Russia is emerging as a major oil supplier and a serious challenge to the hegemony of Saudi Arabia and OPEC. Even the USA increasingly taps the Russian market for crude and derivatives. With Arab countries - including the hitherto unwaveringly loyal Gulf states - progressively perceived as hostile by American scholars and decision makers, Russia arises as a potent alternative. The newfangled Russian-Israeli commercial alliance probably won applause from Washington hardliners, eager to relieve the Saudi stranglehold on energy supplies. Quoted by the American Foreign Policy Council, Russia's Energy Minister, Igor Yusufov, addressing the Russian-US Energy Forum in Houston, Texas, last month said that "the high degree of economic and political stability that the Russian Federation has achieved makes it a reliable supplier of oil and gas." He expressed his belief - shared by many analysts - that Russia will become a major exporter of oil to the USA "in the foreseeable future". According to the Dow Jones Newswires, private Russian oil firms, such as Lukoil, are heavily invested in US gas stations and refineries in anticipation of these inevitable developments. As if to underline these, the Financial Times reported, on October 3, a purchase of 300,000 barrels of oil from the Russian Tyumen Oil company. The deal with Israel will allow Russia to peddle its oil in the Asian market, a major export target and a monopoly of the Gulf producers. Russia is in the throes of constructing several pipelines to Asia through its eastern territories and Pacific coastline - but completion dates are uncertain. For its part, according to the Department of Energy, Israel extracts natural gas from offshore fields but has no commercial fossil fuel resources of its own. It imports oil from Mexico, Norway, and the United Kingdom and coal from as far away as Australia, Colombia, and South Africa. Israel buys natural gas and oil from Egypt. The bulk of the energy sector is moribund and state-owned, ostensibly for reasons of national security. The deal with Russia is a godsend. Israel is perfectly located to offer an affordable alternative to expensive and often clogged oil shipping lanes through the Suez Canal or the Cape. A revival of the Trans-Arabian pipeline (Tapline) to Haifa can considerably under-price the politically wobbly Iraqi-Turkish and the costly Suez-Mediterranean (Sumed) alternatives. With one of every five Israelis a Russian ‚migr‚ and confronted with the common enemy of Islamic militancy, Israel and Russia have embarked on a path of close cooperation. Prime Minister Sharon's visit to Russia last month was a resounding success. Faced with these millennial geopolitical developments, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists are having a field day.