CAIRO: The popular campaign to prevent gas export to Israel vowed to keep fighting after a Higher Administrative Court ruled Monday that the export of natural gas to Israel may continue. The Cairo Administrative Court had ruled that the government should stop exporting the gas last November because parliament had not been consulted, but the government appealed and the gas continued to flow through the intermediary company that directly pumps gas to Israel. The court had ruled that "national resources belong to current and future generations, and the executive must first get parliament's approval. The government appeal against this initial ruling has been referred by the Higher Administrative Court to a panel of experts who will review it March 16. Spokesman for the campaign Anwar Esmat Al Sadat said in a statement that yesterday's verdict was "a huge shock [and] a new violation of the country's interests [as well as] the will of the Egyptian people. The case had initially been brought to court by former diplomat Ibrahim Yousri, who had told Daily News Egypt, "It is not in Egypt's political interest to continue exporting gas to Israel. There is a huge popular wave against it and in light of what is currently happening in Gaza, this cannot go on. Sadat said, "While the campaign announces its complete respect to the rulings of the court, which is something the government had ignored before, we will continue our campaign through cases brought to the State Council. "The campaign will release the names of those who benefited from this deal, and it is a list that includes the names of high ranking officials and businessmen, so that all Egyptians know who are the ones committing crimes against the state, he added. The underlying argument for the government's appeal was that the verdict could not be given against them, as there was no contractual relationship between the state of Egypt and the state of Israel concerning the export of natural gas. Rather, the contract was between the Egyptian General Authority for Petroleum and the Egyptian-Israeli consortium Eastern Mediterranean Gas (EMG). Since it is a purely business venture, it no longer falls under the jurisdiction of the administrative court. The 15-year deal was struck in a memorandum of understand signed in 2005 between the two countries. Gas started flowing to Israel in February 2008. One of the campaign's objections is that the gas is being sold at prices lower than market value, thus effectively costing Egypt millions of pounds in losses. The company responsible for the deal is EMG, which has a contract initially for 15 years guaranteeing a supply of 1.7 billion cubic meters a year at the price of $1.5 per million BTU (British Thermal Units). EMG is a private energy consortium co-owned by Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem and the Israeli Merhav Group. The gas being supplied to Israel specifically goes to the Israel Electric Corporation.
