Israel's commencement of drilling for offshore gas near disputed waters raises the spectre of a future resource war with Lebanon, Lucy Fielder reports from Beirut As if Lebanon and Israel needed further cause for conflict, the discovery of offshore gas deposits has prompted a volley of accusations. Israel has started drilling a gas field close to its border with Lebanon, which the latter believes may straddle the frontier. Armed Shia party Hizbullah, which backs the government, has warned Israel against "theft". Israel has vowed to protect its gas fields, and this week The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had deployed drones to protect its rigs from Hizbullah attack. For resource-poor Lebanon, the bounty beneath the bed of the Eastern Mediterranean could prove a curse as much as a blessing unless international mediation proves prompt, effective and neutral. A key part of the problem is that demarcation of the maritime borders and economic zones has not yet occurred, complicated by the fact that the two countries remain officially at war. Since mutual negotiation over the boundary seems a remote prospect, energy experts say the United Nations is the best hope for a peaceful resolution. Israel submitted maps in July to the UN, but its definition of the border contradicted that of Lebanon, which handed its maps to the UN in November. Hizbullah has adopted a tough stance. "Whoever harms our future oil facilities has their own [facilities] and consequently will face the same damage. They know that Lebanon is capable of such damage," Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah told a rally in late July to mark the fifth anniversary of the 2006 war with Israel. The issue clearly has the potential to ignite, but in the shorter term that is likely only in the context of a general escalation in which energy reserves and maritime borders are used as a pretext. Few expect imminent conflict over the issue. Kamal Awar, editor-in-chief of military magazine Defense 21, said border demarcation was an international legal issue that could easily be resolved by the United Nations. "Neither side has any interest in making war over this issue," he said. "Israel's credibility and reputation is also at stake." Israel's announcement last year that it had started drilling shone the Lebanese media spotlight on the disparity between its sworn enemy's progress and its own. Two of the fields Israel is drilling, Tamar and Leviathan, are close to the Lebanese border and the latter is believed by many energy experts to fall within a zone shared by Israel, Lebanon and Cyprus. Their discovery was the world's biggest deep-water gas find in a decade. Although Lebanon's presumed reserves are still many years from producing gas and filling state coffers (presuming anti-corruption mechanisms can be put in place in time), they are believed to be sizeable and significant. The likelihood of their existence has been known since the 1960s, but years of war and a lack of development and political impetus led to foot-dragging. Extensive surveys over the last decade further confirmed expectations of significant gas deposits. Until drilling begins, nothing can be certain, but energy analysts and geologists are confident, particularly given successful exploration in nearby Egypt and Cyprus. A decade in the drafting, an energy law was finally passed in August 2010 by the government of Saad Al-Hariri, paving the way for exploration to start in 2012. That government collapsed in January over a dispute about the special tribunal into the assassination of Al-Hariri's father in 2005. Energy Minister Gebran Bassil kept his post when Prime Minister Najib Miqati formed a cabinet in June this year. Lebanon's first priority is delineating its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the area, usually extending 370 kilometres beyond coastal waters, that a country is legally permitted to exploit. This month, Lebanon approved another law allowing it to demarcate its maritime borders, which it is expected to submit to the United Nations. Israeli officials have poured scorn on Lebanon's claim that the area the former is drilling extends into Lebanese waters. Lebanese energy officials also say Israel's version of the border drifts northward, whereas Lebanon wants a border that extends perpendicular to the shore in accordance with the law of the sea. They say Israel's border slices 860 kilometres off Lebanon's EEZ. Timur Goksel, a Beirut-based strategic analyst and former spokesman of UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon), said he believed conflict was unlikely since means for arbitration were at hand. "They can both explore in the other areas and leave the disputed 860 kilometres alone for now. I can't see a conflict happening unless Israel starts exploring in that area." Gulf-based Lebanese energy expert Roudi Baroudi called for the United Nations to declare a neutral zone in the disputed areas to prevent exploration, extraction and military presence pending an agreement. Given the history of antagonism, only the world body, and to a lesser extent the European Union, given its ties to both countries and the International Court of Justice, can avert a future crisis, he said. Lebanon signed the UN Law of the Sea, often a guideline for settling maritime disputes, in 1995. Israel has not.
