Ruling Against Egyptian Gas Export to Israel Hailed as a Major Victory

MAS Freedom congratulates the popular campaign and hails the judicial decision as an affirmation of the economic and political rights of the people of Egypt.

By MAS Freedom Civil and Human Rights Director, Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey

WASHINGTON, DC (MASNET) Nov. 25, 2008 - It was called one of the sweetest export deals that Israel ever received from an Arab nation: signed in 2005 and initiated in 2007, Egyptian natural gas was scheduled to be sold to the State of Israel for 15-years, at a price of $1.50 per million BTU's (British Thermal Units), which is a price significantly less than the going world market price of natural gas.

The private partner involved in the transaction is Eastern Mediterranean Gas, a private business group owned by Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem and the Israeli Merhav Group.

But the deal faced fierce opposition from popular Egyptian organizations that opposed it for two reasons: first, the arrangement cost the Egyptian economy as much as $9 million a day in lost revenues because of the price concession to the Israeli buyer of the gas, which is used to supply energy for the Israeli electrical grid.

The second reason for the opposition is the fact that, while Egypt supplies energy for Israeli turbines, Israel is blockading more than 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, who continue to suffer because of crippling shortages of electricity and fuel.

This week, however, the Popular Campaign Against Export of Egyptian Gas to Israel won a stunning victory in the Cairo (Egypt) Administrative Court when the court ruled that only the national Parliament could authorize the sale of state-owned natural resources - in this case, billions of cubic feet of precious energy resources made available to a nation that continues to occupy Palestinian land and enforce the economic strangulation of Gaza.

The ruling against Eastern Mediterranean Gas has been appealed by the (Egyptian) State Judicial Authority, which contends that the agreement was brokered by a private business group and not an official organ of the Egyptian government.

However, many are hailing this as a victory for the people of Egypt, who continue to struggle for the right to control their natural resources for the benefit of the society as a whole.

MAS Freedom congratulates the popular campaign and hails the judicial decision as an affirmation of the economic and political rights of the people of Egypt, and we firmly believe that Egypt's energy resources must not help provide low-cost electricity to a country that, in turn, denies basic electricity to the Palestinian people of Gaza.

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MAS Freedom (MASF) is a civic and human rights advocacy entity and sister organization of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the largest Muslim, grassroots, charitable, religious, social, cultural, civic and educational organization in America - with 55 chapters in 35 states.
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