Israel the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East
Oil industry needs peace in the Middle East
(11/25/2002) Oil and Israel comprise the foundation of United States policy in the Middle East, and it would be difficult to say which is the stronger influence. The Bush administration has certainly allowed both factions an unfettered access to its inter sanctum and an uncommon degree of input into the decision-making process in regard to the region. But oil interests are single-minded in wanting the Middle East to be a peaceful, laissez-faire region open to international oil and gas exploration, development, and production at a profit, without a lot of concern as to whether one government or another is democratic or not as long as it has a reasonably accessible petroleum industry in which all comers may participate.
Of course, the world's major players in the industry would prefer a benevolent government to a repressive one, an honest government as opposed to a corrupt one - it simply facilitates doing business in an area - but they are not so naïve as to think the Middle East should be governed by regimes modeled on that of the United States.
Oil, then, may well be a driving force in Middle Eastern policy, but it is not driving the current war wagon toward Iraq except that on an individual basis most people in the oil industry would not mind seeing a more open, more responsive, more pacific government there than the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
On the other hand, Israel has been a prime motivator of US policy in the Middle East almost since its invention in 1949. It enjoys unparalleled support from the United States, upon which it is totally dependent for its very existence - on American financial, political, and military support - a phenomena that is virtually incomprehensible to most of the people of the Middle East and the result of American thinking of Israel incorrectly as the biblical entity and its people as its descendants.
The present regime in Israel led by Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu bears little resemblance to that envisioned for the Jewish state at its creation; it is xenophobic and paranoiac in its outlook and far from peaceful - in fact, it is one of the world's leading arms manufacturers and dealers. Its lack of accommodation with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors precipitates the confrontations that have produced the Israeli siege mentality that is expressed in repression of its Palestinian minority, which then produces violent reactions such as the current rash of suicide bombings. And the circle of violence is perpetuated. Yet Sharon and Netanyahu appear neither willing nor able to break this cycle by removing the settlers they have imposed on Palestinian territory and allowing the Palestinians their own free and independent state.
Israel is, then, the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East, at least at this juncture. It is counseling the Bush administration to prosecute a war against Iraq because of its insecurity and fear of reprisal from Iraq for its conduct against the Palestinians - it erroneously thinks such a war would be good for Israel and wants to see a regional conflagration that can be used to cover exiling the Palestinians from the West Bank and perhaps Gaza as well. It will not bring peace to the Middle East nor make the region more amenable to the petroleum industry. |
