Dossier mode
North Sea, West Bank
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Israeli Influence on the United States hub.
North Sea, West Bank.
Britain is about to decide whether to open its largest untapped oil field. One company that would profit is controlled by an Israeli conglomerate on a UN list over West Bank settlements — the same kind of company the UK just announced it would sanction.
Delek Group (Israeli, UN-listed over West Bank settlements) controls Ithaca Energy, which holds 20% of Rosebank and has paid Delek >$1bn in dividends since 2020. Burnham's government must decide whether to approve Rosebank — weeks after the UK announced sanctions on settlement-linked firms. That contradiction is the story; we build it on the BBC and The Ferret, not vibes.
Spine graded FACT (ownership, dividends, UN listing, sanctions contradiction); Delek's denial carried; the 'influence over Burnham' question POSED not asserted. DELIBERATE FENCE: we decline the activist chain (donors → a researcher → the Technion → Elbit) — guilt-by-association is the cabal frame we refuse, and a British donor's giving isn't 'Israeli influence.'
An Israeli conglomerate, Delek, controls the company holding 20% of Rosebank — and stakes in 6 of the UK's 10 biggest fields.
Ithaca Energy (Aberdeen-based, London-listed FTSE 100) has been controlled by its largest shareholder, Israel's Delek Group, since a 2017 takeover. Ithaca holds 20% of Rosebank (off Shetland), 100% of Cambo, and stakes in six of the UK's ten largest oil and gas fields; Delek calls Ithaca's North Sea operations a 'growth engine.' Public corporate record.
Ithaca has paid more than $1 billion in dividends to Delek since 2020.
The Ferret's analysis of filings found Ithaca paid over $1 billion in dividends to Delek since 2020 — $569 million across 2024-25, and a further $101 million in April 2026. Rosebank's approval would extend and enlarge a stream that has already sent over a billion dollars from British waters to the Israeli parent. This is why the ownership is the heart of the matter, not trivia.
Delek is on the UN database of companies tied to West Bank settlements — a listing it disputes.
Since 2020 Delek has been named on the UN (OHCHR) database of companies whose West Bank activities raise 'particular human rights concerns' (still on the 2023 and 2025 updates), for providing services/utilities supporting settlements and using West Bank resources commercially; settlements are widely regarded as illegal (ICJ). FENCES: the database isn't a sanctions 'blacklist' (though often called one); and Delek DISPUTES inclusion — told the Telegraph it no longer has settlement involvement, was 'wrongly included,' and will challenge it. FACT that it's listed and contests it; we take no position on the challenge.
The contradiction: the UK just announced settlement sanctions — and is weighing a field that would profit a UN-flagged firm.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced UK sanctions on companies/individuals providing services or infrastructure to settlement expansion, plus a ban on settlement-goods imports. Within weeks the government must decide Rosebank, which would benefit Delek. Greenpeace, Stop Rosebank, Uplift, and Green leader Zack Polanski wrote asking the government to 'confirm, unequivocally, whether Delek will be caught' — and if not, explain the consistency. Ithaca says it's a FTSE 100 firm of 'the highest standards of corporate governance' and a major Treasury contributor (carried).
Where we stop: the donor web and the Technion chain are guilt-by-association, and we refuse them.
The fence, stated as a claim because the discipline is the point. Activist threads extend the story to Labour donors (e.g., Gary Lubner's £25k to Burnham's leadership bid — in the public register), to a minister's donor who once collaborated with a Technion researcher, to the Technion's ties to Elbit, and present the web as proof of capture. We decline it: a British donor's domestic giving is a UK political-finance matter (the donor-class influence we criticize regardless of ethnicity), and treating a British Jewish businessman's Labour donations as 'Israeli influence' is the slide to the cabal canard we refuse in The Oldest Lies. 'Donor knew a researcher at an institution with arms-firm ties' is six degrees, not a finding. The Delek–Rosebank contradiction is strong because every link is a cited fact; the donor-Technion web is weak because it substitutes association for evidence.
The line we hold.
- FACT: Delek (Israeli, UN-listed over West Bank settlements since 2020) controls Ithaca Energy (FTSE 100), which holds 20% of Rosebank + 100% of Cambo + stakes in 6 of the UK's 10 biggest fields; Ithaca has paid Delek >$1bn in dividends since 2020 ($101m in April 2026).
- FACT: the contradiction — the UK (Miliband) announced sanctions on settlement-linked firms, and Burnham's government (decision with Energy Sec Fahnbulleh) is weighing Rosebank, which would profit Delek; campaigners formally asked whether Delek is 'caught.'
- CARRIED: Delek disputes the UN listing (says wrongly included, will challenge); Ithaca cites FTSE 100 governance and Treasury contributions. Burnham favors 'flexible'/more drilling; Trump pressures the UK to drill.
- DELIBERATE FENCE (NOT asserted): that Burnham/Fahnbulleh are 'captured'; and the donor→Technion→Elbit chain. A British donor's giving isn't 'Israeli influence'; six-degrees association isn't evidence. We keep the named-company/cited-acts story and drop the cabal web — the discipline of The Oldest Lies applied to a live Israel story.
Why it matters.
Sanctions on settlement-linked companies mean something only if they bind in the hard cases, and Rosebank is a hard case precisely because the money is large and the field is already licensed. If a government can vow to sanction firms financing illegal settlements and then approve a project channeling profit to a firm the UN has named over settlements, the sanctions were a gesture, not a policy — and that's visible without any conspiracy. The honest version is sharper than the embellished one: you don't need a cabal to explain why a government might let a profitable exception swallow a principle under the ordinary gravity of oil money, energy-security pressure, and a US president demanding more drilling. Documenting that by name and by number is the work — and the reason we can be believed when we do it, because we refused the easy, false, insinuating version that would have discredited the true one.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenThe government's actual answer to the campaigners' question — is Delek 'caught' by the new settlement sanctions, or not, and on what reasoning?
- OpenThe Rosebank (and Jackdaw) approval decisions themselves, and whether the settlement-sanctions issue affects them.
- OpenThe outcome of Delek's stated challenge to its UN database listing — which, if successful, would change the picture and which we'd report.