link to article: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-719648
On october 13th, Lebanon’s President, Michel Aoun made an announcement that Lebanon had accepted the US-brokered maritime border deal with the country of Israel, and that talks had come to “a positive end” This agreement was called an “historic achievement” which has given 860 sq. km of disputed maritime territory back to Lebanon. President Aoun claimed, however, that this agreement has not relaxed and normalized relations with Israel. This deal will allows Israel to produce natural gas from the Karish Field and for Lebanon to excise gas from the Kana Field without risk of conflict between both countries. Once the talks are finished, Israel and Lebanon will send the decision to the United Nations to be officially recognized. The US energy envoy Amos Hochstein who mediated the agreement said in an interview ” This is not about giving money to Hezbollah. It’s about giving a little bit of money and a little bit of resources [into Lebanon] and putting a stop to the decline and collapse of the Lebanese government.”
Israel and Lebanon both stand to gain from this deal, rather than one side gaining and the other losing, or one nation gaining a better deal. Since Israel and Lebanon have different interests on the matter, both nations can accomplish their goals, rather than competing with the other over a matter. Lebanon has been struggling with maintaining its energy sector and providing free energy to its citizens. most recently, Lebanese citizens get only two hours of electricity from the Lebanese government per day. This issue was covered by a post I made a few weeks ago when I covered Turkey’s announcement that they had multiple shipments of fuel prepared to be sent to Lebanon to aid them in their energy crisis. A collapsed Lebanon due to lack of electricity would hurt Israel’s national security which is one reason why Israel has been making this agreement with Lebanon.
This connects to our discussion in class of national interest and realist theory. Both Israel and Lebanon are working in their best individual interests and those align with each other, which is why this agreement was successfully made. The fact that Israel made a deal giving both access to energy and territory to Lebanon, means that Israel believes they are getting something of equal or greater value out of the deal. whether that includes better international standing, stronger national security, better relations with Lebanon or undisputed access to specific deposits of natural gas without conflict. Lebanon is clearly focused on easing its energy strain and is working towards increasing its fuel imports and production.