Greece, Cyprus, Israel plan trilateral leaders’ summit - JNS (JEWISH NEWS SYNDICATE)

February 27, 2023 / JNS

Etgar Lefkovits

A summit attended by the leaders of Greece, Cyprus and Israel is planned for later this year, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced Monday.

The gathering will take place amid burgeoning relations between Israel and both Cyprus and Greece over the last decade and a half in a variety of fields including tourism, medicine, cybersecurity, energy and military cooperation.

The decision to organize such a regional meeting was made during a Sunday night phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president-elect of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides.

The two men discussed bilateral cooperation in various fields, a readout of the conversation said.

The Cypriot leader, who will assume office on Tuesday, offered condolences over Sunday’s Palestinian terrorist attack in which two Israeli brothers were killed. He is expected to visit Israel soon at the prime minister’s invitation.

Economic interests supersede identity politics in Israel-Lebanon maritime border negotiations - JEWISH NEWS SYNDICATE (JNS)

July 8, 2019

ELIANA RUDEE

Despite reports of difficulty bringing Israel and Lebanon together for maritime negotiations, Eastern Mediterranean policy experts and fellows at the Mitvim Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, Gabriel Mitchell and Ambassador (ret.) Michael Harari, believe that negotiations would be significantly beneficial for both parties.

It was reported last week that Israel and Lebanon were on the verge of launching direct talks, with U.S. mediation attempting to settle their maritime border disputes. Recently nominated U.S. envoy David Satterfield has been conducting shuttle diplomacy between the sides, picking up on efforts that were previously led by the Obama administration.

Disputing an area of 300 square miles of water—an extension of territorial disputes that have existed since 1948, and further became exacerbated in the 1970s and 1980s—the two countries have not engaged in negotiations for more than a decade, as they are still officially at a state of war.

Under the Obama administration, a 55-45 split for Lebanon and Israel of the disputed territory was rejected by Lebanon, and according to Mitchell’s estimate, Israel “will not offer anything better than that in subsequent negotiations.”

Pipeline Puzzle: Who Will Consume Israel’s Natural Gas? - THE ALGEMEINER

DECEMBER 26, 2017 12:04 PM
Alex Traiman /JNS.org

By 2019, Israel’s large Leviathan natural gas field is expected to transform a once resource-poor developing economy into a major energy exporter. Yet for a politically-isolated Jewish state — in a region of oil-rich Arab nations that have often sought Israel’s destruction — finding viable consumers of Israeli natural gas is proving both difficult and expensive.