EuroVista

...Many politicians and some diplomats are inclined to blame Dr...

...According to recent polls, public opinion is very much more favorable to Israel than to the Arabs, and the Common Market's prestige in Britain, never impressive, has slumped to a record low...

...Talk of catching up with the U.S...

...Egyptian military chiefs were, in fact, panicking...

...Their ubiquitous Communist parties and pseudo-Leftist extremists churn out a torrent of anti-American and pro-Arab propaganda, while French official spokesmen generally take the line that America and the international oil companies, rather than the Arabs, should be blamed for the fuel problem...

...Common sense should have told him that the Soviets would only do this if their client was in trouble...

...There is a deep sense of shame, too, within Holland, Denmark, Belgium and—mainly among Social Democrats—West Germany...

...UNTIL RECENTLY, most Arab extremists were skeptical about oil diplomacy...

...The Franco regime has never recognized Israel and a secret U.S.Spanish agreement bars the American government from using its bases in Spain for operations in the Middle East...

...many people who campaigned for British membership in the EEC say that they are ashamed of the nation's surrender to blackmail...

...How will it cope in a buyers' market, featuring a global downturn of trade and soaring prices for oil and some other vital commodities...

...Meanwhile, from Turkey to equatorial Africa, Libya's ruler, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, is using his oil wealth to promote Islamic movements and declarations of hostility to Israel...

...One country that European observers think may soon regret its break with Jerusalem is Ethiopia, which has been plagued for years by Eritrean and Somali guerrilla groups openly supported by the Arabs...

...It is perhaps worth recalling that by "Arab Jerusalem" is meant what the British called the Old City, which was annexed—in defiance of both the United Nations and the Arab League—by King Abdullah of Jordan in 1948...

...The Libyans make no secret of the subsidies they have paid several African states to persuade them to break off relations with Israel...

...A speed limit in Italy is the equivalent of tea rationing in England...

...Oil-supplies from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf would be back to normal very soon," an EEC official said last week, "if America could tell the Arabs that Israeli forces will stay on the west bank of the canal until the embargo is lifted, and that they will be allowed to return if it is reimposed...

...Soviet economists, in particular, are appalled by the drain on Russian resources provoked by the present oligarchy's pro-Arab policy...

...When asked whether the Soviet Union will ever see the money, Egyptian diplomats laugh...

...Kissinger, they say, responded too rapidly when Brezhnev summoned him to Moscow and proposed a cease-fire...

...In October, Arab envoys let it be known that the Somalis might step up their action unless Ethiopia cut its ties with Israel...

...two generals had offered to resign...

...Their European friends—the Trotskyites and Maoists, but also, more discreetly, the orthodox pro-Soviet Communists—are telling them it is their revolutionary duty to give a high priority to seizing power in at least one major oil-producing country...

...THE GENERAL feeling in Western Europe is that nothing can be done in the short term to counter the Arab oil weapon...

...and Russia is supporting Arab aspirations as well as brushing up its claim to be the protector of the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem...

...A French extremist paper explained the other day that once revolutionaries take over a major oil state they can raise prices and impose embargoes at will and, by appealing for solidarity, force other Arab producers to follow suit...

...The decision of leading Arab oil exporters to reward African governments for their support by turning the oil weapon against South Africa, which produces a high proportion of the City of London's "invisible earnings" (those not derived directly from trade), is another source of anxiety for Britain...

...Most EEC foreign ministries believe the Russians would not have sent troops to chase out the Israelis if Kissinger had dragged his feet...

...and the Israelis needed merely two or three days to complete their encirclement of the Egyptian forces in Sinai and occupy most of the African bank of the Suez canal (including an interesting missile complex located southwest of Port Sinai that both American and Israeli officers would have liked to have a look at...

...The prevailing mood within the Kremlin favors detente and the import of Western knowhow and credits, even if this means adopting a more modest stance in international affairs for the time being...

...The consequence: "C'est tout le capitalisme qui font le camp" (polite translation: "Capitalism will just fall apart...

...During the previous four centuries Jerusalem had been governed by the Turks and, after 1918, the British...

...Ethiopia acceded—but there are signs that the Somalis are preparing to launch a fresh guerrilla campaign in the new year anyhow, and Somali ships have been loading military supplies in Soviet and Yugoslav ports...

...Oil Against Capitalism...

...The French and Italians seem less concerned...

...From time to time his Prime Minister, Admiral Carrero Blanco, even makes a few anti-Jewish statements...

...Labor MPs have accused the European Community (and especially the British and French governments) of "groveling" before the Arab oil exporters...

...The most interesting crises tend, like the best clarets, to come in odd years, and armchair economists in Britain savor them the way Frenchmen compare vintages...

...Brezhnev's position is not invulnerable in the Soviet hierarchy, although he is very strong...

...The 1973 crisis—compounded of roaring inflation, a colossal trade deficit and a shortage of both coal and oil, with seasonal frosting provided by a real cold spell—looks like a grand cru, grim enough to satisfy the most masochistic of Englishmen...

...But Kissinger threw that ace away at the outset of the game, even obliging the Israelis to trade a territorial advantage in order to secure an exchange of prisoners to which they were entitled anyway...

...One West European state confident of receiving preferential treatment from the Arabs is General Franco's Spain...

...Arab Jerusalem" THE ARAB summit in Algiers decreed that Israel must withdraw from "Arab Jerusalem...

...Some of these nations had been receiving technical and financial aid from Israel...

...The Spanish dictator prides himself on being the Arabs' oldest European friend...

...Was Henry Too Eager...

...The Israeli officers who had been advising Emperor Haile Selassie's Armed Forces on anti-guerrilla tactics have, of course, been withdrawn...

...Kissinger for its effectiveness...

...The major preoccupation of a substantial section of the Politburo is said to be the USSR's failure to raise its people's living standard even to the level of East Germany and Spain...

...Their religious ties with the city are much less profound than those of either the Jews or Christians, and their claim to sovereignty over it is weaker than that of the Turks...

...they had more faith in hijacking and guerrilla raids...

...It consisted of four roughly equal quarters: a polyglot multiracial Christian quarter, an Armenian Christian quarter, a mainly Arab Moslem quarter, and a Jewish quarter...

...Now that they have seen the oil weapon in action they can hardly wait to get their hands on it...

...French and Italian ministers are doing their best to avoid creating a crisis atmosphere a I'anglaise, though French housewives have been stocking up with sugar and cooking oil, and Italian motorists are chafing under a 60-mph speed limit...

...The Old City was never exclusively or even primarily Arab...

...European Leftists, not usually moved by religious causes, are championing Arab and Moslem rights in the city...

...is now considered a bad joke, indeed a bit subversive, in Moscow...

...Egypt alone owes Russia nearly $6 billion, mostly for arms...

...Still, it would be easier to criticize them if their former imperial tutors had set a more impressive standard of political probity...

...The Arabs have undoubtedly a historical and sentimental interest in Jerusalem, yet so have many other peoples...

...An even bigger worry in London than the Arab oil cutback is the dismal record of British economic management ?governmental and private—during the last 25 years, when international conditions were on the whole advantageous, with a sellers' market for industrial goods, expanding world commerce and favorable terms of trade (in particular, cheap raw materials...