Looming in the near future are other confrontations. The discoveries of gas off the coasts of several Mediterranean nations promise financial dividends to these nations, and promise disputes of who owns and who can sign treaties for the energy resource.
A U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Levant Basin Province, encompassing parts of Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, could contain as much as 122 trillion cu. ft. of gas and 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Possible disputes: (1) The maritime border between Israel and Lebanon is a source of friction. (2) Agreements made by Israel with Cyprus without Turkish approval will provoke the Turks. (3) An underlying feeling has the Arab world being cheated again; the gas deposits belong to the displaced Palestinians, who once again observe how a western world decision deprived them of their livelihood and security.
The Palestinian crisis is concluding, and not with a beneficial conclusion for the Palestinians. From the embers of that crisis arises the greater conflict. The closer the Arab nations get to achieving nationalist aspirations and political acceptance of its Muslim Brotherhoods, the more intense becomes their conflict with Israel. That trend has happened, and with it the conflict's trajectory becomes predictable.
1 The Journal of Israeli History
Vol. 27, No. 1, March 2008, 1-27
The mass immigrations to Israel: A comparison of the failure
of the Mizrahi immigrants of the 1950s with the success of the Russian
immigrants of the 1990s, Sammy Smooha
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