Purely Commentary

Collective Guilt for Terrorism and
Holocaust Threat in Mideast Tragedy

By Philip
Slomovitz

We Accuse All the Factions in Middle East Tragedy for Giving Comfort to Terrorists

Aramco partners must have believed that the American people have come
completely under the spell of a panic created by fears over an energy crisis. Else,
in the midst of the continuing terrorism emanating from their partners in the Middle
East, they might not have undertaken a pro-Arab propaganda that spelled anti-
Israelism.
While the objectionable letter from the head of the Standard Oil of California
spoke about peace for all the peoples in the Middle East, it was all too evident that
the target of the attack was Israel.

It is impossible to fool all of the people all of the time, to resort to a Lin-
colnism. You can't even fool a portion of the people all of the time. The fact is
that from the Arab quarters have come hooligans, depraved lunatics, who have
thrown bombs amid innocent crowds in airports. The fact is that these idiotic
groups have destroyed jet planes. The fact is that the Arab governments have not
repudiated the insane murderers who keep speaking in the name of Arabism.

Aramco associates—Mobil, Standard Oil, Texaco—would serve a good purpose
if they took the lead in condemning the terrorists. If they don't look, they, too, will
be the victims of such insanities.
Jack Anderson now warns that the United States may be the next area
of attack by the idiots. Will Aramco's oil magnates join in preventing such outrages?
The terrors are only part of the guilt. There is much more to it. There is
the aim to destroy Israel. There are paths toward another Holocaust, and the
bandits do not seem to realize that Israel and world Jewry will never again tolerate
another Holocaust, that genocide will meet the resistance that may have been
lacking in Hitler's days.

Should anything tragic occur in our midst, the guilt will be not only on the
heads of the murderers but also upon the Arab countries whence comes silence that
must be interpreted as approval.
Should anything else occur that may in any fashion trigger misery for a
people determined to live and never again to be afflicted with horrors, the guilt will
be shared by those who give comfort to the oil producers who could not survive a
day without the billions derived from Americans.
Should there be a reaction by angered Jews who may act irrationally, as some
have threatened—and we pray that this may never occur!—the guilt will not be
Jewry's but of the powers that permit emergence for such reactions.

We assemble among the guilty not only the terrorists but also their govern-
ments and the oil-soaked propagandists who give encouragement to terrorism by
silence in a time of crisis. Let the record be straight on this tragic subject.
Having set forth what is believed to be the Jewish position on the right to survival
and the will to live, it is necessary to emphasize that heroics are not the basic Jewish
aspirations. Israel's military geniuses would have been worshiped as heroes had they

captured the Arab terrorist leaders in the intercepted plane. They failed and their
actions are equated with the murderous acts of their enemies. That's unfortunate. Yet,
the very failure at achieving glory in self-defensiveness was part of an illegalism that
emerges as inexcusable.
Israel hasn't received so many courtesies from either the UN Security Council
or the International Civil Aviation Organization to be depressed by what they say or do.
But, even the usually critical Christian Science Monitor must be taken seriously when it
asserts editorially: "Israel has not only done itself a great disservice, but is causing
acute embarrassment to its only true friend in the Security Council." That only true
friend (the U.S.) joined in condemning Israel. To be viewed with special anxiety is the
London Times editorial comment, under the heading "Not in the Interests of Jews."
which emphasizes opposition to double standards in international law. The Lon(
Times statement declares in part:
It is not entirely Israel's fault that she is still struggling to become an ordinary
legal state recognized as such by her neighbors. She has had to survive by force of
arms and she can invoke the rules of war to do so. But if she is seeking legal status
she cannot ignore the ordinary legal restraints that apply to other states, even those
at war. If she is now claiming the right to kidnap anyone anywhere and then try them
for acts committed outside Israel she puts herself utterly outside legality.
"The ostensible justification is a recent amendment to the military penal code
which gives the courts jurisdiction over persons constituting a threat to the security
of the state even if they operate outside its borders. This has been invoked in the case
of all 10 Arabs taken prisoner during the Israeli raids in the Lebanon. The defense
argued that the court still had no jurisdiction but this was overruled. The manner in
which the accused were brought to Israel does not seem to have been taken into
account but presumably the justification for the kidnaping would !be that the Lebanon
has no extradition agreement with Israel, and is indeed in a state of war with Israel.
"Terrorism, particularly where it involves Israel, is indeed an international phe-
nomenon for which ordinary national laws are not fully equipped, but Israel's action
opens the precedents to illegality. That is not in the interests of the Jewish people."
Claiming justice for Israel, we must adhere to a single standard of morality. If
Israelis can kidnap, there is also the risk of Jews being kidnaped. Adolf Eichmann was
a case all his own.
Now those who rebuke Israel speak in terms of an Israeli act being "not in the
interests of Jews." All Jews are affected by a blunder in the issue involving the
downing of the Iraqi-chartered plane, and we must concur with the statement of Capt.
Itzhak Shaked, chairman of the Israel Pilots' Union: "As a union that fights against
hijackings and interference with civilian aviation, we couldn't accept this interception
even if the aim was to capture Criminal No. 1 against civil aviation."

JTA News Editor Exposes Oil Slick in Mideast Politics

all parts of the world, but primar-
ily to the prolific oil fields of the
NEW YORK (JTA) — Oil is Arab/Persian Gulf area which con-
America's most important business tains almost two-thirds of the Free
in the Middle East, the Persian World's oil reserves."
What makes this letter particu-
Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.
Now the government and private larly enticing is the date it was
oil firms, caught in the crunch of written: July 26. That was the day
a so-called energy crisis at home when the U.S. vetoed an anti-Israel
and demands by Arab governments draft resolution in the Security
that the U.S. reverse its Mideast Council. Miller's explanation Aug.
policy regarding Israel, are walk- 9 of what he meant to convey in
ing an economic and diplomatic his letter of July 26 can only be
viewed as a rationalization under
tightrope.
The administration is under grow- pressure.
But in the justifiable protests
ing pressure by the powerful oil
cartels through their lobby in against the letter, the second de-
Washington to protect their invest- velopment appears to have been
ments and economic future in the overlooked or, until now, at least,
ignored.
oil areas.
Several days after Miller's letter
The Arab governments are vow-
ing to curtail the oil flow and was made public, Sisco presented
threaten to nationalize and con- to an Israeli television audience his
fiscate the billions of dollars worth view of American interests in the
Middle East, the Persian Gulf and
of equipment and capital.
But the administration also feels the Arabian Peninsula.
He said that "while our interests
a deep moral obligation to support
Israel as the democratic oasis in a in many respects are parallel to
the interests of Israel, they are not
desert of feudal sheikhdoms.

By MURRAY ZUCKOFF

JTA News Editor

However, two events in as many
weeks indicate that moral obliga-
tions and economic necessity do
not always coincide in the world of
realpolitik.
The first was a letter issued by
Standard Oil of California; the sec-
ond a television interview with As-
sistant Secretary for Near Eastern
and South Asian Affairs Joseph J.
Sisco.
The first created a storm. The
second one passed unnoticed, al-
most.

On July 26, SOCAL sent a slick
letter to its 40,000 employes and
262,000 stockholders noting that
the U.S. is not producing enough
oil and gas to meet the over-all de-
mands for these energy resources.
This, the letter stated, raises a
"key question," namely, "From
Where is all this oil to come?"
Not one to waste too much time,
Otto N. Miller, chairman of the
board of SOCAL, came right to
the point and stuck to it for the
remaining 350-word letter.
"Obviously," he wrote in answer
to his question, "we must look to

synonymous with the state of Is-
rael."
Sisco then drove home the point
when the observed: "There is in-
creasing concern in our country,
for example, over the energy ques-
tion, and I think it is foolhardy to
believe that this is not a factor in
the situation."

Questions: Were the statements
by Miller and Sisco coincidental or
interrelated?
Was Sisco's statement a hint to
SOCAL and the Arabs that U.S.
diplomatic pipelines in the Mid
East are not merely conduits for
Israel?
Was Miller's letter written with
some realization that it would stim-
ulate a favorable State Department
reflex?
Was Sisco's statement off the
cuff or cleared first with the State
Department?
Was Sisco's statement one o:
policy or an emphasis on the ob-
vious?
There is some indication that
Miller's letter and Sisco's state-
ment are linked by the Saudi Ara-

2 Friday, August '17, 1973 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

—

bian connection.
Research indicated that oil firms,
eager to maintain and expand the
profitable role in Saudi Arabia,
have invested '$700,000,000 in that
country in the last 12 months in
order to increase capacity to 9,000,-
000 barrels a day, after assur-
ances that Saudi Arabia would not
use oil as a weapon.
Oil firms are now taking 8,500,-
000 barrels a day, and the goal is
to increase production to 20,000,000
barrels a day by 1980.
This kind of investment and the
prospects envisioned by the oil
firms require more than a quick
smile and a passing handshake be-
tween the feudal oil sheikhs and
U. S. administration officials, and
more than a veto, so far as the oil
companies and the sheikhs are con-
cerned.
It requires, as Miller phrased it,
"understanding on our part of the
aspirations of the Arab people and
more positive support of their ef-
forts toward peace in the Middle
East" and "reinforcing bonds of
friendship between our two peoples
that were forged decades before."
The need for this kind of support
can also be inferred from a June 1
report by Shell Oil titled, "The
National Energy Problem: The
Short-Term Supply Prospect."
On page 17 of that report is the
observation that "greatly increased
amounts of crude oil must come
from ,foreign countries."
This is followed immediately by
an expression of concern, namely,
"Since the United States has no
control over production rates or
political actions in foreign coun-
tris, the matter of security and
availability of supply naturally
arisis."

The basic anxiety over produc-
tion rates, political actions, secur-
ity and availability is currently ex-
acerbated by Saudi Arabia, a long-
time friend of the U. S., which is
under strong pressure from other
Arab states to curtail oil produc-
tion if America does not find a
way to help achieve a political set-
tlement favorable to the Arab
states.
Incidentally, SOCAL along with
Mobil are partners in the Arabian-

Nixon administration, under heavy
fire on all sides over the Watergate
affair and Vice-President Spiro Ag e
new's impending legal tangle,
needs a victory somewhere.
Achieving peace in the Middle
East would give the administration
ia diplomatic victory, assure the
stability of the current Arab re-
gimes and thus eliminate the an-
xiety about investments, produc-
tion rates and availability of oil
supply and win the confidence of
the economically powerful at home
and the oil-soaked sheikhdoms that
the administration is capable of
protecting its own.
In the world of Mideast realpoli-
tik, moral obligations can easily
skid on an oil slick.

American Oil Co. (ARAMCO).
In addition, the U. S. is seeking
ways to reduce chances of national-
ization and confiscation of oil firms'
property and equipment and how
to deal with the Arab governments
if the threats are carried out.

The administration is undoubted-
ly caught in a tug of war between
the pressure of the oil lobby and
its obligation toward Israel.
The U. S. veto in the Security
Council was a diplomatic gesture
but hardly a world-shaking declara-
tion on behalf of Israel.
Sisco's statement, however, put
it on the line in terms of economic
interests: the tangible of oil and
cash flow.
There is no doubt, too, that the

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