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.