Israel’s top environmental official accused Iran of deliberately causing the major oil spill that despoiled Israel’s Mediterranean coastline last month, an act she described as “environmental terrorism.” Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said investigators from her ministry had traced the spill, which authorities have described as one of Israel’s worst ecological disasters, to an unregistered Libyan tanker. The ship had called on an Iranian port before approaching the Israeli coast and, turning off its tracking transponder, deposited its cargo of crude oil into the surf, Gamliel said. Gamliel, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the findings of the two-week investigation provided strong “circumstantial evidence” that the ship was the source of the leak and its behavior deliberate. She said the government would pursue payment for damages through an international oil pollution compensation program and the ship’s insurance. But other Israeli government officials, including some in her own ministry, expressed skepticism about her claim. Intelligence and naval officials told the Israeli daily Haaretz that their agencies were not involved in the investigation and were unaware that the minister’s accusation was coming.
The investigation into the oil spill has been underway since mid-February when massive amounts of sticky black tar appeared along Israel’s 120-mile shoreline. Thousands of volunteers continue to clean the beaches and rocks of up to 1,000 tons of tar. Teams are racing to save turtles, mammals, and birds from a sludgy coating. At least one 55-foot fin whale died of tar poisoning, and health officials slapped a temporary ban on seafood from the area. The spill also spread north to Lebanon, where the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve serves as an important nesting site for endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles. Officials said many of the large, visible patches of tar and oil had been scrubbed from the coast. But the complete cleanup was expected to take several months, possibly years. The government has approved an emergency allocation of almost $14 million for the effort.
Oil spills don’t happen out of thin air. Obviously, someone is responsible but none of the other ships in the area have reported a spill, and the investigation has turned up nothing to indicate they are guilty. But the Libyan tanker in the area turning off its transponder is a very suspicious move while it was in the area of the spill. It then returned to Iran. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.