Game Changers
Israel has one of the fastest-developing economies on the Globe. It's one of the most technologically, scientifically, advanced countries of the world. Within a sea of other nations which are stagnating despite that many of them have huge oil resources and capital as a result of their fossil fuel sales, but which have no alternate sources of production and economy, and scant employment opportunities.Ignorance and backwardness pervade the countries of the Middle East, with the exception of Israel.
Israel ranks first in the production of scientific papers from its academics, in high-tech startups, in civilian research and development, and in the number of doctoral students it educates. Unlike its neighbours, Israel is open and democratic, offering equality to all its citizens. It is the lone country in the Middle East where the law is universal in protecting the human rights of gays, of Christians, Jews and Muslims alike.
Yet Israel has long been considered the pariah state of the Middle East. That's what happens when your neighbours don't like you and would prefer that you leave the neighbourhood and they're influential and wealthy enough to make an impression on the rest of society. Mostly because many of them hold a trump card of natural resources that the rest of the world is hungry for.
The OPEC countries were able to demonstrate their disfavour of the West favouring Israel on its 1948 birth, as a scrappy little can-do nation that would overcome all odds; foremost among them incessant violent attacks by the combined armies of the neighbourhood. The OPEC consortium was able to convince oil consuming nations that it would be in their best interests to avoid displeasing them by championing Israel.
Oil embargoes had that convincing effect. Countries dependent on oil quickly accommodated themselves to the realization that Israel wasn't so special after all as a brave new experiment in equality and dedication to democratic freedoms and opportunities. Soon enough the Islamic-African voting bloc became successful at slandering and blaming Israel within the United Nations, while Yasser Arafat provoked the General Assembly with his pistol and his dove.
The "automatic majority" of over 100 nations successfully had the UN pass a resolution claiming Zionism to be commensurate with racism. And it was Israel alone that was repeatedly condemned by the United Nation's Human Rights Commissions; 33 condemnations against one single, very small, embattled country that was never invited to sit on the commission nor for that matter any UN commission.
Khartoum waged a war against Darfur and butchered, raped and made homeless hundreds of thousands, but there has not been a human rights condemnation against Sudan. Nor Iran, which threatens to annihilate Israel in the very halls of the United Nations. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe violates the most basic human rights of his people, but never has he been brought up short for censure by the UN's Human Rights Commission.
Egypt's transition from a civilian-military dictatorship to a military dictatorship has been accomplished with a concomitant threat hastened by the growing authority of the Muslim Brotherhood of an abrogation of the peace treaty between both countries. Egypt's shipment of natural gas to Israel has undergone some interruptions, and the price will be rising, even as Egypt has made its peace with Hamas and relaxed passage between Gaza and Egypt.
But there are game-changers in the future. And one of those is that great stores of natural gas and oil have been discovered within Israel. Their development and infrastructure to process and ship these fossil fuels will initiate some monumental changes as countries which have been beholden to the Arab oil sheikdoms will have alternate energy sources. Israel with its reserves will be seen in a more favourable light.
And the world's multinational oil companies which have long given a sympathetic ear to the Arab oil producers, making it clear that they held Israel's claim to its geography in the dim light it is described as from among their oil-sourced OPEC friends, may find themselves left out of a very lucrative market, just now beginning to emerge.
Labels: Economy, Energy, Israel, Middle East, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Monday, June 06, 2011
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