The reason for the start of the Yom Kipper war stems from the third Arab Israeli war known as the six-day war of 1963, which Egypt lost the territory of Gaza, Jordan lost west Jerusalem, and Syria ended up surrendering over Golan Heights. In 1967 after the six-day war tension between the countries and Israel’s size had doubled. The war ended on the sixth day by a United Nations-brokered ceasefire on June 10th, 1967. Fast forward to 1970 and Anwar el-Sadat is the new president of Egypt during an economical trough due to continuing conflicts against Israel. President Anwar Sadat surprisingly wanted peace with Israel and said “Let there be no more war or bloodshed between Arabs and Israelis. Let there be no more suffering or denial of rights. …show more content…
President Sadat then went on the offensive by partnering with Syria while being backed by the Soviet Union and launched an attack on October 6, 1973, on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kipper. The surprise attack on Israel allowed Egypt to make impressive advances, but after several days Israel fully mobilized their army with the U.S backing Israel against the Arab coalition. The Israeli Defense Force used impressive military strategy by attacking the weaker of the two which was Syria. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers (Quandt, 2005). On October 17, 1973, the Arab coalition (mainly Saudi Arabia) tried to keep the U.S at bay by decreasing oil production by 5% per month. Our president at the time was Richard Nixon and in response to the decrease in oil productions, he gave the presidential stamp of approval to send Israel weapons and 2.2 billion in appropriations. Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting nations respond by declaring an embargo against the United States. A few days later October 22 the proxy war between Israel and Egypt reached a cease-fire brokered by the United Nations …show more content…
There are five founding members which are Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. OPEC's states its purpose “is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its member countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets, to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers, and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry (OPEC)". Before OPEC became this massive monopoly in the oil market it was originally a bargaining unit for third world countries. According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, “OPEC produces about 40 percent of the worlds crude oil and OPEC's oil exports represent about 60 percent of the total petroleum trades internationally”. OPEC has received a bad reputation for being an evil oil cartel whose only concern is economic dominance. If you observe Appendix 1 it will give you a sense of their economic stake in the oil market and why we do not want to be on their bad side because highly industrialized economies rely on crude oil to keep their economy