In Jordan, ‘pipeline for peace’ with Israel strikes a nerve
AMMAN, Jordan — The government of Jordan has a plan to diversify its fuel supply and save its economy over $4 billion, amid a potentially destabilizing energy crisis, by purchasing gas from Israel. There’s only one hitch: nearly everyone in Jordan is against it.
With a nudge from Washington, its most important ally, Jordan in September quietly signed a memorandum of understanding on a $15 billion deal that could start meeting 30 percent of the country’s electricity demand by 2018. The kingdom of 6 million people, which imports 97 percent of its energy supplies, has long relied on its Arab neighbors to keep the lights on. But violence in the Sinai Peninsula has shuttered the pipeline from Egypt that once supplied most of Jordan’s gas and fewer drivers are willing to make the perilous journey across ISIL-held territory in Iraq to deliver fuel. Desperate for a cheap and reliable solution, Jordan's government negotiated a private contract between the state-owned energy company, NEPCO, and the U.S.-based Noble Energy, which is developing Israel’s Leviathan gas fields.
Since the government announced the deal, however, Jordanians — from shopkeepers to parliamentarians — have grown increasingly outraged by the idea they could soon be paying the Israeli government to heat their homes with gas they consider stolen from Palestinians.
"No matter what the government says, the people will never accept this," said Hind al-Fayez, a member of Jordan’s parliament known for her fiery tirades against the deal. "I will use firewood or even set myself on fire, but I will never import Israeli gas," she once said during a television interview. “Why do we want to import gas from the only enemy the Arab people know?”
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/29/in-jordan-pipeline-for-peace-strikes-a-nerve.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
