Approve gas deal or lose buyers, PM warns in rare court appearance
Netanyahu defends controversial agreement in High Court hearing, arguing the gas monopoly is important for national security
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the High Court of Justice Sunday to approve his controversial natural gas framework agreement, saying it was critical to ensuring Israel’s security and position in the Middle East.
If the current deal isn’t approved, he told a panel of five justices, “we will lose our export potential to Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, the Palestinians and also the European Union.”
The appearance of the prime minister at the High Court to defend the deal was nearly unheard of in the annals of the court, and came after Netanyahu, in his capacity as economy minister, requested permission to testify in person in response to a court challenge against the draft agreement.
Netanyahu sought to convince the judges to dismiss five petitions submitted by opposition parties and a handful of NGOs seeking an injunction against a plan that would grant a two-company partnership composed of America’s Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group the rights to develop the Leviathan gas field in the Mediterranean, the largest yet found in Israel’s territorial waters.
Echoing testimony he gave to a Knesset panel before the deal was approved, he warned that “Israel is seen [overseas] as an over-regulated state, and this creates a significant problem for us. Other countries will go to our enemies and take [gas] from them.”
These fears, he said, explain why “we are now in a decisive moment.”
“We have only one field [in production now] — Tamar. We have already seen an attempted attack on it. Our enemies know well that we only have a single” domestic source for natural gas, he said alluding to a Gazan rocket that apparently targeted the offshore rig in 2014.
Quickly developing a second source, he said, was a vital national-security priority.
In an affidavit submitted to the court last week ahead of his testimony, Netanyahu argued that a failure to implement the deal would damage Israel’s security, economy and foreign relations.
Sunday’s court hearing could be decisive, as Netanyahu is fighting for the right to overrule a December 2014 ruling by Israel’s then-antitrust commissioner David Gilo that found the Noble-Delek consortium may violate antitrust rules.
In December 2015, Netanyahu successfully overcame a year-long delay in approving the controversial deal in the Knesset and cabinet — but only by appointing himself the minister of economy in place of Aryeh Deri, who resigned.
The economy minister is empowered through Article 52 of the Antitrust Law to override an antitrust ruling if the minister determines the monopoly to be in Israel’s national-security or diplomatic interest.
After becoming economy minister in November, Netanyahu finally signed the controversial agreement with the gas companies on December 17.
The current court hearings are the final hurdle for the leasing agreement, with lawmakers and NGOs, including the Movement for Quality Government, arguing that the prime minister’s justifications for invoking Article 52 do not fulfill the demand of the law for a clear advantage in national security or diplomacy.
Some 100 demonstrators protested the deal outside the court building Sunday. Three were arrested when they attempted to force their way into the hearing.
Opponents have argued that the de facto duopoly in the gas market will lead to higher prices for Israeli consumers, while supporters of the deal say the protections given to the gas companies are necessary in order to entice them to invest the billions of dollars upfront necessary to develop the fields.
Five separate petitions have been lodged with the High Court urging it to throw out the deal over these and other legal issues.
The politicians whose appeal is up for debate Sunday, including Zionist Union MKs Shelly Yachimovich and Eitan Cabel and Meretz party chairwoman Zehava Galon, have listed a catalog of purported legal flaws in the management of the deal, as well as calling it “extremely unreasonable” and “disproportionate.”
They claim the government neglected basic issues in the natural gas market such as the problems of monopolistic pricing and lack of energy security, and is now “trying to sell an illusion in the guise of a deal” that will not only not solve the problems but will perpetuate them.
Israel has been trying to extract offshore gas since the discovery of the Tamar and Leviathan fields in 2009 and 2010. Production has begun in Tamar, but the far larger Leviathan has been hit by a series of delays.
The size of the Leviathan field is estimated at 18.9 trillion cubic feet (535 billion cubic meters, or bcm) of natural gas, along with 34.1 million barrels of condensate.
Noble and Delek also control the Tamar field, which holds 7.1 trillion cubic feet, and lies 80 kilometers (40 nautical miles) west of the Israeli port of Haifa.
The discoveries were major boosts to Israel’s efforts toward energy independence.
The government intends to export much of the gas from Leviathan to other countries in the region, which could grant Israel strategic leverage. Greece and Cyprus have expressed interest in cooperating with Israel on a gas pipeline.
High Court approval of the deal would allow the consortium to move forward on contracts for gas sales, which could unlock crucial financing needed to develop Leviathan.
Raoul Wootliff and Tamar Pileggi contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.