[ad_1]
The Red Sea coral reef near the Israeli resort of Eilat has the richest coral diversity on earth.
These coral reefs are a colorful symphony and are one of the most resilient coral communities in the world to resist warming oceans. They have also become an unlikely battlefield, sandwiched between Israel’s diplomatic and commercial interests and ecological groups that fear this natural treasure may be in danger.
A sort of Secret oil deal As part of the historic agreement to establish formal diplomatic relations, reached last year Relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is turning Eilat into a transit point for UAE oil to Western markets.
The agreement was initially hailed as a way to consolidate the fledgling diplomatic relations and further expand Israel’s energy ambitions, but after the new Israeli government began a review, the agreement is now being questioned. This decision makes investors feel uneasy and may have diplomatic disputes with Israel’s Gulf allies.
The UAE and Israel normalized their relations last year as part of the “Abraham Agreement” mediated by the United States. Since then, they have signed more than $830 million in trade agreements and signed a number of trade and cooperation agreements.
However, the deal between the Israeli state-owned Eurasian Pipeline Company and the Israeli-UAE joint venture MED-RED Land Bridge remains a secret.
Senior officials in the government of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-including his former Minister of Energy, Foreign Affairs and Environment-said they did not know about the agreement until the agreement was announced at the White House in September last year.
The pipeline company called EAPC was established in the 1960s when the two countries had a friendly relationship with the aim of transporting Iranian oil to Israel. Its operation is confidential, ostensibly for security reasons.
The Israeli environmental organization asked the country’s Supreme Court to stop oil shipments, citing the EAPC’s problematic safety record and the risk of stopping the supertanker next to Eilat’s fragile coral ecosystem.
Assaf Zevuloni, an ecologist at the Eilat Nature and Parks Authority, said that as for the oil spill, “it is not a question of whether it will happen, but a question of when it will happen.” He said that even a small rupture or human error can have disastrous consequences.
Israel suffered its worst ecological disaster in February, when a spill occurred in the eastern Mediterranean, and almost all of its 270 kilometers (170 miles) of coastline was covered by oil. The petitioners-three Israeli environmental organizations-argued that the incident near Eilat “will be dwarfed by the large-scale oil spill.”
Israel has long lacked natural resources. But after the discovery of natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea in 2009 and the first natural gas export from Israel, this situation began to change.
The deal with the UAE will expand this fledgling energy sector, with oil being transported through Israel through pipelines to the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon and the European market.
Yona Fogel, the executive officer of one of the Israeli partners of the project, told public broadcaster Kan in June that the UAE transaction “will bring hundreds of [of millions] Maybe billions of dollars” without “increasing any risk to the environment”.
Ksenia Svetlova, a former legislator and director of Middle East relations at the Israeli think tank Mitvim Institute, said that the project is particularly attractive because it provides an alternative to the Suez Canal. This canal is the main waterway that the Gulf exports to the West. Earlier this year, a large oil tanker ran aground there and paralyzed the canal.
She said the UAE is getting “a cheaper alternative route, and if they need to turn some tankers in this direction, they can use this route”.
But opponents say that the potential price is irreversible damage to natural wonders.
‘In real danger’
The EAPC Pier is located on the Eilat coastline one kilometer (half a mile) north of the Coral Beach Nature Reserve in Israel. Its cranes and pipes extend into the aquamarine and navy blue waters of the Red Sea. The smell of oil permeated the air.
At present, a large number of corals are still blooming on the neighboring coral reef, attracting kaleidoscope-like fish.
A senior government official said that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office asked the Supreme Court to give more time to respond to environmentalists’ challenges. The official declined to be named because he has no right to talk to reporters.
The new Israeli Minister of Environment has promised to completely scrap the pipeline, and her department has frozen the company’s business expansion plans, waiting for the government to make a decision.
“Because of the Med-Red pipeline, the Gulf of Eilat is in real danger, and the State of Israel does not need to be an oil bridge for other countries,” Tamar Zandberg said when he took office in June. Her office declined an interview request.
Equally important is the impact of future leaks on the tourism industry, which is the lifeblood of Eilat. Meir Yitzhak Halevi, a new member of Parliament who served as the mayor of Eilat from 2003 to June, stated that he knew nothing about the operation of EAPC and called for complete transparency.
Ecological disasters can also affect the ecosystems of Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, all of which share Gulf waters.
“We have a real potential loss to humans and global biodiversity,” said Gideon Bromberg, head of the cross-border ecological peace environmental protection organization.
EAPC believes that environmental concerns are unfounded, claiming that “the inherent danger of tanker arrivals is zero” and that hundreds of tankers have docked at the adjacent port of Aqaba in Jordan in the past decade.
The company declined to be interviewed, and UAE officials also declined to be interviewed. However, the Hebrew daily “Israel Express” recently quoted an unnamed UAE official as saying that the cancellation of the transaction “absolutely violated” the diplomatic agreement and could damage relations between the two countries.
Poor safety record
At the same time, EAPC has confirmed that it has started operations. The court petition stated that at least 8 oil tankers will be anchored in Eilat in 2021, which is higher than the average level of one every five years. The court petition stated that the agreement may bring more than 100 oil tankers each year.
EAPC has a poor security record. A pipeline rupture in 2014 caused millions of gallons of crude oil to leak into the desert nature reserve. In the 1970s, a series of spills almost wiped out the coral reefs in Eilat.
According to Yossi Loya, professor of marine biology at Tel Aviv University, coral reefs have recovered in the past ten years-a rare exception to the deterioration of coral reefs globally.
“This is a diamond in the crown, so it is very important to protect them,” he said.
[ad_2]
Source link