ISRAEL DEFENCE FORCES, GENERAL STAFF. Neft ba-mizrah ha-tikhon. Zikaynot, shadot, tzinorot, batei zikuk. [Oil in the Middle East. Concessions, Oilfields, Pipelines, Refineries.] Tel- Aviv: 1957.

Extremely rare Israeli strategic map of the Arabian peninsula showing oilfields and associated infrastructure. Printed in black, red and blue, the map demarcates the political boundaries of the time along with the areas covered by oil companies' concessions. Pipelines form a web across the northern part of the Arabian peninsula, while oil fields and refineries, large and small, are also marked. The map was most probably created by the IDF in reaction to the Suez Crisis, and its associated geopolitical shifts. With the Egyptians operating the Suez Canal, and Britain and France being forced by the USA to abandon their post-imperial plans, Israel now counted in both US and Soviet plans for their control of Middle Eastern politics. Britain was forced to anchor its Middle Eastern influence in Cyprus, Aden and Iraq, while the increased American influence can be seen in the huge swathe of territory assigned to the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco). We have only been able to trace a single institutional copy of this map in the National library of Israel.

Folding chromolithographic map of the Arabian peninsula, from Turkey in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, and covering Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, North and South Yemen, to the scale of 1:5,000,000 (827 x 560mm). Scale and key in Hebrew inset to top-right, inset explanatory panels in Hebrew and English, compass rose in Saudi Arabia (a couple of small light stains to title, blank area of Iran, Gulf of Suez southern part of Jordan and blank area of Saudi Arabia, some uneven creasing along creasefolds, a couple of tiny holes at fold joins with losses to a couple of letters).

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