A month ago, Israel and Jordan announced a huge $10 billion natural gas deal. While the deal was welcomed in Israel, popular protest against it has emerged in Jordan.
"Even if the alternatives are more difficult and expensive, we don't want gas from the Zionist entity," said Alaa Wishah, a pharmacist living in Amman. He and his family have joined the protest against the agreement, and turn off the electricity in their home for one hour every Sunday. "The gas doesn't belong to the Zionist entity; it belongs to the Palestinians," Wishah said in a Bloomberg interview.
While the popular protest against the gas deal is low-key, and there is little likelihood that it will lead to cancellation of the agreement, it nevertheless indicates that some Arab popular opinion is not ready to normalize relations with Israel and consolidate new economic ties.
In response to the growing protest, the Jordanian Ministry of Energy said that the gas agreement with Israel did not mean that Jordan supported the Israeli occupation, and that Jordan would not be a prisoner of Israeli gas.
Delek Drilling Limited Partnership (TASE: DEDR.L), Ratio Oil Exploration (1992) LP (TASE:RATI.L), and Avner Oil and Gas LP (TASE: AVNR.L), the partnerships that own the Leviathan gas reservoir, Israel's largest gas reservoir, announced an agreement a month ago to export 45 BCM of gas to Jordan from Leviathan over 15 years, with an option to increase the amounts designated for use by the Jordanian Electric Power Company (JEPCO). Under the agreement, the first delivery of gas from Leviathan will reach Jordan by 2019. At the same time, Israel is negotiating with Turkey for construction of a gas pipeline between the two countries.
"There are more complications than solutions for creating the optimal deals in the Eastern Mediterranean," said Strategic Forecasting Middle East and North Africa analyst Emily Hawthorne. "Israel very much wants to utilize this economic strategy to become closer to countries like Egypt and Jordan, with whom it has peace treaties."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 27, 2016
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