Netanyahu's Efforts to Prevent the Release of Old Documents on Iran-Israel Oil Deal

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the country's institutions to prevent access to and publication of documents related to a 48-year-old oil deal between Iran and Israel to avoid Israel paying financial compensation to Iran. According to the report, an Israeli lawyer approached various institutions, including the Foreign Ministry, requesting the release of official documents regarding the decades-old oil deal between Israel and Iran or access to these records. However, Haaretz noted that Netanyahu classified the mentioned documents in 2013 as 'highly classified' to 'prevent harm to the country's security and foreign relations.' On Sunday, January 28, Haaretz reported that while a court ruling in Switzerland for compensation from Israel to Iran is becoming final, Israel considers any payment to Iran to be in contradiction to the principle of sanctions against Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu has made significant efforts to impose extensive sanctions against Iran in recent years and has recently lobbied prominent members of the U.S. Congress to pass a bill intensifying sanctions against Iran. Israel deems strict sanctions necessary to 'force Iran to abandon its nuclear program' as it claims Iran's goal is 'to build an atomic bomb.' Netanyahu stated that Iran's acquisition of a nuclear bomb would pose a 'vital threat' to Israel's existence. According to Haaretz, the legal team in Switzerland, which is defending the Israeli government in a long-standing dispute with Iran over the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline project, informed the Swiss court that the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have 'the destruction of Israel from the map' on their agenda. Haaretz reported that Israeli lawyers emphasize that any transfer of money to the Iranian government must be avoided. The case of Iran's complaint against Israel has a 34-year history; it dates back to 1981 when the Iranian government filed a lawsuit against Israel, seeking its share of the money from the mentioned oil project about a year and a half after the Islamic Republic came to power. Iran claims that not only should its share from the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline be paid, but Israel must also return the share of Iran's oil that it held and sold to foreign customers during the chaos of the Iranian Revolution. According to a contract signed in early 1968 between Israel and Iran, a pipeline was established between the Israeli ports of Eilat and Ashkelon. Under this contract, Iranian oil was transported by tanker from the Red Sea to the port of Eilat, bypassing the Egyptian Suez Canal, and flowed through a 250-kilometer pipeline to Ashkelon, from where it was sent to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. However, the opening of the Suez Canal and the close relations between Iran and Egypt during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with Anwar Sadat, the then-leader of Egypt, about a year before the Iranian Revolution, rendered the mentioned Israeli pipeline economically unviable. Nevertheless, in the early days of the Iranian Revolution, Israel sold the oil that was in this pipeline and did not pay Iran its share. Iran claims that in addition to this oil, at that time, 29 Iranian tankers were also leased to an Israeli company, which 'the Zionist enemy' also confiscated. Twelve years ago, Iran filed a request for $800 million in compensation in a legal process in Europe. However, Haaretz reported that in 1986, the Israeli government, using a parliamentary law, 'nationalized' the Eilat-Ashkelon oil company, which meant the confiscation of Iran's share. Haaretz noted that for about thirty years, in government documents and even in the Israeli Audit Court, the name of the Eilat-Ashkelon oil company has been monitored under false names to avoid any reference to Iranian assets. The Islamic Republic severed relations with Israel from the first days of the overthrow of the monarchy in Iran, following the attack of revolutionaries on the Israeli representation office in Tehran and the invitation to Yasser Arafat to attend there, turning this building into the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The remaining Israeli diplomats were forced to flee Iran. All employees of Israeli companies, like representatives of the Eilat-Ashkelon oil company, closed their offices and fled the country in the months leading up to the Iranian Revolution. After years of legal pursuit, the arbitration court in Switzerland condemned Israel to pay $50 million in compensation this fall, although some reports mentioned an amount of $100 million. According to Haaretz, the Iranian government did not celebrate its recent victory in the Swiss arbitration court, just as the Israeli government kept it quiet because it wants to continue this legal process and prevent any payment to Iran. Haaretz wrote that this legal dispute is a 'real war' between Israel and Iran, but 'Netanyahu is losing it.'