Lebanon and Israel: Natural Reserves Get Historic Foes Talking

Lebanon and Israel have officially begun indirect talks to demarcate the maritime border between the two nations, still officially at war, marking a historic event which some believe may be the first step towards a complete ceasefire or even peace.

Negotiations, being mediated by the US and carried out under the auspices of the UN, began on 14 October, while the second meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday. Talks are being held in a tent set up by the UN peacekeeping forces in their South Lebanon Naqoura headquarters, where they’ve been based since 1978. Both the Lebanese and Israeli delegates sat around a U-shaped table, entering from different sides, with no direct communication.

Preparation for the talks, considered groundbreaking for the two Middle Eastern nations, has been ongoing for years. Negotiators from the US - both Lebanon and Israel’s main military supplier - have traveled back and forth between Beirut and Tel Aviv since at least 2007, pushing for talks to commence. The US delegate would usually meet with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who was the main figure in charge of these discussions. It was Berri who also announced in early October, officially, that talks would start, instead of Lebanon’s head of state President Michel Aoun. 

Despite being the President’s prerogative, Berri’s handling of the situation is symbolic for more than one reason: he is a Shiite from south Lebanon and the Hezbollah ally that the US doesn’t mind talking to. Hezbollah, which fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006, as well as Berri’s Amal Movement are both the dominating political, and in Hezbollah’s case, military force in southern Lebanon, which borders Israel and is predominantly Shiite.

For most countries, sect, religion, and political affiliation wouldn’t matter when it came to national interests, especially that it involves maritime oil and gas. In Lebanon’s case, however, being fractured by political sectarianism and reeling under the effects of decades-long rampant corruption, it matters a lot.

Israel and Lebanon signed an Armistice Agreement in 1949, which formally ended hostilities between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors a year after its creation. This included the drawing of what came to be known as the Blue Line, the official border between both countries. Israel still occupies the Shebaa Farms and the southern half of the village of Ghajar.

But some in Lebanon have said that those territories, located on the country’s southeastern edge, actually belong to Syria. The Syrian Government has repeatedly ignored calls to hand over documents confirming whether or not this area is really Lebanese.

The negotiations will however focus mainly on the maritime border. The two sides are holding claim to 860 square kilometers that run into the eastern Mediterranean. The disputed area is said to store a tremendous quantity of oil and natural gas. Lebanon, despite it being behind some of its neighbors in the extraction process due to bickering that is typical of the country's political governance, is relying heavily on its promising natural reserves to better its ailing economy. Some experts have said that Lebanon’s Block 9, a part of which falls in this disputed maritime territory, has an extraordinary amount of natural gas. 

These negotiations were supposed to start in 2010 but were put off for a number of reasons, namely the ongoing political crises in Lebanon and a lack of preparedness. Today, the talks come at a time where a number of Arab states, such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan, have officially normalized ties with Israel with more expected to follow.

This has drawn speculation that the next step for Lebanon, where a powerful Iranian-linked Shiite militia maintains a strong influence on its political life, could be peace with its southern neighbor, amidst growing international pressure and a worsening economic crisis.