An incentive for peace

Despite the recent Annapolis peace conference, Israeli-Palestinian violence is escalating. Last week, Palestinian rockets fell on Israeli cities, and Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes; in one day, nine Palestinians died, including a 3-year-old girl. Even as President Bush visits the region this week for the first time since taking office, Americans might be forgiven for not placing much faith in their government’s attempts to broker peace.

But there’s a very practical reason they should be cheering the administration on: the $100 barrel of oil. Believe it or not, Israeli-Palestinian enmity plays a significant role in how much we’re shelling out.


Dan Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, recently told National Public Radio that tension in the Mideast adds a $10 to $15 “security premium” to every barrel of oil: “What [this] reflects is a sense of uncertainty whether geopolitical events will lead to some kind of disruption that shuts off supply.”

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have oil, but Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia do. And belligerent people in each country say they’re fighting the West in part because of our failure to redress wrongs visited on the Palestinians.

Baltimore Sun