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My Comment: I don’t necessarily endorse all the views expressed in this article. But it makes for interesting reading! It gives us a bit more on this whole Genie oil thing, along with water rights etc in the Golan Heights. Nothing is ever as it seems in this world, and writers of articles always have their own objective views. Nevertheless I believe a large chunk of it will be found to ring true.
Israel Preps for Syrian War with Golan’s Oil and Water in its Sights
However, much more important to Israel’s “national security” than the oft-stated “barrier” advantage is the fact that the Golan Heights houses significant fresh-water resources. Under occupation, the Golan is one of three sources of fresh water to the Israeli state — and is the largest in size and most plentiful, as it comprises the mountain streams that feed Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) and the headwaters of the Jordan river. Currently, over a third of all the fresh water made available to Israelis originates in the Golan Heights.
Though fresh water is an especially important resource in the Middle East, it is now more important to Israel than ever before. Israel is in its fourth year of a drought so massive that a NASA study called it the worst drought in the region in nearly 900 years. As a result, the water in the Golan Heights is essential to Israel and its attempts to expand.
This resource was a major motivating factor in Israel’s 1967 takeover and subsequent 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights. During that period, Israel expelled nearly all of the area’s original inhabitants and demolished their villages. As Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in 2010, more than 100,000 Syrians lost their homes and property as a result of the occupation. Israel has no intention of letting the Golan’s original inhabitants return, however. The area is currently home to some 20,000 settlers and a plan is currently underway to settle 100,000 more in the next several years in order to strengthen Israel’s claim to the area.
Though the abundant fresh water in the Golan Heights is of crucial importance to Israel, the Golan’s value grew sharply following the discovery of a major oil reserve in the area, estimated to contain “billions of barrels” of crude oil that could turn Israel – which currently imports the vast majority of its fuel – into a net oil exporter. Yet, because the Golan Heights are internationally recognized as being under occupation and not an official part of Israel, the commercial extraction and export of this vast oil reserve cannot go forward — until this status changes. As a result, only exploratory wells have been drilled, mostly by a division of Genie Energy Co., a U.S.-based oil company connected to well-known figures such as Rupert Murdoch, Jacob Rothschild, and Dick Cheney.
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