Myth Breakers
1973 Oil Embargo
In 1973, Egypt went to war against Israel in order to win back the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had stolen six years earlier in Israel's infamous pre-emptive Six Day War in 1967 against her neighboring countries.
In that pre-emptive 1967 war, Israel not only stole the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, but also part of southern Lebanon, which Israel has since relinquished and the Golan Heights from Syria, which is still being occupied to this day by Israeli forces, as well as The Palestinian Territories: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, now generally referred to as The Occupied Territories. Pro-Israel forces generally prefer to refer to the Occupied Territories as the disputed territories.
Egypt appeared to be winning its retaliatory war against Israel in 1973, so Golda Meir, the American-Israeli Prime Minister of Israel at the time, worked with American-Israeli Henry Kissinger to pressure the US government to come to Israel's rescue, which it did.
Therefore in a show of solidarity with Egypt, the Arab countries of OPEC tightened their spigots of gas and oil for export to the U.S.
This is the real reason for the 1973 Oil Embargo. But the pro-Israel US media does not want Americans to realize that support for Israel has many negative effects on the lives of Americans, which includes potential politically induced oil crises, such as was obviously the case in 1973.
Pro-Israel forces in the U.S. and around the world want to minimize the power of Arab countries which is mostly due to their oil resources. Therefore, the pro-Israel forces are relying on the US government to directly control these resources primarily for Israel via wars, campaign contributions, and a manipulative media. Pro-Israel people detest going to the gas station, because every time they pump gas into their cars, they angrily believe they are helping Arab Muslims whose land and resources Zionists view somehow as rightfully theirs. But, of course, they don't want the non-Zionist or unaware-of-it-all Americans to resent their US government's support for Israel which can possibly mean paying more for gas in a future politically induced oil crisis, as it did in 1973. Provided by Wendy Campbell on October 4, 2004 through the auspices of RePorterNoteBook@aol.com