Israel Covets Palestinian Natural Gas

Since the Palestinian election in January 2006 that brought Hamas to power, the United States, their Western allies, and Israel have successfully boycotted, sealed off, and starved 1.3 million citizens of Gaza. Along with non-stop military assaults by Israeli Occupation Forces, the US and Israel have poured 10s of millions of dollars into arming and training Fatah to take on and destroy the popularly elected Hamas government. According to reports out of Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan - President Abbas’ right hand man until his recent “resignation” - had employed one hundred 5-man death squads across the region. That fed Hamas’ desire to rid itself of Fatah intervention.

What is not widely known is that British Gas (BG) has a joint franchise in the Gaza Marine gas field off the Gaza coast, which contains some 37 billion cubic meters of gas. It is believed that large oil reserves are also present. However, the Palestinian Authority is slated to receive only 10% from the deal. According to the Gulf Times, Hamas claims it is unreasonable that the owner of the gas, Palestine, gets 10% only. The recently Fatah-deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniya intends “to ask for changes in the agreement with BG Group, giving it a bigger slice of the proceeds from a pending natural-gas deal with Israel.”

Following the election of Hamas, it was Fatah who carried on attacks against Israel, yet Israel and the US blamed Hamas, while Hamas upheld a truce it had agreed to with Israel (though Israel continued with non-stop military assaults.) Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his advisors had been conspiring with Israel, the US, and intelligence services of several Arab states to overthrow and weaken a Hamas government intent on upholding Palestinian rights. Of course, Fatah is paid well for its services, while the rest of Palestine starves – despite its vast wealth in natural gas and possibly oil!

What is being pulled in Palestine is exactly what the US is trying to impose in Iraq – where the Iraqis would get next to nothing for their resources and international corporations would take nearly all.

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