04 April 2010
By Jonathan Cook
Under cover of a sudden
interest in developing new green technologies, the
Israeli government hopes to weaken the Gulf states by
making their oil redundant and thereby defeating
“Islamic terror”.
Uzi Landau, the national
infrastructures minister, outlined a vision of a world
without oil this week to Israel’s most loyal
supporters in Washington as he searched for wealthy
American-Jewish investors and White House support for
the strategy.
His message was that: “The
West is addicted to oil, and so is bound by states
that support terrorism … Whoever wants to fight
radical Islam and terrorist organizations should know
that by purchasing gasoline, he's giving terrorists
increased motivation.”
Analysts say the plan’s
chief goals are to cripple the large oil-producing
Gulf states, particularly Iran, which is seen as
Israel’s main rival in the region, and resistance
groups that oppose Israel’s long-term occupation of
Palestinian land.
“Israel hopes that by
repackaging the ‘war on terror’ in this way it can
gain sympathy in the West and deflect increasing
expectations that it make concessions to solve the
conflict with the Palestinians,” said Avner de Shalit,
a politics professor at Hebrew University in
Jerusalem.
Thousands of delegates at
last week’s annual conference of the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful
pro-Israel lobby group in the US, heard Mr Landau
describe the Israeli strategy as the best way to win
the “war on terror”.
The conference was also
attended by many senior US politicians, including
administration officials such as Hillary Clinton, the
secretary of state.
Without Arab money from
oil, Mr Landau argued, Iran would fade as a regional
power and “terror groups” like Hamas in Gaza and
Hizbullah in Lebanon would cease to exist. Instead
Israel could serve as an alternative “powerhouse” in
the Middle East for environmentally friendly energy
sources.
Both Israel and the US are
determined to isolate Iran, which they claim is trying
to develop a nuclear warhead to rival Israel’s own
large nuclear arsenal. The White House is seeking to
impose stiff sanctions, whereas Israel is believed to
favour a military strike.
Israel failed to crush
Hamas and Hizbullah, two resistance groups that are
backed by Iran, during attacks on Gaza last year and
on Lebanon in 2006.
In a session entitled
“Breaking the habit: Can US-Israel cooperation reduce
our oil dependence?”, Mr Landau appealed to the US to
join Israel in eradicating oil dependency as a way to
defeat terror.
As he left Israel for the
conference, he told local reporters he would try to
persuade his audience that “by taking away its primary
source of funding, we can defeat terrorism without
firing a single bullet.”
Mr Landau is known to be
acting on the direct instructions of Benjamin
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who announced
back in October a “national project” to end the
world’s reliance on oil within a decade.
At the same time Mr
Netanyahu gave responsibility to the National Economic
Council, a think-tank inside his office, to develop
“breakthrough” inventions that would eradicate the
world’s need for oil and coal-based electricity.
“Dependence on fossil fuels
strengthens the dark regimes that encourage
instability and fund terror with their petrodollars,”
Mr Netanyahu told the cabinet as he unveiled the
plan.
Gideon Bromberg, head of
the Israeli green group Friends of the Earth, said
Israel had a very poor record on environmental issues,
but that he welcomed Mr Netanyahu’s belated interest
“even if it is for the wrong reasons”.
“He is an opportunist and
recognises that oil brings power,” said Mr Bromberg.
“If you can find an alternative to it, you make
yourself more powerful and make your enemies weaker.”
Haaretz has reported that
Mr Netanyahu also hopes that new green technologies
will allow Israel to strengthen its ties with China,
which the government believes is the rising global
power and less interested in the Palestinians and
Israel’s occupation than the US and Europe.
Although Israel has
developed new solar energy and water technologies, Mr
Netanyahu is reported to want a revolution in fuels
used in transport, which accounts for a large
proportion of oil use. Israeli companies are already
involved in researching battery technologies for cars.
There are strong
indications that Israel’s green technologies drive is
related to plans developed by US neoconservative
groups in the build-up to the attack on Iraq. Mr
Netanyahu is known to have maintained close ties to
neoconservatives in the US.
Some of these groups
lobbied the previous administration of George W Bush
to invade Iraq so that its oil fields could be
privatised and the international markets flooded with
oil.
According to the reasoning
of officials at one influential think-tank, the
Heritage Foundation in Washington, privatisation would
drive down oil prices, break up the Saudi-backed Opec
oil cartel, and drain money away from “terror groups”
and radical Islamic education.
Some neocons regarded this
policy as particularly beneficial to Israel, because
it would starve Hamas and Hizbullah of funds and take
the pressure off Tel Aviv to end the occupation.
In practice, however, the
occupation of Iraq did not help Israel. Funding to
Hizbullah and Hamas instead appears to be provided by
Iran.
The influence of
neoconservative think-tanks on Mr Landau has been
indicated in recent weeks by the decision to share the
stage with leading neoconservatives such as James
Woolsey, a former head of the Central Intelligence
Agency.
At a debate on ending
global oil dependency at Israel’s annual “national
security” convention in Herzliya in February, attended
by most of the Israeli cabinet, Mr Woolsey urged the
destruction of Opec, claiming that Saudi Arabia
controlled 90 per cent of Islamic education.
He said that when people
filled up their cars “you are helping to finance the
people who finance hatred, incitement and terror”.
That view was echoed by
other participants.
In December the United
Nations criticised Israel for its poor record on using
renewable energy sources. It ranked bottom for using
solar sources to generate electricity, behind
countries such as Senegal, Eritrea and Mexico, as well
as Western countries with only a few hours of
sunlight.
A government watchdog,
Israel’s state comptroller, issued a report the same
month arguing that Israel had not taken even basic
measures to address climate change.
Jonathan Cook is a
writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His
latest books are “Israel and the Clash of
Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the
Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed
Books). His website is
www.jkcook.net.
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