will this oil be used to power their war machines?
do the Iraqi people get a say in this?
Netanyahu says Iraq-Israel oil line not pipe-dream
Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects
an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel to be reopened
in the near future after being closed when Israel
became a state in 1948.
“It won’t be long when you will
see Iraqi oil flowing to
Haifa,” the port city in
Northern Israel, Netanyahu told
a group of British investors,
declining to give a timetable.
"It is just a matter of time
until the pipleline is
reconstituted and Iraqi oil
will flow to the Mediterranean."
Netanyahu later told Reuters the government is
in the early stages of looking into the
possibility of reopening the pipeline, which
during the British Mandate sent oil from Mosul
to Haifa via Jordan. “It’s not a pipe-dream,”
Netanyahu said.
In April, a source at the National
Infrastructure Ministry told Reuters Israel and
Jordan would hold talks on reopening the
pipeline, which Israel believes would lower
fuel costs by 25 percent.
The source said that the Israeli section of the
pipeline was in good condition but did not know
about the Jordanian section.
Jordanian officials denied they would meet
Israeli officials, citing cold relations with
the Jewish State since the outbreak of a
Palestinian uprising in late 2000.
Separately, Netanyahu told reporters that
British Finance Minister Gordon Brown asked
that Israel consider buying natural gas from
British Gas, which found gas off the Gaza
coast.
“I told him we would consider it as an auxillary
supplier to other suppliers,” Netanyahu said.
“We always want to diversify. But I want an
understanding there would be no political
pressure.”
Israel had planned to buy its natural gas from
Israeli suppliers, which discovered commercial
quantities of gas off Israel’s coast, and from
Egypt.
But earlier this month Egypt said it wanted to
renegotiate its contract, prompting Israeli
officials to believe Egypt did not want to sell
to Israel.
As a result, Israel turned to British Gas and
the Infrastructure Minister ordered state-owned
Israel Electric Corp to hold talks with British
Gas over the supply of gas so that it will have
two suppliers for its gas turbines.