The British realized very quickly that out there, in the Middle East, in what was called the Gulf, around two-thirds of the world’s oil lay buried beneath the desert. And they did not only understand this fact. In the lands they conquered, they also constructed oil pipelines connecting Iraq and the Gulf to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, to Haifa and Beirut. There, they built refineries—factories that caused pollution, so when the oil reached English shores, it would already be refined and pure, and there would be no need to pollute the coasts of Britain or Europe.
Another important thing the British realized at this point was that controlling the oil would give them control of the European economy, if not the entire global economy.
The Engineer sighed before continuing to tell Leila, in a tone of utter despair, that while this process was taking place in the Middle East, American society was developing the revolutionary idea of uniting a large number of countries into an economic power. Its economy would include all faiths, religions, nations, and many different countries.
According to The Engineer, this process led to a capitalistic approach, through which stabilizing one’s personal economy was the best, most correct path toward creating the economy of a federation of nations. In this way, in actual fact, a situation was created in which one group owned seventy percent of America’s wealth, which was known as the relationship between wealth and power. This ruling group understood it raised presidents and also brought them down and governed through the media, by means of its wealth and networks. These powerful networks included the CIA, whose role was to monitor and take care of the interests of the group that controls the wealth in the United States and the entire world.
The Engineer let his words sink into the mind of Leila, who was listening to him very attentively. The two of them developed a relationship of complete trust.
“The Americans have their own oil,” The Engineer continued. “In percentages, it is no less plentiful than the rest of the world’s oil, but the group understood this oil would run out one day, and the best, most effective way to preserve it was to hold onto it and keep it underground as a future reserve. Therefore, they started taking control of the world’s oil and using it so they could keep their reserves for their own use in the distant future.”
Leila interrupted him for a moment and mentioned the television series Dallas, which she used to watch when she was a little girl on a pirate cable connection.
“That’s it, exactly,” The Engineer smiled. “Underneath all the romances, it was clear to me the national mission of this rich family with its oilfields was to go out and take control of the world’s oil.”
Leila sighed, as if she already understood where The Engineer’s thoughts were leading. However, he continued along the same line and claimed this theory proved the claim that behind every war, there was an economic interest. To understand the motives for a war, you needed to investigate which economy profited afterward, and how, and from there you could reach a conclusion about the causes of that particular war.
Just before Leila closed her eyes for an afternoon nap, The Engineer reminded her of the well-known Roman saying divide and rule. In other words, create war between your opponents so you can take control unhindered!
After the doctors’ afternoon visit and an early supper, two nurses came to bathe the young woman. Leila refused and said she could manage on her own. In the late evening, when all activity in the hospital corridors had ceased, Leila told The Engineer about the clan she had grown up among. The light in the room was dim, and the fall winds were blowing outside. The two of them spoke in hushed tones, heads together, increasing the atmosphere of intimacy.
“You should bathe me!” Leila suddenly said in a quiet, soft voice. Surprised, The Engineer fell silent, but he did not have the strength to resist her. He also found no reason to do so. He approached the basin, where the sponge and pale blue soap were lying, and he filled it with hot water from the sink in the corner of the room. In the meantime, Leila removed her blanket, pulled up her hospital gown, and lay naked on the yellow sheets decorated with the hospital logo.
The Engineer stood in front of Leila’s bed, holding the bowl, and he breathed heavily and excitedly. Leila also breathed heavily, and each one remained still for a brief moment, breathing, feeling a little apprehensive and emotional.
Then The Engineer hesitantly lifted the sponge, squeezed out the excess liquid, and began passing it across the young woman’s beautiful face. He slowly moved the sponge over her face and then down to her neck, and behind her ears, while his fingertips touched her glowing skin. Their breathing became more and more rapid, and a slight tremor passed through their bodies.
The sponge moved down toward Leila’s chest, touched her taut breasts, and her nipples seemed to want to jump out of their skin and spring upward. The sponge continued to glide, and his fingers gently touched her nipples. The young woman trembled, and so did The Engineer.
The sponge went down toward her belly, and it continued toward her nakedness, open like a flower, adorned with black hairs like a dark flame that added an air of glory and aura of importance to her holy sanctuary. His fingers moved along her labia, and these thickened and reddened. Both of their bodies trembled inside the room, filled with desire.
Fluid filled the folds of her vagina, like flowing nectar. The young woman’s body hardened, and she sighed and closed her eyes, and her arm covered her breast.
Suddenly, The Engineer noticed a white membrane inside her open vagina. The sight of it made him realize Leila was an innocent virgin.
He took a step back, covered Leila’s trembling, feverish body, with the discarded sheet, and said in a weak, tremulous voice, “I love you too much to tarnish your body and your innocence…” A sentence he had once been taught with rang inside his head. “A hero is the one who conquers his inclination.”
The Engineer went behind the screen and began, with his fingers, to release the juices of his desire. From the corner of his eye, he could see the young woman arch her back, again, place her hands into her nether regions, and both of them breathed heavily. Their breathing became more and more intense and together, as if they were in coordination, they reached the peak of their desire and the moisture covered their hands. Despite the three meters of space between them, they felt as if they had worked together to reach the heights of absolute pleasure together.
They fell asleep immediately, Leila in her bed and The Engineer on the mattress at her feet, and they only woke up when the nurse on the first morning shift made her rounds.
This was how the third day since Leila regained consciousness began. She was still unable to get off the bed, but her condition, according to all of the doctors and nurses around, improved in the most surprising way. The conversations between The Engineer and Leila continued as if nothing had happened between them. Both of them understood they should not mention it, and they should avoid the forbidden love that had stricken them the day before and was beyond their control. They were very fortunate The Engineer’s principles had stopped them in time.
They went back to the period of the British, before World War II.
“As we said in our previous conversation,” The Engineer reminded Leila, “the British ruled over the entire Middle East and two-thirds of the world’s oil. The Americans, as we mentioned, wanted to control all of the world’s oil, and all means were justified when the rulers were the wealthy group. Wealth is what makes the rules and dictates the moves of the government, headed by the president.”
As vital proof, The Engineer went on to detail the results of World War II. “The war finished, and the British were saved, so to speak, by the American armed forces, but in a very amazing way, the British lost the entire Middle East. Now it’s the American companies that control most of the oil reserves in the Middle East. The Americans closed all of the pipelines bringing oil to the shores of the Middle East and into Iraq and compelled the E
uropeans and the nations of the Far East to buy their oil from companies owned by American suppliers. In this way, with their help, they took control of the world economy.”
The Engineer gave Leila a detailed picture of how the biggest winners of World War II were the Americans, who succeeded in being perceived as the heroes who saved Europe and helped the British avoid defeat.
“Do you understand, Leila? It’s not clear how the British lost their most precious possession to the Americans. Why did the Americans come to the aid of Britain and Europe? Why did they involve their entire military and suffer so many casualties? I think the motive was purely economic. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it eventually emerged that the CIA created the war situation in order to enable the CIA to gain control of the oil reserves, thus taking over the world economy.”
Leila gazed at an indistinct point in the room. She observed, “That would really explain why the English, the Europeans, and the Japanese took part in the American war in the Gulf even though they had no quarrel with Iraq or any of the other countries. They went to war under pressure from America, who threatened to harm their country’s economy if they didn’t take part. Essentially the economies of all of the countries that participated were based on industries that require energy from oil. Stopping the oil would make them collapse, so they gave in, and they took part in the Americans’ war.”
The Engineer nodded. Leila was beginning to adopt a new outlook. Suddenly she was roused from her reverie. “And how do the Jews and the State of Israel fit into this whole picture?”
Here, The Engineer went far back in history and described the Jewish communities that were first developed from the slaves taken by the Romans. Their survival was made possible by their intelligence, which developed into what is known as the Jewish brain.
“This brain was used by the rulers for their own economic interests. So when the Jews were expelled from one country, the ruler of a nearby country would invite them to settle there, and he would use the Jewish mind to strengthen his nation’s economy and essentially himself—to rule over his people, levy crafty taxes, and increase his personal wealth at the expense of this starving people. The Jew had to worry, about the ruler—and also about himself. He was exploited by the ruler, who depicted the Jews as evil, as a wicked group of people who had even harmed their messiah Jesus, according to the libels. This is how the ruler diverted public opinion away from his own evil deeds. Over time, the ruler grew fat, his economy crashed, and his nation was left to starve. They vented their anger on the Jews, who fled to another country that took them in, and so this process continued from generation to generation, like an historical chain, from one country to another in Europe. The hatred increased and festered into the ancient anti-Semitism deeply rooted within the European souls.
“At the same time, even though they knew deep in their hearts that their culture, treasures, and religion were taken from the Semites, the Islamic wars that reached the gates of Europe increased their hatred for the Semitic nations. The Jews were in the forefront of the nations that are the object of European anti-Semitic hatred.”
Leila asked again, “And what does this have to do with the Middle East?”
The Engineer nodded slowly and continued, “As mentioned earlier, even before World War II, the British already understood the power of oil, and they began pumping it and creating a powerful infrastructure for it. However, they also understood all too well that around the oil were nations with large starving populations that would also eventually realize that oil is money, and money is food for most of their people, especially in Syria and Egypt.
“The interest of the British was to prevent a union between both of those large nations, especially as both of them were gradually moving toward Palestine on both sides of it in order to unite with it. The British therefore established the Hashemite kingdom in Jordan, essentially a British puppet, but they understood the Jordanians could not keep Syria and Jordan apart on their own. At that point, the Jewish desire for an independent state suited the British as part of the ancient Roman concept of divide and rule. So a Jewish state was established in the land of the forefathers, as a buffer and a division between the populous Semitic nations. For the first time, after thousands of years in exile, the British discovered there was no need to transfer the Jews to another ruler, but to simply deliver the goods elsewhere. This was the picture just before World War II, but as we said before, the British lost out in the war and the Americans got everything, including the Jewish state the British established.
“It took them a while, but they also understood what all of the European rulers had understood before them. The Jewish state could be used as a buffer between Egypt, the Syrians, and the Jordanians, as the bad ones. By encouraging and fanning hatred of the Jews, the opinion of the Muslim nations would be diverted, and by being more involved with the Jewish state, they would not even notice the theft of the oil on their land by the American regime.
“Do you understand, my girl? The Americans are funding all of the terror against the Jewish state. They are financing the media networks, and are spending a lot of media capital on spreading the poison of the hatred of Jews and Israelis. This has inculcated the perception that all of the problems of the Islamic world, including poverty, are caused by Jewish depravity, exactly as the Jew used to be portrayed by the rulers of the European countries in the past. The ruler robs his own people, but the nation vents its anger on the Jews!”
Leila was sitting on her bed, listening to The Engineer’s words very carefully. The whole picture seemed very logical, but it clashed very strongly with all of the values and principles she had been raised with. In contrast to her limbs, the wheels were turning quickly inside her head.
“How is it the wisest nation in the world doesn’t understand everything you’ve explained to me in the last ten minutes?” she asked.
The Engineer sighed. “Once, we were the wisest nation in the world. Now, the picture is a little different. When the Zionist movement began, it told the Jews it was better to go back to being a nation of manufacturers, farmers, industry, and being independent, rather than continuing to live in the ghettos, serving foreign rulers. The Zionist aspiration was to become a nation like all the others, and for a while it seemed as if we succeeded. But here, even in our own country, we live in a kind of ghetto, serving the all-powerful American regime. Maybe we are talking about the wisest nation in the world, but even so, it still can’t manage without serving the interests of somebody else.”
The silence that reigned in the room allowed Leila to go back to sleep. Her efforts to recuperate were taking their toll. The Engineer saw her eyes close, and he left her alone.
Night fell, then dawn broke, and the conversations continued, as if by themselves. The Engineer returned to his cynical, bitter tone, as he spoke into the silence of the room. “In actual fact, a state was established that functions to all intents and purposes exactly like a Jewish ghetto in the diaspora. The Jews work for the supreme ruler—America, which helps them exploit their surroundings. They don’t fit into the surrounding region, and all of their neighbors hate them, and if that’s not enough, the Americans also invest a lot of money in preventing Israel from getting more powerful by funding all of the opposition movements and internal conflicts within Israel. The purpose of this is to weaken the state and bring it to a situation in which it, on the one hand, keeps the Arab nations apart, and on the other hand, doesn’t grow big enough to become a threat to the Americans. Don’t you see? It’s exactly like in the diaspora. Living behind the ghetto walls while serving the ruler faithfully. We’ve gone back to being the same little Jewish merchants whose only purpose was to make money fast. We are using the opportunities given to us by the supreme leaders, mostly to steal from the public purse, and provide a shelter for those fleeing from other countries in the same patterns as in Jewish history over the past two thousand years in exile, but with modern technology.”
“So what’s the solution?” Leila asked, with genuine concern.
“The Americans will continue to pump the oil, the surrounding nations will continue to starve, and the Israelis will continue to celebrate and to steal!” The Engineer replied bitterly.
“Till when?” Leila asked cautiously.
“One possibility is the situation will continue until the oil runs out, and then all of the hatred the Americans have developed will come to light. There will be wars between the Shiites and the Sunnis, the Kurds, Christians, Jews, Persians, and Iraqis—all those to whom the Americans have provided guns and hate. They’ve zealously kept things on a low burner so as not to create a lot of chaos, and they’ve also kept the violence balanced between all of the sides. If the Americans withdraw, all of the violence will burst out, and the Middle East will be totally destroyed, as part of the long-range plans of the American believers, led by their president.
“This is what happened in Africa. The Europeans and the Americans both finished milking all of the continent’s treasures. They left all of the hatred between the various nations and groups and departed. Today, these countries are fighting against each other, and Africa is getting destroyed. Fortunately for them, they don’t have any weapons of mass destruction. Imagine what would happen if weapons of mass destruction entered the picture.
“The second possibility is they invent a new source of energy, but at this point, there’s no visible possibility of this. Even if they did discover a new energy source, it would take many years before the machinery and the technology would change accordingly, and in any case, we can assume the very wealthy would take control of it.”
Leila’s face fell, and The Engineer felt the need to comfort her.
“Don’t worry, my girl. At least for the foreseeable future, there will still be enough oil reserves to allow the Americans and Israelis to carry on with their party for another limited number of generations,” he said.
A Universal Storm: A Gripping Thriller Page 4
