Socal Accused of Having Pecuniary Motive in Letter to Stockholders

The Canada-Israel Committee has accused the Standard Oil Co. of California of trying to make Israel “the scapegoat for a fictitious ‘energy crisis'” in order to win concessions from oil producing Arab states and to condition American consumers to accept higher prices for oil.

A statement issued here by the Committee, which is comprised of the Canadian Zionist Federation, B’nai B’rith and the Canadian Jewish Congress, denounced the recent letter from SOCAL’s board chairman, Otto N. Miller, to the company’s 40,000 employes and 200,000 share holders urging them to understand “the aspirations of the Arab people” and give “more positive support of their efforts toward peace in the Middle East.”

“It should be recognized that this letter is a self-serving document which is using the pretext of an oil crisis to promote, at the expense of the oil consuming public, the interests of the Arab oil-producing nations and the international oil companies themselves,” the statement charged.

PROFITS, NOT ENERGY CRISIS

According to the CIC, the oil companies are seeking to ensure a high level of oil supplies from the producing states and to maintain their profits by passing the higher prices demanded by the Arab states on to the consumers. “If the consumer is to be convinced that he should accept price increases, he must be persuaded that there is a real energy crisis and that oil is, in fact, in short supply,” the statement said.

It continued: “Israel provides a ready scapegoat to create such an atmosphere of crisis. If United States policy towards Israel can be convincingly presented to the public as a reason for an oil crisis, there will be readier acceptance by the consumers of the price increases which the oil companies are attempting to foist on them.”

According to the CIC “Peace in the Middle East is the most effective guarantee of a continued supply of Middle East oil” and U.S. support of Israel “is the most effective means of preserving this peace.”