
Far below the surface of the promised land, a hidden treasure lies. If it can be  carefully liberated from the geological layer in which it is caught, it promises  nothing less than to transform Israel’s economy. 
 It is called  oil shale. And, along with Jordan, Israel just so happens to sit upon the  world’s second largest deposits of the stuff, after the United States.
 Oil shale deposits are overwhelmingly located outside conventional oil-rich  areas such as the Middle East and North Africa. 
 So if safe,  economic processes for extracting this alternative oil resource can be put into  effect, dependence on the energy-exporting Middle East could gradually decline,  in a dramatic transformation of the global economy, with Israel as a prime  beneficiary.
 Advocates say oil shale is an Israeli resource whose  time has come, and are adamant that it can be realized without negative  environmental consequences. But critics cite fears of underground fires,  contaminants seeping into air and water, even seismic rifts.
 With a  few exceptions, the battle over oil shale is being fought away from the  headlines. It will come to a head in the Jerusalem Regional Planning Authority,  a body headed by an Interior Ministry bureaucrat, which in the next few months  will decide whether to authorize a pilot project to extract shale oil in the  Elah Valley, south of Beit Shemesh.