North African Arab states will engage in normal economic relations with the United States despite American friendship for Israel, unless the American government becomes militarily involved in the Middle East situation, a specialist on North African affairs told Congress yesterday.
Dr. William B. Quandt, a staff researcher in social science for the Rand Corporation, which does research for the federal government, said that the Israeli-Arab conflict is “less burning” in the North African states, regardless of their affinity for the Middle East Arabs, and they consider the conflict “remote.”
Quandt testified in his personal capacity before the African and Near East subcommittees of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at a hearing on North African economic development.
“If we become militarily involved it would jeopardize our relations with the Arab states and they would use their oil and natural gas resources against us.” Quandt said under questioning by subcommittee chairman Lee Hamilton (D. Ind.) and Rep. John Buchanan (R. Ala.). “Short of that degree of involvement we can continue to support Israel and do business with North Africa,” Quandt said.
Buchanan, referring to what he described as a “growing crisis” in America’s need for oil and natural gas asked “how do we protect our interests in the oil countries and also protect Israel?” Quandt replied that the “questions of Arab-Israeli conflict are not quite as decisive in the Maghreb states (Northwest Africa) as possibly complicating our ability to obtain their resources.”
SAYS OAU RESOLUTION NOT ‘VOICE OF BLACK AFRICA’
Prof. I. William Zartman, head of the New York University Department of Politics, said in response to a question from Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr. (D. Mich.) a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, that the decisions reached recently at Rabat by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) which condemned Israel “had much to do with domestic issues.” The leadership at Rabat, he said, came from King Hassan of Morocco. The resolution from the OAU, he thought, was based more on Arab-African relations than the “voice of Black Africa and the Black people.”
Asked afterwards by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for his impression of the testimony on the OAU. Rep. Diggs said that the Black African states base their policy toward Israel on their bilateral relations. The OAU has a different policy “but it does not have much meaning.” The “real key to Black African relations is bilateral rather than on the OAU level.” Diggs said. “The Black states,” he said, “may go through the multilateral motions that they don’t propose to implement back home.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
