A protest is aiming to plunge Amman into darkness tonight, as activists and citizens plan to switch off their electricity to fight against a government decision to import gas from Israel.
The action, scheduled to take place between nine and ten this evening local time, is in protest at Jordan’s recent deal to buy gas from Israel's Leviathan gas field. The deal commits the Kingdom to buying 8.5 million cubic meters of gas each day from the field, run by a consortium and located off Israeli shores. It's an arrangement that's hugely unpopular in Jordan, where more than half the population is of Palestinian descent and opposition to Israel is widespread.
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#Enemy’sGasIsOccupation #Switchoffthelights
On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets in Amman to protest the gas deal. The march was broken up by police after a few hours, and was run by the National Campaign for the Fall of the Gas Deal with the Zionist Entity.
The National Electric Power Company (NEPCO), which is the government agency responsible for the deal with the company Noble Energy, says the agreement will save Jordan $600 million per year and the help the Kingdom meet its growing energy demands, according to the Jordan Times.
But this line of thinking is rejected by the large movement against the deal. Friday’s protest saw the thousands of attendees chant “the people want the fall of the agreement,” and other slogans, alongside signs and even t-shirts reading “the enemy’s gas is occupation.”
“It is a deal rejected by the people of Jordan,” Sireen Itani, of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, told the Jordan TImes. “It has its economic, political, and moral consequences that would affect the country in the long term. By signing the agreement, our national security and economy will be at the mercy of the Zionist entity.”
