About 200 people took part in a motzei Shabbos protest near the Prime Minister’s Residence in Yerushalayim to voice their objections to the policy decision to export national gas. At least 10 people were detained and or arrested by police.

At the start of the Sunday 15 Tammuz weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released the following statement:

“Today, I am submitting to the Cabinet a decision that I made along with Energy Minister Silvan Shalom, Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer. We held serious, in-depth, significant discussions because we are delving into the depths of the sea, and made a decision about Israel’s gas economy.

“Israel has been greatly blessed – with gas in the Mediterranean Sea. This gas can meet two of our basic needs: One; is to move the local economy forward by consuming cheaper energy, the same section which can use gas. The second thing is to fill the state coffers with billions of shekels as a result of gas exports and the taxation that we will impose on it. The correct balance between the two is not self-evident. We discussed it, we discussed and we decided. I think that we found the correct balance. We were not swept away on the waves of populism that are washing over the country, the world, and we did the correct thing for the State of Israel.

“The important thing now is to move quickly. We certainly understand that investors can lose hope. They can think that we have succumbed to populist pressures or endless bureaucracy. We want to move quickly. I want to tell you one basic thing: Without gas exports, there will be no local gas economy. These are the basic rules. The most basic understanding on how we produce gas from the water. Without gas exports, there will be no local market. This mistake, succumbing to populism, ‘Let’s keep our gas at home’ has been made by several countries and they keep their gas at home. It is buried under the ground or under the sea, beneath layers of populism and bureaucracy. We cannot do this. We must extract the gas. The correct balance between the local market and exports – this is what we will do today.

“I think that the ability to withstand the populist wave, against people who do not understand how to run an economy, who can easily destroy economies, this ability, is within this government. We are united and we have considerable strength and determination to enact this important move.

“I would like to say an additional word that must be said here. For decades, the State of Israel, the government of Israel in all its branches, unsuccessfully searched for gas. Those who succeeded were from the private sector, entrepreneurs who took risks and found it – and this must be said today. In the populist wave that is flooding the State of Israel, this also must be said, they must not be fobbed off, their contribution certainly cannot be denied, but we must also take for the state its due, and this is what we are doing.

“The correct balance is the decision that we will make here today. And I think that this is correct. It ensures the needs of the citizens of the State of Israel, both by filling the state coffers with considerable funds from exports and by supplying the local market with cheap energy.

“We are also making an additional decision today that has not been made over the past 65 years – extending daylight savings time. The Interior Minister has submitted an important decision that will add, in effect, an additional hour of daylight until the end of October. That is, we are bringing good news to Israeli citizens. Now we have a land flowing with milk and honey, gas and sunlight. This is good. It is a very, very welcome change.

“This week we will mark the government’s 100th day in office and I would like to thank my colleagues here for working together on innovative actions. This is a government of reforms, this is impressive. In addition to what we are deciding today about the gas and about extending daylight savings time, we have already enacted the Open Skies reform. We passed a reform to import vehicles and a reform at garages. We passed the budget on its first reading. We passed a law to prevent infiltrators from sending money outside the country unless they themselves are leaving the country, and this is continuing the major move of not only blocking infiltrators from Africa, but of expatriating illegal infiltrators.

“We have formulated an outline on increasing equality in sharing the burden and we will pass it. We passed through the Knesset Finance Committee the major work done by the previous government but which was completed now, on reducing cartelization in the Israeli economy, and we will continue with these reforms, at the ports, in the public service, in opening markets in China and other countries, in jumping the Israeli economy forward and bringing these profits and revenues to the benefit of Israel’s citizens.

“There is one thing that we are committed to all the time and that we are working on all the time, even in these 100 days, and I am not going into detail on our actions – and that is to continue to maintain the security of Israel’s citizens in the new and stormy Middle East, and we are doing this and we will continue to do it. This is mission #1.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)