Sand, Oil and Blood
ALAN, RAY
Euro vista BY RAY ALAN Sand and Oil If everything that has been written about the fuel crisis were fed into the furnaces of our power stations, the European Economic Community (EEC) would get...
...Don Juan, for example, despised women but needed to possess them in order to affirm his existence...
...With the exception of Britain, whose difficulties arise mainly from its endemic social malaise, Western Europe has fared much better than was generally expected back in November...
...President Habib Bourguiba rebuffed Qaddafi's approaches in December 1972...
...So, in effect, is Qaddafi, despite his own claim to be an Islamic traditionalist...
...Most Arab rulers will find it impossible to spend more than a fraction of their revenues on exports from industrial countries...
...Sieff is an esteemed philanthropist...
...So it is, politically, with Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya...
...Since then he has had second thoughts and has fired Masmoudi...
...They will naturally do what they can to protect him on his next visit, but they would prefer that he stay away...
...Qaddafi, meanwhile, is stepping up his subsidies to a dizzying spectrum of extremists...
...Though gasoline costs more than twice the U.S...
...Israeli diplomats in Italy and West-Central Europe...
...King Hussein of Jordan and one of his ministers (two Palestinian groups...
...Oil and Blood Compulsive copulators, like compulsive eaters, often have an identity problem...
...Finally, he thinks the militant wing of the IRA may decide to risk a really spectacular operation in England this year in an attempt, to stampede public opinion there into a "Quit Ireland" mood...
...The London Times reports that he has given $24 million to the anti-Ethiopian movement mentioned in my last column ("Muddling Through," NL, December 24, 1973...
...The French and British are therefore pressing the oil-producers to take military aircraft, arms factories and petrochemical and other industrial plants in exchange for oil...
...Euro vista BY RAY ALAN Sand and Oil If everything that has been written about the fuel crisis were fed into the furnaces of our power stations, the European Economic Community (EEC) would get through the winter comfortably...
...The authorities were equally unenthusiastic about charging a gun-smuggling American girl and two Moslems thought to be connected with another Arab extremist group, when they were picked tip at Heathrow airport a few days afterward, until members of Parliament and the press protested...
...He expects the ETA or the Anarchists to try to take out another prominent member of the Spanish regime (but not Franco—since their aim is to disrupt his succession arrangements), and says that a Spanish security service has hired veterans of the French Secret Army Organization (OAS) to liquidate key ETA men hiding out in France...
...price in most Common Market countries, homes are still warm, most factories are busy, and illuminated fountains continue to play...
...Considering existing Palestinian organizations too soft, he has even bankrolled a new one: National Youth for the Liberation of Palestine...
...Limiting himself to Europe and the Near East, a student of political violence gave me this list (the potential assassins are indicated in parentheses) : -The ruler of a Persian Gulf oil state (in danger from a Left-wing group that is associated with the PFLP...
...their rulers have been searching for a national identity ever since...
...The accusation is not important, yet it is a fair indicator of the contempt Communist journalists have for their readers...
...Not that we are doing badly, so far...
...Even their arms purchases will have to tail off unless resourceful salesmen keep the wheels of commerce turning by provoking local wars...
...My informant would not be surprised by an attempt to kill Colonel Qaddafi, sponsored by Egypt or Morocco, if their relations with Libya continue to deteriorate...
...Don Juan was a nihilist as well as a seducer...
...and it stems not from the Arab-Israeli dispute but from the oil-producers' desire to increase their incomes...
...Most other Western European countries are caught in the same squalid plight, though the Italians are still bravely proclaiming their desire to put the Rome killers on trial (if Kuwait will ship them back) and resisting an Arab threat to boycott Fiat cars unless the Jewish editor of La Stampa is dismissed...
...Those rather dotty British Arabists who fought out Whitehall's departmental quarrels on the sands of the Near East—the Foreign Office subsidizing one side, while the Colonial Office, India Office, Army or RAF backed another—were perhaps surfing on the wave of the future...
...Blood and Sand Western European security men believe that the Arabs responsible for the murder of 32 people at Rome airport two months ago were members of the Qaddafi-financed National Youth for the Liberation of Palestine...
...But the EEC's immediate problem is to increase its exports to pay for dearer oil, and to slash internal demand without provoking strikes or boosting the appeal of Western Communist parties...
...The danger of such deals is that they could make the Near East a more explosive place than ever and discourage investment in petrochemicals and similarly "bartered" industries in the West...
...but it is no secret that his assailant was New Scotland Yard's "most unwanted man...
...Fear of Arab bullets and commercial reprisals is, in short, paralyzing reflexes that have hitherto seemed fundamental to the rule of law in Britain...
...Thanks mainly to Libyan money, an informal but effective "terrorist international" now exists...
...A Turkish diplomat (the Palestinian-advised Turkish Liberation Front...
...He is also helping both Marxists and Islamic conservatives in Turkey and Morocco...
...An injection of Libyan capital is just what their shaky economy needs, yet it would be tragic if Tunisian moderation were overwhelmed by the religious fanaticism and political pressure of its neighbor...
...It would be too embarrassing diplomatically if an eager policeman were to capture an Arab gunman lying in wait for Kissinger...
...Their original aim, it is said, was to kill Henry Kissinger in Beirut, until they were spotted by alert Lebanese security officers and scurried off to Rome...
...Currently he has his eye on Tunisia...
...An Egyptian version of this adds: "And Libyans are nonexistent...
...Secretary of State...
...his firm is a British institution ("Marks & Spencer," Englishmen say, "have done more for the workers than Marx and Engels...
...The essential problem is now seen to be prices instead of supplies...
...The French Communist daily L'Humanite, by the way, alleged editorially that Israel organized the Rome massacre...
...Does he really understand what he is doing...
...In point of fact, Libya was a Western creation, a product of Italian colonialism and the king-making urge of that expensive British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin...
...A pleasant people, on the whole, Tunisians are unfanatical and poor...
...Anarchists, Marxists and nationalists as far apart as East Africa and Ireland are able to call on the Arabs' expertise, use their training facilities and exchange information...
...Who are the men most likely to be stalked by assassins in 1974...
...Late last December, Edward Sieff, the Jewish head of Britain's Marks & Spencer chain stores, was shot in the face by a gunman employed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP...
...Moreover, they can only be a partial and temporary expedient...
...the only oil they produce comes from Roman-planted olive groves...
...A senior Moroccan personality (the Libyan-supported Moroccan National Liberation Front...
...An outsider is the Basque extremist group ETA that murdered the Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Carrero Blanco, last December: ETA is in touch with the IRA and Breton nationalists but not with the Arabs who are generally favorable to General Franco's regime...
...Some officials think that a contract is still out for the U.S...
...Three disparate regions and peoples were thrust together to provide a British-subsidized emir with a kingdom...
...According to a North-African proverb, "Moroccans are warriors, Algerians are men and Tunisians are women...
...Last month, however, his nation's worsened economic situation and the lobbying of his pro-Libyan Foreign Minister, Mohamed Masmoudi, persuaded him to say Yes...
...As Descartes might have said, "Copulo ergo sum...
...Of course, rising petroleum prices could yet lead to production cutbacks: The oil-rich nations will not need to export as much to fill their treasuries, and "black gold" in the ground is a sounder asset than bonds and deposit accounts...
...As if despairing of the quest, Qad-dafi has tried repeatedly to merge Libya with older-established states possessing recognizable personalities...
Vol. 57 • February 1974 • No. 4
