Knesset members sue for vote on gas exports

Opposition MKs and former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin of the ruling Likud party filed a petition with the High Court of Justice Monday against the government’s decision to export some of Israel’s gas reserves, saying it was a matter for the Knesset to decide upon.

“This petition,” they wrote, “is based on the foundations of the democratic system, according to which the authority to make policy decisions with a wide impact on Israeli society is given to the Knesset.”

On Sunday the cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to allocate 60 percent of Israel’s natural gas for domestic consumption and 40 percent for export.

According to Israel Radio, only three cabinet ministers dissented: Health Minister Yael German (Yesh Atid), Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz (Hatnua) and Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud).

Besides Rivlin, opposition legislators Shelly Yachimovich and Avishay Braverman (Labor Party) and Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) also signed the petition, which was filed by a number of nongovernmental organizations.

In addition to demanding that the court order the government to cancel its decision and pass the matter on to the Knesset, the petition also requests an immediate injunction to stop the decision from being implemented.

“I don’t think this is a matter between the coalition and opposition, but rather between the Knesset and government,” Rivlin wrote on his Facebook page hours after the petition was filed. Noting that past debates on the use of natural resources had been conducted in the parliament, the former speaker said the topic of gas exports “had to go through the Knesset.”

Rivlin wrote that the issue of natural gas was a very important one. “It’s unthinkable that the Knesset, as the ruling body, would be excluded from conducting the proper and needed public debate” before a decision is made on the matter.

“It doesn’t matter what my opinion is” regarding the fate of the natural gas, Rivlin stated. “It’s the procedure that’s important.”

Braverman said the petition “is firstly about the democratic issue,” he wrote on Facebook. “It can’t be that decisions of historic magnitude in Israeli economic terms don’t go through the legislative branch.”

Braverman wrote that legal counseling by the deputy attorney general basically said the Knesset should make the decision, based on “Israel’s principles of government.” The public must be involved in this discussion and therefore it has to be held in the Knesset, he concluded.