The Use of Intangible Benefits for Promoting Contested Policies: The Case of Geopolitical Benefits and the Israeli Gas Policy

ABSTRACT

The evaluation of many contested projects and policies often includes intangible benefits. Geopolitics represents one type of intangible benefit. Despite a few examples on the use of geopolitics to promote contested projects, there is a gap in the literature on how geopolitical argumentation is constructed for the purpose of promoting resource-based policies. Hence, the aim of this study is to use an Israeli case study to examine how geopolitical constructs are used to promote competing energy policies concerning recent gas discoveries and to provide rudimentary insights on the implications for policy making. It was found that the geopolitical rationale was an appealing rhetorical device for all players as it is both unquantifiable and hence difficult to disprove and is rooted in the Israeli societal context. As a result, coalitions built their own geopolitical rationales, each with its own rhetorical tools. These literary tools were often embedded in narratives of power and geographical language with emotional resonance. Yet, the Israeli case demonstrates that geopolitical constructs come at a detrimental price as they promote censorship and exclusion of the public from the process.

Notes

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18. Tuathail and Agnew (note 12) p. 192.

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20. For example, Carlos Pascual and Evie Zambetakis, ‘The Geopolitics of Energy: From Security to Survival’, in Carlos Pascual and Jonathan Elkind (eds.), Energy Security: Economics, Politics, Strategies and Implications (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution 2010) pp. 10–35; Ali (note 9).

21. Pascual and Zambetakis (note 20).

22. Walt Patterson, ‘Fueling Geopolitics’, Geopolitics of Energy 34/4 (2012), available at <http://www.waltpatterson.org/fuelgeo.pdf.>.

23. For example, Gawdat Bahgat, ‘Pipeline Diplomacy: The Geopolitics of the Caspian Sea Region’, International Studies Perspectives 3/3 (2002) pp. 310–27; Anita Orban, Power, Energy, and the New Russian Imperialism (Westport: Praeger Pub Text 2008).

24. Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Power and Money (New York: Simon and Shuster 1991); Daniel Yergin, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World (New York: Penguin Press 2011).

25. For example, David Criekemans, ‘The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy: Different or Similar to the Geopolitics of Conventional Energy?’ in ISA Annual Convention, Montreal, 2011, pp. 16–19.

26. Pascual and Zambetakis (note 20).

27. Gearóid Ó. Tuathail, ‘Understanding Critical Geopolitics: Geopolitics and Risk Society’, Journal of Strategic Studies 22/2–3 (1999) p. 107.

28. Jason Dittmer and Klaus Dodds, ‘Popular Geopolitics Past and Future: Fandom, Identities and Audiences’, Geopolitics 13/3 (2008) p. 438.

29. Luiza Bialasiewicz, David Campbell, and Alison J. Williams, ‘Performing Security: The Imaginative Geographies of Current US Strategy’, Political Geography 26/4 (2007) pp. 405–22.

30. Stephen Daniels, ‘Geographical Imagination’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36/2 (2011) p. 182.

31. Simon Dalby, ‘Recontextualising Violence, Power and Nature: The Next Twenty Years of Critical Geopolitics?’ Political Geography 29/5 (2010) p. 285.

32. Leslie W. Hepple, ‘Metaphor, Geopolitical Discourse and the Military in South America’, in T. J. Barnes and J. S. Duncan (eds.), Writing World: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of the Landscape (London: Routledge 1995) p. 139.

33. Matthew T. Huber, ‘Enforcing Scarcity: Oil, Violence, and the Making of the Market’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101/4 (2011) pp. 816–26.

34. Felix Ciută, ‘Conceptual Notes on Energy Security: Total or Banal Security?’ Security Dialogue 41/2 (2010) pp. 123–144; Littlefield (note 15) p. 779.

35. For example, Guri Bang, ‘Energy Security and Climate Change Concerns: Triggers for Energy Policy Change in the United States?’ Energy Policy 38/4 (2010) pp. 1645–53; Rogers-Hayden, Hatton, and Lorenzoni (note 15).

36. Uri Bialer, Oil and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948–63 (New York: St. Martin’s Press/Oxford: Macmillan Press 1999).

37. Brenda Shaffer, ‘Israel—New Natural Gas Producer in the Mediterranean’, Energy Policy 39/9 (2011) pp. 5379–87.

38. Itay Fischhendler, Lior Herman, and Jaya Anderman, ‘The Geopolitics of Cross-Border Electricity Grids: The Israeli-Arab Case’, Energy Policy 98 (2016) pp. 533–43.

39. Gawdat Bahgat, ‘Energy and the Arab–Israeli Conflict’, Middle Eastern Studies 44/6 (2008) pp. 937–44.

40. Ibid.

41. Michelle E. Portman, ‘Regulatory Capture by Default: Offshore Exploratory Drilling for Oil and Gas’, Energy Policy 65 (2014) pp. 37–47.

42. Nadav Shetreet, ‘Opening the Sea: Mediterranean Countries Compete Over the Gas Companies, Globes, 24 Aug. 2016.

43. Gawdat Bahgat, ‘Israel’s Energy Security: The Caspian Sea and the Middle East’, Israel Affairs 16/3 (2010) pp. 406–15.

44. Shaffer (note 37).

45. State Comptroller, Annual Report 59b for the Year 2008 and for Fiscal Year 2007 (Israel 2009) (in Hebrew).

46. Gawdat Bahgat (note 43) p. 407.

47. Ministry of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, ‘The Natural Gas Sector in Israel’, available at <http://energy.gov.il/Subjects/NG/Pages/GxmsMniNGEconomy.aspx>, accessed 26 June 2017.

48. Ibid.

49. Amit Mor, ‘Natural Gas for Domestic Use and Export’, Jerusalem Post, 12 June 2013, available at <http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Natural-gas-for-domestic-use-and-export-316338>, accessed 21 June 2017.

50. It was later reported that the Leviathan gas field is likely to have 24% less gas than expected. For further information, see Hedy Cohen, ‘Energy Ministry Consultant Cuts Leviathan Gas Estimate’, Globes, 27 April 2016, available at <http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-energy-ministry-consultant-cuts-leviathan-gas-estimate-1001119940>, accessed 26 June 2017.

51. Eugene Kandel, Remark of the Head of the Israeli National Economic Council during Tzemach Committee public hearings, 11 June 2012.

52. Steve LeVine, ‘When Israel Starts Exporting Natural Gas, Cyprus and Lebanon Could Be the Big Losers’, Quartz, 1 April 2013, available at <http://qz.com/69397/when-israel-starts-exporting-natural-gas-cyprus-and-lebanon-could-be-the-big-losers>, accessed 21 June 2017.

53. Josh Wood, ‘Lebanon Pins Economic Hopes on Oil and Gas’, New York Times, 17 April 2013, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/middleeast/lebanon-pins-economic-hopes-on-oil-and-gas.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&>, accessed 21 June 2017.

54. Avi Bar-Eli and Moti Bassok, ‘Israeli Cabinet Votes Yea on Natural Gas Export’, Ha’aretz, 23 June 2013, available at <http://www.haaretz.com/business/israeli-cabinet-votes-yea-on-natural-gas-export.premium-1.531561>, accessed 21 June 2017.

55. For further information, see Athanasios Dagoumas and Floros Flouros, ‘Energy Policy Formulation in Israel Following its Recent Gas Discoveries’, International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy 7/1 (2017) pp. 19–30; Stanley Reed and Clifford Krauss, ‘Israel’s Gas Offers Lifeline for Peace’, New York Times, 14 Dec. 2014.

56. Avi Bar-Eli, ‘The New Deal of the Israel Electric Corporation: Opening the Tamar Contract’, Ha’aretz, 14 April 2013, available at <www.themarker.com/dynamo/1.1993443>, accessed 21 June 2017; Oren Fruend and Lior Gutman, ‘Paz Will Buy Gas from Leviathan’, Calcalist, 24 Nov. 2016, available at <http://www.calcalist.co.il/markets/articles/0,7340,L-3702497,00.html>, accessed 22 June 2017.

57. For example, see Gareth M. Winrow, ‘The Anatomy of a Possible Pipeline: The Case of Turkey and Leviathan and Gas Politics in the Eastern Mediterranean’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 18/5 (2016) pp. 431–47; Suzanne Carlson, ‘Pivoting Energy Relations in the Eastern Mediterranean’, Turkish Policy Quarterly 15/1 (2016), available at <http://turkishpolicy.com/files/articlepdf/pivoting-energy-relations-in-the-eastern-mediterranean_en_3043.pdf.>.

58. Dagoumas and Flouros (note 55).

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60. The literature on energy security identifies several dimensions of energy security: supply reliability, acceptability, and affordability (Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre, Note 59). Supply reliability (a parallel discourse) stems from threats to energy availability due to geological factors and threats to accessibility due to the deteriorating political relations between countries dependent on energy resource exchange; threats to acceptability (a competing discourse) might be the rejection of energy sources that due to increased levels of pollution are unacceptable to a society; and threats to affordability (as a competing discourse) may be seen through the unreasonable prices that a disadvantaged community might be required to pay. For further examination of all four dimensions, see, e.g., Lynne Chester, ‘Conceptualising Energy Security and Making Explicit Its Polysemic Nature’, Energy Policy 38/2 (2010) pp. 887–95.

61. Virginie Mamadouh and Gertjan Dijkink, ‘Geopolitics, International Relations and Political Geography: The Politics of Geopolitical Discourse’, Geopolitics 11/3 (2006) p. 350.

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67. Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1996).

68. For example, Bouzarovski and Bassin (note 14).

69. Tuathail (Note 67); Tuathail and Agnew (note 12).

70. Tuathail, ‘Understanding Critical Geopolitics: Geopolitics and Risk Society’ (note 27).

71. Fischhendler, Cohen-Blankshtain, Shuali and Boykoff (note 11).

72. Caprotti (note 13).

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75. Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap De Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers 1998) p. 16.

76. Daniel Deudney, ‘The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security’, Millennium-Journal of International Studies 19/3 (1990) pp. 461-76.

77. Wijk and Fischhendler (note 74); Fischhendler and Nathan (note 74).

78. For example, Rachel Pain and Susan Smith, ‘Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life’, in Rachel Pain and Susan Smith (eds.), Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life, (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 2008) pp. 1–24.

79. Interview with Morris Dorfman, Deputy Director of the Israeli National Economic Council, 9 July 2013, Jerusalem.

80. Remark of Gabi Golan, Advisor to the Prime Minister for planning and development during the Tzemach Committee, 6 February 2012.

81. Pini Avivi, Testimony of the Deputy Direcor of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry in front of the Tzemach Committee, 5 June 2012.

82. Remark of Morris Dorfman, Deputy Director of the Israeli National Economic Council in front of the Tzemach Committee, 11 June 2012.

83. Adam TevaVe’din, Appeal to the Supreme Court from 26/6/2013, Supreme Court file #4593/13, 2013.

84. For example, remark of Alona Sheafer Karo, Director General of the Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection during the Tzemach Committee deliberations, 23 Nov. 2011.

85. For example, John Barry, Ellis, and Clive Robinson, ‘Cool Rationalities and Hot Air: A Rhetorical Approach to Understanding Debates on Renewable Energy’, Global Environmental Politics 8/2 (2008) pp. 67–98; Bouzarovski and Bassin (note 14); Rogers-Hayden and Lorenzoni, (note 15).

86. Marcus Power and David Campbell, ‘The State of Critical Geopolitics,’ Political Geography 29/5 (2010) pp. 243–6.

87. Benjamin K. Sovacool, ‘What Are We Doing Here? Analyzing Fifteen Years of Energy Scholarship and Proposing a Social Science Research Agenda’, Energy Research and Social Science 1 (2014) pp. 1–29; Jonas Anshelm and Anders Hansson, ‘Battling Promethean Dreams and Trojan Horses: Revealing the Critical Discourses of Geoengineering’, Energy Research & Social Science 2 (2014) pp. 135–44.