The instant Israel declared statehood in May of 1949, the country has been mired in an almost constant state of unrest between Israelis and Palestinians.
Why?
If you ask ten different people, you'd probably get ten different replies. However, two reasons seem to rise above the rest. First, you have two different religions (Judaism versus Islam) that historically haven't mixed well.
And you have land, land that both the Israelis and Palestinians feel is theirs.
Consider their respective claims. In The Palestine Israel Conflict by Gregory Harms, Harms cites age-old land rights that go all the way back to the book of Genesis and a promise God gave Abraham and his descendants. Palestinians counter with the rationale that they occupied the land decades before Israel even became a country in 1949.
But what if the equation has other complications? What if a looming war clouds the issue? What if OPEC is involved? What then?
Revisit the OPEC embargo of America in 1973. How many of us remember the reason why? How many of us remember the U.S. and the Netherlands supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973? And OPEC taking offense?
The result? An angry OPEC using oil as a weapon against America and the Netherlands by way of an oil embargo (Fadhil J. Chalabi explores this topic in great detail in his book Oil Policies Oil Myths).
And if an embargo happened again?
It would be nothing if not painful. With oil supply drying up worldwide (see Twilight in the Desert by Matthew Simmons and The Impending World Energy Mess by Robert Hirsch, Roger Bezdek, and Rober Wendling), fuel prices inch ever higher. Meanwhile, oil remains the world's lifeblood. With another embargo, this time on the U.S. and Israel, both countries would fall into a state of chaos and take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a new…and exceedingly dangerous level.
Like to know more? Please feel free to read sample chapters 1, 2, & 3.