The dependency of Western economies on oil imports has shaped foreign policy considerations in the Middle East for decades and has, in turn, deeply influenced the balance of power across the region. With an estimated three quarters of total conventional oil reserves still to be found in the Middle East, one might conclude that policy alternatives will remain limited when it comes to preserving energy security. Meanwhile, the toppling of regimes in the Maghreb has yet again proven to policy makers that relying on this particular region for oil might not be the safest bet. However, Israel might be about to revolutionize the global energy sector.
In late 2010, the World Energy Council estimated that Israel had reserves of up to 4 billion barrels of oil shale. More recently, the ‘Israel Energy Initiative’ estimated that Israel is actually sitting on reserves of 250 billion barrels (to put this number in perspective, Saudi Arabia’s reserves mount up to 260 billion barrels of conventional oil). If proven, this would make Israel home to the third largest oil shale deposits after the United States and China. So how come this story is not making the headlines?
People from the Negev protest against expropriation of land. Image: Frederik Malm/flickr
With global newspaper headlines brimming with Israeli and Iranian saber-rattling, this could be an opportune moment to implement controversial domestic policies, safely beyond the spotlight of the public eye. Alas, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, is doing just that with a new bill on the ’Regulation of the Bedouin settlement in the Negev’. The bill is based on the ‘Prawer Plan’, which was approved by the cabinet in September last year. Once in effect, an overwhelming majority of the residents of the Negev desert’s unrecognized villages would be relocated and roughly two-thirds of the land would be confiscated by the Israeli government.
Sadly, the bill is just the tip of the iceberg and joins the ranks of a series of discriminatory measures implemented by the Israeli government over decades, all designed to gradually marginalize the already underprivileged Bedouin minority. The Bedouin-Arabs are an indigenous people that lived on Palestinian land long before the Israeli state came into existence. The main issue, at present, is that the government does not recognize Bedouin villages, let alone Bedouin land-ownership rights. Today, the almost 200,000 Bedouin-Arabs are among the most disadvantaged of Israeli citizens. As the government considers the Bedouin “spread” illegal, it refuses to deliver basic services such as running water, electricity, roads, proper education, and health and welfare services.
As recently as July 2010, Israeli forces demolished the homes of Bedouin citizens in the village of Al-Araqib in the southern Negev, destroying houses, olive groves and other structures, leaving more than 300 people homeless. The demolition followed shortly after Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comments about the Negev region being at risk of losing its Jewish majority. Bedouin-Arabs have the highest birth rates in the country and are thus viewed as a demographic threat to the Jewish population. Fifty years ago now, David Ben-Gurion suggsted that the Bedouin be herded into the north of the desert “in order not to disturb development plans” — and indeed, the Negev is the next Israeli frontier. It accounts for more than half of the country’s land but remains sparsely populated, making it an ideal site for new settlements that could accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants the government is expecting in the coming years.
On the condition of renouncing claims to their ancestral land, the government offers its Bedouin citizens the right to resettle in seven existing government-planned townships. These cities, which were created during the 1990’s, were designed to relocate the rural population to urban communities. Today, those townships are among the eight poorest communities in Israel, facing high unemployment and lacking crucial infrastructure. Meanwhile, Jewish settlements built on former Bedouin land are generously subsidized by the government. What this means is that the Israeli government is refusing to provide all of its citizens with equal rights and opportunities. Now that’s a story worthy of the headlines.
Much to the chagrin of Western governments, Egypt’s first elections since the overthrow of Mubarak’s regime in February are unlikely to yield a secular democratic government. Receiving an estimated 65 percent of total votes, Islamist parties consolidated their gains in Egypt’s second round of multistage parliamentary elections held on December 14-15, achieving yet another landslide victory that is unlikely to be reversed in the third and last round of voting in January. Although not fully surprising, the marginalization of liberal and secular forces at the ballots has caused notable uncertainty among Western states when it comes to formulating foreign policy options towards Egypt and the Middle East more generally.
Governments in both Europe and the US have been understandably reluctant to voice premature concessions in the face of a probable coalition government dominated by Islamist parties. To be sure, even though the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Nour Party, the political wing of the Salafi movement, do not share a fully congruent ideology, they are both in favor of implementing Sharia law. The dilemma is obvious even despite the political outcome in Egypt. What remains is great ambiguity in how political Islam would actually be implemented once the relevant factions seize power, and whether this would be compatible with the stipulations the revolution has fought for and, moreover, Western ideals of self-determination and human rights.
Earlier this week, the ISN looked at the ‘Arab Spring’ from a geopolitical perspective – or more precisely, at how regional powers benefited from the recent political changes to further their own influence in the Middle East. Let’s now take a closer look at Turkey to see how the recent events impact upon Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions.
Unlike most advanced economies, Turkey survived the global financial crisis relatively unscathed. Indeed, Turkey’s steady economic growth partially explains why the country is of renewed importance to the West’s foreign policy agenda. Its close proximity to the Balkans, the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia means that it is critical to US, European and NATO policy objectives. Turkey has the second biggest army in NATO and is home to a US air-force base at Incirlik. Add to that a relatively moderate, secular democracy with a Muslim population of more than 75 million, and it becomes clear why Western powers simply cannot afford to ignore the geopolitical importance of Turkey.
Yet for Turkey, the balance between an east- and westward orientation in its foreign policy is a delicate one. Internally, there is a deep split within Turkish society between the mainly secular, Europe-oriented faction of the Sea of Marmara region and the religious faction of Anatolia. When Prime Minister Erdogan came to power in 2002, he seemed to restate the country’s long-standing allegiance to the West by making Turkey’s eventual accession to the EU a top priority. Yet accession talks have long stalled. This is mainly the EU’s decision, but Turkey’s desire to be a more integral part of Europe seems to be fading too.
Because they raise the costs of war to almost unbearable levels, neo-realists have argued that nuclear weapons exert a stabilizing influence on the conduct of international relations. In practice, however, nuclear proliferation remains one of the major threats to international peace and security today. Specifically in the Middle East, one of the most heavily militarized regions in the world, the fear of a nuclear arms race has persisted for quite some time. Only last week, the United States and other Western governments have stepped up the pressure on Iran after the latest IAEA report on its allegedly peaceful nuclear activities.
