72 Friday, October 2, 1981
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Kreisky's Austria a Fertile Ground for Anti-Semitism
By SHIMON SAMUELS
from detruction on Kris- Heinz Nittel, Vienna city
tallnacht in 1938. It was councillor and president of
the only synagogue to the Austria-Israeli Friend-
NEW YORK — Almost a survive the war intact. ship League, the PLO arms
year after the bombing of Thus the Arab attack was smuggling and attempted
the synagogue on Rue perceived by Viennese bombing of the Israel Em-
Copernic in Paris, the eyes Jewry as a symbolic at- bassy in July, the El Al
of the Jewish world focus in tempt to complete the offices in
August, culminat-
horror upon yet another program unfinished by ing with the synagogue at-
anti-Semitic atrocity in the Nazis.
tack on Aug. 29.
Europe — the terrorist at-
Austrian Jews live in the
In a television inter-
tack on the Israelite Temple shadow of the Holocaust. view the night before the
in Vienna.
The pre-1938 community of attack, Interior Minister
While the perpetrators of 250,000 today numbers Erwin Lanz prophesied
the Paris tragedy are still at 8,000, most of whom emi- more Arab violence in
large, the Arab murder grated from Eastern Europe Vienna. Nevertheless,
squad in Vienna was after the war. Some 10,000 Kreisky rebuts critics of
caught in the act. Arab ter- persons of partial Jewish his appeasement policies
ror in Europe is often pre- ancestry who survived the with further attacks
sented by the media as Nazis prefer not to identify upon Israel as the root
extra-territorial — an ex- with the community. cause of Palestinian vio-
tension of the Arab-Israeli
The tiny and relatively lence.
conflict to European soil — elderly Austrian Jewish
Public opinion since the
and thus outside the bounds community feels that the synagogue attack,
however,
of criminal behavior. Yet, synagogue attack can only has been critical of the
when Arabs attack non- be understood in the context chancellor. Many claim that
Israeli Jews at prayer in of Chancellor Bruno Kreis- his policy is inappropriate
Paris and Vienna, their ky's position vis-a-vis the to Austrian neutrality.
target is not only Zionism. PLO in the Arab-Israeli Newspaper editorials have
The war they wage is not conflict.
stated that Vienna is reap-
just against Israel but
Austria was the first and ing the fruit of its over-
against the governments of only European country to involvement in matters be-
France and Austria who grant the PLO diplomatic yond its concern.
bear full responsibility for status and set a precedent in
Kreisky's anti-Israel
all their citizens, including receiving Yasir Arafat as if statements were char-
their Jewish citizens.
he were a chief of state — acterized by a parliamen-
When Arabs attack Jews despite the fact that Austria tary opposition foreign af-
at prayer in Vienna, a city has been far from free of fairs expert, Wendelin
whose community was de- Arab terror. This record of Ettmayr, as follows:
stroyed by the Nazis only a terror began in 1973
with "Throughout history there
generation
ago, anti-
the train hijacking of Soviet have always been Jewish
Zionism and anti-Semitism Jews in transit, and was
fol- anti-Semites. Kreisky is
intermesh. lowed by the kidnapping of one of them."
The Israelite Temple's
the OPEC oil ministers.
While Kreisky claims
location in an apartment
This year has witnessed a that such attacks are by
building inhabited by major escalation of violence Arab extremists who aim to
Aryan families saved it with the murder
in May of torpedo his attempts to
Director, European Office
Anti-Defamation League
cemetery to bury thetwo they were Hitler's first
victims (a 25-year-old girl victims, and -were occu-
who converted from pied. War criminals are
Catholicism and a 68- often acquitted with ease
year-old man). All three as an apolitical perspec-
Austrian political parties tive of the 1938.-1945
were represented. period takes root. Aust-
Though he sent a tele- rian soil is thus fertile for
gram of condolence to the *historical review mate-
bereaved, Kreisky, at the rial denying the
time of the march, was rest- Holocaust that is arriving
ing in Bad Worishofen, a from the United States
Bavarian spa. and distributed as un-
On the night of the derground literature.
synagogue victims' burial,
Wheri Kreisky
was
immediately following the elected chancellor in 1970,
demonstration march, the Austrian Jewry felt that
same Jewish cemetery was this marked the demise of
BRUNO KREISKY
strewn with 15,000 leaflets anti-Semitism in their
strengthen Palestinian carrying swastikas.
country. By waving the
moderates, the opposition
This points up the fact PLO flag, he has kept the
People's Party (OVP) states
that the extreme right has Jewish issue alive.
that if Austria would have by no means vanished in the
stayed out of the Middle
At the World Federation
country. In the 1979
East, there would have been
presidential elections, Nor- of Socialist Youth in Vienna •
no policy for the extremists Bert Burger of the Neue this July, the Austrian
to torpedo.
Deutsche Partei (NDP) re- Hashomer Hatzair rebutted
High-level sources, even
the Anti-Zionist prop-
ceived over 100,000 votes.
in his own Socialist Party, The party_sdvocates a re- aganda of the PLO. The
say off-the-record that
youth
wing of Kreisky's
turn to the Pan-German
Kreisky is overemotional on
Socialist Party responsed in
heritage, even to the point
the question of Israel. Until of denying separate Aust- an attack against the
1977 he felt constrained
Jewish youth movement
rian nationhood.
within the Socialist Inter-
Austrian mountaineer- that was markedly anti-
national from an open con-
ing, sports and military Semitic.
frontation with a sister
groups support the NDP, an
Can the Socialists be
labor party in Israel.
organization composed of blamed for taking their
Bethlehem's Mayor Elias
veterans of World War II measure from the tone set
Freij has characterized the
that takes a revisionist line by their party leader? And
chancellor as "the greatest
toward the Holocaust. will his policies prevent
Jew since Jesus Christ."
Among the Austrian further terrorist bombs?
Two days after the population at large, one A recent Austrian news
synagogue attack, about senses a feeling of imps- magazine cover found that
1,000 demonstrators — tience — or even irritation little will change, and
many of whom were — with reminders of the summed up the consensus;
non-Jews — marched in Hitler atrocities. "Kreisky's PLO policy — till
protest to the Jewish
Austrians argue that the next time."
j
Scars Still Remain from the King David Hotel Bomb
By VICTOR BIENSTOCK
How does one explain the
current revival of interest
in the bombing of the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem
on a bright Monday morn-
ing in July 35 years ago?
Only the families and
friends remember the 91
men and women who
perished in the blast al-
though a residue of the
anger and hatred of the
Jewish perpetrators it
aroused among the British
and Arabs must still be em-
bedded in their psyches.
The hotel itself has long
been reconstructed and
there are no telltale signs to
indicate where the Irgun
Zvai Leumi's explosives
sheared off an entire six-
story end section of the hotel
and reduced it to rubble.
The damage the bombing
did to British-Jewish rela-
tions has faded over the
years from a frightening
hatred to an imperceptible
component of the barrier
that still exists between
Britain and Israel.
The contribution the
bombing made to Arab fear
and hatred of the Jews can-
not be measured. But this is arguments over the role of
not new or recent.
certain individuals which
There have been no de- may be important to histo-
velopments in recent rians but really have no
years that should have bearing on the situation to-
revived the memory of day.
the King David tragedy
Does it make Menahem
except the election four Begin any less the ter-
years ago of Menahem rorist leader of the 1940s
Begin as prime minister to prove that the Hagana,
of Israel. Begin, as corn- the major Palestine
mander of the Irgun Zvai Jewish defense force,
Leumi, gave the orders had approved the attack
which sent the Irgun (and later backed down)
bomb squads into action. and that prominent
The operation was one of Jewish authorities, in de-
the most spectacular and fiance of Dr. Chaim
daring feats in the triangu-
Weizmann's policy of op-
lar British, Arab and position to violence, had
Jewish war for Palestine agreed to the IZL attack
that culminated in the War plan?
of Liberation of 1948 after
After the bombing, Pales-
the British threw in their tine British officials
hand and retreated from the claimed that it had been
country.
carried out without warn-
But there was no mystery ing. Subsequent,police and
about the King David bomb- private investigations pro-
ing, no tantalizing ques- ved this incorrect and that
tions to be recalled and no the Irgun had set up an
great secrets to be un- elaborate system to ensure
covered. that due warning was given
Investigators, both public to permit the evacuation of
and private, have bared the hotel.
every detail of "Operation
Begin claimed that 30
Chick." There may still be minutes' notice had been
disputes over details and given, but he failed to take
into account that the explo-
sives went off six minutes
ahead of schedule. Warn-
ings were received at the
King David switchboard, at
the Palestine Post (which
relayed them to the Pales-
tine Criminal Investigation
Department) and to the
French Consulate General.
The trouble was that
neither the hotel manage-
ment to whom the warnings
were relayed by the agi-
tated operators, nor the
British Army official to
whom the hotel assistant
manager passed on the
warning nor the vaunted
CID itself took the warning
seriously. The CID was con-
tent with merely telephon-
ing the hotel to say that the
warning had been received.
ings were telephoned in
When Mowrer was on his
time to permit the evacua- feet again, the girl escorted
tion of the building. The him to Begin's secret hide-
first call to the King David
out where the Irgun leader
switchboard, he declares, repeated his apologies in
was made at 12:22 p.m., 15 person. Mowrer told the
minutes before the mines story in a syndicated article
placed in the cellar were after Begin's election to the
exploded. But there were prime ministership.
evidences of trouble even
The killed and the
before the call — there had wounded were not the only
been revolver shots in the casualties of the King David
cellar, a woman house- explosion," Clark con-
keeper who had been briefly eludes. Weizmann's dream
detained by the bombers re- of a nationalism untainted
ported trouble in the cellar by violence, a nationalism
as did some of the Arab unattained by any other,
kitchen hands.
was
also
mortally
Most Britons in Palestine wounded." It received its
never bothered to learn He- death blow in the King
brew or Arabic and the offi- David bombing and it ex-
cers who made a cursory pired at the-World Zionist
check were unable to under- Congress in Basle when
stand the Arabs who tried to Weizmann, nearly blind
Sir John Shaw, the warn them that Jews in and knowing he was op-
by a majority of the
Chief Secretary of the Arab attire and carrying
Palestine Government guns had dragged in four
ur delegates, nevertheless
made
a
moving plea, unsuc-
was never even notified large milk cans — the
cessfully, for a policy of
of the warnings as he bombs.
self-restraint, negotiation
worked in his third-floor
Menahem
Begin, and "the victo.-y of peaceful
office in the secretariat
Clarke reports, was truly ideals."
section of the hotel.
saddened and depressed
Begin blamed Shaw for
Weizmann left the
by the loss of 17 Jewish
the loss of life, attributing it
_ presidency of the World
lives
in the bombing and Zionist Organization, a
to Shaw's refusal to order
bitterly blamed Sir John victim of the King David
the building evacuated, but
Shaw. He refused to utter bombing.
as Thurston Clarke con-
any regrets for the non-
vincingly establishes in "By
Was Begin's policy of
Jewish victims and, ac-
Blood and Fire;" a new
cording
to Clarke, the armed revolt successful?
study -of the bombing
Says Clarke: the Irgun re-
only
regrets
he
expressed
brought out recently by G.P.
volt "accelerated but did not
Putnam's Sons, Shaw had - to a non-Jewish victim cause Britain's departure
were to Richard Mowrer,
no information of the warn-
then a New York Post from Palestine. The Second
ings and was very nearly a
correspondent, whose World War, not the Irgun,
victim himself.
hip was shattered when had robbed Britain of the
Clarke definitely estab-
he was struck by debris resources and will to main-
tain an empire."
lishes that the Irgun warn-
outside the hotel.