Hello again. After my last post my computer crashed and it has taken a little while to fix everything. The horrible terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, have had serious consequences for example in Britain, where amount of anti-Muslim hate crimes increased by 593% in the week after the attack (1). While we are still trying to find out all the reasons why the Australian man became a white supremacist terrorist, this post is about slightly another kind of right-wing politics.
President Trump made controversial and provocative decision by formally recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over Israel-occupied Golan Heights. Trump’s declaration was condemned widely. According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “clear that the status of Golan has not changed.” The Arab League said that “Trump’s recognition does not change the area’s status.” (2, 3)
Trump’s decision has been seen as an attempt to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to win the parliamentary elections next month (2), but there may be other reasons, as well. In 2013, Israel granted the first license to explore for oil and gas in the occupied Golan Heights to an American company called Genie Energy – the company’s advisory board includes former vice president Dick Cheney, Lord Jacob Rothschild and media mogul Rupert Murdoch (4, 5). One of the biggest owners of Genie Energy is hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC – Robert Mercer, the co-CEO of the hedge fund, was also financial backer of Cambridge Analytica, a voter-data firm that worked closely with the presidential campaign of President Trump (6, 7).
The Economist reported in 2015, that Genie Energy and its Israeli subsidiary Genie Oil & Gas believed to have found an oil reservoir “with the potential of billions of barrels” (8). In 2017, Genie Energy created a new subsidiary, Atid Drilling Ltd., to take care of various drilling projects in Israel. Atid has worked together with another Genie Energy subsidiary, Afek Oil and Gas, in order to drill oil exploration wells in the Golan Heights. (9, 10) Zack Colman reported in E&E News in February 2018 that (former) US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met Efraim “Effie” Eitam, far-right former Israeli politician and head of Afek Oil and Gas, in September 2017. Colman wrote that Afek Oil and Gas “has drilling operations in the Golan Heights, a disputed territory that the international community has explicitly said does not belong to Israel.” Colman continued that the meeting raised “concerns about the appearance that the Trump administration is sanctioning unlawful energy exploration.” Colman also mentioned that Ira Greenstein, ex-chairman of Genie Energy’s former parent company, IDT Corp., is a family friend of Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. Greenstein also worked in the White House. (11)
F. William Engdahl wrote in 2017:
“…unless there is some very careful rethinking on the part of Washington and of Israel, we might find ourselves in another war for oil in of all places the Golan Heights…” (9)
References:
1) “Anti-Muslim hate crimes soar in UK after Christchurch shootings” The Guardian 22.3.2019
2) “Trump formally recognises Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights” Al Jazeera 25.3.2019
3) “Trump’s support for Israeli Golan Heights draws global anger” Al Jazeera 26.3.2018
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/trump-support-israeli-golan-heights-draws-global-anger-190325185150944.htmlh
4) “Israel Grants First Golan Heights Oil Drilling License To Dick Cheney-Linked Company” Business Insider 22.2.2013
https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-grants-golan-heights-oil-license-2013-2
5) Company overview of Genie Energy Ltd. Bloomberg 26.3.2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/board.asp?privcapId=113359359
6) Top 10 owners of Genie Energy Ltd CNN Business
https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=GNE&subView=institutional
7) “Robert Mercer, Bannon Patron, Is Leaving Helm of $50 Billion Hedge Fund” The New York Times 2.11.2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/business/robert-mercer-renaissance.html
8) “Black gold under the Golan – Just one catch” The Economist 7.11.2015
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2015/11/07/black-gold-under-the-golan
9) “Golan Heights, Israel, Oil and Trump” New Eastern Outlook 30.3.2017
https://journal-neo.org/2017/03/30/golan-heights-israel-oil-and-trump/
10) “Drilling firm to pursue water, gas, oil projects” The Jerusalem Post 10.1.2017
11) “Zinke met Israeli energy boss who called Arabs a ‘cancer'” E&E News 9.2.2018
IDIS Observer 