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Instead of Relying on Rogue States like Russia for Energy, the West Should Look to Israel and Its Democratic Partners

(Los Angeles Jewish Journal) Amb. Dore Gold - In 2022, we have two related centers of gravity for energy production, and they both threaten the West: Russia and Iran. In the case of Russia, the European dependence on Russian gas has undermined the West's ability to isolate Vladimir Putin for his savage invasion of Ukraine. In the case of Iran, a major oil producer, the West is preparing to remove sanctions on the world's #1 sponsor of terror. The West should have learned the danger of relying on rogue states for something as fundamental as energy. After Israel's discovery of the immense Leviathan gas field in 2010 with 18 trillion cubic feet of gas, a team of MIT geologists who analyzed the Levant basin reached the conclusion that there were six more Leviathans within Israel's territorial waters. An undersea pipeline was envisioned to transport the gas to the European market across the Mediterranean at a distance of 1,180 miles, from Israel to Cyprus and Greece - a distance that was not unprecedented. By comparison, the two Nord Stream undersea pipelines carrying Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany were 764 miles. An agreement covering the proposed EastMed pipeline was signed in 2020 by Israel, Cyprus and Greece, with completion seen in 2025. Unfortunately, the Biden administration withdrew its support for the EastMed pipeline in January 2022 for reasons that are not entirely clear. At the same time, the new Israeli government halted the granting of licenses for natural gas exploration for one year while it devoted its efforts to work on renewable energy, like solar power and wind power. The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2022-04-25 00:00:00
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