Jordan, Egypt, the Abbas regime in Ramallah -- and apparently Saudi Arabia -- have been acting atrociously during the current unpleasantness, acting essentially as clients of Israel and the United States, something that hasn't gone unnoticed on the so-called Arab "street." Protests in Amman have been non-stop and they have been brutally put down, much like some of the protests in Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank.

Ever since 1948 when the Palestinians became refugees, nobody has wanted them. None of the neighboring Arab states anyway. In fact, the only reason the PLO ended up in Lebanon back in the late '70's/early '80's was because it was a weak state that couldn't kick them out the way the other Arab states could.

Interestingly, the Shiite population of southern Lebanon wanted the PLO out, because they became caught in the middle of the PLO/Israeli conflict. When Israel invaded in '82, the Lebanese Shiites actually supported the Israeli invasion in the hope of kicking out the despised PLO.

But the Israelis turned a natural ally into an enemy by oppressing the sourthern Lebanese Shiites, killing many civilians and causing many of them to flee north to Beirut. This was the genesis of Hezbollah, and another example of how Israeli violence backfired by creating a new enemy and worsening and perpetuating the regions problems.

I just do not see a peace agreement in my lifetime. The only way this issues gets resolved is when all parties realize the full force of Gandhi's adage-- ``An eye for an eye turns the whole world blind.'' That or 3 visionary leaders emerge-one in US, one in Israel and one in Palestine all at the same time. I think the odds are stacked in favor of Gandhi's wisdom..

You never know, of course, but the odds of a lasting peace are, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, slim and none, and Slim is out of town.

As I keep repeating, this conflict is driven fundamentally by competition for water and land. And this competition is only going to grow more intense as the regions population continues to increase, and Israel's economy tries to grow.

OK, so now we need to add fuel and electricity to the resource competition that is "fueling" the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Bryce is an interesting character. He writes a lot about oil and gas issues. It was a good article, although to be honest I didn't find it particularly interesting or surprising.

Just FYI, anyone who reads Bryce needs to be a bit careful. I've read excerpts from his book, "Gusher of Lies", which were excellent. His critique of ideas that proposed alternative energy sources can replace our need to rely on fossil fuels for our energy needs is excellent.

However, I've read other essays/articles of his, and he is ambivalent about climate change and the idea that fossil fuel supplies will peak in the near future. He actually seems to think we should further exploit fossil fuels in the future, which is a very dangerous idea. So reader beware.

Here is a recent example of what I'm talking about with Bryce:

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1224

He says, accurately, that coal provides such a large amount of energy that it will be nearly impossible to replace it with other sources (renewable or not). His question is, "if not coal, then what?"

The right answer, which you won't hear from Bryce, is reduced energy consumption. If we continue to burn coal, we will cook the planet, and it's going to run out soon enough anyway.

This is a dimension that I think few Americans grasp when they talk about the Israeli lobby or Jewish lobby [or as Steele does, the Jewish owned media]. I don't know enough about this to be an expert, but it seems to me that one of the lobbies at the Israel trough would be the military industrial complex [and in this case, oil companies] because of the FMF type grants. Think about this; this is for all intents and purposes a subsidy to these industries. The money is given to Israel and THEY MUST use it to buy US goods and services. This is several billion dollars a year of commerce going on [and I'm sure the transactions are rarely at market rates]. Again, I don't know enough about this to say with any expertise, but I do hope it does get more attention in the future.

Without disagreeing with what you said, this strikes me as unremarkable. It has been well known for a long time that the US gives a great deal of military and financial help to Israel, and this is just one more example, a detail really. It is interesting enough, I suppose, but I don't find that this information advances understanding of the situation.

That's up to you, of course. I really doubt that when Americans think of the 2.5 billion they give Israel [when they think of it at all] realize that all the money must be spent on US goods and services. In any case, the idea that the beneficiaries of that subsidy are involved in influencing US policy on Israel is something I rarely see in analysis of the issue, even at this level.

Ok, fair enough. I doubt the average American understands these issues either, and I am speaking for myself.

However, I'd guess most folks participating in Glenn's comment section are, at the very least, aware of the aid the US gives to Israel. The level of discourse here is way above average, it seems to me (ignoring for a moment a few right wing nut cases).

Regarding the notion that such aid must be spent on US goods and services, this is pretty standard too. A lot of US foreign aid (maybe most) meets that description. For example, grain subsidies have to be used to purchase US grain, etc. That aspect is not unique to the aid given to Israel.