There is an adage from the Watergate saga – coined by “Deep Throat” in the movie “All the President’s Men” (depicting Mark Felt, associate director of the FBI at the time) – in secretly guiding Washington Post reporters into looking in the right places: “Follow the Money”! A few things in life don’t change, and this is one of them! Follow the Money!
To truly understand why Israel has been so relentless in prosecuting the “Gaza” war, you need to look deeper than the surface narrative and propaganda spewed out by mainstream media. As you probably know, 90% of the media is controlled by six global conglomerates, all controlled by executives deeply sympathetic to Israel. They parrot Israel’s false narratives.
First, let’s look at the buildup to the war. While the ‘standard’ narrative is that Hamas was a serious threat to Israel, it is critically important to appreciate that Hamas was an Israeli creation. They were Israeli pawns designed to splinter the Palestinians and avoid making a conclusive peace agreement. Israel funded Hamas for many decades indirectly. It is well known (and confirmed) that Israel gave Qatar $30 million a month as a conduit for financing Hamas. Hamas stationed its leadership in Doha in expensive apartments and remained antagonistic to the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, and conveniently opposed any peace overture being made by anyone. Israel’s plan to invade Gaza was always there – it simply needed the ‘right moment’ to happen.
The right moment, as we all know, was October 7th, when Israel conveniently abandoned its defensive infrastructure at the Gaza borders – despite intelligence from several foreign intelligence agencies of an impending attack – and enabled “Hamas” to fly over them and take Israelis (who were at some Hippy Festival [hated by the more religious conservative politicians in Israel]) hostage. It took 7 hours for an Israeli helicopter to fly from a military base nearby to the Gaza border. It was a total setup.
And nut cases in Netanyahu’s coalition government made the job much easier. Netanyahu could subsequently blame his newfound militancy on these fanatics, Smotrich and Gvir (ministers for Defense and National Security), for pushing the government into an all-out assault on Gaza in response. The whole thing was carefully engineered and manipulated to allow Israel to take over Gaza in a massive land (and sea) grab and expand the State of Israel.
None of this was a surprise to anyone who follows Israeli politics. If you visit Israel and walk into their souvenir stores, you see ashtrays, cups, plates, scarves, jewelry … you name it … donning Israeli maps that include Gaza and the West Bank for decades. Yes with an expanded map over 10 years ago. The intention has always been there. Israel needed to devise a means to do this.
The cost of this invasion is not cheap. While it’s true that something like 70,000 Palestinians have died so far, Israel has lost 2000 in this effort. The direct cost of armaments used has been estimated at over $50 billion, not to mention the considerable cost to Israel’s economy in terms of diminished economic output and emigration. Israel has lost roughly 10% of its population during this period. People have left.
But, as we all know, Israelis (and especially Netanyahu) are not stupid. You don’t spend this volume of resources on anything stupidly. There MUST be a substantial economic payoff for this. So, what is Israel’s expected return from this operation?
It doesn’t take much to realize that a massive economic prize sits right around the corner for Israel that, within a relatively short time (10 years or less after Gaza has been stabilized), could triple Israel’s economy from roughly $500 billion today to over $1.5 trillion. The payback is clearly visible and can be summarized as essentially four buckets of ‘revenue’ as follows:
Ben Gurion Canal:
You may remember that a big cargo ship was ‘stuck’ in the Suez Canal, which paralyzed the global economy. 15% of the world’s cargo travels through the Suez Canal. Trade between East and West has mushroomed to $9 trillion and is growing at 5% per year as Southeast Asia, India … 2/3rds of the world’s population migrates from poverty to the middle class. The Suez Canal is umbilical. And it’s a significant risk factor in the global economy. A war, a ship sinking, or an act of terror would paralyze the world. There is simply a need for a second parallel canal to derisk global shipping traffic and provide scope for increasing international trade. Not to be overlooked is the high transit fees charged by the Suez Canal Authority (over $700,000 per transit for a container ship); and their monopoly in providing this ‘service’!
The Ben Gurion Canal has been on the drawing table for a long time as an alternative canal option. It would start at the mouth of the second northern finger of the Red Sea – the Gulf of Aqaba (not far from Saudi Arabia’s new mega city Noem) and traverse to the Mediterranean Sea. There is a problem, though. Gaza sits near the mouth of the Canal, where it would touch the Mediterranean Sea (i.e., Ashkelon).
The planned canal would be roughly one-third longer than the Suez Canal, at approximately 293 kilometers. It is designed to be deeper and broader than the Suez, with two lanes for simultaneous two-way traffic. Estimates for the construction of the canal are in the $50 billion range. If the Ben Gurion Canal takes, let’s say, 1/3 of the traffic through the Suez and even charges less for transit, it would generate $3.5 billion in revenues per year. This could easily pay for the capital costs of construction, with huge payoffs in terms of building a new container port on the Mediterranean (which would generate additional revenues), enabling the redevelopment of what is now a very arid desert-like region of Israel (Negev), and providing a physical boundary with Egypt in the form of a waterway. The Canal would provide a massive boost to Israel’s economy, literally hundreds of Billions of dollars, bringing new investment, opportunities, and development to a very sparse part of the country.
It’s a great project that has the backing of the West (that is quietly fretting over being dependent and the security of the Suez Canal).
Gaza Oil and Gas Fields:
In the early 1990s, a British gas company discovered a gas field right off the coast of Gaza.
The two Gaza Marine fields were estimated to contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet (about 30 billion cubic meters) of natural gas, more than is needed to power the Palestinian territories, with potential to export.
Israel is already exporting massive quantities of gas (via Egypt) to Europe in the form of lng. Clearly a competing gas field, closer to Egypt would cut into Israel’s market!
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