[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
Minister Aryeh Deri has decided to appoint his younger brother Shlomo as executive director of the Jewish National Fund, which he oversees as per the coalition agreements. While the post is not a paid position, it is a powerful one.
In other Deri news, he is expected to step down as Minister of the Economy this week which permit the government to move ahead with its controversial natural gas plan.
In a related matter, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, 19 Cheshvan stated “”Today we are taking a major step toward advancing the supply of gas in the State of Israel. Natural gas will be the number one growth engine in Israel in the coming years. We are talking about an investment of very many billions of dollars already over the next two years and the creation of related industries, which will provide many jobs for the citizens of Israel. The gas supply will help lower energy costs and the cost of living. It also gives energy independence to Israel. We will not be dependent on foreign energy sources – this is very important for the State Israel. It will pump hundreds of billions of shekels, over the next 20 years, to the citizens of Israel, to the social welfare, education and health budgets – which is very important to the country.
“The arguments that led us to this point remind me of the debate that once surrounded Highway #6. There were heated arguments about Highway #6, and today no one understands how the state ever managed without Highway #6, and it really did not manage. The same will happen with the gas outline. I think that within one, two or three years, everyone will understand that it was a necessary step. I promised that we would approve the outline, and today we are taking the most significant step to do so.
“Minister Deri informed me of his intention to resign from the Economy Ministry. In order to complete the process, the ministry will pass to me and I will approve the outline. To the Galil and Negev Development Ministry will be added responsibility for the social periphery; it will be called the Negev, Galil and Periphery Development Ministry. Later I am certain that we will find an additional way to properly express the status of Minister Deri as the head of an important party in the coalition; he is an experienced and veteran minister…”
The PM’s remarks”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
Does his voters still find any use for him?
He scored high with religious female voters,how come?
The world has plenty of natural gas, sufficient for the next 500 years. In the US the price of natural gas was down 30% in 2014. A monopoly is usually behind high prices while open competition lowers the price. Israel must break the natural gas monopolies to be competitive in the market.
I respectfully suggest that 1% of Gas profits be given directly to the many poor in Israel . This would greatly improve the lives of many many people and alleviate suffering and is feasible
(Reuters)Anti-trust authorities have been targeting the companies, which discovered the field and other, smaller fields nearby, after critics.. said that the firms have too much control over such a valuable national asset.
Leviathan is one of the world’s largest offshore gas finds to be made in the last decade, with an estimated 22 trillion cubic feet (622 billion cubic metres) of reserves. Production had been expected to begin in 2018 following an initial investment in the development of around $6.5 billion.
israelnationalnews 1/1/2015,
The natural gas deposits off Israel’s coasts are gifts from G-d to the people of Israel, and they belong to all Israelis – not just to the “tycoons” who funded the search for them, said MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) Thursday.
At a special Knesset session discussing the implications of a decision last week by the state regulator to demand that the companies holding the license for development of the Tamar and Leviathan oil fields allow competitors to develop parts of the fields, Gafni said that the companies, Noble Energy and Delek Drilling, didn’t deserve any special treatment. “They have for years been hounding me because of my views and actions,” he said.
“Already in 2004, when as chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee I legislated the Mediterranean Coast Law,” which prevents over-building on Israel’s coast, “the big builders began a campaign to pressure me to back down and let them develop as they wished.” The pressure grew significantly later on, when Gafni pushed for and approved the findings of the Sheshinski Committee, which recommended reducing the percentage of the sums the gas field developers could get from the sale of gas.
That pressure, said Gafni, included all forms of intimidation available to the companies. “It is hard to describe it,” he told MKs. “They went to our rabbis, they went to Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Elyashiv,” the now-passed leader of the Lithuanian Yeshiva community that Gafni’s Degel Hatorah faction represents, “demanding that he force me to back down. They told him that I had violated deals and promises, and that I was even responsible for harming Israel’s relationship with the United States.”
What they did to him, Gafni said, they are now doing to MKs, pressuring them heavily (in ways applicable to them, of course) to force the regulator to back down from breaking up their monopoly. “They have no qualms about using any and all tactics, including scare tactics, to warn MKs off from ensuring that all Israelis enjoy the benefit of the country’s gas discoveries.”
Israel’s Antitrust Authority last month ruled that US giant Noble Energy and its Israeli partner Delek would not be able to continue holding offshore gas field Leviathan over monopoly concerns. The decision effectively dismantles the monopoly held by Noble and Delek over Leviathan and Israel’s smaller offshore gas findings.
“The entry of Delek and Noble into Leviathan created a situation in which these groups control all the gas reserves off Israel’s coasts,” the Antitrust Authority said in a statement. The authority said it would consider defining the two firms’ Leviathan partnership as a “cartel.”
The size of the Leviathan field is estimated at 18.9 trillion cubic feet (535 billion cubic meters) of natural gas, along with 34.1 million barrels of condensate, making it the largest gas deposit found in the world in a decade. Noble and Delek also control the Tamar field, which holds 250 bcm of natural gas, and lies 80 kilometers (43 nautical miles) west of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa.
The authority had initially proposed an agreement under which Noble and Delek would enter Leviathan on condition they sell two smaller offshore gas fields to enable competition, which was to have been submitted to court within two weeks.
Come back in 5-10 years and the only difference you’ll see are some high ranking politicians with fatter bank accounts. NO ONE, not one ordinary citizen will profit in any way matter or form!
I do not understand the appointment. If the JNF job is without pay what is in it for him? Maybe it’s the kickbacks for allowing the land to be used for development ? Or maybe it’s because of the Deri clan’s love of Zionism?
His other brother is chief Rabbi of Beersheva whose kashruth authority is weak at best.
I guess when you have families with no way to make honest livings you got to look out for each other
Well, so much for nepotism!
#4
If so,it’s upon us..
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
US anthropologist (1901 – 1978)