.
Why The Middle East Conflict Continues
To Exist
By: Joel Bainerman
07/13/03: Zichron Yaacov, Israel--For more than 75 years, western
diplomats have been coming up with peace initiatives to solve the Arab
Israeli conflict. Yet they always fail. Why? What keeps the Middle East
conflict going?
If we are going to devise a solution, we must first understand why the
conflict continues to exist. To do this, we have to view the situation
from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. This is completely
opposite to the way most Jews and Arabs have been conditioned to look at
the situation. Jews focus on the damage Arab/Palestinians cause, and
believe that damage to be the cause of the conflict, when it is really
only a result of it. They view the conflict and its origins from the
bottom up. Arabs/Palestinians concentrate on the damage Israel causes
and believe this to be the cause of the conflict, when it is really only
a result of it. They too relate to the situation from the bottom up.
To understand what really causes the Middle East conflict to continue,
one must look at the issue from the top down. To get a more accurate
picture of what lies behind the continued existence of the conflict,
lets acknowledge these five factors which serve to perpetuate rather
than solve the problem:
1) The vested interests of the Foreign Elite (FE): There is a third
entity in the conflict in addition to the Israelis and the Arabs: the
foreigners (in order of importance, the US, Britain, Russia, China,
France, Germany). Without them, there would be no Middle East conflict
because it is the foreign influence that keeps the situation from being
resolved. Unfortunately, both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews believe
they are each others worst enemy without considering the third element
the foreigners that is the enemy of both. The thing that Arabs and Jews
have most in common is this common enemy, yet the leaders on both sides
(not being legitimate or independent) tell their people that the other
side is their number one enemy. Hence the conflict continues.
2) Control of Middle East oil: The foreigners interfere in the
Arab-Israeli conflict in order to exploit and control the vast petroleum
resources in the region. If there were no oil, there would be no
petrodollars to recycle; the foreigners would have no reason to dominate
the region.
3) Weapons sales: If there was a worldwide ban on arms sales to the
Middle East, there would be no more radical Arab dictators with modern
arms. If the foreigners stopped selling advanced weaponry to nations of
the Middle East, the conflict would end.
4) The mainstream media: If the mainstream media in the West stopped
reporting on the search for peace in the Middle East,peace would soon be
found. By keeping the regions unstable image alive, the media, as the
sole source of information by which people can formulate their
perceptions, provide an excuse for the foreigners to interfere, and at
the same time serve to convince everyone that these western nations want
peace, despite the fact that they have been seeking it for over 50
years, in vain. The media never question the intentions or agendas of
the FE. The media thus provide the glue which keeps the conflict going.
Without the mainstream media constantly reporting on the conflict, there
would be peace, as everyone would forget that the Middle East is
unstable and thus in need of stabilizing via new peace initiatives.
5) Corrupt national leadership of both sides: It isn't peace between
Arabs and Jews that interests the FE, but rather the continuation of the
conflict. The way they do that is by corrupting/controlling the national
leaders of both sides. The reason why legitimate, popular leaders are
not at the helms of countries in the Middle East is because the FE will
topple any leader who doesn't cater to their desires before the needs of
their own people. If Middle East leaders are selected and deemed popular
by their own people, the FE will demonize them as radicals/extremists,terrorist
leaders or enemies of peace,and thus de-legitimize them in the world
arena. How can genuine co-existence take hold if the leaders of both
sides are more interested in pleasing their foreign masters than their
own peoples?
Unless these five basic factors are understood, the true causes that
extend the conflict will never be understood. Instead, each side will go
on blaming the other seeking to take the high moral ground and convince
their own people and those from abroad that they are right, and the
other side is wrong. This will lead only to more death and destruction.
The technique is called divide and rule,and it has been a favorite of
the FE for decades.
It needs to be understood that the reason why the Middle East conflict
continues to exist is because foreign elements desire the conflict not
to be solved. This conflict is not nearly as complicated to solve as
they present it in the mainstream media and the think thanks/analyses
world of "Middle East affairs" that exist worldwide. More than
50 years down the road we are still no nearer to a solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict than we were in the late 1940s. How is that
possible? Why can't we solve this
regional conflict? Who is keeping the conflict alive?
---------------------
The function of oil, weapons, and the US Dollar in the Middle East
conflict
There is a view in the mainstream media that assumes the only
concern the western nations have in the Middle East is for Arabs and
Jews to kiss and make up. Yet after all their years of being involved in
peace-making, how come there isn't any peace?
Because peace is not good business for the "Foreign Elite".
What is important is maintaining the supremacy of the US dollar in world
markets, recycling petrodollars to earn profits from the oil industry,
and the sale of military products to the oil-rich Arab regimes. The
unwritten agreement that the US has with the ruler of the oil states is
that the oil will be priced in US dollars, and in return the US will
protect them. While Fox, Time and CNN never discusses this
issue, it is imperative for the strength of the US dollar that oil is
priced only in US currency.
When oil is sold in US dollars, countries around the world need to
maintain a certain level of US currency in the reserves of their central
bank to finance their oil purchases. OPEC is a cartel created by the US
specifically for this purpose. At the end of 2000, the Bank for
International Settlements estimates world dollar reserves of $1.45
trillion, or 76% of the total world reserves of $1.09 trillion. If oil
was priced in other currencies, most countries would have little need to
stockpile dollars, and thus all the currency the US government has
printed over the years would be of value only in the US. This would
flood the country with dollars and cause huge inflation. In addition,
current and future trade and current account deficits would no longer be
financed by the foreigners who purchase American Treasury bills and
other US-dominated debt instruments. In other words, the US would no
longer be an economic superpower.
In a brilliant essay on this subject entitled A Macroeconomic and
Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth, economist William Clark
wrote in January 2003: The Federal Reserves greatest nightmare is that
OPEC will switch from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq
actually made this switch. The real reason the Bush administration wants
a puppet government in Iraq or more importantly, the reason why the
corporate-military-industrial network wants a puppet government in Iraq
is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard.
Others have come to the same conclusion as this issue relates to other
regions in the world. . On June 18th, 2003, the publisher of the
Venezuelan economic on-line journal, Veheadline.com, Roy Carson,
wrote: "A move by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias to replace
the US$ with the Euro is seen as upsetting Washington more than when
Iraq's Saddam Hussein started using the Euro for oil transactions last
November ... precipitating the US-led action to invade Iraq. CIA and
other intelligence organizations, including Britain's MI5, now fear that
the next step is that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) is about to switch to Euros ... the immediate effect would be a
massive devaluation, perhaps sparking of domino-effect devaluations
worldwide in US$-related foreign reserves and foreign debt calculations.
With a massive budget deficit, the United States is running scared of
latest intelligence that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on the brink of
converting to the Euros and the opinion held by many OPEC ministers is
that the conversion is an inevitability ... the only question left is
WHEN? Arab sources claim that Euro conversion across the Middle and Far
East is a rational step to counteract the United States' capacity to
"wage further illegal wars (a.k.a. State-sponsored terrorism)"
around the world. A significant step in this direction is that Iran is
contemplating switching to the Euro and, as a result, is the latest
object of United States undiplomatic interference ... an intelligence
sources says "they are stimulating opposition forces, making covert
threats ... the next step is destabilization and quasi-liberation
warfare under the pretext of promoting US-style democracy but
essentially aimed at maintaining the US dollar as a global transaction
currency."
The goal of the "Foreign Elite" is to keep the oil flowing to
western economies at a relatively low price so as not to harm the
profits the elite oil companies earn from refining and marketing
petroleum products, and ensuring that this oil remains priced in US
dollars. To do that, foreigners have to prop up undemocratic and corrupt
regimes (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, UAE,
Qatar and Bahrain) so they will continue to serve foreign interests. In
return, these countries keep the price of oil relatively low, keep the
oil priced in US dollars, and never move upstream in the petroleum
production process so as to compete with foreign oil companies.
The other unwritten law is that a certain amount of the oil revenues
earned by the oil-rich states must be spent on the purchase of weapons.
In 2002, Arab governments in the Middle East spent $52 billion on their
military forces, of which $18 billion was for purchases from foreign
countries. Arab countries devote 8%-11% of their national incomes to
defense (23% of all government expenditures). (Yahya Sadowski, Guns or
Butter, p.3). In the past decade, Saudi Arabia alone has spent over $100
billion on weapons. According to the Federation of American Scientists,
in the decade after the Gulf War (1991-2001) the US sold more than $43
billion worth of weapons, equipment and military construction projects
to Saudi Arabia, and $16 billion more to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the
United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia alone imports about $15 billion worth
of weapons each year. Instead of using this wealth for building an
economic infrastructure throughout the region, it is wasted on arms. The
rest of the oil revenues (after basic government expenditures are met)
are deposited in western banks as the private property of the corrupted
Arab leaders. This benefits both the leaders and the large western
banking interests.
This process is called recycling petrodollars. As much of that wealth
winds up in banks controlled by the foreign elite, this is another way
that foreigners profit from the continued tension in the Middle East.
Another activity of the foreigners is to sell massive amounts of
military hardware and technology to Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein
and then, years later, when the dictator doesn't do what the foreigners
want, the dictator becomes a threat to regional stability and an
expensive (to the public at large, not to the arms industry) military
invasion is suddenly required to contain him. When the smoke clears,
nobody points a finger at the foreigners, accusing them of arming the
dictator in the first place.
As no Arab country has a military industry, all weapons in the region
are imported. If the western nations were truly interested in bringing
peace to the Middle East, they would have placed a moratorium on arms
sales to the region decades ago. Instead, they sell tens of billions
worth of military hardware every year to the unstable regimes of the
region. So the entities that are sending special envoys to "help
the two sides make peace" are at the same time the main providers
of weapons to the region. Somehow, this contradiction is never exposed.
This is where the Palestinian-Israeli conflict serves its purpose.
Keeping the conflict alive means a never-ending moral crusade can be
carried out by both Arabs and Jews, each blaming the other for keeping
the conflict festering, each pointing fingers at the other side rather
than at the foreigners. Is it merely a coincidence that there is vast
oil reserves in the Middle East, while at the same time the region is
home to a seven-decade-long conflict? If there were no oil, would there
have been an Arab-Israeli conflict? As long as the Arabs and Jews are
blaming each other, the foreigners' role will go unnoticed- as will
their profits.
-------------
Joel Bainerman has been writing on Middle East
and Israeli political and economic issues since 1982. He can be reached
at isratech@netvision.net.il
Join our Daily News Headlines
Email Digest
|
|
Information
Clearing House
Daily News Headlines
Digest
|
HOME
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
|
