According to the daily, Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky considers the pipeline project as economically justifiable as it would reduce the country's cost of oil imports. This is currently very high, as Israel imports oil from Russia. There would also be a strategic justification for the project, as importing oil from an oil supplier in Israel's close proximity would increase its fuel security and would address its major handicap, that is, its total dependence on imported fuel from far-away suppliers. While living in the oil-rich Middle East, the Israelis cannot count on regional oil exporters because of the existing Arab-Israeli conflict. Prior to the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iran, which was on friendly terms with Israel, provided its oil requirements. That arrangement ended in 1979 when the new Iranian revolutionary regime cut ties with Israel.
Hooman Peimani Asia Times Apr 4, 2003and Ha'aretz article March 31, 2003 quoted in Information Clearing House:
National Infrastructures Minister Joseph Paritzky has requested an assessment of the condition of the old oil pipeline from Mosul to Haifa, with an eye toward renewing the flow of oil in the event of friendly post-war regime in Iraq.
Paritzky explained to Haaretz yesterday that resurrecting the pipeline to Haifa could save Israel the high cost of shipping oil from Russia. He is certain that the Americans would respond favorably to the idea, since the pipeline would bring Iraqi oil directly to the Mediterranean.
The flow of oil from Mosul was redirected from Haifa to Syria after the British Mandate for Palestine expired in 1948. There were several attempts to renew the flow of oil to Haifa in subsequent years. One such effort occurred during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, after Syria acceded to a request from Iran to block the flow of Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean. (Iran was then preventing oil tankers from moving Iraqi oil via the Persian Gulf.) The prime minister at the time, Yitzhak Shamir, proposed to Iraq to renew the flow of oil through the pipeline to Haifa.
