Cabel bashes Deri’s foot-dragging on gas deal

MK Eitan Cabel, chair of the powerful Knesset Finance Committee, criticizes Economy Minister Aryeh Deri’s foot-dragging after the latter said he is leaning toward refraining from using his ministerial privilege to allow a controversial deal on Israel’s natural gas reserves to bypass the Antitrust Commissioner — which would make an upcoming Knesset vote on the agreement irrelevant.

“We all remember very well that Deri voted in favor of the gas deal in the cabinet,” Cabel says. “It is about time that he decided to be who he claims he is — the Knesset’s representative of the ‘transparent and translucent’ people. All of the parliamentary pyrotechnics that Deri and Netanyahu are planning for each other are designed to make a nice wrapping for a bad product and to enable Deri to come out of the whole story looking good.”

He is referencing the Shas election campaign which claimed the party would represent the “transparent people,” a general term for disenfranchised citizens.

Deri told parliamentary reporters earlier that he would rather wait until the appointment of a new Antitrust Commissioner in several weeks’ time than use his ministerial authority with regard to the deal.

Article 52 of the Antitrust Law enables Deri to bypass the commissioner.

Earlier this month the cabinet approved the controversial natural gas deal between the Israeli government and a US-Israeli energy consortium to develop offshore gas fields.