Israel news analysis: Egypt’s gas supply to Israel halted

The Egyptian government recently unilaterally abrogated a contract to supply Israel with natural gas, thus breaking a long-term agreement and maybe breaching the peace treaty between the two countries.

Egypt reportedly supplied 40% of Israel’s natural gas needs, its principle source of energy. Israel only received 25% of the amount contracted in 2011 since the Sinai desert pipeline supplying the gas was blown up 14 times during this period.

Egypt claimed that it was just business and not politics, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed up the Egyptian claim apparently to diffuse a diplomatic crisis. MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer called the decision “very serious. The existence of the pipeline supported the peace treaty.” Israeli Energy Minister Uzi Landau said, “At the end of the day it is not just a commercial deal between companies, it is an important deal between two countries.”

“Anyone saying this is a ‘business matter’ is naïve or flatly wrong,” pointed out Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s former chief of staff. A few weeks ago the Egyptian Parliament voted to stop transferring gas to Israel following the “repeated sabotage” by “Egyptian Islamic revolutionary terrorists.”

Bennet continued, “The Egyptian parliament recently issued a report that stated: ‘Revolutionary Egypt will never be a friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity (Israel), which we consider to be the number one enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation. It will deal with that entity as an enemy, and the Egyptian government is hereby called upon to review all its relations and accords with that enemy.’

“We’re losing Egypt to revolutionary Islam because of President Obama’s mistakes,” he added. “According to Obama and (New York Times columnist) Tom Friedman, the “new Egypt” was going to be this Facebook-Twitter state run by young and hip kids. In fact, it’s committed to suppressing women, going after Christians and blowing up their churches and wiping out Israel. The policy of calling a radical Islamic regime ‘moderate’ doesn’t work in the real world.”

“This is a welcome sign of the truth of the Arab peace spirit and it’s good to see it in action,” said Rabbi David Algaze, Rav of Havurat Yisrael in Forest Hills and President of the World Committee for the Land of Israel. “It’s only a piece of paper. Israel gave up territory and now we see the unraveling of the peace treaty; the illusion of peace is shattered. Now we know whom we are dealing with and we have to take prudent and rational measures for the safety of the State of Israel. Rather than the utopian and illusory vision that Arabs want peace with Israel, the clamor of the nation, the majority of those who would vote the Moslem Brotherhood into power, want war to do away with Israel. It exposes us to the dangers of extermination and constant threats. It’s a dream that needs to be abandoned. I hope we never return to that dependence. Israel needs to be independent of foreign help, of oil, of defense. We need to be the giver not the taker.”

Landau said that Israel has been working towards energy independence and predicted the eventual cutoff of gas from Egypt.

In a related development, the Israeli and international developers of the Tamar natural gas field on Israel’s coast received $900 million in financial backing. They estimate that this will enable them to begin production by mid 2013 with this becoming Israel’s main source of natural gas.