Third World payback for support of the Arab cause

By Ed Lasky

The UN's Durban II Conference, all those votes in the United Nations, all those nations that have severed diplomatic relations with Israel. What does this alliance with extremist Arab nations gain them-besides a vicarious feeling of striking a blow against a small, vulnerable nation seen as a Western outpost?

While Israel sends out health crews around the world, has advanced the ability of the Third World to feed themselves via the revolutionary drip irrigation systems developed by Israel and other agronomic wonders, the Arab world strips the Third World of what little wealth it has. Of course, the Arab world gives a pittance-if that- to nations in Africa and Asia devastated by the rise in the price of oil engineered by the Arab-driven oil cartel.

Martin Peretz writes:

Saturday's FT pointed out in a story from London by Ed Crooks and William Wallis, "Africa aid (has been) wiped out by rising cost of oil." The International Energy Agency has shown that "the rising cost of oil has wiped out the benefits many African countries were expecting from western aid and debt relief..." There are dreadful corollaries to the rising fuel prices, including higher food prices, decline in the use of diesel-powered generation and just plain domestic violence.