Muslim Brotherhood Statement on Exporting Gas to Israel

Muslim Brotherhood Statement on Exporting Gas to Israel

The Muslim Brotherhood is dismayed by the government’s decision to export gas to Israel at reduced prices at the time when Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) are committing daily massacres against the Palestinian people and the besieged Gaza strip.

The MB completely rejects this step which allows Israeli Settlers to benefit from Egypt’s resources. Therefore, we emphasize the following,

First: Egypt’s natural wealth is owned by all Egyptians either in the present or future. No one should be allowed to exploit our wealth according to his desires or for his private interests.

Second: Instead of providing Israeli settlers with low-price gas, the real prices of gas should have been used in solving the daily sufferings of the Egyptian people including the bread crisis, price hikes, education, and medical care.

Third: Protecting Egypt’s national security necessitates that the regime stops gas supplies to the IOF which were complicit in the killing of innocent Palestinians and burying our war prisoners alive in 1956, 1967, and 1973 wars. The IOF still threaten our national security through possessing mass destructive weapons.

Fourth: What has been declared in the People’s Assembly by the regime is blatant disrespect of people’s minds. If an Egyptian company has signed a contract to export gas to the Israel, this can easily be corrected through immediately ending the contract without any alleged violation of international treaties or laws.

Fifth: Joint Arab Defense Treaty obligates the Egyptian government to export surplus gas to Palestine to be used in supplying power and fuel necessary for Palestinian lives especially that they suffer from a deadly siege and continuous aggression by Israeli Occupation Forces.

Based on the above, the MB calls upon all national forces as well as the Egyptian people to declare their discontent and refusal of such a flagrant decision. We also call on parliamentarians to move swiftly and effectively towards the cancellation of this contract (if there’s any), stop the gas supply to the IOF, and export it instead to other countries at standard world prices. This will save billions of dollars to be added to the state’s general budget to solve some of the citizen’s chronic problems.

Muslim Brotherhood, May 3, 2008