Israel: Netanayhu files affidavit to High Court to defend his natural gas policy

In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday filed a personal affidavit with the High Court of Justice to defend his natural gas policy from five petitions filed by Zionist Union, Meretz and various NGOs in what is boiling down to one of the most dramatic legal conflagrations of our time.

The purpose of the affidavit was to justify Netanyahu’s first-ever use of the power of the Economy Minister (a role which he recently took over) to bypass the antitrust authority’s objections to the policy under Article 52 of the relevant law.

The prime minister wrote in his affidavit that he had “decided to use my authority under Article 52…after I was convinced that there was an essential need for the quick rescue of the natural gas market in Israel from the freeze it went into after the former antitrust commissioner decided to withdraw support from the executive order to which he had agreed” with the developers of the Tamara and Leviathon reservoirs.

He added that he had concluded “on the basis of professional opinions presented to me to the unmistakable conclusion that this was needed, meaning vital, from the perspectives of foreign policy and national security.”

Full content: The Jerusalem PostReuters

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