A Saudi-to-Israel oil pipeline can save the world

[Solomon2]

Op-Ed: A Saudi-to-Haifa, Israel oil pipeline can save the world
An out-of-the-box idea for cementing a relationship with the anti-Iran Arab states.
Published: Monday, January 11, 2016 6:31 PM

Mark Langfan
The writer, who specializes in security issues, has created an original...
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In World War II, British tanks in Egypt heroically battled Rommel’s tanks coming east from Libya. There have been many movies and TV shows made about these grand battles.
No one seems to have asked a simple question:

Where did the British get the raw unrefined oil, and then the refined oil to fuel their tanks and battleships of the Mediterranean Sea?

Answer: The 500,000 Jews of Mandate Palestine saved Palestine from the Nazi-lover Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini by refining the oil that was transited by a pipeline from the Mesopotamian oil fields to Haifa. Without the 500,000 Jews of 1930-1940 pre-Israel Israel, Great Britain would have been wiped out of the Eastern Mediterranean before the War began.

An Arab-Israel pipeline can save the world in what is shaping up into World War III just as the Arab-Pre-Israel pipeline saved the world in World War II.

In the unlikely, but possible, event that Russia and Iran succeed in decimating the Sunnis from Iraq through to Syria, win the contiguous land corridor from Iran to Syria and Lebanon and build an oil and gas pipeline to the Eastern Mediterranean, Saudi Arabia and the oil kingdoms have to have an answer or they will be wiped out by the Iran-Russian pipeline.
A Saudi-Jordan-Israel oil and gas pipeline is the only answer. It’s the shortest distance between the two points of Saudi Arabia and the Eastern Mediterranean. That was the historical path of the westward oil pipeline before Israel was created in 1948, and the Arabs declared endless war. Egypt is too unstable to protect and control its own pipeline through the Sinai, let alone anything grander. Therefore, the Sunni oil kingdoms have one and only one choice: a pipeline through Israel.

Israel is the perfect hub for all the non-evil-axis (though far from democratic) regional players: Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus/Greece, and Saudi Arabia. The reason is that they all trust Israel not to attack each of them, whereas they all believe each would attack the other if they gained a contiguous border. In short, Israel keeps all of the major players honest. Therefore, Israel is the perfect buffer state for them.

Israel is the military glue that not only acts to protect all the parties but acts as the key middle transit area connecting all the players. For all of the players this is a key element. Israel has the necessary military power projection for all the players without the usual threat projection that comes from the power projection. Israel can play a key role in protecting the pipeline from attack.

Such a pipeline will be an economic boom for Jordan and other Arabs in the area. They will hopefully come to see Israel as the enabler of their economic base, and not an enemy. For, if Israel were harmed, the pipeline would be doomed for destruction along with their economies. In this regard, Turkey would be the greatest beneficiary because it would be guaranteed a secure source of gas and oil for its own use as well as for piping through to Europe.

Israel is not only an ally of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Sunnis in the military struggle against Iran, it is also a vital partner in the economic war against it. ( removed religio-political slur)

 

[Falcon29]

ROFLMAO @ TITLE

 

[Zibago]

Pakistan should also establish relations with Israel not accepting the existance of a country that exists is kind of silly

 

[Sipahi]

World savage is only our beloved

 

[Solomon2]

Pakistan should also establish relations with Israel not accepting the existance of a country that exists is kind of silly

This week the Pakistani military declared that it will protect Saudi Arabia from any invasion. The only likely candidate is Iran. So suddenly Pakistan has to defend itself, as well as Saudi Arabia, from a neighbor with a proven record of subversion and a nascent nuclear weapons program. Turkey understand it can no longer afford the luxury of needless hostility towards Israel. Shouldn't Pakistan, whose exposure to conflict is potentially greater, take the same course?

 

[Zibago]

This week the Pakistani military declared that it will protect Saudi Arabia from any invasion. The only likely candidate is Iran. So suddenly Pakistan has to defend itself, as well as Saudi Arabia, from a neighbor with a proven record of subversion and a nascent nuclear weapons program. Turkey understand it can no longer afford the luxury of needless hostility towards Israel. Shouldn't Pakistan, whose exposure to conflict is potentially greater, take the same course?

We will not be part of any anti iran alliance
Incase of war b/w the two states we will act as mediator

 

[Solomon2]

We will not be part of any anti iran alliance
Incase of war b/w the two states we will act as mediator

And if Pakistan has open relations with Israel and supports this pipeline it's unlikely it will. Because that will effectively remove the Persian Gulf + Arabian Sea as a strategic area of potential combat. Now that Pakistan has pledged to protect KSA from Iran, it has to think about these things, yes?

 

[libertycall]

This week the Pakistani military declared that it will protect Saudi Arabia from any invasion. The only likely candidate is Iran. So suddenly Pakistan has to defend itself, as well as Saudi Arabia, from a neighbor with a proven record of subversion and a nascent nuclear weapons program. Turkey understand it can no longer afford the luxury of needless hostility towards Israel. Shouldn't Pakistan, whose exposure to conflict is potentially greater, take the same course?

I've never really understood the hostility of Pakistan's rulers towards Israel. It's a fact that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto ordered General Zia to assist the Jordanian regime in killing close to 20,000 Palestinians, so how is it that anyone in Pakistan considers Bhutto a hero while condemning Israel? I suppose this is because the ruling ethnic group and sect in Pakistan is aligned with the Iranian regime.

In any case I recently learned that the Parthian ancestors of the Pathans/Pashtuns staged an uprising against the Greek Seleucid occupation of Afghanistan at precisely the same time as the Maccabees did the same in Israel, which is the reason for the Jewish festival of Hannukah. If either had failed the Seleucids would have crushed both the Pathan/Pashtun freedom movement in Afghanistan and the Jewish movement in Israel.

 

[Solomon2]

I've never really understood the hostility of Pakistan's rulers towards Israel.

In my view, there seem to have been three main drivers.

First, around WWI the Arabs seduced the political leaders of India's Muslim communities to oppose the Zionist project, which meant proto-Pakistani leaders rejected such Western values and rights as truth, individual liberties, property rights, and so on in favor of ummah über alles.

Second, the founders of Pakistan saw their project as similar to Israel, but whereas to achieve it Jinnah and his followers relied on deception, sectarian violence, and majoritarian theft, Israel relied upon international law, human rights, and legally justifiable wars of self-defence. Pakistan's leaders felt such a moral contrast diminished their own standing so they slandered Israel's good name to avoid it - even today, Pakistan's Higher Education Commission forbids Pakistani universities disclosing facts that show Israel in a good light as doing so "challenges the ideology and principles of Pakistan": link

Thirdly, Pakistan's leaders assumed - wrongly, as it turns out - that the economic importance of the large, virulently anti-Israel Arab World precluded good relations with Israel.

Each of these three stances has severely damaged Pakistan:

1) The refusal to adhere to individual liberties has led to moral failure by stoking religious and racial violence, including separation of East Pakistan and the religious strife of today.

2) The refusal to accept the bad as well as the good of Pakistan has led to failure of good governance by fostering a culture of corruption that turned the efficient and comparatively honest bureaucracy, infrastructure, and law enforcement inherited from the British into an instrument for those in power and a mess for the masses.

3) Little Israel, which started out poor and nearly starved to death as it was boycotted by surrounding Arab states while simultaneously compelled to integrate the 800,000 Jews they illegally dispossessed and vomited forth, turned into an economic powerhouse, currently ranked #37 in GDP - of the Arab countries only UAE and KSA are ranked higher, and even that vanishes when their oil exports are subtracted - and Pakistan thus denies itself the economic benefits that would accrue from open trade with Israel.

The importance of open relations cannot be overestimated. I imagine Pakistan probably already has secret relations with Israel through the Mossad. It's even possible the Mossad, for its own bureaucratic reasons, would oppose open relations between Pakistan and Israel as a threat to its own little-checked power or the economic opportunities clandestine trade has for Mossad officers. In my opinion, Pakistan should ignore such objections.

 

[RazorMC]

In my view, there seem to have been three main drivers.

First, around WWI the Arabs seduced the political leaders of India's Muslim communities to oppose the Zionist project, which meant proto-Pakistani leaders rejected the such Western values and rights as truth, individual liberties, property rights, and so on in favor of ummah über alles.

Second, the founders of Pakistan saw their project as similar to Israel, but whereas to achieve it Jinnah and his followers relied on deception, sectarian violence, and majoritarian theft, Israel relied upon international law, human rights, and legally justifiable wars of self-defence. Pakistan's leaders felt such a moral contrast diminished their own standing so they slandered Israel's good name to avoid it - even today, Pakistan's Higher Education Commission forbids Pakistani universities disclosing facts that show Israel in a good light as doing so "challenges the ideology and principles of Pakistan": link

Thirdly, Pakistan's leaders assumed - wrongly, as it turns out - that the economic importance of the large, virulently anti-Israel Arab World precluded good relations with Israel.

Each of these three stances has severely damaged Pakistan:

1) The refusal to adhere to individual liberties has led to moral failure by stoking religious and racial violence, including separation of East Pakistan and the religious strife of today.

2) The refusal to accept the bad as well as the good of Pakistan has led to failure of good governance by fostering a culture of corruption that turned the efficient and comparatively honest bureaucracy, infrastructure, and law enforcement inherited from the British into an instrument for those in power and a mess for the masses.

3) Little Israel, which started out poor and nearly starved to death as it was boycotted by surrounding Arab states while simultaneously compelled to integrate the 800,000 Jews they illegally dispossessed and vomited forth, turned into an economic powerhouse, currently ranked #37 in GDP - of the Arab countries only UAE and KSA are ranked higher, and even that vanishes when their oil exports are subtracted - and Pakistan thus denies itself the economic benefits that would accrue from open trade with Israel.

The importance of open relations cannot be overestimated. I imagine Pakistan probably already has secret relations with Israel through the Mossad. It's even possible the Mossad, for its own bureaucratic reasons, would oppose open relations between Pakistan and Israel as a threat to its own little-checked power or the economic opportunities clandestine trade has for Mossad officers. In my opinion, Pakistan should ignore such objections.

I like how you insult Pakistan's founding fathers and their vision and then expect Pakistanis to look at Israel through your lens.

Human rights and international law indeed !

And pray explain the economic benefits you talk about.

 

[libertycall]

In my view, there seem to have been three main drivers.

First, around WWI the Arabs seduced the political leaders of India's Muslim communities to oppose the Zionist project, which meant proto-Pakistani leaders rejected the such Western values and rights as truth, individual liberties, property rights, and so on in favor of ummah über alles.

Second, the founders of Pakistan saw their project as similar to Israel, but whereas to achieve it Jinnah and his followers relied on deception, sectarian violence, and majoritarian theft, Israel relied upon international law, human rights, and legally justifiable wars of self-defence. Pakistan's leaders felt such a moral contrast diminished their own standing so they slandered Israel's good name to avoid it - even today, Pakistan's Higher Education Commission forbids Pakistani universities disclosing facts that show Israel in a good light as doing so "challenges the ideology and principles of Pakistan":

Thirdly, Pakistan's leaders assumed - wrongly, as it turns out - that the economic importance of the large, virulently anti-Israel Arab World precluded good relations with Israel.

Each of these three stances has severely damaged Pakistan:

1) The refusal to adhere to individual liberties has led to moral failure by stoking religious and racial violence, including separation of East Pakistan and the religious strife of today.

2) The refusal to accept the bad as well as the good of Pakistan has led to failure of good governance by fostering a culture of corruption that turned the efficient and comparatively honest bureaucracy, infrastructure, and law enforcement inherited from the British into an instrument for those in power and a mess for the masses.

3) Little Israel, which started out poor and nearly starved to death as it was boycotted by surrounding Arab states while simultaneously compelled to integrate the 800,000 Jews they illegally dispossessed and vomited forth, turned into an economic powerhouse, currently ranked #37 in GDP - of the Arab countries only UAE and KSA are ranked higher, and even that vanishes when their oil exports are subtracted - and Pakistan thus denies itself the economic benefits that would accrue from open trade with Israel.

Well there are also two inter-linked factors:

1. The wealthy elite groups from central British India which campaigned the strongest for the division of British India into Pakistan and India framed their argument in an 'Us-verses-Them' religious sense because they realized that the groups whom they were trying to unite against the Hindus and Sikhs had very little in common.

2. The sharp ethnic divisions became apparent to the Bengalis in 1971 when they discovered that Pakistan according to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had been created as the private feudal estate of an Urdu speaking ethnic group from western Pakistan. The same thing is now happening in the Pashtun/Pathan areas in Punjab and Pakhtunkhwa as well as Baluchistan during the last couple of years where the Pakistani Urdu media have become openly racist and sectarian in their rants against Pashtuns/Pathans. Contrary to the 'everything is good' mantra, there is a rising sense of anger among the non-Jatt and non-Urdu speaking groups.

So the only way Pakistan can keep its sense of identity is to concentrate even more on fostering religious extremism among groups which obviously leads to even greater chaos in Pakistan.

Israel's sense of identity is based on an ethnic and not just religious sense, for instance it is impossible to conceive of Israeli Jewish politicians telling Israeli Jews that they couldn't live in a part of a Israel such as happened recently in the case of Sayyid Kamal the Indian migrant descended MQM mayor of Karachi and his attacks on Pashtuns/Pathans in a US newspaper.

The obvious end result of this is that Pashtuns/Pathans and Baluchis will split from Pakistan.

 

[RazorMC]

Well there are also two inter-linked factors:

1. The wealthy elite groups from central British India which campaigned the strongest for the division of British India into Pakistan and India framed their argument in an 'Us-verses-Them' religious sense because they realized that the groups whom they were trying to unite against the Hindus and Sikhs had very little in common.

2. The sharp ethnic divisions became apparent to the Bengalis in 1971 when they discovered that Pakistan according to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had been created as the private feudal estate of an Urdu speaking ethnic group from western Pakistan. The same thing is now happening in the Pashtun/Pathan areas in Punjab and Pakhtunkhwa as well as Baluchistan during the last couple of years where the Pakistani Urdu media have become openly racist and sectarian in their rants against Pashtuns/Pathans. Contrary to the 'everything is good' mantra, there is a rising sense of anger among the non-Jatt and non-Urdu speaking groups.

So the only way Pakistan can keep its sense of identity is to concentrate even more on fostering religious extremism among groups which obviously leads to even greater chaos in Pakistan.

Israel's sense of identity is based on an ethnic and not just religious sense, for instance it is impossible to conceive of Israeli Jewish politicians telling Israeli Jews that they couldn't live in a part of a Israel such as happened recently in the case of Sayyid Kamal the Indian migrant descended MQM mayor of Karachi and his attacks on Pashtuns/Pathans in a US newspaper.

The obvious end result of this is that Pashtuns/Pathans and Baluchis will split from Pakistan.

I'm not sure if your flags are false, or just that living so far away from Pakistan has caused you to lose touch with reality.

I agree on the Bengali part. No one would want to be enslaved by fedual lords. But you forgot that those feudal lords are still the cause of most of Pakistan's problems, not Urdu-speakers (who have been opposed to feudalism from the beginning).

 

[libertycall]

I'm not sure if your flags are false, or just that living so far away from Pakistan has caused you to lose touch with reality.

I agree on the Bengali part. No one would want to be enslaved by fedual lords. But you forgot that those feudal lords are still the cause of most of Pakistan's problems, not Urdu-speakers (who have been opposed to feudalism from the beginning).

I'm quite in touch with reality as I still receive news from people on the ground in the areas the Urdu speaking media does not dare to tread either for fear that Raheel Sharif would be unhappy that it goes against his 'all is good' propaganda or because the Pashtuns/Pathans now have as little love for the Urdu speakers as they showed to Pashtun refugees whom the Urdu speakers prevented from entering 'Urdu speaking provinces'.

And no they haven't been opposed to them. I seem to recall Asif Ali Zardari and the MQM got on quite well e.g. Dr Asim Hussain. The dramabazi of MQM being opposed to feudalism was a cover story from back in the day when the MQM wanted money and publicity from leftists around the world.

 

[Solomon2]

I like how you insult Pakistan's founding fathers and their vision and then expect Pakistanis to look at Israel through your lens.

Pakistan's founders and their immediate supporters are the past. Must Pakistanis be slaves to the past?

Human rights and international law indeed !

To discuss this with reason the dogmatic wall of Pakistan's H.E.C. has to be ignored, surmounted, or eliminated, yes?

And pray explain the economic benefits you talk about.

The obvious comparison is Israel-India trade:

Mostly Israel imported textiles and mineral products while exporting machinery, tools, etc. No reason Pakistan can't get a slice of that trade - which in 2010 amounted to $4.7 billion dollars. If Pakistan captures just 20% of that, that's an increase in Pakistan's exports of over 2.5% - trade Pakistan needs if only to maintain (if not increase) the standard of living of its rapidly growing population.

Israel's sense of identity is based on an ethnic and not just religious sense -

Actually, it's ONLY an ethnic sense. Jews are a people and Judaism is their religion. The tests for citizenship in Israel are descent and religious conversion (which in Judaism is more like adoption). No religious tests means a sharp reduction of conflict between co-relgionists - the poison that killed ancient Israel 2,000 years ago, and what the Islamic World is suffering from today.

...the only way Pakistan can keep its sense of identity is to concentrate even more on fostering religious extremism among groups which obviously leads to even greater chaos in Pakistan. The obvious end result of this is that Pashtuns/Pathans and Baluchis will split from Pakistan.

A change of course towards good governance, modern Western rights, and a less-centralized government can avoid a future division. What troubles Pakistan's ruling class is that change would sharply limit their own opportunities to game the system to their own relative economic advantage. However, "a rising tide floats all boats": since all will become more wealthy the elite, too, will benefit from a more honest and democratic system.

 

[Atlanticore]

More fuel for Israeli tanks and AFV's to Kill innocent Palestinians, more human rights voilations, more illegal settlements . I see what kind of World you are talking about.