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Indeed, when bankers have resisted, the Arabs have often relented. The West Germans have been particularly toughminded in repelling the pressure. The Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank and the Westdeutsche Landesbank have refused to bar any banks from deals, and the Arabs have given in. Said a London banker: "It is only the supine weakness of some banks which has given the Arabs any encouragement."
The Arabs' attempts to exclude banks with close Jewish connections are not new. For almost a quarter-century, the Arab Boycott Office in Damascus has included on its "blacklist" some two dozen U.S. and European banking houses with which Arab governments and businessmen were officially prohibited from dealing. Until fairly recently, the ban has been loosely enforced; Arabs have consummated some deals through blacklisted banks because they needed their services and did not have the financial power to be choosy. With their new power in financial affairs, however, the boycotters are refusing to deal with the blacklisted banks.
The ban is part of the overall Arab boycott of some 2,000 U.S. and European companies that because they have done business with Israel, are not to be dealt with by Arabs. There is only one official, regularly updated blacklist, in the Boycott Office in Damascus, although an aide at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Manhattan last week briefly showed TIME Reporter-Researcher Janice Castro something few non-Arabs have seen: a thick yellowed boycott book, as well as several ledgers with recent entries added in ink. But he refused to let it be closely examined.
Zionist Causes. Lucien Dahdah, president of Intra Investment, reiterates the Arab position that the boycott is aimed not against Jewish bankers or businessmen but against companies and individuals that contribute to Zionist causes or actively support Israel's military effort. "Significant" trade with Israel is cause enough to be blacklisted, although a company can appeal to have its name deleted upon demonstrating that it has severed "objectionable" trade relations. Currently, Ford Motor Co., Xerox Corp. and Coca-Cola are negotiating to have their names removed.
In practice, the boycott list is inconsistent. Says a director of a British bank that is owned by Jews: "There is no rhyme or reason to the blacklist. It is haphazard, illogical, capricious and full of contradictions." Perhaps the Rothschilds got on the list because they have helped refugee Jews settle in Israel. S.G. Warburg and the Paris-based Lazard have been active in arranging financial deals that involved Israel. But the Arabs still do some business with Lazard in London, and they have had dealings with Lazard in the U.S. The blacklisted French branch of Lazard was founded by Jews in 1854, but is now staffed mainly by Roman Catholics. Among U.S. houses, Lehman, Goldman Sachs and Kuhn, Loeb are not on the blacklist. Reason: unknown. Indeed, in most of the Our Crowd banking houses, half or more of the partners are Christian.