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Because the arrest is so spectacular and sounds so much like 9/11, we greet it with skepticism. It has to be admitted that attacks on Saudi oil fields could have conflicting motivations behind them.
Some patriotic Arab organizations may want to punish the Saudi rulers or raise the price of fuel to the West by preventing Saudi oil shipments. On the other hand, it is not easy to divine the intentions of Saudi officials themselves. The price of oil went up from the arrests, 52 cents a barrel.(1)
All talk of Arab terrorism or Mideast wars raises the price of oil as bid by speculators. Then we have to look at who benefits. Saudi Arabia has the largest exports, so it benefits the most. Russia is the second-greatest energy exporter, so it gains the second-most. Then again, the u.$. dealers make the most retail profits on oil, so they also benefit, perhaps the most. The picture--under capitalism there are powerful forces with an interest in oil wars--and we are in quite a tough situation as a species right now.
It could be worthwhile to the Saudis to get in good U.$. graces to stage an arrest like this. A member of a U.$. spy agency NSA (National Security Agency) John Perkins has recounted how death threats and procurement of females cemented Saudi ruling ties to the united $tates in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Even if terrorists did blow up some oil platforms some day, the oil underneath the equipment would only go up in value.
The trouble with attacks on Saudi oil fields is that so many aggressive groups benefit. Any large group of oil speculators could benefit; the Bush administration seeking to benefit from a boost in public opinion could benefit; Amerikkkans trying to scare Arab countries could benefit; Russia benefits and even I$rael could be suspect as trying to undercut Saudi funding. The problem is that under capitalism, anyone with oil reserves benefits from the perception of a terrorist threat to Saudi Arabia, because that drives up the price of oil in the market. The only solution is to get rid of capitalism so that relations among countries can be simplified somewhat, and suspect motivations for war and terrorism are gone. When people get serious about ending war and terrorism, they will come to the MIM line.
Ironically, Russia benefits both from Zionism and Arab terrorism. The further the Mideast war goes along, the further the state treasury in Russia goes up. Unlike the Saudis, Russian imperialism also benefits from exporting weapons to the Mideast; although this is currently a small sum compared with oil and gas exports influenced by Mideast events.
To the traditional right-wing extremists of Russia, we say Russia is plotting to prop up Zionism, not the other way around the way some say Zionists are running Russia. True, today Russian Jews take profits of billions from the oil business, but if so, they did not before privatization. In other words, Russian Jews cannot be seen as the origin of I$rael and today Jewish oil capitalists in Russia also reap spectacular benefit from Arab terrorism and wars against Iran, Iraq etc. In other words, the class interests of Russian Jews are not the same as Jews in I$rael or even the United $tates. The Russian state also reaps record profits from the expanding oil trade. Both the Russian state and Russian Jews would gain record profits if I$rael went berserk and ended up getting itself wiped out in a Mideast war.
The I$raeli GDP is $140.3 billion a year. That is the total income of all 6 million people in the Zionist entity.(2)
Meanwhile, Russian exports of oil vary in value per year depending on price per barrel and quantity. Estimated exports of Russian oil alone are for 7 million barrels a day according to the U.S. Government.(3)
In the first two months of 2007, the value of Russia's oil exports alone was $14.5 billion. At an annual rate, that is $87 billion. However, oil exports are only half the value of Russia's energy exports,(4) because Russia also exports natural gas. In other words, in 2007 we expect Russian energy exports to be $170 billion, more than the entire economy of I$rael.
The international proletariat has a problem Marx called false consciousness when it comes to the Jews. Anti-Semitism is often called the "socialism of fools," because the most depoliticized people do notice the distinctness of Jews as a group, but have a hard time grasping the concept of "bourgeoisie."
The I$raeli economy puts its members in the international bourgeoisie, along with the populations of the imperialist countries such as the United $tates, England, France, Germany and Italy. Too often the international proletariat suffers economically with an inaccurate understanding of the class structure. The Jews are not the only carriers of the bourgeoisie. All the Jews of I$rael do not carry out more business in a year than the Russian energy exports. We have to understand that Zionists are well-off, but also only significant up to a point on a global scale.
To really understand exploitation and injustice, whatever the exploited and oppressed think about Jews has to be extended 50-fold to the far more numerous Amerikkkans. For that matter, by itself, Saudi Arabia had more exports (not counting domestic business) than I$rael had total business in 2006.(5) So anyone saying I$rael is humiliating Saudi Arabia and the other rich Arab states is talking bullshit: the humiliation of states that are so economically powerful at least on the surface can only occur at the hands of U.$. imperialism. In a strict conflict of "lobbies," Saudi Arabia could easily beat I$rael by itself. Saudi Arabia does not outlobby I$rael, because the world does not really work that way, the way proposed by bourgeois pluralist theorists. Stalin and Molotov understood from the beginning that I$rael is really an outpost of U.$. imperialism. War, death threats, sex etc. play the greater role and rational explanation only to the extent that it rallies a group with a self-interest. The flabby Arab bourgeoisie and its CIA masters took up pluralist theory and talk about an I$raeli lobby in order to tame the upsurge of Arab people. It's a way of saying the problem is only a few million people in I$rael, not the united $tates itself.
Anti-Amerikkkanism in a word is the international proletariat's strategy. Even when we take up anti-Amerikkkanism, we should not forget we are only targeting the dominant plurality of the international bourgeoisie, not the majority of the exploiters of the world. Even moreso, anti-Zionism is only a tiny fraction of the significance of anti-Amerikkkanism in the global class struggle. Those in denial of this point are seeking to let the vast majority of oppressors and exploiters off the hook.
Notes:
1. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1717579.ece
2. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html
3. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Russia/Oil.html
4. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/04/21/2538496.htm
5. Saudi exports were $204.5 billion in 2006.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/sa.html