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Azerbaijan State Oil Deal With Israeli Gas Field Signals Growing Role in Trump’s ‘New Middle East’ Vision
Workers on the Israeli Tamar gas-processing rig some 25 kilometers off the Israeli southern coast of Ashkelon. Noble Energy and Delek are the main partners in the gas field, estimated to contain 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. June 23, 2014. Photo: Moshe Shai / Flash90.
A deal struck this week between Israel and Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR, has underscored a geopolitical reality often overlooked: Azerbaijan’s emerging role as a strategic player in the evolving Middle East.
While the Abraham Accords reshaped regional alliances under the first administration of US President Donald Trump, a second Trump term will usher in what some analysts call a “New Middle East” — one that prioritizes regional security cooperation to counter Iran while favoring diplomacy over conflict, all while recalibrating America’s presence in the region.
At the heart of this shifting landscape is Azerbaijan, a country that shares hundreds of border miles with Iran while maintaining deep ties with both Israel and Turkey, straddling multiple power blocs in ways that could prove crucial to Trump’s ambitions.
According to Ze’ev Khanin, a professor of Eurasian geopolitics at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Azerbaijan is a key part of strategic alliances that he calls “unclosed triangles,” with Baku comprising the missing link.
“We are living in the world of so-called unclosed triangles, which is unlike what we had in the 19th century and 20th centuries — when the enemy of my enemy is my friend and the friend of my friend is also my friend,” he told The Algemeiner.
One prominent example is the unclosed triangle of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Israel. Despite strained ties between Turkey and Israel, Azerbaijan continues to use Turkey as a transit point for energy exports to Israel. “The Turks didn’t stop the stream of Azerbaijani energy through Turkey to Israel,” Khanin said, adding that Ankara was eager to position itself as a transit hub for energy exports to Europe.
Azerbaijan’s ties with Israel have long been significant, though often under the radar, and Baku has been Israel’s most vital ally in the Caucasus and Central Asia for more than three decades, with a partnership that spans across energy security, defense, and intelligence. As of 2019, more than 60 percent of Israel’s gasoline was sourced from Azerbaijan. Baku has also purchased advanced Israeli defense systems, including the “Barak MX” missile system as well as surveillance satellites.
The recent SOCAR deal investing in Israel’s offshore gas fields has further deepened these relations. Aaron Frenkel, an Israeli businessman, agreed to sell 48 percent of his holdings in the Tamar gas field to SOCAR, making the oil company a significant stakeholder in the Tamar gas field, which is a major natural gas source for Israel and has turned the country into a gas exporter in the region.
This move not only cements Baku’s economic influence in the region but also places it at the crossroads of a growing pro-Western bloc seeking to counter Iran’s regional ambitions. Trump’s vision for the region, as articulated in past speeches and his meetings this week with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, involves shifting security responsibilities to local allies, forming what some have dubbed a “Middle East NATO.” In this framework, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a linchpin, but Azerbaijan’s strategic positioning could offer another key pillar, Khanin said.
“Everybody understands that Iran is not going anywhere,” Khanin said.
Both Jerusalem and Washington recognize that, Khanin said, and see the need to form a strong pro-Western bloc of countries that, despite differing political ideologies, can cooperate because of overlapping security interests.
As Trump seeks to end what he calls “unnecessary wars,” he is looking to prioritize diplomatic solutions over direct military engagement, as evidenced by his comments this week seeking another deal with Iran. Trump also aims to end the war in Gaza, secure the release of Israeli hostages, and “to limit, if not eliminate, Hamas,” Khanin said.
Trump’s comments about a “US takeover of Gaza” notwithstanding, his broader goal is to “outsource the responsibility for Middle Eastern security” to a regional coalition with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other key US allies under American leadership, Khanin added.
For Israel, the SOCAR agreement is more than an economic deal — it is a sign that Azerbaijan’s role in the region is expanding in ways that align with broader strategic goals, Khanin said. As the contours of the “New Middle East” take shape, Baku may find itself in a position of influence it has never held before.
The post Azerbaijan State Oil Deal With Israeli Gas Field Signals Growing Role in Trump’s ‘New Middle East’ Vision first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.