Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday requested through the state’s legal representative to appear personally before the Supreme Court panel hearing appeals against the natural gas outline, in his role as Minister of the Economy. The five-justice panel is headed by Elyakim Rubinstein and includes Salim Joubran, Esther Hayut, Uzi Fogelman, and Noam Solberg. The appeals have been submitted by several MKs and good government and environmental NGOs against the government’s approved deal to develop the Leviathan offshore field with Texas-based Noble and with Israel’s Delek Group’s Delek Drilling and Avner Oil and Gas.
The main argument against the deal has been the use by Netanyahu in his role as Economy Minister of the notorious section 52 of Israel’s Antitrust Law, which allows him to bypass the antitrust regulator on grounds of security needs.
Netanyahu justifies his unusual move by pointing to the very real possibility that killing the existing natural gas deal after the investing companies have already put down their money would not only cause them to walk away, but would give Israel a very bad reputation in exploration circles, which, in fact, counts as a security issue for a country starved for exploration investments.
Former Economy Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) refused to be the first economy minister in Israel’s history to apply the largely un-democratic law, and so he and Netanyahu apparently struck a deal by which Deri would resign his post, be awarded the Interior Ministry from which he had been booted to prison almost two decades ago, and Netanyahu would inherit the economy office, where he would quickly overcome the delays by pulling the security lever.
Attorney Dafna Holtz-Lechner, representing Meretz at the high court hearing, accused Netanyahu of attempting to intimidate and manipulate the discussion, which is why she opposed the PM’s request to appear before the court.
In the end, the court panel ordered Netanyahu to submit a binding statement regarding the deal, which he had been reluctant to do. Only after such a statement is submitted will the court permit the PM to testify.