Czechoslovak Jew, Former Government Member, Says USSR Bent on Destroying Israel

A Czechoslovakian Jew who was a member of the Prague Government in the late 1940s, warned today that Soviet Russia is bent on the annihilation of Israel and will try to bring that about as soon as it has achieved full domination of the Arab governments. Prof. Eugen Loebl, former Czech Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, who now teaches at Vassar, said in a letter published in the New York Times that “there is grave danger that the Soviets will feel that they are about to attain this degree of control of the Middle East.” According to Prof. Loebl, the Soviet Government “feared that once the Middle East conflict was settled, the Arab governments, no longer needing Russia’s military aid, would turn toward the West for economic assistance.”

He said that Moscow viewed with disfavor the prospect of an Egyptian victory over Israel “with resultant freedom of action for the Arab governments.” Consequently, the Soviets encouraged Egypt to precipitate a war with Israel in 1967. “To make the Arab states more dependent on the Soviet Union, Soviet intelligence told Cairo of great weaknesses in the Israeli defense system and encouraged Egypt to set off the war,” Prof. Loebl wrote. “The Soviets were not surprised by Egypt’s defeat; on the contrary, it was important to their strategy. The war’s brevity alone disappointed them.” “Thus the war’s outcome should not be understood as a Soviet defeat. The Soviets not only did not lose their foothold in the Middle East but they also succeeded in extending their power there,” according to Prof. Loebl.

The writer said that originally it was Russia’s intent to establish a foothold in the Mideast with Israel’s cooperation. “But when Israel proved an unwilling partner, it suddenly became an imperialist power, and the Soviet Union adopted the Nazi story of Jewish plutocracy, using Zionism as the tool for Jewish world domination.”