese governments ink a deal, the real problem lies somewhere else: Hezbollah. The organization has already warned that it could attack the Israeli (Karish) gas field if gas get extracted before a suitable deal is reached (as of October 10, it was still unclear what Hezbollah's official stance on the newly announced deal between the sides). Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz have warned that they would not be beholden to Hezbollah and that the extraction will take place as soon as is technically possible.
The way Lapid has conducted himself on this issue is problematic any way you look at it: If a deal becomes official, this would send a message that Hezbollah managed to spook Israel into giving up all of its original demands; if no deal is reached and no extraction takes place in Karish, this would embarrass Lapid as having paid for a meal that ultimately left him hungry; if after all this, hostilities break between the sides, Churchill's adage will come true: "The government had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war too."
What's abundantly clear is that in terms of handling the Lebanese issues – as well as relations with the EU – Lapid has taken vastly different views from Netanyahu. It is an actual difference that anyone can compare, not just spin and slogans.
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