The Hebrew economic newspaper "Globes" considered that Israel "has decided to abandon all of its demands that it held on to over the past decade in the context of negotiating the demarcation of the maritime border with Lebanon, and questioned the secret of this concession in a few weeks."
An Israeli newspaper questioned the reasons for what it called Israel's "concession" of all its demands towards Lebanon in the agreement demarcating the maritime borders between the two countries, which is expected to be concluded soon according to an American proposal.
On Tuesday, the economic newspaper, Globes, based its question on a high-ranking Israeli official's disclosure to reporters about the draft agreement, saying that "the mystery is still open."
She said in an article entitled "Why did Israel give up all its demands towards Lebanon in a few weeks?" "Israel has abandoned the positions it had maintained for years, and the head of the Israeli team in the negotiations opposed the initiative that was presented at the Ministry of Defense and resigned."
She added: "About a month ago, in the draft negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, the distribution of the maritime dispute area was one-third for Israel compared to two-thirds for Lebanon, which is slightly less than what was proposed in previous settlements."
And she continued: "According to one of the accounts, the Lebanese project insisted on line 23, which is their basic position, and according to the second version, the Lebanese did not insist on the entire line, but only demanded that the Qana-Sidon field be under their control, and the debate was only about the distribution of compensation from it."
The newspaper pointed out that "according to the draft, Israel demanded, in addition, the right to joint Israeli and Lebanese management of the "Lebanese reservoir", or alternatively, a large compensation in the form of a purchase deal.
However, about a month ago, at a crucial meeting at the Ministry of Defense, the proposal came to completely abandon the disputed area in exchange for the complete stabilization of the territorial border line established by Israel in 2000.
She said, "Udi Adiri, head of the Israeli professional team in the negotiations, strongly objected, primarily to the ceding of the Israeli part of the disputed area of the field, but after the objection was rejected, he resigned and was replaced by the current Director General of the Ministry of Energy of Urushilat."
The newspaper considered that Israel "has decided to abandon all of its demands that it has held on to over the past decade, and the final project includes a complete abandonment of 860 square kilometers of the disputed area, including abandoning the joint management of the drilling platform, which was of strategic importance to Israel."
It quoted a senior official as saying that "Israel's position until a few months ago is that it does not make sense for Israel to concede any longer because it is the strongest factor, economically and vitally, against Lebanon, which is in a particularly difficult economic situation and in an energy crisis."
He added, "Therefore, the logic from Israel's point of view was that the party that should concede is Lebanon in particular," according to the newspaper.
At the same time, pressure increased on Energean to postpone the planned start of production to avoid Hezbollah's ultimatum.
And she said, "Despite the denials of the Israeli Energy Ministry, at least three sources confirmed to Globes that pressure has been applied, and the country itself has slowed and production is still delayed."
She added, "After Adiri's resignation, the head of the National Security Council, Eyal Holata, assumed full responsibility for the case. At the direction of the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Holata reached an agreement in which Israel ceded all economic claims in the disputed area and handed it over to Lebanon."
And she continued: “It is worth noting that the excessive concessions occurred in the past few weeks, as well as the fact that the concessions were so unusual that they led to the resignation of the professional coordinator who accompanied the negotiations for a long period of time, which raises questions about the original intention to agree to this agreement during the term of the government. The transitional security cabinet by the security cabinet away from the public.”
Washington demands a speedy Lebanese response
In a related context, Washington's ambassador to Beirut, Dorothy Shea, stressed, on Tuesday, the need to "accelerate the completion of the Lebanese response to the draft American proposal to demarcate the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel," expressing her country's interest in "completing this file as soon as possible."
Regarding the issuance of the response, a senior Lebanese political source said: "So far, we are waiting for the final formulation to be completed after introducing the amendments that were decided at my meeting yesterday."
Israeli Prime Minister Lapid said at the beginning of the weekly session of the Israeli government, Sunday: "During the weekend, in Lebanon and Israel, the proposal of the American mediator on an agreement on the maritime borders between the two countries was accepted."
The American mediator, Amos Hochstein, presented a compromise proposal to Israel and Lebanon after several visits and contacts with the two countries during the past months.
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