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July 25, 2003/Tamuz 25 5763, Vol. 55, No. 48
Hussein sons' death aids U.S., Israel
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Israeli officials hope the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons this week could open the way for Arab-Israeli rapprochement.
Uday and Qusay Hussein, who reportedly were killed July 22 in a gun battle with U.S. troops in Iraq, had little direct involvement with policy toward Israel, but their survival in postwar Iraq was seen as a destabilizing remnant of a regime that had attacked Israel and undermined U.S. interests in the region.
Speaking to reporters July 23 in Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he had told U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney that morning that the killing of Saddam's sons was "a happy day for America's friends and a sad day for its enemies."
"I hope that moderate leaders in the Arab world would now be more open and willing to make peace with Israel," Shalom said.
Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat in Wash-ington, agreed.
"Strengthening the U.S. position in the region is the biggest boost for Israel, and any measure that does that is positive," he said.
Their deaths will make the regime change look more final in the eyes of many Iraqis. It also is likely to embolden the Bush administration, which has endured several weeks of bad publicity stemming from erroneous intelligence information that formed part of President Bush's argument for war.
That public relations problem, coupled with the ongoing killing of American servicemen in Iraq, led some to wonder whether the United States would pull out its forces before Iraq had stabilized, which could have negative repercussions for Israel.
While careful not to praise the killings, one American Jewish leader said the sons' demise could expedite positive change in Iraq.
"We do believe that the removal of Saddam's regime is a positive development and opens the way for progress with Iraq," said Martin Raffel, associate executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "If this development helps in building democracy to Iraq, it will be positive."
Each of Hussein's sons played a distinctive role in the regime. Qusay, the younger one, held vast security responsibilities. Uday ran several publi-cations and contributed heavily to pro-regime and anti-Israel propaganda.
Nimrod Raphaeli, a senior analyst with the Middle East Media Research Institute, said Uday's publications were not anti-Semitic, but portrayed Zionism and American "colonialism" as evil.
In the first year of the current Palestinian intifada, Uday suggested in his newspaper, Babil, that weapons be sent to the Palestinians.
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