Israel, Saudi Arabia, and The Price of Oil
E cclesiastes 7:1 tells us that "A good name is better than a good oil". I n 1973, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously told then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. "Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us forty years through the desert -- in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!" After the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, the oil price quadrupled from $3 to $12 a barrel and the Arab states of OPEC held the world economy by the short and curlies. A number of countries broke off diplomatic relations with Israel - who wants to back a loser? Israel has never had it easy with its water and energy needs. The Talmud tractate Taanit relates that Israel does not have a plentiful source of water like the Nile in Egypt, so that its inhabitants need to constantly pray for rain and sustenance. Fast forward two thousand years, and the development of world leading technology in the field of des