Europe's New Scapegoat

...Indeed, it is in the interest of both Moscow and of the oil producers to draw attention away from these unpleasantnesses, and they appear to have come upon an effective joint instrument for accomplishing the task...

...The terror creates insecurity, undermining the faith of the people in democratic institutions...

...In a report on the Middle East, the Committee stated-with the certainty peculiar to those who claim to know what is going on in the minds of other people-that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not part of a Kremlin strategy to threaten the Persian Gulf and the West's sources of oil...

...In recent months it has once more returned to the headlines...

...The petrodollars buy newspapers, universities, politicians, even national policies, eroding the moral fiber of nations...

...In a particularly macabre example, an unidentified European delegate told Chesler that the one thing the Germans could be reproached for is not having "solved the Jewish question...

...The broad international implications of the Arab-Soviet shock tactics were in fact unwittingly supplied the very same week the Conference was held by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons...

...She reported that in addition to the numerous anti-Israeli and "anti-Zionist" outbursts from the floor, there was a considerable swell of plain and simple anti-Semitism...

...It was not until the interviews given here after the Conference ended by American author and feminist Phyllis Chesler, who was a delegate, that it became apparent something more sinister had taken place in Copenhagen...

...And just as the attitude toward anti-Semitism was a touchstone of the social health of nations between the two World Wars, the Western nations' responses to the Soviet-Arab anti-Zionist onslaught is emerging as the measure of their determination to maintain moral and national independence in the '80s...

...Israel, in short, is being assigned the role of the Jews in traditional anti-Semitism: to bear the burden of guilt for the calamities of nature and misrule by men...

...The Commons' Middle East report did not focus on the importance of coming to grips with energy dependence...

...Next, it confounds the capacity for moral judgement-for discerning between cause and excuse, truth and falsehood, good and evil...

...The new anti-Semitism, cloaked in anti-Israel and anti-Zionist slogans, serves the same function as did the anti-Semitism of the '30s in "softening up" Europe for Nazi domination...

...Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the Copenhagen Conference failed to discuss women's concentration camps in Siberia, or the hundreds of thousands of women and children fleeing Russian bombs and napalm in Afghanistan, or the millions of infants starving in Asia and Africa because exorbitant oil prices have put irrigation and fertilizers-and more food-beyond the reach of a large number of the developing nations...

...For while Paris has been helping Iraq achieve nuclear capability, London has taken over France's traditional role as the pro-Arab spokesman in the Common Market . This became clear during the EEC's active effort to sabotage the Camp David accords and the sputtering Israeli-Egyptian autonomy talks...

...Occasionally, though, attention turns to Europe...

...A few years later Europe was much in the news here again, as Israel signed a comprehensive tariff reduction agreement with the Common Market that raised false hopes of closer political relations following...

...All three, collectively, are destroying the capacity and the will of the non-Communist world, particularly Western Europe, to resist Soviet threats and pressures...

...What most shocked many observers, though, was the virtual paralysis of the American and Israeli delegates in the first days of the anti-Semitic attack...

...Other delegates who arrived later said the Arabs seemed to be using the Conference to test how far the civilized world would allow them to go in escalating their anti-Israel offensive into verbal anti-Jewish attacks...

...Israelis were of course angry that skyjack terrorist Leila Khaled was granted official delegate status, and especially upset that she was made a media star by Western journalists...

...Initially, the UN Conference on Women, convened in Copenhagen a few weeks after the Venice Summit, also was regarded as part of the same pattern...

...It did not stress the need to spend more on defense either...

...The Arabs, led by the PLO, were seen as having managed to take over yet another international forum and replace its agenda with the "Palestine issue...

...Israeli diplomats point out that besides the total irrelevance of the Israel-Arab dispute to Moscow's designs on the Persian Gulf, or to the Arabs' willingness to protect themselves against Soviet penetration, the Western Europeans are hardly in a position today to preach anti-Sovietism to anybody...

...The high oil prices cause balance-of-payments deficits, cost inflation, economic slow-down and unemployment, leading to social unrest...

...That was the case after the Yom Kippur War, when submission to Arab oil blackmail resulted in the NATO allies (except Portugal) denying refueling facilities to American cargo planes resupplying Israel...

...Instead it offered that well-known miracle drug, the solution of the Palestine problem, as the cure-all for the fear, weakness and defeatism of Western Europe...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...Nonetheless, Western Europe apparently believes its own acts will have no impact on the tough stand it wants the Arabs to take vis-a-vis the USSR-if only it demonstrates sufficient support for "the rights of the Palestinians" and the PLO terrorists...

...Translated into plain language, what the distinguished MPs were saying is that the threat to Europe derives not from the Arab sheiks draining the lifeblood of Western economies as they accumulate mountains of unused petrodollars, nor from the Soviet invaders moving closer to the oil fields-but from the Israelis, who are not willing to "solve" the Palestine dispute according to the command of the Arabs...

...Today, there can be little doubt that exorbitant oil prices, the misuse of petrodollars in Western economies and Arab sponsorship of international terror are primarily responsible for disrupting the social fabric of the free world...

...Perhaps more important, it marked the application of a notion popularized by Britain's Foreign Secretary, Lord Car-rington, which holds that in the wake of events in Iran and Afghanistan, the West can buy an anti-Soviet Arab front by selling out some of Israel's interests...

...Are you German...

...But the Israeli press treated these developments in the usual "Europe submits to Arab Pressure and PLO propaganda" terms...

...On the other hand, the Afghan invasion did make stability in the Middle East crucial, the Committee concluded, hence the solution of the Palestine problem was now an absolute necessity...

...Thus the "Middle East" declaration issued at the conclusion of the EEC Summit this summer in Venice, was viewed by Israel as one more milestone in the current series of PLO diplomatic successes...

...Noting the shock on Ches-ler's face, the lady added: "I am sorry...

...First, it draws the intended victim's attention away from the real threat...

...The move was inspired by fear of another Arab embargo (despite the glut of oil on world markets), plus the hope of attracting petrodollars from such countries as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq in exchange for goods and services...

...And the tolerance level was very high, they noted, because Israel and Jews generally are becoming the hate-objects of many Europeans, while among Third World countries Israel already plays the role of convenient scapegoat for much of the weakness and frustration caused by economic troubles frequently attributable to Arab and Soviet policies...

...Their participation in the Moscow Olympics (except for West Germany), continuing sale of high-technology items to the Soviets, and eagerness to negotiate with Party chief Leonid I. Brezhnev are not model examples of how to resist Kremlin blandishments...

...UNEASE IN ISRAEL Europe's New Scapegoat BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Avrv Israeli officials and private citizens alike tend to focus their concern primarily on the United States, since its actions and reactions are considered most important of all for this nation's well-being and security...