While keeping this a close secret, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been forced to give up his grand plan to pipe gas from Israel’s offshore fields to Turkey for sale in European markets after France and Germany intimated that dealings with Ankara were unacceptable.
Plans to expand the Leviathan gas well have also been put on ice.
Although the search goes on for alternative buyers, the main export markets in Europe for Israel gas, barring the smaller markets of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, have suddenly dried up.
This misfortune for the Israeli economy and its causes are revealed here byDEBKAfile,
1. The key lies in Europe’s drastic change of heart towards Turkey during the years since Israel embarked on its offshore gas project. The Europeans today refuse to have any truck with Turkey and its President Tayyip Erdogan - or depend on him for their energy - in the light of his behavior since crushing the military coup against him in July. The counts against him range widely: from a massive domestic crackdown; the continued rampant influx of Muslim refugees through Turkey into central and Western Europe; his persecution of the Kurdish minority at home and in Syria; his détente with Moscow and, finally Turkey’s alienation from NATO. France and Germany have let Israel know that they would not buy Israel gas if it was piped through Turkey.
