In a televised speech on the occasion of the first day of the Shi’ite religious celebration of Ashoura, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah devoted an important part of his TV appearance to the Gaza crisis and urged Arab states to exert pressure on Israel and its western allies by either limiting oil exports or by increasing prices. Economic fallout would as a result force the US and Israel to stop the aggression on Gaza.
Ever since the 1970s and both oil crises, resorting to oil as a “weapon” and means to exert pressure on the West has been on the agenda and part of the rhetoric of a large segment of Arab nationalists and resistance groups, who lacked, however, the means to impose their views, given the close collaboration between the western camp, and the US in particular, and the oil-rich Arab gulf monarchies. A collaboration based on a trade-off: The US would ensure security and stability and Arab gulf monarchies would secure energy supplies.
When Nasrallah talks about resorting to oil again to exert pressure, one cannot but consider the probability of applying such a scenario a few years from now, when (and if) Lebanon becomes an exporting country… Unless oil and gas are, once again, exchanged for security and stability.