Kreisky’s Corrosive Legacy
VIENNA–On June 24th 2010, Israeli President Shimon Peres welcomed Austria’s Social Democratic Chancellor, Werner Faymann, for a working meeting during the latter’s official state visit to Israel. On that occasion, Peres urged European leaders to “return to the doctrine of former Austrian Chancellor Bruno Krei-sky” and support the Middle East peace process. Like Kreisky allegedly did with Yasser Arafat in the 1970s, Europeans nowadays should “turn to Hamas, which controls Gaza, and pressure its leaders into supporting negotiations toward peace, recognizing Israel, and stopping the weapons smuggling and acts of terrorism.”
Peres’ statement was odd in various respects. Its underlying assumption, that Hamas could be turned from an enemy into a supporter of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, is highly questionable. Even more problematic, Arafat is held up here as a historic example of the metamorphosis of a terrorist leader into a partner for peace–even though the reality was quite different. Not least, following in the footsteps of Bruno Kreisky could hardly be good for Israel, since his Middle East policy consisted of pressuring the Jewish state while appeasing and supporting its worst enemies.
Kreisky, a staunchly secular socialist and lifetime opponent of Zionism, was born into a Viennese Jewish family, and spent the years of National Socialism in exile in Sweden. After his return to Austria, he embarked upon a career in the foreign ministry. In 1970, Kreisky became Austria’s first socialist Chancellor, despite an anti-Semitic campaign waged against him by his conservative opponents. He burst onto the Middle East policy scene in September 1973, when two Palestinian terrorists kidnapped Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union on their way through Austria. Kreisky negotiated their release, but at a price–the closure of the transit-camp at Schonau castle run by the Jewish Agency. Although the transit of Jews from the Soviet Union through Austria continued, Kreisky’s decision to close the camp at Shonau was highly symbolic, widely seen as the first case of a government capitulating to the demands of Palestinian terrorists.
In the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the Socialist International, until then staunchly pro-Israel, changed course. Under Kreisky’s leadership, European socialists began to reach out to “socialist” parties throughout the Arab world. It was during the first of those so-called “fact finding missions” that Kreisky met Yasser Arafat for the first time. While not impressed on a personal level, Krei-sky quickly became the PLO leader’s most ardent supporter, despite Arafat’s status–just two years after the 1972 massacre at the Munich Olympic Games and following years of Palestinian terrorist attacks throughout the world–as persona non grata on the world stage.
Contrary to all available evidence, Chancellor Kreisky claimed to have never seen proof of the PLO’s declared goal of the destruction of Israel. He spent much of the 1970s trying to enhance the status of Arafat and the PLO in the international arena, which did not prevent Palestinian terrorists from perpetrating attacks in Austria, including the spectacular hostage-taking of OPEC ministers in Vienna in 1975, and two bloody attacks on Vienna’s main synagogue in 1979 and 1981, respectively. In 1979, Kreisky provoked yet another international outcry by hosting Arafat in Vienna. In 1980, Austria became the first western country to officially recognize the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
Even as Palestinian terrorists cut a bloody swath through Austria, Kreisky’s relations with Israel went from bad to worse. Once the right-wing Likud party came to power in Jerusalem in 1977, Kreisky’s already frosty attitude turned overtly hostile. His decision in 1982 to welcome Muammar al-Gaddafi, another rogue Arab politician deeply involved in anti-western and anti-Israeli terrorism, only further exacerbated Austria’s mounting tensions with Israel.
The Kreisky “doctrine” bore strange fruit elsewhere in the Middle East as well. During the Iran-Iraq-war, the state-owned VOEST steel concern–in flagrant violation of Austria’s weapons-export regulations–sold hundreds of artillery pieces first to Iraq, and later on to Iran as well. While the Iraqi war effort was supported by other western countries as well, the Islamic Republic of Iran was not–until, that is, Austrian politicians with their odd predilection for rogue regimes stepped in.
In 1984, Austrian Social Democrat Erwin Lanc became the first Western foreign minister to visit Iran following the Islamic Revolution. In 1987, Ali Akbar Velayati came to Vienna in the first state visit to a western country by an Iranian foreign minister since 1979. When an Iranian hit team murdered Iranian-Kurdish leader Abdel Rahman Quassemlou in Vienna in 1989, Austrian officials not only did not reconsider their relations to the Iranian regime, they actively helped the murderers to flee the country. Kurt Waldheim, the Austrian president whose term in office was clouded by revelations about his Nazi past, became the first Western head of state to pay the regime in Tehran a courtesy visit in 1991, even going so far as to place a wreath atop Ayatollah Khomeini’s sarcophagus. His trip to Tehran paved the way for further visits by high-ranking politicians from other Western European countries–especially from Germany.
Austrian trade relations with Iran have since flourished, nearly doubling in the last decade. Despite international attempts to pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear program, Austria has positioned itself as a valuable economic partner for the Islamic Republic. The head of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce has described Austria as Iran’s “gateway to the European Union.” And even though Austria, currently a member of the UN Security Council, supported the latest round of sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, regime representatives still receive a warm welcome in Vienna: this past May, Iranian foreign minister Manoucher Mottaki, the opening speaker at the infamous Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, was hosted by conservative Austrian foreign minister Michael Spindelegger.
Most recently, Vienna’s city council demonstrated its adherence to the Kreisky “doctrine” by unanimously passing a one-sided resolution condemning Israel’s military action against the Gaza flotilla, just hours after the incident in the Mediterranean. It should come as no surprise that the resolution was initiated by the Social Democrats; the party once led by Kreisky can still be found at the forefront of anti-Israel activism in Europe.
In short, not much has changed since Kreisky left office in 1983. While occasionally paying lip service to Israel’s security concerns, Austria’s politicians continue to pursue policies that are deeply detrimental to its interests.
Simone Dinah Hartmann is director of STOP THE BOMB Austria and co-editor of Iran in the World System (Studienverlag, 2010). Florian Markl, a former historian for the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism in Vienna, is currently completing his doctorate on Palestinian terrorism in Austria.
