Banking sources in London and Paris have reported that several major European banks connected with leading Jewish families have been barred from a number of routine international financial transactions in recent months because of Arab pressure. The sources in London reported the existence of a blacklist of banking houses the Arab governments want excluded from any financing with Arab participants. Those on the list reportedly included N.M. Rothschild and Sons, S.G. Warburg and Co. and Lazard Freres.
London bankers were quoted as saying that the source of the list was Kuwait and Arab banks dominated by Kuwaiti interests. They said that at least a dozen other banking houses are on the boycott list. The Arabs apply the pressure by refusing to participate in the financings if Jewish-connected banking houses on the blacklist are included in the fund-raising syndicates.
The sources said that doing business with Israel has put about 1000 industrial concerns and financial institutions on the blacklist maintained by the Arab boycott office in Damascus. Its influence has increased recently because many Western and Japanese concerns are avoiding dealings with Israel to be able to bid for business opportunities stemming from vast oil wealth of Arabs.
One high level source in London listed seven transactions, including one arranged last Friday, in which one or more of the major Jewish-connected banking houses were barred from participating. Arab threats not to join in routine financings now could be interpreted as threats not to invest their fast growing surpluses in much bigger deals in the future and bankers wishing to gain favor with the Arabs might respond to such pressures, the banking sources said.
The first case reported by the London sources was an issue of 100 million Marks to finance a French highway. Another deal involved raising $25 million for Air France through a French banking syndicate. The most recent syndication was an issue of $60 million for the European Investment Bank, a Common Market agency, Also, listed was an earlier transaction involving 150 million Marks for the same bank.
The Arabs were understood to have tried to apply pressure for similar exclusions in West Germany but the Germans refused to be coerced, the sources reported. In Paris, a Bank of France official said the government was counseling the nationalized French institutions to resist the Arab pressure and to assure excluded banks they would be included in future syndicates.
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.
