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INBRIEF
CAUSE ANO EFFECT
IN PALESTINE
by
Stanley R. Rader
W
hy is the United States
caught up in a crosscurrent
f confl icting forces in the
Middle East? Why are there no easy
answers to the Arab-Jewish strife
over Palestine? Why is the Western
world being strangled by OPEC?
How did we g,et ourselves into the
Middle Eastern muddle? What are
sorne of the basic root causes of the
problem?
First, let's take a look at sorne of
the unhappy effects. Begin with the
stark fact that inflation has been vi r–
tually out of cont rol
~ver
sincc thc
1973 oil debacle. Economies in the
Western world are in a constant state
of subjugation to the shifting sands of
OPEC pricing policies. Add to our
current economic woes anu gasoline
shortfalls the continua! question of
how many arms to give what Middle
Eastern nation in what proport ion.
Then mix a "little" terrorism into the
problem lo gel lhe pot to really begin
to boil. For instance, a bomb ex–
plodes in the arrival area of Brussels
airport and bullets are pumped into a
nearby restaurant. An event entirely
unrelated to the Mideast? No! Just
one more piecemeal incident in the
warfare of terror precipitated by the
PLO quarrel with the recent lsraeli–
Egyptian accord.
Leaving aside the ugly acts of ter–
rorists, how much should one support
friendly or would-be friend ly dicta–
tors in the area? Western diplomacy
left a lot to be desired in the Iranian
crisis.
1 confess that it 's very easy to
be
a
Monday-morning quarterback by
simply pointing out the unfortunate
impact of the various and sundry
The
PLAIN TAUTH September 1979
probJems in the Middle East. Far
more important is a genuine quest to
understand the fundamental causes
of unrest in the area!
For more than fifty years, the Edi–
tor-in-Chief of this magazine has
dedicated his life to promoting better
understanding between all peoples
everywhere. In so doing, he has
stressed that there is a basic cause for
all human conflict, whether it be con–
flict between prívate parties, conflict
between classes, or confl ict between
sovereign nations.
Mr. Armstrong has based his con–
clusions on many, many years of ob–
servation and travel, as well as upon
study and research. He has managed
to isolate the basic root cause of hu–
man conflict in a very simple but
profound statement: "Men and na–
tions have been living throughout all
recorded history according to the
get
principie rather than in accordance
with the
give
principie."
The Middle Eastern conftagration
is a c lassic case of violating the
"give" way of life. First of all, much
of the area's trouble, controversy and
suffering has its roots in the Abra–
hamic relationship with Hagar.
If
you remember the story, Abraham
was childless and his wife Sarah was
already past the age of childbearing.
lshmael (the father of the Arabs)
was Abraham's son by Hagar. Isaac
(the great grandfather of the J ewish
race) carne along years later when
Sarah conceived and brought forth a
son long after her apparent meno–
pause. This three-cornered triangle,
with the inevitable jealousy between
the two women, is a definite histori–
cal factor underlying sorne of the ten-
sions in the Holy Land. You can read
the intriguing story for yourself in
the Old Testament book of Genesis
(chapter 21).
Bringing the problem down to the
twentieth century, Great Britain be–
carne a dominant force in the Middle
East following World War J. This
was concurren! with the general
emergence of oil as the cri tica) key to
industrial success in the modern
world.
British Petroleum ( BP) eventually
carne to control the lion's share of
l ranian oil. When the first Shah re–
fused lo part company with the Nazis
during World War 11, Great Britai n
and Russia conquered Iran in order
to protect obvious oil interests. The
Shah was promptly exiled! Then his
son, the present Shah (now himself in
exi le), took the reins of government
as a supposed puppet ruler. As Win–
ston Churchill said: " We have
chased a dictator into exile, and in–
stalled a constitutional sovereign."
But this was not to be the case.
1n 1951 the l ranian government
expropriated the oilfields of the An–
glo- l ranian Oil Company ( BP). The
British subsequently ruled out the
use of force because Presiden! Tru–
man and Dean Acheson simply
would not support it. The only rea–
sonable alternative was a Bri tish boy–
coll of l ranian oil. However, thi s pol–
icy was also to eventually fail be–
cause of a lack of American sup–
port.
But the British cannot blame it all
on their brothers across the Atlantic.
A
memo published in 1975 showed
the displeasure of Her Majesty's gov–
ernment with BP. .
lt
reads: " The
principal reason why our advance in–
formation [before the takeover] was
inadequate was the shortsightedness
and the lack of political awareness
shown by the Anglo- Iranian O il
Company. They were far better
placed than anybody else to make a
proper estímate of the situation but,
as far as 1 am aware, they never even
seriously tried to do so." BP's corpo–
rale managers simply did not grasp
the fact that European dependence
on Middle Eastern oil was a highly
strategic political issue and not ex–
clusively economic in nature.
(Continued on page 35)
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