GN: I've never studied in detail the events of 1948. In the 1930s Palestine was considered to be *highly promising*, as also Syria, for oil deposits. Palestine became the "British" route for oil exports carried from Iraq. As I recall, the WWII Saudi Tapline also went through Israel and was shutdown in 1948 after independence. I think some of the oil continued to go out through Lebanaon. These pipelines had military as well as economic signfiicance because they fed refineries used for providng bunkering (refueling) points for Mediterranean ships. The oil possibilities were reported in industry journals and I recall having seen documents alluding to rivalries between British and American oil interests in Israel while researching my book, but ultimately I made no use of them. It should be noted that oil was a determining factor in boundary disputes concerning Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates; it requires not great leap of the imagination to say Israel/Palestine was affected as well.
In any case there were substantial oil interests at stake in the creation of Israel; the Royal-Dutch shell group was part owned by Samuels and the Rothschilds who did on occasion try to protect or favor Jewish interests(broadly defined) in various parts of the world. In fact, the long history of RDS on behalf of Israel is one of the reasons why the seemingly "innocuous" Dutch were on the Arab embargo list in 1973-1974.
What does it all mean in the scheme of things? I don't know. I do know that the whole Israel question is much bigger than just oil. But to omit the oil angles would be a mistake. --gn
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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