Activists call for cancelling plans to buy gas from Israel

AMMAN — Lawmakers and professional associations’ members on Monday urged the government to refrain from signing any deal to buy natural gas from Israel.

Jordan, they said, should not support the economy of Israel, which they labelled as the “enemy that will use the money from the deal to purchase bullets to kill the Palestinians” and go ahead with its provocations and violations in Al Aqsa Mosque.

“There are many reasons why we do not want any deal signed with the Zionist entity. It is unethical to buy gas from Israel that is killing Palestinians and going ahead with its Zionists schemes,” MP Rula Hroub said at a press conference on Monday in the presence of heads of several professional associations and activists.

“We do not need the gas from Israel. We have an LNG terminal in Aqaba that enable us to buy gas from anywhere in the world,” said the lawmaker.

Majed Tabba, head of Jordan Engineering Association, said the associations and activists in Jordan will continue to lobby and place pressure to prevent the signing of the expected deal.

“Buying gas from Israel will have negative consequences on our national economy,” Tabba warned in his remarks to the press.

Renewing a call to expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman, they said that Jordan, which imports some 97 per cent of its energy needs annually, has “numerous alternatives to secure its energy needs”.

The country, they said, should focus more on renewable energy projects and oil shale instead of buying gas from Israel.

Last year, state-owned National Electric Power Company  signed a letter of intent with Noble Energy, which owns 39 per cent of the Leviathan natural gas field in Israel, to buy gas over a period of 15 years and at a total cost of $15 billion. The deal was supposed to be signed later in the year, but talks were later halted and no further progress has been made. 

If signed, the deal will be the second between a Jordanian company and Noble Energy. In February of 2014, the Arab Potash Company signed a $771 million agreement with Noble Energy under which the latter will provide the company with 66 billion cubic metres of natural gas over a period of 15 years.