Local Residents Troubled by Tension in Middle East

Ventura County residents and elected officials said they were concerned Thursday about events in the Middle East after an apparent terrorist bomb killed six crewmen aboard a Navy destroyer in Yemen and rioting mobs killed two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) said if U.S. intelligence and military leaders know who is responsible for the bombing, “we ought to get them.”

Sherman, a member of the House International Relations Committee, said the United States did not need to get involved militarily in the mounting tensions between Israel and Palestinian-controlled territories in the West Bank.

Ventura County’s military base, the combined station at Point Mugu and Port Hueneme, has not been put on alert since the explosion next to the Cole, a destroyer that was pulling into port in Aden, Yemen, said a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.

Jews and Muslims in the county said the events half a world away troubled them, and they worried about how the events would affect friends and relatives in the Middle East.

Rabbi Richard Spiegel of Temple Etz Chaim in Thousand Oaks feared the attack on the Cole would intensify the distress and concern already felt by his congregation.

A friend called Spiegel Thursday morning, he said, and was a “nervous wreck” because his son is stationed in the Persian Gulf. But his son was not aboard the Cole.

“He called me looking for comfort,” Spiegel said. “The signs look pretty ominous.”

Bader Iqbal, an Indian-born Muslim and spokesman for the Islamic Center of the Conejo Valley, said the growing violence makes him hope for U.S. intervention. The U.S. government is supposed to step in and stabilize conflicts between unevenly matched combatants and Israel is “the strong sibling who is just beating up on the weaker,” he said.

“We, as the world’s superpower, should be pretty aggressive in saying, ‘Hey, hold on here,’ ” Iqbal said. “If there are two children fighting and one is much stronger than the other, the parent does intervene and separate the two.”

Iqbal, a family physician with an office in Westlake Village, said the escalating conflict has not carried over into tensions locally--either between mosques and synagogues, or between Muslims and Jews.

“We stand for peace and submission to God,” he said. “We feel there’s got to be a way without shooting rockets and machine guns at people.”

Sherman, who is Jewish, said he did not believe the United States should intervene in Israel.

“I don’t think that would be fruitful,” said Sherman, adding that he thinks Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is the only one who can really punish those responsible for killing two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah on Thursday.

American soldiers and sailors in harm’s way were on the mind of three World War II veterans at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1679 in Ventura. They thought the bombing of the Cole could have been prevented.

“They should have never let that boat get that close to our ship,” said Byron Wrenn, 72, who was in the Navy for four years.

Bill Hurtz, 80, nodded in agreement.

“If you are in a covered wagon in the desert,” said the former Air Force fighter pilot, “you don’t let someone get within shooting distance without challenging them.”

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Time staff writer Margaret Talev contributed to this report. Dirmann is a Times staff writer and Blake is a correspondent.

* MAIN COVERAGE: A1