Middle Eastern Oil • 311abroad shunned their Israeli counterparts. Arabic books, newspapers, and
radio broadcasts virulently attacked Israel and its supporters.
Thus isolated within their region, many Israelis developed symptoms of
psychopathic hostility to outsiders. It was said (by Jews and Gentiles alike)
that Israelis were rude and hard to deal with—like the native prickly pear
(sabra), which has a tough skin and is covered with long thorns, yet is sweet
once you get through its defenses. Almost every part of Israel was near an
Arab country, and border raids menaced Jewish settlements. Often Israel
retaliated against Arab villages and refugee camps blamed for the raids.
Deaths, injuries, and property damage mounted on both sides. The wind¬
ing armistice line between Israel and Jordan posed special security prob¬
lems, especially when it cut off a village from its farming or grazing lands.
Israel's retaliatory raid against Gaza in 1955 was what convinced Nasir that
Egypt must buy communist bloc weapons to strengthen its armed forces.
Israel bought some of its arms from such friendly countries as France, but
whenever possible it manufactured its own.
The growing frequency of Arab fidaiyin raids, plus the mounting fervor
of hostile propaganda, led Israel's cabinet to take stronger military mea¬
sures in 1956. When Britain and France prepared to attack Egypt, Israel
quickly joined their conspiracy. All three hoped to punish the Arabs,
mainly Nasir, for seizing the Suez Canal and (at least verbally) threatening
Israel. The stated concern was for the safety of international waterways;
the unstated one was Europe's growing need for Arab (and Iranian) oil.MIDDLE EASTERN OILMiddle East history since 1948 risks becoming an account of the military
and political struggle between the Arabs and Israel. But let us not ignore
other developments that were taking place in the region. Not all Middle
Easterners are Israelis or Arabs: Iranians and Turks have countries and con¬
cerns of their own; most Middle Eastern countries have minorities who do
not share their governments' preoccupations; and even Zionists and Arab
nationalists sometimes think about matters unrelated to their conflict.
At any rate, we cannot gloss over one development that took place after
1948 in Middle Eastern lands far from Israel: Oil exports were becoming
the main source of income for the states bordering on the Persian Gulf. The
leading Middle Eastern producer in the first half of the twentieth century
was Iran, which is not an Arab country. In 1951, when Britain rejected an
equitable profit-sharing agreement with the Iranian government, Iran's
prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddiq, nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil