"The prime minister has capitulated to the gas barons," said Labor Party chairwoman MK Shelly Yachimovich in response to the Tzemach Committee's recommendations to increase natural gas exports. "The prime minister has capitulated to the gas barons. The abandonment of the energy market's future is a national disaster. It is unacceptable to sell such a critical resource to other countries resulting in us without energy source in three decades or less."
"Exporting the gas will further raise electricity prices in Israel, which will remain trapped in a private monopoly, and will steal the vision of Israel's energy independence. Time and time again, Netanyahu that he prefers the tycoons' interests over the good of Israel's people."
Yachimovich also slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his economic policies and the government's new PR campaign praising its activity. "It is a cruel irony that the when we are informed that 16,000 families were thrown out of the employment circle last month, the Netanyahu government presents happy, carefree families," Yachimovich said. "This is an ad campaign that pure election propaganda, but is financed by the public. It's a pity that the millions spent were not invested in more worthwhile causes.
"The government is the public's emissary, not a commercial company that buys advertising space to glorify its name. Netanyahu knows well that the condition of Israel's people is the opposite of the idyll presented in the ads. No campaign can camouflage the unemployment, poverty, and erosion of the middle class."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 22, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012