ISRAEL, ZIONISM AND OIL

To The Editors of The Crimson:

During the past few weeks, representatives of the Israel Emergency Fund on campus have been collecting money for Israel, as they do every year at this time. Under the guise of charity these people are urging support for the State of Israel and are supporting its policies by providing dollars which are indirectly used to buy arms which the Pentagon so willingly provides.

The Middle East has long been an area of the world where the danger of a war has been quite real. And now once again Ford and Kissinger have been singing a familiar tune as they test out the idea of U.S. intervention in the Middle East on the American people. In the past the main threat of war has been between Israel and the Palestinians and the Arab states. But now growing contention between the Soviet Union and the United States and increasing American difficulties in "managing" the supply of oil from the region have drastically increased the danger of a direct U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Morever, no one needs to be reminded that the American economy is in crisis. And a cursory examination of twentieth century U.S. history will show that the consistent answer of the government and the corporations for economic crisis has been war abroad.

Such conditions demand that America's relationship with Israel be examined more critically. Even before the establishment of the State of Israel. Zionist leaders consciously conceived of Israel as a tool of European, and inter American, imperialist powers. Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, wrote in his diary. "If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake the complete management of the finances of Turkey. We would form there a part of a wall of defense of Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism. We would as a neutral state, remain in contact with all of Europe which would have to guarantee our existence."

So Herzl conceived it, and so it became. But now only the U.S. is left as a firm supporter of Israel among the western imperialist nations American support for Israel has been one way for big business (mainly oil) to protect their investments in the Middle East. And the Arab peoples have increasingly become aware that Israel is sued by the U.S. to maintain its own interests in the Middle East--interests which are in opposition to the legitimate demands of the Arab peoples to control their lands, their resources and their economics.

The Israel Emergency Fund, as a supporter of the Zionists and the State of Israel, is asking Americans to take sides against the Arab people. The interest of the majority of the people of America including American Jews do not require a confrontation with the Arab people. Only the interests of the oil monopolies the U.S. government and their Zionist allies require the America should keep its hands off the Middle East. Chris Richardson