Anti-Iraq Fever Is Not an Epidemic

In some ways, it feels like 1991 all over again. Tensions are mounting by the day between the United States and Iraq. Newspapers scream headlines like “If Attacked, Israel Might Nuke Iraq” and “The Target: Saddam.”

Yet it’s really not the same at all.

Last time around, the situation was tangible, concrete. In the summer of 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, upsetting the international order. It was clear that the powers that be, led by the U.S., were not going to allow a new status quo to take hold. And from the moment Saddam Hussein declared that, if Iraq were attacked, he would set fire to “half of Israel,” the countdown began. Israelis began stocking up on gas masks and reserve rations for their shelters and basements and duct tape and plastic sheeting to create hermetically sealed rooms for protection against chemical warheads.

This time, it’s much more surreal. There was the 9/11 tragedy, which President Bush keeps hinting has something to do with his announced intention to remove Hussein from power. But he has not demonstrated a clear connection between the two. There is no Kuwait, no announcement from Hussein that he intends to attack Israel, no concrete reason for a countdown to begin. There is also no grand coalition being built to carry out a coordinated strategy. Only Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (with the majority of the British public opposed to a preventive war).

Here in Israel, the difference between 1991 and today is sharp. Back then, we were a cohesive nation pulling together as we braced ourselves for attack. If you listen today only to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, you might think we were once again a country united. Our prime minister has outspokenly urged the Bush administration not to delay a strike against Iraq, insisting that a postponement “will not create a more convenient environment for action in the future.” The foreign minister, who in 1981 opposed then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s unilateral military initiative to attack Iraq’s nuclear weapons reactor, has echoed Sharon’s position.

But among the Israeli public, there is a wide divergence of opinion.

It’s not that anyone loves Hussein. Most Israelis would prefer to see the Iraqi president disappear, along with his aspiration to develop unconventional weapons and delivery systems that could threaten Israel’s existence.

For some of Israel’s pundits, that is reason enough to support the overthrow of Hussein. “Israel should hope that those calling for war [in the U.S.] gain the upper hand,” independent security analyst Reuven Pedatzur wrote in a recent newspaper column, “because if Saddam is not toppled, it will not be long before Israel is threatened by nuclear weapons, not to mention biological and chemical ones.” This view was seconded by Moshe Arens, Likud defense minister during the Gulf War, who recently wrote in a newspaper article of his own that “finally, the world recognizes that the continuation of Saddam Hussein’s quest for nuclear weapons and his increasing stockpile of ... weapons constitute a danger to the world, and a means of neutralizing this danger must be found before it is too late.”

The pro-government Jerusalem Post has staked out a similarly hard-line position. “Ousting Saddam is the linchpin of the war on terrorism, without which it is impossible to begin in earnest, let alone win,” the paper editorialized recently. “So far, except for ousting the Taliban, the war has been the equivalent of spraying DDT against terror; Saddam’s fall would begin to drain the swamp.”

But other voices are being raised as well. Many in Israel worry that Sharon’s desire for a war in Iraq is more about politics than policy, that he sees war as a way to keep the country’s attention off his failings. Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn summed it up this way: “Sometimes it seems as if Saddam was invented by sly campaign managers as a wonder drug for political distress.”

Haaretz’s senior commentator, Yoel Marcus, raised in a recent column the concerns many Israelis have about the possibility of Sharon’s using nuclear weapons in response to an Iraqi attack. “Don’t our leaders realize that they are implying Israel will be the first atom-bomb dropper since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” he asked. “Don’t they realize the impact this will have in the Islamic world?”

Nachum Barnea, the most widely read political commentator in the country, recently expressed nostalgia for Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s prime minister during the Gulf War. Considered the most ideological right-wing prime minister in Israel’s history, Shamir was the epitome of restraint during the Gulf War, staying out of the conflict and even allowing 39 Scud missiles to land on Israeli soil without retaliation, so as not to upset the delicate balance in the Middle East. “Restraint appears to be much more difficult for Sharon and Peres,” Barnea wrote in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

Beyond the opinions for and against U.S. action in Iraq, there is a deeper reaction in Israel: weariness. In 1991, the country mobilized quickly and efficiently to protect its populace, and people responded with vigor. Today, even the latest announcement that 15,000 rescue workers will be inoculated against smallpox in case of germ warfare has not motivated the masses to update their anti-chemical and biological warfare kits. Hussein? Yes, he’s a threat. But for many Israelis, the ongoing suicide bombings, the declining economic situation and the prospect of early elections in 2003 are more significant concerns.