In recent months, Israel and Iran have been playing a game of cat-and-mouse. This is not the predictable game of intelligence, counter-espionage and field security. Such games have been taking place for years. Israel's intelligence community tries to obtain information about the development of Iran's nuclear program, and is preparing in case it has to attack Iran; while Iran tries frustrate these efforts.
But alongside this routine game, Israel and Iran are working feverishly in an entirely different area: Iran is trying to locate property and assets belonging to the Israeli government and three Israeli oil firms abroad, and Israel is trying to thwart it. This affair arises from an international arbitration that determined more than three years ago that the Paz, Sonol and Delek oil companies must compensate the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) hundreds of millions of dollars.
The three companies were government-owned in the 1970s, but since then have been privatized. The oil companies have appealed the arbitration decision and are trying to create a delay, and are succeeding for now. The NIOC has not yet succeeded in enforcing the ruling and in collecting the debt. Parallel to this appeal, legal proceedings are still continuing in another two arbitrations on similar issues.
|
|
|
|
All these legal proceedings have been taking place in Europe (in Switzerland and Holland) for more than 20 years, and are related to the activity of a legal entity called Trans-Asiatic Oil. This was a top-secret partnership that existed between the Israeli government and the NIOC during the period of the Shah. This partnership operated the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company, the oil terminals in Eilat and Ashkelon, and a large fleet of giant tankers for transporting oil. After the Shah was expelled from Iran and Khomeini came to power, in February 1979, the Islamic Republic cut off all ties with Israel and stopped shipping Iranian oil.
In 1985, the NIOC filed huge lawsuits (today worth several billion dollars) against Israel and the oil companies. The lawsuits were discussed in three separate arbitrations. The NIOC claims that Israel owes it huge sums for the partnership. Haaretz first reported on the Iranian victory in December 2006, and now Prof. Uri Bialer of Hebrew University in Jerusalem is publishing a study on the circumstances under which Trans-Asiatic Oil was established.
Bialer's study, "Fuel Bridge across the Middle East - Israel, Iran, and the Eilat-Ashkelon Oil Pipeline," is based on documents that have been declassified in the Israel State Archive and in the British National Archives, and on interviews with leading figures involved in the issue. It provides a rare glimpse at a particularly interesting chapter in the history of the State of Israel. The study was published in the latest issue of the periodical Israel Studies.
Until the mid-1950s, Israel received its oil from the Soviet Union, Kuwait (under British rule) and international oil companies. But in 1955-1956 these ties were severed, and Israel was forced to find new sources. Israel maintained secret ties with Iran, and wanted to turn it into its main oil supplier. Iran hesitated, for fear of undermining its relations with the Arab world, but after the 1956 Sinai Campaign, the Iranians were convinced and agreed to supply oil to Israel.
With the help of pumps and pipes "confiscated" - meaning stolen - from an Italian company and a Belgian company operating an oilfield in Ras Sudar in Sinai, Israel built a pipeline from Eilat to Ashkelon. The pipe, 40 centimeters in diameter, was paid for by Baron Edmund de Rothschild. The initiative was called Tri-Continental. By demand of the Iranians, who wanted to conceal their involvement in selling oil to Israel and in the joint company, the parties established a secret partnership called Fimarco, which was registered in July 1959 in the tax shelter of Lichtenstein. Iran owned 10 percent of the partnership. Tankers transported the oil from Iran to Eilat, and from there it was sent to Ashkelon through the pipeline.
But over the years Israel's needs increased, and the Finance Ministry formulated a plan to replace the small pipe with a large 40-inch (106 centimeter) pipe and to set up a genuine partnership with Iran. Foreign minister Golda Meir, who secretly visited Tehran in August 1965, brought up the subject with the Shah and with Fatollah Nafici, one of the directors of the NIOC and the person in charge of the company's clandestine ties with Israel. In order to demonstrate the seriousness of its intentions, Israel appointed Felix Shinar, one of the architects of the reparations agreement with Germany, as the project manager. Working with him were deputy defense minister Tzebi Dinstein; Dov Ben Dror, who was involved in the energy market; and Mossad operative Avigdor Bauer. NIOC president Manuchar Akbal joined the negotiations on behalf of Iran. The talks were conducted in Israel, Iran and Switzerland.
According to Bialer's article, the turning point in the talks came after Israel's victory in the Six-Day War and the closing of the Suez Canal. The Shah, who was referred to by the code name "Landlord" in the Israeli correspondence, was persuaded to establish a fifty-fifty partnership between the Israeli government and the NIOC. The company was called Trans-Asiatic Oil and was registered in Switzerland, at Iran's request, in order to conceal the Israeli partner and to make it appear to be a foreign company.
After the Shah gave his consent, the main problem was finding funding for the initiative, which was expected to cost $85 million, a huge sum in those days. Baron de Rothschild refused to fund the project, claiming that it would not be profitable, but the Iranians thought that he said no because he was insulted Israeli representatives had kept him in the dark about two years of contacts with Iran. An Israeli attempt to interest American oil billionaire David Rockefeller, the Chase Manhattan Bank president, also failed.
In the end, thanks to his connections, Shinar obtained funding from the German Deutsche Bank, through which some of the reparations money had been transferred to Israel in the 1950s and the 1960s. Shinar and Nafici met in Geneva and Zurich with Hermann Josef Abs, chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank, and discussed the loan conditions with him. Abs had a Nazi past: He was responsible for the bank's foreign operations from 1938, and after World War Two he had been imprisoned for several months. Apparently, however, this did not prevent Israeli representatives from enjoying close, friendly ties with him.
Early in 1968, the German bank agreed to give a low-interest, $22 million loan to finance the project. On February 29, 1968 a contract establishing the company was signed; its exact details are still considered a state secret. The contract was signed by then-finance minister Pinhas Sapir on behalf of the Israeli government and by Akbal on behalf of the NIOC. The operational contract was set for a period of 49 years. In 1969, the pipeline between Eilat and Ashkelon was completed, and huge tankers were purchased to transport the oil. In December 1969, Iranian oil began flowing through the large pipe. A small percentage of the oil was earmarked for Israel. Most of it, however, was loaded onto tankers at the Ashkelon terminal and sent to consumers in Europe, mainly Romania, the only Soviet bloc country to continue maintaining diplomatic ties with Israel.
In 1970, 162 tankers brought 10 million tons of oil to the pipeline. That was the pipeline's peak year, but the ambitious goal of 50 million tons a year was never achieved. At the end of 1978, with the fall of the Shah, the oil stopped flowing, and the ties between the two countries deteriorated into the hostility that characterizes them to this day. The NIOC has sued for payment for the last three months of oil and for the value of shared assets, such as oil tankers; Israel counters that it is owed money because Iran broke its contract.
For the Shah's Iran, the initiative had financial value only and was even a political burden. But for Israel it was a national enterprise, another vision produced by the Mapai government (the forerunner of Labor), and its main importance was strategic.
Trans-Asiatic, which still operates the pipeline, informed Haaretz that the arbitration decision concerns the oil companies. The oil companies, for their part, refused to respond to this article.
why did Israel lose its Soviet oil arrangement in "1955-1956"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Personality_Cult_and_its_Consequence...
Stalin was gone. Hmmmmm...
Josef Stalin was a Georgian from Ossetia, go figure!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin
Childhood and education, 1878–1899
Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis Dzhugashvili in Gori, Tiflis Governorate to Besarion Dzhugashvili, an Ossetian cobbler who owned his own workshop,[8] and Ketevan Geladze a Georgian who was born a serf. He was their third child; their two previous sons died in infancy. The second and third toes of his left foot were webbed.[9]
Initially, the Dzhugashvilis' lives were prosperous and happy, but Stalin's father became an alcoholic, which gradually led to his business failing and becoming violently abusive to his wife and child.[10] As their financial situation grew worse, Stalin's family moved homes frequently; at least nine times in Stalin's first ten years of life.[11]
The town where Stalin grew up was a violent and lawless place. It had only a small police force and a culture of violence that included gang-warfare, organized street brawls and wrestling tournaments—some of which were traditions inherited from Georgia's war-torn past.[11] Stalin took part in streetfighting as a child; he was not afraid to challenge opponents who were much stronger than he, and he was severely beaten on numerous occasions.[11]
At the age of seven, Stalin fell ill with smallpox and his face was badly scarred by the disease. He later had photographs retouched to make his pockmarks less apparent. Stalin's native tongue was Georgian; he did not start to learn Russian until he was eight or nine years old, and he never lost his strong Georgian accent.
At the age of ten, Stalin began his education at the Gori Church School. His peers were mostly the sons of affluent priests, officials, and merchants. He and most of his classmates at Gori were Georgians and spoke mostly Georgian. However, at school they were forced to speak Russian, which was the policy of Tsar Alexander III. The Russian teachers mocked the accents of their Georgian students, and regarded their language and culture as inferior. Nevertheless, Stalin earned the respect and admiration of his teachers by being the best student in the class, earning top marks across the board. He developed a passion for learning that stayed with him for the rest of his life. He became a very good choir singer and was often hired to sing at weddings. He also began to write poetry, something he would develop in later years.[11]
Stalin's father, who had always wanted his son to be trained as a cobbler rather than be educated, was infuriated when the boy was accepted into the school. In his anger he smashed the windows of the local tavern, and later attacked the town police chief. Out of compassion for Stalin's mother, the police chief did not arrest Besarion, but ordered him to leave town. He moved to Tiflis where he found work in a shoe factory and left his family behind in Gori.[11]
Young Stalin, circa 1894, age 16
About the time Stalin began school, he was struck by a horse-drawn carriage. The accident permanently damaged his left arm; this injury would later exempt him from military service in World War I. At the age of 12, Stalin was struck again by a horse-drawn carriage and injured badly. He was taken to hospital in Tiflis where he spent months in care. After he recovered, his father seized the opportunity to kidnap the boy and enroll him as an apprentice cobbler at the shoe factory where he worked. When his mother, through the aid of contacts in the clergy and school staff, recovered the boy, his father cut off all financial support to his wife and son, leaving them to fend for themselves. Stalin returned to his school in Gori where he continued to excel.[11]
He graduated first in his class and in 1894, at the age of 16, he enrolled at the Georgian Orthodox Seminary of Tiflis, to which he had been awarded a scholarship. The teachers at Tiflis Seminary were also determined to impose Russian language and culture on the Georgian students.[11] Like many of his comrades, young Stalin reacted by being drawn to Georgian patriotism. During this time he gained fame as a poet; his poems were published in several local newspapers. However, his interest for poetry began to fade as he was drawn to rebellion and revolution.
During his time at the seminary, Stalin and numerous other students read forbidden literature that included Victor Hugo novels and revolutionary, including Marxist, material. He was caught and punished numerous times for this. One teacher in particular—Father Abashidze, whom Stalin nicknamed "the Black Spot"—harassed the rebel students through student informers, nightly patrols and surprise dormitory raids. This personal experience of "surveillance, spying, invasion of inner life, violation of feelings", in Stalin's own words, influenced the design of his future terror state.[11] He became an atheist in his first year.[11] He insisted his peers call him "Koba", after the Robin Hood-like protagonist of the novel The Patricide by Alexander Kazbegi; he would continue to use this pseudonym as a revolutionary. In August 1898, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, an organisation from which the Bolsheviks would later form.
Shortly before the final exams, the Seminary abruptly raised school fees. Unable to pay, Stalin quit the seminary in 1899 and missed his exams, for which he was officially expelled.[11] 20 of his fellow-classmates were expelled for revolutionary activities in 1899, and 40 more were expelled in 1901.[12] Shortly after leaving school, Stalin discovered the writings of Vladimir Lenin and decided to become a revolutionary.
Early years as a Marxist revolutionary, 1899–1917
After abandoning his priestly education, Stalin took a job as a weatherman at the Tiflis Meteorological Observatory. Although the pay was relatively low (20 roubles a month), his workload was light, giving him plenty of time for revolutionary activities. He would organise strikes, lead demonstrations and give speeches. He soon caught the attention of the Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana. During this time, he met and charmed Simon Ter-Petrossian, a violent psychopath who became his long-time henchman and enforcer.[13]
Stalin in 1902
On the night of April 3, 1901, the Okhrana arrested a number of SD Party leaders in Tiflis, but Stalin spotted their agents waiting in ambush at the Observatory and avoided capture. He went underground, becoming a full-time revolutionary, living off donations from friends, sympathizers and his Party. He began writing revolutionary articles for the Baku-based radical newspaper Brdzola ("Struggle").[11]
In October, Stalin fled to Batumi and got work at an oil refinery owned by the Rothschild family. Organizing the workers there, Stalin was almost certainly involved in a 1902 fire at the refinery designed to trick the management into giving the workers a bonus for putting out the fire. However, the manager suspected arson and refused to pay. This led to a series of strikes, all organized by Stalin, which in turn led to arrests and clashes with the Cossacks in the streets. In one attempt to break their comrades out of prison, 13 strikers were killed when Cossacks intervened. Stalin distributed incendiary pamphlets portraying the dead as martyrs. On April 18, 1902, the authorities finally arrested Stalin at one of his secret meetings. At his trial, Stalin was acquitted of leading the riots due to lack of evidence, but was kept in custody whilst the authorities investigated his activities in Tiflis. In 1903, the authorities decided to exile Stalin to Siberia for three years.[11]
Stalin ended up in the Siberian town of Novaya Uda on December 9, 1903. During this time, he heard that two rival factions within the Social-Democrats had formed: the Bolsheviks under Lenin and the Mensheviks under Julius Martov. Stalin, already an admirer, decided to become a Leninist. Stalin managed to obtain false papers and, on January 17, 1904, escaped Siberia by train, arriving back in Tiflis ten days later.[11] With no income, Stalin lived off his circle of friends. One of them introduced him to Lev Kamenev (then known as Lev Rosenfeld), his future co-ruler of the USSR after Lenin's death.
So one interesting point here...
is that there has been long-standing ethnic-linguistic intermingling of peoples in the region. Stalin's father must have been "ethnically Georgian" (based on the '-shvili' suffix on his name), spoke Georgian, etc -- and nonetheless they lived in Ossetia, which is named after its ethnically/linguistically distinct majority (I assume) population. It's like the former Yugoslavia (or Palestine, for that matter) where ethnic diversity was not the source of violent conflict until external pressures triggered it.
To take Stalin's own life as an example, it was the pressure of being forced to speak Russian and identify with Russian culture that "made" him a Georgian patriot.
yep...
i like how he worked at a Rothschild oil refinery. I wonder if that's where the Rothschilds approached him and said--"you seem like a very talented smart young Georgian--would you like to help us depose the Tsar? Here's what you do--gain a reputation among the stirring communist revolutionaries by pretending to torch our refinery and organize the workers. We'll take care of your career as a revolutionary and ensure you go far. In return, we will ask for simple favors, like providing oil to our little, um, project in the middle east, and playing the foil to a funny little man who will soon begin terrorizing European bank--er, Europeans. Then we'll want to use you as a bogeyman to frighten wealthy people (our competitors, i.e.) as part of our little plan to gain a monopoly over the global monetary system AND the war for profit business we're so good at."
Response of short, proud, Russian and Tsar hating little scrapper: "Can I wear a great big moustache and make a cult of personality of myself? If so, you've got your man!"
Except that Rothschild
Except that Rothschild fortunes declined because of the wars and upheavals of the 20th century and the Rothschilds are no longer preeminent among European bankers as they once were. So no such monopoly was ever gained. The Rothschild family was in the 19th century the leading finance family of Europe and it's not odd that someone would take a job at one of their oil refineries. But there's nothing to suggest anything more than that.
> Israel supporters NOW also
> Israel supporters NOW also claim that oh no, WE didn't encourage the invasion of Iraq--why would we?
The term "Israel supporters" generally refers to people living outside of Israel who declare themselves to be supporters of Israel. Within Israel itself, the Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu had favored an invasion of Iraq and this view is expressed in the paper on "A Clean Break." But other Israelis outside of the Likud party, people who are just as much a part of the Israeli establishment as Zbigniew Brzezinski is of the US establishment, had regarded Iran as the more important rival and were concerned that an attack on Iraq would simply strengthen Iran. That has been the case thus far. Iran welcomed the US invasion of Iraq because they knew it would increase Iranian influence. The Israeli supporters here in the US who campaigned for war in Iraq were aligned with the most Right-wing sector of Israeli politics, which is fairly common among supporters who live abroad outside of a country.
> So just like Iraq, which
> So just like Iraq, which is already a done deal, apologists for Zionism claim that Israel had no role in the Georgia fiasco.
You're altering your statements once more. Whoever said that Israel had no role in the Georgia fiasco? What you had originally implied was that the Georgia fiasco was somehow best understood and interpreted as something which was primarily done for Israeli Zionist interests, and not for the interests of the upper ruling class of the United States. I had simply pointed out that the war in Georgia has created another obstacle to any possible move against Iran, which the entire Israeli elite wishes for, while noting that people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has been publicly supportive of Mearsheimer & Walt, have come out in favor of supporting Georgia against Russia. That points to the war in Georgia being primarily motivated by the interests which Brzezinski works for, albeit with some Israeli attempts to cash in off of it to the extent possible. Brzezinski's book THE GRAND CHESSBOARD makes it clear that he was not advocating an attack on Iraq, and so it makes some more sense in that case to look at Netanyahu and the "Clean Break." The affair in Georgia is a different matter altogether.