Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — The Israel Navy, expected to protect the nation’s new
energy reserves, would require a fleet in the Red Sea, a report said.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs asserted that the Navy would
need a significant presence in the Red Sea. In a report by a former
senior U.S. official, the center said the Israel Navy must fill the vacuum
left by an expected decreasing U.S. military presence as well as Iranian
operations.

“Israeli officials view a cross-Israel natural gas pipeline connecting
the Mediterranean and Red Seas as an alternative to the Suez Canal,” the
report, titled “The Geopolitics of Israel’s Offshore Gas Reserves,” said.

“But an export structure operating directly from Eilat to markets in Asia
would face a rising strategic problem: Iran’s increasing naval presence in
the Red Sea. This will require Israel to establish and expand a Red Sea
fleet as well as a significant expansion in the size and capability of its
Mediterranean fleet.”

Author David Wurmser, a senior adviser to then-U.S. Vice President
Richard Cheney, said Israel must secure its trade routes with Asia, the
expected client of any Israeli gas exports. Wurmser, now a consultant to the U.S. firm Noble Energy, which is developing Israeli reserves, said the Navy
must significantly expand its capabilities, particularly the escort of
convoys in the Red Sea.

“This expanding role of positioning Israel as the gateway to Asia from
Europe will involve strategic challenges that will encourage Israel not only
to reinforce its naval cooperation with the U.S. — and perhaps some European
navies as well,” the report said. “It will also require Israel to establish
and expand a Red Sea fleet with a blue water capability and significant
convoy capabilities. This will become all the more important as U.S. naval
power recedes globally over the next decade.”

The report envisioned Israel shifting its exports away from Europe and
to Asia. But Wurmser said the Israel Navy would also need to expand its
fleet in the Mediterranean, where two major gas fields are being developed.

“At the same time, the significant destabilizing forces at work in the
eastern Mediterranean — where the production fields are actually located —
and the decreasing role of the U.S. Navy in securing the area will create a
void and danger to Israel’s offshore assets there,” the report said. “This,
too, will demand a significant expansion in the size and capability of
Israel’s Mediterranean fleet.”

So far, the Navy has been by far the smallest of Israel’s military arms.
The Navy has requested at least four fast patrol boats to protect the
Leviathan and Tamar fields, located between 90 and 135 kilometers from the
Israeli coast.

“In short, Israel’s Navy will become one of the Israel Defense Force’s
most important arms to secure the natural gas and potentially oil trade
which will change Israel in the coming decades,” the report said.

  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Leviathan and Tamar gas fields, Mediterranean, New energy assets, Noble Energy, Red Sea, seen leading to expanded Israeli Navy, Suez Canal, U.S. retreat