captain_spalding said:

party_pants said:

captain_spalding said:

Oh, for the day when our oil dependence has diminished to the point where we (Aus., US, UK, Europe, etc) can say to both the Arabs and the Israelis, you know what, we just don’t give a shit.

A big driver is expansionist Zionism, the desire to create a greater Israel by seizing Arab lands and driving them out. This has nothing to do with oil. With a population of less than10 million the Israelis have no chance against a couplea hundred million Arabs, plus a hundred million or so each of Persians and Turks. They need US involvement and meddling in the region. People in the US are getting sick of the Israel lobby too, and they run one of the biggest superpacs of them all.

I think that does, indirectly, have to do with oil.

If the US, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the West, doesn’t express a concern about conflict between Israel and Arabs/Iranians, and perhaps try to keep Israel on the leash, then Arab countries not directly involved (like Gulf states, who control a lot of oil) might decide to demonstrate the price of disinterest.

If we are a fair nation we should acknowledge the damage done to the Middle East over the 19th – 21st centuries and perhaps this is why terrorists exist.
We don’t though its all they are the baddies and we just twiddled our thumbs doing nothing wrong.
Sure the Middle East has fanatics but that’s religion for you
A United Middle East would be a powerful economic block and we couldn’t have that either