Israel needs to wake up to the full potential of the sea

Prof. Rear Adm (ret.) Shaul Chorev says Israel needs to go from "maritime blindness to maritime awareness"

By ANNA AHRONHEIM
People watch an Israeli Navy corvette vessel, in the Mediterranean Sea during a marine show as part of the celebrations for Israel's Independence Day marking the 70th anniversary of the creation of the state, in Tel Aviv, Israel April 19, 2018 (photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)
People watch an Israeli Navy corvette vessel, in the Mediterranean Sea during a marine show as part of the celebrations for Israel's Independence Day marking the 70th anniversary of the creation of the state, in Tel Aviv, Israel April 19, 2018
(photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)
Israel needs to increase its maritime awareness in order to fully realize the potential of the Mediterranean Sea, which is turning into an area of geostrategic competition.
“Israel is blind to the potential of the sea,” Prof. Rear Adm (ret.) Shaul Chorev, the head of the Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center, University of Haifa, told The Jerusalem Post.
“Israel needs to go from maritime blindness to maritime awareness, that will allow for more investments in the navy and other maritime interests,” Chorev said.
Other countries, such as the Europeans, United States, China and even Iran understand the importance of the sea more than Israel, he explained.
Israel’s Navy is relatively small compared to other IDF corps but it has a significant amount of territory to protect since the expansion of the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
While Israel only has 35 trade ships around the world, 99% of Israel’s trade is transported by sea.
And tensions continue to rise in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Pointing to the September declaration of the Palestinian Authority regarding its maritime borders and exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Chorev, who also served as the director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, told the Post that the move went unnoticed in Israel.
The declaration, of which Israel “can do nothing about” since it is not a signatory the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), unlike the Palestinians, might be only a political declaration but it’s “annexation of the sea,” Chorev said.
“Trump’s declaration said nothing about the sea, but people are fighting about every rock in the West Bank,” he said.
While UNCLOS stipulates that a country’s territorial waters only stretch 12 nautical miles (22 km.) out to sea, its EEZ – where it can claim fishing, mining, and drilling rights – can extend 200 miles (320kms). But the shape of the eastern Mediterranean makes it so that there is an overlap between the areas that countries can claim as their own.
"If we all use the 200 miles then we'd all be on top of each other," said Dr. Benny Spanier, research fellow at the Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center, University of Haifa.
But Turkey, which Spanier said does not have a large EEZ, sees the Mediterranean Sea as a sea full of opportunities and claims a significant portion of the Mediterranean, signing a maritime agreement with Libya in an attempt to establish EEZ’s for the two countries.
In 1999, the Gaza Marine gas field was discovered some 30 km. off the coast of the Gaza Strip between Israel’s Leviathan and Egypt’s Zohr gas fields, but Palestinian efforts to carry out exploration and drilling activities have been restricted by Israel. With the blockade on the Hamas-run coastal enclave as well as disputes between Hamas and the PA, the gas field, which is estimated to contain one trillion cubic feet of gas, has been dormant since its discovery.
The declaration of the Palestinians, which said its EEZ “extends, beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea, to up to 200 nautical miles measured from the baseline,” comes into conflict not only with Israel’s declared EEZ, but also with that of Egypt and Cyprus.
All three countries are against the Palestinian move, Chorev said.
But Turkey, which itself does not have a large EEZ, sees the Mediterranean Sea as a sea full of opportunities and claims a significant portion of the Mediterranean, signing a maritime agreement with Libya in an attempt to establish EEZ’s for the two countries.
At the end of June, the Palestinian envoy to Ankara, Faed Mustafa, said that Ramallah was ready to negotiate a maritime delimitation deal with Turkey, similar to its deal with Libya, and cooperate on natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean.
“We are open for every idea to deepen our relations with Turkey, and this includes a deal on exclusive economic zones,” Mustafa was quoted as telling the Aydinlik newspaper. “We also have rights in the Mediterranean. Palestine has shares in oil and gas located in the eastern Mediterranean. We are ready to cooperate in these areas and sign a deal.”
Though the Palestinian Foreign Ministry later said the remarks were taken out of context and that the PA “was not currently discussing such a deal with any of these countries,” Turkey is continuing to project its power in the Mediterranean.
“Turkey wants to have more influence in the Middle East since the Americans have left the area,” Chorev said, stressing that the Turkey that Israel used to be allied with “is not the Turkey of today.”


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