Amman, September 28 - Human rights organizations and diplomatic officials expressed shock and dismay today upon hearing the news that Israel had signed an agreement to pump 10 billion dollars' worth of explosive, poisonous methane into Jordanian territory from its offshore Leviathan gas field over the next decade and a half.Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two leading organizations critical of Israel, denounced the plan when it was made public on Monday, and said Israel's callous disregard for human life is evidently not restricted to the civilians in areas where it engages in active combat, but extends even to the soil of neighboring countries. They pronounced the fifteen-year arrangement a moral outrage.
"It is beyond heinous for a nation founded in the wake of Nazi genocide to be pumping gas in any direction," declared Human Rights Watch Director Ken Roth. "Methane is closely linked with carbon monoxide, which the Germans used in their initial attempts to conduct mass killings at Treblinka and elsewhere."
The gas, which Israel will pump into the developing desert kingdom in a total quantity of 45 billion cubic meters, is associated with asphyxiation, deadly explosions, global warming, and military conflict over non-renewable natural resources. To provide the gas for the move, Israel will develop its largest-yet gas field in the Mediterranean, a field known as Leviathan for its estimated size relative to other such fields in the area.
Amnesty International spokesman Heidi Rokarben noted that this is hardly the first time that Israel has subjected Arabs to such treatment. "We should not be surprised at this Israeli escalation," she explained. "Even as we speak, Israeli power lines are carrying several megawatts of deadly electricity into the helpless Gaza Strip, and no one has tried to stop them. Even during the 2014 war the international community was silent as the dangerous form of energy was pumped into the territory."
"Also, Israel allows torrents of a chemical known as dihydrogen monoxide flow unchecked into Palestinian towns and villages every winter," she added. "It was only a matter of time that they would do something else objectionable, since the world has not stood up to such crimes with any seriousness to date."
Compounding the seriousness, said Roth, is the damage that the gas causes even if it is safely collected by the Jordanians. "Israel knows full well the destruction that can be wrought if something goes wrong when Jordanian civilians handle methane or its derivatives, yet they intend to continue pumping the stuff into the country for years and years," he warned. "Doesn't anybody care?"
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