Oil, Economy & Middle East

The name of the game is always money in any serious dispute. In the Middle East and Afghanistan, that means oil. Part 1 of George War Bush's blood for oil agenda was bombing Afghanistan, so Unocal could build its oil pipeline. Part 2 is conquering the Middle East. With Israel's economy and the US economy in decline, the imperialists and their puppets are desperate. A review of the socialist press provides some food for thought on these basic issues.

The paragraphs below are excerpts.

Socialist Viewpoint
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/march_02/mar_02_3.html
"Israel's Economy Continues to Slide: The Intifada Threatens Israel's Economic Existence" by Rod Holt, March 2002

"In contrast, the economic role of the United States is central. The U.S. covers the lion’s share of the military expenses, dispenses charitable loans and cash to cover the deficit spending, and is generally committed to rescuing Israel from any and all financial difficulties. But rescue today might be surprisingly difficult. The world economy is highly stressed at present and the Israeli workers may not wait patiently for the U.S. to arrange a blood transfusion."

"Economists now recognize 2001 as the worst year for Israel since 1953, and 2002 is expected to be worse. The U.S. stock market collapse in early 2000 had forced investors to pull funds out of the Israeli economy to cover their losses in the U.S. This undercut expansion in the high-tech businesses and hurt those sectors such as the construction industry that are dependent upon speculative expansion. The anticipated deep recession then became a certainty with the Al Aqsa intifada that began in September, 2000."

"The Israeli rulers are thus faced with a contradiction. To remain useful to their imperialist masters they must shoulder the military burden. But that induces the dependency that cripples them in the eyes of the people. The vaunted Israeli leaders sit waiting like school children for instructions from their teacher. The outcome then is either their overthrow by the masses or their dismissal by the imperialists who must then find other, more effective agents."

Workers World:
http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/palestine0411.php
Bush, Israel, Stop Your Violence! By Richard Becker, April 11, 2002

"Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have repeatedly promised a prolonged and far-flung war. Phase I of the endless war was Afghanistan. Phase II is Palestine."

"If they succeed in these opening phases--and success is far from assured--Iraq, Iran and Syria will be future targets, as indicated in remarks by both Bush and Rumsfeld on April."

"The administration's aim is the recolonization of the entire vital Middle East, home to two-thirds of the planet's known petroleum reserves."

"To achieve their neocolonial objectives, the U.S. leaders are seeking to crush all who would resist. The Palestinian struggle is at the very heart of the liberation struggle in the Middle East, as evidenced by the militant solidarity protests that have swept the Arab world in recent days."

"The unambiguous support of the Bush administration for the Sharon offensive, and the fact that the Pentagon has supplied the F-16 fighter-bombers and Apache helicopters being used by the Israeli military, make it clear that this must be called what it is: the U.S.-Israeli war against the Palestinian people."

http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/fred0411.php
"Uprising Reveals the Flaws in Bush Plan to Dominate the World" by Fred Goldstein, April 11, 2002

"Thus, since 1948 imperialism has relied on the Israelis as the force of last resort whenever a crisis was brewing. The Israeli regime invaded Egypt in 1956 when the government of Abdul Nasser nationalized the British-owned Suez Canal. The 1967 war was a preemptive strike against a growing nationalist movement in Syria and in general against the rising tide of militancy in the Arab world, which was a threat to the oil monopolies and the Pentagon."

"The $100 billion given to the Israeli government since 1967 has been meant to keep the 300 million Arab people in check. It threatens their regimes, which in turn hold the people back from challenging imperialism."

"Washington can regard no Arab king or prince, sultan or emir--no matter how rich, no matter how tied to the oil companies and bankers of imperialism--as safe. They rule over super-exploited oppressed peoples, impoverished by the multinational corporations. Their regimes are inherently unstable. As opposed to this, the Israeli state is not only tied to imperialism militarily, financially and politically, but is based upon a privileged position in the Middle East and is an oppressor nation."

"The Palestinian resistance represents for the Arab people in general their own aspirations to finally be free of oppression in the form of neocolonialism. The Israeli settler state represents the tortured colonial past of the masses as a whole. Every act of aggression and repression by Tel Aviv, which is armed to the teeth with U.S. planes, helicopters, missiles, bullets, communications technology, and so on, is regarded as an act of colonial bullying and terror. And it is totally associated with Washington.
It is not out of love for the Jewish people that the anti-Semitic U.S. ruling class has nurtured the Israeli ruling class for decades. It is pure class interest of the oil billionaires and the Pentagon that defends them and is intertwined with them."

"But this support has come up against Palestinian resistance year after year, since the founding of Israel. And with each generation it has grown stronger. With each new round of struggle, the hatred of Washington in the Arab world grows deeper and wider. So long as the Palestinians resist, U.S. imperialism and its Israeli clients will always be on the defensive, living in fear of their futures in the Middle East."

Socialist Worker:
http://www.socialistworker.org/2001/375/375_10_BlankCheck.shtml
":Why Israel Got A Blank Check?" August 17, 2001

"Year in and year out, Israel receives more economic and military aid than any other country in the world. Thanks to its American support, Israel was able to develop a nuclear arsenal with more than 200 warheads--and illegally occupy southern Lebanon for 23 years and the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights for more than 30 years."

"Why does Israel get a blank check from the U.S.?"

"U.S. support for Israel is based on the country’s strategic value in the oil-rich Middle East. The Middle East is home to two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves. Control over Middle Eastern oil gives the U.S. economic leverage over its economic rivals, especially Japan and Germany."

"As Gershom Shoken, editor and publisher of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, said in 1951: "Strengthening Israel helps the Western powers to maintain equilibrium and stability in the Middle East. Israel is to become the watchdog.""

World Socialist Website:
From: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/bush-a06.shtml
"Bush 'Peace Initiative' Prepares Ground War for Wider War Against Arab Masses" by Barry Grey, April 6, 2002

"Decades of struggle, war and repression have demonstrated that there can be no peace or social progress in the Middle East—for Arab and Jew alike—until the entire framework of the Zionist state is repudiated. This, in turn, requires a revolutionary settlement with the bourgeois state system in the whole of the region—a system imposed historically by Western imperialism and maintained as the basis for the rule of despotic Arab regimes that are organically hostile to the democratic rights and social aspirations of the Arab people."

"Genuine peace cannot be achieved through negotiations because the fundamental social and political issues at stake transcend the questions of land and relations between a Palestinian and Israeli state. Peace and social progress can be achieved only through the united action of the Arab and Jewish working masses, fighting for the establishment of a democratic, socialist Middle East."