Gaza 2007
The known history of Gaza spans 4,000 years. Gaza was ruled, destroyed and repopulated by various dynasties, empires, and peoples. Originally a Canaanite settlement, it came under the control of the ancient Egyptians for roughly 350 years before being conquered and becoming one of the Philistines’ principal cities. Gaza fell to the Israelites in about 1000 BCE but became part of the Assyrian Empire around 730 BCE. Alexander the Great besieged and captured the city in 332 BCE. Most of the inhabitants were killed during the assault, and the city, which became a center for Hellenistic learning and philosophy, was resettled by nearby Bedouins. The area changed hands regularly between two Greek successor-kingdoms, the Seleucids of Syria and the Ptolemies of Egypt, until it was besieged and taken by the Hasmoneans in 96 BCE.
Gaza was rebuilt by Roman General Pompey Magnus, and granted to Herod the Great thirty years later. Throughout the Roman period, Gaza maintained its prosperity, receiving grants from several different emperors. A 500-member senate governed the city, which had a diverse population of Greeks, Romans, Jews, Egyptians, Persians and Nabateans. Conversion to Christianity in the city was spearheaded and completed under Saint Porphyrius, who destroyed its eight pagan temples between 396 and 420 CE. Gaza was conquered by the Muslim general Amr ibn al-‘As in 637 CE and most Gazans adopted Islam during early Muslim rule. Thereafter, the city went through periods of prosperity and decline. The Crusaders wrested control of Gaza from the Fatimids in 1100, but were driven out by Saladin. Gaza was in Mamluk hands by the late 13th century, and became the capital of a province that stretched from the Sinai Peninsula to Caesarea. It witnessed a golden age under the Ottoman-appointed Ridwan dynasty in the 16th century.
Gaza experienced destructive earthquakes in 1903 and 1914. In 1917, during World War I, British forces captured the city. Gaza grew significantly in the first half of the 20th century under Mandatory rule. The population of the city swelled as a result of the Palestinian exodus during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Gaza came under Egyptian rule until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Gaza became a center of political resistance during the First Intifada, and under the Oslo Accords of 1993, it was assigned to be under the direct control of the newly established Palestinian Authority. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. By 2007, Hamas emerged both as the victor in Palestinian elections and in factional fighting with rival Fatah in the city and in the wider Gaza Strip and has since been the sole governing authority. Israel subsequently blockaded the Strip and launched assaults against it in 2008–2009, 2012 and 2014, as a response to rocket attacks.
The First Gas Discovery
British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.
The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent).
The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.
The BG license covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities (see Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.
The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas, in just these two wells, to be of the order of 50 bcm, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas.
The Beginning
Israel has a centuries-old policy that goes something like this:” What’s ours is ours – – – what’s yours is negotiable” The question was how to take control of this gas. The answer reached was to kill Arafat (the obstacle). Why was it necessary to kill Arafat? Only he had the capability to hold Gaza together, and he also kept Israeli greed under check. The Israelis feared Arafat more than any other Palestinian leader. Israel then planned a move that went as follows:
The Second Intifada erupted in September 2000. From this moment on, Arafat was a virtual prisoner in his bombed out offices in Ramallah, unable to exert more than minimal control over Palestinian life.
Former Prime Minister Sharon publicly admitted to having tried to kill Arafat several times. In September 2003, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert publicly declared that the Israeli government intended to assassinate Arafat, claiming the cabinet’s decision to get rid of Arafat was “ a decision to remove Arafat as an obstacle to peace” (or was it an obstacle to gain control of Gaza’s gas).
Israel never repudiated that decision. Just weeks before Arafat’s death, Sharon reiterated the threat to kill him.
In October 2004, Arafat became ill after eating a meal at his compound, and immediately, suspicions arose that he had been poisoned. He was flown to France for treatment, but it proved to no avail, and he passed away. Responsibility for Arafat’s death was attributed to Israel. A prime suspect in Arafat’s murder was Mahomed Dahlan, the West Bank security chief for the PA. Such were the tensions between Arafat’s wife, Suha, and the PA that she sent samples to Switzerland, while the PA sent samples to Russia.
Arafat’s death removed the obstacle of proceeding with the theft of the gas fields. And paved the way for a more pliant leadership under Mahmoud Abbas.
Arafat’s assassination was intended to destroy the Palestinian Authority, foment divisions within Fatah as well as between Fatah and Hamas.
It had taken nine years to identify the cause of death only because the new Palestinian leadership under Abbas did everything it could to block the truth from coming out. The PA did nothing to examine the circumstances of Arafat’s death. It refused an autopsy.
In July 2013, (one month after the Rothschild’s killed Richard Rockefeller, David’s son, – thus creating an irreparable break between the 2 families. And the UN is within the Rockefeller orbit) New York quietly asked investigative journalist Clayton Swisher, a former US Secret Service bodyguard who became friendly with Arafat and pressed his suspicions about Arafat’s death, that Al- Jazeera launched an investigation. Al Jazeera’s investigation led to the opening of a homicide inquiry in France and the exhumation of his body. On November 11, 2014, a Swiss team confirmed that Arafat was poisoned – they had found traces of radioactive isotope polonium – 210 in his exhumed remains, as well as in his shroud and the soil of his grave.
After years of denials from Israel, Israeli President Shimon Peres has admitted the truth. In an interview given to the New York Times, in early 2014, Peres said Arafat should not have been assassinated and asserted that he had opposed the policy of assassinating him. Peres stated that he had “protected Arafat from several plots against his life.
France for treatment, but it proved to no avail, and he passed away. Responsibility for Arafat’s death was attributed to Israel. A prime suspect in Arafat’s murder was Mahomed Dahlan, the West Bank security chief for the PA. Such were the tensions between Arafat’s wife, Suha, and the PA that she sent samples to Switzerland, while the PA sent samples to Russia.
In July 2013, New York quietly asked investigative journalist Clayton Swisher, a former US Secret Service bodyguard who became friendly with Arafat and pressed his suspicions about Arafat’s death, that Al-Jazeera launched an investigation. Al Jazeera’s investigation led to the opening of a homicide inquiry in France and the exhumation of his body. On November 11, 2014, a Swiss team confirmed that Arafat was poisoned – they had found traces of radioactive isotope polonium – 210 in his exhumed remains, as well as in his shroud and the soil of his grave.
After years of denials from Israel, Israeli President Shimon Peres has admitted the truth. In an interview given to the New York Times, in early 2014, Peres said Arafat should not have been assassinated and asserted that he had opposed the policy of assassinating him. Peres stated that he had “protected Arafat from several plots against his life. The Palestinian Authority faced two challengers: the political consent to develop the gas, and British Gas’s attempt to find buyers for the gas.
When the gas was discovered in 1999, Yasser Arafat proclaimed; “It’s a gift from God to us, to our people.” Little did he realize that within 5 years he would be murdered by Israel.
Arafat kept Gaza together, united. With his death, monthly stipends to the 27 Gaza clan chiefs came to an end. Within a few months, tensions rose inside Gaza. The PA was acting as an occupation force against its own people. When elections were held in 2006, Hamas won. And with that, it paved the way for Israel to start destroying Gaza, under the pretext that it was now run by a “terrorist organization”. Israel had to kill Arafat, end the monthly stipends from Arafat, and incite a civil war between Hamas and the PA, thus ensuring a Hamas victory in the elections of Gaza, in 2006. The way was now clear to grab the gas fields of Gaza.
These gas reserves are the root cause of every conflict Israel has had with Palestine since 2000. It was at the heart of the last five major Israeli military actions against Palestine, especially Gaza:- The actions of the Israeli navy to control Gaza’s coastal waters in the early 2000s; the blockade of the Gaza Strip on June 15, 2007; the attack on Gaza in 2008; again in 2012, and finally in August 2014.
Who Owns the Gas Fields?
The issue of sovereignty over Gaza’s gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.
The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza’s offshore gas reserves.
British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.
The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine’s sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that “Israel would never buy gas from Palestine” intimating that Gaza’s offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.
In 2003, Ariel Sharon vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza’s offshore wells.
The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.
In 2006, British Gas “was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt.” According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.
The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority.” The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.
Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:
“Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government.”
The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.
Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza’s offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.
The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:
“Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror
Israel’s intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.
Invasion Plan on the Drawing Board
The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under “Operation Cast Lead” was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:
“Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas
That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza’s natural gas:
The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.
Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new “post war” political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.
In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.
The December 2008 military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. This is a war of conquest.
In the wake of the invasion, Palestinian gas fields were de facto confiscated by Israel in derogation of international law.
A year following “Operation Cast Lead”, Tel Aviv announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean “off the coast of Israel.”
At the time the gas field was: “… the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometers of the eastern Mediterranean region.”
Gaza and Energy Geopolitics
The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.
What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?
What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine’s Natural Gas reserves?
A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or “peacekeeping” troops?
The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?
The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza’s maritime areas?
If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel’s offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip (see Map 1 above).
These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel’s energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport – pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline. “What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel’s Tipline.”
Further complicating the picture is the recent confirmation of huge offshore Israeli natural gas reserves. Initial exploration in the early 1990s was confirmed in 2009.
The Tamar natural gas field off the coast of northern Israel, some 80 km west of Israel’s port of Haifa has an estimated 300 bcm of gas. Tamar was the largest gas discovery in 2009. The game changer was a dramatic discovery in late 2010 of another enormous natural gas field offshore Israel, called Leviathan, after the biblical sea monster. This field is some 120 kms west of Haifa. Estimate reserves are in the region of 500-600 bcm of gas. A Texas based company, Noble Energy, in partnership with an Israeli company, Delek Group, is the shareholders. Noble is a Rockefeller-linked company, while the Delek Group belongs to Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva.
At the time, total Israeli gas reserves were estimated at only 30 bcm. Israel’s sole operating field, Yam Tethya, which supplies 70% of Israel’s needs, would be depleted by 2013. Within a matter of a year, Israel went from a gas famine to a feast.
Now Israel faces a strategic and very dangerous dilemma. There is no clear sea economic zone delimitation of borders between the neighboring states. The Eastern Mediterranean gas pie is disputed by Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Palestine. The matter gets even more complicated because the states have disputes between themselves, as well each of them with Israel. There is a slim chance the countries of the region will effectively cooperate to develop the deposits.
The Gazan gas fields are part of the broader Levant assessment area.
What is now unfolding is the integration of these adjoining gas fields including those belonging to Palestine into the orbit of Israel (see map below).
It should be noted that the entire Eastern Mediterranean coastline extending from Egypt’s Sinai to Syria constitutes an area encompassing large gas as well as oil reserves. It is important to relate issue of Gaza’s offshore gas reserves to the recent massacres undertaken by IDF forces directed against the People of Palestine who own the offshore gas fields.
Enter Gazprom
On Christmas day, 2013, Syria announced a deal With Gazprom to explore for oil and gas off its coast, and this — – – “was to be financed by Russia and should oil and gas be discovered, Moscow will recover the exploration costs.” And find gas, they did – – lots of it. The contract will run for 25 years.
Gazprom then signed up a similar deal with the Palestine Authority, during that same time. Putin gave the PA implicit guarantees that the Russian navy would protect their facilities, and very explicitly saying, “We are going to cut Israel out of it altogether.” This PA-Gazprom deal was the key factor behind Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip in August 2014.
With the Gazprom -Gazan development set to begin in 2014 and thus consolidate the Russian presence in the Levantine Basin, the Israelis once again sought a military solution.
After a year of planning, Operation Protective Edge was launched in June, with two hydrocarbon-related aims: demonstrating to the Russians that Israel would be able and willing to prevent activation of the Gazprom contract; and to definitely disable the Gazan rocket system that could threaten unilateral Israeli developments.
Israel’s operation was partially successful because it has postponed the Gazprom deal. But Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system remains unable to deter Palestinian rocket attacks with 100% accuracy, which it would have liked to do in order to protect its energy installations in the Mediterranean Sea.
Netanyahu has created a special military force for gas fields’ protection. The formation includes missile boats, drones, and 4 German-built frigates. This protection force is estimated to cost Israel around $500 m a year, starting in 2016.
Mustafa, a PA official said, “Palestinians are in a position to prevent Israel from developing that gas, and they cannot be stopped from deterring the development of that gas.” He was talking about platforms that Israel is building when it starts to take over the Gaza Marine field and extract its resources without the consent of the Palestinian government. He added, “Anybody that builds platforms out there – even those ridiculous improvised tiny little rockets that Hamas can build, even those will destroy that.”
Many people out there ask this question,; Why doesn’t Saudi Arabia and the rich Gulf states help the people of Gaza? And, why is Egypt being so cruel in helping to blockade Gaza? The answer is the media perception firstly, and secondly, the real facts and true story of the events there are kept hidden.
This is the reason: Saudi Arabia and Egypt have jointly agreed that whatever happens, Israel must not be allowed to win in destroying Gaza, and that Hamas must stand firm. The people of Gaza dare not evacuate Gaza as this would give Israel easy access to the gas fields. Once that happens, then the entire region will be in danger of getting taken over. Why? All these past 7 decades of Israel’s existence, it did not have an independent energy source. It had to rely on the Americans for the energy it needed. With its own energy sources, Israel will have the fuel for its military to run rampage across the Middle East, and pose an existential threat not only to the region, but to the entire world. Very few countries want this. Israel has to be DENIED ACCESS to its own energy sources, AT ANY COST!
Thus, the people of Gaza are sacrificing themselves in order that humanity is not enslaved by Israel.
America’s Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East
Throughout history, “wars of religion” have served to obscure the economic and strategic interests behind the conquest and invasion of foreign lands. “Wars of religion” were invariably fought with a view to securing control over trading routes and natural resources.
The Crusades extending from the 11th to the 14th Century are often presented by historians as “a continuous series of military-religious expeditions made by European Christians in the hope of wresting the Holy Land from the infidel Turks.” The objective of the Crusades, however, had little to do with religion. The Crusades largely consisted, through military action, in challenging the dominion of the Muslim merchant societies, which controlled the Eastern trade routes.
The “Just War” supported the Crusades. War was waged with the support of the Catholic Church, acting as an instrument of religious propaganda and indoctrination, which was used in the enlistment throughout Europe of thousands of peasants, serfs and urban vagabonds.
In the eyes of public opinion, possessing a “just cause” for waging war is central. A war is said to be Just if it is waged on moral, religious or ethical grounds.
America’s Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East is no exception. The “war on terrorism” purports to defend the American Homeland and protect the “civilized world”. It is upheld as a “war of religion”, a “clash of civilizations”, when in fact the main objective of this war is to secure control and corporate ownership over the region’s extensive oil wealth, while also imposing under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank, the privatization of State enterprises and the transfer of the countries’ economic assets into the hands of foreign capital. .
The Just War theory upholds war as a “humanitarian operation”. It serves to camouflage the real objectives of the military operation, while providing a moral and principled image to the invaders. In its contemporary version, it calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds against “rogue states” and “Islamic terrorists”, which are threatening the Homeland.
Possessing a “just cause” for waging war is central to the Bush administration’s justification for invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Battle for Oil, Demonization of the Enemy
War builds a humanitarian agenda. Throughout history, vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again. The Crusades consisted in demonizing the Turks as infidels and heretics, with a view to justifying military action.
Demonization serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against “Islamic terrorism” (which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term “Islamo-fascism,” serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of “Western democracy” and the “free market” as the only alternative for these countries.
The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region.
Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, possess between 66.2 and 75.9 percent of total oil reserves, depending on the source and methodology of the estimate.
In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Western countries including its major oil producers (Canada, the US, Norway, the UK, Denmark and Australia) control approximately 4 percent of total oil reserves. (In the alternative estimate of the Oil and Gas Journal which includes Canada’s oil sands, this percentage would be of the order of 16.5%.
The largest share of the World’s oil reserves lies in a region extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian sea basin and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the Persian Gulf. This broader Middle East- Central Asian region, which is the theater of the US-led “war on terrorism” encompasses according to the estimates of World Oil, more than sixty percent of the World’s oil reserves.
Iraq has five times more oil than the United States.
Muslim countries possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western countries.
The major non-Muslim oil reserve countries are Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, China and Brazil.
Demonization is applied to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world’s oil reserves. “Axis of evil”, “rogue States”, “failed nations”, “and Islamic terrorists”: demonization and vilification are the ideological pillars of America’s “war on terror”. They serve as a casus belli for waging the battle for oil.
The Battle for Oil requires the demonization of those who possess the oil. The enemy is characterized as evil, with a view to justifying military action including the mass killing of civilians. The Middle East Central Asian region is heavily militarized. The oil fields are encircled: NATO war ships stationed in the
Eastern Mediterranean
The ultimate objective, combining military action, covert intelligence operations and war propaganda, is to break down the national fabric and transform sovereign countries into open economic territories, where natural resources can be plundered and confiscated under “free market” supervision. This control also extends to strategic oil and gas pipeline corridors (e.g. Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen).
Demonization is a PSYOP, used to sway public opinion and build a consensus in favor of war. Psychological warfare is directly sponsored by the Pentagon and the US intelligence apparatus. It is not limited to assassinating or executing the rulers of Muslim countries, it extends to entire populations. It also targets Muslims in Western Europe and North America. It purports to break national consciousness and the ability to resist the invader. It denigrates Islam. It creates social divisions. It is intended to divide national societies and ultimately trigger “civil war”. While it creates an environment which facilitates the outright appropriation of the countries’ resources, at the same time, it potentially backlashes, creates a new national consciousness, develops inter-ethnic solidarity, and brings people together in confronting the invaders.
It is worth noting that the triggering of sectarian divisions and “civil wars” is contemplated in the process of redrawing of the map of the Middle East, where countries are slated to be broken up and transformed into territories. The map of the New Middle East, although not official, has been used by the US National War Academy. It was recently published in the Armed Forces Journal (June 2006). In this map, nation states are broken up; international borders are redefined along sectarian-ethnic lines, broadly in accordance with the interests of the Anglo-American oil giants (See Map below). The map has also been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers.
Map of The New Middle East
The Oil Lies in Muslim Lands
The oil lies in Muslim lands. Vilification of the enemy is part and parcel of Eurasia energy geopolitics. It is a direct function of the geographic distribution of the World’s oil and gas reserves. If the oil were in countries occupied predominantly by Buddhists or Hindus, one would expect that US foreign policy would be directed against Buddhists and Hindus, who would also be the object of vilification.
In the Middle East war theater, Iran and Syria, which are part of the “axis of evil”, are the new targets.
US sponsored “civil wars” have also been conducted in several other strategic oil and gas regions including Nigeria, the Sudan, Colombia, Somalia, Yemen, Angola, not to mention Chechnya and several republics of the former Soviet Union. Ongoing US sponsored “civil wars”, which often include the channeling of covert support to paramilitary groups, have been triggered in the Darfur region of Sudan as well as in Somalia, Darfur possesses extensive oil reserves. In Somalia, lucrative concessions have already been granted to four Anglo-American oil giants.
“According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco[now part of BP], Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multi million-dollar investments there.” (2002)
The collective demonization of Muslims, including the vilification of Islam, applied worldwide, constitutes at the ideological level, an instrument of conquest of the World’s energy resources. It is part of the broader economic, political mechanisms underlying the New World Order. And Gaza is holding firm.
A further report will be published in the coming months regarding a potential conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean, where a slew of gas has been discovered, from Egypt to Cyprus. This has the potential to greatly increase geopolitical tensions in the area.
