The United States’s diplomat leading the negotiations between Lebanon and Israel over the demarcation of the maritime borders between the two countries, Amos Hochstein, made another visit to Beirut to follow up on the Lebanese side of the talks.
Hochstein has visited both Lebanon and Israel several times this year in an effort to form an agreement on the hotly contested borders. The issue once again came into the spotlight after Israel announced that it was going to drill for fuel in the Karish Field, an area that Lebanon initially claimed was in disputed territory.
Now, an agreement seems near, with Lebanon accepting Israel’s claim to the Karish Field in exchange for the Qana Prospect, plus a little extra, although a deal has yet to be officially agreed upon.
“Our meeting was excellent and I believe that we will make progress and I am optimistic that an agreement will be reached,” Hochstein stated after meeting with President Michel Aoun.
Even US President Joe Biden has said that solving the maritime border dispute was a key priority for his administration, and that a deal should be signed in weeks.
Despite a deal being on the horizon, energy governance expert Diana Kaissy says that the lack of unity on the Lebanese side when it comes to negotiating an agreement has backed Lebanon into a corner, limiting what the small Mediterranean country was able to actually get out of the negotiations.
“It’s a political agreement,” Kaissy told NOW of the negotiations. “You don’t want to agree on maritime borders based on these political stances and not on any technical or legal backup. This is what we’re going to be cornered into and I still fail to understand why we have cornered ourselves into that specific spot. The whole approach was wrong.”
Too many opinions
When Israel first announced back in June that it was going to begin drilling for natural gas in the Karish Field, which falls under Line 29 of the disputed border area, the response from the Lebanese side was swift and, for the most part, united.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said that any attempts by Israel to drill in the field before an agreement has been reached would be “a provocation and hostile act.”
Hezbollah threatened to attack the drilling platform.
There were even protests in South Lebanon, where Lebanese demonstrated against the Israeli plans, saying that “Line 29 is a red line.”
The demands for Line 29 soon faded away, however, as Lebanese leaders quickly agreed to back down to Line 23, also known as the Qana Prospect, but with a little bit extra.
According to Kaissy, Lebanon had a technical and legal basis in which they could argue that Lebanon’s maritime borders extended to Line 29 and, while they may not have received it through negotiations, they could have at least argued themselves into a better deal.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have gone for the maximalist approach asking for Line 29 had we known that we would be able to eventually stand and continue that claim or use it as a proper bargaining chip,” she explained.
“I think it led to splitting on the Lebanese front. It led to the weakening of our position drastically. And we are now soliciting agreements on a maritime border based on politics and mediation. This is definitely a bad example of how to solve a maritime border issue,” she continued.
For Kaissy, one just has to look at the number of people speaking on both sides to see how fractured the Lebanese approach to the negotiations has been.
“Every single political leader has something to say about it,” Kaissy stated. “Hariri was opposed to Line 29, Berri was opposed to Line 29, then you had, at one point, the President himself backed with some ministers saying yes for Line 23, you had the Lebanese army split, the negotiating team had vocally been supporting Line 29 while the army general was very silent about it. It’s a nut show!”
In Israel, only a few individuals in the government, namely former Prime Minister Neftali Bennet, caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, have really spoken about the negotiations.
On the Lebanese side, however, it has been the opposite. Practically every political leader has voiced their opinions on the matter, creating a divided front when it comes to the negotiations.
“Every single political leader has something to say about it,” Kaissy stated. “Hariri was opposed to Line 29, Berri was opposed to Line 29, then you had, at one point, the President himself backed with some ministers saying yes for Line 23, you had the Lebanese army split, the negotiating team had vocally been supporting Line 29 while the army general was very silent about it. It’s a nut show!”
While there is nothing inherently wrong with Lebanon accepting the border slightly beyond Line 23, the fact that Lebanon is basing its decision on politics rather than any technical or legal basis is where Kaissy takes issue with the approach.
“This, politically, is a sane solution and, unfortunately, what should have been a technical and legal argument presented, now this maritime border is being decided on a political basis and not on a technical and legal basis and that’s bad,” she said.
“If I want to talk technically and legally, that proposed line that basically gives Karish to Israel and then all of Qana to Lebanon is very weak technically. You cannot defend it technically,” she explained.
However, even if most Lebanese leaders are willing to accept Line 23, Hezbollah needs to offer its tacit approval. Otherwise, any agreement will likely be rendered meaningless.
Coming to blows
It is safe to say that Lebanon would not be at the negotiating table now if Hezbollah, the powerful armed Iran-backed Shiite party that exerts a substantial influence over Lebanese politics, did not at least implicitly agree to the need to formalize Lebanon’s maritime borders.
Even so, Hezbollah has been vocally opposed to Israel’s plans to drill in the Karish Field and has openly antagonized the situation by threatening to strike the drilling site, as well as sending drones to survey the area. The drones were shot down by Israeli forces.
In response, Lapid has said that Israel is “prepared to act against any threat,” adding to the heightened tensions.
Even with the fiery rhetoric coming from both Hezbollah and Israel, Firas Maksad, a senior fellow and director of strategic outreach at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, believes that all of this is nothing more than words.
“I think much of the fiery back and forth is both to serve the purposes of deterrence but also being used by both parties for domestic, short-term political gains,” Maksad told NOW. “I don’t think that any party has an interest in escalation right now and certainly in regards to Israel.”
According to Maksad, Israel’s primary regional priority is deterring Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon, and is not interested in getting involved in a long and drawn-out war with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah also has little interest in getting involved in an armed conflict with Israel given Lebanon’s current state, caused by the ongoing nearly three-year economic crisis, making it “very difficult for Hezbollah to justify dragging the country into an all-out war.”
While neither side is looking to get involved in a new armed conflict, Maksad conceded that it is possible that either side could miscalculate, leading to fighting.
For Hezbollah, much of what they have said comes back to ensuring that Lebanon gets a slice of the pie and is able to extract some of the fuel that supposedly lies beneath the seafloor.
Fueling the negotiations
Ultimately, regardless of the posturing, neither Lebanon nor Israel is actually interested in defining the maritime borders for the sake of politics and national sovereignty. Rather, it is all about the vast amounts of natural gas that are believed to lie within the area.
The London-listed company Energean has been licensed by Israel to drill in the Karish Field, something that is set to begin in October, with the French company Total being suggested to deal with the gas, since it can work with both Lebanon and Israel.
For Lebanon, however, extracting the gas is much more complicated.
“So far, none of the companies are going to touch anything unless the maritime border issues are resolved,” Kaissy stated. “Nobody has presented their documents or interest to continue. Nobody would want to touch this contract with a 10-foot pole because it is now tied to a very disputed area.”
According to the exploration agreement, there needs to be three companies involved in the consortium, one operator and at least two non-operators, and one of the companies, Russian Novatek, pulled out at the end of August siting “economic and financial reasons” along with “political risks.”
This means that even if Total wanted to continue with its exploration, it legally could not until a new company joined the consortium, something that is unlikely to happen until the maritime borders are officially demarcated.
“So far, none of the companies are going to touch anything unless the maritime border issues are resolved,” Kaissy stated. “Nobody has presented their documents or interest to continue. Nobody would want to touch this contract with a 10-foot pole because it is now tied to a very disputed area.”
Even if an agreement was ultimately reached and there are three companies in the consortium, Lebanon is still a long way off from being able to reap any benefits from the fields, with Maksad saying that it would take years before Lebanon was able to even consider exporting any gas, if any is found.
“In the discussions that I’ve had with former US officials and people in DC who are following the file very closely, they are much less optimistic that Lebanon will be able to export in secure revenues from the gas any time before eight to 12 years. That was the general timeline that was being discussed,” Maksad explained.
While Hochstein is going back and forth between Lebanon and Israel, the negotiations are not a priority for the US, despite what US officials might claims, with several weeks often going by between visits by the US envoy.
While Energean has postponed drilling, they are going to have to start eventually due to their commitments. Once that happens, any claims that Lebanon has to Line 29 will be gone.
“No law will give Lebanon any claim or substantiate any claim of Karish,” Kaissy stated. “It’s game over for us. Then we move to fighting about Qana and I think that they [Israel] will make some claims for Qana if this moves in that direction. Why wouldn’t they?”
The political instability in Israel also does not play in Lebanon’s favor in finalizing an agreement on establishing the maritime borders.
Bennett’s government resigned after collapsing in June, with a new round of elections set for November.
Many believe that Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Likud Party will win the most seats in the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, and, should he be able to form a coalition, he could return as prime minister after being ousted a little over a year ago.
While Lapid is allegedly willing to cede the Qana Prospect plus a little extra to Lebanon, Netanyahu is unlikely to be willing to do the same, possibly stalling the agreement and bringing the negotiations back to square one.
“If Netanyahu, if Bibi comes back, he and his office have always been openly supportive of Hoff’s Line and Line 1, so they wouldn’t give up easily the 860 km sq. We would be back to the Israeli Line 1 and Hoff’s Line,” Kaissy said.
Nicholas Frakes is a multimedia journalist with @NOW_leb. He tweets @nicfrakesjourno.
