Remember those pictures outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach during the pandemic?   Where the supertankers were waiting to be handled.  More than 100 were stacked up.

Well, just the other day, I saw a picture of Eilat, Israel.   Most of us consider Eilat to be an Israeli resort (actually, the ultimate resort)- hosting all sorts of summer events- all year round (since Eilat is always warm).   It’s a beach town with non-stop parties and barely dressed folks celebrating.

Except, Eilat is also an Israeli  port on the Red Sea.  (It is a much smaller operation than either Long Beach or Los Angeles, let alone their combined capacity.) Eilat the city, is contiguous to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, and not to far from Saudi Arabia.   And, it was a reasonable port a few years ago.  It repaired ships and handled all sorts of cargo.

But, now it has a crude oil jetty operated by the Europe-Asia Pipeline Company )EAPC), which has led to a surge in traffic.  (Some five times the number of tankers that were serviced pre-Pandemic now crowd the port.)  Now that Israel has oil, it is shipping plenty of oil to East Asia; it is not atypical for 12 tankers to arrive empty, get loaded, and depart for Asia (mostly China).    The EAPC also maintains an oil pipeline (see the diagram above) that connects to Ashdod, one of Israel’s big ports on the Mediterranean.

This growth presents environmental risks to the Gulf- not to mention leaving Eilat’s position as a resort and a port at risk.  All it takes it one accident. (EAPC had two major spills; one in 2011 and one in 2014.)  And, since EAPC is pressing to increase the amount of oil that traverses Eilat from the 2 million ton annual limit (it has a “secret”  agreement with a United Arab Emirates firm, Med-Red Land Bridge), the risks are evident.

EAPC also claims these limits are harming Chaifa (Haifa) and Ashdod, which rely on Eilat for oil transportation.  Yet, since none of this oil is used in Israel, the ministries have not been moved to act quickly.  What is true is that transporting oil from Eilat lets the tankers bypass the Suez Canal (without circumnavigating Africa).

This may be one of those issues underlying Netanyahu’s missive to remove the ability of the Courts to be the preeminent power (which is being protested by significant numbers of the Israeli public) .

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