Oil prices war in the middle of the coronavirus crisis

The large peninsula of Arabia, the homeland of Muhammad, the origin of Islam, is a country of immense geographical dimensions. It has an area of ​​2,250,000 km2. 
The 1,800 kilometers of distance between its northwestern and southeastern points are composed of huge extensions of arid rocky and sandy terrain, without rivers or forests.
The territory is a succession of desolate and dry desert landscapes. In summer the air temperature can exceed 50 degrees and the ground becomes so hot at noon that the water could boil in the surface of the rocks exposed to the sun.
There are places in Arabia such as the Rub’al Khali, with 600,000 km2, where the rain gauges installed more than 50 years ago have never registered a rain and the humidity of the air drops to less than 10%. But the Rub'al Khali is not the only sand desert, to the north is the Great Nafud, in the center of the peninsula, the Dahna, and to the east the Jafurah dune fields.
The rest of the country is also arid but its soils are stony or salty.
There is a mountainous area to the west that reaches more than 2,000 meters and is slightly more humid (300 to 400 mm per year). It is a gently sloping relief to the east and overwhelmingly steep to the west. From there come the great wadis that infiltrate or evaporate on the way to the east, and short and steep water courses to the west. Beneath the great scarp is the tihama, a very hot and arid coastal plain. There are several important cities such as the port of Jeda and the religious city of Mecca. The region is called Hejaz.
In the undulating reliefs that descend towards the east (Najd) the climate becomes more arid, desert areas interrupted by various oases. In one of them is the city of Riyadh, capital of the kingdom.
Paradoxes of geography
However, in spite of these apparent environmental scarcity and aridity in Saudi Arabia the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world are located in its territory. Among them it possesses the giant Ghawar oil field, which is the largest of the world. 
Ghawar was discovered in 1937 and is located about 100 kilometers from the city of Dhahran, in the Eastern Province of the country. It occupies an area of ​​8,400 square kilometers (280 kilometers long by 30 wide).
Currently, this field is capable of producing between 3.5 and 4 million barrels of oil per day, which represents about 6% of world production and 45% of Saudi production. It also produces about 2,000 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Since its production began in 1951 about 60,000 million barrels have been extracted. According to Saudi oil company Aramco, owner of Ghawar, it is still the largest oil field in the world. Although its production level is reduced by 2% and 8% each year, there are still some recoverable reserves of just over 70,000 million barrels.
In addition of the Ghawar oil fields Saudi Arabia possesses several other oil and gas hydrocarbon fields producing O.5 millions of barrils per day or more. They are Safaniyah (1.2 M bbd), Al Shaheen (0.5 bbd) and Khurais (1.2 M bbd) increasing its production to more than 10 million barrels per day. 
This huge volume of oil production gives Saudi's authorities the capacity of heavily influencing the hydrocarbon market and consequently the world geopolitics. 
This situation can be seen presently when the Saudi government has decided to flood the oil market (competing with Russia) forcing the prices down and indirectly reducing the competitivity of the shale oil producing sector in the United States. 
These actions were taken in the middle of the coronavirus pandemia which has substantially reduced oil demand.
Nobody knows who is going to change its policies first, Saudi Arabia (under U.S. pressure) or Russia (because of lack of cash), or both producers at the same time, perhaps reaching an accord on cutting production.
We will know it in the next few weeks. We will see.

(D.A.; Montevideo, April 5th, 2020)

Ghawar
the largest oil field in the world
The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia is the largest oil field in the world.
It was discovered in 1937 and is located about 100 kilometers from the city of Dhahran, in the Eastern Province of that country ..
It occupies an area of ​​8,400 square kilometers (280 kilometers long and 30 kilometers wide).
This site is currently capable of producing 3.8 million barrels of oil per day, which represents almost 5% of world production and 65% of Saudi production. It also produces about 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day.
Since its production began in 1951, about 60,000 million barrels have been extracted.
According to oil company Saudi Aramco, owner of Ghawar, it is still the largest oil field in the world.
Although its production level is reduced between 2% and 8% each year, there are a recoverable reserves of just over 70,000 million barrels.
Geology
The Ghawar oilfield is constituted by an anticline structure (convex fold) that is expressed on the surface by outcropping of tertiary rocks (relatively more modern).
To the north, this structure comprises two parallel anticline (convex folds) with a small depression between them.
The Ghawar anticline rests on a horst (raised block) of the crystalline basement that initially ascended during the carboniferous period (300 million years) and was reactivated, episodically, especially during the late Cretaceous (100 million years).
The Paleozoic section (ancient, at the base) was significantly eroded by Hercinian discordance (that is, erosion that occurred about 280 to 250 million years ago).
The structure is asymmetric, steeper to the west and becomes more complex in depth, where there are several horst (raised blocks) in the form of stairs.
The main reservoir of Ghawar is the Jurassic limestones (160-180 million years old) that are somewhat less than 100 meters thick and are 2,000-2,300 meters below the surface.
The deposition of calcareous rocks included grainy (marine) reefs in the north, improving the quality of the reservoir, which also improves upwards as it evolves from a relatively massive limestone limestone to a grainy skeletal oolithic limestone (oolites are micro-concretions spherical). The density of fractures increases with depth, increasing the permeability of fine grain limolites.
According to the most accepted hypothesis, oil comes from Jurassic limestone limolites, which were deposited in the inner basins of the shield. It is important to note that given the immense and sustained volumes of production it would be necessary to start considering its origin from deeper, non-biogenic levels.
The upper seal of the deposit is constituted by anhydrides and is favored by the general absence of failures in the Jurassic section.
In summary, if the biogenic origin is accepted, there would be a Jurassic mother rock (Hanifa formation) covered by the powerful and porous Arab-D reservoir and an anhydritic upper seal. In other words, a great structure with an appropriate thermal and dynamic history.
The abundant production of the deposit was favored through the injection of water that was initiated in 1965. The volumes of seawater injected have reached 7 million barrels per day
In addition to oil, the field produces about 2,000 million cubic feet of gas per day, and has the capacity to extract 5,500 million cubic feet of gas from the deep section of the Paleozoic (more than 200 million years) that are trapped in the reservoirs Permian, permo-carboniferous and devonic (that is, between 380 and 200 million years old). Apparently this gas would come from siluric shales (if the biogenic origin is accepted). The possibility of a deeper non-biogenic origin should also be taken into account.
Khuff Permian Calcareous Reservoirs are the main gas producing areas at depths of 3,000 to 4,000 meters.
In short, it is a sedimentary sequence of several thousand years with excellent storage conditions for hydrocarbons and a geological source that has supplied huge volumes of liquid hydrocarbons and natural gas from deeper levels. It is assumed that these levels are sedimentary and organic, but should not be excluded, following the theory of Thomas Gold, given the huge amount of accumulated hydrocarbons and their sustained production for a long time, which are of much deeper non-biological origin.

Is Western Arabia Zion?

Kamal Salibi, one of the Arab world’s foremost contemporary historians, kicked up a storm when he concluded in a 1985 linguistic exegesis that Judaism’s Zion was not located in Israel but in Saudi Arabia. Israelis, Jews, Saudis, Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians found common ground at the time to denounce Mr. Salibi in stark terms.

Israelis, Jews and evangelists charged that Mr. Salibi’s bombshell book, The Bible Came from Arabia, constituted an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish State and undermine its historic claim to modern day Israel. Israeli historians and rabbis denounced the theory as mythology, science fiction and nonsense.

Saudis, afraid that Israelis might take Mr. Salibi seriously and attempt to colonise the mountains of Sarawat, which the scholar believed was the Jordan valley referred to in the Bible, bulldozed dozens of villages which contained buildings or structures from Biblical antiquity. Abodes were turned into rubble in line with Wahhabi ideology that legitimized destruction of anything that could be construed as idol worship.

The Saudi effort made it more unlikely that archaeology would ever be able to resolve the controversy given that decades of diggings in modern day Israel have yet to yield incontrovertible evidence such as Hebrew inscriptions that unambiguously refer to events, people, or places named in the Old Testament.

Nonetheless, in a twist of irony, Saudi Arabia launched Mr. Salibi on his linguistic exegesis with the government’s publication in 1977 of a comprehensive list of thousands of place names in the kingdom. The list sparked Mr. Salibi’s interest because he had found little material for the early period of a history of Arabia he had just published.

‘’I was simply searching for place-names of non-Arabic origin in west Arabia, when the evidence that the whole Bible land was here struck me in the face. Nearly all the biblical place-names were concentrated in an area about 600 km long by 200 km wide, comprising what are today Asir and the southern part of the Hijaz,’’ Mr. Salibi wrote.

The controversy over Mr. Salibi’s assertions has long died down. Lack of contact between Saudi Arabia and Israel which do not maintain diplomatic relations and the fact that the kingdom was and is hardly a tourist destination except for the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina ensured that research was all but impossible.

That however may be changing. Saudi Arabia, in an effort to diversify its energy-dependent economy and develop alternative sources of income is preparing to become a tourist destination, boasting its numerous historic sites.

Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are changing as both countries find common ground in their hostility towards Iran and need to confront jihadist groups like the Islamic State. A retired Saudi general last month led a delegation of academics and businessmen in a rare, if not first public visit to Israel in a bid to stimulate debate about a 14-year old Saudi plan for Israeli-Arab peace.

The thawing of informal ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a far cry away from a situation in which Saudi Arabia will lift its ban on Israelis traveling to the kingdom. Saudi Arabia already in the 1990s rewrote visa regulations that effectively prevented Jews from visiting the kingdom. The Saudi labour ministry included in 2014 Judaism for the first time as an acceptable religion for migrant or foreign workers in the kingdom.

Writing in The Times of Israel two weeks after retired General Anwar Eshki’s visit, journalist Jessica Steinberg noted that a vibrant Jewish community had populated 3,000 years ago areas that today belong to Saudi Arabia and that the cities of Medina, Khaybar and Taymar hosted large numbers of Jews in the 6th and 7th century. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, Spain, a medieval Jewish traveller, visited some of those communities during a 12th century trip to what is today Israel. Rabbi Benjamin’s writings offer a demography of the communities he encountered.

A dying generation of elderly Saudis of Yemeni origin who live in towns and cities along Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen still recall the days prior to the establishment of the State of Israel when Jews were part of their community.

Anticipating a day where Israelis might be able to visit Saudi Arabia, Ms. Steinberg offered a primer of five Jewish sites in the kingdom’s Khaybar valley and ancient city of Taymar that can be accessed virtually:

Khaybar, a date-growing valley and oasis with natural wells, that was home to a Jewish community and served as a stop on the incense trade route from Yemen to Syria and Lebanon. Although its 1,400-year-old cemetery is void of headstones, locals recall its Jewish history.

Khaybar Fortress, the 1,400-year-old Fortress of the Jews perched on a hill overlooking the oasis that was conquered by the Prophet Mohamed. His nephew and son-in-law, Ali, unlocked the gate of the fortress, letting the Prophet’s army enter and conquer it.

The Palace of the Jewish Tribe’s Head, also located in Khaybar, that was home to the Jewish tribe of Marhab famous for its gold and jewellery trade.

Tayma known as fortified Jewish city where travellers stopped at the oasis to visit the Al-Naslaa Rock Formation, one of the most photogenic petroglyphs, or rock art, depicting the life and times of ancient communities.

Bir Haddaj, a large well at the centre of Tayma that dates back to at least to the middle of the 6th century BCE. The well is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah as the place where the descendants of Ishmael’s son, Tema, lived: “Unto him that is thirsty bring ye water! The inhabitants of the land of Tema did meet the fugitive with his bread.”

Holding out the hope for closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Ms. Steinberg suggested that “the day may be drawing near” when “historical sites pertaining to the ancient Jewish experience” will be accessible.

As a result, Saudi tourism as much in the Middle East that is easily politicized could blow new life into the controversy over Mr. Salibi’s theory years after he passed away. Saudi fears notwithstanding, Israelis like their Saudi counterparts have no desire to rock the boat or even contemplate the theoretical possibility that that their forefathers may have made a mistake. Any argument that Israel might eye Saudi oil reserves is countered by the fact that Israel is becoming an oil producer in its own right.

Beyond the historical and academic value of settling the controversy sparked by Mr. Salibi, his theory offers rich material for the ultimate ‘what if’ book or great novel on the Middle East. Imagining ‘what if’ would unlikely lead to even more conflict in an already tortured region but could well offer new perspectives on how to resolve its multiple conflicts.

James M. Dorsey

Reproduced from:  http://en.reseauinternational.net/is-saudi-arabia-zion/

Ref: http://en.reseauinternational.net/is-saudi-arabia-zion/#ohJsiHlwzCAAQMZI.99

Is Saudi Arabia Zion?

Kamal Salibi, one of the Arab world’s foremost contemporary historians, kicked up a storm when he concluded in a 1985 linguistic exegesis that Judaism’s Zion was not located in Israel but in Saudi Arabia. Israelis, Jews, Saudis, Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians found common ground at the time to denounce Mr. Salibi in stark terms.

Israelis, Jews and evangelists charged that Mr. Salibi’s bombshell book, The Bible Came from Arabia, constituted an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish State and undermine its historic claim to modern day Israel. Israeli historians and rabbis denounced the theory as mythology, science fiction and nonsense.

Saudis, afraid that Israelis might take Mr. Salibi seriously and attempt to colonise the mountains of Sarawat, which the scholar believed was the Jordan valley referred to in the Bible, bulldozed dozens of villages which contained buildings or structures from Biblical antiquity. Abodes were turned into rubble in line with Wahhabi ideology that legitimized destruction of anything that could be construed as idol worship.

The Saudi effort made it more unlikely that archaeology would ever be able to resolve the controversy given that decades of diggings in modern day Israel have yet to yield incontrovertible evidence such as Hebrew inscriptions that unambiguously refer to events, people, or places named in the Old Testament.

Nonetheless, in a twist of irony, Saudi Arabia launched Mr. Salibi on his linguistic exegesis with the government’s publication in 1977 of a comprehensive list of thousands of place names in the kingdom. The list sparked Mr. Salibi’s interest because he had found little material for the early period of a history of Arabia he had just published.

‘’I was simply searching for place-names of non-Arabic origin in west Arabia, when the evidence that the whole Bible land was here struck me in the face. Nearly all the biblical place-names were concentrated in an area about 600 km long by 200 km wide, comprising what are today Asir and the southern part of the Hijaz,’’ Mr. Salibi wrote.

The controversy over Mr. Salibi’s assertions has long died down. Lack of contact between Saudi Arabia and Israel which do not maintain diplomatic relations and the fact that the kingdom was and is hardly a tourist destination except for the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina ensured that research was all but impossible.

That however may be changing. Saudi Arabia, in an effort to diversify its energy-dependent economy and develop alternative sources of income is preparing to become a tourist destination, boasting its numerous historic sites.

Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are changing as both countries find common ground in their hostility towards Iran and need to confront jihadist groups like the Islamic State. A retired Saudi general last month led a delegation of academics and businessmen in a rare, if not first public visit to Israel in a bid to stimulate debate about a 14-year old Saudi plan for Israeli-Arab peace.

The thawing of informal ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a far cry away from a situation in which Saudi Arabia will lift its ban on Israelis traveling to the kingdom. Saudi Arabia already in the 1990s rewrote visa regulations that effectively prevented Jews from visiting the kingdom. The Saudi labour ministry included in 2014 Judaism for the first time as an acceptable religion for migrant or foreign workers in the kingdom.

Writing in The Times of Israel two weeks after retired General Anwar Eshki’s visit, journalist Jessica Steinberg noted that a vibrant Jewish community had populated 3,000 years ago areas that today belong to Saudi Arabia and that the cities of Medina, Khaybar and Taymar hosted large numbers of Jews in the 6th and 7th century. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, Spain, a medieval Jewish traveller, visited some of those communities during a 12th century trip to what is today Israel. Rabbi Benjamin’s writings offer a demography of the communities he encountered.

A dying generation of elderly Saudis of Yemeni origin who live in towns and cities along Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen still recall the days prior to the establishment of the State of Israel when Jews were part of their community.

Anticipating a day where Israelis might be able to visit Saudi Arabia, Ms. Steinberg offered a primer of five Jewish sites in the kingdom’s Khaybar valley and ancient city of Taymar that can be accessed virtually:

Khaybar, a date-growing valley and oasis with natural wells, that was home to a Jewish community and served as a stop on the incense trade route from Yemen to Syria and Lebanon. Although its 1,400-year-old cemetery is void of headstones, locals recall its Jewish history.

Khaybar Fortress, the 1,400-year-old Fortress of the Jews perched on a hill overlooking the oasis that was conquered by the Prophet Mohamed. His nephew and son-in-law, Ali, unlocked the gate of the fortress, letting the Prophet’s army enter and conquer it.

The Palace of the Jewish Tribe’s Head, also located in Khaybar, that was home to the Jewish tribe of Marhab famous for its gold and jewellery trade.

Tayma known as fortified Jewish city where travellers stopped at the oasis to visit the Al-Naslaa Rock Formation, one of the most photogenic petroglyphs, or rock art, depicting the life and times of ancient communities.

Bir Haddaj, a large well at the centre of Tayma that dates back to at least to the middle of the 6th century BCE. The well is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah as the place where the descendants of Ishmael’s son, Tema, lived: “Unto him that is thirsty bring ye water! The inhabitants of the land of Tema did meet the fugitive with his bread.”

Holding out the hope for closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Ms. Steinberg suggested that “the day may be drawing near” when “historical sites pertaining to the ancient Jewish experience” will be accessible.

As a result, Saudi tourism as much in the Middle East that is easily politicized could blow new life into the controversy over Mr. Salibi’s theory years after he passed away. Saudi fears notwithstanding, Israelis like their Saudi counterparts have no desire to rock the boat or even contemplate the theoretical possibility that that their forefathers may have made a mistake. Any argument that Israel might eye Saudi oil reserves is countered by the fact that Israel is becoming an oil producer in its own right.

Beyond the historical and academic value of settling the controversy sparked by Mr. Salibi, his theory offers rich material for the ultimate ‘what if’ book or great novel on the Middle East. Imagining ‘what if’ would unlikely lead to even more conflict in an already tortured region but could well offer new perspectives on how to resolve its multiple conflicts.

James M. Dorsey

Reproduced from:  http://en.reseauinternational.net/is-saudi-arabia-zion/

Ref: http://en.reseauinternational.net/is-saudi-arabia-zion/#ohJsiHlwzCAAQMZI.99

Geography
Deserts, prayers and oil

The large Arabian peninsula, the homeland of Muhammad, the origin of Islam, is a country of inordinate geographical dimensions. It has an area of ​​2,250,000 km2. The 1,800 kilometers that separate its constituted by huge expanses of arid rocky and sandy land, without rivers or forests.

The territory is a succession of desolate and dry desert landscapes. In summer the temperature of the air can exceed 50 degrees and the soil gets so hot at noon that you could boil the water in the open air of the rocks exposed to the sun.

There are places in Arabia such as Rub'al Khali, with 600,000 km2, where pluviometers installed more than 50 years ago, have never registered a rain and the humidity of the air drops to less than 10%. But the Rub'al Khali is not the only sand desert, to the north is the Great Nafud, in the center of the peninsula, the Dahna, and to the east the dune fields of the Jafurah.

The rest of the country is also arid but its soils are stony or saline.

There is a mountainous area to the west that reaches more than 2,000 meters and is a little more humid (300 to 400 mm per year). It is a relief sloping gently to the east and abruptly steep to the west. From there come the great wadis that infiltrate or evaporate on the way to the east, and short and steep water courses to the west. Below the great escarpment is the tihama, a very hot and arid coastal plain. There are several important cities such as the port of Jeda and the religious city of Mecca. The region is called Hejaz.

In the wavy reliefs that descend to the east (Najd) the climate becomes more arid, desert areas interrupted by several oases. In one of them is the city of Riyadh, capital of the kingdom.

To the east, on the Gulf coast, are the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world. There are also several important cities, Damman, Hofuf, the ports of Jubayl and Ras Tanura, among others.

Adaptation to aridity conditions

Human beings have a great capacity to adapt to the most inhospitable environments, even in conditions of extreme dryness and excessive heat.

From this point of view, the people who inhabit the Arabian desert or Bedouin are an admirable example. They have managed to use the groundwater, developed crops that tolerate dryness, salinity and extreme heat, and selected domestic animals perfectly adapted to the difficult conditions of the desert.

The Bedouins have managed to survive, and even lead a prosperous and pleasant life, in a place that at first sight seems hostile and unwelcoming. Its existence takes place between the houses of the oasis villages, under the shade of date palms, where they plant some crops using irrigation, and the transhumant grazing of camels and goats that allow them to obtain milk and meat for their food. Life in the desert is inspiring. The hot sun and the midday heat force you to carry out work tasks early in the morning, or in the evening. The starry nights are clear and clear, allowing to decipher the stellar configurations even in their smallest details.

When the moon rises the desert lights up and conditions for social and religious life are given. The new moon indicates the beginning of a new month and the fourth the next termination. For this reason the lunar phases are so important in the calendar of the Arab peoples, and the image of the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam has been imposed. The crescent moon appears on national flags and shields, and even the "Red Cross" itself has adapted to become "the Red Crescent Moon" in all Muslim nations.

In the deserts of the Al Murrah

The Jafurah is a medium-sized coastal desert. Its sands occupy more than 40,000 km2 and have a low rainfall that does not exceed 100 mm per year. At its edges there are several cities of regular size, Damman, Al Hassa, Al Jubayl, Al Hofuf, Qatif, Dhahran and several smaller towns and oases.
The Al Murrah Bedouin of Saudi Arabia travel the margins of the great deserts Jafurah and Rub'al Khali raising herds of camels and flocks of goats, and trading their by-products.
The Rub'al Khali or "The Empty Quarter" is much larger. It is one of the most extensive sandy deserts in the world (around half a million square kilometers). The rainfall is practically nil and it is totally uninhabited.
If we add to the Rub'al Khali, the dune fields of the Jafurah and other bodies of wind arenas such as the narrow Dahna and the Nordic Great Nafud, the Arab deserts exceed 750,000 km2. The Al Murrah call them simply "al-Rimal" (the sands).
These Bedouins are one of the most traditional tribes of the Arabian peninsula. They move continuously from well to well and from oasis to oasis seeking the necessary water and the best pastures for their flocks. They are famous because they can follow traces at great distances, identifying the traces of a person or animal among many hundreds. Their testimonies experts in that matter are admitted in the Islamic courts of Saudi Arabia as valid probatory elements. The members of this singular Arab lineage move normally in small groups forming camps with 3 or 4 typical black carps. The size of the groups is determined by the extent of grazing areas available. In general, the water stocks in the desert are sufficient for the population of the nomadic herders but an appropriate distribution is required so as not to deplete local forage plants. The Al Murrah were studied by the American anthropologist Donald Cole in his well-known book " The Nomads of the Nomads "(Nomads of the nomads).
I had the opportunity to share a few days with Donald Cole in a motor home that the company we worked in at that time had installed in the middle of the desert about 10 or 15 kilometers from the city of Qal'at Bishah in the valleys of the Arab Assir.
Cole, who until recently (2011) was a professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt (and still teaches there), told me some of his experiences with the Al Murrah in the tours he had done with them some years before, which I found them of singular interest and they allowed me to understand this Bedouin tribe some years later. During my subsequent stay in the Eastern Province of Arabia I had several opportunities to visit or be with the Al Murrah in their extensive domains.
On one occasion, with my son Diego and some colleagues from the University of Petroleum and Minerals (today called King Fahd University) we traveled to the town of Yabrin, an oasis on the edge of the Jafurah desert with the Rub'al Khali, in full territory of the nomads. We arrived at Yabrin from Al Hofuf in two trucks after crossing about two hundred kilometers of desert with the intention of loading fuel.
Yabrin is a small town of scattered houses and orchards of date palms, which at that time housed some two or three hundred people. It served as a base for the Bedouin Al Murrah when they returned from their exits to the desert.
The gas station, located at the entrance to the town, was a box that was closed, with a gas tank that was at the top of a small rocky mound from which a hose was coming down.
We approached the town and when we saw a man walking we asked him how it was done to load gasoline.
He replied in Arabic: "We have to ask for permission from the Emir" and then he pointed to a building in the distance saying: "That is the Emir's house." When we arrived at the place we were met by a Bedouin wearing the typical tunic, a long beard and a kind of cutlass at the waist.
The man invited us to come and sit on some carpets that covered the floor of a larger construction. He then offered and served us the 'traditional qahwa96. In the same building there were other people in small groups talking, drinking 'qahwa or smoking shisha97 in the water pipes.
We waited a long time drinking the repeated wells of qahwa that man served us. After about two or three hours the emir appeared. He was a young man of no more than 25 years old, who sat down with us and asked us where we were going and warned us about the dangers of traveling in the Rub'al Khali. Finally, he authorized the loading of fuel and we were able to undertake the withdrawal.
On another occasion we went from Dhahran to the plains of Wadi Dawasir on the northern edge of Rub'al Khali where one of the main trade and grazing routes of the Al Murrah is located.
Wadi Dawasir is a gigantic ancient river that still sporadically forms with the flow of Wadis Ranyah, Tathlith and Bishah that descend from the mountains of the Hejaz and the Asir in western Arabia. These wadis flow once or twice a year and rarely reach their respective estuaries in the Wadi Dawasir. For that reason, and for all purposes, it can be said that Wadi Dawasir is a dry river. (keep going)
From "Chronicles of Human Peripecy", Danilo Antón Piriguazú Ediciones

'Worse than an oven': Saudi-funded camp won't be liveable soon

Yemenis fear they could suffocate due to intermittent electricity and soaring temperatures in new housing units.

Markazi refugee camp, Djibouti – He survived Saudi-led air raids, Houthi snipers and a perilous boat journey from Yemen to Djibouti. But for Ahmad Muhammed Ali, the next few months could be the toughest of his life.

For three years, he says he merely "existed" at one of the UN-funded tents in the Markazi refugee camp.

Surviving on meagre portions of food and routinely being stung by scorpions and bitten by snakes; he prayed for his family's circumstances to change.

The eldest of four children, Ali said it was his "duty" to look after his siblings and mother after their father passed away.

So, in November, when Saudi Arabia inaugurated 300 shipping-container style housing units, he thought his prayers had finally been answered.

A Ywmwni’s harrowing journey through the “ate of Tears”

In a ceremony marked with pomp and celebration, the Saudi and Djiboutian governments unveiled the units to accommodate around 1,200 Yemeni refugees

 at Markazi, along with a mosque, a school, and two medical centres.

Costing a reported $6.5m, less than the price of five Raytheon Tomahawk cruise missiles, Ali, like many of the camps residents rejoiced, hopeful that the project would generate more funding and development from the oil-rich kingdom.

But only three months in, temperatures inside Ali's unit are already exceeding 35 degrees, raising fears that intermittent supplies of electricity could make the steel units "worse than ovens," and potentially death traps.

"We get about four hours of electricity in the morning, and then another four hours in the evening," the 24-year-old told Al Jazeera, his brow dripping with sweat.

"The authorities switch off the power at around 1pm because of fears the generators might get hot and damaged.

"So we stay in indoors for about an hour after lunch, but once it gets really unbearable, we head outside. It's cooler outside than it is inside". 

Each air-conditioned residential unit includes a toilet, bedroom, living room and kitchen, along with cooking facilities [Faisal Edroos/Al Jazeera]

'I want to be resettled in Mexico or Brazil'

A tiny nation of around 800,000 people, Djibouti became a haven for Yemeni refugees in March 2015 after the country's civil war embroiled the region.

At the time, Saudi Arabia, alarmed that a Shia group with ties to Iran had taken over parts of their southern neighbour, intervened at the request of Yemen's President Abu-Rabby Manour Hadi

Expectations were high that a coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia, with all its military might, would crush the rag-tag alliance of Houthi fighters and army forces loyal to former President  Ali Abdullah Saleh within a matter of weeks.

Hyenas, wolver and disease “welcomñe” Yemenis fleeing war.

But after nearly four years of fighting, and an estimated 60,000 deaths, the coalition has failed to pave the way for the recapture of the capital Sanaa.

Instead, tens of thousands of Yemenis have fled on small rickety boats across the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, known as the Gate of Tears - a name derived from the long history of people perishing when trying to cross it.

At least 37,248 people have arrived in Djibouti, which sits just 32km from Yemen, with around 2,200 Yemenis currently registered at the Markazi camp.

For its part, the Djiboutian government has tried to welcome the Yemenis, introducing new laws making it easier for them to find work.

But with the unemployment rate hovering at around 45 percent, and few Yemenis speaking French, the local lingua franca, most have opted to either head to other countries or return home. 

With wind speeds as high as 60kph, this year's Khamsin dust storm coincides with the start of Ramadan [Faisal Edroos/Al Jazeera]

In an attempt to make the best of their situation, Ali said his mother sold all of her jewellery to start up a small business in their living room.

Sitting on a thin mattress in a bedroom that he shares with his younger brother, he signalled towards his mother Hayfa who was trying to sell cold drinks, cigarettes, and lollypops in their living room as the warm air carrying sand swept in through the door, lashing her face.

"She sacrificed everything to make our lives tolerable," he said, as his eyes drifted to a damaged TV playing a dance scene in Shah Rukh Khan's 2004 blockbuster Bollywood flick, Kal Hoh Naa Ho.

"She sold all her jewellery to start this shop and make it work. But I've had enough. I don't want to live here. "I want to be resettled in Mexico, Brazil or Canada. Somewhere where I'm free to do what I want. Or somewhere where it's cold".'Ramadan will be very bad'

Many of the residents told Al Jazeera they were dreading the summer months which are accompanied by the "khamsin", a ferociously hot sandstorm.

With temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius and wind speeds as high as 60kph, this year's dust storm coincides with the start of Ramadan, the daily fasting period that begins in May.

Refugees such as Ali will be hungry, hot and have little to do.

"When Ramadan comes it will be very bad," said Ali's mother Hayfa, as she served a customer two individual cigarettes.

"We started buying ice from the capital (two half hours away by boat), so God willing, the chocolates and cakes won't melt". The entire project cost a reported $6.5m, less than the price of five Raytheon Tomahawk cruise missiles [Faisal Edroos/Al Jazeera]

"We hope that there will be continuity and the people will stay in the units, and that there will be funding for electricity in the summer," Vanessa Panaligan, the UN's media relations officer in Djibouti told Al Jazeera. "But if the refugees head back to the tents they will have to contend with the Khamsin winds and the camps are not built to withstand that.

"The sand gets everywhere, so they should be better protected with the housing units against the hot winds, the sand and the elements".

Trying to keep a brave face, Hayfa said she hoped sustained media coverage would help shed a light on what was happening at the camp.

"I've spent a fortune starting this business, but for many reasons, I couldn't go forward. I was subject to harassment and people have tried to take advantage of me.

"I wanted to buy a house here, a car, to settle down with my children, But we can't because we're foreigners and refugees.

"Now, our only hope is that the war ends and some of the Arab countries take us in.

"We don't want to go to the West, we want our Arab and Muslim brothers to let us in."

by Faisal Edroos

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/oven-saudi-funded-camp-won-liveable-190301121224205.html

Deserts, prayers and oil

The great Arabian peninsula, the homeland of Muhammad, the origin of Islam, is a country of inordinate geographical dimensions. It has an area of ​​2,250,000 km2. The 1,800 kilometers that separate its constituted by huge expanses of arid rocky and sandy land, without rivers or forests.
The territory is a succession of desolate and dry desert landscapes. In summer the temperature of the air can exceed 50 degrees and the soil gets so hot at noon that you could boil the water in the open air of the rocks exposed to the sun.
There are places in Arabia such as Rub'al Khali, with 600,000 km2, where pluviometers installed more than 50 years ago, have never registered a rain and the humidity of the air drops to less than 10%. But the Rub'al Khali is not the only sand desert, to the north is the Great Nafud, in the center of the peninsula, the Dahna, and to the east the dune fields of the Jafurah.
The rest of the country is also arid but its soils are stony or saline.
There is a mountainous area to the west that reaches more than 2,000 meters and is a little more humid (300 to 400 mm per year). It is a relief sloping gently to the east and abruptly steep to the west. From there come the great wadis that infiltrate or evaporate on the way to the east, and short and steep water courses to the west. Below the great escarpment is the tihama, a very hot and arid coastal plain. There are several important cities such as the port of Jeda and the religious city of Mecca. The region is called Hejaz.
In the wavy reliefs that descend to the east (Najd) the climate becomes more arid, desert areas interrupted by several oases. In one of them is the city of Riyadh, capital of the kingdom.
To the east, on the Gulf coast, are the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world. There are also several important cities, Damman, Hofuf, the ports of Jubayl and Ras Tanura, among others.

Adaptation to aridity conditions
Human beings have a great capacity to adapt to the most inhospitable environments, even in conditions of extreme dryness and excessive heat.
From this point of view, the people who inhabit the Arabian desert or Bedouin are an admirable example. They have managed to use the groundwater, developed crops that tolerate dryness, salinity and extreme heat, and selected domestic animals perfectly adapted to the difficult conditions of the desert.
The Bedouins have managed to survive, and even lead a prosperous and pleasant life, in a place that at first sight seems hostile and unwelcoming. Its existence takes place between the houses of the oasis villages, under the shade of date palms, where they plant some crops using irrigation, and the transhumant grazing of camels and goats that allow them to obtain milk and meat for their food. Life in the desert is inspiring. The hot sun and the midday heat force you to carry out work tasks early in the morning, or in the evening. The starry nights are clear and clear, allowing to decipher the stellar configurations even in their smallest details.
When the moon rises the desert lights up and conditions for social and religious life are given. The new moon indicates the beginning of a new month and the fourth the next termination. For this reason the lunar phases are so important in the calendar of the Arab peoples, and the image of the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam has been imposed. The crescent moon appears on national flags and shields, and even the "Red Cross" itself has adapted to become "the Red Crescent Moon" in all Muslim nations.

Deserts, prayers and oil

The large Arabian peninsula, the homeland of Muhammad, the origin of Islam, is a country of inordinate geographical dimensions. It has an area of ​​2,250,000 km2. The 1,800 kilometers that separate its constituted by huge expanses of arid rocky and sandy land, without rivers or forests.

The territory is a succession of desolate and dry desert landscapes. In summer the temperature of the air can exceed 50 degrees and the soil gets so hot at noon that you could boil the water in the open air of the rocks exposed to the sun.

There are places in Arabia such as Rub'al Khali, with 600,000 km2, where pluviometers installed more than 50 years ago, have never registered a rain and the humidity of the air drops to less than 10%. But the Rub'al Khali is not the only sand desert, to the north is the Great Nafud, in the center of the peninsula, the Dahna, and to the east the dune fields of the Jafurah.

The rest of the country is also arid but its soils are stony or saline.

There is a mountainous area to the west that reaches more than 2,000 meters and is a little more humid (300 to 400 mm per year). It is a relief sloping gently to the east and abruptly steep to the west. From there come the great wadis that infiltrate or evaporate on the way to the east, and short and steep water courses to the west. Below the great escarpment is the tihama, a very hot and arid coastal plain. There are several important cities such as the port of Jeda and the religious city of Mecca. The region is called Hejaz.

In the wavy reliefs that descend to the east (Najd) the climate becomes more arid, desert areas interrupted by several oases. In one of them is the city of Riyadh, capital of the kingdom.

To the east, on the Gulf coast, are the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world. There are also several important cities, Damman, Hofuf, the ports of Jubayl and Ras Tanura, among others.

Adaptation to aridity conditions

Human beings have a great capacity to adapt to the most inhospitable environments, even in conditions of extreme dryness and excessive heat.

From this point of view, the people who inhabit the Arabian desert or Bedouin are an admirable example. They have managed to use the groundwater, developed crops that tolerate dryness, salinity and extreme heat, and selected domestic animals perfectly adapted to the difficult conditions of the desert.

The Bedouins have managed to survive, and even lead a prosperous and pleasant life, in a place that at first sight seems hostile and unwelcoming. Its existence takes place between the houses of the oasis villages, under the shade of date palms, where they plant some crops using irrigation, and the transhumant grazing of camels and goats that allow them to obtain milk and meat for their food. Life in the desert is inspiring. The hot sun and the midday heat force you to carry out work tasks early in the morning, or in the evening. The starry nights are clear and clear, allowing to decipher the stellar configurations even in their smallest details.

When the moon rises the desert lights up and conditions for social and religious life are given. The new moon indicates the beginning of a new month and the fourth the next termination. For this reason the lunar phases are so important in the calendar of the Arab peoples, and the image of the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam has been imposed. The crescent moon appears on national flags and shields, and even the "Red Cross" itself has adapted to become "the Red Crescent Moon" in all Muslim nations.

Who is more respectful of Christmas celebrations? Iran and Syria, or Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Christmas is a time of goodwill to all men. Or at least it should be. But while the West’s Middle East ‘bad guys’ Iran and Syria, showed the Yuletide spirit (period of several days around and including Christmas day), its closest allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, failed to do so.
Iran is demonized by Western neocons and we’re meant to see the country as an evil, ‘monster‘ regime of foaming-at-the-mouth religious fanatics who hate everyone.

So it goes against the dominant narrative somewhat that Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted a Christmas message and wished ‘peace and joy to all in 2019’, on Christmas Eve.

From Javad Zarif:

The angels said, "Mary, God gives you good tidings of a Word from Him whose name is Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary; high honored shall he be in this world and the next, near stationed to God. (QURAN 2:45)
May the blessings of the birth of Jesus usher peace and joy to all in 2019.

It also goes against the narrative, that Zarif, back in September, wished Jews, in Iran and across the world, “a very Happy New Year filled with peace and harmony.”

He also wished well to all Jews worldwide:

Iran's Zarif wishes 'happy Rosh Hashana' to Jews worldwide http://dlvr.it/QkLdKd 

We’re told repeatedly that the Iranian ‘regime’ is ‘anti-Semitic’, but do ‘anti-Semites’ wish Jews a happy ‘Rosh Hashanah’? If so, it's a rather strange definition.

The Iranian Foreign Minister also tweeted on December 26 a message of goodwill to Iran’s Zoroastrian community.

In fact, despite the large number of Christians from other countries who work in the country, including many Britons, the holding of any Christmas-related services or commemorations in Saudi Arabia is strictly banned. “The Christmas season – often a season where Christians around the world are most visible – is a tense time for Christians in Saudi Arabia, who have to celebrate the holiday in secret, risking arrest and deportation,” said Jeff King, President of the International Christian Concern, in 2016.

Imagine being a Christian and not being able to openly celebrate the birth of Christ. It happens in Saudi Arabia, yet Western leaders, so keen to lecture others about ‘human rights’ and ‘religious freedom’ stay silent, preferring to pick on Iran – where Christmas can be openly celebrated.

Syria is another country ‘monstered’ by the endless war lobby but where, against all the odds, the Christmas spirit is still maintained. Big seasonal celebrations were held this year in Aleppo and Damascus. Remember Aleppo?

It was recaptured by the Syrian Arab Army from Islamist ‘rebels’ two years ago this month, and the neocon/’liberal interventionist’ commentariat, and most of the political class portrayed it as a most terrible thing. Ian Austin MP said that people in Aleppo faced ‘slaughter’.

John Woodcock MP called the Morning Star newspaper ‘traitorous scum’ for referring to the recapture of Aleppo by Syrian forces of their own territory, as a ‘liberation’. But if you look at the pictures of Christians celebrating Christmas there once again, which they were forbidden to do under the western-backed head-chopping ’rebels’ you can see that the ‘L’ word was indeed appropriate.

Author: Neil Clark
Reference:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/447671-christmas-iran-syria-israel-saudis/

The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia (2) 

According to the most accepted hypothesis, oil in the Ghawar oil field, which produces 5 to 6 million barrels per day, comes from Jurassic calcareous siltstones, which were deposited in inner shield bassins.
 It is important to note that given the immense and sustained production volumes (for more than 70 years)  we should begin to consider their origin from deeper, non-biogenic levels.
The upper seal of the deposit is constituted by anhydrites and it is favored by the general absence of faults in the Jurassic section.
In short, if the biogenic origin is accepted, there would be a rock Jurassic oil source (Hanifa formation) covered by the powerful and porous Arab-D reservoir and an upper anhydritic seal. That is, a great structure with an appropriate thermal and dynamic history.
The abundant production of the deposit was favored through of the injection of water that was started in 1965. The volumes of seawater injected have reached 7 million barrels per day. Apparently, this gas would come from siluric shales (if the biogenic origin is accepted). We should also begin to take into account the possibility of a deeper non-biogenic origin.
The Khuff Perm calcareous reservoirs are the main gas producing areas at depths of 3,000 to 4,000 meters.
In short, it is a sedimentary sequence of several thousand meters with excellent storage conditions for hydrocarbons and a geological source that has supplied huge volumes of liquid hydrocarbons and natural gas from deeper levels. It is assumed that these levels are sedimentary and organic, but should not be excluded, following the theory of Thomas Gold, given the huge amount of accumulated hydrocarbons and their sustained production for a long time, that they may come from a much deeper non-biological origin.

The largest oil field in the world

The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia is the largest oil field in the world.
It was discovered in 1937 and is located about 100 kilometers from the city of Dhahran, in the Eastern Province of that country. It occupies an area of ​​8,400 square kilometers (280
kilometers long by 30 wide).
Currently, this field is capable of producing between 4.5 and 5 million barrels of oil per day, which represents 6% of world production and 65% of Saudi production. It also produces about 2,000 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Since its production began in 1951 about 60,000 million barrels have been extracted. According to Saudi oil company Aramco, owner of Ghawar, it is still the largest oil field in the world. Although its production level is reduced by 2% and 8% each year, there are still some recoverable reserves of just over 70,000 million barrels.
Geology
The Ghawar oil field is made up of an anticlinal structure (convex fold) that is expressed on the surface by outcrop of tertiary rocks (relatively more modern). To the north, this structure comprises two anticlines (convex folds) parallel with a small depression between them.
The Ghawar anticline is supported on a horst (raised block) of the crystalline basement that initially ascended during the Carboniferous period (300 million years ago) and was reactivated, episodically, especially during the Late Cretaceous (100 million years). The Paleozoic section (ancient, at the base) was significantly eroded by the Hercynian discordance (ie the erosion that occurred about 280 to 250 million years ago).
The structure is asymmetrical, steeper to the west and becomes more complex in depth, where several horst (raised blocks) are found in the form of a staircase.
The main reservoir of Ghawar are the Jurassic limestones (160-180 million years) that are somewhat less than 100 meters thick and are 2,000-2,300 meters below the surface.
The deposition of calcareous rocks included grainy (marine) reefs in the north, improving the quality of the reservoir, which also improves upwards as it evolves from a relatively massive calcareous siltstone to a granular oolitic oolitic limestone (the oolites are micro-concretions spherical). Fracture density increases with depth increasing the permeability of fine-grained siltstones.
To be continued

Is Western Arabia Zion?

Kamal Salibi, one of the Arab world’s foremost contemporary historians, kicked up a storm when he concluded in a 1985 linguistic exegesis that Judaism’s Zion was not located in Israel but in Saudi Arabia. Israelis, Jews, Saudis, Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians found common ground at the time to denounce Mr. Salibi in stark terms.

Israelis, Jews and evangelists charged that Mr. Salibi’s bombshell book, The Bible Came from Arabia, constituted an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish State and undermine its historic claim to modern day Israel. Israeli historians and rabbis denounced the theory as mythology, science fiction and nonsense.

Saudis, afraid that Israelis might take Mr. Salibi seriously and attempt to colonise the mountains of Sarawat, which the scholar believed was the Jordan valley referred to in the Bible, bulldozed dozens of villages which contained buildings or structures from Biblical antiquity. Abodes were turned into rubble in line with Wahhabi ideology that legitimized destruction of anything that could be construed as idol worship.

The Saudi effort made it more unlikely that archaeology would ever be able to resolve the controversy given that decades of diggings in modern day Israel have yet to yield incontrovertible evidence such as Hebrew inscriptions that unambiguously refer to events, people, or places named in the Old Testament.

Nonetheless, in a twist of irony, Saudi Arabia launched Mr. Salibi on his linguistic exegesis with the government’s publication in 1977 of a comprehensive list of thousands of place names in the kingdom. The list sparked Mr. Salibi’s interest because he had found little material for the early period of a history of Arabia he had just published.

‘’I was simply searching for place-names of non-Arabic origin in west Arabia, when the evidence that the whole Bible land was here struck me in the face. Nearly all the biblical place-names were concentrated in an area about 600 km long by 200 km wide, comprising what are today Asir and the southern part of the Hijaz,’’ Mr. Salibi wrote.

The controversy over Mr. Salibi’s assertions has long died down. Lack of contact between Saudi Arabia and Israel which do not maintain diplomatic relations and the fact that the kingdom was and is hardly a tourist destination except for the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina ensured that research was all but impossible.

That however may be changing. Saudi Arabia, in an effort to diversify its energy-dependent economy and develop alternative sources of income is preparing to become a tourist destination, boasting its numerous historic sites.

Relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are changing as both countries find common ground in their hostility towards Iran and need to confront jihadist groups like the Islamic State. A retired Saudi general last month led a delegation of academics and businessmen in a rare, if not first public visit to Israel in a bid to stimulate debate about a 14-year old Saudi plan for Israeli-Arab peace.

The thawing of informal ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a far cry away from a situation in which Saudi Arabia will lift its ban on Israelis traveling to the kingdom. Saudi Arabia already in the 1990s rewrote visa regulations that effectively prevented Jews from visiting the kingdom. The Saudi labour ministry included in 2014 Judaism for the first time as an acceptable religion for migrant or foreign workers in the kingdom.

Writing in The Times of Israel two weeks after retired General Anwar Eshki’s visit, journalist Jessica Steinberg noted that a vibrant Jewish community had populated 3,000 years ago areas that today belong to Saudi Arabia and that the cities of Medina, Khaybar and Taymar hosted large numbers of Jews in the 6th and 7th century. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, Spain, a medieval Jewish traveller, visited some of those communities during a 12th century trip to what is today Israel. Rabbi Benjamin’s writings offer a demography of the communities he encountered.

A dying generation of elderly Saudis of Yemeni origin who live in towns and cities along Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen still recall the days prior to the establishment of the State of Israel when Jews were part of their community.

Anticipating a day where Israelis might be able to visit Saudi Arabia, Ms. Steinberg offered a primer of five Jewish sites in the kingdom’s Khaybar valley and ancient city of Taymar that can be accessed virtually:

Khaybar, a date-growing valley and oasis with natural wells, that was home to a Jewish community and served as a stop on the incense trade route from Yemen to Syria and Lebanon. Although its 1,400-year-old cemetery is void of headstones, locals recall its Jewish history.

Khaybar Fortress, the 1,400-year-old Fortress of the Jews perched on a hill overlooking the oasis that was conquered by the Prophet Mohamed. His nephew and son-in-law, Ali, unlocked the gate of the fortress, letting the Prophet’s army enter and conquer it.

The Palace of the Jewish Tribe’s Head, also located in Khaybar, that was home to the Jewish tribe of Marhab famous for its gold and jewellery trade.

Tayma known as fortified Jewish city where travellers stopped at the oasis to visit the Al-Naslaa Rock Formation, one of the most photogenic petroglyphs, or rock art, depicting the life and times of ancient communities.

Bir Haddaj, a large well at the centre of Tayma that dates back to at least to the middle of the 6th century BCE. The well is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah as the place where the descendants of Ishmael’s son, Tema, lived: “Unto him that is thirsty bring ye water! The inhabitants of the land of Tema did meet the fugitive with his bread.”

Holding out the hope for closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Ms. Steinberg suggested that “the day may be drawing near” when “historical sites pertaining to the ancient Jewish experience” will be accessible.

As a result, Saudi tourism as much in the Middle East that is easily politicized could blow new life into the controversy over Mr. Salibi’s theory years after he passed away. Saudi fears notwithstanding, Israelis like their Saudi counterparts have no desire to rock the boat or even contemplate the theoretical possibility that that their forefathers may have made a mistake. Any argument that Israel might eye Saudi oil reserves is countered by the fact that Israel is becoming an oil producer in its own right.

Beyond the historical and academic value of settling the controversy sparked by Mr. Salibi, his theory offers rich material for the ultimate ‘what if’ book or great novel on the Middle East. Imagining ‘what if’ would unlikely lead to even more conflict in an already tortured region but could well offer new perspectives on how to resolve its multiple conflicts.

James M. Dorsey

Reproduced from:  http://en.reseauinternational.net/is-saudi-arabia-zion/

Ref: http://en.reseauinternational.net/is-saudi-arabia-zion/#ohJsiHlwzCAAQMZI.99