Report: Putin Backs Israel's Security Needs in Middle East

[Jesus Malverde]

2. Israel and Russia might not be odd buddies.

It's well known Foreign Minister Leiberman was born in Russia. One of the most powerful men in Israel for foreign relations has a personal connection to Russia. Ignoring that for a moment.

The biggest synergy between Israel and Russia is the discovery of the Levant Gas field off the coast of Lebanon and Israel.

Currently Russia is the largest natural gas supplier to Europe. They are able to largely dictate to a captive market and have used their natural gas as a political tool. The recent deal with Ukraine as an example. With the discovery of the Levant field Russia no longer has a captive market as Europe will be able to buy natural gas from Israel.

To get the Israeli gas to market a pipeline would go through Cyprus which is in the Russian sphere.

Money is the glue that will bring these two powers together. As a cartel they will both benefit from Europe rather than competing against each other. Initially Israel will need cooperation from Russia to get the gas through Cyprus. After that they will both have the same customers. Assad's arms sales are meaningless when were talking petrodollars petroEuro's. The Russian base at tartus maybe does become more important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartus

The whole situation is weird and definitely not what we normally expect. Coupled with the China love fest these are interesting developments. Playing the middle between great powers could be a dangerous game.