On 19 March 2026, one day after the US and Israel attacked Iran's South Pars gas field, which supplies roughly 80 percent of the country's domestic natural gas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined his vision for the region: "Just have oil pipelines, gas pipelines going west through the Arabian Peninsula, right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports, and you've just done away with the choke points forever."

Following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz as an assertion of sovereignty, soaring oil prices have been felt across the world and have triggered what is becoming the largest energy crisis in history. Netanyahu seized the moment, presenting an overland pipeline corridor as a "clear solution" to eliminate Iran's ability to leverage its geography. By routing Gulf oil westward across the Arabian Peninsula to Israel's occupied Mediterranean ports, the Strait of Hormuz would be completely bypassed, elevating Israel's strategic importance as a global energy and transit hub.

Netanyahu’s proposal is not anything new. It reflects the longstanding US-Israeli strategy to reshape West Asia. Through hybrid warfare, the U.S. and Israel have sought the total disarmament of all regional forces opposed to their hegemony and genocidal expansionist project. Normalisation deals with Arab states bordering Palestine has proven essential to this strategy, creating asymmetrical dependencies on Israeli energy exports and cultivating the comprador class of Arab elites invested in sustaining the Zionist project.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has accelerated the drive for East-West energy corridors. Through the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), Israel aims to become the unambiguous gateway for energy trade between Asia and Europe, in direct opposition to South-South trade. However, these plans are far from finalised. They stand in contention with alternative proposals that place Türkiye at the heart of redrawn energy supply chains. 

This long read explores two main competing East-West energy corridors - the Türkiye corridor and the IMEC corridor - and examines how Israel’s normalisation deals have inverted its initial reliance on energy imports. Critically, although the US and Israel have pushed for the establishment of the IMEC corridor, Israel continues to benefit from an expanded Türkiye corridor due to its dependence on crude oil passing through that very route. We conclude that a total energy embargo on Israel must be enforced, which is capable of cutting off the fuel exports that enable Israel to advance its expansionist and colonial aspirations.

Normalisation: legitimising Israel in the region

Energy has been an essential resource in consolidating the Zionist settler-colonial project and in creating the asymmetrical dependencies that underpin Israel’s relations with the West Asia region. For much of the twentieth century, Israel had limited domestic oil and gas reserves, relying on fuel imports from non-Arab states to combat its isolation from Arab states that refused to trade with it. The 1973-74 Arab oil embargo demonstrated how energy could be wielded as key leverage against Israel and its imperial backers. Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, which effectively halted unofficial exports of oil from Iran to Israel, the Israeli regime was forced to urgently diversify its oil sources and consider boosting domestic production. 

The Camp David Accords of 1978 provided the initial framework for Arab normalisation with Israel. Access to oil from the Sinai Peninsula allowed Israel to manage the immediate impact of the “oil shock” of the Iranian revolution. From 1978 onwards, each iteration of normalisation agreements, ranging from Oslo to the Abraham Accords, has maintained the security of Israel’s trade and energy routes by creating relationships of subordination with its Arab neighbours, whilst simultaneously pursuing the encirclement of resistance forces in the region, including Hezbollah, Ansarallah, and Iran. 

The discovery of the Leviathan gas field in 2010 by Israeli energy company NewMed allowed Israel to counteract its historical dependency on gas imports and to position itself towards becoming a leading global energy exporter. Israel’s current gas production now exceeds the demand of its domestic market. As Israel’s gas industry expands through investment from Western energy companies, such as BP and Chevron, this surplus is only likely to grow. Consequently, Israel places a large emphasis on exporting its excess gas, particularly to neighbouring Arab states. Since the start of its natural gas production, the Israeli regime has collected $9.5 billion in revenues from fees, profit levies, and corporation tax. These profits directly contribute towards Israel’s genocide and settler-colonial economy. 

Israel’s steady production and supply of natural gas have made neighbouring Arab states dependent on these energy exports. In 2016, Jordan signed a secret $10 billion deal to buy 300 million cubic feet of gas per day over 15 years. Israel now supplies 40% of Jordan’s natural gas imports, with the deal in place preventing the possibility of Jordan moving away from this dependency on Israel if it discovers their own gas reserves. Egypt, once one of the largest gas exporters in the region, has seen its own domestic sector suffer from selling gas below the cost of production to Israel. This has resulted in Egypt's growing dependence on Israeli gas exports. Normalisation for Egypt since the Camp David Accords has only signalled its deepening subordination, with Israel having the leverage to halt fuel supplies. Following the US-Zionist coordinated attack on Iran in June 2025, Israel’s suspension of gas to Egypt had already triggered national blackouts and raised concerns for an impending energy crisis. 

The Abraham Accords - a series of normalisation agreements in 2020 brokered by the US between Israel and Arab nations, including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco - provided an opportunity to create new regional trade corridors that would establish Israel as a key global transit hub. The Accords signalled the growing strategic integration between the UAE and Israel. A 2020 deal between the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company and the MED-RED Land Bridge sought to transport Gulf oil to European markets via the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, bypassing the Suez Canal. However, this deal did not materialise, reportedly delayed due to "environmental concerns." Ansarallah’s 2023 naval blockade of the Red Sea, in response to Israel’s genocide and siege on Gaza, additionally disrupted any pretence for new and secure trade routes. 

Nevertheless, with the UAE’s recent departure from OPEC and the expansion of trade and security ties with Israel, it seems likely that new energy routes may be brokered that will secure Israel’s position as a regional energy and transit power and ultimately will foster new asymmetrical dependencies. The Arab masses in support of Palestine pay the ultimate cost for these normalisation agreements: agreements that erode the sovereignty of their states, deepen the authoritarianism of unpopular US-aligned comprador regimes, and legitimise an expansionist settler-colonial project capable of exerting leverage through energy control.

Already going West: The Turkish Corridor

The Turkish corridor encapsulates energy pipelines that are already “going West”. The US-Israeli war on Iran has provided Türkiye with an opportunity to assert its energy infrastructure as essential for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. 

Whilst Arab normalisation agreements have helped facilitate Israel’s plans to become a major energy exporter and regional transit hub, Israel still primarily relies on imports for its crude oil supplies. Currently, over 40% of Israel’s total crude oil is transferred via the Turkish port of Ceyhan. In January 2026, our joint investigation with the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Progressive International exposed that 57 shipments, transporting 47 million barrels of crude oil, have occurred since the Turkish state announced a trade embargo on Israel in May 2024. Tankers completing these journeys consistently switch off their tracking signals and travel to Israeli ports in secret. 

Most of this crude oil arrives at the Israeli Ashkelon EAPC port, less than 10 kilometres away from Gaza. Once offloaded, it is then transported to the Bazan Group-owned Haifa refinery or the Paz Oil-owned Ashdod refinery. These UN black-listed corporations both have active contractual agreements to supply the Israeli Ministry of Defence with military-grade energy products. These products power Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements, as well as fuel fighter jets and other military vehicles used to enact Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its regional aggressions. This oil, which Israel is dependent on, is sourced from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. 

The “Contract of the Century” underpinned the $4 billion "New Silk Road" energy project that materialised soon after the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union and creation of an independent Azerbaijani state. This landmark moment catalysed US foreign policy aimed at creating one-way “energy corridors” designed to facilitate the long-term extraction of Eastern natural resources. Under the Clinton administration in the mid 1990s, US-British imperialist interests were advanced by BP. The British multinational led efforts to lobby the Azerbaijani government, which included BP funding an official visit by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to cement ties with the new state in 1994. 

Twelve years later, the pipeline’s construction from the capital of Azerbaijan, through Georgia and to Türkiye’s port of Ceyhan was complete. Today, the price of “Azeri Light BTC” crude oil has sharply increased as a result of Iran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz.

As the US ambassador to the European Union, Richard Morningstar, articulated at the time, the goal for the “East-West energy transit corridor” was “not simply to build oil and gas pipelines”, but rather “to use [these] pipelines as tools for establishing a political and economic framework”. 

The Israeli regime’s push for “pipelines going west” advances precisely this political and economic framework: re-shaping the West Asia region to consolidate Israel’s expansionist project and isolate Iran alongside other resistance actors. Consequently, the BTC pipeline, operated by British oil giant BP, must be understood as a template for future energy development in the region. 

For Türkiye specifically, the BTC pipeline holds a much broader and integral role. It functions as evidence that Türkiye is a reliable and “neutral” energy provider, capable of being a long-term home for energy trade to the West. Within this image, the BTC pipeline is only one of three vital one-way Turkish energy corridors, all pointing to Europe.

A second key route is referred to as the Southern Gas Corridor. This corridor consists of three major gas pipelines - the South Caucasus Pipeline, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline, and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. All three pipelines operate on and across Turkish land, making Türkiye once again politically and materially essential to this energy infrastructure. From 2021 to 2024, gas supply through these pipelines to EU states needing to diversify their energy sources increased by 40 percent. This trend has continued, with Germany and Austria becoming the latest states to import gas via this route as of January 2026.

Importantly, the Southern Gas Corridor transports gas sourced from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field. This gas field was BP’s largest ever gas discovery and is in close proximity to the ACG oil fields, which supply crude oil to the BTC pipeline. Both Caspian Sea energy extraction points remain majority-owned by BP, with Türkiye’s national energy company holding minority shares. Currently, BP remains a critical shareholder of each and every pipeline that makes up the Southern Gas Corridor. The British energy company’s presence is a replication of the BTC pipeline blueprint, echoed by BP’s own reference to the Southern Gas Corridor as “the Project of the Century”. 

The third major pipeline in pumping oil through Türkiye is the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, commonly referred to as “the Iraq-Turkey pipeline”. Unlike the previous two projects, this pipeline first resembled a political alliance closer to a South-South supply route compared to the US-driven creation of the BTC pipeline and the European Commission’s funding of the Southern Gas Corridor. Although built in 1973, the same year as the Arab oil embargo, it has remained underutilised and inactive since 2023 owing to unresolved International Arbitration Court proceedings. 

However, since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US-Israeli-imposed war, the Turkish Energy Minister and the Head of the International Energy Agency have publicly called for the Iraq-Turkey pipeline to become the primary oil route to bypass Iran and accelerate oil production. Significantly, these announcements follow a Memorandum of Understanding signed in February 2026 between Türkiye’s national oil company and BP to explore and extract Iraqi oil, signalling BP’s intent to reactivate the dormant pipeline. 

If this project comes to fruition, it would increase European access to the energy market by increasing the volume of Iraqi oil arriving at the Turkish port of Ceyhan and reduce global reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. As an on-land pipeline, it is envisioned as a cheap and efficient means of transporting large quantities of oil. Undoubtedly, this would elevate Türkiye’s status as a world-leading energy player. 

Oil from the Iraq-Turkey pipeline might eventually be exported to Israel. However, that would clash with the Israeli regime's broader goals: weakening strong regional states, shifting from energy importer to exporter, and claiming regional dominance in transit and energy. This contradiction is where the IMEC corridor comes in. 

Competing Corridors: Israel and IMEC

When Netanyahu publicly declared the need for “alternative routes”, he was unambiguous in that pipelines must travel “through the Arabian Peninsula, right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports”. This proposed route mirrors the projections for IMEC, a project designed to cement Israel as the indispensable gateway for East-West trade. 

First announced at the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC was conceived as a trade route to rival China's Belt and Road Initiative by integrating the economies of Asia, the Gulf, and Europe. Energy products would be shipped from India’s west coast ports around the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf states where they would be transported through Saudi Arabia before cutting across Jordan and Israel to reach the port of Haifa. The mix of sea-to-land-to-sea travel makes this route an enormously expensive and complex proposition, requiring major port upgrades and infrastructure still needing to be built, including railroads and pipelines in Jordan. 

Al-Aqsa Flood stalled the project’s initial steps. However, as witnessed earlier this year with Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro and theft of Venezuelan oil, US military action is often a precursor for the reworking of imperialist trade routes. 

Following their military attacks on Iran this year, the US and Israel are already laying the groundwork for a more aggressive push for US-Zionist hegemony in the region. On 29th April 2026, Senators Cory Booker and Dave McCormick introduced the bipartisan East Mediterranean Gateway Act, designed to increase US involvement in the region as “a strategic gateway in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor”. Announcing the legislation, Senator McCormick stated: “Operation Epic Fury showed that the Eastern Mediterranean is not on the sidelines of the Middle East — it’s at the centre of it”.

The promotion of the Eastern Mediterranean to the so-called “centre” of the Middle East is entirely by design. It is a direct result of the US fortification of the Israeli regime through an unlimited supply of arms and successive normalisation deals brokered with neighbouring Arab states. The bill explicitly cites its basis as “the policy of the United States to expand and strengthen the Abraham Accords to encourage other nations to normalize relations with Israel’’. 

The IMEC project is hence seen as a key vehicle for cementing normalisation ties between Israel, India, Arab states, and the EU, with developments already taking tangible form even prior to the G20 summit announcement. 

Founded in 2020, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) - whose members include Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, France, and Italy, alongside observers like the EU, US, and World Bank - was intended to shift European reliance from Russian gas to the more expensive US LNG. This intent was realised in 2022 through the EU's gas deal with Egypt, which dictated the terms of Egypt's LNG sales to Europe and integrated Israeli gas into the supply chain. 

Israel has since sought to expand its gas industry further, tendering offshore exploration licences throughout its genocide, including licences to extract gas from Palestinian waters annexed by Israel. At Davos in January 2026, Jared Kushner presented the “New Gaza” vision for the U.S.-led “Board of Peace”, speaking of opportunities to expand the energy industry once “security” and demilitarisation have been secured in Gaza. Though the specifics of any energy infrastructure plans remain unknown, given Israel’s historic and ongoing theft of Palestinian resources, it is likely that the Gaza Marine - a $4 billion untapped gas reserve - will be a core part of Israel’s gas exports to the EU alongside US LNG. 

Beyond incomplete Board of Peace plans, IMEC signatories have continued deepening their connections with Israel. The Indian energy giant, Adani, acquired Israel’s Haifa port in 2023. Following an exponential increase in trade since the Abraham Accords, the UAE’s recent OPEC exit is touted to lead to an even closer trading relationship with Israel. The US has pioneered the “3+1 alliance”, formalising its role in the strategic partnership between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece. Lebanon’s request to French President Macron to join IMEC received widespread criticism as an attempt to indirectly normalise with Israel. From industry acquisitions to geopolitical relationships, these moves all point towards Israel becoming a, if not the, key gateway for energy and other trade from the East to the West. 

It is no surprise that Netanyahu presented the project to the UN General Assembly on a map titled “The Blessing”, juxtaposing a second map with Iran coloured in black titled “The Curse”. Zionists frequently deploy this religiously charged language to invoke the growing vision of a "Greater Israel." US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee infamously articulated this when he said, "it would be fine if [Israel] took it all." 

Despite Israel’s current dependency on BTC crude oil from Turkish ports, Türkiye has been notably excluded from IMEC and the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. 

In February 2026, Netanyahu called for a new “hexagon of alliances” to counter what he termed as an “emerging Sunni axis” - a clear reference to Türkiye. One day before the US and Israel first struck Iran, Yoav Gallant, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, warned of Türkiye’s rise in the region and called for the pursuit of normalisation as part of Israel’s “periphery doctrine”. 

Despite its rhetorical opposition and the increasing Israeli threats made against it, Türkiye has still enabled the flow of oil to fuel Israel's genocide. For Israel, IMEC offers a future in which no country in the region can hold any leverage over it. Through the means of normalisation deals, military occupation, hybrid warfare, and genocidal aggression, Israel is asserting its project of regional subordination and disarmament. 

The fight for an energy embargo

Netanyahu's vision of pipelines "going west through the Arabian Peninsula, right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports" is not a speculative fantasy. It is the likely endpoint of decades of normalisation agreements, each of which has subordinated Arab states to Israeli energy dependencies while enriching an Arab comprador class invested in sustaining Zionism. 

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz exposed a seismic threat to both the US petrodollar system and the global dependency on Gulf oil transported via the strait. With the US military and intelligence infrastructure targeted across the Gulf, such as the prized THAAD air defence systems, the question of the reconstruction of US and Israeli assets may well be connected to the feasibility of the IMEC project. IMEC has the potential to act as a guarantor for Israel to garner wider European military support if it meant that vital oil supplies could be threatened by future retaliatory attacks.

The emerging IMEC order is, nevertheless, far from uncontested. Türkiye, excluded from IMEC and the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, has positioned itself as the alternative gateway. The BTC pipeline, the Southern Gas Corridor, and the dormant Iraq-Turkey pipeline all offer routes west that bypass both the Strait of Hormuz and Israel. For now, Israel remains paradoxically dependent on Turkish infrastructure, with over 40 percent of its crude oil still arriving from Ceyhan. IMEC is, however, designed to end that dependency, ensuring that no regional power can hold any energy leverage over Israel. 

Supply chains are not only stretched by the material infrastructure of oil pipelines; they contain multiple points of disruption. For IMEC, the US has been actively encouraging private sector investment from energy and trade companies to help realise the project. For the BP-owned BTC pipeline, the British energy giant is deeply embedded in public institutions, universities, and pension funds across Britain, whilst satellite research exposing secret oil shipments to Israel has already triggered parliamentary questions and public pressure demanding that Türkiye’s trade embargo be properly enforced. 

With the strategic integration of US and Zionist interests and an intensification of its aggression in the West Asia region, it is even more incumbent than ever for progressive forces across the world to resist U.S.-led imperialist hegemony and to fight for a total arms and energy embargo on Israel.