RUSH: Matt in Pueblo, Colorado, great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.
CALLER: It’s a great honor to talk to you, sir.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I am a Rush Baby. I’m raising two Rush Babies.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: I’ve served in the military. I’ve been down to Laredo, Texas. And what Trump says is right. Now, my whole thing, though, is recently Israel has found a huge deposit of oil. They’re saying it’s like 35 times bigger than what they’ve ever found before anywhere in the Middle East. It’s in the Golan Heights region. Who’s not to say that, you know, with Russia being in Syria now, they might try to attack Israel just to get hold of the Golan Heights.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have not heard of this discovery of oil in Israel. I’ve read novels about it. But I’ve not heard of a massive discovery of oil in the Golan Heights.
CALLER: It came out about two days ago.
RUSH: Well, I was laid up and I missed it. I have not seen a word about that. As I say, I’ve read a couple of really great novels about how such a discovery would totally change the geopolitics of the Middle East, but I didn’t know such a discovery had actually happened.
CALLER: I think the UK Daily Mail had an article, I believe it was yesterday.
RUSH: What’s the upshot of this? What were you going to say?
CALLER: Well, I mean, I just find it kind of strange that, number one, Iran finds a huge cache of natural uranium in there after the Iran deal, and then all of a sudden Israel has oil, and Russia’s already there.
RUSH: Wait, Russia’s already where?
CALLER: In Syria.
RUSH: Okay, now, wait a minute, now. Where did you say the oil has been discovered? Israel, or the Golan Heights?
CALLER: Well, the Golan Heights was taken by the Israelis during the 10 day war I think of 1967.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And the oil is found in the southern part of the Golan Heights.
RUSH: Okay. Jeez, something in my head says Israel does not have the Golan Heights anymore, that they gave it up or lost it again. Damn it, I’m totally confused by this. I need somebody to clarify for me who owns the Golan Heights right now before I can go forward with this.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Game changing oil reserve discovered in — okay, so it is in Israel. So I’m getting a flash note here. Well, if that’s true, then it does totally — but your point that — I got that Iranians recently discovered uranium after the deal was done, which means it was always there.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But the Russians being in Syria, what’s that got to do with oil in the Golan Heights?
CALLER: Well, the Russians right now, they’re saying that they’re attacking ISIS. Depending on who you listen to is they’re actually attacking, not just ISIS, but the rebels that the Obama administration is backing.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: What’s not say that after they get done with whatever they’re going to do in Syria, they’re going to say, you know what, you guys never deserved to have the Golan Heights in the first place from the first —
RUSH: Oh, so you think the Russians, after they take care of our allies in Syria are gonna move on Israel’s oil supply in the Golan?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Oh, that’s what your theory is? Okay.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You’re asking, what would stop Putin if he wanted to make a — well, Israel has nukes. That’s what would stop ’em.
CALLER: But Israel really doesn’t have United States backing it up anymore because of Obama.
RUSH: Well, that’s true, but I think this discovery of oil is gonna give Israel all kinds of independence, gives it new power and independence. Besides, there’s no love lost between Israel and Obama anyway. This much oil, it could replace the primary asset they get from us, which is money.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Now, Syria, here’s my point of confusion on the Golan Heights. Syria has not given up its claim on the Golan Heights. Therefore it remains disputed, whether it’s a legitimate dispute or not, Syria still claims that the Golan is theirs. And, by the way, it is right down the hill. I have been to the Golan Heights. It’s one of the most fascinating places. I got a tour up there with a young member of the Israeli Defense Forces, and it’s where they take you when they want to illustrate the danger they’re in and how surrounded they are and how people cannot envision it. You go up to the Golan, and they can point to every nation that wants to wipe Israel out, and you can see it.
You can see Syria. You can see Jordan. You can see every one of these threatening regions from the Golan. Beautiful place, by the way. And they tell you how vulnerable they are as a result of this. So oil up there, well, that’s just gonna increase the dispute. So I see your point. You think Putin, given the weakness of the US and the resolve of Obama to basically abandon the region, is gonna leave it wide open for Putin to go in and claim it from Israel. And, without US support, Israel is not gonna have much of a defense against an onslaught of Putin.
I would never underestimate the Israelis. But I have to admit, you caught me short on this. I still don’t know how much oil we’re talking about, and I’m gonna have to — I think Joel Rosenberg wrote a big novel about this that I read. It was a significant find. Do you know off the top of your head, Ryan, how big this find is, how they’re describing it?
CALLER: What I heard, it was like 350 meters of strata that they found of it. They’re saying it was a significant find, well over a hundred times anything that they found in the Middle East before.
RUSH: (laughing) A hundred times more?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Now, a hundred times more than —
CALLER: Because I was looking at the UK Daily Mail earlier and —
RUSH: Well, what I’ve got here is that there’s “an Israeli subsidiary of the U.S. company Genie Energy, confirmed the find in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 TV, but conceded that until the oil is actually extracted, they won’t be sure of the actual amounts and quality of the oil that has been discovered.”
So the amount is unknown. Well, if it’s a big find, if it’s enough of a find, it’s a game-changer is the bottom line. But without knowing any more than that, don’t know how much. One thing it is going to do is turn Israel into an even bigger target now, in terms of getting them off the land, wiping them off, marching them into the Mediterranean. The Palestinians are gonna be right in there, “It’s ours, it’s ours, it’s ours,” so forth. I’m sorry to be caught short on this, folks. I literally did not know about this. I thought this was a story in a novel.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The oil discovery in Israel, it is said to be that it could be huge. I’ve had a chance to read a little bit. Depending on how deep it is, the layers, it could be a gigantic find. This is what the UK Daily Mail is saying. So, if all that’s true, and we won’t know for a while, there’s no question it’s a game-changer. But it’s just gonna focus enemies on Israel even more. That’s the last thing anybody wants in that region is for Israel to become even more empowered. So the claim will be it isn’t Israel’s, it’s Syria’s or whatever, you watch. They’re just not gonna sit by and let this happen.