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Egypt-Israel gas pipeline targeted…again
The latest attack halted the flow of Egyptian LNG to Israel, Jordan
by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, July 7 (IPS) – The pipeline that carries Egyptian natural gas to Israel was attacked by unknown perpetrators on Monday (July 4), the third such incident since the January 25 Revolution that ended the rule of longstanding president Hosni Mubarak.
“We still don’t know who’s responsible,” North Sinai Security Director Saleh al-Masri told reporters in the immediate wake of the incident. “But the methods employed were the same as those used in previous attacks.”
The pipeline was first attacked on February 5, at the height of the Tahrir Uprising and six days before Mubarak’s departure. Reportedly carried out by unidentified gunmen not far from the city of Al-Arish in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula, the attack halted the flow of gas to both Israel and Jordan for almost six weeks.
On March 27, a second attack on the pipeline was thwarted when Egyptian authorities managed to disarm explosive devices set by unknown perpetrators. Exactly one month later, however, masked gunmen again succeeded in blowing up a section of the pipeline near Al-Sabil (some 50 kilometers west of Al-Arish), again bringing gas flows to Israel and Jordan to a standstill for almost six weeks.
The most recent attack, which occurred before dawn on Monday at the Bir al-Abd terminal (some 80 kilometers west of Al-Arish), was also reportedly the work of a handful of masked attackers. According to initial reports, the perpetrators tied up security guards — who were later released unharmed — while explosive devices were planted in the terminal and detonated from a distance.
North Sinai Governor Abdelwahab Mabrouk condemned the attack, which he described as “an act of terrorism targeting the security and stability of Sinai.”
Petroleum ministry sources said repairs would take up to 15 days.
The latest attack has reportedly stopped the flow of Egyptian gas to Israel, Jordan and much of the Sinai Peninsula itself.
Egypt first began selling natural gas to Israel in 2008 despite widespread public opposition. An export deal hammered out three years earlier allows Egyptian-Israeli energy consortium East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) to sell Egyptian gas to Israeli buyers, including the government-run Israel Electric Corporation (IEC).
Notably, one day before the latest attack, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that IEC planned to raise consumer electricity prices by 20 percent “due in part to the lack of Egyptian gas.” The IEC, Israel’s main electricity supplier, relies on Egyptian gas for some 45 percent of its production capacity.
Along with its obvious political implications, the gas-to-Israel export scheme also drew fierce public criticism due to the fact that sale prices were never divulged by the government. Reports in the international media, however, indicated that Israeli buyers were purchasing Egyptian gas at prices well below international rates.
“There’s no excuse for selling Egyptian gas at prices less than those paid by the Egyptian public, especially when 40 percent of the Egyptian population is living in poverty,” Ibrahim Zahran, energy expert and former chairman of Khalda Petroleum Company, told IPS.
In late 2008, an administrative court ruled that the export scheme was illegal, on grounds that it had never been approved by Egypt’s parliament. The ruling, however, was never implemented, and was overturned in 2010 by Egypt’s High Administrative Court following an appeal by Mubarak regime officials.
Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), meanwhile, which has governed the country since Mubarak’s ouster, has continued to keep the sale price a secret.
On July 26, an administrative court is expected to rule on a new case brought against the transitional government to demand the enforcement of the initial court ruling against the export scheme.
Notably, on June 16, Hussein Salem, former EMG co-owner and close associate of the deposed president, was arrested in Spain on corruption charges. Salem, along with Mubarak and former petrol minister Sameh Fahmi, stand accused of making illicit profits through the gas-export scheme at the expense of the public purse. The first hearing in the case is scheduled for July 16.
“Egyptian gas exports to Israel have cost the country some $10 billion annually,” Ibrahim Youssri, former Egyptian deputy FM and long-time critic of the export scheme, told IPS. “The architects of this deal committed high treason and should be punished accordingly.”
According to petroleum ministry officials, negotiations with Israel over a revised pricing scheme are ongoing. Further details, however, have not been forthcoming.
Many energy experts, meanwhile, say Egyptian natural gas should be used to meet domestic consumption needs rather than being sold to foreign buyers at reduced prices. They point to a recent shortage of butane gas — the main source of fuel in most Egyptian households — which caused black-market prices for butane cylinders to skyrocket more than 600 percent.
“If Egyptian gas went to the domestic market instead of export, Egypt would save itself the cost of subsidizing petroleum products, which accounts for more than 100 billion Egyptian pounds (US$16.8 billion) of the current budget,” said Zahran.
He went on to call for the halt of all natural gas exports, noting that Egypt also sells gas — at only slightly higher prices — to Jordan, Lebanon, France, Spain, Malaysia and the US.
The perpetrators of the recent string of attacks, meanwhile, remain at large.
According to Hatem al-Buluk, an Egyptian journalist based in North Sinai, the bombings might have been the work of “Sinai-based revolutionaries” opposed to the notion of selling gas to Israel — particularly in light of the latter’s continued abuse of the Palestinian people. “This theory is supported by the fact that none of the attacks resulted in any deaths or injuries,” al-Buluk told IPS.
In an indication of the deep popular opposition to the export arrangement, some prominent public figures praised the attacks, calling them “acts of patriotism.”
“These acts constitute a legitimate response to the sale of Egyptian gas — at reduced prices — to an enemy of Egypt,” Mahmoud al-Khodeiri, former deputy head of Egypt’s Supreme Court, said on Monday.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=120191
Posted by Adam Morrow on Jul 8 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Something isn’t right. I have a hard time believing that Egyptian “rebels” would sabotage their own natural gas just in defiance of the unpopular gas deal with Israel. This would still affect their own gas and also Jordan’s natural gas since they receive it too.
The timing is a very curious. Late last year Israel found what they are calling the “largest” natural gas reserve off their cost. If I remember correctly, Lebanon disputes the Israeli claims and says that it is outside of their waters. This is the gas which was used as a bargaining chip with Greece to stop the flotilla II.
Now, Israel is saying that because there is also natural gas just off the Gaza strip, they might tap into that to make up for what they lose from Egypt and to keep the prices lower. There is heavy opposition to them doing this for obvious reasons.
When you put this into perspective with what has been going on here for years, it paints a different picture in my mind. Mossad has a history of sabatage, assassinations, false flags, etc. I wouldn’t put it past them to have convinced one of these people to be a sayanim and blow it up. It works for out for Israel’s benefit. It also make me wonder if the maritime blockade of Gaza is more about this natural gas than anything.
Expect the victim to have no choice but to take the gas off Gaza and not pay for it, after all what option do the eternal victims have now that terrorists keep blowing up the gas pipes. It is a matter of the survival of Israel itself for without gas for heating and cooking they may be driven into the sea by the Muslim hoards armed with slingshots and rocks that are lined up along all the unratified borders.
David and Goliath perhaps there is something to learn from in that story.
Perhaps it would just be easier if the government of Israel saw sense and learnt to get on with their neighbours. This Rabbi seems a lot more sensible than them. Perhaps the mossadnicks and trolls who view this site will learn something by watching him.
‘Zionism an embarrassment to Jews’
In an exclusive Press TV interview, Rabbi Dovid Feldman of Jews United Against Zionism offers his views on Zionism and Israel and the distinctions between the religion of Judaism and Zionism.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/188115.html
@adeUK
LOL! What’s funny is the people of Israel actually would believe this. Did you see that propaganda video with the girl in the red dress? I don’t think it was a joke for whoever made it. In the video, she is talking to a psychiatrist about having nightmares because of the non-violent flotilla on it’s way to holocaust Israel. Turns out she was a reporter from Haaretz (or maybe JPost, I don’t remember).
I recommend reading pre-Israel articles and documents about Zionism. In 1947 King Abdullah I of Jordan wrote an excellent essay in The American:
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/kabd_eng.html
It basically states the obvious about Palestine at the time and I particularly like the following quote:
“What would your answer be if some outside agency told you that you must accept in America many millions of utter strangers in your midst—enough to dominate your country—merely because they insisted on going to America, and because their forefathers had once lived there some 2,000 years ago? Our answer is the same.
And what would be your action if, in spite of your refusal, this outside agency began forcing them on you? Ours will be the same.”
At the time, the Zionist movement was using the holocaust as a tool to move Jewish refugees into Palestine which they were eventually successful in doing. But the majority of Jews wanted nothing to do with Zionism. Even Einstein spoke out against Zionism. It was and still is at its core fascism as is the entire concept of Jewish nationalism. Fascism, the very thing that caused the Nazi persecution of the Jews, is ironically embraced today by the majority of them including 90% of Israel’s citizens.
In the beginning, more refugees left Palestine than came in to it. This was because it was quite the opposite of what they were used to living in back in Europe. The “land without people for the people without land” turned out to be a desert full of people already living there who weren’t Jews.
Eventually the Zionist brainwashing took hold. They need their own country to ensure a holocaust never happens again. Most of the holocaust narrative had yet to be revealed. When they told these people that their missing relatives of 6 million died in gas chambers it enraged them. When they stole land from the native Arabs and the Arabs resisted they equated this with them wanting to throw them in to a gas chamber. They didn’t stop to rationally think that they caused the problem and they were unwelcome colonists because they had been brainwashed into taking out the holocaust on the Levantine people of Palestine, some of them who were even Jews.
Zionism continues their brainwashing program through the billion dollar holocaust industry, Jewish youth camps which are actually Zionist brainwashing camps, ‘pilgrimages’ to Israel like Birthright that downplay the occupation and encourage Jews to marry only Jews and have many babies in Israel (to offset the growing Arab population inside of Israel which is now 24% of it’s total population), and of course studies on ‘antisemitism’ which is convincing Jews that they are constantly under threat when they fail to realize they are all of Hollywood, half the billionaires, all the sports team owners, all of Wall Street, etc. All stuff that proves there is no such thing as ‘antisemitism’.
But a little-known fact is that they are programmed to believe that Israel is under a constant existential threat that must be defended at any cost OR it will result in a holocaust, the price they pay for the end of Israel. Giving up the West Bank or a bi-national one state solution is the end of the Jewish state and therefore the symbolic end/destruction of Israel. Which ends in a holocaust. They really believe this.
Zionists are fascist criminals. All of them. They belong in prison, not in Palestine. Jews outside of Israel would be doing themselves a great future favor by distancing themselves far from this lunatic ideology while they still can. When Israel becomes a pariah state, there will be real antisemitism.
Excellently put.
Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), meanwhile, which has governed the country since Mubarak’s ouster, has continued to keep the sale price a secret
The NG is reportedly being ‘sold’ to Israel at a 40% discount.
Now who would want to create a situation that Israel thinks would give it the excuse to send in troops to the Sinai to guard the pipeline for ‘national security’ reasons?
If the troops occupied part of the Sinai where there were Egyptian oil fields, all the better, Israel could steal Egyptian oil like they did after their 1967 War of Aggression and keep stealing it till the American taxpayer would get stuck with the bill of bribing Israel to give back what they stole.
A 40% discount for them?! Then, by all means, blow it up every damn day!