New data on the situation necessitated a request for Hochstein’s return to Beirut and his response to the invitation (Archive/Getty)
Less than a week ago, a US State Department spokesperson said, Ned PriceIn response to a question about the American mediator in the file of demarcating the maritime borders in the south with the Israeli occupation, the visit of Lebanon Not on a program Amos Hokstein Currently”.
He added that he had nothing new about the dispute over the demarcation of the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel. Five days later, Hochstein was on his way to Beirut with an official Lebanese request to “mediate” the issue after the tension caused by Israel’s recruitment of a drilling ship and gas exploration in the disputed Karish field. There must have been new data on the situation that necessitated his request to return to Beirut and his response to the invitation.
When he was in Lebanon last February, Hochstein asked the Lebanese government to start negotiating with Israel Starting from line 23, he asked her for a response to his proposal. By this, he implicitly informed the government that Washington adopts Israel’s position that this line is the southern Lebanese maritime border, that is, Israel’s northern maritime border, and the rest can be negotiated without any guarantee of results.
Lebanon’s predicament is that it has distanced itself from the clear, firm, unwavering adherence to its delineation, and has not hurried to correct it
The concerned Lebanese authorities slept over the proposal after discovering that it was in trouble, because the study Lebanese army She indicated that the border ends at line 29, not 23. To start negotiations from this line requires amending the Lebanese government decree No. 6433 issued in 2011 recognizing the 23rd line as the southern boundary of the Lebanese economic waters, which was deposited at the time at the United Nations to be officially approved in this way.
But the Lebanese government has recently refrained from the amendment, fearing that this would anger Washington and force it to “abandon its support for negotiations,” and this is what it does not want, as it was reported. Or maybe it refrained from a “political” bug in the same way. The issue seems to go beyond mere formal procedures and deposits. Otherwise, what is the objection to correcting the line in an official, international way, at least, to establish the legitimacy of the conflict and thus ensure that Israel stops drilling and drilling for the purpose of deciding the matter or reaching a satisfactory settlement?
He added to the question marks that the signing of the decree’s amendment did not take place in 2020, on the pretext that the Lebanese government at that time was a “caretaker government.” A pretext that is closer to covering evasion, and what has reinforced the belief that there is a “mystery” in the file that may be of the kind in which local, regional and international aspects and accounts overlap.
The dispute arose with the demarcation of the maritime border between Lebanon and Cyprus in 2007, according to which the determination of the southern line of this border (which constitutes the northern line of the Lebanese-Israeli maritime border) remained open to modification. In 2010, Israel and Cyprus signed a border agreement that took into account the coordinates left for modification in the Lebanese Cypriot southern line, that is, the Lebanese-Israeli northern line. Accordingly, Israel built its claims and then extended its hand on Lebanese maritime rights in 2020 when it tried to drill in the disputed Karish field, which led to US mediation in indirect Lebanese-Israeli negotiations that soon ended in a blockage.
It was preceded by mediation between 2010 and 2012, led by the American diplomat Frederick Hof, who offered a settlement in which Lebanon would receive 55% of the disputed area and Israel 45%. But it was rejected by both sides. There are experts who say that the dispute arose as a result of errors in calculating and defining the angles and starting points of the lines from the shores, and accordingly Israel’s claims are considered “false.” On the other hand, there are those who believe that the criteria for the reference points adopted by the two sides in the demarcation were correct, and therefore the solution is only available through a settlement, Hoff said.
Lebanon’s predicament is that it has distanced itself from the clear, unwavering, and unwavering adherence to its delineation, and has not hurried to correct it. Instead of officially insisting on Line 29 and pushing the dispute to international arbitration, he put himself at the mercy of Hochstein, the marketer of Israel’s maritime map, who had previously hinted that at best he only promised a settlement, unless he was behind a hill.