Hussein’s Mad Attacks on Israel Strike at Hearts of Jews Everywhere

The words are all so familiar; they are laden with imagery that conjures up our worst memories, our most horrible fears. A madman says he’s turning Tel Aviv into “a crematorium.” He promises to burn “half of Israel.” His missiles will get through Jewish defenses, he says, because of “the superiority of the Iraqi mind.”

We know Saddam Hussein won’t be able to make good his threat. And yet: A Scud missile rips apart a Tel Aviv neighborhood, injuring scores. Elderly Jews die of heart attacks. A 3-year-old Jewish girl dies of suffocation when her parents incorrectly put on her gas mask.

Fifty years ago, she might have gasped for her last breath in a Nazi concentration camp.

The news of a new would-be Hitler must be distressing to all who oppose brutality, ignorance and mass murder. To Jews, the events are achingly painful. I have never set foot in Israel. But watching Hussein strike at the Jewish state--and boast of killing its civilians--evokes a personal sadness and fury, and a longing to stand with these Jewish targets in defiance of his pitiful, loathsome attacks.

In bombing Israel, Hussein strikes at Jews around the world. In gleefully killing Jews, he recalls the horrors of the Holocaust, making Jews everywhere weep for their landsleit (fellow Jews), reflect on their situations in their own countries, and rejoice that at least one nation exists as an existential haven for Jews.

I don’t make the comparison to the Holocaust and Hitler lightly. Overuse of the terms cheapens their significance. But how much difference is there--other than that one had the machinery, and the world’s somnolence, that allowed him to kill millions of times over, while the other, for now, seems only to have the will to do so? Both are fanatical, fascistic dictators driven by the belief that they must right great historical wrongs done to their people. One is a pan-Arab, the other was a pan-German. In both cases, the extermination of Jews is seen as a primary means in achieving their goals.

My own experiences with anti-Semitism--whether in Austria, where I spent three years, or in Orange County, where I’ve spent the past six years--have been relatively trivial on the surface, more often the product of ignorance rather than intended malice. Still, they will always be remembered, and in light of Hitler, and now Hussein, I suppose no anti-Semitic slights should be considered trivial. Each of us carries the knowledge of what our ancestors in Europe and beyond endured for the past 2,000 years. This is still a predominantly Christian country. Jews have achieved great success here, but attacks on synagogues go on, exclusive WASP clubs prosper, people still instinctively say Merry Christmas or Happy Easter, apparently unaware or uncaring that Jews celebrate neither the birth nor the resurrection of Jesus.

I recall a few years ago telling a store clerk in Santa Ana--who had just wished me a Happy Easter--that I would be celebrating Passover that weekend, but thanks all the same. She looked at me blankly and said: “Well, have a Happy Easter anyway!”

The example of Israel is a source of tremendous pride and hope to American Jews. It is a place where there are no restrictions on Jewish accomplishment or community membership. One need not feel any fundamental sense of separateness in schools, in clubs, at work, from the majority of one’s colleagues just for being Jewish. Just to know that such a place exists, and thrives, is inspiring and empowering, and necessary.

And so the news of the Scuds landing in Tel Aviv, and of Hussein’s evocation of Hitler--our nightmare--is horribly depressing. It brought forth in me a desire for revenge that I did not know I had. I usually try to maintain reportorial objectivity, but in this case I simply cannot--no more than I could fairly report the murder, God forbid, of a close friend or family member. Watching the destruction of Jewish homes and lives on television, I had two thoughts: Israel must survive, and Saddam Hussein must die.

There is no point in negotiating with a man who lobs missiles into civilian neighborhoods in a country with which he is not at war. Give peace a chance? Sure--after the world is safely rid of this scourge, and Jews in Israel have no more to worry about than everyday terrorists. Win this war before a single other Jew is killed or injured. Too many have died already.