CAIRO: The People's Assembly decided Sunday to postpone the discussion of a parliamentary interpellation over the government's refusal to halt gas exports to Israel during the Gaza offensive. The parliamentary interpellation criticizes the government for exporting gas to Israel at cheap rates despite internal natural gas shortages, accuses it of cooperating with Israel in blockading Gaza and not abiding by international principles. Hamdy Hassan, the Muslim Brotherhood MP who submitted the interpellation, told Daily News Egypt that the topic was not addressed because the assembly's agenda was full. "They thought it was better to postpone the discussion until next month, he said. During the session, PA Speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour hinted to Hassan that he did not want him discussing the subject on the popular Qatari news channel Al Jazeera. "The Egyptian government is aware of Al Jazeera's high viewership, especially in Egypt, said Hassan. "They thought that this was a sensitive subject and shouldn't be discussed yet. Israel's 22-day military operations in Gaza triggered a national outcry which renwed calls on the Ministry of Petroleum to cut natural gas supplies to Israel. The parliamentary interpellation also suggests that Egypt should not be supplying Israel with natural gas while the country is going through a serious gas crisis. The current economic crisis has made access to natural gas more expensive and more difficult to Egypt's poor. One cylinder of butane gas has now hit LE 25, up from LE 5-8. Tarek Selim, an economics professor at the American University in Cairo, told Egypt Oil and Gas newspaper he disagreed with the government's fixed price agreement with Israel. "I do not want to blame or criticize the government, but in general, I am not a proponent of exporting our gas at fixed prices, Selim said. "Prices go up and down, which means that there is a probability of losing economic profit if prices are fixed. In a statement released last week, Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer announced that Israel witnessed a "historic moment when a joint US-Israeli expedition found gas reserves that can satisfy their gas needs for 10 years. Egypt began pumping gas to Israel in February 2008, following an energy deal under which Cairo-based East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) is to sell 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas annually to state-run Israel Electric Corporation for the next 15 years. However, last November, this fixed-price contract was overruled by Egyptian courts when prices of natural gas were overwhelming high. Some statistics suggest that Egypt loses $9 million a day by exporting natural gas to Tel Aviv at these prices.
