The Egypt–Israel gas deal and similar economic arrangements with Israel across the region illustrate how normalisation has shifted from a diplomatic exception to an organising principle of Middle Eastern political economy, writes Simon Mohsin
FOR all the rhetoric of solidarity and ritualised outrage, the Israeli genocide in Palestine has remained a secondary concern for the regional powers that possessed the diplomatic, economic and strategic leverage to alter the trajectory of Gaza’s devastation. Instead of exercising influence, regional capitals have retreated into calculated restraint. Brittle power structures and legitimacy deficits have constrained the ruling elite. They are more preoccupied with regime survival than moral leadership. Meaningful action is rendered politically inconvenient and structurally risky mainly due to deep economic dependencies, security arrangements and geopolitical bargains — most critically, for entanglement within the US-led strategic apparatus. In this landscape, Palestine has been reduced to a rhetorical cause rather than a red line. Palestinians are denied not only protection but the fundamental dignity and security that collective regional pressure could have helped secure, had principle not been subordinated to expediency.
As debates over energy resources globally, the longstanding contention over Gaza’s offshore natural gas — once framed as a symbol of economic justice and political leverage — is now being overtaken by a controversial chapter in regional energy politics. The struggle over who controls gas in Gaza underscored not only the humanitarian cost of occupation but also the geopolitical value of fossil fuels in a war-torn landscape where power and resources are deeply intertwined. Recent headlines are dominated by a landmark natural gas agreement between Egypt and Israel — a deal valued at roughly $35 billion that promises to reshape energy flows in the region and deepen economic interdependence between two states long defined by uneasy coexistence.
Signed initially in August and formally approved in December 2025, the Egypt-Israel gas deal will see Israel export up to 130 billion cubic meters of natural gas from its Leviathan field to Egypt through 2040, marking the largest such arrangement in Israeli history. Egyptian officials have been quick to characterise the pact as ‘purely commercial’, stressing that private energy companies concluded it under market rules with no formal political conditions attached. Yet the timing and scale of the agreement — coming amid an acute Egyptian energy crunch and amid ongoing genocide in Gaza — highlight how hydrocarbon interests continue to drive strategic alliances and economic priorities in the region, even as questions persist about equity, sovereignty and the legacy of unshared resources.
Despite decades of suffering under occupation and genocide, Palestinians have been systematically denied access to the very resources that could have underpinned economic stability and basic human dignity. Vast offshore gas reserves, valued in the hundreds of billions and located within maritime areas legally claimed by Palestine, have instead been exploited for Israeli energy security and profit — with Israel granting exploration licences and developing offshore fields. At the same time, Palestinians remain deprived of their rightful share and economic agency. International legal experts and Palestinian rights groups argue that these actions violate fundamental principles of international law, including the prohibition on an occupying power exploiting natural resources for its own benefit rather than that of the occupied population. By denying Palestinians control over their natural gas and energy infrastructure, Israel not only deepens Gaza’s dependency and powerlessness, but also compounds the very violence and deprivation inflicted through blockade, bombardment and collective punishment — turning energy denial into another mechanism of structural atrocity.
Yet beneath official claims that the Egypt–Israel gas deal is a ‘purely commercial’ transaction devoid of political implications, a growing chorus of critics argues that the pact cannot be separated from the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and may contravene international legal norms. The United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has publicly condemned the $35 billion deal as a violation of international law and ‘a staggering signal of support for Israel during the genocidal war against Palestinians’, asserting that prioritising profit over human life further entrenches injustice rather than alleviates it. Meanwhile, analysts sympathetic to the Israeli government contend the agreement advances strategic leverage by binding Cairo to Israeli energy supplies, potentially constraining Egypt’s diplomatic autonomy even as political relations remain strained amid the Gaza conflict. Domestically in Egypt, officials have emphasised their continued rhetorical support for Palestinian rights. Yet, the defensive posture around the deal — and the fact that it strengthens Israel’s regional economic position during a time of mass Palestinian suffering — has compounded perceptions that economic interests are eclipsing solidarity with Palestinian self-determination and human dignity.
The newly approved agreement between Israel and Egypt is being heralded in official statements as a pillar of regional stability and economic cooperation. Netanyahu described it as the largest gas deal in the country’s history and a strategic anchor that deepens Israel’s role as a regional energy supplier while helping alleviate Egypt’s energy deficit after years of declining domestic production and costly liquefied natural gas imports.
Taken together, the Egypt–Israel gas deal and similar economic arrangements with Israel across the region illustrate how normalisation has shifted from a diplomatic exception to an organising principle of Middle Eastern political economy. Trade corridors, energy interdependence, investment guarantees and security cooperation are increasingly insulated from Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied territories, transforming atrocity into background noise rather than a rupture demanding response. By decoupling economic partnership from accountability, regional powers not only mute their own leverage but actively reinforce Israel’s sense of impunity. Each new contract, normalisation summit or ‘strategic partnership’ sends a clear signal: mass civilian death, starvation and displacement will not interrupt business as usual. In this environment, Zionist political projects are materially strengthened, not despite the violence, but through it — embedded within a regional order that rewards stability for elites over justice for the dispossessed.
The ultimate cost of this architecture of silence is borne, as always, by Palestinians — denied land, resources, security and even the moral urgency of regional solidarity. While governments hedge, populations starve; while energy flows are secured, lives are extinguished. Palestine becomes the price paid for regional bargains, its people rendered expendable in the calculus of power, profit and regime survival. Yet the damage does not end there. When genocide is normalised through contracts, when suffering is subordinated to market logic and when law yields to expediency, it is humanity itself that is diminished. What is being lost is not only Palestinian life, but the very idea that justice, dignity and human worth can still restrain power in an increasingly transactional world.
Simon Mohsin is a political and international affairs analyst.
