Two big stories coming out of the middle east this week, a part of the world divided along multiple disagreements: islam vs judaism, Russia vs America, whether or not a star should have 5 or 6 points or whether you should just depict a weapon on your flag because nothing symbolises a modern peace-seeking nation better than a big shiny sword.

First to Israel where a tied election has led to a stalemate after Benjamin Netanyahu received slightly fewer votes than his opponent, Benny Gantz. Both would like to form a winning coalition with smaller parties but then I'd like to own a Lamborghini but tough, life doesn't work like that. Unless of course you live in Italy where I think a Lamborghini is the minimum bribe acceptable for selling out and going into a coalition. Alas the past 3 and a half thousand years or so have taught us that things are a bit more complicated in the promised land and they're likely facing another election. History is indeed interesting out there though, when the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah split apart there was no BBC Question time for the people to suffer through. When they Assyrians came through and promised to kill everyone they kept to their election promises. Although you look at beardy hamas-loving Jeremy Corbyn and maybe things aren't so different after all.

Let's talk about Saudi Arabia then. A massive oil processing facility was hit by a drone attack and subsequently celebrated by Iran, Houthi Rebels, as well as anyone who owns shares in BP or Royal Dutch Shell - because the two things to come out of the Middle East are "profits" and "prophets" How best then to respond to a drone attack? President offered up a nuclear strike (go big or go home) before adding "and there are options a lot less than that" The US coincidentally recently became the world's largest oil exporter so there's about a dozen strongly written conspiracies kicking around about what really happened. Fierce language too, not safe for work, it's not just the oil that's crude.