The Washington Examiner on Friday outlined a scenario under which the next war in the Middle East may break out as a result of what the outlet described as competing “Israeli and Lebanese claims over a potentially lucrative plot of [underwater] territory,” with the recently formed Lebanese government set to “move ahead with decrees that signal the beginning of bidding for drilling rights” to energy resources underneath disputed waters along the Israel-Lebanon border.

The outlet cited Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow David Weinberg, explaining that Jerusalem would have to react to any such Lebanese move:

“There’s always a risk of conflict with these sorts of things … if international oil and gas firms are willing to bite and take that risk [to bid and drill], there’s a very significant possibility that this could lead to increased tension on both sides, either as conflict through miscalculation, or an intentional effort by Hezbollah to escalate,” said David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Neither the Israeli nor the Lebanese embassies in Washington responded to requests for comment.

As the Lebanese government moves ahead, the Israeli government is in a bind over how to react and has avoided issuing tenders to disputed maritime areas.

“If Israel sticks up for their claim, they risk violence and international criticism. If they don’t speak up about it, they could be losing billions of dollars of revenue,” Weinberg said.

The Israeli daily financial newspaper Globes had already explained months ago that Israel would be “liable to lose territory if it does not object to the Lebanese acts in court, or even militarily.” The Examiner noted that the Israelis have deliberately “avoided issuing tenders” so as not to inflame the situation.

Meanwhile Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah recently reemphasized that his Iran-backed terror group would seek a military confrontation with Israel and has claimed an April attack on Israeli soldiers. The group is widely thought to be seeking a way to rebuild its shattered brand as a Lebanese organization protecting Lebanese sovereignty from Israel, and last October Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea slammed Hezbollah for trying to open “another front with Israel” by pressuring the Lebanese Energy Ministry – which it controlled by proxy – to issue drilling tenders to disputed waters. National Liberal Party leader Dori Chamoun piled on, accusing then-Energy Minister Gebran Bassil of being used by Hezbollah to among other things cause “another clash with Israel.”

Observers fear that Hezbollah has been specifically setting up a naval confrontation. The group has for years been accusing Israel of stealing Lebanon’s energy resources – going so far as to describe Israel’s Leviathan field as inside Lebanese waters – and has even warned that Lebanon’s oil and gas sector was “becoming vulnerable to Israeli piracy”:

“The oil and gas sector in Lebanon is becoming vulnerable to Israeli piracy, because of mistakes made by an incompetent government on one hand and the deliberate obstruction of issuing licenses, by some in power, on the other hand,” MP Hassan Fadlallah said, reading out the bloc’s statement.

The statement added that Israel was “imposing facts and measures in international decision-making circles and institutions that impeded Lebanon’s ability to invest in the sector, especially if… the right to issue licenses is delayed or neglected.”

A February speech by Nasrallah saw him insisting at least three times that Israel is engaged in a plot to plunder Lebanese oil. Journal of Diplomacy’s Ziad Achkar noted in that context that a war over off-shore energy would be attractive for Nasrallah because it would allow him to “come[] off as Hero of Lebanon, defending resources where government can’t” and to justify holding on to advanced anti-ship weapons that Hezbollah uses to maintain its Lebanese state-within-a-state. Achkar situated the strategy as a “flashback to 2006, provoking Israeli war to regain public support that was dwindling.”

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