On Monday Avner Oil Exploration – Limited Partnership and Nobel Energy announced they had signed a deal to sell $15 billion of natural gas to an Egyptian firm. Beyond the economic significance of the deal for Israel's citizens, there is also a strategic security value of the first order. One can only hope that the police, under pressure from the media, do not open an investigation into "Case 5,000," to examine how it came to be that Israeli companies are making a profit on their investment in the gas reserves, which for years were not taken seriously by anyone.
On a day like this, I am reminded of the relatively large protests against the framework deal to regulate the development of Israel's natural gas industry; the demagoguery of socialist lawmakers and the commentaries that made the front pages of the financial newspapers. For example, a piece in The Marker warned, "The Gas Framework Deal Will Not Contribute to Israel's Security – And Might Even Threaten It" while a piece in Calcalist was titled "Netanyahu: Relaxed and Smug in the Economics Committee." And so on and so forth.
As he has so often done in the past, Netanyahu has proved once again that he is a chess player under attack by checkers players who are unwilling to give him credit for what his policies have achieved for Israelis in every aspect of life.
The gas framework deal should be examined through the words of former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who at the Munich Security Conference, said that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Israel had together pressured the U.S. to take drastic steps against Iran and the threat it poses to the stability of the entire Middle East. Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence were the first to recognize the Iranian threat and succeeded in their considerable and unique efforts to effectuate what can only be described as a fascinating axis against the concrete danger.
"The peace camp," which has confused opposition to the regime with opposition to the state, looks on with longing as the Right is able to establish an extensive though largely covert network of connections with important Arab countries without the need to sell off our homeland to Palestinian terrorist leaders.
In its frustration, the Left, behind the veneer of a struggle for integrity and ethical purity, is attempting to bring about regime change without the need for elections. Luckily for Israel, the majority of the public recognizes the persecution and despises it. The public understands that the campaign is about our home and the integrity of the homeland.
