They Still Want Us Dead
   by Yisrael Harel
April 2, 1998

     Now that the gulf war is calm, governments, intelligence 
agencies, strategic think-tanks and the media are all busy 
studying the lessons of the war that wasn't. The first set of 
conclusions, practically unanimous, is about winners and losers: 
At the top of the league, way out front, is Saddam Hussein. 
At the bottom of the standings come the United States and, 
the big loser, Israel.
     How did the U.S. get itself in that position? Certainly not
because France and Russia stuck their noses in and opposed military
action. America gave in primarily to pan-Arab solidarity. At the
start, the U.S. thought that as a by-product of going to war, it
would free most of the Arab regimes it considers friendly from the
constant threat posed by Saddam Hussein's efforts at subverting
them. But very quickly, the people of those countries - though
maybe not the leaders - said: "No thanks, America. We're actually
quite proud that at least one Arab country has ultimate, Doomsday,
weaponry and dares to thumb its nose at you, the superpower we
love to hate. We're quite pleased with the hysterical reactions of
the Jews; we don't want to see those weapons destroyed, because
given Israel's certain victory in any conventional conflict, they're
the only way we've got to scare the Jews and drive them crazy."
     Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak and King Hussein and other Arab
leaders had to decide what would do more for the questionable
stability of their countries and regimes - opposing an American 
attack, or supporting an attempt to overthrow or at least weaken
Saddam. At first glance, everything pointed to helping the U.S. get
rid of a man who for years had used all means to undermine their
rule and endanger them personally. But even dictators like Mubarak
and Hafiz al-Asad, and absolute monarchs like Hussein and King
Fahd of Saudi Arabia, can't act contrary to the deep feelings of
the great majority of their subjects. They know how to sense those
feelings very well; otherwise they wouldn't be able to maintain
their one-man rule for so many years.
     Outwardly, those rulers called on Wasington to have mercy on 
the Iraqi people, many of whom would have died in an attack. The 
irony was clear to the U.S. - since when did these dictators care
about the common people? Facing threats to their own rule, they
haven't hesitated to massacre their own citizens. (The best example
is Asad's murder of more than 20,000 people in Hamah, Syria's
second-largest city, in 1982 simply to put fear in the heart of the
Sunnis, the largest religious community in his country. Ask Thomas
Friedman of The New York Times, the first to report on the slaughter
in detail - though today he preaches to us to turn the Golan Heights
over to that murderer.)
     When the U.S. confronted them, the Arab leaders explained their
real motives: You Americans are going to war, among other reasons,
to defend us against Saddam's subversion. And we're telling you that
if you attack Iraq, our citizens - who admire Saddam for being able 
to spit in your face and to threaten Israel - will take to the streets
in demonstrations that will shake our regimes. Even before you've
started shooting, we've seen pro-Iraqi demonstrations that point to 
the work of Saddam's agents, and it's not doing anything for our
stability or health.
     The Americans took the hint. In Israel, too, we should weigh our
next moves carefully, particularly in what's called the "peace process."
There's a crutial lesson for Israel's citizens - the hysterical,
nightmare-ridden buyers of plastic sheeting to keep Saddam's poison
gases and germs out - to learn from the violent demonstrations that
took place everywhere from Teheran to Algiers. Millions of Arabs and
other Muslims, most of whom couldn't find Israel on a map, cried wildly
to that nice Saddam fellow to wipe out Tel Aviv.
     Despite all the flowery talk at the peace ceremonies of the mid-90s,
the treaties were made with the rulers, not with the millions of people
they rule. Those millions, as we've just seen and heard, still want to
see missles with biological and chemical warheads falling on Tel Aviv.
That's the message they sent to their rulers - and to us.
     For us as Jews, after all our history, it's out of the question to
ignore that message or take it lightly. This is the real Middle East;
there is no other. All the rest, including Shimon Peres's talk of a
"New Middle East",is just empty air, fantasies that evaporate in the 
face of pan-Arab, Saddamist reality.