Egypt just annulled Mubarak's natural gas giveaway- Will Sadat's Camp David and the Zionist Embassy be next?
Franklin Lamb
Beirut
The Egyptian people are demanding the return of their sovereignty. According to recent opinion surveys they believe it was partially ceded to Israel by the two post-Nasser dictators, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, at the behest of American administrations, from Nixon to Obama.
The removal of three humiliating shackles for Egyptians, the gas give-away scheme, the 1979 Camp David Accords and the US forced recognition of Israel, constitute a strategic national security objective for most of Egypt's 82 million citizens. According to the results of an opinion poll, conducted for Press TV and published on October 3, 2011, 73 percent of the Egyptian respondents opposed the terms of the agreement. Today the figure is estimated at 90%.
For the past eight years, the 2004 gas deal has been widely unpopular, and one of the charges in the current indictment against Mubarak is that the deposed President sold Egypt's gas as part of a sweetheart deal involving kickbacks to family members, associates and Israeli officials. Mohamed Shoeib, the chairman of state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, told AFP last week that the gas deal was "annulled with the Israeli East Mediterranean Gas Co (EMG), because the company failed to respect conditions stipulated in the contract."
Once Mubarak was toppled and his 14 secret police agencies began to lose some of their omnipresence, the gas line to Israel was severed 14 times in 12 months by a series of explosions that cut off 40%, of Israel's supply which was used to generate electricity.
In the recent parliamentary elections and now during the presidential campaign, Egyptians have been debating relations with Israel publicly for the first time. Previously Mubarak was Israel's protector and like some other Arab leaders still clinging to power, ignored his people's demands for actively supporting for the liberation of Palestine.
In late January 2011, an Alexandria University student briefed this observer and a small group of Americans and Europeans sitting on benches opposite the wonderful ancient city's majestic Great Library. He explained, recalling the demands of the Tahrir Square protests on January 25, 2011, "Our slogans at Tahrir Square were bread, freedom, dignity, and social justice. That was almost exactly one year ago. God willing, we will soon achieve the demands of our historic revolution which include canceling Camp David and withdrawing recognition of the Zionist regime still occupying Palestine. Egypt must again lead the Arab Nation's sacred obligation to liberate Jerusalem and all of Palestine from the river to the sea."
A stunning hijabed female student continued the dialogue, giving us her opinion: "The USA bought some of our leaders with billions in generous cash from your people but without any real benefit to ours. Camp David was essentially a private agreement by Sadat and then Mubarak. Our people had no say and were never asked whether we agreed. If we protested, we were jailed or worse. Now, the Egyptian people are gaining power despite a likely military coup by the SCAF military junta before the scheduled June elections."
Israeli officials, in tandem with the US Zionist lobby are claiming that the abrogation of the gas agreement constitutes an "existential threat". According to a researcher at the US Congressional Research Service in the Madison Building on Capitol Hill whose job includes keeping track of Israeli claims, it's the 29th "existential threat" the Zionist colony has identified in its 64 year history. These perceived existential threats range from the internationally recognized Right of Return for Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes during and since the 1948 Nakba, to various Palestinian groups, more than two dozen UN Resolutions including, 194 and 242, Hezbollah naturally, international solidarity movement projects, a Jewish academic or two, Iran for sure, the rise of internet blogs, and potentially virtually every Christian, Arab and Muslim on the planet, not to mention the claimed rise of global anti-Zionism which the US Zionist lobby has recently decreed was always just another form of virulent anti-Semitism.
Despite all these perceived "existential threats" including recently the so-called "Road Map", Israeli leaders continue to eschew any substantive negotiations which could mean Arabs and Jews sharing Palestine as part of one democratic, secular state on the basis of one person one vote, minus any "chosen people' lunacy.
Yuval Steinitz, Israel's finance minister warned that Egypt's questioning its relations with Israel was "a dangerous precedent that threatens the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt."
Ampal, the Israeli company which buys the gas, said that it considers the termination of the contract "unlawful and in bad faith", and demanded its full restoration. Ampal, is planning to use international arbitration to attempt redress and is sending a corporate delegation to Washington to meet with AIPAC and administration officials to ask them to get the Egyptian action nullified and to force Egypt to keep selling its natural gas at below market prices. One congressional staffer joked in an email that Israeli companies get way better constituent services out of Congress than American companies, or even the voters who elect its members.
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